Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 3018 – Public Intelligence Blog

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EXCLUSIVE: U.S. ignored warnings before deadly Afghan attack…Three intelligence reports dismissed days before eight U.S. soldiers killed

Bill Gertz, October 16, 2009

Army Maj. T.G. Taylor, a spokesman for the Army's Task Force Mountain Warrior, told The Times that the three reports did not stand out among hundreds of others and that the intelligence was deemed to be not specific and uncorroborated.

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The Economist October 17, 2009 Cover Story

Obama's War: Why the Afghanistan war deserves more resources, commitment and political will

The coalition, however, lacks three essential components of a successful strategy. It needs a credible, legitimate government to work with, the resources to do the job and the belief that America’s president is behind this war.

Many Afghans find it bizarre that the West should devote so much money to Mr Karzai, yet be unable to hold him to account over something so basic as stuffing ballot boxes on an industrial scale. For most, however, the local and provincial leaders matter more than the distant central government.

Continue reading “Journal: Afghanistan, Warning, Peak Oil, & Strategy”

2009/10/152009/10/16

Worth a Look: Hewlett-Packard (HP)

Worth A Look

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Why Hewlett-Packard Must Articulate Its Enterprise Strategy

The challenge right now for HP is that the whole is not yet greater than the sum of its parts. For all of the operational-excellence strides Mark Hurd and his team have made, HP has yet to reveal an equally compelling externally facing strategy to the world: what is HP's core strength? What does HP do best?

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HP transforms from printers to diverse tech business

The Palo Alto company, which had $118 billion in sales last year, now draws its biggest profit from a unit that provides tech services to other companies and public agencies. But in the PC segment, Bradley “has been able to do some incredible things with a division that most people thought, before he came on board, couldn't be fixed,” said veteran tech analyst Rob Enderle. “He appears to be on a fast track” among company executives, Enderle added. Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Hurd is considering a plan to fold the printing business into Bradley's division.

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2009/10/152009/10/15

Journal: True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria

03 Environmental Degradation, True Cost

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‘Not Evil, Just Wrong’: What’s really at stake with global warming

Point of View By CHARLES COLSON
BreakPoint October 15, 2009

Global warming is a fact of life. Not a fact in a scientific sense. Far from it. But a fact in that it is an issue—an issue that will shape public policy, international relations, and the economies of the world for decades to come.

An eye-opening documentary called Not Evil, Just Wrong: The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria is being released this week by the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation—an outfit I endorse.

I dare say the film will be controversial because it tackles head on the sacred cows of the man-made global warming crowd.

The film points out that the British High Court ruled in a lawsuit that Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, “is scientifically flawed and has nine significant exaggerations and factual errors.” Among those exaggerations are the claims that sea levels could rise 20 feet by the end of the century, and that polar bears are disappearing because of global warming (in fact, they are not).

Not Evil, Just Wrong also presents a number of scientists and a founding member of the radical environmental organization Greenpeace, who are unafraid to challenge the chief scientific claims behind global warming.

Phi Beta Iota: In the absence of public intelligence, political intelligence is an oxymoron. Cf.Review: The Resilient Earth–Science, Global Warming and the Future of Humanity.

2009/10/152009/10/16

Journal: Demopublicans–NO DIFFERENCE

Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Policies, Policy, Reform, Strategy, Threats

Phi Beta Iota: In the interest of the public's appreciation for the current situation, below are three graphics illustrating the current political situation and issue-bias spread; followed by a list of books with one point: We the People are ready to take our country back from Wall Street and the craven Demopublicans that have sold us out. Joe Biden might possibly be the key to a non-violent restoration of the Constitution, the Republic, and a nation able to integrate strategy, integrity, and living within its means.

Paul Ray, co-author of The Cultural Creatives, is probably the finest pollster in America because he cuts deep into values rather than just positions.

