Public Intelligence Blog – Page 2839 – The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.

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Nobel Peace Laureate Rejects U.S. State Department – NATO – Chicago Agenda

FROM: MAIREAD MAGUIRE

Dear Friends,

I write to let you know that I have decided not to attend the 12^th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates on 23^rd-25^th April, 2012, in Chicago, USA.

On 10^th April, Sec. of State H. Clinton appeared on video in US State Department Web announcing plans for the forthcoming Nobel Peace Laureates Summit and said ‘The US Department of State is proud to be an active partner in this event’.

Sec. Clinton gave details of how the US State Dept. is working with US embassies around the world, to bring twenty students and 4 teachers from 4 countries to Chicago and explained that video conferences and portals for live streaming of events, will be managed by US State department.

I have now decided, with some sadness, not to be associated in this Partnership as I do not agree with many of the Policies of the US State Department. Indeed I have, as a Nobel Peace Laureate, (and in the spirit of Alfred Nobel) often called for disbandment of NATO, end of militarism and war, and for Disarmament and demilitarization. I cannot therefore, in good conscience, be part of a Partnership with the US State Government (NATO). I also believe that my participation in such a partnership would compromise my position and put in jeopardy my work in the Middle East and other countries.

I am very disappointed that what is a great opportunity for young people, the Nobel Laureates and organizations to listen, learn, and exchange friendships and experiences, has been, I believe, seriously compromised in such a Partnership.

However, I hope it will be an enjoyable and educational summit particularly for all the young people, and I am deeply saddened not to be with you all.

Peace,

Mairead Maguire

Peace People, Northern Ireland

http://www.peacepeople.com

13.4.2012

2012/04/152012/04/16

Berto Jongman: Japan Planning Forced Evacuation of 40 Million

02 China, 03 Environmental Degradation, 06 Russia, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Immigration, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency

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Russia Stunned After Japanese Plan To Evacuate 40 Million Revealed

China said to offer up the “ghost cities” immediately capable of ingesting this number.

By: Sorcha Faal

WhatDoesItMean.com, 15 April 2012

A new report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared by the Foreign Ministry on the planned re-opening of talks with Japan over the disputed Kuril Islands during the next fortnight states that Russian diplomats were “stunned” after being told by their Japanese counterparts that upwards of 40 million of their peoples were in “extreme danger” of life threatening radiation poisoning and could very well likely be faced with forced evacuations away from their countries eastern most located cities…including the world’s largest one, Tokyo.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Japan Planning Forced Evacuation of 40 Million”

2012/04/15

Event: 16-20 Apr Lyon France World Wide Web 2012

Advanced Cyber/IO

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World Wide Web 2012

Detailed Program

Phi Beta Iota: Recommended for a sense of what is considered worthy of being on the program. Philosophy is addressed in the plenary panel (“Is the Internet a Human Right”) and in at least one very focused session. The concept of the Autonomous Internet is not center stage at this event.

2012/04/152012/04/15

Patrick Meier: Filtering Tweets Real-Time for Crisis Response

Advanced Cyber/IO

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Twitcident: Filtering Tweets in Real-Time for Crisis Response

by Patrick Meier

The most recent newcomer to the “tweetsourcing” space comes to us from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Twitcident is a web-based filtering system that extracts crisis information from Twitter in real-time to support emergency response efforts. Dutch emergency services have been testing the platform over the past 10 months and results “show the system to be far more useful than simple keyword searching of a twitter feed” (NewScientist).

Here's how it works. First the dashboard, which shows current events-of-interest being monitored.

Click to see origiinal post with screen shots.

twitter overview — Click on Image to Enlarge

I look forward to following Twitcident's developments. I'd be particularly interested in learning more about how Dutch emergency services have been using the tool and what features they think would improve the platform's added value.

Berto Jongman: Here is the reference paper:

Twitcident: Fighting Fire with Information from Social Web Streams

Howard Rheingold: News Filters for the Future – Technical Services or Human Networks?

Howard Rheingold: Open Source Intelligence Meets Real-Time News and Data Curation – SwiftRiver

Mini-Me: Bin Laden death-detecting analytics service signs partnership with Twitter

Patrick Meier: Crisis Mapping Syria – Automated Data Mining and Crowdsourced Human Intelligence

Patrick Meier: Mobile Technologies, Crisis Mapping, & Disaster Response

Paul Fernhout: Open Letter to the Intelligence Advanced Programs Research Agency (IARPA)

2012/04/15

William Grieder: Maybe the Fed Can Save the Day – a Huge Flip

03 Economy

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The Federal Reserve Turns Left

by William Greider

Published on Saturday, April 14, 2012 by The Nation

Washington is lost in a snarl of confusion, cowardice and wrongheaded ideological assumptions that threaten to keep the economy in a ditch for a long time. That prospect is not much discussed in the halls of Congress or the White House. It’s as though the crisis has been put on hold until after the presidential election.

