Public Intelligence Blog

Dr. Walter Dorn

Peacekeeping Technology for the Protection of Civilians

The goal of the forum is to increase awareness of peacekeeping technologies and how they are being used in practice.  While much attention has been given to providing the UN with helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Dr. Dorn emphasizes the importance of basic tools such as smart phones, night vision goggles, video surveillance, and tethered balloons. The forum will include two panels  of experts to explore how the UN and African militaries might go about pilot projects to make use of these innovations.

Keynote Address by: Dr. Walter Dorn, Author of Keeping Watch: Monitoring Technology and Innovation in UN Peace Operations and editor of the forthcoming

Panelists Include:
Colonel Thomas Dempsey, African Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS)
Dwight Raymond, Peacekeeping and Stability Operations institute (PKSOI)
Sarah Williamson, Protect the People (PTP)
David Rogers, MobileGov
Alison Giffen, Stimson Center

Wednesday, May 29, 2013, Time: 10:00am-12:00pm
National Defense University, Lincoln Hall Room 3305, Ft. McNair, Washington, D.C.

This is a part of the TIDES Speaker Series.  Please RSVP to Nelly Mobula 202-685-1971 nelly.mobula@ndu.edu
or register online at: http://www.ndu.edu/CTNSP/Event_Registration/register.cfm

DOWNLOIAD PDF FLYER FOR LOCAL BULLETIN BOARD:
NDUMay29 PeacekeepingTechnology_29May2013

Stuart Littlewood

Is This The Best that Christianity Can Do?

The Holy Land needs advocates for the truth. “It is the truth, and only the truth, that will lead to peace and justice”

While the Jewish State was putting its finishing touches to Operation Cast Lead (the horrific blitzkrieg launched over Christmas-New Year 2008/9 against Gaza’s civilians, including the Christian community there), the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, joined Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in a visit to the former Nazi camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau to demonstrate their joint solidarity against the extremes of hostility and genocide.

“This is a pilgrimage… to a place of utter profanity – a place where the name of God was profaned because the image of God in human beings was abused and disfigured,” said the Archbishop. “How shall we be able to read the signs of the times, the indications that evil is gathering force once again and societies are slipping towards the same collective corruption and moral sickness that made the Shoah possible?”

Read the signs? He needed to look no further than the hell-hole that the Holy Land had been turned into by Israel’s occupation and unfettered aggression, with Britain’s blessing… and, dare one say, without too much fuss from England’s established church either.

If ever there was a place where “the name of God was profaned” the so-called Holy Land is it.

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Jon Rappoport

CBS News star hacked: the big chill

www.nomorefakenews.com

Sharyl Atkisson is the one thing CBS News has going for it. She’s the real article. As real as you can be in the current news climate, while still working for a major media outlet.  She crashed the credibility of the CDC, as it was lying through its teeth about numbers of Swine Flu cases and overplaying the fake “epidemic.”  She’s taken on the horrific effects of vaccines, to the point where her Wikipedia page, through a series of unethical maneuvers, continues to characterize her as irrationally “anti-vaccine.”  She broke key elements of Fast&Furious. She’s a hound on Benghazi, and the Obama administration’s funding of “green programs.”

Now, she states that her computer was compromised in 2011, as she was covering Fast&Furious. She’s still working to find out what happened.

From Politico,  Sharyl Attkisson’s computers compromised

“Sharyl Attkisson, the Emmy-award winning CBS News investigative reporter, says that her personal and work computers have been compromised and are under investigation.

“‘I can confirm that an intrusion of my computers has been under some investigation on my end for some months but I’m not prepared to make an allegation against a specific entity today as I’ve been patient and methodical about this matter,’ Attkisson told POLITICO on Tuesday. ‘I need to check with my attorney and CBS to get their recommendations on info we make public.’

“Attkisson told WPHT that irregular activity on her computer was first identified in Feb. 2011, when she was reporting on the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal and on the Obama administration’s green energy spending, which she said ‘the administration was very sensitive about.’”

end Politico excerpt

Two computers compromised. Star reporter. Somebody gained physical access or remote access to those machines. Strong likelihood it started as a government response to Atkisson’s coverage of Fast&Furious. (Although, unfortunately, Atkisson should also look to someone at CBS as the possible hacker.)  All those nasty stories Atkisson’s worked on, over the years? If she ever wants to use sources from those pieces again, she’s going to have to convince them they won’t pay a steep price for talking to her.  Then, for future stories, she’s going to have to convince new sources they can talk to her without getting into serious trouble.

