Knowledge – Page 30 – Public Intelligence Blog

I know nothing about the science, but this seems credible–certainly worth considering.

World Renown Nuke Expert Nails Bibi to the Wall on Iran Bomb Threat

EXTRACT (Letter Only, Editorial Hyperbole Detracts)

Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu:

Iran may be in your red zone, but can not score.

Sure, Iran could divert a few tons of 3.5% or a ton of 20% enriched uranium hexaflouride gas for enrichment to 90+%. But what then?

No one has ever made a nuclear weapon from gas. It must be converted to metal and fabricated into components which are then assembled with high explosives.

Iran lacks experience with and facilities for these processes which are very dangerous because of potential for a criticality accident or nuclear explosion. Iran would not jeopardize its important, fully safeguarded nuclear programs by an attempt to have a deliverable, one kiloton yield nuclear weapon ten to fifteen years later.

Continue reading “DefDog: IAEA Veteran's Letter “No Iran Bomb” Being Ignored”

2012/09/272012/09/27

DefDog: Living Under Drones – Outcomes in Pakistan

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Economics/True Cost, Government, Ineptitude, Knowledge, Military, Peace Intelligence, Politics

Living Under Drones: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians from US Drone Practices in Pakistan

This report is the result of nine months of research by the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic of Stanford Law School (Stanford Clinic) and the Global Justice Clinic at New York University School of Law (NYU Clinic). Professor James Cavallaro and Clinical Lecturer Stephan Sonnenberg led the Stanford Clinic team; Professor Sarah Knuckey led the NYU Clinic team. Adelina Acuña, Mohammad M. Ali, Anjali Deshmukh, Jennifer Gibson, Jennifer Ingram, Dimitri Phillips, Wendy Salkin, and Omar Shakir were the student research team at Stanford; Christopher Holland was the student researcher from NYU. Supervisors Cavallaro, Sonnenberg, and Knuckey, as well as student researchers Acuña, Ali, Deshmukh, Gibson, Salkin, and Shakir participated in the fact-finding investigations to Pakistan.

EXTRACT (One Sentence from Each Summary Paragraph):

First, while civilian casualties are rarely acknowledged by the US government, there is significant evidence that US drone strikes have injured and killed civilians

Second, US drone strike policies cause considerable and under-accounted-for harm to the daily lives of ordinary civilians, beyond death and physical injury.

Third, publicly available evidence that the strikes have made the US safer overall is ambiguous at best.

Fourth, current US targeted killings and drone strike practices undermine respect for the rule of law and international legal protections and may set dangerous precedents.

Summary Recommendations:

Continue reading “DefDog: Living Under Drones – Outcomes in Pakistan”

2012/09/25

Michel Bauwens: Difficult Birth – the Financial Transaction Tax

Economics/True Cost, Innovation, Knowledge, Politics

220px-Michel_Bauwens_crop — Michel Bauwens

Brilliant and funny video on the Tobin Tax Via Willy De Backer

Video “Difficult Labour” for the financial transaction tax of Oxfam Germany with Heike Makatsch, Mark Waschke, Stephan Grossman & Rike Eckermann.

YouTube (2:08)

More info at: http://www.oxfam.de/schweregeburt

Music: The Communards – Don't Leave Me This Way

2012/09/252012/09/25

Jon Lebkowsky: Bad Pharma – Lacking Intelligence AND Integrity

Commerce, Corruption, Economics/True Cost, Government, IO Impotency, Knowledge

According to Cory Doctorow at bOING bOING, physicians often prescribe drugs that are ineffective or harmful because pharmaceutical companies provide misleading data, according to an article by Ben Goldacre in the Guardian, “The drugs don’t work: a modern medical scandal.” Goldacre is the author of the forthcoming book Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients. Summary from the caption on the photo above Goldacre’s article: “Drugs are tested by their manufacturers, in poorly designed trials, on hopelessly small numbers of weird, unrepresentative patients, and analysed using techniques that exaggerate the benefits.”

It’s a tough problem: you depend on your physician’s authority, and the authority of the healthcare establishment, to guide your decisions about health. Even if you trust your physician, can you trust the voices persistently whispering in his ear, especially if those voices are motivated by profit as a priority. Do pharma companies place their profit above your health? Don’t assume an easy answer – it’s complicated, though Goldacre’s book blurb suggests a belief that pharma uses the complexity as a cloak (“All these problems have been protected from public scrutiny because they’re too complex to capture in a sound bite.”)

