Category: Policies

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Chuck Spinney: Israel To Bomb Iran Soon + RECAP

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney

Former CIA Official: Israel Will Bomb Iran In September

July 15, 2011 4:04 pm ET — MJ Rosenberg

A longtime CIA officer who spent 21 years in the Middle East is predicting that Israel will bomb Iran in fall, dragging the United States into another major war and endangering U.S. military and civilian personnel (and other interests) throughout the Middle East and beyond.

Earlier this week, Robert Baer appeared on the provocative KPFK Los Angeles show Background Briefing, hosted by Ian Masters. It was there that he predicted that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is likely to ignite a war with Iran in the very near future.

Read full story….

Phi Beta Iota:  We know and admire Bob Baer, one of the greats in clandestine case officering, whose books, Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude and See No Evil–The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism correctly observe that no amount of professionalism in the intelligence ranks can make up for massive ideology, corruption, and impeachable malfeasance in the  White House, Congress, and the military-industrial cabal.  War is how the unethical elite deal with unrest at home–it syphons the poor angry young men out of the system and distracts the booboisee.  Israel, like the USA, has multiple governments, and right now the two extremist versions are nominally in charge and think they can get away with bombing Iran and then redirecting the US military against Iran.  The Israeli attack on the USS Liberty is the best “truth-teller” on how crazy they can get, and how much they disrespect the USA.  They give no thought at all to the five front war that George Bush started with the Islamic virtual caliphate, or the consequences of “burning” the young seeking reform,  turning them all against Israel and the USA.

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Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Israel To Bomb Iran Soon + RECAP”

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Koko: Oil Prices & Human Ingenuity

03 Economy, Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence
Koko the Reflexive

Published 23 August 2005, the Ludwig von Mises Institute article by Pierre Lemieux discusses the actual decline of resource prices–including “scarce” resources–and the reason: advances in human ingenuity.  This supports our basic proposition on this web site, that the single best investment that could be made to create a prosperous world at peace is to give the five billion poor free access to the Internet so as to nurture and harvest their brainpower.

The Oil Price Mirage

Mises Daily: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 by

EXTRACT

Until his death in 1997, economist Julian Simon predicted a continuous decline in resource prices. In 1980, he made a famous bet with environmentalist Paul Ehrlich. Simon’s bet was that a $1,000 basket of any five metals chosen by Ehrlich would be worth less (in constant dollars) 10 years later. Ehrlich lost. In 1990, the value of the basket at current market prices was down more than 50%. Ehrlich had to send a $576.07 check to Simon, representing the drop in the basket value. In fact, the prices of all the metals chosen by Ehrlich had fallen.[5]

In his challenging 1981 book The Ultimate Resource, Simon showed that resource prices had generally decreased over time. The relative price of oil (in terms of other goods) has fallen by perhaps as much as two-thirds between the 1860s and today. During the same period, the price of oil in terms of salaries has decreased by more than 90%.

 

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YouTube: Five Interwoven Economies

03 Economy, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, YouTube

Five Interwoven Economies: Subsistence, Gift, Exchange, Planned, and Theft (or Conquest)

This video presents a simplified education model about socioeconomics and technological change. It discusses five interwove economies (subsistence, gift, exchange, planned, and theft) and how the balance will shift with cultural changes and technological changes. It suggests that things like a basic income, better planning, improved subsistence, and an expanded gift economy can compensate in part for an exchange economy that is having problems.

The text for the presentation is here.

The content is under the CC-BY-SA license and you are encouraged to build on it, but the video itself is under CC-BY-ND. If you make derivatives, you can credit Paul Fernhout at http://www.pdfernhout.net/

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Chuck Spinney: Obama Implodes…the Story Continues

02 Diplomacy, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 11 Society, 12 Water, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency
Chuck Spinney
President Obama in trouble at home and around the world.  The common denominator in his problems is a failure to follow through on expectations he recklessly excites … while this  mismatch is clear in the mounting alienation of his domestic political base in the United States, it is also evident his plummeting popularity abroad, particularly in the Arab World, as shown in the attached survey by Zogby International for the Arab American Institute Foundation.

ARAB ATTITUDES, 2011
Conducted by Zogby International, Analysis by James Zogby
Arab American Institute Foundation
The full report can be downloaded from this link.