As almost everyone understands, nothing substantial will be accomplished this year. President Obama is campaigning on warmed-over optimism and paper-thin policy proposals. Republicans propose to make things worse by drastically shrinking government spending, when the opposite is needed to foster a real recovery. The president, like the GOP, embraces large-scale deficit reduction. In these circumstances, it’s just as well that the two parties cannot reach agreement. After the election they may make a deal that splits the difference between bad and worse. In the worst case, they might inadvertently tip the economy back into recession.

In this sorry situation, there is really only one governing institution with the courage to dissent from the conventional wisdom—the Federal Reserve. The central bank declines to participate in the happy talk about recovery or in the righteous sermons attacking the deficit. In its muted manner, the Fed keeps explaining why the house is still on fire, why more aggressive action is needed, and is gently nudging the politicians who decide fiscal policy to step up. But its message is ignored by Congress and the president and viciously attacked by right-wing Republicans who say, Butt out.

The stakes in this elite dialogue are enormous. The outcome will be more meaningful for ordinary citizens than any other issue at play in this year’s campaign. If the Fed is right and politicians refuse to act, Americans may be condemned to a bitter slog through many years of stagnation.

Continue reading “William Grieder: Maybe the Fed Can Save the Day – a Huge Flip”

2012/04/15

DefDog: Nurturing Innovation in Spite of Really Rotten Rote Education + RECAP

04 Education, Cultural Intelligence

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For years I have done similar approaches when teaching….and have been told to stop because “it is not the way it is done!” My classes were consistently better equipped to deal with the problems they faced as intelligence officers than the school house folks……they weren't afraid of an intelligence failure of the information kind, only the grey matter kind…..

Educating the Next Steve Jobs

How can schools teach students to be more innovative? Offer hands-on classes and don't penalize failure

By TONY WAGNER

Wall Street Journal, 13 April 2012

Most of our high schools and colleges are not preparing students to become innovators. To succeed in the 21st-century economy, students must learn to analyze and solve problems, collaborate, persevere, take calculated risks and learn from failure. To find out how to encourage these skills, I interviewed scores of innovators and their parents, teachers and employers. What I learned is that young Americans learn how to innovate most often despite their schooling—not because of it.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: The article restates what has been known for decades. That the WSJ should think this is in any way new is itself a statement on the WSJ state of mindlessness. Schools today — the exceptions aside — are industrial era rote prisons that beat the creativity out of children by the fifth grade. There is a need to learn history and memorize formulas — no question on that point — but learning to learn in the modern era — and learning to program the electronic tools with which we can learn and share and make sense despite the moral and intellectual constipation of Google, Microsoft, and Oracle, to name just three dead-end companies — this matters.

2012/04/152012/04/15

Mini-Me: How the US Struck Back to Strangle the Arab Spring

02 Diplomacy, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call

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Huh?

Revolution vs. Counterrevolution: Whatever Happened to the Arab Spring?

by ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH

CounterPunch, Weekend Edition April 13-15, 2012

Within the first few months of 2011, the U.S. and its allies lost three loyal “friends”: Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Zine el-Abbidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Saad Hariri in Lebanon. While Mubarak and Ali were driven out of power by widespread popular uprisings, Hariri was ousted by the parliament.

Inspired by these liberating developments, pro-democracy rebellions against autocratic rulers (and their Western backers) soon spread to other countries such as Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

As these revolutionary developments tended to politically benefit the “axis of resistance” (consisting of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas) in the Middle East, the US-Israeli “axis of aggression” and their client states in the region mounted an all-out counterrevolutionary offensive.

Caught off-guard by the initial wave of the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia, the US and its allies struck back with a vengeance. They employed a number of simultaneous tactics to sabotage the Arab Spring. These included

(1) instigating fake instances of the Arab Spring in countries that were/are headed by insubordinate regimes such as those ruling Iran, Syria and Libya;

(2) co-opting revolutionary movements in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen;

(3) crushing pro-democracy movements against “friendly” regimes ruling countries such as Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia “before they get out of hand,” as they did in Egypt and Tunisia; and

(4) using the age-old divide and rule trick by playing the sectarian trump card of Sunnis vs. Shias, or Iranians vs. Arabs.

Read full article (elaboration on each of the four strategies in being listed above).

Phi Beta Iota: Meanwhile within the USA, Ron Paul has been bought off and firmly put back in place as part of the controlled opposition, and Occupy has been very successfully squelched by encouraging their inherent tendency to kum-ba-ya themselves to their own early demise. Now the 1% has what is left of Occupy competing for small scholarships to tread water and remain irrelevant. It is still possible to re-ignite the Electoral Reform Act of 2012 possibilities, but each month that passes without public coalescing around this ONE THING that the all can agree on and force upon the corrupt two-party tyranny in Congress, is another stake in the heart of the Republic.