Category: Journal ISSN 1078-1935

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Journal: Klepto-Capitalism (Legalized Looting)

03 Economy, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Ethics, Government
Full Story Online
Full Story Online

Chuck Spinney weighs in today on the manner in which the US citizen is being looted–right now, as this is written–by private equity firms (Allen & Co comes to mind, home to Bill Bradley and George Tenet), and point us to an article in Naked Capitalism worthy of review.

There has been a convergence of inattentive and under-informed citizens (including employees ill-served by labor unions that have themselves sold out); managers lacking in integrity and all too willing to serve as intermediaries in the destruction of public equity in favor of private equity; and of course Wall Street, which bought Congress, owns the Federal Reserve, and has crafted modern legalized looting or “klepto-capitalism.”

Monday, October 5, 2009

Quelle Surprise! New York Times Fails to Call Private Equity Looting by Its Proper Name

The New York Times tonight features a generally very good piece, “Buyout Firms Profited as a Company’s Debt Soared,” by Julie Creswell that falls short in one important respect: it fails to call a prevalent and destructive practice of private equity firms by its proper name.

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Journal: The Demise of the Dollar

03 Economy, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Ethics, Government
Full Story Online
Full Story Online

The demise of the dollar

In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading

By Robert Fisk

Tuesday, 6 October 2009

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Phi Beta Iota: This is what happens when citizens abdicate their role as sovereigns over Congress, and allow Congress to sell out to Wall Street and the Federal Reserve (which is neither Federal nor a Reserve, just a front for Wall Street).

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Reference: Russell Ackoff on Doing Right Things Righter

About the Idea, Alpha A-D, Articles & Chapters, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Historic Contributions, Reform
Russell L. Ackoff
Russell L. Ackoff

Phi Beta Iota: Government is broken.  Ron Paul has that exactly right.  It is broken for two reasons: first because over time those spending the money have grown distant from those providing the money, the individual taxpayers, AND from reality.  The second reason it is broken is because knowledge itself has become fragmented, and “systems thinking” has fallen by the wayside.

Below are three quotes from a tremendous reference of lasting value to every citizen and policymaker.

ONE: Reformations and transformations are not the same thing.  Reformations are concerned with changing the means systems employ to pursue their objectives.  Transformations involve changes in the objectives they pursue.

cover ackoff paperTWO: The righter we do the wrong thing, the wronger we become. When we make a mistake doing the wrong thing and correct it, we become wronger. When we make a mistake doing the right thing and correct it, we become righter. Therefore, it is better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right. This is very significant because almost every problem confronting our society is a result of the fact that our public policy makers are doing the wrong things and are trying to do them righter.

Continue reading “Reference: Russell Ackoff on Doing Right Things Righter”

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Journal: Afghanistan Bipartisan Blindness

10 Security, Government, Peace Intelligence

Full Story Online
Full Story Online

White House: Leaving Afghanistan not an option

WASHINGTON – The White House said Monday that President Barack Obama is not considering a strategy for Afghanistan that would withdraw U.S. troops from the eroding war there.

. . . . . . .

Obama has invited a bipartisan group of congressional leaders to the White House on Tuesday to confer about the war. He said the administration would brief leaders from both parties and key committee chairmen and would seek their opinions.

Phi Beta Iota: Not only is the White House itself out of touch with reality on Afghanistan, but inviting a “bipartisan” collection of the same appartchiks that allowed us to go into two elective wars and to bankrupt the nation twice over is hardly the way to get coherent strategic advice.

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Journal: Police Chiefs Get Smart About Citizen Intelligence–As Called for by The Smart Nation Act

Collective Intelligence, Law Enforcement
Citizen Intelligence
Citizen Intelligence

Police chiefs endorse anti-terror community watch

By EILEEN SULLIVAN and P. SOLOMON BANDA (AP)

4 October 2009

DENVER — A store clerk's curiosity about why Najibullah Zazi was buying large quantities of beauty supply products indicated that something about the transaction wasn't quite right — and it's an example of the kind of citizen vigilance that can combat terror, a police commander said Saturday.

Phi Beta Iota: This new initiative is precisely as recommended by Congressman Rob Simmons (R-CT-02), then a very active member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, and author of the Foreword to the book, The Smart Nation Act: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest. Included in his vision is a 411 number for calling in suspicious information, and a similar Internet address that delivers the information to the right precinct. Congressman Simmons has always been a decade or more ahead of the government bureaucracy in recognizing the value of first Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), of which he is the only Member pioneer, and then Public Intelligence in the Public Interest, of which is also the sole Member pioneer.

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Journal: Exercise Africa Endeavor–Military as Peace Force that Communicates, Computes, & Connects

Collaboration Zones, Military
George C. Marshall Briefing
George C. Marshall Briefing

In roughly 1997 we were invited to brief Russian and Eastern European parliamentarians at the George C. Marshall Center in Germany, and presented a new concept, of the military as the core force for peace.

Our intent was rooted in our appreciation for the military in every nation–regardless of corruption or shortfalls in leadership–as the one organization that can generally manage uninterrupted communications, logistics, and mobility functions that are today vastly more important than the traditional military function of applying force.

Today we learn of an excellent communications exercise

Transcript Online
Transcript Online

involving 25 nations across Africa, under the auspices of the Africa Command (AFRICOM).  The transcript is well worth reading (and much more valuable than forcing one to watch the video, thank you AFRICOM PAO).  We have just two questions:

1.  Has AFRICOM engaged the DARPA STRONG ANGEL team and considered TOOZL as something to be included in this and future exercises?

2.  Has AFRICOM talked to CISCO about providing free bridging products and services for testing by all participants?  We continue to be astonished by how few domestic and international organizations are aware that it is now possible to mix and max all analog and digital forms of voice and data via CISCO hubs.

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Journal: On Experts, Lies, Climate, & Security

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics
FUll Story Online
FUll Story Online

October 05, 2009

UN Climate Reports: They Lie

By Marc Sheppard

Speaking on the Senate floor in July of 2003, Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla) rightly called the threat of catastrophic global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”

The Cybersecurity Myth by Bob Crigely

Full Story Online
Full Story Online

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said this week it will hire up to 1,000 cybersecurity experts over the next three years to help protect U.S. computer networks. This was part of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month and the announcement was made by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who also said they probably won’t need to hire all 1,000 experts, which is good because I am pretty sure THERE AREN’T ONE THOUSAND CIVILIAN CYBERSECURITY EXPERTS IN THE ENTIRE FRIGGIN’ WORLD!!!!

Phi Beta Iota: Correct. The politicization of United Nations as well as all government and corporate “reporting” to the public is now out of control. In no way does this reduce the need for real-time science and real-time policy (changes to the Earth that used to take 10,000 years now take three), but it does demand that we recognize that the corruption of all information being presented to the public is now virtually total. There is an urgent need for both bottom-up Internet resilience (every appliance a server-router with Wi-Fi), and bottom-up public intelligence.

Continue reading “Journal: On Experts, Lies, Climate, & Security”

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