Category: Earth Intelligence

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Babette Bensoussan: How Good Is Your Strategy?

Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics
Babette Bensoussan
Babette Bensoussan

Mutters – How good is your strategy?

Have you heard ….. if you want a decent strategy, you need a firm grasp of reality, which means avoiding bad strategies. How do you define bad strategies? According to Richard Rumelt, author of “Good Strategy Bad Strategy“, they are characterised by one or more of the following factors:

  1. Gibberish mugFluff –  defined as a form of gibberish masquerading as strategic concepts or arguments.
  2. Failure to face the challenge – if the challenge can't be defined, that particular quality of the strategy can't be assessed, and then improved or rejected.
  3. Mistaking goals for strategies – arguably this is the most common error ( take a look at this video on “What is Strategy” for more insights).
  4. Bad strategic objectives – the challenge for senior executives is to set out subgoals that are both relevant and practical for the chosen strategy.

Make the above factors part of your strategic reviews and you may avoid some of the prevalent pitfalls!

Adapted from: “What strategy isn't”, Mike Riddiford, Editor, CEO Forum http://www.ceoforum.com.au

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NIGHTWATCH: China Declares Peace with US, Taiwan, and the Region — The Chinese Dream is About Retrenchment & Revitalization

02 China, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Government, Peace Intelligence
Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

China: The National People's Congress ended on the 17th with a press conference by Premier Li Keqiang. Before the closing, however, President Xi Jinping delivered his first address to the Congress. The central theme was The Chinese Dream.

Eight of the 17 paragraphs of the text were devoted to, or carried forward the application of, the dream. One of them reiterated the guidance Xi gave to the People's Liberation Army delegates on the 11th: obey the party, win wars and behave well.

Xi introduced the dream immediately after four paragraphs of thanks and preamble. The concluding, sentence of the second paragraph of the introduction is significant.

“Today, our people's republic is standing on the East of the world with a spirited posture.”

Comment: The point is that Xi did not describe China's posture as rising, but as standing. The period of rising has ended.

After the fourth paragraph of introduction, Xi began the discussion and for the Chinese dream.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: China Declares Peace with US, Taiwan, and the Region — The Chinese Dream is About Retrenchment & Revitalization”

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Dolphin: Chinese Congress Puts Environment on the Table — Major Revolt within Congress, More Reforms Anticipated

02 China, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 07 Health, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Government
YARC YARC
YARC YARC

China People's Congress environment surprise

TIM PALMER: In China the fallout is still being felt from an open rebellion over air pollution at the country's annual session of parliament.

It was a dramatic shift for a Congress that's normally seen as no more than a rubber stamp.

Sensing a growing environmental crisis, a third of the delegates rejected a key anti-pollution measure.

Meanwhile China analysts are now expecting major economic reforms from the new administration in Beijing after premier Li Keqiang declared that more sections of the economy needed to be handed over to private enterprise.

China correspondent Stephen McDonell has been covering the closing stages of the National People's Congress in Beijing.

(Ceremonial music)

STEPHEN MCDONELL: China's annual session of parliament, the National People's Congress, has closed with plenty of big vision from the country's new generation of leaders.

Xi Jinping told some 3,000 delegates what an honour it was for him to be president and he was talking up the so-called “China dream”.

(Sound of Xi Jingping speaking)

“China is a great nation with great creativity,” he said, “We created this Chinese culture and we will be able to expand our path towards Chinese development.”

But a third of the delegates listening to him had just staged a large revolt on the floor of the Great Hall of the People over pollution.

When it came time to endorse the members of a key committee overseeing environmental protection and resource conservation, 850 delegates voted no and 120 abstained.

Read full article.

Continue reading “Dolphin: Chinese Congress Puts Environment on the Table — Major Revolt within Congress, More Reforms Anticipated”

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Berto Jongman: Fukushima, Chernobyl, and the Frog in Boiling Water — An Anthropological Perspective on the Deceived, the Forgotten, & the Dying

