Corruption – Page 793 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/05/032011/05/03

Event: 4-5 April Extra-Judicial State Control Over Non-State Nuclear Proliferation

02 Diplomacy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Key Players, Law Enforcement, Military, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence

Cooperation to Control Non-State Nuclear Proliferation: Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction and UN Resolutions 1540 and 1373

This workshop will explore theoretical options and practical pathways to extend states' control over non-state actor nuclear proliferation through the use of extra-territorial jurisdiction and international legal cooperation.

UNSC Resolution 1373 and the raft of counter-terrorism treaties related to non-state based nuclear terrorism allow for states to exercise extra-territorial criminal jurisdiction in certain ways. UNSC Resolution 1373 even requires the exercise of such jurisdiction in certain cases. UNSC Resolution 1540, in contrast, focuses on domestic controls.

Workshop Dates: April 4-5, 2011

Host: Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, The Stanley Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Venue:

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20036-2103

Learn more….

Tip of the Hat to Contributing Editor Berto Jongman.

Phi Beta Iota: Extra-judicial anything is a crime against humanity. While the International Tribunals have done some extraordinary work, the reality is that most non-state proliferation is actively aided and condoned by specific states including the permanent members of the UN Security Council. This is a very troubling line of inquiry.

2011/05/032011/05/03

USA in a Depression–Employment Hosed

03 Economy, 06 Family, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends...

May 2, 2011

Meanwhile, Back in the Homeland

Economic Terror Wins the Day: We're in a Depression

By MIKE WHITNEY, Counterpunch

On Thursday, Gallup reported that “More than half of Americans say the U.S. economy is in a recession or a depression despite official data that show a moderate recovery…..The April 20-23 Gallup survey… found that only 27 percent said the economy is growing. 29 per cent said the economy is in a depression and 26 per cent said it is in a recession, with another 16 per cent saying it is “slowing down,” Gallup said.”

55 percent of Americans believe we are in a depression or a recession a full 5 years after the housing bubble burst (2006) and 3 years after Lehman Brothers collapsed. (2008) Gallup's findings jibe with other surveys that indicate growing desperation among the public. For example, Globescan found that a large number of Americans have given up on free-market capitalism altogether, while other polls show dwindling confidence in government institutions, the Federal Reserve, the Congress, the judicial system and the media.

. . . . . . .

Do you have any idea how bad unemployment really is? Take a look at this from Calculated Risk:

“There are currently 130,738 million payroll jobs in the U.S. (as of March 2011). There were 130,781 million payroll jobs in January 2000. So that is over eleven years with no increase in total payroll jobs.

“And the median household income in constant dollars was $49,777 in 2009. That is barely above the $49,309 in 1997, and below the $51,100 in 1998……

Full story online….

2011/05/01

Sleepwalking through America’s Unemployment Crisis

03 Economy, 04 Education, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government

Sleepwalking through America’s Unemployment Crisis

Mohamed A. El-Erian

Mohamed A. El-Erian is CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO, and author of When Markets Collide.

NEWPORT BEACH – It was relegated to the Q&A session, rather than featured prominently in the opening statement, at last week’s first-ever press conference of US Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke. It is an issue that too many in Washington, DC are willing to dismiss as “transitory,” despite visible evidence to the contrary. It is extremely vulnerable to high oil and food prices. And it undermines the operational assumptions that underpin the long-standing characterization of the US economy as vibrant and responsive.

The issue is the scope and composition of unemployment in America – a problem that is yet to be sufficiently recognized for its increasingly detrimental impact on the country’s social fabric, its economic potential, and its already-fragile fiscal position and debt dynamics.

Let us start with the facts:

· At 8.8% almost three years after the onset of the global financial crisis, America’s unemployment rate remains stubbornly (and unusually) high;

· Rather than reflecting job creation, much of the improvement in recent months (from 9.8% in November last year) is due to workers exiting the labor force, thus driving workforce participation to a multi-year low of 64.2%;

· If part-time workers eager to work full time are included, almost one in six workers in America are either under- or unemployed;

· More than six million workers have been unemployed for more than six months, and four million for over a year;

· Unemployment among 16-19 year olds is at a staggering 24%;

Read rest of article….

