Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius Recommends

Following editorial appeared in today's Washington Post, commenting on a series of three excerpts of Bob Woodward's new book, “Obama's Wars.” Invite your attention to highlighted portions, particularly the final one, “,,, the president had treated the military as another political constituency that had to be accommodated …” Anybody wanna speculate how that's making the guys on combat outposts in Afghanistan feel today?

Washington Post September 29, 2010 Pg. 20

The War Over The War

Bob Woodward's new book portrays an administration deeply divided over Afghanistan

Phi Beta Iota: The entire piece is below the line. We normally do not do this, but the Post is losing its mind again and demanding registration while also switching headlines and using a mediocre search engine. The President is a failure largely for lack of integrity: 1) he sold out during the campaign to the providers of the $500 million that was not from small donors; 2) he allowed David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel to dictate White House policy; 3) he failed to fix intelligence or get a grip on strategic perspectives of any kind; 4) he did not trust his instincts–this is a smart man afraid of Wall Street and the carpetbaggers. He has blown a historic opportunity for change, but our colleague Harrison Owen would say this was meant to be, for he has done what Dick Cheney could not do: shown the Democratic Party to be the twisted ignorant unethical beast that it is, the lite counterpart to the twisted ignorant unethical Republican Party.

Continue reading “Journal: The Domestic Politics of Afghanistan”

2010/09/292011/01/04

Reference: Robert Steele at Huffington Post

About the Idea, Collective Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Key Players, Methods & Process, Open Government, Policies, Reform, Threats, Worth A Look

Robert David Steele

Recovering spy, serial pioneer for open and public intelligence

Posted: September 28, 2010 10:25 AM

It's Official — Steele Won Virtual Presidency

I held a bi-partisan vote today, with me representing the Democratic Party while I represented the Republican Party. Strict ballot access controls ensured a unanimous outcome — the new Virtual President of the United States of America is Robert David Steele, or for Latinos, Roberto David de Steele y Vivas.

Over the next 45 days, on Tuesdays and Thursdays I will announce one critical policy decision, always in the context of a balanced budget and always with the public interest in mind — this is not going to be pretty, but 45 days from today, every American will be able to compare my virtual track record with the actual track record of those seeking re-election, or in the case of a tiny handful that overcame enormous obstacles, those seeking election for the first time.

Journal: US Blows Off Haiti, No One Seems to Care…

08 Wild Cards, Civil Society, Gift Intelligence, Government, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence

Haiti Still Waiting For Pledged U.S. Aid

The Huffington Post

JONATHAN M. KATZ and MARTHA MENDOZA | 09/29/10

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Nearly nine months after the earthquake, more than a million Haitians still live on the streets between piles of rubble. One reason: Not a cent of the $1.15 billion the U.S. promised for rebuilding has arrived.

The money was pledged by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in March for use this year in rebuilding. The U.S. has already spent more than $1.1 billion on post-quake relief, but without long-term funds, the reconstruction of the wrecked capital cannot begin.

With just a week to go before fiscal 2010 ends, the money is still tied up in Washington. At fault: bureaucracy, disorganization and a lack of urgency, The Associated Press learned in interviews with officials in the State Department, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the White House and the U.N. Office of the Special Envoy. One senator has held up a key authorization bill because of a $5 million provision he says will be wasteful.

Meanwhile, deaths in Port-au-Prince are mounting, as quake survivors scramble to live without shelter or food.

Read rest of story…

2010/09/252010/09/25

Journal: Chinese Super-Computing…

02 China, Research resources, Technologies

China's ‘big hole' marks scale of supercomputing race

1,000 U.S. scientists are involved in exascale development, but China and Europe have stepped up their investment, IBM warns

Computerworld – WASHINGTON — To make a point about China's interest in supercomputing, David Turek, IBM's vice president of deep computing, displayed a slide with a picture depicting a large construction site for a building that will house a massive computer.

