Authors:
By Members of the 2005 “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” Committee; Prepared for the Presidents of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine Authoring Organizations
Description:
In the face of so many daunting near-term challenges, U.S. government and industry are letting the crucial strategic issues of U.S. competitiveness slip below the surface. Five years ago, the National Academies prepared Rising Above the Gathering Storm, a book … Read More
Reviews:
“Five years ago, these authors provided foresight. Now, their vision answers a national imperative.”
– American Chemical Society President Joseph S. Francisco, Ph.D.
Phi Beta Iota: This book was ignored by successive Administrations of both of the “top two” parties, just as Peak Oil, Peak Water, and Infectious Disease warnings were ignored by previous Administrations in the 1970's. The title of the OSS conference, “National Security & National Competitiveness: Open Source Solutions,” sought to communicate both the objective and the method. The US Government is uninformed and nearly comatose with respect to anything remotely associated with strategic objectives and intelligence-driven policy.
I continue to hear military and civilian IC folks belittle Open Source. I passed this around to show them what can be done and all I get is the response, “this should be classified”. They cannot believe it is from purely open source data…..link provided due to size of document…
The Haqqani network, which has the backing of elements within the Pakistani security establishment, is one of Afghanistan’s most experienced and sophisticated insurgent organizations.
Although the Haqqani network is officially subsumed under the larger Taliban umbrella organization led by Mullah Omar and his Quetta Shura Taliban, the Haqqanis maintain distinct command and control, and lines of operations.
Siraj Haqqani, the son of the famous anti-Soviet fighter Jalaluddin Haqqani, is the current leader of the Haqqani network. Siraj is more extreme than his father and maintains closer ties to al-Qaeda and other foreign extremists in Pakistan.
The Haqqani network maintains a safe haven in North Waziristan, Pakistan, across Afghanistan’s southeastern border. The Pakistani Army has consistently refused to launch a military operation in North Waziristan despite the presence of al-Qaeda senior leadership.
Elements within the Pakistani security establishment continue to view the Haqqani network as a useful ally and proxy force to represent their interests in Afghanistan. To this end, Haqqani forces have repeatedly targeted Indian infrastructure and construction projects in Afghanistan.
Phi Beta Iota: It is now known that Pakistan successfully fooled the most experienced CIA officers in the world, leading them to believe for decades that the Pakistani ISI elements dealing with the Taliban were “renegades” whose misbehavior was not sanctioned by the government. We now know that every move, every word was sanctioned, and we now can calculate that at least half of the money from CIA intended for Afghanistan was siphoned off to fund Pakistani priorities and private bank accounts. If CIA cannot figure this out while it is happening, why should we trust them to figure anything else out? A major reason CIA did NOT know what it needed to know was because then and now it refuses to actually deal in depth with anyone lacking clearances or US citizenship. The one decent initiative CIA had, apart from Project GEORGE, was the Global Futures Partnership. Both died in infancy. Nothing has changed.
Even if voters pass Proposition 19 on Nov. 2, which would legalize use of marijuana in California, the Justice Department will continue to enforce federal drug laws there, Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday.
Phi Beta Iota: States have the right to secede from the Union–they also have the right to nullify federal regulations within the state. Over in Virginia, suit has been filed against the mandatory purchase of health insurance. What we are seeing is the coming end to both the Federal Reserve and the Federal Empire. The federal government is supposed to be a service of common concern to the United STATES of America, but over time, the “top two” parties have conspired to exclude the other 63 parties and their members from both politics and governance, and to exclude the Governors and state from governance. The world is changing. The spectacle of an Attorney General who is obviously loosely-educated and has no clue that he is a servant of the people, not their master, more or less sums up the state of the federal government…..dead in the water and sinking fast. IOHO.
ALERT READER observes:
Thanks, also a note to your posting on States rights….look what is happening in the foreclosure world, 49 States are now looking into the legal issues while the feds say there is nothing wrong….
EXTRACT: Through my experiences and observations, I have come to believe that the physical destruction of the earth extends to us, too. If we live in an environment that's wounded — where the water is polluted, the air is filled with soot and fumes, the food is contaminated with heavy metals and plastic residues, or the soil is practically dust — it hurts us, chipping away at our health and creating injuries at a physical, psychological, and spiritual level. In degrading the environment, therefore, we degrade ourselves.
The whistleblowing group WikiLeaks claims that it has had its funding blocked and that it is the victim of financial warfare by the US government.
Moneybookers, a British-registered internet payment company that collects WikiLeaks donations, emailed the organisation to say it had closed down its account because it had been put on an official US watchlist and on an Australian government blacklist.
Phi Beta Iota: This is interesting at multiple levels and requires further investigation. As best we can tell, WikiLeaks is not subject to US secrecy REGULATIONS and US laws do not apply–if anyone knows differently, please let us know. We believe Moneybookers when they say the US Government did not call on them. This reeks of lawyers with too much power over simple business decisions. We do not trust WikiLeaks management to be completely honest. Finally, it is not possible to censor information once it is out. As John Perry Barlow said so famously at OSS '92, “The Internet interprets censorship as an outage, and routes around it.”
FARMINGVILLE, N.Y. — You've heard of Megan's Laws, designed to keep sex offenders from striking again. Now there's a law created in the hope of preventing animal abusers from inflicting more cruelty – or moving on to human victims.
Suffolk County, on the eastern half of Long Island, moved to create the nation's first animal abuse registry this week, requiring people convicted of cruelty to animals to register or face jail time and fines.
“We know there is a very strong correlation between animal abuse and domestic violence,” said Suffolk County legislator Jon Cooper, the bill's sponsor. “Almost every serial killer starts out by torturing animals, so in a strange sense we could end up protecting the lives of people.”
Phi Beta Iota: Would you hire a known animal abuser to walk your dogs? What is interesting about this is not the context, but the fact of. What can be tracked will be tracked. There will be PerpFax service just like CarFax. No place to hide–and virtual justice will also be done, as people who buy their way out of high crimes are “outed” everywhere they go. Non-violent shaming and shunning…now there's an ancient concept coming back to life.
To download the 2010 SCIP European Summit brochure please click here.
Phi Beta Iota: The program is unusually well-presented with detailed descriptions and “take-away” bullets. Even if you cannot attend, reading the program is worthwhile for those who would like to know more about what the competitive intelligence professionals are thinking these days.
