Review: WORM – The First Digital World War

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform)
Amazon Page

Mark Bowden

5.0 out of 5 stars Huge Story, Most Readers are Not Getting the Point,March 19, 2012

I've been a fan of Mark Bowden's since I was asked to investigate how he got parts of his story for Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw. Speaking with him directly, already knowing he was a gifted writer, I added patriot and truth-teller to my short list of his attributes. This book would normally be a four for lack of an index, schematics, and perhaps some photographs of working spaces to achieve some contextual sense, but given all the negative reviews that are in my view off the mark, I am going with a five.

Most of the reviews of this book are in my opinion missing at four HUGE points:

01) Microsoft is the source of most of our problems because they build sloppy code and do not do due diligence. Apart from the fact that Microsoft is exceeded in evil only by Google, both of them holding third party developers hostage to mutating APIs and neither of them being at all interested in helping empower human cognition with tools for thinking, Microsoft sells second-rate software backed up by first-rate legal and marketing. The word is long over-due for dumping not must Microsoft, but Apple as well. India just followed Richard Stahlman's advice and pushed Microsoft out of their universities, they are creating the open source alternative, and as I like to paraphrase that world, “put enough eyeballs on it, no bug is invisible.”

Continue reading “Review: WORM – The First Digital World War”

Review: Derision Points – Clown Prince Bush the W, the Real Story of His “Decision Points”

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Biography & Memoirs, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform)
Amazon Page

Ted Cohen

5.0 out of 5 stars Work of genius, superb detail, ignore the critics,February 24, 2012

This is a fast read, but it is truly scary, for anyone who has actually paid attention and read such strong non-fiction books as The Bush Tragedy. Not only does this book provide searing, gripping “reality” but as we fast-forward to understanding how a nothing like “W” could get to the White House and unleash Dick Cheney (see for instance Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency), it helps to put the well-intentioned village-idiot president in context.

It is clear to me that the Bush Family is a crime family (see for instance Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America, that W was a Walker, not a Bush, that he was abused his entire life and naturally became an abuser himself. What this book drives home is that our political institutions have hit bottom.

The author has a claim to credibility in writing this book. Others may not like it, but it reeks of the truth and in my view is a useful depiction of the reality that is now known as “W.”

Other books I recommend:
George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography
The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office
Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy
Fraud: The Strategy Behind the Bush Lies and Why the Media Didn't Tell You
A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies
The Mafia, CIA and George Bush

It makes me sick to my stomach to be reminded of how decrepit our political process has become. This is an educational down-to-earth book, and as much as it pained me to read it, it also strengthens my commitment to helping reform our process. There isn't a citizen out there who could not have been a better president solely armed with integrity — “W” was possible because we have all lost our integrity and let the while collar upper class crime families rock on. IMHO.

Vote and/or Comment on Review

Review: DOPE, Inc. Britain’s Opium War Against the World (and Lydon LaRouche’s War Against Henry Kissinger)

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Budget Process & Politics, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Crime (Organized, Transnational), Culture, Research, Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
Amazon Page

Editors, Executive Intelligence Review

4.0 out of 5 stars Beyond Six on Detail, Loses Credibility on Mistakes,February 20, 2012

I have never been one to seek out conspiracy books. Reading in 98 categories, it was not until the combination of 9/11 and the multiple legalized crime bubbles that exploded in 2008-2010 that I finally realized I had been oblivious to the obvious that books such as this have been addressing for years, with more mainstream books finally starting to come into play.

This book has mind-boggling detail, most of it credible. It loses considerable credibility in making truly outrageous claims such as Executive Order 12333 being the order that authorized the framing and then incarceration of Lyndon LaRouche, an individual who cannot be stereo-typed. Indeed, this is a man that is so complex, stepping back and forth over the line — the very thin line — that separates sheer genius from errant lunacy — that I strongly recommend a reading of his Wikipedia page before reading the book. LaRouche is a convicted criminal — I see that — but I respectfully submit that every partner in Goldman Sachs, Morgan, Citi-Bank and others is an unindicted unconvicted criminal solely because the US Government lacks the intelligence and integrity to go after them.

Continue reading “Review: DOPE, Inc. Britain's Opium War Against the World (and Lydon LaRouche's War Against Henry Kissinger)”

Review: The Information Diet – A Case for Conscious Consumption

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Capitalism (Good & Bad), Censorship & Denial of Access, Communications, Consciousness & Social IQ, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Media, Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Survival & Sustainment, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
Amazon Page

Clay Johnson

5.0 out of 5 stars Gift Book, Gift Idea, Gift Economy, Get a Grip,February 18, 2012

I received a copy of this book as a gift, and gladly so since the top review at this time is unfairly dismissive while also confessing that the reviewer only read the first third of the book (but evidently not the preface (first page) that states plainly (first sentence, actually), “The things we know about food have a lot to teach us about how to have a healthy relationship with information.”

