Journal: Food Addiction–Could It Explain Why 70 Percent of Americans Are F

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Analysis, Civil Society, Commerce, Corporations, Government, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth

Mark Hyman, MD

Practicing physician

Posted: October 16, 2010 09:04 AM

Food Addiction: Could It Explain Why 70 Percent of Americans Are Fat?

Our government and food industry both encourage more “personal responsibility” when it comes to battling the obesity epidemic and its associated diseases. They say people should exercise more self-control, make better choices, avoid overeating, and reduce their intake of sugar-sweetened drinks and processed food. We are led to believe that there is no good food or bad food, that it's all a matter of balance. This sounds good in theory, except for one thing…

New discoveries in science prove that industrially processed, sugar-, fat- and salt-laden food — food that is made in a plant rather than grown on a plant, as Michael Pollan would say — is biologically addictive.

Read entire story…

Phi Beta Iota: This is a HUGE story that merits more emphasis at The Huffington Post. It is a perfect example of a newly-discovered “true cost” of the industrialization of agriculture which IS a contradiction in terms. It is a perfect example of government complacency, ignorance, and ultimately irresponsibility. This is precisely what public intelligence in the public interest is about.

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Corporate Lack of Integrity or Intelligence or Both

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Elite Rule

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Middle Class

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Poisons, Toxicity, Trash, & True Cost

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Poverty

2010/10/152010/10/15

Journal: 2005 Seminal Work Ignored to This Day…

03 Economy, 05 Energy, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, 12 Water, Academia, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Reform, Research resources, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

cover rising above the storm — Book Page

DefDog Recommends...

Authors:
By Members of the 2005 “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” Committee; Prepared for the Presidents of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine
Authoring Organizations

Description:

In the face of so many daunting near-term challenges, U.S. government and industry are letting the crucial strategic issues of U.S. competitiveness slip below the surface. Five years ago, the National Academies prepared Rising Above the Gathering Storm, a book …
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Reviews:

“Five years ago, these authors provided foresight. Now, their vision answers a national imperative.”

– American Chemical Society President Joseph S. Francisco, Ph.D.

Phi Beta Iota: This book was ignored by successive Administrations of both of the “top two” parties, just as Peak Oil, Peak Water, and Infectious Disease warnings were ignored by previous Administrations in the 1970's. The title of the OSS conference, “National Security & National Competitiveness: Open Source Solutions,” sought to communicate both the objective and the method. The US Government is uninformed and nearly comatose with respect to anything remotely associated with strategic objectives and intelligence-driven policy.

2010/10/15

Journal: What to do with all this data?

Analysis, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Methods & Process, Mobile, Real Time

October 15, 2010
Posted in Business strategy, News, indexing, metadata

1 Comment

October 15, 2010 – Large institutions have massive amounts of data in this modern age, the question is what to do with all of it. Extracting the right information can help avoid waste, delays, systems failures, even terrorist threats. A perfect example is Toyota’s customer support and repair data. If business intelligence had been applied and management had been looking, they would have noticed that something was going terribly wrong.

NewsBreak brought this to our attention in their article, “Search and Business Intelligence: The Humble Inverted Index Wins Again.” Business intelligence means mining through all that digital data—in legacy systems, databases, and even spreadsheets—and reporting what’s going on. Institutions with all that data know its value. When implemented well, business intelligence can be a huge success to all involved.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.

Phi Beta Iota: The two graphics below, one from the 1990's the other very recent, sum up all that governments and businesses simply do not get, do not practice, and do not leverage. Dashboards, like Smart Phones, are fairly stupid. Existing “data mining” systems do not adapt, scale, or make sense in relation to externalities. It takes humans to do that, and not geek IT humans but rather all-source holistic analytics humans. We have a ways to go.

Graphic: Four Quadrants J-2 High Cell SMS Low

Graphic: OSINT and Full-Spectrum HUMINT (Updated)

2010/10/022010/10/02

Reference: Enemies are Brave, Not Cowards

08 Wild Cards, Analysis, Articles & Chapters, DoD, Officers Call, Reform

Special NightWatch Comment: Mirror imaging is a serious analytical flaw. If things are not done their way, analysts are prone to consider them inferior or wrong. It manifests a dangerous, potentially lethal cultural bias.

This week US officers were quoted in international press, yet again, as accusing the Taliban of cowardice because they use improvised explosive devices and don't come out and fight like men. An odd taunt.

In the past nine years of fighting, the Taliban — who go to war wearing robes, sandals and turbans and fight mainly with assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades and IEDS — never accuse US soldiers of cowardice for wearing ceramic armor; riding in tanks and armored fighting vehicles; fighting from forts; using the most advanced artillery invented, helicopter gunships and fighter aircraft; relying on advanced communications, satellites, armed drones; and rotating out after a tour in the field.

The officers might drop the name calling and try to understand what motivates pre-modern men so ill equipped to continue to fight the most advanced military forces in the history of the world for nearly a decade.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: It is an honor and a privilege to read NIGHTWATCH. NIGHTWATCH commentaries, along with those by Chuck Spinney, Ralph Peters, and Robert Young Pelton, are among a handful of analytic commentaries that are consistently intelligent and honest. Few others can make this claim. “Strategic Decrepitude” has been joined by “Intellectual Decrepitude” among the ranks of those officers who would rather fight than think. Sun Tzu would call them assured losers….losers who are enablers of the ideological idiots who lie to the public and betray the public trust. In combination, the lack of integrity by both parties robs the Republic of blood, treasure, and spirit.

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Empire as Cancer Including Betrayal & Deceit

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.

2010/09/212010/09/21

Journal: NYPD CTD Under Dave Cohen Lauded for Brains

09 Terrorism, Analysis, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

The Terror Translators

By ALAN FEUER

The New York Times, Published: September 17, 2010

EXTRACT:

Mr. Rascoff said the working relationship between the civilian and sworn counterterrorism officials in New York was better than the parallel relationships in the Federal Bureau of Investigation because federal agents, unlike the local detectives, were often as highly educated as the analysts they work with.

“F.B.I. agents sometimes look at their analysts and say, ‘So, basically, we do the same job, but I carry a gun and kick down doors while you sit at your desk all day,’ ” said Mr. Rascoff, who has been working in intelligence since 2003, when he was a consultant to L. Paul Bremer, the special envoy to Iraq.

In the C.I.A., Mr. Rascoff added, the relationship between operatives and analysts is often the chilly one between “an author of cables and a reader of cables.”

In the Police Department, he said, there is an “educational, experiential but not intellectual” gulf that can, paradoxically, bring the sides together.

“While it’s sometimes hard to harness those conflicting energies,” Mr. Rascoff said, “when it succeeds, it succeeds wildly.”

READ EVERY WORD!

Tip of the Hat to Niels Groeneveld at LinkedIn.

2010/09/162010/09/16

Worth a Look: Sources & Methods (Kristan Wheaton)

Analysis, Methods & Process, Worth A Look

Sources And Methods

Whatever happens to cross my desk or mind on teaching, intelligence or teaching intelligence

Phi Beta Iota: Kristan Wheaton, now with Bob Heibel at Mercyhurst where they have developed the Mercyhurst Institute for Intelligence Studies (MIIS), the first such program in the entire USA, now a model for many others, is also the author of the seminal work, Early Warning–Using Competitive Intelligence to Anticipate Market Shifts, Control Risk, and Create Powerful Strategies. You can subscribe to the blog above, or do as we do, follow his postings as Kristan Wheaton at LinkedIn where we welcome direct connections from anyone following this Public Intelligence Blog.