Executive Summary   

  • After improving with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, U.S. favorable ratings across the Arab world have plummeted. In most countries they are lower than at the end of the Bush Administration, and lower than Iran's favorable ratings (except in Saudi Arabia).
  • The continuing occupation of Palestinian lands and U.S. interference in the Arab world are held to be the greatest obstacles to peace and stability in the Middle East.
  • While many Arabs were hopeful that the election of Barack Obama would improve U.S.-Arab relations, that hope has evaporated. Today, President Obama's favorable ratings across the Arab World are 10% or less.
  • Obama's performance ratings are lowest on the two issues to which he has devoted the most energy: Palestine and engagement with the Muslim world.
  • The U.S. role in establishing a no-fly zone over Libya receives a positive rating only in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, but, as an issue, it is the lowest priority.
  • The killing of bin Laden only worsened attitudes toward the U.S.
  • A plurality says it is too early to tell whether the Arab Spring will have a positive impact on the region. In Egypt, the mood is mixed. Only in the Gulf States are optimism and satisfaction levels high.
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Koko: Crowds Fund Science Directly…

Advanced Cyber/IO, Budgets & Funding, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), IO Deeds of Peace, Methods & Process, Mobile, Open Government, Policies, Real Time, Threats
Koko the Reflexive

Scientists Turn to Crowds on the Web to Finance Their Projects

By

New York Times, July 11, 2011

In January, a time when many scientists concentrate on grant proposals, Jennifer D. Calkins and Jennifer M. Gee, both biologists, were busy designing quail T-shirts and trading cards. The T-shirts went for $12 each and the trading cards for $15 in a fund-raising effort resembling an online bake sale.

The $4,873 they raised, mostly from small donations, will pay their travel, food, lab and equipment expenses to study the elegant quail this fall in Mexico.

. . . . . . .

In the crowd funding genus, MyProjects is a different species from Kickstarter. All projects on the site have been vetted by scientists and already receive financing from Cancer Research UK. And the funds are guaranteed regardless of whether the MyProjects goal is reached. Mr. Bromley calls it “substitutional funding.”

. . . . . . .

The quail project was one of thousands that Cassie Marketos, a community editor at Kickstarter, has approved. “It’s one thing to buy a book about quails,” she said. “But to know that you played a small part in making it happen is a much different experience.”

Read full article…

Phi Beta Iota:  The world is in an intermediary stage toward governing without government.  The era of outrageous fraud, waste, and abuse–massive investments by the government of tax-payer funds on the basis of ideology or special interests, not intelligence with integrity–is coming to an end.  Participatory democracy, alternative localized or specialized currencies that cannot be taxed, and intelligence-driven self-governance that is open to all stakeholders (Panarchy), are all emergent.

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Marcus Aurelius: 82nd Airborne Not Happy in Garrison

10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Marcus Aurelius

This is a very fine piece of reporting at multiple levels.

82nd Airborne Paratroopers Unhappy With Iraq, Afghanistan Troop Withdrawals

David Wood

Huffington Post, 11 July 2011

FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Among the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne's 1st Brigade Combat Team, there's a sinking feeling the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will fade away. Instead of an exciting and challenging combat tour, they'll be relegated to the dread “garrison life” here at Fort Bragg.

. . . . . .

Garrison life can be more dangerous than living in Afghanistan. In a major study released last year, the Army reported that a small but growing number of soldiers who perform credibly in combat turn to high-risk behavior at home, including drug abuse, drunk driving, motorcycle street-racing, petty crime and domestic violence.

The study, commissioned by Gen. Peter Chiarelli, assistant chief of staff, estimated that 40,000 soldiers are using drugs illicitly, and misdemeanor offenses are rising by 5,000 cases a year. Among the growing number of Army suicides — which soared past the civilian rate and reached a record 300 cases last year — almost half had never deployed from garrison.

In addition to the suicides, the Army study noted there were 107 fatal accidents among its active-duty soldiers and 50 murders in 2009, part of an ugly toll of 345 active-duty, non-combat deaths — about 100 more than were killed in combat that year.

Read full article….

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Michel Bauwens: Israel Uses Facebook to Identify and then Block Incoming Protesters from Europe

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War
Michel Bauwens

Israel used Facebook to stop European pro-Palestine activists

IntelNews.Org, 12 July 2011

Joseph Fitsanakis

Israeli intelligence services managed to stop dozens of European pro-Palestine activists from flying to Israel, by gathering open-source intelligence about them on social media sites, such as Facebook. According to Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor, intelligence gathered on Facebook formed the basis of a blacklist containing over 300 names of European activists, who had signed up on an open-access Facebook page of a group planning nonviolent actions in Israel this summer.

Israeli intelligence agencies forwarded the names on the lists to European airline carriers, asking them not to allow the activists onboard their flights, as they were not going to be allowed into the country. This action prompted airline carriers to prevent over 200 activists from boarding scheduled flights to Israel. Israeli security officers detained over 310 other activists, who arrived in Israel on several European flights last week. Of those, almost 70 were denied entry to the country, while more detentions are expected to take place later this week, according to Israeli Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Hadad.

During the detention operation, at least two flights into Israel, from Geneva, Switzerland, and Rome, Italy, were diverted to a secluded area of the Ben Gurion International Airport, which is located a few miles southeast of Tel Aviv. Once there, they were boarded by armed Israeli security officers, who detained several activists onboard the airplanes before allowing the remaining passengers to disembark. Witnesses also reported the presence of hundreds of police officers at Ben Gurion during the detention of the activists. Characteristically, only one of a 40-strong pro-Palestinian activist contingency onboard an EasyJet flight from London, UK, was able to enter Israel, while 39 were detained and sent back to the UK.

 

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