The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Doc Searls‘ (et al) “vendor relationship management” (VRM) concept can be useful. Walmart is as it is because it serves a base of passive, faceless consumers – as is the case with “mass” business in general. VRM redefines the relationship of business to consumer by giving the consumer an active role – balancing power in the relationship of business to consumer. Participatory medicine, which is another of my areas of focus, does that with the patient, and is a great working example of VRM thinking. Project VRM hopes to drive the development of tools, and is connected to identity and data portability movements.
How customers matter more than data about them .. Pushing for Pull and the Open Web .. VRM as Agency .. The Personal Data Story .. VRM+FSW+PDS .. VRM + CRM .. Managing relationships, not each other .. Why not have your own cloud?
Briefing (28 Slides) Version 3.2 (Notes As Delivered)
Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Starting Point
2009 DoD OSINT Leadership and Staff Briefings
Below the Line: Unclassified Impressions & Questions, Three Books on Truth, Past OSINT and IO References with Emphasis on Multinational Sharing and Sense-Making
Why is the world's largest organization of psychologists so aggressively promoting a new, massive and untested military program? The APA's enthusiasm for mandatory “resilience training” for all US soldiers is troubling on many counts.
The January 2011 issue of the American Psychologist, the American Psychological Association's (APA) flagship journal, is devoted entirely to 13 articles that detail and celebrate the virtues of a new US Army-APA collaboration. Built around positive psychology and with key contributions from former APA President Martin Seligman and his colleagues, Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) is a $125 million resilience training initiative designed to reduce and prevent the adverse psychological consequences of combat for our soldiers and veterans. While these are undoubtedly worthy aspirations, the special issue is nevertheless troubling in several important respects: the authors of the articles, all of whom are involved in the CSF program, offer very little discussion of conceptual and ethical considerations; the special issue does not provide a forum for any independent critical or cautionary voices whatsoever; and through this format, the APA itself has adopted a jingoistic cheerleading stance toward a research project about which many crucial questions should be posed. We discuss these and related concerns below.
The author of this long but very useful historical analysis on the history of Libya is also the author of Violent Politics: A History of Insurgency, Terrorism, and Guerrilla War, from the American Revolution to Iraq, one of the very best books I have ever read on the subject of guerrilla warfare.
Whence Libya? Why Libya? Whither Libya?
William R. Polk, March 31, 2011
Since the Libyan regime was established by a coup d’état in 1969, Americans and Europeans — with a three-year intermission from 1986 to 1988 — found it acceptable enough to recognize it, sell it arms and buy its petroleum. In that one interval, on April 15, 1986, the American government under President Ronald Reagan attempted to kill Colonel Muammar Qaddafi by bombing his residence and did wound his wife and kill about 75 Libyans including his adopted daughter. Two years later, Qaddafi retaliated by bombing an American airliner. That attack killed 270 people including 190 Americans among whom were at least four intelligence officers. These were just the major events; there were many others. Of course, Americans and Libyans took very different views of them. But both sides eventually smoothed over their angers, and relations again became profitable and “correct” on both sides, as they remained until early this year.
So, what is the basis of those attitudes and the causes of those actions? Who are the Libyans anyway? And what is the position of Qaddafi among them? What motivates the Libyans? What governs their action? And what is likely to be the outcome of the revolt, the regime’s resistance to it and the Western intervention?
With the prejudice of a historian, I find that seeking answers to these questions requires at least a glance at the past. That is the aim of this essay.
Interesting…..what are the potential ramifications, electronic
insurgencies?
Hillary Clinton's Senior Tech Advisor Talks “Radical” Global Citizenship
BY Gregory Ferenstein, 4 April 2011
In the turbulent center of the Venn diagram involving President Obama's multilateral foreign policy, open government mandates, and Middle-East unrest is Alec Ross, the Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. From asking Twitter to delay down-time maintenance during the 2009 student uprising to courting programmers for Africa, Ross's office has been tasked with coordinating the monumental logistics of a new philosophy that embraces global interdependence. Ross spoke with Fast Company about the meaning of the highly controversial “global citizenship” concept, the diplomatic difficulties in supporting subversive technologies, and the future of transparency.
Continue reading “US Diplomats Lighting Electronic Insurgency Fire”
FYI….as received.
John, a few yrs back you were posting doubts about the official explanations (both Norad and Nist have changed their stories) of 9/11, but not in a long time. I can imagine many reasons to abandon the discussion, like not upsetting some of your readers, but I just wanted to point out that back then the debate was dominated by speculation, but that in recent years the Truth movement has been professionalized by such orgs as Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (some 1500 members risking their careers), Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth, etc., as well as peer-reviewed scientific articles. I'd be interested in your thoughts on the subject nowadays.
