Tony Zinni: Background & Confirmation of the 4% “At Best” Quote on Secret versus Open Sources
Knowledge
ROBERT STEELE: I am doing fact-checking as I create the first textbook on intelligence that is useful to all eight tribes of intelligence and breaks away from the mis-directed focus on expensive useless secrets for policy alone. Below from Colonel GI Wilson, USMC (Ret)
Yes, sir. This is how I recall it and Zinni confirms it.
Zinni asked his J-2 at CENTCOM how much of their usable intell was open source. His J-2 said 80%. Zinni asked his J-2 how much of the 20% classified could be found or expanded in OSINT after was it was initially indicated by classified sources. It was determined to be 80% of that.
in my personal experience working with Zinni, it was very evident Zinni recognized the role of OSINT plays in the intelligence community concordant with classified intel. Zinni like Gen Al Gray never had a predilection or penchant for an over-reliance on classified intel just because it was classified.
—–Original Message—–
GI, writing a new book, INTELLIGENCE WITH INTEGRITY: Decision Support in the Public Interest. I'd like to identify you as the source if I may, of this statement from Zinni:
[1] As related to me by Col G. I. Wilson, USMC (Ret.), one of a tiny handful of asymmetric warfare pioneers in the US Marine Corps, as he heard it from General Zinni. This was first published, without attribution, in Robert Steele, “Open Source Intelligence,” in Johnson (2006), Chapter 6, pp. 95-122. Subsequently I created Graphic: Tony Zinni on 4% “At Best”.
Marcus Aurelius: Hundreds of Ohio School Workers Want to Carry Guns
10 Security, 11 Society, Academia, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Law Enforcement
Similar spirit to Flight 93 on 9/11. Federal Flight Deck Officer program could serve as a good model for training and standards. A good Ohio legislature would clean up the laws and preclude lawsuits.
Hundreds of Ohio school workers want to carry guns
More than 450 teachers and other school employees from around Ohio have applied for 24 spots in a free firearms-training program being offered by the Buckeye Firearms Association.
“We’re pleasantly surprised, but it’s not shocking,” Ken Hanson, legal chairman for the association, said today of the response since the group began taking applications on its website 10 days ago. “The demand has been there for quite some time.”
The issue of arming school employees to protect students has been “on the radar” of school boards in Ohio for several years, he said, but the organization decided to launch its training program after the Dec. 14 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults.
“That was the breaking point,” he said. “We decided it’s time to quit talking about it and move forward.”
SchwartzReport: Science & Technology Education Critical
04 Education
STEM Is the Key to Stronger Education
Stephen M. Coan
Huffington Post, 20 December 2012
Technology and engineering, both critical dimensions of our global economy and society, require mastery in science and advanced math.
The good news: STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) occupations are expected to grow 17 percent in 2008-2018, versus 9.8 percent for non-STEM jobs, and earn 26 percent higher wages.
The bad news: An estimated 3 million STEM-related jobs remain unfilled because of learning and skills gaps.
Continue reading “SchwartzReport: Science & Technology Education Critical”
Marcus Aurelius: The American Gun Culture
Cultural IntelligenceFrom Pravda on the Potomac. In parts, makes us sound like the Swiss, who are an officially armed nation.
Why do Americans love guns? They’re part of our culture.
Henry Allen
Washington Post, December 25, 2012
Henry Allen, who won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2000, was a Post editor and reporter for 39 years.
Let me dust off my favorite Sufi parable.
A man loses a ring inside his house. A friend sees him crawling around outside and asks, “If you lost your ring in the house, why are you looking for it here?” “You fool,” says the man, “the light is much better out here.”
And so it goes with people looking for solutions to gun killings in America.
We’re talking about the very best people, the people with statistics and proposals for regulation, crawling around in the sunlight of their social-scientific rationality.
They never find a solution because all their legislation, academic studies, mathematical proofs, and proposals for waiting periods, background checks and buying limits aren’t going to do much more than they ever have.
Nor are the pleas of the progressives asking why anyone would ever want to own a gun — thereby demonstrating their arrogance toward the people who own the hundreds of millions of guns in the United States.
Both the problem and the solution lie elsewhere, in what historian Richard Hofstadter called “America as a Gun Culture.”
Worth a Look: HealthyPeople.gov
07 Health, Worth A Look
About Healthy People
Healthy People provides science-based, 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans. For 3 decades, Healthy People has established benchmarks and monitored progress over time in order to:
- Encourage collaborations across communities and sectors.
- Empower individuals toward making informed health decisions.
- Measure the impact of prevention activities.
Leading Health Indicators
Healthy People 2020 provides a comprehensive set of 10-year, national goals and objectives for improving the health of all Americans. Healthy People 2020 contains 42 topic areas with nearly 600 objectives (with others still evolving), which encompass 1,200 measures. A smaller set of Healthy People 2020 objectives, called Leading Health Indicators, has been selected to communicate high-priority health issues and actions that can be taken to address them. Continue reading “Worth a Look: HealthyPeople.gov”Marcus Aurelius: Matt Damon on Politics — Game is Rigged
Corruption, Government, IneptitudeLeftwing sage….
Huffington Post, 28 December 2012
Matt Damon is not only one of Hollywood's best actors, but also a top interviewee. The 42-year-old star rarely censors himself in interviews, offering unfiltered opinion and honesty that belies his standing as an A-list star. In a new chat with Playboy, Damon continues that trend by providing commentary on the recent presidential election and politics in general.
“We're at a point where politicians don’t really get any benefit from engaging with long-term issues,” Damon said. His new film, “Promised Land,” is tangentially about fracking, an environmental issue of growing concern in the United States, but not one politicians seem eager to discuss.
“It's all about the next election cycle. Those guys in the House don't do anything now but run for office,” Damon continued. “So unless they can find some little thing that zips them up a couple of points in the polls, they're not interested.”
Damon is often open about his politics. In a widely disseminated interview with Elle last year, the star dinged President Barack Obama for not being forceful enough.
“I've talked to a lot of people who worked for Obama at the grassroots level. One of them said to me, ‘Never again. I will never be fooled again by a politician,'” Damon told the magazine. “You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of the country, much better.”
Still, when asked by Playboy if he voted for Obama after those comments, Damon replied, “Definitely.”
“I assume there will be some Supreme Court appointments in this next term; that alone was reason to vote for him,” Damon said. “I don’t think I said anything a lot of people weren’t thinking. It’s easier now more than ever in my life to feel the fix is in, the game is rigged and no matter how hard you work to change things, it just doesn’t matter.”
The lengthy interview with Playboy is a must-read for Damon fans, and includes insight into much more about the star than just his politics. Head to Playboy.com to check it out.
Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Matt Damon on Politics — Game is Rigged”
