Public Intelligence Blog – Page 2489 – The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.

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Internet‐Based Intelligence in Public Health Emergencies

Early Detection and Response in Disease Outbreak Crises

Editors Mordini, E., Green, M. Pub. date March 2013 Pages 160 Binding softcover
Volume 105 of NATO Science for Peace and Security Series – E: Human and Societal Dynamics
ISBN 978-1-61499-174-8
Subject Computer & Communication Sciences, Security & Terrorism, Social Sciences

Momentous social events result from the sum of micro-level changes in daily individual life, and by observing and fusing publicly available data, such as web searches and other internet traffic, it is possible to anticipate events such as disease outbreaks. However, this ability is not without risks, and public concern about the possible consequences of improper use of this technology cannot be ignored. Opportunities for open discussion and democratic scrutiny are required

This book has its origins in the workshop Internet-Based Intelligence for Public Health Emergencies and Disease Outbreak: Technical, Medical, and Regulatory Issues, held in Haifa, Israel, in March 2011. The workshop was attended by 28 invited delegates from nine countries, representing various disciplines such as public health, ethics, sociology, informatics, policy-making, intelligence and security, and was supported by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme. Its starting point was the 2009 outbreak of swine flu in Mexico. The book includes both scientific contributions presented during the meeting and some additional articles that were submitted later.

Interactions between public health and information and communication technologies are destined to be of great importance in the future. This book is a contribution to the ongoing dialogue between scholars and practitioners, which will be essential to public acceptance and safety as we rely more and more on the internet for predicting trends, decision-making and communication with the public.

2013/03/062013/03/26

Chuck Spinney: Treason Thy Name is F-35A aka “Acquisition Malpractice”

Commerce, Corruption, Government, Military

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Below is more insight into the disgraceful state of affairs of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the largest program in DoD's history. This commentary by Winslow Wheeler, Director of the Strauss Military Reform Project, is based on the information in yet another official Pentagon DOT&E report. Read it and weep … I especially uge that doubters, deniers, and non-believers take the time to peruse the entire official DOT&E report at this link, also referenced in Winslow's the first paragraph.

It is important to understand F-35's deplorable state of affairs is a typical albeit extreme example of where concurrency leads — higher costs, decreased performance, stretched-out and/or truncated production runs, culminating in aging, shrinking inventories and rising costs of maintaining even low rates of readiness of combat forces. And the concurrency horrors of the F-35 are by no means unique, think F-111, C-5, V-22, F-22, and F-18E/F. To be sure, concurrency is not the sole cause of these aforementioned trends, but it is a major contributor.

But in the case of the F-35, even some parts of the Pentagon are starting to gag on the monster they have unleashed. In February 2012, no less an authority than Frank Kendall, the Pentagon's acting acquisition chief charactered the F-35's grossly excessive concurrency as “acquisition malpractice.” (Congressional Research Report (RL30563), F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Program, see page 7).

Of course, Kendall's statement smacked of the pot calling the kettle black. Where was the concern by him or his predecessors when they could have done something about what is now a $1.4 trillion* problem? It is not as if the general nature, if not the specifics, of the inevitable F-35 mess was hard for acquisition managers to foresee — if you doubt that, read my essay, JSF: One More Card in the House, published over 12 years ago in the August 2000 issue of the Proceedings of the Naval Institute.

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* Estimated (as of 2011) life cycle cost for developing, buying, and operating 2443 F-35s for 30 years, assuming total production run, assuming no more unexpected problems, schedule slippages, and a full production run [source].

Chuck Spinney

Winslow Wheeler: Treason They Name is F-35A — We Expect Hagel to “Do A Cheney”

2013/03/06

Worth a Look: Books on Why Women Will Rule the 21st Century

Culture

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12 Women CEOs 12 Different Leadership Styles (Source of Graphic)

Learning to See in the Dark: The Roots of Ethical Resistance — Carol Gilligan Speaks at MIT

Reference: Peggy Holman Free Video on Emergence

Review (DVD): Humanity Ascending Series Part 1: OUR STORY featuring Barbara Marx Hubbard

Review (Fiction): Truce – The Day the World Was Perfect

Review: Conscious Evolution: Awakening Our Social Potential

Review: Getting a Grip–Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad

Review: Mapping the Moral Domain: A Contribution of Women’s Thinking to Psychological Theory and Education

Continue reading “Worth a Look: Books on Why Women Will Rule the 21st Century”

2013/03/062013/07/22

Koko: It’s A Boy! Bubba Willy Mountbatten-Windsor

Cultural Intelligence

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Son of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

[Names yet to be announced]

Oh well. Girls nice. Smaller egos. Compassionate. Brains work better without all that testosterone.

