Marcus Aurelius: Jennifer Sims Party Line on Military Clandestine Service with Robert Steele Comment + RECAP

Here we go again…. Why the CIA Is Applauding the Pentagon’s Intelligence Grab Jennifer Sims Foreign Affairs, May 18, 2012 Last month, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced the creation of a new U.S. espionage agency: the Defense Clandestine Service, or DCS. DCS is expected to expand the …

Dolphin: Ecological Chains Worldwide Being Damaged

Ecological Chains Worldwide Being Damaged Nathan Planet Save, 18 May 2012 Subtle ecological chains worldwide are being damaged by human influence, leading to significant losses of population in different ecosystems. One of the longest ecological chains ever found has just been discovered in the remote Palmyra Atoll, in the Pacific Ocean. This area is useful …

Winslow Wheeler: The F-22, Toxic Stealth, Secrets Screw Sick…

Dina Rasor and Pierre Sprey have collaborated on an important and informative piece on the F-22.  It expands the publically available thinking about the nature of the toxicity problem facing F-22 pilots, and–just as importantly–it probes the nature of one of the prime suspects for the problem: the F-22’s “stealth” coating.  Note at the end of …

Top Atlee: Final Words from Ernest Callenbach the Author of Ecotopia & Ecotopia Emerging

Dear friends, Ernest Callenbach’s ECOTOPIA and its prequel ECOTOPIA EMERGING were major books in my developing thinking about how a sustainable society might evolve.  ECOTOPIA, the more famous of the two, provides Callenbach’s overall vision of what might be possible.  ECOTOPIA EMERGING – with far better characterization and more compelling plot – tells the story …

Robert Steele: Clandestine Operations 101 + Personal Comment

Clandestine Operations 101 Here’s how to create a clandestine service that is not the laughing stock of the planet: 00  Stop confusing secure field operations with any need for access to official secrets.  The primary reason CIA is such a mess is the ascendance of security ignorance and myopia combined with sedentary overly fearful managers …

David Isenberg: Thomas Powers on Ike Eisenhower – He Got the Big Things Right

He Got the Big Things Right Thomas Powers New York Times, April 26, 2012 Eisenhower: The White House Years by Jim Newton Doubleday, 451 pp., $29.95 Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith Random House, 950 pp., $40.00 Bettmann/Corbis When the youngest man to be elected president of the United States was inaugurated …