3.0 out of 5 starsWalks, Talks, and Smells Like a CIA Publication, July 13, 2013
This book is being touted by Radio Liberty, a CIA subsidiary, and everything about it reeks of a CIA disinformation operation.
First, though, an acknowledgement. The Soviets, working largely through their more gifted satellite nations (Romania was not one of them, Romania belonged to the Pope and the CIA), did do disinformation, and very well. There is no finer book on this subject than that by Ladislav Bittman, THE DECEPTION GAME.
This book is an entirely different matter.
01 It's author is a known Vatican “fellow traveler” if not an agent of influence under discipline.
02 It's author walks, talks, dresses like, and gives off every appearance of being a CIA bureaucrat. While we believe him to be legitimate in so far as his past occupation (read his Wikipedia profile) — this guy appears to be one of CIA's “light” non-official cover officers.
03 The book's argument, that all of the USA's present troubles stem from a successful Soviet-era disinformation, is idiocy at best, outright lies and fabrication and deliberate disinformation at worst. Every other non-fiction book I have read and reviewed here at Amazon generally contradicts this book. The USA went in search of enemies, and created them. The Cold War was a creation of CIA and Lockheed and military flag officers all too eager to profit from war and push the edge of financial fraud.
On balance I do not recommend this book — CIA is already a waste of the taxpayer's funds — but recommend instead the book by Bittman and the nine books listed below.
National Intelligence Council, Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI/NIC)
3.0 out of 5 stars $75 Billion a Year and This is the Poster Child for the Public, March 26, 2013
Certainly worth reading, along with other and generally better reports linked below, but a huge disappointment. There is nothing here actually useful to a national or corporate leader, and generally nothing new. To take one small example upfront, the so-called “disruptive technologies” are pedestrian in the extreme. My disruptive technologies are Open Source Everything (OSE) starting with OpenBTS (Base Transceiver Station) — essentially a free cell phone for every person on the planet from birth — unlimited clean water from the ocean, and free energy. My most significant concern, apart from the fact that this report persists with all of the flaws I pointed out a year ago, is the continued lack of integrity — ethics — a deep commitment to telling the truth about the FACT that government corruption is half the problem, the FACT that half of every US tax dollar is demonstrably spent on fraud, waste, or abuse. Until the National Intelligence Council is capable of telling the truth about our own worst enemy — us — it will be nothing more than an over-paid over-hyped largely useless coffee klatch.
Thoughts in passing as I go through this final report:
01 Still oblivious to rest of the world routing around the USA, e.g. CELAC (Community of Latin American States), the Asian Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), Haiti joining the African Union, the 57-nation alternative global financial network adopting the Yuan and the Chinese alternative to SWIFT, and so on.
02 Still state-centric, I like the individual empowerment, but the entire report is written from a state-centric point of view and individual empowerment is a virtual footnote. Absent a proper appreciation for the persistent and pervasive corruption of government — and how a properly managed intelligence community can provide decision-support across Whole of Government strategy, policy, acquisition, and operations — this report is merely a curiosity, not a game changer. The National Intelligence Council should be producing block-busters that cannot be ignored and that provide the public as well as the President with compelling reasons to get our act together and make specific pro-active decisions in the public interest.
03 “True Cost Economics” not included. I do find a Human Resilience Index (HRI) from Sandia National Laboratories, but as is so typical of the timid reporting and flawed analytics I have come to expect from all US-based “think tanks,” there is no connection in this index to the three things that really matter: connectivity to the Internet; the eradication of corruption within governments and corporations; and the availability of free energy.
04 Sees half the big players. The report recognizes China and India as major players, is wrong to sell Russia short, and while they mention in passing, “In addition to China, India, and Brazil, regional players such as Colombia, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Turkey will become especially important to the global economy” I would have preferred a report building from the regions instead of projected outward from the USA and China with a minor in India. .And of course BRIC is now BRICS, with South Africa as the new formal member of that demographic powerhouse.
