Category: Communities of Practice

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Steven Aftergood: Defense Science Board Slams CIA…

Corruption, Government, IO Impotency
Steven Aftergood

A NEW INTELLIGENCE ORG ON CLIMATE CHANGE IS NEEDED, DSB SAYS

The U.S. intelligence community needs an organization that can assess the impacts of climate change on U.S. national security interests in an open and collaborative manner, according to a new report from the Defense Science Board (DSB).

The Director of National Intelligence should establish a new intelligence group “to concentrate on the effects of climate change on political and economic developments and their implications for U.S. national security,” said the DSB report on “Trends and Implications of Climate Change for National and International Security” (large pdf).

The Central Intelligence Agency already has a Center on Climate Change and National Security.  So why would the Intelligence Community need an entirely new organization to address the exact same set of issues?

Continue reading “Steven Aftergood: Defense Science Board Slams CIA…”

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Patrick Meier: CrisisMappers 2011 Opening Speech

Advanced Cyber/IO, Communities of Practice, Hacking
Patrick Meier

My Opening Speech at CrisisMappers 2011 in Geneva

As many of you already know, the CrisisMappers Community is an informal network of members who operate at the cutting edge of crisis mapping and humanitarian technology. We are not a formal entity; we have no office, no one location, no staff, and no core funding to speak of. And yet, more than 3,000 individuals representing over 1,500 organizations in 140 countries around the world have joined this growing and thriving network.

Five recurring themes:

01  Validation  . .  02  Security  . .  03  Formal-informal partnerships  . .  04  Need to scale up  . .  05  Mainstreaming Crisis Mapping

Read full speech.

 

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Chuck Spinney: Koch Brothers & Grand Theft Media

Commerce, Corruption, Media
Chuck Spinney

Below is an informative historical vignette describing one of the 19th Century root systems underpinning the ideology that shaped the emergence of winner take all political economy over the last 30 years. Note particularly the central role of private debt played in the rise of oligarchy and the concomitant impoverishment of the masses.

Koch Family Empire Building

By Yasha Levine, The Texas Observer, 12 November 11

Yasha Levine is an investigative journalist and a founding editor of The eXiled Online. He lives in Venice, California.

The Koch brothers have bankrolled a broad attack on progressive government programs. Their grandfather's history in Texas helps explain why.

Read full investigative article.

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Marcus Aurelius: NYC Police State Blows Up Muslims

Corruption, Government, Law Enforcement
Marcus Aurelius

Angry over spying, Muslims say: ‘Don't call NYPD'

By EILEEN SULLIVAN and CHRIS HAWLEY, Associated Press 16 mins ago

NEW YORK – Fed up with a decade of police spying on the innocuous details of the daily lives of Muslims, activists in New York are discouraging people from going directly to the police with their concerns about terrorism, a campaign that is certain to further strain relations between the two groups.

Muslim community leaders are openly teaching people how to identify police informants, encouraging them to always talk to a lawyer before speaking with the authorities and reminding people already working with law enforcement that they have the right to change their minds. Some members of the community have planned a demonstration for next week.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  We have been saying for some time that the US Government no longer represents We the People.  In NYC under Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a privatized CIA has flourished, and NYC is now a police state in every sense of  the word.  When the law becomes unjust, unethical, and plain nuts, it is no longer legitimate.

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Theophilis Goodyear: The “Teflon” Argument – Open-Source Government Can Launch a New Scientific Age with Multinational Open-Source Science Projects

Cultural Intelligence, Government
Think?

The “Teflon” Argument:  Open-Source Government Can Launch a New Scientific Age by Facilitating International Cooperation on Open-Source Science Projects

The potential uses for open-source collaborations are limited only by human creativity and ingenuity.

In other words, Open-Source Intelligence is open-ended! No one can possibly predict the upward limits of benefits that can come from it. Clearly governance is just one use for collaborative networks of Applied, Collaborative Open-Source Human Intelligence.

Open-source governance should be thought of as the key to opening the door to all of the other open-source possibilities: medical research, education, basic science, and solving other technological problems: advancing science by sharing every new piece of the puzzle with other researchers. It could lead to major discoveries.

Continue reading “Theophilis Goodyear: The “Teflon” Argument – Open-Source Government Can Launch a New Scientific Age with Multinational Open-Source Science Projects”