In identifying “difficult subordinates who should have been promoted, I should have included Colonels Doug Macgreagor and Jim Burton and especially Major Don Vandergriff. Sorry for the omission
CS note – Hersh channels John Boyd* : my comments are inserted in “blue” [italics]
my added emphasis to Sy's words in bold black. Of course, this is really a commentary on contemporary culture, including government and the private sector, not just the media.
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*Note to readers unfamiliar with Boyd or his theory of the OODA Loop: A brief introduction can be found in my essays Genghis John and Incestuous Amplification and the Madness of King George More comprehensive but accessible descriptions can be found in the books by Robert Coram and James Fallows, and Chet Richards. For those readers who are interested in heavy intellectually lifting, see Franz Ozinga‘s analysis of Boyd's strategic thought or even better, they could study Boyd's original presentations, which can be downloaded from the folder labeled “Boyd Briefs” in my Public Folder or the Pogo Archive.
Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the ‘pathetic' American media
Pulitzer Prize winner explains how to fix journalism, saying press should ‘fire 90% of editors and promote ones you can't control'
Collapse is Soon, says Hedges, and Others Predict it for 2014
“It is estimated that total derivative exposure of the financial system is between one quadrillion and one and a half quadrillion. A quadrillion is 1,000 trillion dollars and it has largely collapsed.The entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of all the world’s countries in 2011 was approximately 77 trillion dollars. GDP is an economic term for everything that is produced for sale. The American middle class is being asked to bear the burden of the entire derivatives market collapse which totals over 16 times the net value of the entire planet. No amount of bailouts can ever cover the loss. This is simply the bankers way of transferring what is left of middle class wealth before the final collapse
Where do you think the bail out money went? Ask yourself why so many corporate heads are building homes overseas? Why did George Bush build a 100,000 acre ranch in Paraguay? Why is NORTHCOM, a combat organization, is engaged in urban riot control training? Why did DHS purchase 2.2 billion rounds of ammunition to go with their 2700 armored personnel carriers? Even the National Weather Service has purchased million of rounds of ammunition. Why are the Russians training on American soil with FEMA in a bilateral agreement signed by Obama? Why are we seeing one disaster drill after another being carried out in this country? Here is a partial list of disaster drills being carried between September 25-November 13th.
The central bankers know that no amount of Quantitative Easing can pay for the hard assets that were lost in order to collateralize the derivatives. They have no option but to collapse the system and start over, but before they do, they are going to steal everything that is not nailed down. This is why in preparation of this move to collapse the system, they are obtaining as many hard assets as possible. This is why the Federal Reserve has been printing 40 billion dollars per month for the sole purpose of purchasing mortgage backed securities. This is why central bankers are under orders from the Bank of International Settlement which has ordered its rank and file central bankers from each country to greatly minimize loans in order to limit exposure when the collapse occurs. This is why the MERS mortgage fraud, in which millions of people are having their houses stolen through the creation of phony titles, continues unabated. This is why the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that once a depositor puts their money in the bank, the bank owns the money. This is why Treasury Secretary Lew began to “borrow” against federal pensions late last spring. This is why DHS, the IRS et al are preparing to go to war with the American people as they arm to the teeth. This is why the foreign troops are here. You are on the Titanic and you are going down. Still not convinced? Then explain Cyprus, Greece, Poland and now Panama where the TPTB are stealing pensions and bank accounts and you don‘t think it can happen to you because you are an American?”
Perhaps the apparently incongruous remarks from Oracle president Mark Hurd foretell a shift in direction for his company. That was my thought when I read ReadWrite‘s piece, “Red Hat to Oracle: Have You Tried Free?” However, writer Matt Asay seems to see Hurd’s comments as either hypocritical or simply odd. What comments, you ask? Ah, let me back up.
Asay compares two posts that appeared on a LinkedIn blog platform a few weeks apart. The first, from Red Hat‘s CEO Jim Whitehurst, describes the way his company succeeds through the sale of affordable but valuable add-ons to open source projects. The key, he says, is creating an equation in which both customer and vendor benefit. We’re all for that.
