Collaboration Zones – Page 1049 – Public Intelligence Blog

2013/02/262013/02/26

Mini-Me: Gay Pedophile Cabal Across the Vatican & Globally-Distributed Archbishops and Cardinals? What do Skull & Bones, the Bohemian Grove, Some Flag Officers, and the Vatican Have in Common? A Culture of Impunity and Betrayal of the Public Trust

06 Family, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence

Huh?

Priest in panties Vatican gay, cross-dressing sex ring allegedly pushed pope’s hasty exit

The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State wrote that a warrant was issued for the pope’s arrest and that he will meet with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on Saturday to plead for immunity. This is historic, for any legal action against a Vatican employee, much less the pope, is unheard of.

Read full article.

‘Decadent West naked in coffin of shame’

The Church has been penetrated, at its highest levels, by a homosexual embezzlement ring. According to Dr. Robert Moynihan of Inside the Vatican magazine, a secret report on the homosexual crime ring, and associated blackmail problems, was given to the Pope on December 17. This report, Dr. Moynihan tells us, “overwhelmed his spirit within him” and “made his heart desolate.” (The original source of these revelations, which Dr. Moynihan seemingly confirms, was an article in La Republica.)

Read full article.

Did a Cross-Dressing Priest Sex Ring Bring Down Benedict XVI?

“What’s coming out is very detailed X-ray of the Roman Curia that does not spare even the closest collaborators of the Pope,” wrote respected Vatican expert Ignazio Ingrao in Panorama. “The Pope was no stranger to the intrigues, but he probably did not know that under his pontificate there was such a complex network and such intricate chains of personal interests and unmentionable relationships.”

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Gay Pedophile Cabal Across the Vatican & Globally-Distributed Archbishops and Cardinals? What do Skull & Bones, the Bohemian Grove, Some Flag Officers, and the Vatican Have in Common? A Culture of Impunity and Betrayal of the Public Trust”

2013/02/25

Spanish Dancer: Raul Castro Sets Term Limit, Promises End of an Era in Cuban Political Succession

08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence, Government

Of note. Best beaches in the Western Hemisphere.

Raul Castro promises an end of an era in Cuba

Sara Miller Llana

Christian Science Monitor, 25 February 2013

On Sunday, Cuban President Raul Castro promised to step down at the end of his 5-year term in 2018. Analysts say he's seeking gradual change, without Cuba's old revolutionaries losing control.

Cuban President Raul Castro made the strongest statement yet that the island nation is preparing for a post-Castro era in announcing yesterday that he will step down in five years with plans to institute term limits.

He also replaced his No. 2 with a younger Cuban who would be poised to rule if something were to befell Mr. Castro before his second term ends in five years – the first time the nation would be led by someone who did not directly fight in the 1959 Cuban revolution.

Castro himself told lawmakers the nation was at a moment of “historic transcendence.”

Read full article.

2013/02/242013/02/24

Yoda: Women & The Internet — The Force is Strong

06 Family, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Liberation Technology

3 things are here to stay: Women, the Internet and human rights

By Claudia Calvin

Yahoo Business & Human Rights Program, Friday, September 28th, 2012

Change Your World (Cambia Tu Mundo), Yahoo!’s Business & Human Rights Summit that took place on September 12th and 13th in Mexico City is an excellent example of what I mean. For a day and a half, women from different countries, backgrounds and experiences in Latin America shared their dreams, lives, challenges and proved that new technologies and the Internet are incomparable tools of empowerment.

I won´t go over the event’s program nor the participants. (Links to them are available her e and here). What I want to do is highlight the wonderful lessons I learned after participating in Change Your World.

1. Women are a driving force towards equality in the world. Yes, women represent not only 50% of the world population, they represent half of the idea and proposal creators. Many don´t know it, but new technologies can help them be heard and allow their proposals and ideas to be included in the development and prosperity of their communities, countries…. and therefore… of the planet.

2. Digital literacy of women in Latin America must be considered a priority for policy makers. Even though Spanish is the third most important language on the Internet with 182,379,220 users, there is lack of content created and written in it. If you add the lack of women´s voices as content creators in the region, the figures are worrisome. We cannot allow nor permit the addition of this marginalization to the many other kinds of marginalization women face (education, health, financial, justice and so on).

3. Women and the Internet can be a creative explosion. Throughout the sessions one thing was absolutely clear: the participants demonstrated in various and creative ways how the Internet can be used to support not only good causes, but very practical economic, social and political outcomes. The Internet can be a democratization tool to help build and consolidate new realities where women´s interests and needs can be not only expressed but included.

