As our country continues on its downward spiral, we need to come together and unite against the two political parties that have led us into this crisis. Both parties have been paid off and represent the interests of the most powerful and tyrannical global corporations over hardworking American citizens. With all-time high disapproval ratings for the Democratic and Republican parties, the time is ripe for an Independent ticket to winthe 2012 presidential election.
Using Mobile Phones to Engage Citizen Scientists in Research
E. A. Graham, S. Henderson, and A. Schloss
[Abstract] [PDF]
Mobile phone–based tools have the potential to revolutionize the way citizen scientists are recruited and retained, facilitating a new type of “connected” citizen scientist—one who collects scientifically relevant data as part of his or her daily routine. Established citizen science programs collect information at local, regional, and continental scales to help answer diverse questions in the geosciences and environmental sciences. Hundreds of thousands of citizen scientists contribute to recurring research projects such as the Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count, which drew more than 60,000 observers in 2009, or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Volunteer
Monitoring program, through which trained volunteers improve the monitoring of water quality in lakes and streams across the United States. These programs have relied on traditional recruiting techniques and written observations. New methods for engaging participants through technology, specifically, mobile applications, or apps, provide unprecedented ways for participants to have immediate access to their own and others’ observations and research results.
Phi Beta Iota: Changes to the Earth that used to take 10,000 years now take three. Real-time science is no longer a dream, it is a necessity. Governments and corporations as well as universities appear to be largely out of touch with the possibilities, but we do note that for years Taiwan has been paying a bounty to citizens who capture polluters in the act with a snapshot and GPS location.
When a system is so slosh with money that it does not know what its costs are, it is time to take serious action. But what do you do when no one cares?
The US Air Force misreports, even to itself (and to Congress and OSD), the cost to operate and support its own aircraft. That is the bottom line of my recent attempt to uncover operating and support (O&S) costs for aircraft like the F-22 and the B-2.
It also gets more interesting: the official USAF data that are available show that, despite promises to the contrary, “stealth” aircraft are far, far more expensive to operate than the aging (and expensive to maintain) relics they are to replace. Moreover, the data that are available are very likely an understatement. Also, there are some other cost Queens in the USAF inventory; still others are hidden in the missing data.
The amounts of money involved are huge. Generally, O&S costs for aircraft are twice (very probably more) the cost to acquire them. For example, OSD predicts the $379 billion F-35 program will cost an additional $916 billion to operate and support. (However, the O&S number is a low-ball prediction.)
What is happening about this? Nothing.
These are some of the points in a 3,000 word study piece I recently completed. The piece, with a one page summary, follows below. It is also at the CDI website at , and you can also see journalists Colin Clark's take.
The text of the short study and its summary follows:
In this very important essay, one of the world's leading authorities on the Middle East explains the tectonic shifts taking place that are clearly leaving the United States and Israel on the wrong side of history.
The Arab Spring is not the only revolution in town. The toppling of dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya; the mounting death toll in Syria and Yemen, where the outcome is still undecided; the revival of long-suppressed Islamic movements demanding a share of power; the struggle by young revolutionaries to re-invent the Arab state — all these dramatic developments have distracted attention from another revolution of equal significance.
It is the challenge being mounted by the region’s heavyweights — Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran — against the hegemony which the United States and Israel have sought to exercise over them for more than half a century.
. . . . . . .
America’s most grievous mistake, however — the source of great harm to itself, to Israel, and to peace and stability in the Middle East — has been to tolerate Israel’s continued occupation and dispossession of the Palestinians. These policies have aroused intense hate of Israel in the Arab and Muslim world and great anger at its superpower protector.
We are now witnessing a rebellion against these policies by the region’s heavyweights — in effect a rebellion against American and Israeli hegemony as spectacular as the Arab Spring itself. The message these regional powers are conveying is that the Palestine question can no longer be neglected. Israel’s land grab on the West Bank and its siege of Gaza must be ended. The Palestinians must at last be given a chance to create their own state. Their plight weighs heavily on the conscience of the world.
