Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 1954 – Public Intelligence Blog

Subject: Fukushima update

http://www.change.org/petitions/west-coast-senators-investigate-the-ongoing-danger-from-the-fukushima-nuclear-reactors

Dear Friends,

Bad news continues to pour out of Fukushima-Daiichi. The first article below discusses the impact of F-D radiation on Canadian flora and fauna. The second details the involvement of the Japanese Mafia, the Yakuza, in the containment/cleanup process. The third describes TEPCO's mounting financial losses, as they struggle to keep on top of the problems of contaminated groundwater, electrical outages, etc., move ahead with taking the rods out of the dangerous spent fuel pools, and deal with the many lawsuits arising from the disaster. TEPCO has admitted culpability, so has to pay the victims.

Clearly, the situation is out of control. The US needs to lead the way in rallying international support for the crippled plant,- it's more than Japan can handle. A Senate investigation would be a first step in making that happen. Please continue to circulate this petition. Anyone can sign it!

http://www.change.org/petitions/west-coast-senators-investigate-the-ongoing-danger-from-the-fukushima-nuclear-reactors

Peace, Carol Wolman, MD

Continue reading “John Steiner: Fukushima Update — Worse, Uglier, Worry More…. + Fukushima & US Nuclear RECAP”

2013/05/092013/05/09

Jon Rappoport: Every TV Newscast is Theater — Keeping Your Mind Small

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Idiocy, Media

Every television newscast is a staged event

by Jon Rappoport

May 9, 2013

www.nomorefakenews.com

EXTRACT

It would never occur to him to wonder: are the squabbling political legislators really two branches of the same Party? Does government have the Constitutional right to incur this much debt? Where is all that money coming from? Taxes? Other sources? Who invents money?

Is the flu dangerous for most people? If not, why not? Do governments overstate case numbers? How do they actually test patients for the flu? Are the tests accurate? Are they just trying to convince us to get vaccines?

What happens when the government has overwhelming force and citizens have no guns?

When the researchers keep saying “may” and “could,” does that mean they’ve actually discovered something useful about Autism, or are they just hyping their own work and trying to get funding for their next project?

These are only a few of the many questions the typical viewer never considers.

Therefore, every story on the news broadcast achieves the goal of keeping the context small and narrow—night after night, year after year. The overall effect of this, yes, staging, is small viewer, small viewer’s mind, small viewer’s understanding.

Billions of dollars are spent by the networks to build a reality the size of a room in a cheap motel.

Read full article.

2013/05/09

Graphic: Youth Unemployment by Region — Worst Ever

03 Economy, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Government

Source

2013/05/09

Berto Jongman: Russian Special Oprations Expansion

Military

Russia's New Tip of the Spear

What's got the Kremlin so worried that it created a Special Operations Command?

Dmitri Trenin

Foreign Policy, 8 May 2013

Addressing the Russian National Security Council meeting on May 8, President Vladimir Putin said that the forthcoming departure of U.S. and coalition forces from Afghanistan confronts Russia with a more precarious situation on its southern borders. Valery Gerasimov, Russia's chief of the General Staff since November 2012, who was also present at the meeting, had announced last month the formation of a Special Operations Command — Russia's version of SOCOM. According to Gen. Gerasimov, the new command will include a special forces brigade, a training center, and helicopter and air transportation squadrons. These forces will be used exclusively outside Russian territory, including in U.N.-mandated operations. Creation of a separate SOCOM is not a new idea; it had been presented to Anatoly Serdyukov, who retired last fall as defense minister amid allegations of corruption in the Ministry of Defense (MOD), and who rejected it. The new minister, Sergei Shoigu, decided differently. What's behind this about face?

As Russia proceeds with its defense modernization, it's following the general trend toward specialization and enhanced mobility. Conflicts that have erupted since the end of the Cold War have put a premium on operations by relatively small and agile forces capable of engaging the enemy at a considerable distance, with no warning and deadly effectiveness. Such units existed in the days of the Cold War, too, but their role in World War III scenarios (that the Russian military is still largely built for) was essentially auxiliary to the tactical nuclear strikes and armored forces operations. With the dramatic change of the enemy and of the combat environment, special forces can play a more central role, critical to achieving success.