Continue reading “Yoda: Women & The Internet — The Force is Strong”

2013/02/23

Anthony Judge: Marrying an Other whatever the Form Reframing and Extending the Understanding of Marriage

Cultural Intelligence

Marrying an Other whatever the Form

Reframing and Extending the Understanding of Marriage

Introduction
Religious context
Recognized criteria of marriage
Marriage more inclusively understood
Questionable criteria of marriage
Subtler insights into the “chemistry” of the marriage bond
Ionic marriage versus Covalent marriage?
Bonding with an “other” articulated through the language of molecular bonding
Complementary languages required for articulation of human bonding
Extending understanding of the “other” as a potential partner
Extending the family of “family values” — wisely
Enabling the other to be otherwise
Conclusion
References

2013/02/22

Berto Jongman: The Terror Courts – An Inside Look at Rough Justice, Torture — and the Military Prosecutor Who Refused Illegal Orders — at Guantanamo, Cuba

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Military

“The Terror Courts”: An Inside Look at Rough Justice, Torture at Guantánamo Bay

Wall Street Journal journalist Jess Bravin reports on the controversial military commissions at Guantánamo. Describing it as “the most important legal story in decades,” Bravin uncovers how the Bush administration quickly drew up an alternative legal system to try men captured abroad after the Sept. 11 attacks. Soon evidence obtained by torture was being used to prosecute prisoners, but some military officers refused to take part. We speak to Jess Bravin, author of The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay, and to Lt. Col. Stuart Couch, a former Guantánamo prosecutor featured in the book. [includes rush transcript]

Headline Links to Video. Book Links to Amazon.

Soon after the September 11 attacks in 2001, the United States captured hundreds of suspected al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan and around the world. By the following January the first of these prisoners arrived at the U.S. military’s prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they were subject to President George W. Bush’s executive order authorizing their trial by military commissions. Jess Bravin, the Wall Street Journal’s Supreme Court correspondent, was there within days of the prison’s opening, and has continued ever since to cover the U.S. effort to create a parallel justice system for enemy aliens. A maze of legal, political, and moral issues has stood in the way of justice—issues often raised by military prosecutors who found themselves torn between duty to the chain of command and their commitment to fundamental American values.

While much has been written about Guantanamo and brutal detention practices following 9/11, Bravin is the first to go inside the Pentagon’s prosecution team to expose the real-world legal consequences of those policies. Bravin describes cases undermined by inadmissible evidence obtained through torture, clashes between military lawyers and administration appointees, and political interference in criminal prosecutions that would be shocking within the traditional civilian and military justice systems. With the Obama administration planning to try the alleged 9/11 conspirators at Guantanamo—and vindicate the legal experiment the Bush administration could barely get off the ground—The Terror Courts could not be more timely.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: The Terror Courts – An Inside Look at Rough Justice, Torture — and the Military Prosecutor Who Refused Illegal Orders — at Guantanamo, Cuba”

2013/02/22

Paul Craig Roberts: What Ifs — Reagan Treasury Official Reflects On Our Current Incapacities

Cultural Intelligence

What If? — Paul Craig Roberts

“What If?” histories are a good read. They are entertaining, and they provoke thought and encourage the imagination. How different the world would be if different judgments, decisions, and circumstances had prevailed at history’s turning points. Certainly English history would have been different if King Harold’s soldiers had obeyed his order not to pursue the defeated fleeing Normans down the hill. This broke the impenetrable Saxon shield wall and exposed King Harold to Norman cavalry.

Would there ever have been a Soviet Union if the Czar had stayed out of World War I?

Would there have been a World War II if British, French, and American politicians had listened to John Maynard Keynes’ warning that the Treaty of Versailles would result in a second world war? Germany had been promised a different outcome–no reparations and no territorial loss–in exchange for an armistice. As Keynes realized, the betrayal of the peace led to another great war.

There are a couple of what ifs that I have been waiting for historians to explore. As no historians have risen to the challenge, I will have a go. Keep in mind that a what if outcome is not necessarily a better outcome. It might be a worse outcome. As what if did not happen and there is no what if history, there is no way of making a judgment.

Continue reading “Paul Craig Roberts: What Ifs — Reagan Treasury Official Reflects On Our Current Incapacities”

2013/02/212013/02/21

Patrick Meier: Social Media as Passive Polling: Prospects for Development & Disaster Response

Advanced Cyber/IO, Collective Intelligence, Crowd-Sourcing

Social Media as Passive Polling: Prospects for Development & Disaster Response

Posted on February 21, 2013 | 1 Comment

My Harvard/MIT colleague Todd Mostak wrote his award-winning Master’s Thesis on ”Social Media as Passive Polling: Using Twitter and Online Forums to Map Islamism in Egypt.” For this research, Todd evaluated the “potential of Twitter as a source of time-stamped, geocoded public opinion data in the context of the recent popular uprisings in the Middle East.” More specifically, “he explored three ways of measuring a Twitter user’s degree of political Islamism.” Why? Because he wanted to test the long-standing debate on whether Islamism is associated with poverty.

So Todd collected millions of geo-tagged tweets from Egypt over a six month period, which he then aggregated by census district in order to regress proxies for poverty against measures of Islamism derived from the tweets and the users’ social graphs. His findings reveal that “Islamist sentiment seems to be positively correlated with male unemployment, illiteracy, and percentage of land used in agriculture and negatively correlated with percentage of men in their youth aged 15-25. Note that female variables for unemployment and age were statistically insignificant.” As with all research, there are caveats such as the weighting scale used for the variables and questions over the reliability of census variables.

Continue reading “Patrick Meier: Social Media as Passive Polling: Prospects for Development & Disaster Response”