Having just reviewed The Telescreen: An Empirical Study of the Destruction and Despiritualization of Consciousness, and so many other books here at Amazon, I easily connect the point in last night's reading: that food, medicine, education, and the media are all “co-conspirators” in dumbing down a human population whose brains started out as enormous pools of potential creativity, to this book. The information — and the food and the medicine and the tabloid garbage we are ingesting — is killing us.

What the first reviewer completely misses is that this is the first manifesto, beyond The Age of Missing Information, to actually focus on how out of control our relationship is to the world of information. As a lifetime professional in these matters I can state clearly that not only are governments substituting ideology for intelligence and corruption for integrity, but so are all the other communities of information (academia, civil society, commerce, government, law enforcement, media, military, and non-government / non-profit. We live in a totally corrupt world where — right now — banking families (Rothschild et al) own the banks and the banks own the two-party tyrannies (or the outright dictators) that own government, and they own the the corporations, with the 99% being expendable fodder for 1% theft from the commonwealth. This book is a cry from the heart, and an eloquent one at that.

Continue reading “Review: The Information Diet – A Case for Conscious Consumption”

Review: The Telescreen – An Empirical and Philosophical Study of the Destruction of Consciousness in America

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Censorship & Denial of Access, Communications, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Country/Regional, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Intelligence (Public), Iraq, Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
Amazon Page

Jeffrey Grupp

5.0 out of 5 stars You need a brain to read this book; if you have one, the book will scare you,February 17, 2012

I have been keeping in touch with “alternative” sources for some time, ever since I realized in about 1988 that neither the US secret intelligence world nor the US media were at all reliable — they are each very good at what they choose to do, but that does not include the public interest.

The author refers very often to his 2007 book, Corporatism: The Secret Government of the New World Order, to the point that I do recommend that be bought and read before this book.

I am hugely impressed by this author. He does detailed, meticulously documented research and the presentation is excellent. I especially like footnotes I can see while reading the body instead of endnotes.

Continue reading “Review: The Telescreen – An Empirical and Philosophical Study of the Destruction of Consciousness in America”

Review: Leverage – How Cheap Money Will Destroy the World

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Budget Process & Politics, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
Amazon Page

Karl Denninger
5.0 out of 5 stars STRONG FIVE – Original, Award-Winning, Major Contribution, February 5, 2012

On the very last page of the book I learn that the author received the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award for Grassroots Journalism, for his coverage of the 2008 market meltdown. This confirms my own already formed very high estimation of the author and his work. In fact, although I normally do links at the end of the review, let me open with some other books that are world-class and within which I place this work as comparable:

The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy
Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History
SAVAGE CAPITALISM AND THE MYTH OF DEMOCRACY: Latin America in the Third Millennium
Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism (New in Paper)

Here is the author's three-line conclusion to the longer chapter that ends the book (my own notes in parenthesis):

01 Federal and state governments KNEW what was going on, and are COMPLICIT. (This introduces me to the reality of “control fraud,” where the government commits impeachable acts that are not sanctioned; I also learn in this book that when Congress passes laws it does not include sanctions for failure by the GOVERNMENT to uphold those laws.)

Continue reading “Review: Leverage – How Cheap Money Will Destroy the World”

Review: Anyone That Works for a Living and Votes Republican is an Idiot

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Budget Process & Politics, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Cosmos & Destiny, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Intelligence (Public), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
Amazon Page

Clyde Coughenour

5.0 out of 5 stars Alternative Perspective, Very Naive on US Reality, January 30, 2012

I *like* this book. I've been running for the Reform Party nomination for President (there were three of us, now there are two, and I might drop out soon if I get a federal job and the Hatch Act kicks in). I mention that mostly to emphasize that everything I have learned in the six weeks I've been registered with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC ID C00507756) is relevant to the second half of my review. This book came to my attention via a press clipping service that helps me follow any mention of a third party — this book calls for a new third party Of, By, and For Workers — we used to call that Communism (just kidding), but seriously, the last part of my review is a pitch for what workers should do if they really want to take charge, as workers finally did in Norway and Sweden (it took them 25 years).

I would normally rate this book at four stars, there is a lot missing, but I have to say that in terms of earnest honest patriotic down-to-earth common sense and indisputable pro-labor attitudes, this book is solid, so I am putting it at five stars and linking below to some books that add the missing “weight” to this read. My reviews of all of the books I list are summary in nature, to help those with little time or little money.

The book is scattered, providing snapshots of all of the issues, showing very clearly where neither party, but especially the Republicans, can be trusted to look out for workers. Politics is theater–nothing is decided in the open, the real deals are behind closed doors and the taxpayer ALWAYS loses. I certainly give the book high marks for distilling a very complicated corrupt mess into a simplified structure, and I totally agree with the author that there are no reliable statistics from the government or corporations, but let me give you three that matter:

Continue reading “Review: Anyone That Works for a Living and Votes Republican is an Idiot”