I've been following the story about the scientists who have been working to figure out how H5N1 bird flu might become transmissible from human to human, the controversial research they used to study that question, and the federal recommendations that are now threatening to keep that research under wraps. This is a pretty complicated issue, and I want to take a minute to help you all better understand what's going on, and what it means. It's a story that encompasses not just public health and science ethics, but also some of the debates surrounding free information and the risk/benefit ratio of open-source everything.
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I make the same argument today that we made in 2005 — publishing those experiments without the details is akin to censorship, and counter to science, progress and public health. … Giving the full details to vetted scientists is neither practical nor sufficient. Once 20–30 laboratories with postdoctoral fellows and students have such information available, it will be impossible to keep the details secret. Even more troublesome, however, is the question of who should decide which scientists are allowed to have the information. We need more people to study this potentially dangerous pathogen, but who will want to enter a field in which you can't publish your most scientifically interesting results?
Phi Beta Iota: From 1990-1994 various parties tried to censor Peter Black, Winn Schwartau, Robert Steele, and others laying out the grave dangers that lay in cyberspace if the US Government continued to be stupid about it. In 1994 Steele finally assembled a one billion dollar a year budget from four world-class experts and delivered it to Marty Harris. Nothing was done. Secrecy kills. Secrecy not only keeps vital information from being shared with those able to do something about it whom we do NOT know beforehand, but secrecy also allows grotesquely inept and unethical programs to survive absent accountability.
A: Community, and the social capital that weaves it together.
In my husband’s Latvian community, they have a concept similar to barnraising called “talka,” which describes collective volunteer work for the good of society and environment.
Several times a year we come together at our camp in the Catskill Mountains, and everybody chips in to maintain the property – clearing branches, building bridges, fixing roofs, painting, and whatever else needs to get done. No one gets paid for it (unless you count food, beer, and bonfires as payment), yet everyone helps.
Why?
Because we’re invested in ourselves and each other and are stakeholders in our community and believe that preserving and cultivating our culture matters.
So. How does that ethic translate to online community, and can we show that we have one?
**Let’s intentcast to bootstrap Creative Economy 3.0**
The Internet is in an uproar over proposed U.S. Senate bill Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and it's corresponding bill in the House, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). Among other consequences, these bills would lead to blocking websites (the way China does), and stopping ads & Visa/Mastercard payments to them, simply by alleging – not proving – that they are engaging in, enabling or facilitating copying content illegally. This and other features of the bills are so broad that many in the technology world have been organizing against the bills, concerned that they are an extreme overreaction which would greatly inhibit free speech and fair competition. Protest before Congress' annual winter break (including a mass defection from domain name registrar GoDaddy for their support of the bills) have slowed things down enough for many more people to get involved. As Congress reconvenes, a number of large websites plan to shut down for half the day on January 18, to raise awareness on the issue. Wikipedia may join in, which would obviously gain a lot of people's attention, and Anonymous has already signed on:
When Mark Perry, writing for the CFR, considered the most conservative and certainly the largest American think tank accused Israel of using CIA credentials for recruiting terrorists, particularly against Iran, I nearly fell of my chair.
I had known about this all along. The operations, based in Balochistan, were done by the Mossad with support from Britain’s MI 6 and operational support supplied by Blackwater.
The project head at Blackwater is a friend who was not briefed that he was supporting an illegal terrorist organization.
This web site honors Dr. Martin Luther King by pointing to specific links beginning with the first in isolation: he was assassinated by his own government. Truth & Reconciliation are the order of the day, but the reconciliation cannot begin until the truth is known to the full public.
Bin Laden died in 2001; several fakes followed. The last Bin Laden was a patsy provided by the government of Pakistan to give Leon Panetta and Barack Obama a re-election bonanza. The SEALS figured it out and were killed over time. For Hillary Clinton to claim this as some kind of “qualification” simply sickens me. We are being led by the criminally insane.
NOTE: The Bin Laden Show is a series of many links to enable the readers to cull out the ones that matter to them. We are “sharing our confusion” and relying on the collective for additional sense-making. All the individual bits are back-dated to be in sequence from 0000 1 May, this is the only post that will move forward as it is updated. To scroll them all in reverse order, use this search <Bin Laden Show>
Phi Beta Iota: This is not correct. Bin Laden was used by politicians and the military-industrial complex to justify trillions in war-related expenses, generally co-equal to the trillion a year the US Government has been borrowing “in our name.” Immature intelligence and a lack of integrity in Whole of Government programs cost us trillions. As we document in both a chapter and a book, terrorism is a traffic accident. It is bad government that ends up costing us trillions.
There were no armed guards around the compound, said a U.S. official who asked not to be identified because the official was not authorized to speak on the record.
Image of bloodied man picked up by British newspapers has been circulating online for two years
Essence: Pictures of Bin Laden’s bloodied and shattered face were broadcast on Pakistani television, and soon found to be fake. Within hours of the pictures circulating, the US announced it hadburied the body at seain accordance with Muslim rules [actually not]. [Another report says US State Department claims to have the body.] US claims to have known of this location since August 2010. Others have documented Bin Laden's death years ago. Seal Team Six deep inland? Launched from where?
Phi Beta Iota: Who are we kidding? The gullibility and ignorance of the US public is quite troubling. Resurrect the dead, fake the death, exit Afghanistan as demanded by Pakistan. The truth will emerge eventually, meanwhile, Obama buys time for the “system” to win four more years from a population that has lost its ability to think. As a general observation, the 2001 reports of Bin Laden's death could possibly have been a Pakistani disinformation campaign, but the combination of lung and urinary tract and other infections Bin Laden was known to have could have spawned multiple variations of his death (or not), his death and a pretense he was still alive, etcetera. From where we sit until proven otherwise, this is a massive deception of the US public–Dick Cheney would be proud–and if Bin Laden was actually delivered (we tend to doubt it)–it was a Pakistani gift not the result of US intelligence. The Pakistani Air Force is neither stupid nor ill-equipped–US helicopters–including “stealth” helicopters–coming all the way in to Islamabad's suburbs from Afghanistan had to have clearance. There are just too many dangling doubts on this, including double-tap to the face instead of the body. High probability: not Bin Laden at all, or a decomposed corpse to begin with.
Interview with James Corbett. Comparison of Bin Laden with Lee Harvey Oswald–and stark absence of evidence–while validating extra-judicial assassinations (including Libyan leadership). Buries “War on Terror” as US covert operations false flag threat.
Phi Beta Iota: Many links. Not an intelligent skeptical question in the lot. This is a classic deception that seeks to bury the truth about 9/11 while enabling an exit from Afghanistan as demanded by Pakistan.
Phi Beta Iota: This is absurd. How can anyone with a brain buy into this fiction? This was staged in a Pakistani military resort town because it could not be done in Waziristan. It is highly unlikely that Bin Laden was actually here, 1.3 kilometers from the national military academy, the town would have known. At this time, all “evidence” points to a US deception operation fabricated in full partnership with the Pakistani's who donated a general officer's retreat and–if Bin Laden was there–put him in for the one night show in return for a US commitment to claim victory and leave Afghanistan. 9-11 truths remain to be brought forth.
This is Where Osama Was Hiding, According to Google Maps
