Public Intelligence Blog – Page 2625 – The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.

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Increasingly, My Home Supports Me. Does Yours?

I think every home should be a productive asset. An asset that helps you succeed in life and supports you as you get older. Unfortunately, most people don't see it that way. They see a home as an empty shell. Their perfect home doesn't produce. In fact, it costs money. Their homes only generate a return if you are lucky enough to sell it for more than you bought it. That doesn't cut it for me.

Particularly when there are a great many low cost — in time, effort, and money — things that can be done to increase your homes ability to produce. Simple things people can do to avoid wasting money and making themselves vulnerable to adversity. The best way to do start is to take a modular approach.

A Modular Approach to Rainwater Harvesting

Continue reading “John Robb: My Home Supports Me, Does Yours?”

2012/11/202012/11/20

Berto Jongman: Palantir “Demo” on Identifying Rebel Groups in Syria

IO Impotency

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Identifying Rebel Groups in Syria: An Analytical Methodology

Nov 2, 2012 – Joseph Holliday

In a narrated demonstration, Joseph Holliday presents his methodology to identify and track rebel groups in Syria. Using international media, YouTube videos, and Facebook pages, he verifies and describes rebel activity and assigns responsibility to named rebel groups. Often publishing records of their attacks, rebel groups provide a wealth of information about their capabilities, key personalities, principal values, and locations through film and other digital media. Analyzing these films and verifying observations through additional sources, Joseph Holliday has been able to describe changes in rebel capability, objectives, and limitations over time with a high degree of accuracy.

Phi Beta Iota: Pedestrian poop, neither analytical nor helpful, and certainly not worth the time/price inputs. Worth watching for a sense of how little this offers. Technology is not a substitute for thinking, and incoherent visuals are not a substitute for applied human intelligence that can answer a specific foward-looking question.

2012/11/202012/11/20

David Isenberg: CIA Closes Climate Center

Earth Intelligence, Government, Ineptitude

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CLIMATE: Amid budget scrutiny, CIA shutters climate center

Annie Snider, E&E reporter

Greenwire: Monday, November 19, 2012

With the U.S. intelligence budget shrinking, the CIA has quietly shut down its Center on Climate Change and National Security — a project that was launched with the support of Leon Panetta when he led the agency, but that drew sharp criticism from some Republicans in Congress.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the center said it closed its doors earlier this year, with its staff and analysis continuing under other auspices.

CIA spokesman Todd Ebitz confirmed the change.

“The CIA for several years has studied the national security implications of climate change,” Ebitz said in a statement to Greenwire. “This work is now performed by a dedicated team in an office that looks at a variety of economic and energy security issues affecting the United States.”

The CIA launched the climate change center in September 2009 after a spate of reports linking climate change and national security that drew interest from some members of Congress seeking political action on climate change.

Continue reading “David Isenberg: CIA Closes Climate Center”

2012/11/202012/11/20

Yoda: Digital Communications Revolution

Access, Education, Innovation, Politics

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yoda with light saber — Got Crowd? BE the Force!

Open Internet, Force Is….

Digital Communications Revolution

The importance of a revolution in digital and communications technology has risen in importance since 2011. Interestingly, the most significant proportion of respondents came from Latin America, who particularly emphasised explosions in social media and mobile phones. Respondents from this region had a particularly higher focus on this issue when compared with those from Europe and Asia.

Keeping the digital revolution on track.

A top trend that emerged from the 2012 World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council Survey (which received almost 1,000 responses from the world’s leading thinkers) was the “digital and communications revolution.” But who laid the conditions for this revolution? And how are we going to continue to reap the benefits from this new era?

The answer may surprise you. The people who established the standards and rules allowing 99% of the computer servers worldwide to speak to each other, freely and openly, were not in the US government, Google, or even the UN. Rather, they belonged to civil society – academics and technologists – such as Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, and Tim Berners-Lee, the participant in the opening ceremony of the London Olympics who few people recognized.

Let’s recap that revolution. Over the past five years, 21% of GDP growth in mature economies came from the open Internet. Growth will spread east and south as broadband connections via mobile in emerging economies smash through developed world’s subscriptions in 2013, as reported in the World Economic ForumGlobal Information Technology Report 2012. If the members of Facebook were part of a single sovereign state, it would be the third-largest country in the world; and its terms of service is looking more like a constitution determining people’s rights than an ignored contract with a service provider.

Continue reading “Yoda: Digital Communications Revolution”

2012/11/20

Michael Ostrolenk: Grover Norquist vs. the Pentagon

Corruption, Military

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Grover Norquist vs. the Pentagon

By Michael D. Ostrolenk

The American Conservative • October 24, 2012

Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, famously quipped that he didn’t want to do away with government, merely “shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” He is best known as the architect of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, a promise from lawmakers to their constituents to oppose any and all tax increases. Since its inception in 1986, the pledge has become a virtual litmus test for Republican office-seekers, and today all but a handful of GOP congressmen have signed it.

Though the GOP often professes a desire to reduce spending, the party has been notably reluctant to go after the largest item in the discretionary budget—the Pentagon. TAC’s Michael Ostrolenk recently spoke to Norquist about this curious exception.

TAC: Grover, you are famous for saying that the U.S. government does not have a revenue problem but a spending problem. Sequester aside, how would you recommend the next Congress and President address pork at the Pentagon?

Continue reading “Michael Ostrolenk: Grover Norquist vs. the Pentagon”

2012/11/202012/11/20

Robert Steele: HP Claims Fraud at Autonomy — Could Autonomy Defense be that HP is Stupid?

Commerce, Ineptitude, IO Impotency

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steele smiling final — Robert David STEELE Vivas
Click on Image for Bio Page

Want to save several billion dollars, increase market share with innovation, and not be stupid in the IT arena? The answer is simple: do not buy other software companies (go all in on Open Source Everything); and if you must buy something, consult Stephen E. Arnold, CEO of Arnold IT, first. HP is a potentially great company, but it seems out of touch with reality and unable to do its homework. They are not alone — Microsoft after Ozzie, Oracle, Yahoo, Facebook, all mired in old think. The arrogance of insularity is quite stunning, across all fronts.

H-P Claims Fraud at Autonomy

With Autonomy, H-P Bought An Old-Fashioned Accounting Scandal. Here's How It Worked.

How Hewlett-Packard lost its way

HP's Future Was Fried Before Screaming Fraud

Stephen E. Arnold: Free Online 30 Days Only – The New Landscape of Search

2012/11/20