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Search: Development at Gunpoint – Why Civilians Must Reclaim Stabilization Aid

Development at Gunpoint – Why Civilians Must Reclaim Stabilization Aid Michael Young Foreign Affairs, December 19, 2010 The current multibillion-dollar campaign to counter transnational terrorism, defeat insurgencies, and stabilize fragile states blends diplomacy, defense, and development. A principal tool in this vast effort is humanitarian and development assistance — what has come to be known …

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Patrick Meier: Crowdsourcing Syrian Crisis via Twitter API

Crowdsourcing Crisis Information from Syria: Twitter API vs Firehose Over 400 million tweets are posted every day. But accessing 100% of these tweets (say for disaster response purposes) requires access to Twitter’s “Firehose”. The latter, however, can be prohibitively expensive and also requires serious infrastructure to manage. This explains why many (all?) of us in the …

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Marina Gorbis: The Future Of Education Eliminates The Classroom, Because The World Is Your Class — Provided You Have a Hand-Held Device

The Future Of Education Eliminates The Classroom, Because The World Is Your Class Written by: Marina Gorbis Massive Open Online Courses might seem like best way to use the Internet to open up education, but you’re thinking too small. Technology can turn our entire lives into learning experiences. This probably sounds familiar: You are with …

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Stephen E. Arnold: Search and Business Intelligence “Merge” But Nothing New — with Comment by Robert Steele

Are Search and Business Intelligence Merging? Wrong tense. Search has been sucked into business intelligence as a subordinate or utility function. Consultants and “experts” suggest that search and business intelligence are converging. Information Builders, based in New York City, suggests that the alleged convergence looks like two equally-sized markets merging like a math book’s illustration …

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Berto Jongman: US Special Operations Command Goal — Prevent Wars, Bottom Up Community Based Resilience — Never Mind Strategic-Level Blunders, Ideology, & Predatory Policies, Drones, Dictators…1.1

Socom’s goal: Pre-empt wars Tampa is headquarters for the commandos who are gaining a bigger role in military operations around the globe. Military writer Howard Altman travels with them this month in Afghanistan. By Howard Altman | Tribune Staff Tampa Tribune,  May 19, 2013 They make small footprints at the edges of the Earth. Sometimes …

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David Swanson: CIA – An Idea Whose Time Has Gone with Comment from Robert Steele

CIA: An Idea Whose Time Has Gone By David Swanson There’s a contradiction built into every campaign promise about transparent government beyond the failure to keep the promises.  Our government is, in significant portion, made up of secret operations, operations that include warmaking, kidnapping, torture, assassination, and infiltrating and overthrowing governments.  A growing movement is …

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David Isenberg: What Rules, If Any, Should Govern Death by Drone? (Never mind the 98% collateral damage….)

What Rules Should Govern US Drone Attacks? April 4, 2013 Kenneth Roth Larry Towell/Magnum Photos Drone aircraft at a US base, Afghanistan, 2011 As bits and pieces of the Obama administration’s legal justifications for its drone attacks trickle out, what is most striking is their deliberate ambiguity. The recent Justice Department “White Paper,” for example, …

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