I rarely promote major media outlets such as AOL, but the past few months I have been geting a LOT of good quality local news to fill the gap left by ailing local newspapers with AOL's venture called patch.com. With community based and locally edited editions for towns and communities all across the nation, Patch has become a major local source for news, events, and perspectives in my own community. At first skeptical, I tried it and found it a wonderful new way the internet can become a new source for local news and information!
Check it out at patch.com and find a location near you, or become your own news source by starting one if your area lacks one.
Today I found out that AOL and Huffington Post have merged, and Arianna herself announced a new “blog” section for each local patch across the country. Here's is her announcement:
In January, the chief of the military's elite special-operations troops accepted an unusual invitation to visit Central Intelligence Agency headquarters. There, Adm. William McRaven was shown, for the first time, photos and maps indicating the whereabouts of the world's most wanted man.
Adm. McRaven—one of the first military officers to be brought into the CIA's latest hunt for Osama bin Laden—offered a blunt assessment: Taking bin Laden's compound would be reasonably straightforward. Dealing with Pakistan would be hard.
A Wall Street Journal reconstruction of the mission planning shows that this meeting helped define a profound new strategy in the U.S. war on terror, namely the use of secret, unilateral missions powered by a militarized spy operation. The strategy reflects newfound trust between two traditionally wary groups: America's spies, and its troops.
The bin Laden strike was the strategy's “proof of concept,” says one U.S. official.
I recently met up with Facebook colleagues Simon Axten and Matt Perault to discuss the role that they and their platform might play in disaster response. So I thought I’d share some thoughts that come up during the conversation seeing as I’ve been thinking about this topic with a number of other colleagues for a while. I’m also very interested to hear any ideas and suggestions that iRevolution readers may have on this.
There’s no doubt that Facebook can—and already does—play an important role in disaster response. In Haiti, my colleague Rob Munro used Facebook to recruit hundreds of Creole speaking volunteers to translate tens of thousands of text messages into English as part of Mission 4636. When an earthquake struck New Zealand earlier this year, thousands of students organized their response via a Facebook group and also used the platform’s check-in’s feature to alert others in their social network that they were alright.
In early January the BBC reported that Mohammad Bouazazi, a Tunisian college graduate who illegally sold fruits and vegetables in Sidi Bouzid, had died from his self-inflicted burns. He had set himself on fire by dousing his body with petrol when police confiscated his produce. He didn’t have the proper permits. Public protest had been rare in Tunisia before. When he died, the BBC reported that “a crowd estimated at 5,000 took part in his funeral.” The crowd chanted the same message together, out loud: “Farewell, Mohammad, we will avenge you. We weep for you today, we will make those who caused your death weep.”
Safety copy below the line–note ending on Bush-Obama “crowd control” plans.
This important essay by Robert Parry contextualizes Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's arrogant stuffing of President Obama, which took place after Obama gave a weak-kneed speech on the Middle East. If Parry is right, a really dirty game is in the offing.
And look at the banality of language that provoked Netanhahu: Obama's speech purported to analyze the implications of the Arab Revolt with an analysis that was viewed as being weak, inept, and self centered by some Arabs (e.g., see this cogent analysis of his language) as well as his goals for the pursuit in the Arab-Israeli peace process: namely a return to Israel's 1967 borders, with some land swaps, in return for the security of a Jewish state within these borders (a choice of language that may have been an attempt to appease Netanyahu*).
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*Mr. Obama's language was somewhat ambiguous when he said the primary Israeli-related goal of the peace process was to establish conditions for Israel as a Jewish state
and the homeland for the Jewish people.” But it does raise a question of whether he is acceding to the sectarian interpretation of a Jewish democracy demanded by Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made recognition of Israel as aJewish nation-state a prerequisite for any final agreement with the Palestinians. This kind of sectarian definition in a democracy has unknowable ramifications for the non-Jewish minority making up 20% of Israel's citizens. For a discussion of this issue, see Isabel Kirshner, “Some Question the Existence of Israel as a Jewish State,” New York Times, 24 October 2010.
This public rebuke raises questions about whether Netanyahu will now try to sink Obama’s reelection the way earlier Likud leaders undermined President Jimmy Carter
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Oval Office rebuke of U.S. President Barack Obama – and the Republicans’ immediate attempt to exploit the dispute to peel away Jewish voters – suggest that American politics may be in for a replay of Campaign 1980.
A former Iranian intelligence official who defected has claimed that Iran helped to plot the September 11 attacks, according to court papers filed on Thursday in a victims' lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court against the Tehran government.
Phi Beta Iota: Prior information, yes. Over 9 countries had prior information and warned the US via official channels prior to 9/11, but Dick Cheney had his information from the source (Pakistan) and used it to plan the counter-terrorism exercise that allowed him to let it happen as planned. To suggest that Iran, a Shi'ite country at absolute war with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (Sunni countries, one with the nuclear bomb thanks to Zbigniew Brzezinski), was behind the 9/11 attacks in any way is to raise the spectre of another 935 documented lies being formulated within the US Government to justify a direct attack on Iran. Isn't one three trillion dollar “liar's war” enough?
Unbelievable–either these guys have no clue what happened in the past, or they're all going senile and repeating history. This is 1992 all over again–remember the LIC Intelligence Working Group that never was?
DefenseAlert
DOD Advisory Panel Calls For Creation Of National Intel Manager For COIN Ops
Posted on InsideDefense.com: May 20, 2011
A new “national intelligence manager” for counterinsurgency operations is needed to improve U.S. military and civilian efforts in population centers, according to a Defense Science Board task force.
In a just-released report, the task force calls on defense and intelligence officials to lessen the current focus on technical intelligence collection from airborne sensors and bolster human intelligence operations as well as improve the exploitation of open-source information.
The report — prepared by the Task Force on Defense Intelligence-Counterinsurgency (COIN) Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Operations — also warns that sensor-packed unmanned aerial vehicles and other airborne ISR assets are generating a “deluge” of data, precipitating a crisis in processing, exploitation and dissemination.
Phi Beta Iota: World-class foolishness. Doing the wrong thing righter. It does not work for counter-terrorism or force protection or anything else for the simple reason that the entire US intelligence system is in grid-lock. Not managed, not smart, not affordable, not processed, the list is long. Until the US Government restores its integrity and intelligence–to include not just Whole of Government integrity & intelligence, but eight-tribes and M4IS2 integrity and intelligence, this is just one more fiefdom, one more chain of useless over-paid over-promoted bureaucrats with zero value. 1992 deja vu indeed.
