Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 1937 – Public Intelligence Blog

2013/05/212013/05/21

Koko: Infectious Disease — Not War Of Our Own Making — Should Be Our Top Priority Along with Poverty

Foolish humans — one trillion dollar virus in gestation.

China's bird flu outbreak cost $6.5 billion

(Reuters) – The H7N9 virus appears to have been brought under control in China largely due to restrictions at bird markets, but caused some $6.5 billion in losses to the economy, U.N. experts said on Tuesday.

Health authorities worldwide must be on the lookout to detect the virus, the experts said, which could still develop the ability to spread easily among humans and cause a deadly influenza pandemic.

The new bird flu virus is known to have infected 130 people in mainland China since emerging in March, including 36 who died, but no cases have been detected since early May, Health Minister Li Bin told a meeting of the World Health Organization. One case was found in Taiwan in April, making a total of 131.

“The immediate outbreak has been controlled, but it is also unlikely that virus has simply disappeared. We believe we need go another autumn/winter/spring season to know,” said Keiji Fukuda, WHO assistant director-general for health security.

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2013/05/212013/05/21

Berto Jongman & Jan Rappoport: Question Authority? You Must Be Crazy.

Collective Intelligence, Corruption, Culture, Government, Offbeat Fun

In the Dutch media there wqs a discussion today about an opinion poll about support for conspiracy theories organized by a Dutch university research group. The researchers used the same arguments as in the NYT piece. If you ask sensible questions and don't believe the official narrative you must be crazy and have low self worth.

Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories

MAGGIE KOERTH-BAKER

New York Times, May 21, 2013

Phi Beta Iota: The only useful part of the NYT article is this first comment by a sane person:

Pat Nyack, NY. Part of the conspiracy cohort is made up of those of us who grew up during Watergate; the lies told about the number of enemy deaths during the Viet Nam war; the actions of major corporations in places like Chile in the 70's and 80's. Some of us stood in public spaces in the heart of our universities with the guns of the National Guard trained on us. These were all factual happenings, many uncovered and reported on by this very paper. Our childhood was built upon the illusion that America was mostly just a large Mayberry. These revelations shook our basic beliefs right to the ground. It's hard to step back from that cliff once you've been pushed to the edge of it.

Authorities Never Have “Issues with Authority”

May 21, 2013

www.nomorefakenews.com

It’s simple. Authorities invented the idea that other people have issues with authority.

Psychiatrists rank right up there among the elitists setting the standards. They, for example, have concocted a little fictional doodad called Oppositional Defiance Disorder. And magically, they never accuse their professional colleagues of having it. No.

Why should they? They amuse themselves by deciding when civilians are overly defiant and need pacification (drugs).

But we’re also talking about character structure here, because psychiatrists turn out to be exactly the people who want to slap labels like ODD on others. They like that. So they labor in universities and hospitals and earn their degrees and state-issued licenses, knowing that soon they will have that power.

Having gained it, there is nothing to be defiant about. They’re sitting on top of the heap, which they call science.

It’s quite a racket.

Full post below the line — both humorous and frightening.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman & Jan Rappoport: Question Authority? You Must Be Crazy.”

2013/05/212013/05/21

Eagle: Benghazi Testimony Forthcoming – Ambassador Stevens Buying Back Weapons Given to Al Qaeda by State for Libya Take-Down — General Ham Directly Ordered Not to Rescue

Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military

300 Million Talons... — 300 Million Talons…

PJM EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Diplomats Report New Benghazi Whistleblowers with Info Devastating to Clinton and Obama

More whistleblowers will emerge shortly in the escalating Benghazi scandal, according to two former U.S. diplomats who spoke with PJ Media Monday afternoon.

These whistleblowers, colleagues of the former diplomats, are currently securing legal counsel because they work in areas not fully protected by the Whistleblower law.

According to the diplomats, what these whistleblowers will say will be at least as explosive as what we have already learned about the scandal, including details about what really transpired in Benghazi that are potentially devastating to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The former diplomats inform PJM the new revelations concentrate in two areas — what Ambassador Chris Stevens was actually doing in Benghazi and the pressure put on General Carter Ham, then in command of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and therefore responsible for Libya, not to act to protect jeopardized U.S. personnel.

