Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 1671 – Public Intelligence Blog

I don't pretend to have any special insight into the markets; they are an insider's game and nothing is quite what it seems to outsiders, and most commentary is no better than throwing rabbit bones. So it is hard for me to evaluate the importance of this report. But it does strike me as a matter of concern that major insiders are dumping U.S. stocks.

Billionaires Dumping Stocks, Economist Knows Why
Moneynews

Phi Beta Iota: The source is a shill for a self-help investing program that uses faux news to sell itself. Generally the worst melt-downs occur in the final six months of a second presidential term. Right now frugality and getting out of the known stock market casino that is rigged, are good moves.

The wealth inequity is not just in the U.S., although we are the worst example in the developed world. It is a profound geopolitical shift with immense implications for every aspect of life. There is a small group of transnational people who quite literally live in a different world. Historically social unrest has always followed such extreme distortions. Click through to see the important charts that accompany this survey.

Worldwide, Richest 3% Hold One-Fifth of Collective Income
GLENN PHELPS and STEVE CRABTREE – The Gallup Organization

Here is an excellent essay on the relevant issues in what, I think, is correctly called The Great Marijuana Experiment. What I find interesting so far is that although every prohibitionist is trolling for even the smallest possible problem in fact almost nothing has turned up.

The Great Marijuana Experiment: A Tale of Two Drug Wars
BRUCE BARCOTT – Rolling Stone

The details concerning the rise of the American police and security state beggar the imagination. Here is the latest from the Snowden documents. I think it has become so comprehensive that people find it hard to believe they are under this level of surveillance. It is one of the most reprehensible trends in the nation's history. Click through to see the images which help explain it.

Your USB Cable, the Spy: Inside the NSA’s Catalog of Surveillance Magic
Sean Gallagher, IT Editor – arstechnica

2014/01/042014/01/04

Berto Jongman: John Batelle’s Social IT Predictions

Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence

Predictions 2014: A Difficult Year To See

EXTRACT:

So what’s making it harder than usual to predict what might happen over the coming year? In a phrase, it’s global warming. I know, that’s not remotely the topic of this site, nor is it in any way a subject I can claim even a modicum of expertise. But as I bend to the work of a new year in our industry, I can’t help but wonder if our efforts to create a better world through technology are made rather small when compared to the environmental alarm bells going off around the globe.

LIST ONLY:

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: John Batelle's Social IT Predictions”

2014/01/042014/01/04

Yoda: Nick Romeo in Daily Beast – Big Data Does Not Live Up to the Hype

IO Impotency

Smart, Romeo is.

Why Big Data Doesn’t Live up to the Hype

A new book heralds the promise that big data will reveal more and more about how we live our lives and what we think, but is it really that useful?

EXTRACTS:

It’s easy to exaggerate the importance of what such a tool could discover. Sometimes it seems the only thing larger than big data is the hype that surrounds it. Within the first 30 pages of Uncharted: Big Data as a Lens on Human Culture, Erez Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel manage to compare themselves to Galileo and Darwin and suggest that they, too, are revolutionizing the world. The authors were instrumental in creating the Google Ngram viewer, which allows researchers or anyone else so inclined to explore the changing frequencies of words across time. Likening their creation to a cultural telescope, they proceed to share some of their ostensibly dazzling findings.

. . . . . . .

Ultimately, however, Aiden and Michel’s enthusiasm seems best explained by an Ngram that plots the relative frequency of the words “God” and “data.” Data eclipsed God in 1973, and its continuing ascendance suggests a culture that treats it as a surrogate divinity.

Read full article.

See Also:

Big Data @ Phi Beta Iota

HUMINT @ Phi Beta Iota

2014/01/042014/01/04

Berto Jongman: 10 Hopeful Happenings

Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

10 Hopeful Things That Happened in 2013 to Get You Inspired for What’s to Come

Beyond the headlines of conflict and catastrophe, this year’s top stories offered us some powerful proof that the world can still change—for the better

by Sarah van Gelder

Common Dreams, 4 January 2014

LIST ONLY:

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: 10 Hopeful Happenings”

2014/01/042014/01/04

Patrick Cockburn: Hazards of Revolution — and Counter-Revolution

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

Hazards of Revolution

Patrick Cockburn

London Review of Books, 9 January 2014

EXTRACTS:

Why have oppositions in the Arab world and beyond failed so absolutely, and why have they repeated in power, or in pursuit of it, so many of the faults and crimes of the old regimes? The contrast between humanitarian principles expressed at the beginning of revolutions and the bloodbath at the end has many precedents, from the French Revolution on. But over the last twenty years in the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasus the rapid degradation of what started as mass uprisings has been particularly striking.

. . . . . . .

The inability of new governments across the Middle East to end the violence can be ascribed to a simple-minded delusion that most problems would vanish once democracies had replaced the old police states. Opposition movements, persecuted at home and often living a hand to mouth existence in exile, half-believed this and it was easy to sell to foreign sponsors. A great disadvantage of this way of seeing things was that Saddam, Assad and Gaddafi were so demonised it became difficult to engineer anything approaching a compromise or a peaceful transition from the old to a new regime.

. . . . . . .

So the insurgencies in the Middle East face immense difficulties, and they have faltered, stalled, been thrown on the defensive or apparently defeated. But without the rest of the world noticing, one national revolution in the region is moving from success to success.

Read full article.

Continue reading “Patrick Cockburn: Hazards of Revolution — and Counter-Revolution”

2014/01/042014/01/04

Chuck Spinney: Neutral Jews? Not Today, Not Ever

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

The Uri Avnery has written a simple and profound portrait of how the differing narratives have hijacked the Orientations in the OODA loops of all the players in the Arab – Israeli conflict, including particularly the self-styled ‘honest brokers' in the United States, as well as the belligerents in the Arab – Israeli Conflict. IMO, that is why he concludes the intractability of the conflict a fundamentally a psychiatric problem, at least in so far as one believes the fiction there such a thing as a ‘peace process' being promoted by the United States.

I agree with Avnery's diagnosis. His subject is one of incestuous amplification the OODA loop and how it guarantees at mad rush to folly — process that I explained and explored the consequences of in The Madness of King George Revisited. This goes to heart of America's problem that prevents American citizens from understanding the real conflict of interests that is driving this conflict. The author has credibility: Uri Avnery is Israel's leading peace activist, a former member of the Knesset, and a hero of the 1948 War. CS

The Perception Gap

Neutral – in Whose Favor?

by URI AVNERY, Counterpunch, JANUARY 3-5, 2014

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Neutral Jews? Not Today, Not Ever”

2014/01/042014/01/04

Berto Jongman: Bits, Bytes, & Stuff 1.4

Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

Academics Against Mass Surveillance

AL QAEDA: Benghazi Terrorist Sought: Muhammad Jamal

AL QAEDA: Bin Laden Alive! (We Do Not Make This Stuff Up!)

The fact that the US never gave proof of his death keeps these stories alive.

Phi Beta Iota: Bin Laden died in 2001. He was then resurrected (stand-ins) at least three times (four counting the Abbottabad patsy) and also photoshopped, e.g. meeting with Condi Rice.

Click on Image to Enlarge

See Also: The Bin Laden Show Updated 2014-01-04