Reviews (Books & DVD) – Page 131 – Public Intelligence Blog

cover wall street never sleeps — Amazon Page

Michael Douglas, Shia Labeouf, Josh Brolin, Eli Wallach

SURPRISING–worth viewing in theater or at home

January 27, 2011

This is not a movie I would have gone to any trouble to see, and in a ten hour flight when I did not feel like reading it made the cut only after two other movies viewed on the way over that included sleep. This is a solid five and I was totally surprised, delighted, and provoked by the combination of the three main actors–Michael Douglas in a reprise role with more soul, Shia LaBeouf (appeared in Transformers as a totally credible honest broker, and Carey Mulligan, who was so very good I looked up and list some of her movies below. The movie is timely. While its depictions of the incestuous relations among the Wall Street banks (Goldman Sachs is obviously prominent under another name) and the Treasury Department, with no mention of the Federal Reserve are very limited, they are more than sufficient to project the total greed and irresponsibility of all concerned.

Here are the other movies I watched and review here (mostly to draw Phi Beta Iota community to them and the other excellent reviews), the list is in rank order. At Phi Beta Iota you can select Review/DVD Only to see the other 100+ DVDs I recommend.

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2011/01/272011/01/27

Review (DVD): Inception

5 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Reviews (DVD Only)

Leonardo DiCaprio

Information/Cyber-Operations on Steroids

January 27, 2011

I admire the level of detail by the several top reviews I read here, and enter this review primarily to draw those who follow my work on Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, to the DVD and the other reviews.

This was the last of five movies I watched over the course of sixteen hours in the air, and it comes very close to making the cut toward six stars. This is–for the intelligence and information professionals–advanced Information Operations and Cyber-Psychological Operations on steroids.

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2011/01/272011/01/27

Review (DVD): Smash His Camara

4 Star, Culture, DVD - Light, Reviews (DVD Only)

Floyd Abrams (Actor), Gilbert M. ‘Broncho Billy' Anderson (Actor), Leon Gast (Director)

Classic View of Greatest American Photo-Stalker

January 27, 2011

Rough patches, but a period cultural piece and for me quite fascinating. Almost a five and not left at four for itself but rather in comparison with other movies as alternative ways of spending time. This is a documentary of one of the greatest American “paraparatzi” of our time, in blends live interviews with re-collective discussions of specific photos that have made history including, most memorably, “windblown Jackie,” and as an American I found it both fascinating and not done deeply or broadly enough. I would have like to see much more. HOWEVER, the movie does whet the appetite for the book No Pictures, and I recommend both.

This movie, and the act of writing the review, brought to my attention other books by this photographer and out of respect I list them:

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2011/01/272011/01/27

Review (Guest): Deadly Embrace–Pakistan, America and the Future of Global Jihad

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Country/Regional, Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Insurgency & Revolution, Public Administration, Religion & Politics of Religion, Terrorism & Jihad, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Bruce Riedel (Author)

5.0 out of 5 stars The Real Story, January 24, 2011

Retired Reader (New Mexico) – See all my reviews

This book is a very careful analysis of U.S.-Pakistani relations, especially over the last forty years. More importantly perhaps it provides the clearest explanation to date of why Pakistan appears to be so ambivalent towards Islamic extremism as manifested in what Riedel identifies as the “Global Jihad” and the Afghan Taliban movement. Indeed he does a brilliant job of guiding the reader through complexities of Pakistani politics and strategy. He makes clear that Pakistan regards India as an existential threat and treats both the Taliban and al Qaeda as pawns in its deadly game against India.

He does a particularly brilliant job describing the drivers of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate in relation to Islamic extremism, Pakistani internal politics, and Afghanistan. The ISI has a very complex agenda, which the U.S. has not always understood, but which always sees India as an overarching enemy.

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2011/01/232011/04/23

Review (Guest): Files on JFK

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform), Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Wim Dankbaar

5.0 out of 5 stars The trees in the forest will now begin to fall

March 4, 2006

By Herbert L Calhoun “paulocal” (Falls Church, VA USA) – See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

In the realm of JFK assassination investigations: lore, irrefutable facts, fiction “factions” and myths, all often compete side-by-side for the right to be accepted. The reader is thus forced to develop a finely tuned “crap-detection system” in order to sort out one from the other.

It is no different in this manuscript produced by Wim Dankbaar, which, as it introduces a new kind of medium (“the investigative internet book”), also blazes its own fresh trail of validated facts in pursuit of uncovering the “real” culprits of the JFK whodunit.

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2011/01/122011/01/12

Review: Business War Games–How Large, Small, and New Companies Can Vastly Improve Their Strategies and Outmaneuver the Competition

5 Star, Budget Process & Politics, Change & Innovation, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Force Structure (Military), Future, Games, Models, & Simulations, Information Society, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Leadership, Public Administration, Strategy

Ben Gilad

Core Reference Introducing Hindsight Games

January 11, 2011

Not a single one of the other reviews mentions “hindsight games” which come at the end in Chapter 12, where Ben Gilad, whom I know and admire, properly lists Helen Ho and Matthew J. Morgan as the authors.

At the age of 58 with 30+ years as an intelligence professional behind me, very little catches me by surprise but this is one of those exquisite “ahas.” For me, the insights into hindsight games as a means to retrospectively identify strategic, operational, tactical, and technical junctures, where participants can reflect on what they knew, what they did not know, what they had wish they had known, and how they might advise the next generation to state its intelligence requirements differently–for me this is an intellectual gold strike.

I have never heard of any of the war colleges or strategy centers or major corporations or NGOs doing hindsight games. This for me is HUGE, and Ben Gilad's integrity is high-density–although the plan of the book properly puts the chapter at the end, after his concepts and doctrine and methods for business war games are outlined, this is the chapter that every one of the eight tribes (academic, civil society, commercial, government, law enforcement, media, military, non-profit or non-governmental) should be thinking about.

Hindsight games are a perfect means of both debriefing out-going executives and mission area specialists, and of transferring lessons learned from one generation to another in a super-professional manner.

I am reminded of Kristan Wheaton's still relevant book, The Warning Solution : Intelligent Analysis in the Age of Information Overload, and believe that would make an excellent HindSight Game pre-read, pulling in seniors and mission area specialists to talk about what proper warning and better intelligence might have allowed them to do these past twenty years.

Continue reading “Review: Business War Games–How Large, Small, and New Companies Can Vastly Improve Their Strategies and Outmaneuver the Competition”

2011/01/092011/01/09

Review: Prophets of War–Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex

4 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Science & Politics of Science, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Strategy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, War & Face of Battle

William Hartung

Final Review: Boring, Limited, Not for General Audience

January 3, 2011

After reading this book, which I found to be extremely boring, I have to give Pierre Sprey very high marks for his substantive contributions to the C-SPAN Book interview of the author. My summary of that interview is therefore an important part of my summary of this book. It can be seen at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog by searching for the two names Pierre Sprey William Hartung without quotes or brackets.

I reduce the book to four from five stars because it is a lazy book–no charts, no maps, just a blast of names and dates and numbers–VERY boring. However righteous, this book could have been much better.

Comments:

+ 29B per year in revenue from the Pentagon, probably is low number, is not that much.

+ Lockheed grossly exaggerates job numbers and refuses to back them up.

+ Lockheed wins with low bids and the Pentagon acquisition folks are so inept or politically influenced they accept that.

+ Lockheed is the poster child for a broken acquisition system–quite right–that does not make them the bad guys.

Continue reading “Review: Prophets of War–Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex”