Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 2971 – Public Intelligence Blog

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool used to evaluate the potential environmental impact of a product, process or activity throughout its entire life cycle by quantifying the use of resources (“inputs” such as energy, raw materials, water) and environmental emissions (“outputs” to air, water and soil) associated with the system that is being evaluated.

LCA is Not Risk Assessment. This is because LCA does not consider exposure, which is critical for assessing risk. LCA quantifies emissions, but the actual impacts of those emissions depend on when, where and how they are released into the environment.

Continue reading “Worth a Look: Life Cycle Assessment Made Simple”

2009/12/082009/12/08

Journal: Fight Over the Green North Ramps Up

Earth Intelligence

Arctic sea route to be renamed ‘Canadian Northwest Passage'

The Northeast Passage opens for business

In Greenland, warming fuels dream of hidden wealth

Greenland Takes a Step Towards Autonomy

TrendLines Poll: Should The Yukon Secede from Canada?

Toward North Corps: Nurturing the Spirit of Inuit Independence while Pre-empting a Movement for Inuit Secession

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2009/12/082009/12/08

Journal: Beyond Weber to Epoch B Leadership

IO Sense-Making

The Next Surge: Counterbureaucracy

Full Story Online

By JONATHAN J. VACCARO December 7, 2009

THE Taliban commander was back in the village. Our base roared to life as we prepared to capture him. Two Chinook helicopters spun their blades in anticipation in the dark. Fifty Afghan commandos brooded outside, pacing in the gravel. I was nearby, yelling into a phone: “Who else do we need approvals from? Another colonel? Why?

. . . . .

While the troops prepared, I spent hours on the phone trying to convince the 11 separate Afghan, American and international forces authorities who needed to sign off to agree on a plan.

Some couldn’t be found. Some liked the idea, others suggested revisions. The plan evolved. Hours passed. The cellphone in the corner rang. “Where are you?” the villager asked urgently. The Taliban commander was drinking tea, he said.

At 5 a.m. the Afghan commandos gave up on us and went home. The helicopters powered down. The sun rose. I was still on the phone trying to arrange approvals. Intelligence arrived indicating that the Taliban commander had moved on. The villagers were incredulous.

Jonathan J. Vaccaro served as an officer with the United States Army in Afghanistan from January 2009 to July 2009.

Continue reading “Journal: Beyond Weber to Epoch B Leadership”

2009/12/082009/12/08

Journal: Highway Markers to the Future

Collective Intelligence, Ethics

Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) — Mark Pittman, the award-winning reporter whose fight to make the Federal Reserve more accountable to taxpayers led Bloomberg News to sue the central bank and win, died Nov. 25 in Yonkers, New York. He was 52. . . .

He drew the attention of filmmakers Leslie and Andrew Cockburn, who featured him prominently in their documentary about subprime mortgages, “American Casino,” which was shown at New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival in May. . . .

At the time of his death, Pittman’s outgoing messages offered a link to a black-and-white photo of folk musician Woody Guthrie. Written on Guthrie’s guitar: “This machine kills fascists.”

G30, Ripe for Conspiracy Theorists

But that was it. All that’s known about the meeting itself is that attendance is expected from most of the remaining 27 members, a group that includes the following luminaries: Paul Volcker, the chairman of the G30’s Board of Trustees and currently head of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board; Lawrence Summers, director of the White House’s National Economic Council; Paul Krugman of Princeton and the New York Times’ opinion page; Citigroup’s William Rhodes; European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet; Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa; San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen; and Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England.

Continue reading “Journal: Highway Markers to the Future”

2009/12/082009/12/08

Journal: Google to Planet–You Don’t Need Privacy

09 Justice, 10 Security, Commerce, Government, Law Enforcement

Eric Schmidt CEO Google

Google CEO: Secrets Are for Filthy People

Eric Schmidt suggests you alter your scandalous behavior before you complain about his company invading your privacy. That's what the Google CEO told Maria Bartiromo during CNBC's big Google special last night, an extraordinary pronouncement for such a secretive guy.

Google chief: Only miscreants worry about net privacy

“If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place,” Schmidt tells CNBC, sparking howls of incredulity from the likes of Gawker.

Sue Google for Cheating You on AdSense

Everything went according to plan until 11:00 A.M. on December 9, 2008. With a single click, a faceless Google employee decided that Think Computer Corporation's membership in the AdSense program “posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers,” and the account was disabled with no warning.

2009/12/082009/12/08

Journal: ClimateGate 8 Dec 09 Morning

Earth Intelligence

Al Gore meets with President Obama on climate change Obama met with Academy Award Winner and fellow Nobel laureate, Al Gore, on Monday afternoon to discuss the climate change issues in Copenhagen. Gore, according to AFP, will help by briefing Pres. Obama before his meetings with the business and environmental leaders.

ClimateGate is Watergate redux The real scandal is not the email archive, or even how it was acquired, sorted, and uploaded to a Russian server, but rather the emerging evidence of a coordinated international campaign to target and harass climate scientists, break and enter into government climate labs, and misrepresent climate science through a sophisticated media infrastructure on the eve of the international climate talks.

ClimateGate and the UN: Red Scare Over Green Lies Believe it or not, the UN just whined that climategate is the Russian’s fault. It appears that the United Nation’s position is that the obvious cover-up of the false doctrine that is global warming perpetrated by global warming “scientists” is not the fault of the lying scientists, but that of the assumed “paid” Russian hacker that hacked the globaloney scientist’s emails and exposed the cover-up to the world. Convoluted reasoning, no?

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2009/12/082009/12/08

Journal: Questions on AF & PK, The Larger Question

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Civil Society, Ethics, Government, Media, Military, Peace Intelligence

What Congress Should Ask McChrystal

Phi Beta Iota: WIRED Magazine has put together a number of questions that ably illustrate the confusion in the public mind over why we are in Afghanistan and what that has to do with Pakistan. Based on the history of the Cold War, which appears to have been a Fity Year Wound, In Search of Enemies, or as General Smedley Butler, USMC (Ret) put it, War is a Racket, we have to wonder. When one combines the scandals associated with health care (50% waste according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers), the economy (a fraudulent Federal Reserve and phantom wealth leveraged by Wall Street to the detriment of the commonwealth), and all of the other pressing problems facing America, the larger question is not really about Afghanistan or Pakistan but rather about process. Is America a democracy? Is our policy process reasoned and informed? Is the public interest being served? Does the White House really understand The True Cost of Conflict/Seven Recent Wars and Their Effects on Society?