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DefDog: Reuters – Western Defense Cuts May Be Unstoppable – The Era of Rising Spending on Weapons and Wars is Over

Commerce, Economics/True Cost, Government, Military
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DefDog

Western defense budget cuts may be unstoppable

Companies, governments already preparing for reduced military spending

Peter Apps,, updated 10/13/2012

WASHINGTON — Whether or not America's politicians can find a way to sidestep the brutal automatic military cuts of sequestration, the era of rising Western spending on weapons and wars is over.

That reality increasingly is challenging major arms manufacturers, spurring them to look for new markets, cost cuts and mergers. It is also confronting policymakers with difficult political and strategic choices as new rivals, particularly China, spend more on their armed forces.

U.S. military spending still dwarfs that of other countries – the equivalent of the next 13 nations' spending by some estimates – but the global military balance is clearly shifting. With European states already cutting, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies this year reported that Asian military spending outstripped Europe's for the first time in several centuries.

Read full article.

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Search: M4IS2 [as of 20121013]

Searches
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M4IS2

Definitions: M4IS2 (Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing & Sense-Making

Graphic: Core Force for Multinational and Whole of Government Operations

In “borderless” cyberspace, nation states struggle — M4IS2 Anyone?

Multi-National Decision-Support Centres at P2P Foundation

Reference: World Brain Institute & Global Game

Robert Steele: Data Is the New Oil BUT No One Is Serious About Holistic Analytics, True Cost Economics, Machine or Man-Machine Translation, or M4IS2

Robert Steele: World Brain / Global Game Update with Concept for School of Future-Oriented Hybrid Governance and Centre for Multinational Multiagency Multidisciplinary Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making (M4IS2)

Search: The Future of OSINT [is M4IS2-Multinational]

Search: solutions for prosperous world

Search: why is india not a muslim country

2013 Public Governance in the 21st Century: New Rules, Hybrid Forms, One Constant – The Public

1988-2009 OSINT-M4IS2 TECHINT Chronology

See Also:

Continue reading “Search: M4IS2 [as of 20121013]”

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Berto Jongman: Debka Alternative – Iranian Drone Big as a Helicopter, Captured Intact, Revealed Huge Gaps in Israeli Air Defenses

IO Deeds of War
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Berto Jongman

An alternative account.

Israel & Iran at (Cyber) War  – How the “Beast of Kandahar” Was Looted by the “Mongrel of Tehran”

Not quite an airplane, a helicopter or even a drone, the unmanned Iranian aerial vehicle that ambled into Israeli air space Saturday, Oct. 6 was one of oddest flying objects seen in international skies. Closest to a two-ton stealth helicopter, it structurally resembled a large Russian assault helicopter of the Mi-24, Mi-25 and Mi-35 series. However, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards aerospace engineers who assembled it tried to disguise its Russian origin by stenciling English words (with spelling mistakes) on some of its parts, suggesting it was American. And indeed, shortly after it was shot down by Israeli Air Force F16 jets that day, a Lebanese former general called Hisham Jaber came forward to tell reporters in Beirut, “The drone must have come from an American aircraft carrier or from US air force and military bases in Saudi Arabia. That’s the only possibility so far until we know after investigation.”  No one was surprised to find Iran’s surrogate, Hizballah talking through the former general’s mouth.

Israeli air force, intelligence and cyber warfare experts dubbed it the “Mongrel of Tehran” for reasons first disclosed hereunder by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence and military sources.  The strange craft was captured whole, just like the secret US RQ-170 Sentinel, the CIA’s most sensitive surveillance platform, which Iran seized ten months ago on Dec. 13, 2011.  Israeli experts discovered in their initial examination that some of its parts originated in the US RQ-170, were replicated from them or redesigned from the originals by Iranian, Chinese and Russian engineers.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Debka Alternative – Iranian Drone Big as a Helicopter, Captured Intact, Revealed Huge Gaps in Israeli Air Defenses”

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Review: Managing Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno Innovations: Converging Technologies in Society

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Information Society, Information Technology
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Amazon Page

William Sims Bainbridge (Editor) and Mihail C. Roco

5.0 out of 5 stars Ahead of Its Time, Still a Major Contribution, Needs a Second Volume, October 13, 2012

This is a truly extraordinary book, one I stumbled across as I was browsing the web for “the right stuff.” Whereas most authors and endeavors persist in doing what Dr. Russell Ackoff describes as “doing the wrong thing righter,” this is a book on the bleeding edge of what he and I both favor, “doing the right thing.”