Continue reading “Jon Lebkowsky: Bad Pharma – Lacking Intelligence AND Integrity”

2012/09/252012/09/25

Jon Lebkowsky: MONDO 2000 Bridge to the Future

Culture, Knowledge

Mondo 2000 in the Late 20th Century Cyberculture

Former Mondo 2000 editor RU Sirius has been working many moons on a history of the magazine and its predecessors (High Frontiers, Reality Hackers). I was privileged to help a bit with infrastructure for gathering stories as well as contributions on the Texas and WELL perspectives on Mondo.

RU’s published the preface at Acceler8tor…

Called MONDO 2000 — the magazine took the just-then-emerging future of digital culture, dangerous hacking and new medias; tossed them in the blender along with overdoses of hallucinogenic drugs, hypersex and the more outrageous edges of rock and roll; added irreverent attitudes stolen from 20th Century countercultures from the beats to the punks, the literary and art avant gardes, anarchism, surrealism, and the new electronic dance culture— and then, it deceptively spilled that crazy Frappe all out across really slick, vaguely commercial looking multicolored printed pages with content that was Gonzo meets Glam meets Cyberpunk meets something else that has never been seen before or since… but which those of us who were there simply called MONDO — as in, “Yes, the article you submitted is definitely MONDO.” Or, “No. This isn’t MONDO. Why don’t you try Atlantic Monthly?”

Continue reading “Jon Lebkowsky: MONDO 2000 Bridge to the Future”

2012/09/212012/09/21

Berto Jongman: Global Journal, Global Minds

Knowledge

Request an invitation to join the Global Minds community

What is a Global Mind?

Global Minds are executives, experts, academics and individuals coming from a variety of backgrounds. Some work for UN agencies and NGOs, others in research centers, universities or the private sector. All Global Minds have one thing in common: they look to exchange views with other members on a variety of global governance issues. Topics discussed include energy security, social entrepreneurship, internet governance, politics of development and humanitarian aid. The Global Minds platform gives individuals the opportunity to share their knowledge and insights on these topics and be informed about emerging debates.

Learn more.

Phi Beta Iota: This is potentially a good idea but poorly framed — they have no analytic model and the primary emphasis appears to be on getting volunteer writers who can produce high-quality contributions at no cost. If the sponsors were to adopt or create a strategic analytic model, and create global intelligence councils, one for each threat, one for each policy, and then regional integrative councils and one global umbrella council, they just might be able to scale quickly and with relevance.

2012/09/202012/09/20

Eagle: President Obama Tells the Truth – A Good First Step – But Can He Turn On A Dime & Force Electoral Reform in 30 Days?

Innovation, Knowledge, P2P / Panarchy, Politics

Republicans pounce on Obama remark: ‘You can't change Washington from the inside'

He has not been able to change the ‘tone’ in Washington, Obama says, calling that ‘disappointing.’

President Obama — who ran his 2008 campaign on the promise of “hope and change” — made a surprising admission after four years in office on Thursday: “You can't change Washington from the inside.”

Republicans immediately pounced on the president's seemingly off-the-cuff remark, which came after Mitt Romney's campaign had endured days of attacks over the GOP candidate's own unscripted comments at a secretly-recorded May fundraiser.

“His slogan was ‘Yes we can,'” an energized Romney declared at a rally in Sarasota, Fla. “His slogan now is ‘No I can't!'”

Obama made the comment in response to a question about his “biggest failure” at a Univision town-hall forum in Miami on Thursday.

In a nod to the mostly-Latino audience, Obama first mentioned his inability to pass immigration reform, before admitting to the larger failing.

“Obviously, the fact that we haven't been able to change the tone in Washington is disappointing,” he said.

“And I think that I've learned some lessons over the last four years and the most important lesson I've learned is that you can't change Washington from the inside,” the president continued. “You can only change it from the outside.”

Read full article.

Continue reading “Eagle: President Obama Tells the Truth – A Good First Step – But Can He Turn On A Dime & Force Electoral Reform in 30 Days?”

Category: Knowledge

DefDog: IAEA Veteran’s Letter “No Iran Bomb” Being Ignored