11 Society – Page 179 – Public Intelligence Blog

2013/01/112013/01/11

SmartPlanet: Half of All Food Wasted

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Idiocy

By Mark Halper | January 10, 2013

The world throws away up to half of its food according to an alarming report that blames consumers’ fussy preference for cosmetically appealing produce, supermarket promotions that encourage overbuying, and deficient storage, transportation and agricultural practices.

Between 1.2 billion and 2 billion metric tons of food – out of the 4 billion produced annually – never reaches a human stomach, the UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers says in Waste Not Want Not – Global Food Waste: Feeding the 9 billion.

“The amount of food wasted and lost around the world is staggering,” says Tim Fox, IME’s head of energy and environment. “This is food that could be used to feed the world’s growing population – as well as those in hunger today. It is also an unnecessary waste of the land, water and energy resources that were used in the production, processing and distribution of this food.

“The reasons for this situation range from poor engineering and agricultural practices, inadequate transport and storage infrastructure through to supermarkets demanding cosmetically perfect foodstuffs and encouraging consumers to overbuy through buy-one-get-one-free offers.”

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2013/01/112013/01/11

SchwartzReport: Catholic Church Has One Foot in Hell

06 Family, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence

SchwartzReport: Three versions of the same story — the Catholic Church is the primary supply, demand, and permissive/dismissive force in pedophelia world-wide.

German Catholic Church Cancels Inquiry

An independent inquiry into sex abuse in the German Catholic Church was supposed to restore faith in the embattled institution. But now the Church has called it off, citing a breakdown in trust with the researchers.

(California) Catholics await release of files identifying abusive clergy

Some documents the Archdiocese must release are memos between top church officials and their attorneys, medical and psychological records, complaints from parents, and even correspondence with the Vatican about accused priests.

Vermont Catholic Church settles abuse cases

Three years after paying more than $20 million to close almost 30 priest misconduct lawsuits, Vermont’s Catholic Church settled a dozen new cases Wednesday just minutes before the first was set for trial.

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2013/01/102013/01/10

Berto Jongman: Sandy Hook Reprise — What? + Plus Lack of Truth in USA RECAP

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, DHS, Government, IO Deeds of War, Law Enforcement, Officers Call

Sorcha Faal is a known fabricator with a gift for identifying legitimate sources worth reading on their own.

Obama Death Squads Kill Top Gun Activists As New Massacre Fears Rise

EXTRACT

Unfortunately for the Obama regime, this report says, and the reason for another “tragic event” needing to happen, is that the “official story” about the Sandy Hook Massacre, like nearly all such events before it, is beginning to break down in the light of critical scrutiny and analysis.

One such analysis that has spread widely among American dissident factions was done by Florida Atlantic University professor James Tracy, who in two reports, The Sandy Hook Massacre: Unanswered Questions and Missing Information and Sandy Hook School Massacre Part II: Continued Ambiguity and Augmented Realities clearly shows this tragic event more resembling an intelligence agency/military psychological operation than a lone gunman massacre it is be purported to be.

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2013/01/102013/01/10

Owl: Open Season on Gun Advocates — Is There a Domestic Covert Action Program Underway that Includes Individual Assassinations and Staged Mass Murders?

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Law Enforcement, Media

Gun Makers on Obama's “Red List”?

According to some observers, several well-known manufactures of guns have died recently, and in one case, police declare the death a homicide.

“John Noveske is one of the most celebrated battle rifle manufacturers in America. His rifles, found at www.NoveskeRifleworks.com are widely recognized as some of the finest pieces of American-made hardware ever created. (I own one of his rifles, and it's a masterpiece of a machine that just keeps on running.) Sadly, John Noveske was killed in a mysterious car crash just a few days ago, on January 4, 2013.

“John Noveske wasn't the first prominent gun rights supporter to be killed in the last few days. Keith Ratliff, the creator of a super-popular YouTube channel featuring videos of exotic weapons, was also recently found dead. The Daily Mail reports that Ratliff was “discovered on a rural road in Carnesville, Georgia. Ratliff had a single gunshot wound the head and police are treating his death as a homicide.” Someone murdered Ratliff, in other words, and it had to be someone with the ability to get close enough to Ratliff to take him out without warning.”

“…the widely-discredited CNN journalist Piers Morgan, wanted for questioning in Britain's Daily Mirror phone hacking scandal, invited guests onto his show who threatened Alex Jones' children and laughed about the idea of Piers Morgan shooting Alex Jones with an AR-15.”

Continue reading “Owl: Open Season on Gun Advocates — Is There a Domestic Covert Action Program Underway that Includes Individual Assassinations and Staged Mass Murders?”

2013/01/10

NIGHTWATCH: Chinese Using Senkaku Islands Dispute to Experiment with Managing “Total War” Across All Domains

02 China, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 10 Security, 11 Society, IO Sense-Making

Japan-China: Bloomberg has published an excellent report that describes the economic consequences of Japan's dispute with China over ownership of the Senkaku Islands. No other news outlet has published a comparably insightful and detailed account.