Read full article.

2013/05/09

22-23 May 2013 University of Maryland Human-Computer Interaction Lab-Conference

Advanced Cyber/IO

The University of Maryland's Human-Computer Interaction Lab's 30th Annual Symposium:
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Thursday, May 23, 2013
www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/soh

HCIL's 30th Annual Symposium will consider the future of social media, networks, medical informatics, information visualization, interaction design, children, games, education, HCI design methods, tangible computing, accessibility, and MORE! Learn more about the HCIL's research at the UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND through talks, tutorials, workshops, demos and posters.

Program:
Wednesday, May 22: Keynotes, talks in parallel with workshops and tutorials
Thursday, May 23: Demos, talks in parallel with workshops and tutorials

Attendees can focus on suggested tracks or sample talks from all topics. Sample tracks include:

* Education & Games
* HCI & Design
* Medical Informatics & Visualization
* Social Media & Networks

Please see below for suggested tracks:

Continue reading “22-23 May 2013 University of Maryland Human-Computer Interaction Lab-Conference”

2013/05/09

Mini-Me: Air Force Nuclear Rotten; Nuclear Budget Waste to Point of Treason — Where, We Ask, Does the Buck Stop on This Nonsense?

08 Proliferation, Corruption, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military

Huh?

AP Exclusive: Air Force sidelines 17 nuclear missile officers; commander cites ‘rot’ in system

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel demanded more information Wednesday after the Air Force removed 17 launch officers from duty at a nuclear missile base in North Dakota over what a commander called “rot” in the force. The Air Force struggled to explain, acknowledging concern about an “attitude problem” but telling Congress the weapons were secure.

Huh, Huh?

Proponents of ‘First Strike’ Nuclear War against Iran ROB BILLIONS from Their Own Citizens: Multibillion War Budgets

While the Pentagon’s modernization budget for the pre-emptive nuclear option is a modest ten billion dollars (excluding the outlay by NATO countries). the budget for upgrading the US arsenal of “strategic nuclear offensive forces” is a staggering $352 billion over ten years. (See Russell Rumbaugh and Nathan Cohn,“Resolving Ambiguity: Costing Nuclear Weapons,” Stimson Center Report, June 2012).

These multi-billion military outlays allocated to develop“bigger and better nuclear bombs” are financed by the massive economic austerity measures currently applied in US and NATO countries.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Air Force Nuclear Rotten; Nuclear Budget Waste to Point of Treason — Where, We Ask, Does the Buck Stop on This Nonsense?”

2013/05/092013/05/09

Stephen E. Arnold: A Fresh Look at Big Data & Big Data (-) Human Factor (+) Transformation (+) RECAP

Access, Advanced Cyber/IO, Architecture, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Design, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Key Players, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Strategy, Threats

A Fresh Look at Big Data

May 8, 2013

Next week I am doing an invited talk in London. My subject is search and Big Data. I will be digging into this notion in this month’s Honk newsletter and adding some business intelligence related comments at an Information Today conference in New York later this month. (I have chopped the number of talks I am giving this year because at my age air travel and the number of 20 somethings at certain programs makes me jumpy.)

I want to highlight one point in my upcoming London talk; namely, the financial challenge which companies face when they embrace Big Data and then want to search the information in the system and search the Big Data system’s outputs.

Notice that precision and recall has not improved significantly over the last 30 years. I anticipate that many search vendors will tell me that their systems deliver excellent precision and recall. I am not convinced. The data which I have reviewed show that over a period of 10 years most systems hit the 80 to 85 percent precision and recall level for content which is about a topic. Content collections composed of scientific, technical, and medical information where the terminology is reasonably constrained can do better. I have seen scores above 90 percent. However, for general collections, precision and recall has not been improving relative to the advances in other disciplines; for example, converting structured data outputs to fancy graphics.

I don’t want to squabble about precision and recall. The main point is that when an organization mashes Big Data with search, two curves must be considered. The first is the complexity curve. The idea is that search is a reasonably difficult system to implement in an effective manner. The addition of a Big Data system adds another complex task. When two complex tasks are undertaken at the same time, the costs go up.

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: A Fresh Look at Big Data & Big Data (-) Human Factor (+) Transformation (+) RECAP”