Threats – Page 727 – Public Intelligence Blog

Clinton Global Initiative

With a tip of the hat to John Steiner and Janice Hall, here are some highlights from the recent Clinton Global Initiative that struck us as truly righteous.

“I think we can say with some certainty that this mode actually does work,” President Clinton said. “People don't have to have the same politics, the same religion, or speak the same language to work togethr and to have an impact. We all have things to learn from each other. What weneed is a shared mechanism to achieve common goals.”

In 2009, members made284 Commitments valued at $9.4 billion dollars 1,700 commitments hae been made since 2005 valued at more than $57 billion.

Continue reading “Journal: Clinton Global Initiative Update”

2009/09/262009/09/26

Journal: Integrity, Afghanistan, & The White House

02 Diplomacy, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Ethics, Military, Peace Intelligence

SMALL WARS JOURNAL

This Week at War: America's Last Counterinsurgent?

McChrystal report unwittingly slays counterinsurgency doctrine

September 25, 2009

Robert Haddock

This summer the U.S. government has faced a deteriorating crisis in Afghanistan. Such crises tend to force policymakers to face up to the facile assumptions they have previously made. Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s report to his civilian masters on the faltering counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan has caused President Barack Obama and his advisers to face up to their basic assumptions about U.S. objectives and strategies for perhaps the first time. Obama and his team seem very likely to conclude from this long overdue examination of first principles that it will be impractical for the U.S. to successfully implement a counterinsurgency campaign plan in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s assessment has unwittingly tossed the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency field manual into the shredder. McChrystal’s report is brutally honest about the troubles in Afghanistan.

Click on title above for complete article, below for Phi Beta Iota comment and links to three “fix” pieces.

Continue reading “Journal: Integrity, Afghanistan, & The White House”

2009/09/262009/09/26

Worth a Look: 129 Public Benefit Research and Public Policy Institutions, With No Information-Sharing or Aggregate Sense-Making, i.e. All Noise No Signal

Non-Governmental, Policies, Threats, Worth A Look

129 Think Tanks

Charity Navigator has been on our list of Righteous Sites from the beginning. Today we want to highlight their listing and ratings of 129 “think tanks” or Research and Public Policy Institutes ostensibly committed to the Public Benefit.

Of course we all know that most of these are driven by either ideology or corporate funding to achieve pre-conceived ends, but that does not lessen their value. What lessens the value of the whole is that there is no public intelligence capability for aggreagating all that these “think tanks” produce, so that citizens can “make sense” out of the aggregate, have an appreciative inquiry and deliberative dialog, and then reach a sustainable (i.e. affordable) consensus on the entire spectrum of issues affectiing the public.

2009/09/262009/09/27

Journal: Six Big Issues Media Ignoring

Civil Society, Ethics, Government, Policies, Threats, True Cost

There are six big issues in the United STATES of America that the media is ignoring. Among the Members of Congress, only one, Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX-22), speaks publicly and coherently about these issues. Here they are:

1) The Power to Wage War. This is vested in Congress and has been abdicated to the Executive.

2) The Power of the Purse. This is vested in Congress and has been abdicated to the Executive.

3) Consent of the Senate. This is the new issue, that of “czars” unconfirmed by the Senate who have broad powers (or are merely very bad impotent theater, depending on your perspective).

4) Of, By, and For the People I. Corporate Personality and the legitimacy–or illegitimacy–of corporate spending on campaigns combined with the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the two-party tyranny, demand scrutiny by the public and finally–decades late–concerted public decision on how “it is supposed to be” in order to be consistent with the vision of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution of the United STATES of America.

Continue reading “Journal: Six Big Issues Media Ignoring”

2009/09/252009/09/25

Reference: Cloud Computing 1.0 25 Sep 09

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Key Players, Methods & Process, Mobile, Policies, Policy, Real Time, Reform, Strategy, Technologies, Threats, Tools, True Cost

There are at least two organized gangs in cloud computing, with several more emerging in the wings. This is a first cut at what we have in play.

Below the fold are a list of members of the Infrastructure 2.0 Gang and the Cloud Connect Gang, followed by a number of headlines from 2007 to date that comprise a rapid read-in.

As with the origin of computers, when librarians were not consulted, the focus on these gangs is on technical connectivity and related issues (e.g. authentication, security), and NOT on information-sharing and sense-making as the ultimate objective.

Continue reading “Reference: Cloud Computing 1.0 25 Sep 09”

2009/09/252009/10/02

Journal: The Cloud Bubbas (Two Bubbettes) Met on 3 September and You Were Not Invited

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, InfoOps (IO), Key Players, Methods & Process, Mobile, Policies, Technologies, Threats, Tools

Cloud of Clouds is the new new meme, burying Semantic Web. You can see Vint Cerf in his traditional vest. We've asked for the names of all those attending, perhaps that will come out soon.

In the meantime, we see Google and CISCO-Nokia going head to head, whle Amazon and IBM fritter on the sides, HP brings out SkyRoom, and China creates its own Google killer. What India might be up to is a mystery–if we were in their shoes we'd be putting a Nokia factory in EACH province, and demanding that all computers sold in india be wireless equipped and capable of creating ad hoc neighborhood clouds that can survive the Obama Administration's shutting down of the Internet in the USA.

Of possible interest:

Robert Steele's Briefing on Real Time Information

IBM's White Paper on Creating a Dynamic Infrastructure Through Virtualization

IBM's Short Video New Intelligence Toward a Smarter Planet

IBM's Short Video Dynamic Infrastructure for a Smarter Planet

Phi Beta Iota: We need an MCC equivalent for the whole enchilada from analog data capture to desktop decision-support.

2009/09/252009/09/25

Journal: Intelligence Is A Critical Need

05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Law Enforcement, Military, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence

Full Story Online

Intelligence Is A Critical Need

To do the job right and win

By Rep. Peter Hoekstra and Rep. John Shadegg

September 25, 2009 Pg. 21

Phi Beta Iota: Despite the fact that Representative Hoekstra is now Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), neither of these two individuals (or their staffs) appear to know what it would take to do proper intelligence in Afghanistan; why their commentary is fifteen years too late; and/or why it is also moot in the absence of a coherent reality-based strategy and the rescinding of the existing rules of engagement that are incapcitating our troops. Both good men trapped in a bad system, they have no access to ground truth from iconoclasts and are a perfect reprise to the “best and the brightest” on Viet-Nam–brilliantly uninformed.