The first point the journalists made is that trade relations between China and Japan multiply the costs of a territorial dispute. Japan's trade with China is valued at more than $300 billion per year, which is potentially at risk.

A Chinese boycott of Japanese imports would hurt China but might already have resulted in a reduction of GDP, according to Bloomberg citing JPMorgan Chase, because of reduced Chinese purchases of Japanese goods.

Ripple effects in China from boycotts of Japanese manufactures put at risk the jobs of millions of Chinese who work in Japanese industries in China. Japanese auto sales declined. Air travel cancellations increased in both countries. One Japanese department store retailer closed 60 of 169 stores because of anti-Japanese vandalism and threats.

Comment: The key point is that global economic integration magnifies the consequences of international disputes. Interdependency means both sides seriously suffer economically, although security incidents result in no casualties. Japan might have sustained a .5 per cent decline in GDP in the last quarter of 2012, essentially because of Chinese hostile, nationalistic responses to the islands dispute.

Both sides got hurt, but China can absorb the consequences more than Japan.

Another key point is that the dispute shows how the Chinese fight in every kind of battle space – at sea, in the air, on the land, in cyber space, in international political space and in economic space. Total warfare means total to the Chinese. They are experimenting with that in the Senkakus dispute.

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2013/01/092013/01/09

Marcus Aurelius: CIA’s Double Standard Exploitation of Secrecy — Use It to Hide Official Attrocities, While Screwing Iconoclasts + RECAP

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government

Secret Double Standard

By Ted Gup

New York Times, January 9, 2013

Cambridge, Mass. — IN the last week, the American public has been reminded of the Central Intelligence Agency’s contradictory attitude toward secrecy. In a critique of “Zero Dark Thirty,” published last Thursday in The Washington Post, a former deputy director of the C.I.A., Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., defended the use of waterboarding and said that operatives used small plastic bottles, not buckets as depicted in the film, to carry out this interrogation method on three notable terrorists. On Sunday, The New York Times reported on the Justice Department’s case against a former C.I.A. officer, John C. Kiriakou, a critic of waterboarding who faces 30 months in prison for sharing the name of a covert operative with a reporter, who never used the name in print.

The contrast points to the real threat to secrecy, which comes not from the likes of Mr. Kiriakou but from the agency itself. The C.I.A. invokes secrecy to serve its interests but abandons it to burnish its image and discredit critics.

Over the years, I have interviewed many active and retired C.I.A. personnel who were not authorized to speak with me; they included heads of the agency’s clandestine service, analysts and well over 100 case officers, including station chiefs. Five former directors of central intelligence have spoken to me, mostly “on background.” Not one of these interviewees, to my knowledge, was taken to the woodshed, though our discussions invariably touched on classified territory.

Somewhere along the way, the agency that clung to “neither confirm nor deny” had morphed into one that selectively enforces its edicts on secrecy, using different standards depending on rank, message, internal politics and whim.

I am no fan of excessive secrecy, or of prosecuting whistle-blowers or leakers whose actions cannot be shown to have damaged American security. The C.I.A. needs secrecy, as do those who place their lives in the agency’s hands, but the agency cannot have it both ways.

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2013/01/082013/01/08

Mini-Me: Kerry-Hagel as Obama Attempt to Change Direction Away from War and Toward Domestic Reconstruction

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence

Huh?

A view of what's really behind Hagel nomination fight

From CNN's “Early Start”

January 8, 2013

EXTRACT:

CNN: Peter wrote what I think is (one of the) most … interesting and compelling articles about the Hagel nomination, explaining it perhaps better than anyone I've seen, including the president.

The first paragraph of the piece, you write, it may prove the most consequential foreign policy appointment of his presidency because the struggle over Hagel is a struggle over whether Obama can change the terms of the foreign policy debate. Explain that for me.

Peter Beinart: I think so far, the debate about military action in Iran has been conducted by and large in Washington, as if Iraq and Afghanistan didn't happen.

As if we haven't learned anything from the disaster (of) these two wars over the last 10 years. I think the real struggle between Hagel and his foes is he wants to bring some of the lessons in to the Iran debate that we learned about (Iraq) and Afghanistan.

He talks very compellingly about the fact wars once launched can't be fully controlled. He is very cognizant of the enormous financial cost that these wars have imposed on the United States, and I think the heart of the hostility is the fear that his recognition about what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq will make taking us to war in Iran harder.

Hagel vows to fight ‘distortions'

[Note: An Open Source Agency (OSA) controlled by Kerry-Hagel would go a very long way toward fighting the information pathologies that abound in Washington.]

CNN: You suggest there are no consequences for the Iraq War in terms of those who supported or imposed it.

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