Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 1577 – Public Intelligence Blog

300 Million Talons... — 300 Million Talons…

Food Costs Soar Following Severe Worldwide Drought

Food prices are expected to see their biggest annual increase in the past three years thanks mostly to devastating drought conditions all over the world. Dry conditions mean poor crop production; poor crop production means fewer livestock; and fewer livestock means higher prices for meats and dairy at the grocery store. That plus a pinch on products like cocoa, sugar, wheat, rice and especially coffee have the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicting a big bump in food costs.

Higher meat and dairy prices are mostly the culprits in the United States, thanks in part to ongoing drought conditions in the Midwest and Great Plains that have forced ranchers to cull their herds rather than pay exorbitant prices to feed the animals. Inflation of corn and soybean products could be managed if farmers receive favorable conditions for their crops this summer, in turn driving down prices of animal feed as well as products for human consumption. Still, consumers could pay as much as $1 more per gallon for milk at the store to compensate for low supplies mixed with high demand.

Continue reading “Eagle: Food Costs Soar – Revolution in the Air”

2014/03/192014/03/19

Mini-Me: NSA Says Its Water Use is TOP SECRET – We Do Not Make This Stuff Up!

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Military

Huh?

The NSA Says its Water Bill Should be Top Secret

Robert McMillan

WIRED, 03.19.14

The National Security Agency has many secrets, but here’s a new one: the agency is refusing to say how much water its pumping into the brand new data center it operates in Bluffdale, Utah. According to the NSA, its water usage is a matter of national security.

The agency made the argument in a letter sent to officials in Utah, who are considering whether or not to release the data to the Salt Lake Tribune. Back in May, Tribune reporter Nate Carlisle asked for local records relating to the data center, but when he got his files a few months later, the water usage data was redacted.

. . . . . . .

“By computing the water usage rate, one could ultimately determine the computing power and capabilities of the Utah Data Center,” wrote the NSA’s associate director for policy and records, David Sherman in an undated letter filed with Bluffdale in response to the Tribune’s public records request. “Armed with this information, one could then deduce how much intelligence NSA is collecting and maintaining.”

Continue reading “Mini-Me: NSA Says Its Water Use is TOP SECRET – We Do Not Make This Stuff Up!”

2014/03/192014/03/19

Yoda: Master of Tri-Sector Collaboration (Singapore Management University)

04 Education, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence

Good step, this is.

Master of Tri-Sector Collaboration (MTSC)

The innovative Master of Tri-Sector Collaboration provides rigorous interdisciplinary training in effective problem solving for the 21st century’s complex environment. It is applicable to business, government, and civil society organisations, and to the interactions among them. It will:

Develop leaders able to flourish in a complex, tri-sector world
Enable students to master a toolkit of innovative skills for tackling global challenges together
Create cross-sector networks in the region
Provide students with deep understanding of key conceptual frameworks
Ensure that students can make sense of the plethora of megatrends affecting business-government-society interactions, from environment to demography to technology

Learn more.

2014/03/192014/03/19

Dave Warner: TED Prize of $1M to Anti-Corruption and Transparency Activist

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics

TED Winner Launches Campaign to Unmask Shell Companies

Anti-corruption activist Charmian Gooch launched a new global campaign on Tuesday night to unmask shell corporations and lobby for legislation requiring more transparency, using a newly awarded $1 million TED Prize.

The Global Witness co-founder won the prestigious award to expand on her organization’s work to unmask shell companies used by dictators, criminals and terrorists for money laundering and to hide assets around the world.

“My wish is for us to know who owns and controls companies, so that they can no longer be used anonymously against the public good,” Gooch said while accepting the award and unveiling her wish. “Together, let’s ignite world opinion, change the law, and together launch a new era of openness in business.”

“This isn’t just a dry policy issue,” Gooch added. “This is a human issue which affects us all. This is about being on the right side of history.”

Shell companies are widely used around the globe by people and entities that want to conceal financial transactions or the true ownership of corporations. Activists have argued that widespread use of shell corporations have made it easier for dictators and criminals to hide money, evade taxes, or illegally transfer assets.

