Information Operations (IO) – Page 772 – Public Intelligence Blog

John Mertens to Use Multimedia Technology to Debate Candidates Despite Exclusion from the Official Debate, October 4th.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Despite earning a ballot line in the 2010 U.S. Senate Race in Connecticut, Dr. John Mertens is not invited to participate in the first post-primary U.S. Senate debate, in New Haven, Conn., Monday, October 04, 2010 from 6:30 – 9:00 p.m., but Mertens has found a way around this roadblock.

Using multimedia technologies to show the televised debate and candidates Blumenthal and McMahon’s answers (live), Mertens and his team will pause to allow candidate Mertens to answer each question before resuming the televised broadcast, giving equal voice to all three candidates. Olwen Logan, publisher of three online local news publications, writer and PR consultant, will be moderating the event.

“John Mertens’ broadcast is a brilliantly creative way of using technology to push back against the duopoly which continues to exclude him and other alternative voices from being heard,” said Christina Tobin, founder and chair of The Free and Equal Elections Foundation. “Voters everywhere deserve to hear from all candidates for public office so they can make educated decisions at the polls.”

“We’re inviting the audience to be citizen journalists during the debate through twitter, and to stay after to connect and discuss issues,” Mertens said.

Journal: Social Web Cannot Be Censored or Gated

11 Society, Autonomous Internet, Collective Intelligence, IO Sense-Making

Why the Social Web is the Guardian of Net Neutrality

Jon Goldman

Mashable

EXTRACT:

The rise of the social web has tipped the balance of information sharing power from corporations to users. Many of the remaining ties consumers once felt toward their favorite search engine or broadband provider have been loosened, making user recommendations the most critical factor in e-commerce decisions. The same thing has happened with content. What our friends watch, play or listen to is increasingly the deciding factor in what media we choose to consume.

This has two important effects on the net neutrality debate. First, social media has rewired people to expect an open and unrestricted Internet. It’s clear to most web users that a controlled Internet (whether by corporations or government) is not in the best interest of the user (or in the long run, the marketplace of ideas). Second, consumer choice is at a high level. Most users are not restricted by a single point of access, both to the web as a whole and for discovery of the information it contains.

Tip of the Hat to Pierre Levy at LinkedIn.

Phi Beta Iota: Read the full article to also understand Google and Verizon power plays to own the commons. This is an important article that misses a major supporting fact: at Burning Man an OpenBTS wireless environment was created, using open software and hardware to leverage open spectrum. Google is the Standard Oil of the past, and Verizon, if it does not learn fairly soon that it is the content that can be monetized, not the connection, is going to be the Maginot Line of the past. By the by, John Perry Barlow said all this at OSS '92. See also Howard Rheingold's remarks. The US Intelligence Community has blown a quarter century out of ignorant obstinancy.

See Also:

OSS '92 Proceedings (Free Online)

Hacking Humanity

2010/10/032010/10/03

Journal: Inspirational Personal Story

11 Society, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process, Military, Officers Call

Full Story Online

Wounded in Iraq, double-amputee returns to war

ASHOQEH, Afghanistan – When a bomb exploded under Dan Luckett's Army Humvee in Iraq two years ago — blowing off one of his legs and part of his foot — the first thing he thought was: “That's it. You're done. No more Army for you.”

But two years later, the 27-year-old Norcross, Georgia, native is back on duty — a double-amputee fighting on the front lines of America's Afghan surge in one of the most dangerous parts of this volatile country.

Luckett's remarkable recovery can be attributed in part to dogged self-determination. But technological advances have been crucial: Artificial limbs today are so effective, some war-wounded like Luckett are not only able to do intensive sports like snow skiing, they can return to active duty as fully operational soldiers. The Pentagon says 41 American amputee veterans are now serving in combat zones worldwide.

Phi Beta Iota: This is inspirational, plain and simple. Our objective, within the Earth Intelligence Network (EIN), is to eventually build the Open Source Center, the Multinational Decision Support Centre, and the global multinational information sharing and sense-making grid, around war veterans who have lost a limb or two.

See Also:

2010/10/022010/12/25

Journal: Tweeting for Truth

Advanced Cyber/IO, Citizen-Centered, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Ethics, IO Sense-Making

2010/10/022010/12/25

Search: buckminster fuller map

Advanced Cyber/IO, Earth Intelligence, Geospatial, Geospatial, info-graphics/data-visualization, IO Mapping, Policies-Harmonization, Strategy-Holistic Coherence

Phi Beta Iota: Although the search produces Graphics Directory A-Z as of 28 September 2010 and within that one can find Graphic: Robert Steele Adopts Buckminster Fuller that is too far from our preferred outcome. Here is the human in the loop answer: it's called the Dymaxion map.

Here are a whole bunch of images.

Within those, the two below are the most interesting. The second was used in a discussion between Buckminster Fuller and the Russian leadership, to show how a global electrical grid could be achieved that would eradicate the current 50% loss from source to end-user.

2010/10/012010/10/01

Reference: The Open Source Century LINK FIXED

Articles & Chapters, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), International Aid, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process

LINK FIXED. Publisher version truncated halfway through, now links to a pdf of all five pages. Certainly worth a read, including between the lines. Our critical comments, and the history of opposition, remain extant.

Phi Beta Iota: We missed it but our network did not. With thanks to one of the 800+ folks that stay in touch, and with thanks to the editors of the World Politics Review, we provide here, by special permission, free full access to the feature article byMICHAEL J. MAZAAR

The Open-Source Century: Information, Knowledge and Intelligence in the 21st Century

At the logo below anyone can sign up for a free 30-day trial with full access to a broad range of products and services from World Politics Review. We thank them for their professional courtesy and recommend them to one and all.

Search: The Future of OSINT [is M4IS2-Multinational]

2009 DoD OSINT Leadership and Staff Briefings

2008 IJIC 21/3 The Open Source Program: Missing in Action

2005 Steele to Hayden Asking for Naquin Cease & Desist

2004 Modern History of Public Intelligence and the Opposition

2010/10/012010/10/01

Journal: Bin Laden, Dead or Alive, Makes Sense

01 Poverty, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, Cultural Intelligence, IO Sense-Making, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

Bin Laden Tape: Terror Leader Criticizes Muslim Governments For Military Spending

CAIRO — Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden called for the creation of a new relief body to help Muslims in an audiotape released Friday, seeking to exploit discontent following this summer's devastating floods in Pakistan by depicting the region's governments as uncaring.

It was the third message in recent weeks from al-Qaida figures concerning the massive floods that affected around 20 million people in Pakistan, signaling a concentrated campaign by the terror group to tap into anger over the flooding to rally support.

But while the earlier messages by subordinates were angry, urging followers to rise up, bin Laden took a softer, even humanitarian tone – apparently trying to broaden al-Qaida's appeal by presenting his group as a problem-solving protector of the poor.

“What governments spend on relief work is secondary to what they spend on armies,” bin Laden says on the 11-minute tape titled “Reflections on the Method of Relief Work.”

“If governments spent (on relief) only one percent of what is spent on armies, they would change the face of the world for poor people,” he said

Read rest of story online…

Phi Beta Iota: We believe Bin Laden to be dead or comatose, but it merits comment that some people do take on a life of their own after death, as with many prophets whose messages are refined or corrupted, but carried on. What should shock and awe here is that this message makes a great deal more sense than the current US strategy of spending trillions on elective occupations and Wall Street bail-outs, and nothing at all on eight of the ten high-level threats to humanity, with stark poverty in the USA and elsewhere being #1.

Review: Collapse–How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Category: Information Operations (IO)

Journal: Third Parties “Crashing” Debates with IT