2009 Paul Ray New Emerging Culture in the USA

2008 Paul Ray The Political Compass (Updated)

2004 Ray (US) Values in America and the New Political Compass

With full credit to Michael Crane and his Political Junkies Handbook,which provided the original map of all the political factions (we added the art), the JPEG to the right illustrates the death of democracy at the hands of the two-party tyranny acting Of, By, and For the Banks–the special interests. Every Member now serving, with a tiny handful of exceptions, is CORRUPT, both financially, and in terms of “party line” discipline betraying their constituencies, and in terms of abdicating their Article 1 responsibilities for balancing the power of the Executive. America is not a democracy in Helsinki Accord terms–it is a quasi-fascist corporate state in which the White House is theater, policy is not based on reality, and the budget has been bankrupted several times over because Goldman Sachs has been given free rein over the Treasury for the last four Administrations.

Continue reading “Journal: Demopublicans–NO DIFFERENCE”

2009/10/152009/10/16

Journal: Afghanistan, Biden, Baer, & Brains

03 India, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 10 Security, Communities of Practice, Ethics, History, Peace Intelligence, Policy, Reform, Strategy, True Cost

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Rethink Afghanistan Part Six

Robert Baer, a former CIA field operative says, “The notion that we're in Afghanistan to make our country safer is just complete bullshit… what it's doing is causing us greater danger, no question about it. Because the more we fight in Afghanistan, the more the conflict is pushed across the border into Pakistan, the more we destabilize Pakistan, the more likely it is that a fundamentalist government will take over the army — and we'll have Al-Qaeda like groups with nuclear weapons.”

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U.S. troop funds diverted to pet projects

Senators diverted $2.6 billion in funds in a defense spending bill to pet projects largely at the expense of accounts that pay for fuel, ammunition and training for U.S. troops. . . . . . .

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Why Joe Biden Should Resign

Citing a Newsweek story: “Can I just clarify a factual point? How much will we spend this year on Afghanistan?” Someone provided the figure: $65 billion. “And how much will we spend on Pakistan?” Another figure was supplied: $2.25 billion. “Well, by my calculations that's a 30-to-1 ratio in favor of Afghanistan. So I have a question. Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we're spending in Pakistan, we're spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?” The White House Situation Room fell silent.

Continue reading “Journal: Afghanistan, Biden, Baer, & Brains”

2009/10/142009/10/14

Worth a Look: The Cato Institute on Intelligence

Worth A Look

We have not featured “think tanks” on this web site because all of them, with one exception, are ideologically biased and financially-beholden to one of the two parties that monopolize power and exclude both the majority of Americans from an honest electoral process, and the majority of objective experts from the policy and budget dailog.

The CATO Institute appears to be an exception. Below are a few of their generally dated but still relevant pronouncements on the subject of intelligence as decision support.

Why Spy? The Uses and Misuses of Intelligence Stanley Kober (1996)

Building Leverage in the Long War, Jim Harris (2002)

Intelligence Failures Now and Then, Christopher Preble (2004)

Enemies of Intelligence (Book Review), Justin Logan (2007)

Real Intelligence Failures, Richard W. Rahn (2008)

The Need for Judicial Oversight of Domestic Intelligence Gathering, Timothy Lee (2008)

Mike German on ‘Intelligence’ Reports, Jim Harper (2009)

2009/10/142009/10/14

Journal: 100 years of Big Content fearing technology—in its own words

03 Economy, 04 Education, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process

For the last hundred years, rightsholders have fretted about everything from the player piano to the VCR to digital TV to Napster. Here are those objections, in Big Content's own words.

By Nate Anderson | Last updated October 11, 2009 10:00 PM CT

It's almost a truism in the tech world that copyright owners reflexively oppose new inventions that do (or might) disrupt existing business models. But how many techies actually know what rightsholders have said and written for the last hundred years on the subject?

Continue reading “Journal: 100 years of Big Content fearing technology—in its own words”

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EXCLUSIVE: U.S. ignored warnings before deadly Afghan attack…Three intelligence reports dismissed days before eight U.S. soldiers killed

Why Hewlett-Packard Must Articulate Its Enterprise Strategy

Full Story Online HP transforms from printers to diverse tech business

Full Story Online ‘Not Evil, Just Wrong’: What’s really at stake with global warming

Full Story Online

U.S. troop funds diverted to pet projects

Why Joe Biden Should Resign

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HP transforms from printers to diverse tech business

Full Story Online

‘Not Evil, Just Wrong’: What’s really at stake with global warming