Google Ugly: Google “broccoli casserole” and make the first recipe you find. I guarantee it will be disappointing. The world needs fewer opinions and more thoughtful expertise — the kind that comes from real experience. Contrast with Gourmet to All Thatand the death of expertise in the public interest.
Google Bad: The above image is accurate. Google is one of 75+ search engines, and barely scratches the surface. Worse, Google now offers results based on who pays for what you see, not on what you need or wish to see.
We pay careful attention to the search terms used by those who visit us, and have noticed a very healthy focus on strategy and on secrecy. The two are incompatible.
Strategy, by its inherent nature, must be holistic, transparent, and sustainable. It demands broad collaboration and the broadest possible information-sharing and sense-making.
Secrecy, by its very nature, is reductionist, completely opaque, and generally not sustainable beyond the moment. It restricts collaboration, excludes key stake-holders with relevant information, and does not share effectively.
Michael Herman's book on Intelligence in Peace and Waris the best available review of why intelligence at the strategic level should not be secret.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan's book on Secrecyremains one of the best articulations of the hidden costs of secrecy to a Republic.
NEW YORK — A self-described New York City anarchist has been accused of tweeting the location of police officers to protesters trying to evade them during the Group of 20 economic summit in Pittsburgh.
Pennsylvania State Police arrested Elliot Madison alleging he used Twitter to direct the movement of protesters and inform them about law enforcement actions at last month's summit.
Phi Beta Iota: We are–as usual–NOT making this up. Coming as it does with repeated rumors of on-going preparations to federalize all state and local police forces “as necessary” and the long-standing concerns about the internment camps for use in the event of “civil unrest,” we have to ask ourselves, can this be for real? According to the Huffington Post, it most assuredly is.
Phi Beta Iota:Two reports today confirm our grave doubts about the viability of U.S. Departemnt of Defense (DoD) research in general, and Science & Technology (S&T) in particular. In combination with the known grid-loock and inherent loss of integrity within defense acquisition, these two reports suggest that the U.S. taxpayer will continue to pay more and more for less and less, while secrecy is used to avoid accountability. It has long troubled us that in classifying deficiencies, DoD assures a lifetime monopoly on “fixes” to the people that created the deficiencies in the first place–they do not know what they do not know! DoD desperately needs a Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) able to get a grip on all Human Intelligence (HUMINT) funded by the U.S. taxpayer. Ideal would be an expansion of the Undersecretary of Defense of Intelligence so as to add this as an integrative ICT and HUMINT integration function, while also assuming collaborative oversight of the Inspector General and of Operational Test and Evaluation. See the latest draft of the HUMINT Monograph for more information.
With the right conditions in place — education, entrepreneurialism, and environmental awareness among them — a young, eager, educated workforce can be the key to prosperity.
When conditions are right, large numbers of young workers can drive a nation’s growth to remarkable levels. This theory is known as the “demographic dividend,” a phrase coined by demographer David Bloom. He proposes that when young working-age adults comprise a disproportionate percentage of a country’s population, the national economy is affected in positive ways.
By Joseph Menn in San Francisco and Chris Nuttall in San Diego
October 7 2009
The head of the US Federal Communications Commission warned on Wednesday that there is not enough room in the airwaves for the “explosion” in wireless data traffic, setting the stage for a big realignment of spectrum usage as the government tries to help mobile carriers keep up with consumer demand.
“The biggest threat to the future of mobile in America is the looming spectrum crisis,” said Julius Genachowski, the Obama administration appointee who took over as head of the five-member FCC in late June.
Phi Beta Iota: Top-down management of bottom-up needs and capabilities does not work. Open Spectrum is the only possible solution and has been proven in South Korea among other places. It's time to stop selling spectrum and start demanding smart devices and intelligent sharing of the commonwealth.
In the coming year's military spending bill, members of a House panel continue to steer lucrative defense contracts to companies represented by their former staffers, who in turn steer generous campaign donations to those lawmakers, a new analysis has found.
The Center for Public Integrity found that 10 of the 16 members of the House subcommittee on defense appropriations obtained 30 earmarks in the bill worth $103 million for contractors currently or recently employing former staffers who have become lobbyists. The analysis by the Washington watchdog group found that earmarks still often hinge on a web of connections, despite at least three criminal investigations of the practice that became public in the past year. Those probes focus on a handful of defense contractors and a powerful lobbying firm that together won hundreds of millions of dollars in work from the House panel and are closely tied to its chairman, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.).
Phi Beta Iota: A Senate staffer explained this to us. First, staffers are trusted to not testify against the boss. Second, staffers know the deal is 2% to 5% for every earmark ultimately appropriated. Earmarks are both a form of reductionism and a form of corruption, both antithetical to the survival of the Republic.
Google Ugly: Google “broccoli casserole” and make the first recipe you find. I guarantee it will be disappointing. The world needs fewer opinions and more thoughtful expertise — the kind that comes from real experience. Contrast with Gourmet to All That and the death of expertise in the public interest.