What really surprised me about this book is the rich cultural and ethical spirit that has been integrated into each contribution (19 chapters, many with multiple authors). I am also surprised by the conclusion, chapter 19, “Coevolution of Social Science and Emerging Technologies,” which explicitly recognizes that the social sciences are severely retarded in relation to both the challenges facing us and the capacity of emerging technologies to address those challenges. This is a view I have held for some time, and if there ever were an Open Source Agency (OSA) as a sister agency to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and as an Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) provider to Whole of Government decision-making and Smart Nation depth and breadth, two of that agencies priorities would address the urgency of re-integrating all of the academic disciplines, and accelerating the maturation of the social sciences, while also applying the new meme of “Open Source Everything” to every one of the technologies addressed in this book.

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Eagle: Pirate Party International & Pirate Party USA

P2P / Panarchy, Politics
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300 Million Talons…

Worth a look.

Pirate Party is a label adopted by political parties in different countries. Pirate Parties support civil rights, direct democracy and participation, reform of copyright and patent law, free sharing of knowledge (Open content), information privacy, transparency, freedom of information, free education, universal health care and a clear separation between church and state.[citation needed] They advocate network neutrality and universal, unrestricted access to the Internet as indispensable conditions to some of this.

Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party

Pirate Parties International Logo

The Pirate Parties International (PPI) is an organization supporting the Pirate Parties around the world. The PPI offers a common resource for international collaboration and can provide help to form a local party in your country.  The PPI is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that exists to help establish, to support and promote, and to maintain communication and co-operation between Pirate Parties around the world. It was officially founded in 2010 during the Brussels conference from April 16th to 18th.

Home Page:  http://www.pp-international.net/

Pirate Party USA

The Pirate Party is an American political party founded in 2006 by Brent Allison and Alex English. The party's platform is aligned with the global Pirate movement, and supports reform of intellectual property laws to reflect open source and free culture values, government transparency, protection of privacy and civil liberties, rolling back corporate personhood and corporate welfare, evidence-based policy, and egalitarianism and meritocracy based on the hacker ethic.  The party's national organization has existed in multiple incarnations since its 2006 founding. Its most recent is the Pirate National Committee (PNC), formed in 2012 as a coalition of state parties. The PNC officially recognizes Pirate parties from 8 states,[3] and tracks and assists the growth of more state parties throughout the United States.

Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party_%28United_States%29

United States Pirate Party: The party strives to reform laws regarding copyright and patents. The agenda also includes support for a strengthening of the right to privacy, both on the Internet and in everyday life, and the transparency of state government.

YouTubes

(15:10) TEDxObserver – Rick Falkvinge – The Pirate Party – the politics of protest

(5:45) Pirate Party of Canada on CBC's Power & Politics

(6:08) The Pirate Party charts it course | People & Politics

(14:59) TEDxUW – Larry Smith – Why you will fail to have a great career

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Mike Lofgren: The Austerity Trap – Is Past Prologue? – Should Germany Grant Debt Relief as It Was Granted Debt Relief?

Economics/True Cost, Politics
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Mike Lofgren

The Austerity Trap: Is Past Prologue?

Mike Lofgren, Huffington Post, 10/11/2012 9:42 pm

A German chancellor touts austerity as the sovereign remedy for the worst global economic crisis in most people's memory. Why? The great inflation of 1923 is still so seared into the consciousness of the German political class that keeping the stability of the currency is paramount. Therefore the decree goes out: wages, salaries, and pensions must be cut, government spending slashed, taxes on the middle and working classes raised. Predictably, the unemployment rate rises above 25 percent, riots and demonstrations ensue, and an extreme right-wing party rapidly gains adherents. What this will mean for Europe's political future is unclear.

Continue reading “Mike Lofgren: The Austerity Trap – Is Past Prologue? – Should Germany Grant Debt Relief as It Was Granted Debt Relief?”