Speaking at an IEEE-USA forum here on Thursday, Turek pointed to a photo (below) of a supercomputing center being built in Shenzhen, China, and said, “That's a truck — that's a big truck, that's a big hole, and that's going to be a big building. And that's only the first building they are going to build there.”

Phi Beta Iota: Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institute got it right years ago–the ONLY revolutionary technology at the time, and still today, is C4I but better called C2I today because command & control is dead: communication, computing, and intelligence (decision-support, not secrets). Energy revolutions are coming along, including paintable solar energy molecules, but C2I is where it's at for now. CISCO continues to refuse to create cradle to cradle routers that also deliver Application Oriented Network (AON) ownership and rule making to the point of creation, so this is one big need we have; the other is a complete open source software suite of tools that delivers the eighteen functionalities defined by CATALYST et al in 1985-1989. Finally, but actually first, we want free reliable simple cell phones for the five billion poor. THAT is the super-computer of now and ever.

Tip of the Hat to Lynn Wheeler at LinkedIn.

2010/09/222010/09/22

Journal: Microsoft Down, Apple Up, WHERE Is the Band?

Analysis, Augmented Reality, Collaboration Zones, Computer/online security, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), Key Players, Methods & Process, Reform

Phi Beta Iota: Industry colleagues point out that Ballmer took over at the top while Jobs came back in at the bottom. Our own view is that a convergence is occurring that will be settled between the personal device and the cloud–who comes up with the most secure reliable personal device (e.g. an eye-screen with earpiece/mike and voice or virtual keyboard or pointer) and the most global affordable mix of call centers, intelligence centers, and M4IS2 softwares, services, and sense-making within the cloud. Google and Oracle and IBM (and their Brazilian, Chinese, and Russian counterparts) are on the same court, but none of them are truly focused on the end game: a World Brain with a Global Game in which we connect all humans to all information in all languages….an open self-organizing world in which profit comes from cost avoidance, truth, reconciliation, and non-zero outcomes.

2010/09/202010/09/20

MakerFaire Africa 2010 Project Showcase

03 Economy, 04 Education, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 08 Wild Cards, Mobile, Technologies

Maker Faire Africa is a celebration of African ingenuity, innovation and creation. Here you will find the Makers who showed their work at the 2010 event in Nairobi Kenya. Work ranges from time saving devices for agriculture to alternative energy sources from design with recycled objects to social media applications for mobile phones. Per maker you will find a short synopsis of their work, their contacts details plus a possibliity to collaborate with them.

Terra Weikel from Uganda came with briliant idea on how to improve the digitalization of rural Uganda, and they concluded that the best material would be to use a drum which is readily available. They then converted it into a digital tank (kiosk). He was here to create awareness of the digital drum and inspire its use in other African Villages! To inspire for a better Africa, in terms of digitalization.

The Village Telco is an initiative to build low-cost community telephone network hardware and software that can be set up in minutes anywhere in the world. No mobile phone towers or land lines are required. He was here to create awareness of the product and it entrepreneurial sense! To inspire for a better Africa, in terms of Tele-communication.

Continue reading “MakerFaire Africa 2010 Project Showcase”

2010/09/202010/09/20

Journal: Norwegians Smack Down Quantum Crypto

08 Wild Cards, Government, IO Secrets, Officers Call

Quantum Cryptography Breached With Lasers

Using lasers to blind quantum cryptography photon detectors, Norwegian computer scientists were able to obtain a copy of a secure key without leaving any trace of their presence.

By Mathew J. Schwartz
InformationWeek
September 8, 2010 07:00 AM

Norwegian computer scientists have perfected a laser-based attack against quantum cryptography systems that allows them to eavesdrop on communications without revealing their presence.

Phi Beta Iota: Clever Norwegians. We have zero sympathy. The US secret community, at $75 billion a year and climbin, is beyond waste, fraud, and abuse and heavily into betrayal of the public trust as well as high crimes and misdemeanors. It should be scaled back to $25 billion or less and the savings redirected to education & research. The reality is that what the US taxpayer–and all other citizens everywhere need–are transparent governments that create trust, enjoy legitimacy, and can deliver value.