Is Kate having a daughter? Time will tell

LONDON (AP) — It's a royal secret, but the Duchess of Cambridge may have inadvertently dropped a hint about the gender of the baby she and Prince William are expecting.

When a wellwisher gave the former Kate Middleton a teddy bear during a rare public appearance Tuesday, one woman in the crowd said she heard Kate respond: “Thank you, I will take that for my d…” before she broke off her comments.

That reported exchange was enough for Britain's tabloids to trumpet “It's a girl” in Wednesday's papers.

Sandra Cook, who was standing near Kate, told reporters that she asked Kate if she had been about to say, ‘daughter' and was told at first that the royal couple did not know and then that the couple would not reveal the child's gender.

2013/03/062013/03/26

John Maguire: Operation Homeland Liberty — ENOUGH! — People Against the National Defense Authorization Act – PANDA – Led by Home-Schooled Eagle Scout

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Law Enforcement, Military

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Dan Johnson is 19 years old, an Eagle Scout, and has been recognized as one of the top 30 impromptu speakers in the United States. He is a Political Science Major at Bowling Green State University. After doing further research, in late January, he founded PANDA (People Against the National Defense Authorization Act). PANDA is supported by groups across the political spectrum, and is now one of the fastest growing liberty movements in the nation; with over 25 teams across the country. He is recognized by many as an upcoming expert on the subjects of Liberty vs. National Security, the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, H.R. 347, and the gradual slide toward an American Police State.

PANDA (People Against the NDAA) is the largest organization in the United States combating indefinite detention without charge or trial. We were founded on January 29th, 2012 to combat one of the most dangerous laws ever passed. The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, authorized the indefinite detention of any person around the world, including American citizens, without a charge and without a trial. (Oh, did we mention Americans can be put in military prison under the NDAA?!)

PANDA started in Bowling Green, OH and has since expanded to influence hundreds of thousands of people nationwide. We have been covered by WND, the Tenth Amendment Center, Activist Post, Interoccupy, Western Journalism and many other videos, radio shows and articles. We have networked with over 100 liberty organizations and several alternative news sources.

Learn more.

2013/03/062013/03/06

Graphic: Global Game of Go Seen in Emails

Citizen-Centered, Graphics, ICT-IT, Strategy-Holistic Coherence

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Source

Phi Beta Iota: Now think of the strategic game of Go and the concepts of divide and conquer. What the Chinese are doing with soft power is a winning strategy. What the Islamics are doing with displaced persons is not a winning strategy but it is very disruptive because governments are not assimilating the good and expelling the bad. When the US exports people they are either bringing in violence or taking out money — that is not a sustainable strategy.

See Also:

DuckDuckGo / Game of Go

2013/03/062013/03/26

Winslow Wheeler: Treason Thy Name is F-35A — We Expect Hagel to “Do A Cheney”

Corruption, Government, Military

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Including stunning pilot comments about the aircraft's survivability (such as “Aft visibility will get the pilot gunned [down] every time”), a new, unclassified DOD document on the F-35 is now available. It describes the performance of the F-35A and its support systems in initial training at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Find the document at POGO's website. Find my summary and analysis of the document below

The Air Force's F-35A: Not Ready for Combat, Not Even Ready for Combat Training.

On February 15, 2013 the Department of Defense's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) sent a memorandum and accompanying evaluation report to Congress and the DOD hierarchy describing the performance of the F-35A and its support infrastructure at Eglin Air Force Base (FL). There, already skilled Air Force pilots are undergoing a basic syllabus of familiarization training with the aircraft. Not previously in the public domain, the unclassified DOT&E materials are available at the POGO website at http://pogoarchives.org/straus/ote-info-memo-20130215.pdf.

DOT&E's report, titled “F-35A Joint Strike Fighter: Readiness for Training Operational Utility Evaluation,” reveals yet more disappointments on the status and performance of the F-35. The Operational Utility Evaluation (OUE) is particularly valuable as it focuses on the Air Force's A model of the F-35 “Joint Strike Fighter.” Many in the political and think tank world have focused more on the Marine Corps B, or Short Take Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL), version or the Navy's C model with its heavier structure and larger wings. While the B and C are even more expensive and lower in performance-on certain key performance dimensions-than the Air Force's A model, this OUE (inadvertently) demonstrates that the A model is also flawed beyond redemption.

While the DOT&E paperwork includes an opening memo and an executive summary, they do not do justice to the detailed findings of the report. Specific issues are discussed below-much of it in quotations and showing the appropriate page number of the text of the evaluation.

Continue reading “Winslow Wheeler: Treason Thy Name is F-35A — We Expect Hagel to “Do A Cheney””