3.0 out of 5 stars Report Lauds Fracking as Energy Solution, Disappoints on Multiple Fronts, December 27, 2012
Certainly worth reading, along with other and generally better reports linked below, but a huge disappointment. There is nothing here actually useful to a national or corporate leader, and generally nothing new. To take one small example upfront, the so-called “disruptive technologies” are pedestrian in the extreme. My disruptive technologies are Open Source Everything (OSE) starting with OpenBTS (Base Transceiver Station) — essentially a free cell phone for every person on the planet from birth — unlimited clean water from the ocean, and free energy. My most significant concern, apart from the fact that this report persists with all of the flaws I pointed out a year ago, is the continued lack of integrity — ethics — a deep commitment to telling the truth about the FACT that government corruption is half the problem, the FACT that half of every US tax dollar is demonstrably spent on fraud, waste, or abuse. Until the National Intelligence Council is capable of telling the truth about our own worst enemy — us — it will be nothing more than an over-paid over-hyped largely useless coffee klatch.
Thoughts in passing as I go through this final report:
3.0 out of 5 stars Shallow Book, Old Think, He Quit the Fight to Join the Worst of the Wall Street Manipulators,November 15, 2012
This book makes me very angry. My step-father and I both believed in Bill Bradley a decade ago, and today I feel about him the way I feel about Ron Paul: each betrayed the public trust by refusing to break with their side of the two-party tyranny, knowing full well that neither party represents the public or the public interest, while disenfranchising 50% of the public [the Independents, Constitution, Green, Libertarian, Natural Law, Reform, and Socialist parties, all but the first accredited at the national level and blocked from ballot access and debate access by two of the most corrupt parties on the planet] so corrupt they outdo the Soviet Politburu in avoiding turnover at the top.
As I go through this book — and of course I am better armed than most being the #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction, reading across 98 categories (visit Phi Beta Iota / Books to access all of my Amazon reviews by category) — I keep thinking to myself TIRED, TIRED, TIRED. This is a book that would have earned five stars from me in 2000. Today it is too little too late.
This book fails the authenticity test on three counts:
3.0 out of 5 stars TIRED — Out of Touch with Substance and Reality,November 10, 2012
I've gone through this book, it is a very fast read, in part because there is no real substance here. I list ten better books at the end. If you seek out my summary reviews you can get the gist of all that is not in this book by Jackie Salit.
After years of trying to understand Salit and her ostensible web site for IndependentVoting.org, I finally got it one day as I watched 30 non-profit and advocacy leaders struggle with the concept of transpartisanship.
In that moment I realized that they are all — and certainly including Salit — bound hand and foot to the concept of a two-party tyranny. They are comfortable with the corruption that they understand, and each limits themselves and their group to seeking a foot-hold within that very corrupt system.
Salit and Michael Bloomberg “made” each other, and this properly puts IndependentVoting.org, which does not stand for anything other than “give us a place at the table,” in the Bloomberg/Wall Street circus act that includes NO LABELS, Americans Elect, former Comptroller David Walker with his movie and bus tour, and now the Bloomberg PAC that buys influence on Member at a time. All of this is TIRED.
Salit has had multiple chances — as has Ron Paul and other third party presidents — to break away from trying to do the wrong thing righter, and in each instance has failed to rise to the challenge. A national Electoral Reform Summit concluding with a Statement of Demand and an Occupation of every home office of every federal Senator and Representative, is the WIRED approach to changing the rules of the game.
Carter Phipps has been executive editor of the now defunct EnlightenNext magazine, formerly known as What is Enlightenment? In this role, Phipps did many interviews with leading authorities in the fields of science and spirituality. He also authored many essays, among which in 2007 an intriguing overview essay about the many meanings assigned to the term “evolution”, called “The REAL Evolution Debate”, in a special issue devoted to “The Mystery of Evolution”. Over the years, this essay grew into the book.
In this highly readable and informative essay, Phipps distinguished no less than twelve approaches to evolution. Usually only two or three reach the media spotlights (i.e. 1. neo-Darwinism and 7. Creationism, otherwise known as Intelligent Design), which severely limits the number of intellectual options available. (Though truth be told, perspectives 1-6 can be qualified as scientific; perspectives 7-12 are better seen as speculative, so Darwinism and Creationism are iconic for their respective fields).
Some of their current or historic representatives are listed here, Phipps mentions many more, including their main works and historical influences:
I'm a Bruce Schneier fan. I read his blog regularly and I think he's one of the smartest and most forward thinking security experts working today. I bought this book without even looking.
Perhaps I should have. It wasn't what I expected and because of that, I was let down and disappointed. Which reflects in my low rating. It's certainly a well written book and well researched and makes very good points. Too bad it wasn't very interesting to me.
The Evolution Religion: Making Sense of Evolution,August 15, 2012
