1-7 Star Rating – Page 58 – Public Intelligence Blog

Vague references to the ‘war on terror’ and the ‘threat to national security’ are frequently used by venal politicians to cover-up criminal associations and covert illegal activity, ranging from money-laundering, narcotics trafficking, abduction and murder to the wholesale slaughter of non-combatant civilians. Their detritus is glibly dismissed or erased from mainstream media coverage of state terror around the world. But an awareness of what intelligence agencies are doing in the shadows is necessary if we are ever to grasp the true reality of momentous public events we wrongly think we understand. .

The issues in Understanding Shadows include how the bloody and brutal end of ‘democratic Islam’ in Algeria has facilitated the “fear and loathing” which has dominated the West’s security agenda since 9/11. The arrogance and political hubris of former British PM, Tony Blair, and the corrupt use of intelligence, took the UK to war in Iraq, and was a factor in the lonely death of WMD specialist, Dr David Kelly, while ‘off stage’ Israel continued its colonization of occupied Arab lands and upgraded its collective punishment of Gaza.

There is an account of the curious journey the CIA’s USSR ‘dangle’, Lee Harvey Oswald, made across Cold War Europe in June 1962, while the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa provided an opportunity for self-serving, power-hungry ANC politicians to ‘feather their own nests’ at the expense of the impoverished majority of their fellow citizens – a depressing example of a righteous liberation struggle turned sour. Meanwhile, the ‘long war’ continued.

Continue reading “Worth a Look: Understanding Shadows – The Corrupt Use of Intelligence”

2013/11/282013/11/28

Review: The Ageless Generation: How Advanced in Biomedicine Will Transform the Global Economy

4 Star, Disease & Health

Alex Zhavoronkov

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent on Regeneative Health, Light on Preventive Health, Ignores Corrupt Toxic Corporate Practices, November 26, 2013

I was given this book as a gift and was glad to go through the substance. It is very strong on regenerative health but at a very high level. The examples and charts and lists of specifics that I was expecting are not there.

It touches on preventive health as a responsibility, and suggests that individuals as well as organizations should be held accountable for poor health practices they embrace. However, there is not a word in this book about the evils that we do every day in the way of growing, processing, and selling toxic food, flushing drugs into our water, and so on.

The book is a quick read in part because it focus strictly on the 10,000 foot level — more or less an executive overview of how and why regenerative medicine is possible, affordable, and vital.

Among the author's practical points:

01 Era of age is here — most can expect to live at least a decade if not longer than their parents, perhaps much more if they take care of themselves and preventive / extender medicine kick in (the book does not cover either)

Continue reading “Review: The Ageless Generation: How Advanced in Biomedicine Will Transform the Global Economy”

2013/11/272013/11/28

Review (Guest): Global Catastrophes and Trends – The Next Fifty Years

5 Star, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience

Vaclav Smil

Very balanced and insightful thinking on the topic, September 3, 2010

Gaetan Lion

Contrary to what the title suggests, this is not about over-hyping any apocalyptic scenarios. To the contrary, Smil thinks through issues in an insightful and detached way. From the book, you develop critical thinking skills to vaccinate your mind against Media hype. You also develop a healthy skepticism towards any forecasts as they always miss the boat.

Smil classifies changes that could affect our civilization into two categories. First, the abrupt ones are unpredictable and potentially devastating. They include natural phenomena such as asteroids, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, floods, earthquakes, and influenza pandemics. They also include man-caused wars, genocides, and terrorism. The second type of changes occur over half a century or more. Those include the energy transition away from fossil fuel, and the slow changes in balance of geopolitical powers.

Smil states we are notoriously bad at forecasting risks or anything else. He mentions numerous Peak Oil forecasts that were invariably wrong. Smil mentions how in the 1970s, we were concerned a next ice age was upon us. Geopolitic, economic, and demographic forecasts have been wrong too. The rapid economic ascent of China and rapid retreat of Japan since 1990 were unforeseen by everyone. The sudden break up of the USSR was also unexpected.

Smil states we are even bad at explaining what already happened. As an example, Diamond in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed mentioned only deforestation as a cause of the devastation of the Easter Island community. But, he missed out on rats infestation, infectious diseases, and enslavement. We invariably miss out on tons of variables when explaining past events.

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2013/11/272013/11/28

Review (Guest) The Crash of 2016 – The Plot to Destroy America – And What We Can Do to Stop It

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Thom Hartmann

Provocative and Troubling Look at an Impending Economic Implosion, November 16, 2013

Book Shark

“The Crash of 2016” is a provocative and troubling look at an economic implosion that will occur unless we take drastic measures to stop it. “A story of how America was dragged into the Crash of 2016.” Well-known progressive national and international radio and TV talk show host and accomplished author, Thom Hartmann places his focus on an economic crisis that may turn into the Fourth Great Crash since the Declaration of Independence in 1776. This stimulating 294-page book includes sixteen chapters broken out by the following five parts: 1. The Economic Royalists and the Corporatist Conspiracy, 2. Why We Crashed, 3. “Oppression, Rebellion, Reformation”, 4. The Great Crash, and 5. Out of the Ashes.

