Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 2146 – Public Intelligence Blog

OpenBTS stands for Open Base Transciever Station. It is the foundation for free cellular service and Internet access. Ham radio operators were the first hackers, with active government repression until the government finally got a brain on this issue — ignorance always leads people with power lacking in integrity to do stupid things. Now OpenBTS is the “root” open (see a list of most but not all opens below) and is a vital part of creating the Autonomous Internet, providing a grid for Liberation Technology, and making possible the creation of the World Brain and Global Game that unleaches the brain entrepreneurship of the five billion poor whose annual aggregate income is four trillion dollars, four times that of the one billion rich.

open-phone-diy-inside — Click on Image to Enlarge

$250 Device Global Maps & Text Messages

CONNECT First, the Collective Intelligence Will Happen Naturally

Freedom Box Reflections

Graphic: M4IS2 OpenBTS, Call Centers, Diasphora

John Robb: OpenBTS Village Base Station

Kickstart the Freedom Box–Micro-Giving Rocks!

open-phone-diy — Click on Image to Enlarge

Mini-Me: Do-It-Yourself Cell Phones – A Tipping Point for Humanity

OpenBSC & OpenBTS

OpenBTS at Burning Man: Best Full Story

OpenBTS Egypt — Need to Flesh Out OpenBTS USA

OpenBTS GSM Simplified — Freeing Humanity

OpenMoko, OpenBTS, Free Your Phone & Humanity

openbts station — Click on Image to Enlarge

Range Networks: The ONLY OpenBTS Real Deal

Reference: OpenBTS Open Access Cellular Ham Hack

Reference: OpenMoko Mobile Open SW & HW

Reference: Open Source Everything – List

Search: how to use openbts in individual phones

Search: self made mobile device

UN Declares Internet Access a Human Right…

UN + Start-Up Seek to Get Poor Online with Cell Numbers

Big Picture Implications of OpenBTS:

Continue reading “Search: openbts [as of 30 Oct 2012]”

2012/10/292012/10/29

Worth A Look: BIll Moyers Interviews Neil Barofsky and David Stockman on Crony Capitalism and the Washington Version of Soften Your Stance, Get Gold; Keep Your Integrity, Get a Bullet

Commerce, Corruption, Government

Bill Moyers and Neil Barofsky 26 October 2012

Neil Barofsky, Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street (Free Press, 2012)

Bill Moyers and David Stockman, 21 January 2012

Charles H. Ferguson, Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America (Crown Business, 2012)

2012/10/292012/10/29

Chuck Spinney: Mike Lofgren on How Democracies Die (Loss of Integrity)

Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence

Below is an outstanding essay by my close friend and colleague Mike Lofgren.

How Democracies Die

By Mike Lofgren,

Truthout | Thursday, 25 October 2012 10:19

“Picture a country at the height of its international power and prestige. It has military forces stationed around the globe. It is an intellectual leader….” It's not the one you're thinking of.

Picture a country at the height of its international power and prestige. It has military forces stationed around the globe. It is an intellectual leader. Its citizens are pleased to insist that the national idea, their country's way of life, is a beacon of enlightenment and human rights for the rest of the world. Indeed, they are wont to harp on the notion that the country embodies the very concept of Western Civilization.

But beneath the façade of greatness there is creeping rot. The rich (who are accustomed to getting their way in all things) corrupt the system and buy the people's representatives in this venerable democracy. The country lurches towards political polarization and, predictably, the machinery of orderly governance becomes gridlocked. The politicians of the right, who take every opportunity to bellow for increased spending on the military, refuse to raise the revenues to pay for it. Why?

Because the wealthy citizens who happen to own these representatives refuse to pay a single cent in additional income taxes. Their class solidarity as alleged “‘job creators”‘ who are owed unconditional deference outweighs their loyalty to the nation at large. They successfully demand that even the crushing expense of a long war should be paid for by loans from abroad (the interest payments on which merely add to the expense) rather than by direct taxes from those citizens best able to afford them. Naturally, a growing share of the population develops a visceral sense that the system is rigged.

There is worse to come. There gradually coalesces a bitterly reactionary political alliance between the plutocratic rich; a retrograde religious Right seeking to roll back the secular state; hidebound militarists; and the species of glib, pseudo-intellectual malcontents who are drawn to political extremism like iron filings to a magnet. They all seek a purported restoration of a country that never existed: a pious, socially harmonious nation where everybody else knows their place. The political groupings of the center and left, on the other hand, are dithering, irresolute, and have not the courage of their own alleged convictions.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Mike Lofgren on How Democracies Die (Loss of Integrity)”

2012/10/292012/10/29

Paul Craig Roberts: Virtual Recovery, Bond Bubble, Inflation at 9%, Collapse Potential of Dollar

03 Economy, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government

The Virtual Recovery

October 29, 2012

Since mid-2009 the US has been enjoying a virtual recovery courtesy of a rigged inflation measure that understates inflation. The financial Presstitutes spoon out the government’s propaganda that prices are rising less than 2%. But anyone who purchases food, fuel, medical care or anything else knows that low inflation is no more real that Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction or Gadhafi’s alleged attacks on Libyan protesters or Iran’s nuclear weapons. Everything is a lie to serve the power-brokers.