It’s the big chill. This is the government and its allies sending a message to reporters’ sources and potential sources, confidential or not: watch out; we’re listening in; we can make you sorry.

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David Swanson

The Government’s List of “Anti-Government” People

Should the U.S. government be building a list of people whom a stranger has concluded based on as little as a moment’s interaction are “anti-government”?  Look at this photo of a U.S. Census laptop.  There’s a box to check if a respondent is reluctant to participate in the census.

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The next screen wants the census interviewer to explain the potential interviewee’s reluctance:

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Notice that there is a box for hostile or threatening.  That seems important.  There are boxes for just not interested or too busy.  There is a box for those who object that too many personal questions are asked.  The basics all seem to be covered.  But the Census employee is to check multiple boxes, “all that apply,” and one is  “Anti-government concerns.”  What does that mean?  What do Census workers think it means?  It clearly means something other than reluctant to give the government this information.  To be “anti-” the government sounds like someone is in favor of overthrowing the government.  And a government that thinks purely in terms of violence would inevitably interpret such a desire as one in favor of violently overthrowing the government.  But surely nobody tells a representative of the government that they favor its violent overthrow unless they don’t really take themselves seriously and are not actually a threat.  So maybe this “Anti-government concerns” box is equivalent to “Seems nuts,” but what sort of training does the survey taker have in mental health?  The serious question is what lists your name goes on if somebody marks you down as Anti-government.

Stephen E. Arnold

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 of a Venn diagram. The picture is symmetrical and appears to make sense. In my opinion, the presentation of “worlds’ merging” in an orderly manner is misleading at best and downright silly at worst.

. . . . . . . .

In the somewhat untidy worlds of search and business intelligence, not much has changed. Terminology and the fervent belief that new phrases will solve information problems is more important than tackling more fundamental, less zippy issues.

We have entered an era of same old, same old, and there is no turning back. The problem of computational limits force systems to work as they have for many years. The methods and the math is the same. The content types and the marketing lingo are different.

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Stephen E. Arnold

Potentially New Web Page Data Mining Tool

Extracting content from a Web page can be a maddening process, requiring specialized scripts and time spent coding them. Taking a look at available tools, Softpedia touts “FMiner Pro 7.05.” FMiner Pro is advertised as a reliable application that allows users to easily handle Web content without scripts. The software can pull data from any page type, including https, plugins, JavaScript, and even complete data structures.

After the data is extracted much can be done with it:

“Extracted results can be saved to csv, Excel(xls), SQLite, Access, SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and can specify the database fields’ types and attributes(eg, UNIQUE can avoid duplication of the extracted data). According to the setting, program can build, rebuild or load the database structure, and save the data to an existing database. Professional edition support incremental extraction, clear extraction and schedule extraction.”

FMiner Pro is available for a free fifteen-day trial to see how well it can perform. After viewing the specs, FMiner Pro is worth a shot. It can probably save coders hours by not having to write scripts and organizing Web content is a tedious job no one likes to do. Having a program to do it is much more preferable.

Whitney Grace, May 22, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

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President Assad: “I’m HERE TO STAY!”

West fueling violence without regard to cost.

Israeli Army Enters Syria & Supports the Pentagon-Trained Al Nusra Merceneries

All of one Israeli jeep destoryed by Syrian artillery fire in Security Zone.

Russia Sends at Least 12 Warships to Syria: A Warning to Israeli/US against Military Intervention in Syria

And there are the Russian specialists manning the Russian anti-air and anti-ship missiles now owned by Syria.

Michelle Monk

Chinese Plant Compound Wipes Out Cancer in 40 Days, Says New Research

A little-known plant with a truly bizarre name is now making headlines as a cancer killer, with the compound of the plant vanishing tumors in mice with pancreatic cancer.

Known as the ‘thunder god vine’ or lei gong teng, the Chinese plant is actually integrated into Chinese medicine and has been used for ages in remedying a number of conditions including rheumatoid arthritis.