Positives:
1. A professional and gifted author Hartmann is a master at engaging the public with a well- balanced narrative of history, current events and foresight.
2. The book has great format and flow. It's entertaining, enlightening and the pages turn themselves.
3. Hartmann is a great and passionate thinker. His knowledge of history, and his ability to identify patterns is only matched by the skill to convey his conclusions in a lucid, straightforward manner.
4. Troubling, straight-forward eye-opening conclusions. “This crash is coming. It's inevitable. I may be off a few years plus or minus in my timing, but the realities of the economic fundamentals left to us by thirty-three years of Reaganomics and deregulation have made it a certainty. We are quite simply repeating the mistakes of the 1920s, the 1850s, and the 1760s, and we are so far into them it's extremely unlikely that anything other than reinflating the recent bubbles to buy a little time here and there will happen.”

Continue reading “Review (Guest) The Crash of 2016 – The Plot to Destroy America – And What We Can Do to Stop It”

2013/11/262013/11/26

Review: The Price of Inequality:How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Future, Impeachment & Treason, Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Joseph Stiglitz

5.0 out of 5 stars Ethical Economist Confronts Two-Party Tyranny — Defines 70% of the Way Forward, November 26, 2013

I have admired this economist, one of a tiny handful who are not bought and paid for by the banks, for quite a long time. I'd like to see him at Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), with a Deputy Director for Management that actually has authority for Whole of Government strategy and management. Of course that would require an honest president and an honest congress, so I am not holding my breath on this one.

In passing, I ran for President as an accepted candidate for the Reform Party in 2012 — it only took six weeks to recognize that neither Occupy nor any of the other candidates (there are EIGHT accredited parties in the USA, only 2 of which are allowed to actually run for office) were in the least bit interested in a universal demand for electoral reform and a coalition cabinet. See the six big ideas at bigbatusa.org, where you will also find the author of this book listed as the ideal member of the Cabinet for the OMB function.

There are so many other excellent reviews, I am using my contribution to list his specific recommendation for economic reform, and point to a few other related books that support this extraordinary work. My comments added below are in brackets.

THE ECONOMIC REFORM AGENDA

Continue reading “Review: The Price of Inequality:How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future”

2013/11/232013/11/24

Review: The Family Jewels – The CIA, Secrecy, and Presidential Power

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity

John Prados

4.0 out of 5 stars 5 fpr content, 3 for editing, 4 on balance — a unique book that could have been better, November 23, 2013

My review itemizes the highlights. This is a valuable book that is unique in its summary of both the historical misdeeds of the CIA and the fast forward current misdeeds of the past two Administrations (Bush-Cheney and Obama-Biden). However, this book could have been better. I recommend a second edition with vastly more attentive editing and a moderate inclusion of sub-titles and visualizations.

Three big points up front:

01 The author has chosen not to include mind-control in this book, nor does he include active ties with criminal organizations including the Boston to NYC to DC pedophile rings as well as the Catholic Church as enabler. So the book might better be titled “Most But Not All of the Family Jewels.”

02 By its nature, focusing on blatant mis-deeds, the book does not — nor should it be expect to — address the larger misdeeds of the CIA, such as being worthless or wrong most of the time [I've served in three of the four directorates, I continue to believe that CIA can and should be saved, but right now it is a basket case]. Under my signature below are four online references on this point.

03 This is a book about the CIA, which is the “runt” of the intelligence litter when compared to ODNI, NSA, NGA, and defense intelligence. I consider NSA to be vastly more criminal, vastly less constitutional, and vastly more worthless than CIA — the return on investment for CIA is perhaps 20%, for NSA less than 2%. For direct access to most of my reviews of intelligence books here at Amazon, seek out < Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Intelligence (Most) >.

The book is organized into a summary review of each of the following, with each chapter concluding with modern-day equivalents and prognostications that I consider a real value-added.

Continue reading “Review: The Family Jewels – The CIA, Secrecy, and Presidential Power”

2013/11/22

Review: God’s Terrorists – The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Culture, Research, History, Misinformation & Propaganda, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Terrorism & Jihad

Charles Allen

Important History Not Understood By Most, November 22, 2013

The historical half is mind-glazing, the more recent chapters highly relevant to understanding the deep ignorance of the US Intelligence Community and the US policy (prostitution) community these past 12 years.

I have given the book four stars in part because it is not designed to illuminate the threat in visualizable terms, and it is not up to date. Now that Saudi Arabia has declared war on the USA and the West generally (joining with Israel in a truly bizarre satanic alliance), and on Iran and the Shi'ite portion of Afghanistan specifically, this book absolutely merits updating and republication, hopefully with some decent maps and graphics and tables this next time around.

Early on in a nut-shell: Wahhabism spread in the 19th century, first throughout the Arabian penninsula and then to the Indian subcontinent including what are now India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Wahabbism is both a fundamentalist ideology that wins over deep converts, and a form of mercenary religion, buying its way into susceptible corners.

The most important point stressed throughout the book is that Wahhabism is outside the mainstream of Muslim society.

The big surprise for me, and one reason I am distressed at how badly we prepare people for service in this area, is the deep history of Wahhabism among the Pashtun. Today Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent Qatar and the United Arab Republic seem bent on funding a religious war in Central and South Asia, and no one seems to be paying attention to this emergent threat. I would go so far as to say we are now, in this region, where we were in 1988-1989 when the Saudis first began funding the global Islamic outreach program led by Sheikh Binbaz and represented in part by young Bin Laden.

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