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2013/05/212013/05/21

Tom Atlee: Doing Democracy Differently

Civil Society, Culture, Ethics, Government

Doing democracy differently

In Is Democracy in Trouble? E.J. Dionne describes major studies suggesting that “Across most of the democratic world, there is an impatience bordering on exhaustion with electoral systems and political classes” because governments don’t follow the will of “the people”.

It would be one thing if governments made wiser decisions than what “the people” want. But they so seldom do. Usually they make decisions that favor special interests regardless of the common good.

It saddens me that this is framed as people losing faith in democracy. I don’t think governments that act this way are good examples of democracy. I’m also not sure that such a system can be fixed within a corrupted democratic process.

There are other ways to do democracy. Most people don’t realize that ancient Athenians – our alleged democratic forebears – were radically in favor of random selection and opposed to voting for representatives. They figured that aristocrats would dominate any electoral system. (Sound familiar?) Aristotle summarized their view, saying “It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot [random selection]; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election.”

Although John Adams and James Madison (the first and fourth US Presidents) may not have been aware of the use of random selection in democracy, they did make statements that sound like it. Adams said that a legislature “should be an exact portrait, in miniature, of the people at large, as it should think, feel, reason, and act like them.” And Madison added that “The government ought to possess… the mind or sense of the people at large. The legislature ought to be the most exact transcript of the whole society.”

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2013/05/212013/05/21

Berto Jongman: EU Loses One Trillion a Year to Tax Evasion — Comment on the Tax Gap, the Information-Sharing Gap, and the Legitimacy Gap

Ethics, Government

EU tax: Barroso urges full automatic exchange of data

The head of the European Commission has told the European Parliament he wants EU-wide exchange of income data as part of the fight against tax evasion.

Jose Manuel Barroso said he would urge Wednesday's summit of EU leaders to support automatic exchange of people's earnings data between tax authorities.

Tax evasion costs EU states 1tn euros ($1.3tn; £0.85tn) a year, more than was spent on healthcare in 2008.

MEPs are expected to call for a Europe-wide blacklist of tax havens.

Pressure is likely to be put on Switzerland to relax banking secrecy amid anger over revelations about Greek and French politicians holding secret Swiss bank accounts.

The debate comes a day after UK Prime Minister David Cameron urged British overseas territories which operate low-tax regimes to “get their house in order” and sign up to international treaties on tax.

Mr Barroso said he wanted to see the principle of automatic exchange “become the standard at international level as well”.

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2013/05/212013/05/21

Neal Rauhauser: NDU Convergence Free Online Book

Advanced Cyber/IO

National Defense University’s Convergence

I have been writing on attention conservation for the last four years, having first heard of the concept within Bruce Sterling’s Viridian Design Notes. Sterling used this term as a label for an initial few lines of summary on each note, basically negative information regarding the content, permitting those who would not be interested to ‘conserve their attention’. I use the phrase more broadly, in the sense that we are overloaded by media, overloaded by data, and overloaded by a world that is about to change dramatically.

Part of my personal attention conservation this year has been an effort to take the time I used to spend on short, reactive social media – like Twitter – and redirect it into more weighty reading. I just finished the National Defense University’s Convergence: Illicit Networks and National Security in the Age of Globalization, and I strongly recommend this tome for anyone seeking to better understand the nature of conflict between hierarchies and networks.

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Contents

Chapters (Links to Each):

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2013/05/212013/05/24

Counter-Intelligence: Free New Film Online by Scott Noble; Links & Summary for Earlier Film The Power Principle (Also Free Online)

Cultural Intelligence

Of his films as a whole, John Stauber, the founder of the Center for Media and Democracy, stated:

“Metanoia is brilliantly pioneering the new film-making — incisive analysis, compelling sound and footage, fearless and independent reporting, and the aggregation of the best information out there into powerful, educational and free online feature films – all on a shoestring budget. Noble's films are dedicated to democracy; they fan the flames of non-violent, people-powered revolution”.

The title of the new film is “Counter-Intelligence” (‘Shining a light on black operations'). It is made up of 5 parts, viewable here (all Vimeo links, all free online):

1. The Company

2. The Deep State

3. The Strategy of Tension

4. Necrophilous

5. Drone Nation

The film includes original interviews with:

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