Watson – Public Intelligence Blog

Mark Watson

4.0 out of 5 stars Ruby-centric tutorials on Semantic Web, Natural Language Processing, and Large-Scale Data Storage and Processing Technologies July 4, 2009

ByTechie Evan

This four-part book is focused on programming techniques and technologies that in the author's opinion can help next generation web applications handle data more “intelligently”. The code samples are implemented in Ruby (and a little bit of Java).

Continue reading “Review (Guest): Scripting Intelligence – Web 3.0 Information Gathering and Processing”

2009/08/062009/08/06

Journal: You Tube Pulls Hundreds Of Ron Paul Videos–Popular C-Span Junkie user channel suspended, 6400 videos gone

Media

If you post videos about people eating each other’s vomit or clips of plastic bimbos with their breasts hanging out then you’ll be left alone, but God forbid should anyone try to give the country a window on what’s actually happening in Congress and what their own Representatives are talking about – in that case your thought crimes will immediately be censored and removed.

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, August 5, 2009

You Tube has expanded its zealous copyright crusade by suspending the popular C-Span Junkie user channel, and in doing so has pulled hundreds of viral Ron Paul videos, which are now completely dead.

The C-Span Junkie user channel, a non-partisan archive of short clips taken from C-Span broadcasts of events in the Congress and the Senate, has been the home of the vast majority of You Tube videos you have seen of Bernanke, Geithner, Paulson and others being confronted in Congress, as well as Ron Paul’s speeches on the House floor. A total of more than 6400 videos in all have been pulled, hundreds of which featured the Texan Congressman.

Whether or not C-Span itself requested that You Tube pull the channel is not known, but it is clearly in the public interest and constitutes fair use to show a clip less than 10 minutes in length of what the people who are supposedly our Representatives are saying in Congress on our behalf.

As we have highlighted before, You Tube arbitrarily suspends accounts based on flimsy copyright claims that aren’t even properly investigated.

Click on image above for full story.

2003/01/142009/12/04

Review: U.S. National Security: A Reference Handbook (Contemporary World Issues)

2 Star, Diplomacy, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power

Lowest Common Denominator–Old Think–High School,

January 14, 2003

Cynthia A. Watson

Although–or perhaps because–the author is a reputable and accepted member of the US national security “club,” and fully capable of writing innovative and ground-breaking materials, this book is horridly old think, even pedestrian, to the point that I was quite disappointed in having spent the time and money on it. The “author” is responsible for just 39 pages of overview, and what a superficial overview it is–without substantive reference to asymmetric warfare, environmental security, public health, or any of a myriad of emerging threats that are vastly more important to the future of US national security that a rehash of the Cold War.The balance of the book is a mind-glazing and largely useless chronology, list of personalities, and list of references and organizations that is both uninspiring, and severely constrained by the US-centric and beltway-centric perspectives of the author. The US Institute of Peace, among many, many other vital organizations, is not listed, and the eight web sites that appear to have been hastily added make a mockery of the concept of a book as a vehicle for imparting information.

With all due respect to the accomplishments and good intentions of the author and the sponsoring publisher, one would be better off browsing Amazon (or to be more specific, the 300+ books on national security and intelligence that I have reviewed) for a couple of hours, than in attempting to find any deep thoughts of lasting value in this reference work. In all respects, it is the lowest common denominator. Instead, I strongly recommend Joe Nye's book on understanding international relations, and the Schultz Godson et al book on security studies.