During the Clinton administration, Republican economists pushed through a change in the way the CPI is measured in order to save money by depriving Social Security retirees of their cost-of-living adjustment. Previously, the CPI measured the change in the cost of a constant standard of living. The new measure assumes that consumers adjust to price increases by lowering their standard of living by substituting lower quality, lower priced items. If the price, for example, of New York strip steak goes up, consumers are assumed to substitute the lower quality round steak. In other words, the new measure of inflation keeps inflation down by reflecting a lowered standard of living.

Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com), who closely follows the collecting and reporting of official US economic statistics, reports that consumer inflation, as measured by the 1990 official government methodology has been running at about 5%. If the 1980 official methodology for measuring the CPI is used, John Williams reports that the current rate of US inflation is about 9%.

Read full article.

2012/10/292012/10/29

Marcus Aurelius: General Failure — Neil Sheehan Reviews Thomas Rick’s New Book Plus Chapter Extract

Corruption, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius

An adapted excerpt from this book, cued to me by a friend, can be found as indicated below, followed by Neil Sheehan's review of the book.

General Failure

Looking back on the troubled wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many observers are content to lay blame on the Bush administration. But inept leadership by American generals was also responsible for the failure of those wars. A culture of mediocrity has taken hold within the Army’s leadership rank—if it is not uprooted, the country’s next war is unlikely to unfold any better than the last two.

EXTRACT:

Relief of generals has become so rare that a private who loses his rifle is now punished more than a general who loses his part of the war.

. . . . . . .

To a shocking degree, the Army’s leadership ranks have become populated by mediocre officers, placed in positions where they are likely to fail. Success goes unrewarded, and everything but the most extreme failure goes unpunished, creating a perverse incentive system that drives leaders toward a risk-averse middle where they are more likely to find stalemate than victory.

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: General Failure — Neil Sheehan Reviews Thomas Rick's New Book Plus Chapter Extract”

2012/10/292012/10/29

DefDog: Benghazi: No Intelligence, No Integrity, No Answers PLUS Planted Story in Washington Times?

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Military

Integrity lost….again.

TRR: Is a General losing his job over Benghazi?

Washington Times, 28 October 2012

Is an American General losing his job for trying to save the Americans besieged in Benghazi? This is the latest potential wrinkle in the growing scandal surrounding the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack that left four men dead and President Obama scrambling for a coherent explanation.

On October 18, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta appeared unexpectedly at an otherwise unrelated briefing on “Efforts to Enhance the Financial Health of the Force.” News organizations and CSPAN were told beforehand there was no news value to the event and gave it scant coverage. In his brief remarks Mr. Panetta said, “Today I am very pleased to announce that President Obama will nominate General David Rodriguez to succeed General Carter Ham as commander of U.S. Africa Command.” This came as a surprise to many, since General Ham had only been in the position for a year and a half. The General is a very well regarded officer who made AFRICOM into a true Combatant Command after the ineffective leadership of his predecessor, General William E. “Kip” Ward. Later, word circulated informally that General Ham was scheduled to rotate out in March 2013 anyway, but according to Joint doctrine, “the tour length for combatant commanders and Defense agency directors is three years.” Some assumed that he was leaving for unspecified personal reasons.

Read full article.

Continue reading “DefDog: Benghazi: No Intelligence, No Integrity, No Answers PLUS Planted Story in Washington Times?”

2012/10/292012/10/29

SmartPlanet: Gap in Weather Satellites [While Secret World Spends Madly]

Advanced Cyber/IO, Commerce, Government, Ineptitude, Military

In the future, Hurricane Sandy is invisible

By Tyler Falk | October 28, 2012, 7:28 AM PDT

With 60 million people expected to be impacted by Hurricane Sandy, days of advanced notice have allowed the New York governor to issue a state of emergency, evacuations to take place along the Atlantic coast, and (at least in my Washington, D.C. neighborhood) residents to clear the grocery store shelves ahead of the storm’s dangerous surge. But soon weather forecasters might not be able to provide us with details and predictions of dangerous storms.That’s because there’s another looming problem in the United States that could be even bigger than Hurricane Sandy: dying satellites. The New York Times reports:

The United States is facing a year or more without crucial satellites that provide invaluable data for predicting storm tracks, a result of years of mismanagement, lack of financing and delays in launching replacements, according to several recent official reviews.

The looming gap in satellite coverage, which some experts view as almost certain within the next few years, could result in shaky forecasts about storms like Hurricane Sandy, which is expected to hit the East Coast early next week.

Continue reading “SmartPlanet: Gap in Weather Satellites [While Secret World Spends Madly]”