Continue reading “Dave Warner: TED Prize of $1M to Anti-Corruption and Transparency Activist”

2014/03/192014/03/19

Robin Good: Content Curation Has Been Hijacked by Content Marketing Evil-Doers

Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, IO Tools

Content Curation Has Been Hijacked by Content Marketing

Curation adds value. Marketing does not add value.

Many content curation startups, and many of the people using curation tools will probably not like what I have written in this article, but I have a hard time behaving as if I couldn't see a cardboard façade that's been sold for a real destination.

Content Curation has been hijacked and has been sold as a cheap and easy solution for content marketers plagued by the growing problem of getting greater attention from their readers and therefore of how to produce more quality content within tighter and tighter time constraints.

The façade is the promotion of the idea that by “adopting” content curation tools and “techniques” (like picking, selecting and showcasing “best of content” to others) you can actually rapidly gain the same benefits and rewards that true, highly reputable curators and experts in any field have conquered after years of hard work.

Continue reading “Robin Good: Content Curation Has Been Hijacked by Content Marketing Evil-Doers”

2014/03/19

Rickard Falkvinge: Sweden Invokes Perpetual Copyright and a Culture of Perpetual State Clearance of Public Domain Use

Cultural Intelligence

Sweden Invokes Little-Known “Perpetual Copyright” Clause Against Mercedes Ad

Copyright Monopoly: Sweden has invoked a previously-unknown “Perpetual Copyright” clause against carmaker Mercedes-Benz, who recited a public-domain work by the poet Boye in a recent ad. The legal threat was brought by the Swedish Academy, which is tasked with overseeing the clause. This has severe chilling effect on culture even 70 years past an artists’ death.

Mercedes-Benz used a recital from the poet Karin Boye in a recent ad. She passed in 1941, and her work has therefore been in the public domain since January 1, 2012, under the planet’s most stringent copyright monopoly laws. “Public domain” is supposed to mean free for anybody to use for any purpose without restriction.

Continue reading “Rickard Falkvinge: Sweden Invokes Perpetual Copyright and a Culture of Perpetual State Clearance of Public Domain Use”

2014/03/192014/03/19

Stephen E. Arnold: Predictive Analytics, Food Prices, Revolution

Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence

Civic Predictive Analysis Proving Accurate

We find the field of predictive analysis fascinating (see here, here, and here, for example), and now we have more evidence of how important this work can be. Motherboard reports on “The Math that Predicted the Revolutions Sweeping the Globe Right Now.” The key component: high food prices. Writer Brian Merchant explains:

“There’s at least one common thread between the disparate nations, cultures, and people in conflict, one element that has demonstrably proven to make these uprisings more likely: high global food prices.

“Just over a year ago, complex systems theorists at the New England Complex Systems Institute warned us that if food prices continued to climb, so too would the likelihood that there would be riots across the globe. Sure enough, we’re seeing them now. The paper’s author, Yaneer Bar-Yam, charted the rise in the FAO food price index—a measure the UN uses to map the cost of food over time—and found that whenever it rose above 210, riots broke out worldwide. It happened in 2008 after the economic collapse, and again in 2011, when a Tunisian street vendor who could no longer feed his family set himself on fire in protest.”

Bar-Yam’s model forewarned about the Arab Spring and the Tunisian self-immolation. Well, not those specific ways unrest would manifest, but that something big and ugly was bound to happen. Similarly, the same model divined that there would be conflicts around the world this year—as we have seen in the Ukraine, Venezuela, Brazil, Thailand, Bosnia, Syria, Spain, France, Sweden…. Last year’s global food prices were the third-highest on record; this is no coincidence. See the article for more on Bar-Yam’s methods as well as specific links between food scarcity and some of the conflicts currently shaking the world.

What can this technology do, besides hand a few of us a big bucket of “I-told-you-so”? Armed with this information, policymakers could take steps to modify the way the global marketplace is run and stop (at least some, possibly most) food shortages before they start. This means powerful people from many countries would have to work together to make major changes on a global scale for the good of humanity. With money involved. Hey, anything’s possible, right?

Cynthia Murrell, March 19, 2014

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext