Journal: Chuck Spinney Sends–GOP Stalinists

05 Civil War, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Ethics, Reform
Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney
Full Story Online
Full Story Online

This is rich….and hilarious.

November 1, 2009

OP-ED COLUMNIST

The G.O.P. Stalinists Invade Upstate New York

By FRANK RICHEXTRACT: The more rightists who win G.O.P. primaries, the greater the Democrats’ prospects next year. But the electoral math is less interesting than the pathology of this movement. Its antecedent can be found in the early 1960s, when radical-right hysteria carried some of the same traits we’re seeing now: seething rage, fear of minorities, maniacal contempt for government, and a Freudian tendency to mimic the excesses of political foes. Writing in 1964 of that era’s equivalent to today’s tea party cells, the historian Richard Hofstadter observed that the John Birch Society’s “ruthless prosecution” of its own ideological war often mimicked the tactics of its Communist enemies.

Journal: Baffling Patterns Form in Scientific Sandbox

Academia, Analysis, Earth Intelligence, Media, Methods & Process

Full Story Online
Full Story Online

Brandon Keim

October 28, 2009

NOTE: Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes; Wired Science on Twitter. Brandon is currently working on a book about ecosystem and planetary tipping points.

With nothing more than beads in a glass box, physicists have revealed yet another mysterious property of granular solids, now recognized by scientists as a unique state of matter, like solids or gases.

When the box was filled to the brim and rotated, the beads moved in patterns known from convection clouds — another system whose basic physical dynamics are only dimly understood.

The experiment, displayed in a video posted Monday to arXiv, was a variation on one performed 70 years ago by Japanese physicist Yositsi Oyama, who observed that beads of different sizes placed in a rotating circular drum would eventually self-sort by size.

That intriguing result set in motion the study of granular solids, which behave in ways that can’t be predicted with known physical laws. And though research has accelerated in the last decade, scientific understanding of granularity is roughly akin to that of fluid dynamics in the 18th century.

Worth a Look: Journal of Future Studies

Academia, Methods & Process, Worth A Look

Journal Web Site
Journal Web Site

Journal of Futures Studies
Epistemology, Methods, Applied and Alternative Futures

The Journal of Futures Studies (JFS) is published by the Graduate Institute of Futures Studies, Tamkang University, Tamsui, Taipei, Taiwan. The editors invite contributors in the areas of foresight, forecasting, long-range planning, visioning and other related areas.

The Journal's approach is:

Continue reading “Worth a Look: Journal of Future Studies”

Journal: Chuck Spinney Sends–the Chimera of Victory in Iraq

05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Military, Strategy
Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney

A good example of why learning from the past can be useful.

Full Story Online
Full Story Online

October 31, 2009

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

Chimera of Victory

By GIAN P. GENTILE

If history is a guide, then the recent suicide bombings in Baghdad show that the insurgency in Iraq is far from over. Contrary to much of what is written and said, victory is not near and the notion that the “surge” of troops was some great, decisive military action that set the stage for political reconciliation is a chimera.

It was a chimera for the French in Algeria that their bloody counterinsurgency there defeated Algerian nationalists. After the war, which lasted from 1956 to 1961, a myth started to build in the French Army and then found its way into American Army thinking, where it lives on today, that the French military operations defeated the insurgents.

Continue reading “Journal: Chuck Spinney Sends–the Chimera of Victory in Iraq”

Journal: Democratic Leadership GUTS Federal Reserve Audit Bill–Roll-Call Vote Could Be the Straw that Breaks the Two–Party Tyranny in 2010

03 Economy, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Reform

Full Story Online
Full Story Online

Federal Reserve Policy Audit Legislation ‘Gutted,’ Paul Says

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) –By Bob Ivry

Representative Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who has called for an end to the Federal Reserve, said legislation he introduced to audit monetary policy has been “gutted” while moving toward a possible vote in the Democratic-controlled House.

The bill, with 308 co-sponsors, has been stripped of provisions that would remove Fed exemptions from audits of transactions with foreign central banks, monetary policy deliberations, transactions made under the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee and communications between the Board, the reserve banks and staff, Paul said today.

Continue reading “Journal: Democratic Leadership GUTS Federal Reserve Audit Bill–Roll-Call Vote Could Be the Straw that Breaks the Two–Party Tyranny in 2010”

Journal: Economic Fantasy and Economic Reality

03 Economy, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government

Full Story Online
Full Story Online

‘Jobs Created or Saved’ Is White House Fantasy: Caroline Baum

Commentary by Caroline Baum     Oct. 28 (Bloomberg)

Heresy, thy name is Christina Romer.

Last week, the chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers — a position that carried the title “chief economist” until Larry Summers took up residence in the White House — testified to the Joint Economic Committee on the economic crisis and the efficacy of the policy response.

Here’s the executive summary in case you missed it:

Continue reading “Journal: Economic Fantasy and Economic Reality”

Journal: Meta-Data in Public Records is Public

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process

Full Story Online
Full Story Online

Metadata in State Documents Is Public Record, Court Rules

Kim Zetter, 30 October 2009

Arizona’s Supreme Court, in a surprising but welcome ruling, has declared that electronic metadata is part of the public record under state law, in a case involving an Arizona police officer who suspects his superiors of backdating a document related to his work performance.

The city argued that metadata — digital information that can reveal when a document was created and subsequently accessed or modified — was not part of the public record. Releasing such information to the public would result in an “administrative nightmare” and force public officials to spend “countless hours” trying to identify the metadata, the city claimed.

Continue reading “Journal: Meta-Data in Public Records is Public”

noble gold