Journal: Race, Class, Money & Truth

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Policies, Policy, Reform, Strategy, Threats

In keeping with our new-found commitment to focus on public intelligence and leave political reform to others, this commentary provides an overview  of the political scene (including political commentary from journalists lacking any independence), and concludes that what is missing from our national dialog are integrity and public intelligence.

First, the political “terrain” of ideological conviction, borrowing from Michael Crane with permission.

Death of the Center
Death of the Center

As best we can tell, there is not a single think tank free of ideological conviction andall are also lacking in full access to all relevant sources of information, to serious processing power, and to multi-cultural analytics.

The two-party tyranny is “running on empty” and  has effectively destroyed the center, where ideas should meet, and also greatly extended the chasm between those in power (the power of the purse and the day to day operations of government) and those with knowledge (generally in the private sector, generally not being listened to by the so-called “intelligence community” that thrives on expensive secrets at the public's expense (double-entendre).

Continue reading “Journal: Race, Class, Money & Truth”

Journal: Chuck Spinney on Al Qaeda Message, Two Comments on CIA and Al Qaeda

05 Civil War, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Ethics, Government, Peace Intelligence, Reform, Strategy

First, a link to the translated Al Qaeda message. Then Chuck Spinney's commentary on the rmessage (there is no assurance it is actually from Bin Laden, who may be long dead).   Finally, a Phi Beta Iota comment that will outrage the lame of mind and resonate with every average American.

Journal: Microsoft Creates Open Source Software Foundation

Commerce, Reform, Strategy, Technologies
Full Story Online
Full Story Online
September 11, 2009 7:10 AM PDT

Microsoft sets up open-source foundation

Microsoft has created the nonprofit CodePlex Foundation to target increased communication between open-source communities and software companies.

Citing an under-representation of commercial software companies and their employees in open source, the CodePlex Foundation aims to work with particular projects to bridge the gap between the open-source and commercial worlds.

The Redmond giant has contributed $1 million to the foundation and has filled out its board and advisory panel with many Microsoft staffers, including Sam Ramji, who is leaving Microsoft as its open-source point man but is also becoming CodePlex Foundation's interim president.

Continue reading “Journal: Microsoft Creates Open Source Software Foundation”

Journal: EarthGame–What DoD & NATO Want, What Can Be Done Faster, Better, Cheaper

Earth Intelligence, Methods & Process, Military, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Policy, Reform, Strategy, Technologies, Threats, Tools
Full Story Online
Full Story Online

Sentient world: war games on the grandest scale

Mark Baard

23rd June 2007

Perhaps your real life is so rich you don't have time for another.

Even so, the US Department of Defense (DOD) may already be creating a copy of you in an alternate reality to see how long you can go without food or water, or how you will respond to televised propaganda.

The DOD is developing a parallel to Planet Earth, with billions of individual “nodes” to reflect every man, woman, and child this side of the dividing line between reality and AR.

Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), it will be a “synthetic mirror of the real world with automated continuous calibration with respect to current real-world information”, according to a concept paper for the project.

Full Story Online
Full Story Online

A ‘Second Life’ for NATO Staffers

Katie Drummond

September 4, 2009

This isn’t the first time NATO has toyed with virtual training programs. In February, they requested a computerized replica of Afghanistan, complete with data on Afghan economics, politics and culture, to be used by war planners in decision-making considerations. And two years ago, the Navy asked for the same thing, but with Iraq as the targeted 3D nation.

Phi Beta IotaEarthGame by Medard Gabel does all this and more, for no more than $2 million a year, with one caveat: it is unaffordable and unachievable if DoD and NATO insist on everything being Top Secret.

Journal: Petition for Peace Engineering

02 Diplomacy, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Ethics, Peace Intelligence, Reform, Strategy, Worth A Look
Petition for Peace
Petition for Peace

The average American is now in motion.  The Independent movement has reached critical mass, and the public recognition that everything the government is doing lacks a strategic analytic rationale as well as–in many cases–a moral rationale, is gathering force.

The below message captured our attention.  Note the “social engineering” of the military-industrial complex that has labored for decades to connect jobs to war, patronage to war,  bribes to war, high crimes and midemeanors (betrayal of the public trust) to war.  The call for social engineering for peace is, in our view, a strong signal that public intelligence is now becoming more commonplace, but we make the observation that the “lag time” between Congressional and Executive high crimes and misdemeanors, and the public discovery, analytis, outrage, and action, is still too great.  Public intelligence is going to have to do something secret intelligence cannot do: develop global REAL-TIME and NEAR-REAL-TIME information-sharing and sense-making, and do this across all ten high-level threats and all twelve policies that must be harmonized across all boundaries.

Continue reading “Journal: Petition for Peace Engineering”

Journal: Chicago-Style Partisan Corruption & Industrial-Era Organization Killing the USA

Reform, Strategy

Full Story Online
Full Story Online

The Future of Tech

August 27, 2009, 5:00PM EST

By Adrian Slywotzky

Where Have You Gone, Bell Labs?: How basic research can repair the broken U.S. business model

Name an industry that can produce 1 million new, high-paying jobs over the next three years. You can't, because there isn't one. And that's the problem.

Decline in Lab Funding; Job Creation a Huge Challenge; Rebuild Research Labs; Basic Science Gives Way to Fast Payoffs; How to Reignite Innovation; Strong Leadership is Key; Presidential Support Crucial; Critical Mass of Labs Needed; Tax Incentives Could Help; How to Get Back on Track; A Lesson from RCA Labs

Continue reading “Journal: Chicago-Style Partisan Corruption & Industrial-Era Organization Killing the USA”

Journal: Loch Johnson on It’s Never a Quick Fix at the CIA

09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Ethics, Government, Methods & Process, Policy, Reform, Strategy
Full Story Online
Full Story Online

Professor Loch Johnson is one of two people who have served on both the Church Committee and the Aspin-Brown Commission.  The other is Britt Snider, Esquire.

Today he examines the lack of integrity on the Hill, or totthless, inattentive oversight.  He does not address two factors that we comment on below the fold:

1.  There are five CIAs, and as long as the Wall Street and White House CIAs are doing what they are told to do, no one really cares about the integrity or the pathos of the other three.

2.  Leon Panetta could have been the greatest Director in history, just as Barack Obama could have been the George Washington of this century, but both sacrificed their integrity for partisan gain, deliberately ignoring the urgent calls for both reform at CIA and non-partisan reality-based policy-making in the White House.  Phi Beta Iota

By Loch K. Johnson

Sunday, August 30, 2009

skip sad story . . . . . . .

The Church Committee discovered that intelligence abuses ran far deeper than initially reported. The CIA had indeed spied on Vietnam War dissenters at home, but the FBI had gone further, disrupting the lives of antiwar protesters and civil rights activists. It was “a road map to the destruction of American democracy,” committee member Walter Mondale said during a public hearing.

Church was equally appalled by the overseas excesses of the CIA, including covert actions against democratic regimes — such as Chile's — and assassination plots. He blasted the agency for “the fantasy that it lay within our power to control other countries through the covert manipulation of their affairs.”

Continue reading “Journal: Loch Johnson on It's Never a Quick Fix at the CIA”