Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 1955 – Public Intelligence Blog

Posted By Joshua Keating Wednesday, May 8, 2013 – 3:39 PM Share

A new paper on the peer-reviewed online journal First Monday summarizes the results of a project to use geographic data gathered from Tweets to create a picture of the world according to Twitter.

The researches, led by GDELT co-creator Kalev Leetaru, used the Twitter decahose, a massive feed of 10 percent of all tweets, access to which is normally sold at high price to marketers. The project covers the period of the Oct. 23, 2102, to November 30, 2012. During this time, 1,535,929,521 tweets were streamed from 71,273,997 unique users — about 2.8 terabytes worth of data. But only about 3.04 percent of those contained geolocation data — either exact coordinates from mobile phones or user-selected locations. All the same, that's an awful lot of geographical information, and allowed the authors to create this map of a month in the life of Twitter (Bigger, high-resolution version here):

. . . . . . . . .

The plenty more in the paper itself, including list of the world's most retweeted cities. Not surprisingly, New York City is number one, but I was surprised to see that my current hometown, Washington D.C., didn't even crack the top 20, which includes some seemingly unlikely places as Riyadh, Porto Allegre, and San Antonio. Guess we're not the center of the world after all.

Read full article with additional graphics.

2013/05/09

Marcus Aureleus: From 1 to 10 Camouflage Patterns – Study in Washington Redundancy & Waste — USAF Denies Spending $500M on Digital Cloak to Create Invisible Airmen

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military

With 10 patterns, U.S. military branches out on camouflage front

By David A. Fahrenthold,

Washington Post, Published: May 8, 2013

In 2002, the U.S. military had just two kinds of camouflage uniforms. One was green, for the woods. The other was brown, for the desert.Then things got strange.

Today, there is one camouflage pattern just for Marines in the desert. There is another just for Navy personnel in the desert. The Army has its own “universal” camouflage pattern, which is designed to work anywhere. It also has another one just for Afghanistan, where the first one doesn’t work.

Even the Air Force has its own unique camouflage, used in a new Airman Battle Uniform. But it has flaws. So in Afghanistan, airmen are told not to wear it in battle.

In just 11 years, two kinds of camouflage have turned into 10. And a simple aspect of the U.S. government has emerged as a complicated and expensive case study in federal duplication.

Duplication is one of Washington’s most expensive traditions: Multiple agencies do the same job at the same time, and taxpayers pay billions for the government to repeat itself.

The habit remains stubbornly hard to break, even in an era of austerity. There are, for instance, at least 209 federal programs to improve science and math skills. There are 16 programs that teach personal finance.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: The above do not include the range of uniforms in black, brown, green, blue, and white. There is absolutely no truth to allegation that the USAF has spent $500M on an invisibility cloak for airmen. That is a DARPA project, ranked slightly higher in priority than the automated dog. Meanwhile, OmB (the Management is silent) continues to punch numbers without actually thinking about substance.

DuckDuckGo / DARPA invisibility cloak

2013/05/09

SchwartzReport: Obama Approves Radical Increase in “Acceptable” Radiation Exposure; Opting Out of Wall Street; and Algae-Powered Urban Building

Ethics

You read reports like this one and you realize once again how big a disconnect there is between what Obama and his administration say, and what they actually do. That a Republican administration would have been even worse is small comfort. As these sorts of acts make cl! ear both are corrupt and more interested in representing their corporate masters, then representing the best interests of the American people.

Obama Approves Raising Permissible Levels of Nuclear Radiation in Drinking Water
Staff of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility – Global Research

If you read SR regularly you know my views on the importance of creating Thriving and Resilient Communities if the middle class is to preserve a decent quality of life. Here is an excellent essay on alternatives to a world dominated by corporate special interests. This is good news

Opting Out of Wall Street and Building Sustainable, Resilient Communities: Remaking Finance
MARGARET FLOWERS and KEVIN ZEESE – Truthout

It can be done. We can build a different kind of world. It is not technology but attitude that has to change. As you read this contrast it with the piece on North Carolina in yesterday's edition.
Click through to see the pictures of the apartment building.