2011/05/012011/05/01

Google Owns You…What’s Your Problem?

Advanced Cyber/IO, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, IO Mapping

Google Memo Reveals Importance of Android Location Database

Location Services Icon in Maps

Just how important is location-based data to Google? Just how important is it for the sun to rise each morning? Same deal.

This question comes in the wake of eyes turning toward mobile handsets—specifically, Apple's iPhone and smartphones based on Google's Android OS—for the information they collect about the various wireless access points and cell phone towers the devices connect to (or notice) throughout the course of a given day.

Integrity, lacking in the White House…..

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Media

Original Story:

The hip, transparent and social media-loving Obama administration is showing its analog roots. And maybe even some hypocrisy highlights.

White House officials have banished one of the best political reporters in the country from the approved pool of journalists covering presidential visits to the Bay Area for using now-standard multimedia tools to gather the news.

The Chronicle's Carla Marinucci – who, like many contemporary reporters, has a phone with video capabilities on her at all times –shot some protesters interrupting an Obama fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel.

Chuck Spinney: Obama’s Failure of Intelligence & Integrity

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Policies

My friend Jeff Madrick, and old fashioned liberal democrat in the best sense of the term, has penned a pithy analysis of the anti-empirical madness now dominating the contemporary American political economy. Jeff concludes that the Right ignores its track record, particularly regarding the clear economic effects of tax cuts, and is rarely challenged on the issue. Madrick is correct. The question is why?

More precisely, why is political debate shaped more by a new dark age of irrational romantic ideology than the by the rationality and empiricism bequeathed to us by the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution?

For what it worth, here is my answer: Money. (What follows is my view, and should not be attributed to Jeff.)

Look no further than at a Democratic Party that has sold out, and in so doing, forgot its roots, having grown arrogant, effete, and soft in the comfortable aftermath of its dominance under Roosevelt, Truman, and Johnson, each of whom, whatever his faults, was at least a fighter. The real problem corrupting our warped politics has less to do with the Right Wing Wrecking Crew than with the rise of wimpish neo-liberal and pro-defense Democrats (e.g., like Presidents Carter, Clinton, and Obama), who are now being reinforced by the so-called progressives, who are willing to go along with Obama's strategy of appeasing the right wing wreckers, rationalizing that any alternative to Obama will be worse. A more reliable pathway to strategic defeat is hard to imagine. Maybe the wrecking crew's winner-take-all politics of fang and claw ought to be answered by a more principled politics of fang an claw.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Obama's Failure of Intelligence & Integrity”

2011/05/012011/05/01

Four Weapons Against Humanity

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, InfoOps (IO), IO Secrets, Military, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

The law doth punish man or woman
That steals the goose from off the commons,
But lets the greater villain loose
That steals the commons from the goose.
– 16th century English rhyme

March 23, 2011

Four weapons

Posted by leavergirl under civ, problem of power, traps

Anthropologists have noted three main pathways to power. I say there are four. And out of these pathways come four types of weapons used against us, and four types of weapon industries. One of these has been obvious to all, two became more and more visible as the 20th century progressed, and the last needs far greater exposure than it has received. What are those weapons? What are the main ways to inflict damage on human beings by those who seek to dominate?

Read concise elegant discussion of each of the following:

1. Physical Weapons .. 2. Economic Weapons .. 3. Ideological Weapons including Religion & Rote Education .. 4. Government as a Weapon

Phi Beta Iota: There are two literatures that are relevant here, the first represented by such books as Tragedy & Hope and its introductory companion the Naked Capitalist, and the second by a less well known but amply robust literature on the sovereign individual. A general strike and a refusal to pay taxes are the legitimate last resort of an abused public. Similarly, a public demand for Electoral Reform, absent which the legitimacy of any government is ended in the eyes of all, can be equally compelling. The times they are a'changing. We have high hopes for 2012 as the year of awakening and reconciliation based on truth.

Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Positive)