Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 1784 – Public Intelligence Blog

This ought to be fairly self-evident. That it isn't tells us something about our media and the American voters, neither very complimentary. It should also be noted that the Republican Party has been doing everything in its power to destroy the Unions. If you are a working person and you vote Republican, I'm sorry, you're nuts. Anyone who cares about the middle class ou! ght to support Unions, and here is the evidence.

The Middle Class Does Better In States With Lots Of Union Members
ALAN PYKE – Think Progress

The middle class brings home a substantially larger share of aggregate earnings in states that have high rates of union membership than in those where fewer workers are organized, a Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF) analysis of Census data shows. Amid very high and still increasing income inequality, union density appears to offer some buffer for middle-class Americans.

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2013/09/24

4th Media: 80 Percent of U.S. Adults Face Near-Poverty, Unemployment

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government

80 Percent of U.S. Adults Face Near-Poverty, Unemployment

Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.

Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.

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2013/09/24

4th Media: Saudi Intelligence Behind Chemical Attacks in Syria

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Peace Intelligence

Saudi Intelligence Behind Chemical Attacks in Syria But Unfortunately Nobody Will Dare Say That

A senior United Nations official who deals directly with Syrian affairs has told Al-Akhbar that the Syrian government had no involvement in the alleged Ghouta chemical weapons attack: “Of course not, he (President Bashar al-Assad) would be committing suicide.”

When asked who he believed was responsible for the use of chemical munitions in Ghouta, the UN official, who would not permit disclosure of his identity, said: “Saudi intelligence was behind the attacks and unfortunately nobody will dare say that.” The official claims that this information was provided by rebels in Ghouta.

Read full article with many links.

2013/09/232013/09/23

Nandan Nilekani: Digital Indian — And Unique # for Every Citizen

Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

Digital Indians: Nandan Nilekani

By Soutik Biswas BBC News, Delhi

Nandan Nilekani moved from working in business to government (Illustrator: Sumit Kumar)

When Nandan Nilekani began working on providing a unique identification number to half of India's billion-plus people four years ago, he ran into a wall of problems.

The main criticism was that 120bn rupees(£1.72bn; $1.89bn) project was also the world's biggest biometric exercise.

Not surprisingly Mr Nilekani, info-tech whizz turned head of the Unique Identification Authority of India, faced tough questions over access and misuse of personal information, surveillance, profiling, securing of confidential information by the government and threats of budget cuts. A parliamentary panel even trashed the idea, saying it would be “misused”.

Read full story.

2013/09/23

Stephen E. Arnold: Coping with News Filters

Advanced Cyber/IO

How to Cope with News Filtering

Ten years ago, I subscribed to traditional newspapers. Each morning I worked through the Courier Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Today I rely on the information available to me without charge from various online services.

On two recent research projects, I made a surprising discovery. In this Honk article I want to highlight some of the information services I have to use to get a reasonably complete, unfiltered, current view of certain topics. If I want to learn about the Kardashians or the Miley Cyrus twerking video, I can use Ask.com news, Bing news, Google news and Yahoo news. If I want information about Anthony Weiner’s wife or a fellow with three aliases or akas, I have to use multiple systems.

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2013/09/23

Marcus Aurelius: Islamic Seat on UN Security Council

Peace Intelligence

A frightening prospect if there ever was one…

3. Islamic Bloc Wants Permanent Seat on Security Council

The Islamic world should be granted permanent member status on the United Nations Security Council, according to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation's secretary-general.

At a recent speech in Moscow, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu asserted that the 57-member OIC, the largest international organization outside the U.N., deserves “a new position.”

“I think there should be a seat for OIC in the Security Council,” he said. “If you look to the structure of the Council today, you have the [five permanent members] and there are representatives of different civilizations, different cultures, political powers.

“But you won't find a representative of more than 1.6 billion people of the Muslin world.”

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2013/09/232013/09/23

SchwartzReport: Parks Make Us Smarter

Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

Benjamin Franklin understood the truth this report discusses. In his will of 1789, Franklin left money for the building of parks to Boston and Philadelphia, because he believed that creating aesthetic public spaces created greater comity in the community. More than two centuries later we are still learning this lesson.

Parks Make us Smarter – Science Proves It!

HENRY GRABAR – Salon

Last year, a group of Edinburgh architecture researchers asked a dozen students to take a walk. They began on a tree-lined shopping drag, turned along the tranquil northern edge of the Meadows, one of the city’s larger parks, and wound up in a busy commercial district some half-hour later. The pastoral section of an otherwise urban jaunt, the researchers found, induced a significant increase in meditative thinking.

This may not strike you as a novel discovery. Thanks to Henry Thoreau’s trip to Walden Pond, Teddy Roosevelt’s sojourn in the Badlands, and America’s other legends of retreat, the idea that nature has restorative powers is deeply embedded in our culture. Science is in support: A raft of studies credit bucolic settings with reducing aggression, alleviating depression, and improving mental function.

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