Public Intelligence Blog – Page 3715 – The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.

0Shares

Full Story Online

Kindness taught in Seattle school's online class

A small private school in Seattle offered a kindness class this fall, part of a larger movement that started more than a decade ago. Offered online, the class had 250 people — the most ever — who lived as far away as Poland.

graphic random acts — Book on Same Theme

By Linda Shaw Seattle Times education reporter

If you recently found a shiny gold dollar coin in downtown Bellevue, thank the kindness class. Ditto if you stumbled upon a piece of glass art in Pioneer Square, or a lottery ticket taped to a bus shelter with a note saying, “This may be your lucky day.”

Since mid-September, the 250 people in Puget Sound Community School's online course learned about kindness by practicing it.

Along the way, they took emotional risks, repaired relationships, improved their outlook on the world, and realized that kindness is contagious.

2010/01/032010/01/03

Journal: Bio-Engineering Ramps Up

Earth Intelligence

0Shares

FullStory Online

Researchers engineer bacteria to turn carbon dioxide into liquid fuel

(Nanowerk News) Global climate change has prompted efforts to drastically reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas produced by burning fossil fuels. In a new approach, researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have genetically modified a cyanobacterium to consume carbon dioxide and produce the liquid fuel isobutanol, which holds great potential as a gasoline alternative. The reaction is powered directly by energy from sunlight, through photosynthesis. The research appears in the Dec. 9 print edition of the journal Nature Biotechnology and is available online.

Nature Biotechnology 27, 1177 – 1180 (2009)
Published online: 15 November 2009 | doi:10.1038/nbt.1586

Direct photosynthetic recycling of carbon dioxide to isobutyraldehyde

2010/01/032010/01/03

Event: 16 Jan 10 DC Demonstration Against CIA Drone Deaths with Cynthia McKinney and Cindy Sheehan

Uncategorized

0Shares

Full Story Online

FACEBOOK DELETES INVITE TO CIA DRONE PROTEST

By Brenda Norrell

Cindy Sheehan said Facebook deleted an invitation to the CIA Drone Protest in Langley, Virginia, scheduled for 1 pm to 4 pm Jan. 16, 2010. Sheehan said “the CIA is becoming overly involved in terrorizing populations.” Sheehan joins a powerhouse of women activists to lead the CIA Drone Protest, including Cynthia McKinney, Ann Wright, Kathy Kelly and Debra Sweet.

“We had an event with over 250 confirmed guests and it was deleted by Facebook,” Sheehan said. “We are going to the source of one of the big problems in the US Empire — the CIA — to protest its extra-judicial killings of people in Pakistan. We are against the use of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) and manned aerial vehicles, but we believe that it is very dangerous that the CIA is becoming overly involved in terrorizing populations,” Sheehan said.

2010/01/032010/01/04

Journal: Michael Scheuer Slams Brennan, Tenet, Berger on CNN

Uncategorized

0Shares

Michael F. Scheuer former chief of the Al Qaeda analytic station, just slammed John Brennan, George Tenet, and Sandy Berger on CNN (12:50 Eastern time). He stated that among those who died in Afghanistan recently was the officer who devised a workable plan for eliminating Osama Bin Laden, a plan that was cancelled by Brennan, Tenet, and Burger, all saying we should leave the problem to Saudi Arabia.

Their reluctance is consistent with decades of policy forbidding unilateral clandestine operations within the territories of the despotic regimes that are consider our “best pals” in “higher ends” that favor the state over the people.

Brennan is best known for his mis-handling of the massive watchlist that still does not work; Tenet is best known for “slam dunk” fraud in support of Dick Cheney, and for declaring war on Bin Laden in a whisper; Berger is best known for leaving the Kurds hanging, a story told by Robert Baur in one of his books, and for stealing documents from the national archives. He has not produced a book of note.

From where we sit, the honest case officers and analysts are finally being heard, and the “politicals” are finally being held accountable, even if only in isolated public denouncements, for their decades of dishonest intelligence management, dishonest mismanagement that continues today.

Journal: Cyber-War, Cyber-Peace, Cyber-Scam

Uncategorized

0Shares

Questions stall effort to protect Pentagon network

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon's plan to set up a command to defend its global network of computer systems has been slowed by congressional questions about its mission and possible privacy concerns, according to officials familiar with the plan.

Resolving questions about the command's mission are central not only to the effort to defend military networks, which come under assault millions of times a day, but to establishing the Pentagon's cyber strategy as the United States enters an era in which any major conflict will almost certainly involve an element of cyberwarfare.

Phi Beta Iota: Our national leadership is, at best, totally ignorant of the reality that no matter how much money we throw at this, there are not enough skilled US citizens qualified for clearances to meet our needs if we insist on doing this as a classified program. At worst, our leaders know this, and simply want to move us further into debt for the many so that the few (beltway bandits, banks, future jobs for generals that should know better) can profit. Cyber-Security needs to be about Multinational Engagement, plain and simple. Moving money now, without a strategy and without an assured personnel resourcing plan, is deceptive, irresponsible, and potentially an impeachable act.

Journal: States of Conflict (AF, PK & IQ) An Update

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Military, Peace Intelligence

0Shares

Full Story Online

By IAN LIVINGSTON, HEATHER MESSERA, MICHAEL O’HANLON and AMY UNIKEWICZ January 2, 2010

In 2009, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan dominated American military and foreign policy. Which themes emerged over the last year?

In Iraq, 2009 was the year of relatively smooth transitions.

In Pakistan, 2009 was the year of the offensives.

In Afghanistan, 2009 was the year of decisions — by President Obama, of course, by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and by the Afghan people as they re-elected Hamid Karzai as president.

Phi Beta Iota: Although a puff piece in some ways, since it is well-known that Karzai is massively corrupt and the election was so fraudulent as to remind one of Idi Amin's elections, the statistics are indeed looking good, especially in Iraq. Our concern is that the US will finally de-occupy Iraq only to create new occupations in Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia. Neither CIA nor JSOC is actually up to the challenge of global operations without blow-back, the US has no strategy and no Whole of Goverment capability for waging peace so as to calm the context in which we do one man – one bullet operations, so on balance, we are very concerned.

2010/01/022010/01/02

Journal: Strong Signals–Azerbaijan in Play

02 Diplomacy, 05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence

0Shares

Phi Beta Iota: We now know that no one briefed the White House on the fact that Iraq was deeply divided between Sunnis in power and Shi-ites under repression. We have to ask ourselves if anyone has figured out that Azerbaijan is the other Shi'ite majority nation.

Iran starts to introduce visa-free regime with Azerbaijan on February 1 – Head of the press service of the Iranian Embassy

Earlier Iranian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Mohammad Bagir Behrami said that any Azerbaijani citizen can travel to Iran without a visa and stay for one month.

The ambassador expressed hope that the Azerbaijani side will take a similar step.

ACNIS criticizes Azerbaijani president’s renewed threats of war

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS) Director Richard Giragosian issued a statement today criticizing Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s renewed “threats of war.

Azerbaijani citizen arrested in Afghanistan on suspected link to al Qaeda

Baku. Elmin Ibrahimov-APA. Afghanistan National Security Directorate (NSD) has announced that a member of the al-Qaida network was arrested in the country’s eastern province of Khost.

Turkey urges Armenia to resolve problems with Azerbaijan

“Normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia is not enough,” Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Burak Özügergin told a press briefing on Wednesday. “If Armenia does not resolve Upper Karabakh dispute with Azerbaijan, stability in the Caucasus can not be established. This is quite clear.”

Continue reading “Journal: Strong Signals–Azerbaijan in Play”