Review: EMERGE! The Rise of Functional Democracy and the Future of the Middle East

Elza S. Maalouf, Foreword by Don Beck 5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary — Empowering, World-Changing, Rich in Substance, December 6, 2014 This book was recommended to me by Michael Ostrolenk, whom I consider one of the most inspiring transpartisan figures in America today, and endorsed by Elisabet Sahtouris, evolution biologist and “Yoda” to many …

Berto Jongman: Harvard to Journal Publishers – Piss Off! Open Access Here We Come…

Harvard University says it can’t afford journal publishers’ prices University wants scientists to make their research open access and resign from publications that keep articles behind paywalls Exasperated by rising subscription costs charged by academic publishers, Harvard University has encouraged its faculty members to make their research freely available through open access journals and to …

Robert Young Pelton: Foreign Policy Gets It Wrong on Afghanistan — PBI: Funded Disinformation?

There is a need to establish a truthful narrative, background and facts. Below is antithetical to all that. Fraud and Folly in Afghanistan The  runoff round of the Afghan presidential election on June 14 was massively rigged, and the ensuing election audit was “unsatisfactory,” a result of Afghan government-orchestrated fraud on a scale exceeding two …

2014 Robert Steele On Defense Intelligence – Seven Strikes

On Defense Intelligence: Seven Strikes I consider defense intelligence today to be incoherent and ineffective. It has no grasp of the totality of the threat; it is largely worthless in providing SecDef with evidence-based decision support relevant to strategy, policy, acquisition, and operations; and it does not help DoD within the Cabinet when decision-support is …

Stephen E. Arnold: Startup Tamr Focuses on Automated Data Cleanup for Incoherent Legacy Big Data

Rising Startup Tamr Has Big Plans for Data Cleanup An article Gigaom is titled Michael Stonebraker’s New Startup, Tamr, Wants to Help Get Messy Data in Shape. With the help ($16 million) from Google Ventures and New Enterprise Associates, Stonebraker and partner Andy Palmer are working to crack the ongoing problem of data transformation and …