Communities of Practice – Page 1028 – Public Intelligence Blog

We few, we happy few, who actually get it. The opposite of the SOF motto that you cannot mass produce special forces, is that you WILL mass produce culturally-stupid conventional forces. This is on the leadership — straight-leg Army flags have no clue and don't want to have a clue.

Cultural Cluelessness Threatens U.S. Commando Strategy

David Axe

WIRED, 27 February 2012

In one sense, the U.S.-led coalition has itself to blame for the riots and killings that have raged across Afghanistan in the wake of last week’s accidental burning of the Koran by American forces. Too many U.S. troops habitually disrespect their Afghan trainees, according to some of the elite forces who head up those training sessions. And those small, tactical acts of cultural stupidity can lead to a strategic moment, like the one we’re having now.

The ongoing disrespect can fuel smoldering resentment among Afghans that is compounded by the Afghans’ underlying discomfort with the decade-long foreign occupation of their country. The mishandling of the Koran was like a match on that explosive tinder.

According to members of a U.S. Special Forces “A Team” based in Laghman province, American trainers there inadvertently mistreat the Afghans with rough touching, mock insults and and a dearth of positive reinforcement. During my recent visit to Langhman, one Special Forces officer hurried to intervene when some Army National Guard soldiers wandered into an Afghan cemetery — another big no-no. “I’ve seen too many guys disrespecting their Afghans,” one Special Forces weapons sergeant says.

The accidental burning of the Koran represents was even more thoughtless … and reflects an almost willful ignorance of Afghan sensitivities. “How after 11 years here is there no system in place for properly disposing of religious [documents]?” asks one sergeant attached to a Special Forces unit based in Kabul. “It’s just fucking stupid.”

Read full article.

2012/02/28

Reference: Buried No Longer – Confronting America’s Water Infrastructure Challenge

12 Water, Government

Water Infrastructure Cost Report

Source

Phi Beta Iota: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has never really “managed” anything. They blew off the “M” forever in the 1970's and became a budget chop shop unable to render intelligence with integrity to the Executive. At the same time, the Cabinet departments are focused on protecting budget share for their stakeholders (the recipients of the taxpayer's revenue, not the taxpayer's themselves), and neither they, nor the US Intelligence Community now costing us $80 billion a year, are capable of doing responsible analytics in the national interest. The lack of intelligence (decision-support) with (holistic) integrity across all organizations is the central challenge of our time.

Journal: Reflections on Integrity UPDATED + Integrity RECAP

2012/02/27

Chuck Spinney: When Lies for a Cause Destroy Science

Academia, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government

Why It Is Time to Clean the Augean Stables of Climate Science

Lying for the Cause?

by FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY, Counterpunch, 27 February 2012

(Note: This differs slightly from the original because I have corrected a few typos and grammatical errors and added one short clarifying string of words in [ ]'s.)

On 24 February, the Scientific American carried a revealing blog by John Horgan entitled, Should Global-Warming Activists Lie to Defend Their Cause? Horgan is the Director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology. He analyzes his question in the context of a discussion he held in a freshman humanities class. The subject was the morality of Dr. Peter Gleick’s use of identity theft to steal documents from the Heartland Institute. Horgan is a promoter of the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), and he is clearly at pains to rationalize the implications of Gleick’s caper. Included in Gleick’s distribution was a forged document, although Gleick denies any connection to its fabrication. Of particular interest to this essay is Horgan’s last sentence, because it unintentionally places the politicization of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) debate into sharp relief.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: When Lies for a Cause Destroy Science”

2012/02/272012/02/27

Mini-Me: Wyoming Planning for US/Federal Collapse

01 Agriculture, 05 Energy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, 12 Water, Collective Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Government, Strategy

Sad as the comment might be, this makes sense. Every state should do doing similar planning. The next major collapse is scheduled for 2013-2014. The next step up would be regional (nine nations) planning boards for agriculture, energy, food, and water. This summer may be the last calm period for some time.

Wyoming House advances doomsday bill

Jeremy Pelzer

Star-Tribune, 24 February 2012

CHEYENNE — State representatives on Friday advanced legislation to launch a study into what Wyoming should do in the event of a complete economic or political collapse in the United States.

House Bill 85 passed on first reading by a voice vote. It would create a state-run government continuity task force, which would study and prepare Wyoming for potential catastrophes, from disruptions in food and energy supplies to a complete meltdown of the federal government.

The task force would look at the feasibility of

Wyoming issuing its own alternative currency, if needed. And House members approved an amendment Friday by state Rep. Kermit Brown, R-Laramie, to have the task force also examine conditions under which Wyoming would need to implement its own military draft, raise a standing army, and acquire strike aircraft and an aircraft carrier.

The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. David Miller, R-Riverton, has said he doesn’t anticipate any major crises hitting America anytime soon. But with the national debt exceeding $15 trillion and protest movements growing around the country, Miller said Wyoming — which has a comparatively good economy and sound state finances — needs to make sure it’s protected should any unexpected emergency hit the U.S.

Several House members spoke in favor of the legislation, saying there was no harm in preparing for the worst.

“I don’t think there’s anyone in this room today what would come up here and say that this country is in good shape, that the world is stable and in good shape — because that is clearly not the case,” state Rep. Lorraine Quarberg, R-Thermopolis, said. “To put your head in the sand and think that nothing bad’s going to happen, and that we have no obligation to the citizens of the state of Wyoming to at least have the discussion, is not healthy.”

Wyoming’s Department of Homeland Security already has a statewide crisis management plan, but it doesn’t cover what the state should do in the event of an extreme nationwide political or economic collapse. In recent years, lawmakers in at least six states have introduced legislation to create a state currency, all unsuccessfully.

The task force would include state lawmakers, the director of the Wyoming Department of Homeland Security, the Wyoming attorney general and the Wyoming National Guard’s adjutant general, among others.

The bill must pass two more House votes before it would head to the Senate for consideration. The original bill appropriated $32,000 for the task force, though the Joint Appropriations Committee slashed that number in half earlier this week.

University of Wyoming political science professor Jim King said the potential for a complete unraveling of the U.S. government and economy is “astronomically remote” in the foreseeable future.

But King noted that the federal government set up a Continuity of Government Commission in 2002, of which former U.S. Sen. Al Simpson, R-Wyo., was co-chairman. However, King said he didn’t know of any states that had established a similar board.

2012/02/272012/02/27

Penguin: Mercenary Armies – What Does This Mean?

Commerce, Corruption, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence

This appears to be another piece of the larger trend toward the complete failure of all governments — the most sophisticated governments have now become the most inept and the most corrupt (in the holistic sense of the term). This does not bode well for humanity.

A Look At The World's Most Powerful Mercenary Armies

Security giant G4S is the second-largest private employer on earth

BusinessInsider, 26 February 2012
With more than 625,000 employees, this listed security giant is the second-largest private employer in the world(behind Wal-Mart). While some of its business is focused on routine bank, prison and airport security, G4S also plays an important role in crisis-zones right around the world.In 2008, G4S swallowed up Armorgroup, whose 9,000-strong army of guards has protected about one third of all non-military supply convoys in Iraq (it's also notorious for its wild parties and for having Afghan warlords on its payroll).

But the combined group has a security presence in more than 125 countries, including some of the most dangerous parts of Africa and Latin America, where it offers government agencies and private companies heavily-armed security forces, land-mine clearance, military intelligence and training.

Source Page

2012/02/27

DefDog: National Security versus National Well-Being

Corruption, Government, IO Impotency

Although this is about India's version and a year old, I fear that the issues they identify there also exist in ours, but to a much larger degree….

NCTC: National Confusion on Terror

New Kerala, 2011

By South Asia Intelligence Review: The crisis in India today is one of capacities, and this cannot be addressed by the reinvention of institutional forms. It doesn't matter if our responses are centralised or decentralised, as long as the executive agencies remain infirm, under-manned, under-trained and under-equipped.

Our principal problems lie, not in architecture, but in manpower, materials and execution. We have eviscerated our institutions over decades, and now believe that the solution lies in creating layer upon layer of meta-institutions to ‘monitor', ‘coordinate' and ‘oversee' this largely dysfunctional apparatus.
Counter-terrorism: The Architecture of Failure, November 24, 2011

The National Counter-terrorism Centre (NCTC) is an ill-conceived, redundant and derivative, vanity project, which aspires to imitate its namesake in the US, without the strength, the sinews, the resources or the constitutional context that would make such aspirations attainable.

Read full article.

2012/02/272012/02/27

Sepp Hasslberger: Green Cement Slimes Forward

03 India, 05 Energy, Academia, Commerce, Earth Intelligence

Drexel Engineers Develop Cement With 97 Percent Smaller Carbon Dioxide and Energy Footprint

Drexel University engineers have found a way to improve upon ordinary Portland cement (OPC), the glue that’s bonded much of the world’s construction since the late 1800s. In research recently published in Cement and Concrete Composites the group served up a recipe for cement that is more energy efficient and cost effective to produce than masonry’s most prevalent bonding compound.

Drexel’s “green” variety is a form of alkali-activated cement that utilizes an industrial byproduct, called slag, and a common mineral, limestone, and does not require heating to produce.

According to Dr. Michel W. Barsoum, A.W. Grosvenor professor in Drexel’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, this alternative production method and the ubiquity of the mix ingredients, lessens the cost of materials for Drexel’s cement by about 40 percent versus Portland cement and reduces energy consumption and carbon dioxide production by 97 percent.

“Cement consumption is rapidly rising, especially in newly industrialized countries, and it’s already responsible for 5 percent of human-made carbon dioxide. This is a unique way to limit the environmental consequences of meeting demand,” Dr. Alex Moseson, one of the lead researchers on the project, said.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: This is not new — the article is misleading. However, it is a very helpful escalation of the possibilities.

See Also:

Green Cement

Green Cement slag alkaline

Category: Communities of Practice

DefDog: Allah’s Divisions – Culturally Stupid Americans

Reference: Buried No Longer – Confronting America’s Water Infrastructure Challenge

Chuck Spinney: When Lies for a Cause Destroy Science

Mini-Me: Wyoming Planning for US/Federal Collapse

Penguin: Mercenary Armies – What Does This Mean?

DefDog: National Security versus National Well-Being

Sepp Hasslberger: Green Cement Slimes Forward