03 Economy, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Earth Intelligence, Government
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Fukushima isn’t Chernobyl?  Don't Be So Sure

by SARAH D. PHILLIPS

CounterPunch,  Weekend Edition March 15-17, 2013

The March 11, 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami caused the deaths of approximately 16,000 persons, left more than 6,000 injured and 2,713 missing, destroyed or partially damaged nearly one million buildings, and produced at least $14.5 billion in damages. The earthquake also caused a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Japan’s eastern coast. After reading the first news reports about what the Japanese call “3.11,” I immediately drew associations between the accident in Fukushima and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 in what was then the Soviet Union. This was only natural, since studying the cultural fallout of Chernobyl has been part of my life’s work as an anthropologist for the past 17 years. Knowing rather little about Japan at the time, I relied on some fuzzy stereotypes about Japanese technological expertise and penchant for tight organization and waited expectantly for rectification efforts to unfold as a model of best practices. I positioned the problem-riddled Chernobyl clean-up, evacuation, and reparation efforts as a foil, assuming that Japan would, in contrast, unroll a state-of-the-art nuclear disaster response for the modern age. After all, surely a country like Japan that relies so heavily on nuclear-generated power has developed thorough, well-rehearsed, and tested responses to any potential nuclear emergency? Thus, I expected the inevitable comparisons between the world’s two worst nuclear accidents to yield more contrasts than parallels.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Fukushima, Chernobyl, and the Frog in Boiling Water — An Anthropological Perspective on the Deceived, the Forgotten, & the Dying”

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Berto Jongman: Legendary Russian Documentary on Nazi Interest in Antartica, Now with English Sub-Titles

08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Extraterrestial Intelligence, Government, History, IO Secrets, IO Technologies, Military, YouTube
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Includes 1947 US naval expedition led by Robert Byrd broken off after being attacked by objects that vertically take off from the sea. Russian scientists hypothesize US military HAARP bases on Antartica and Alaska are intended for identifying the characteristics of wormholes used by alien visitors to access and leave earth.

Published on Sep 25, 2012

Phi Beta Iota:  RIVETING.  Superb subtitles easy to follow.  Brilliant photography.

Below the Line: Lengthy overview of film.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Legendary Russian Documentary on Nazi Interest in Antartica, Now with English Sub-Titles”

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For the Record: Chavez Dies, China Admits Cancer Villages

Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence
Hugo Chavez (RIP)
Hugo Chavez (RIP)

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela Dies at Age 58

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela died Tuesday afternoon after a long battle with cancer, the government announced, leaving behind a bitterly divided nation in the grip of a political crisis that grew more acute as he languished for weeks, silent and out of sight in hospitals in Havana and Caracas.

His departure from a country he dominated for 14 years casts into doubt the future of his socialist revolution. It alters the political balance in Venezuela, the fourth-largest foreign oil supplier to the United States, and in Latin America, where Mr. Chávez led a group of nations intent on reducing American influence in the region.

Mr. Chávez changed Venezuela in fundamental ways, empowering and energizing millions of poor people who had felt marginalized and excluded.

Read full article.

China River of Cancer
China River of Cancer

China admits pollution-linked ‘cancer villages'

China's environment ministry has acknowledged the existence of “cancer villages”, several years after widespread speculation first began that polluted areas were seeing a higher incidence of the disease.

The use of the term in an official report, thought to be unprecedented, comes as authorities face growing discontent over industrial waste, hazardous smog and other environmental and health consequences after years of rapid development.

“Poisonous and harmful chemical materials have brought about many water and atmosphere emergencies… certain places are even seeing ‘cancer villages',” said a five-year plan that was highlighted this week.

Read full article.

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Yoda: Physicists Tie Fluid Into a Knot — Dolphins Key to Breaking Code

Earth Intelligence
Got Crowd? BE the Force!
Got Crowd? BE the Force!

Impossible, possible.

Physicists Tie Fluid Into a Knot

| 4 March 2013 4:29 pm
image

The vortex knot was first theorized a century ago, but only created in a lab this year.

Physicists at the University of Chicago have created a vortex knot in a lab environment, a feat which has been theorized for a century but had never been successfully attempted. Creating a vortex knot is, according to a University of Chicago press release, “akin to tying a smoke ring into a knot.” Physicists have been puzzled as to why a vortex knot isn't a stable phenomenon, in theory it should be, but in practice they stretch themselves out and break up. The stretching culminates in a reconnection event, where loops elongate, circulate in opposite directions, and then collide. As they collide, parts of the vortices annihilate other parts – unlinking and unknotting the vortex. All of this is sounds very complex, but in reality is a matter of forces smashing into each other and cancelling each other out. The researchers' findings in creating a knot are relevant to many fields, and could lead to advances in turbulence, plasma physics, ordinary fluids, and exotic superfluids – where knots likely appear, but are difficult or impossible to observe.

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