Soon thereafter, Oracle’s Hurd contributed a post that appears to favor the open source approach by suggesting organizations adopt newer, cheaper technology. This despite the fact that his company seems to embody the very opposite of that concept. Asay explains:
“Hurd’s post is somewhat surreal. Basically, it reads like an anti-Oracle screed, talking up the need for CIOs to do more with less, talking down legacy enterprise apps and infrastructure, but conveniently overlooking the fact that it Oracle that dominates IT budgets—and not in a good way. He derides applications and their underlying infrastructure that are 20 years old (some of Oracle’s applications are 20 years old and its database is even older), insisting that ‘they require enormous funding to keep them fed and watered—and that’s why there’s nothing left over for innovation.’
“According to Gartner’s recently released vendor rating for Oracle, Hurd should know. The Redwood Shores giant gets positive marks for its technology, and improved ratings on support. The one area that it went from bad to worse? Pricing.”
Yes, that Gartner vendor rating also shows that—what with price increases, complex license metrics, and ballooning audits—dealing with Oracle gives IT buyers plenty of headaches. Asay cites those increased audits as evidence that the company is trying to get the most from existing contracts, probably because more businesses are indeed turning to newer, cheaper options. He also calls Hurd’s post “audacious” for suggesting that the cost of outdated systems is hampering businesses, since much of that legacy comes straight from Oracle. See the article for more of Asay’s analysis.
But what if Hurd is really signaling a change of course? Perhaps the company will embrace the open source model. If so, is it too late for Oracle to catch up to companies like Red Hat? Another burning question: will open source revenue now fund America’s Cup yachts?
Pulitzer-prize wining journalist slams “pathetic” US media for failing to challenge White House
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
September 27, 2013
Seymour Hersh
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh says that the raid which killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011 is “one big lie” and that “not one word” of the Obama administration’s narrative on what happened is true.
In a wide-ranging interview published today by the Guardian, Hersh savages the US media for failing to challenge the White House on a whole host of issues, from NSA spying, to drone attacks, to aggression against Syria.
On the subject of the Navy Seal raid that supposedly resulted in the death of the Al-Qaeda terror leader, Hersh remarked, “Nothing’s been done about that story, it’s one big lie, not one word of it is true.”
Hersh added that the Obama administration habitually lies but they continue to do so because the press allows them to get away with it.
“It’s pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama],” Hersh told the Guardian.
5.0 out of 5 starsSeminal Work for the Middle Period of Intelligence, September 28, 2013
The history of national intelligence in terms of spies, satellites, and secrets can be concisely separated into three eras: the era of secret wars, the era of strategic analysis, and the era of open source intelligence.
Sherman Kent was without question the dean and the prophet for the second era, and this gem of a book remains a standard in the field and required reading for any intelligence professional (collector, analyst, or other). He did not realize his vision because the clandestine service (of which I was a member) took over the CIA and subordinated the analysts, and because in so doing, the CIA lost touch with most of the open source world.
Today Kent is succeeded by Jack Davis, whose term “analytic tradecraft” can be used to find his collection of memos on the web, and by the CIA University. However, the secret world is now under attack by the emergent World Brain, in which Collective (Public) Intelligence utilizes open sources of information to create Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) that is better than secret information, cheaper than secret information, and more useful than secret information because it can be shared broadly.
Those whose sense of self is defined by the secret world will have difficulty adjusting to this, witness the continued references in the secret world to “Open Sources.” Max nix. The war is over, and Kent's vision will ultimately be realized in the third era, the era of open sources.
Afghanistan: Comment: NightWatch has completed one of its occasional reviews of the level of violence in Afghanistan. Reportig from Afghan government sources since March 2013 shows that the major policy initiatives and resource commitments by of the Allied countries have made little lasting impact on the overall progression of the conflict.What is worse is that the withdrawal of well-equipped forces has created a false-positive echo that suggests security is improving because there are fewer non-Afghan casualties. Afghan reports indicate the fight got worse in September.