Algae-powered Apartment Complex Blooms in Hamburg
MATT HICKMAN – Mother Nature Network

2013/05/082013/05/08

Berto Jongman: Former Department of State Top Lawyer on How to End the Forever War

Ethics, Government

Three propositions:

(1) Disengage from Afghanistan
(2) Close Guantanamo
(3) Discipline Drones

“How to End the Forever War?”
Harold Hongju Koh

Oxford Union, Oxford, UK
May 7, 2013

EXTRACT:

My former professor and former Legal Adviser Abram Chayes once said, after he had sued the United States government from the academy, “I have always thought there is nothing
wrong with an American lawyer holding the United States to its own best standards.”

It is in that spirit that tonight, from this important podium, I call my country to its own best values and principles.

2013/05/082013/05/09

Mini-Me: US Air Force Unconstitutional? Justice Scalia Leads Majority Opinion — Could the Department of Homeland Security Also Be Unconstitutional? Plus ANON 1 Comment

Military, Offbeat Fun, Officers Call

Huh?

In Stunning 5-4 Decision, Supreme Court Declares Air Force Unconstitutional

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court, in a shocking decision, declared the U.S. Air Force unconstitutional earlier today.

EXTRACT:

After receiving briefs and hearing oral arguments, the Court retired for deliberations. After three months, the Justices announced their decision. The Air Force cannot constitutionally exist as an independent entity.

The majority, led by Justice Antonin Scalia, reasoned: “This question is very simple. We must look to the text of the Constitution. That text is clear by its absence. The Constitution, despite establishing the Army and Naval Forces, says absolutely nothing about the Air Force. Our inquiry must end there.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Kennedy elaborated, “the constitution is remarkably silent about any militarized air units. And it is not as if the drafters of the Constitution were unaware of flight. Lighter than air and dirigible technology were around at the time the constitution was written. If the founders knew about these things and did not enumerate Congress with the power to create an Air Force, we must assume that this is a power retained by the States as per the 10th Amendment.”

In a blistering dissent, Justice Ginsburg said, “this is just another instance of the conservative branch of the high court hiding behind textual originalism instead of going through the effort of making a sensible argument. This is judicial laziness which will have devastating effects down the road.”

The exact fate of personnel in the Air Force remains unclear. The President and the Department of Defense have released a vague press release, saying, “While [the Air Force’s] current form is unconstitutional, Justice Kennedy’s concurring opinion suggests that the Constitution would be open to a state-operated Air militia. We will be looking into a vast restructuring in order to comply with the mandates of the Constitution.”

According to an anonymous source at the Pentagon, there are whispers of, perhaps, rolling the Air Force back into the Army. This would reflect the constitutionally permissible subservience that the Marine Corps has with the Navy. If that is not far enough, some have said they’d be rolled back into the Signal Corps.

Read full article.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: US Air Force Unconstitutional? Justice Scalia Leads Majority Opinion — Could the Department of Homeland Security Also Be Unconstitutional? Plus ANON 1 Comment”

2013/05/08

Berto Jongman: YouTube 14:17) 2012 Corbett Report on Media Manipulation

Corruption, Media

Published on Jan 2, 2012

SOURCES AND TRANSCRIPT: http://www.corbettreport.com/?p=3588

As the US and Iranian governments escalate tensions in the already volatile Straits of Hormuz, and China and Russia begin openly questioning Washington's interference in their internal politics, the world remains on a knife-edge of military tension. Far from being a dispassionate observer of these developments, however, the media has in fact been central to increasing those tensions and preparing the public to expect a military confrontation. But as the online media rises to displace the traditional forms by which the public forms its understanding of the world, many are now beginning to see first hand how the media lies the public into war.

Learn more about the media manipulations behind the beginning of war in this week's GRTV backgrounder.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: YouTube 14:17) 2012 Corbett Report on Media Manipulation”

2013/05/08

Berto Jongman: Post-Industrial Journalism – A Report

Ethics, Media

From the Columbia Journalism School.

Post Industrial Journalism: Adapting to the Present

Conclusion:

More than any one strategy or capability, the core virtue in this environment is a commitment to adapting as the old certainties break and adopting the new capabilities we can still only partially understand, and to remember that the only reason any of this matters to more than the current employees of what we used to call the news industry is that journalism—real reporting, about whatever someone somewhere doesn’t want published—is an essential public good.

Category: Journal ISSN 1078-1935

Michael Kearns: Mapping the World with Tweets