. . . . . . .
Turkey, Iran and Egypt, heirs to ancient civilizations, are thus asserting themselves against what they see as an Israeli upstart. Saudi Arabia, the region’s oil and financial giant, guardian of Islam’s holiest sites, is breaking free from the constraints of the American alliance.
Israel stands accused. Will it heed the message or shoot the messenger? If true to its past form, it might well try to fight its way out of the box in which it now finds itself, further destabilising the region and attracting to itself further opprobrium.
Despite intense focus on Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East in the last decade, U.S. spy agencies are still lacking in language skills needed to talk to locals, translate intercepted intelligence and analyse data, according to top intelligence officials.
Telegraph, 20 September 2011
The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks prompted a major push for foreign language skills to track militants and trends in parts of the world that were not a Cold War priority.
But intelligence agencies have had to face the reality that the languages they need cannot be taught quickly, the street slang U.S. operatives and analysts require is not easy, and security concerns make the clearance process lengthy.
As recently as 2008 and 2009, intelligence officials were still issuing new directives and programs in the hopes of ramping up language capability.
“Language will continue to be a challenge for us,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said at a congressional hearing last week.
“It's something we're working at, and will continue to do so, but we're probably not where we want to be,” he said.
Phi Beta Iota: Languages are not hard–what is hard is the “leadership” culture incapable of leading. US citizens by birth are never going to learn foreign languages as needed. There are just TWO solutions, both executable today, all it takes is integrity at the top, long missing:
1. Exempt case officers and others “on the street” from the idiotic security clearance requirements. Hire to qualifications and manage to risk. This includes restoration of the “principle agent” category as well as the third-country subject-matter expert category. They never see secrets, they just do what they do, very well.
2. Adopt the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) model of regional field stations in which multinational cadres of case officers and analysts are supported by US money and US technology. Again, they never see secrets and are firewalled during active ops.
Announcing a new Rheingold U course: Toward a New Literacy of Cooperation
For the past ten years, I've worked with Institute for the Future to track the emergence of a new story about how humans get things done together. The old story of survival of the fittest, competition, rational self-interest is changing as new knowledge comes to light about cooperative arrangements and complex interdependencies in cells, ecosystems, economies, and humans. In 2005, I delivered a TED talk about this subject; the video has been viewed more than 182,000 times. In the same year, I co-taught a seminar at Stanford with Andrea Saveri of Institute for the Future, “Toward a Literacy of Cooperation.” This six week Rheingold U course builds on the texts, videos, and other materials developed over the past ten years. Under my direction, co-learners will inquire, collaborate, discuss, co-construct knowledge about the building blocks and conceptual frames of a new literacy of cooperation. The course will run September 30 – November 11
Researchers at Michigan State University have developed a laser that could be used to detect roadside bombs, also known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
The device is no stronger than a typical presentation pointer, but it has the sensitivity and selectivity to scan large areas and detect the chemicals used in these deadly bombs, which have accounted for about 60 percent of soldier deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Phi Beta Iota: In 1988, when the Marine Corps Intelligence Center (today a Command) was created, Measurements and Signatures Intelligence (MASINT) was just getting started. The #1 officially-stated Marine Corps requirement for MASINT in 1988 was precisely this: the ability to detect ground explosives at stand-off distance regardless of the containers. Nearly a quarter century later, and billions–not just one billion–later, the US Government still cannot do this. This Israelis solved the problem for themselves in the 1960's, using trained dogs that were expendable. The US Government learned of this solution in 1988, but refused to take it seriously (dogs are not an expensive enough solution). As General Robert Scales has pointed out, 4% of the force (infantry) takes 80% of the casualties, but receives less than 1% of the funding. This is, in one word, corruption. The Department of Defense lacks integrity in every sense of the word.
