Mini-Me: NSA Gutting of US Communications and Computing Likely to Cost US Tech Companies Way More Than $35 Billion

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency
Who?  Mini-Me?
Who? Mini-Me?

NSA Surveillance May Cost U.S. Tech Companies More than $35 Billion

Two years ago, when Edward Snowden exposed the NSA’s massive surveillance machine it didn’t just make Americans distrust the U.S. government—it also impelled foreigners to shy away from U.S.-made technologies. The result appears to be costly. In fact, a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a Washington, D.C., think tank, says the agency’s pervasive digital surveillance will likely cost U.S. companies more than $35 billion in foreign business by 2016.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: NSA Gutting of US Communications and Computing Likely to Cost US Tech Companies Way More Than $35 Billion”

SchwartzReport: A Solar America Now…

05 Energy
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

Here is some good news. Researchers at Stanford have worked out what it really would take to convert from carbon to noncarbon energy. It can be done, and it is clear it is now no longer a matter of technology but of political will, and America's willingness to choose wellness over profit for the few. It will be cheaper, more efficient, productive of tens of thousands of jobs while, at the same time tens of thousands of lives in the U.S. alone would be saved. And it could happen by 2050.

Stanford engineers develop state-by-state plan to convert US to 100 percent renewable energy

Answers: Steele for NATO Strategic Foresight

Answers, NATO Civ-Mil Ctr
Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

My preliminary contributions to the NATO Strategic Foresight Online Workshop. I have no appointment or connection to NATO or the Transformation Command. This workshop is open to the public without restriction.

Characteristics of the Future Threats & Possibilities
Economic Considerations
Environmental Considerations
Human Considerations I & II
Political Considerations
Technology Considerations
Strategic Foresight I & II

 

Continue reading “Answers: Steele for NATO Strategic Foresight”

CounterPunch: War Between US and China

02 China, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Military

counterpunch good The Skirmish in the Spratlys: Beating Uncle Sam at His Own Game

by MIKE WHITNEY

EXTRACT

What happens next, should be fairly obvious to anyone who has followed US meddling in recent years. The US is now at war with China, which means that it will use all of its resources and capabilities, except it’s military assets, to defeat the enemy. The United States will not militarily engage an enemy that can fight back or inflict pain on the US. That’s the cardinal rule of US military policy. While that precludes a nuclear conflagration, it does not exclude a hyperbolic propaganda campaign demonizing China and its leaders in the media (Sadly, the comparisons to Hitler and the Kaiser have already started), asymmetrical attacks on Chinese markets and currency, excruciating economic sanctions, US-NGO funding for Chinese dissidents, foreign agents and fifth columnists, intrusions into China’s territorial waters and airspace, strategic denial of critical energy supplies, (80 percent of China’s oil supplies are delivered via the Malacca Strait to the South China Sea) and, finally, covert support for “moderate” jihadis who are committed to toppling the Chinese government and replacing it with an Islamic Caliphate. All of these means and proxies will be employed to defeat Beijing, to derail its ambitious Silk Roads strategy, to curtail its explosive growth, and to sabotage its plan to be the preeminent power in Asia.

Continue reading “CounterPunch: War Between US and China”

Chuck Spinney: Cartographic Games Divorced from Reality – Daniel Neep on The Middle Eastern Example

Geospatial, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, IO Mapping
Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney

Below is a brilliant essay that shows how cartographic hallucinogenics can capture one’s Orientation and create an incestuously amplifying* decision cycle that disconnects a “policy” maker from real world. * Note to new readers: For an explanation of how “incestuous amplification” operates to disconnect a decision maker from the exigencies of the real world read my essay, Incestuous Amplification and the Madness of King George.

FOCUS: THE MIDDLE EAST, HALLUCINATION, AND THE CARTOGRAPHIC IMAGINATION

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Cartographic Games Divorced from Reality – Daniel Neep on The Middle Eastern Example”

CounterPunch: Bernie Sanders the Sheepdog

Civil Society, Corruption

counterpunch goodThe “Sheepdog”, the Sheep and the Plantation: Why is the DNC Sending Out Pro-Bernie Sanders Emails?

EXTRACT

Here’s the Sanders in an ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos from May 3:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So if you lose in this nomination fight, will you support the Democratic nominee?

SANDERS: Yes. I have in the past.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Not going to run as an independent?

SANDERS: No, absolutely not. I’ve been very clear about that.

Ironically, it seems that the DNC and left-critics of the Sanders campaign agree on a very important fact: they believe Sanders will attract a number of young voters and activists, then dutifully tell them to vote for Hillary when he drops out.

Continue reading “CounterPunch: Bernie Sanders the Sheepdog”

noble gold