According to the new research out of the University of Minnesota’s Masonic Cancer Center, the thunder god plant compound led to no signs of tumors after a 40 day period — even after discontinuing the treatment. Published in the journal Science Translational Medicine and funded by the National Institutes of Health, even the scientists working on the project were stunned by the anti-cancer properties of the compound. Known to contain something known as triptolide, which has been identified as a cancer fighter in previous research, it is thought to be the key component that may be responsible for the anti-tumor capabilities.

Study leader and vice chairman of research at the Cancer Center explained to Bloomberg how he was blown away by the effects of the simple plant:

“This drug is just unbelievably potent in killing tumor cells,” he said. – See more.

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And just like with numerous other powerful substances like turmeric and ginger, mainstream science is still slowly confirming what many traditional practitioners have known for their entire lives. This is, of course, due to the fact that there is simply no money for major corporations in researching the healing powers of natural herbs and compounds such as the compound found in the thunder god vine. Turmeric and ginger, for example, have been found to be amazing anti-cancer substances that are virtually free compared to expensive and dangerous cancer drugs.

Nevertheless, the Big Pharma sponsored corporate scientists have managed to ignore these spices as much as possible. In fact, they have even been caught time and time again faking thousands of studies to fraudulently demonstrate the supposed value of pharmaceutical drugs pushed by major pharma juggernauts — many of which are later forced to pay millions in fines which only slightly stack up against their billions in profits.

Profits that are threatened by the many real studies that were performed by scientists examining the rejeuvenating power of cheap ingredients like turmeric, which has been found by peer-reviewed research available on PubMed to positively influence over 590 conditions.

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Sepp Hasslberger

Not just blowing in the wind: Compressing air for renewable energy storage

Study IDs 2 compressed air energy storage methods, sites for the Northwest

RICHLAND, Wash. – Enough Northwest wind energy to power about 85,000 homes each month could be stored in porous rocks deep underground for later use, according to a new, comprehensive study. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Bonneville Power Administration identified two unique methods for this energy storage approach and two eastern Washington locations to put them into practice.

Compressed air energy storage plants could help save the region’s abundant wind power – which is often produced at night when winds are strong and energy demand is low – for later, when demand is high and power supplies are more strained. These plants can also switch between energy storage and power generation within minutes, providing flexibility to balance the region’s highly variable wind energy generation throughout the day.

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“With Renewable Portfolio Standards requiring states to have as much as 20 or 30 percent of their electricity come from variable sources such as wind and the sun, compressed air energy storage plants can play a valuable role in helping manage and integrate renewable power onto the Northwest’s electric grid,” said Steve Knudsen, who managed the study for the BPA.

Geologic energy savings accounts

All compressed air energy storage plants work under the same basic premise. When power is abundant, it’s drawn from the electric grid and used to power a large air compressor, which pushes pressurized air into an underground geologic storage structure. Later, when power demand is high, the stored air is released back up to the surface, where it is heated and rushes through turbines to generate electricity. Compressed air energy storage plants can re-generate as much as 80 percent of the electricity they take in.

Read full press release from DOE Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

See Also:

05 Energy (215)

Environment (Solutions) (145)

David Swanson

Connecticut Advances Conversion from War to Peace Economy

The Connecticut legislature has sent to the governor to sign a bill that would create a commission to develop a plan for, among other things:

“the diversification or conversion of defense-related industries with an emphasis on encouraging environmentally-sustainable and civilian product manufacturing. On or before December 1, 2014, the commission shall submit such report to the Governor and, in accordance with the provisions of section 11-4a, to the joint standing committee of the General Assembly having cognizance of matters relating to commerce.”

The commission “shall Advise the General Assembly and the Department of Economic and Community Development on issues relating to the diversification or conversion of defense-related industries” among other things.

Read the full text.

According to Peace Action, sponsor State Senator Toni N. Harp from New Haven has said,

“The proposed Futures Commission will set up a framework that allows us to convert many of our military related jobs and infrastructure into non-military industries.”

This is a remarkable breakthrough that didn’t just come out of nowhere:

“In November 2012, a ballot referendum passed in New Haven that called for moving the money from war to jobs rebuilding our infrastructure and human needs. This referendum won support nearly 6 to 1! This winter in Connecticut, the US Peace Council, No Nukes No War, the City of New Haven Peace Commission with the support of the state AFL-CIO and International Association of Machinists worked to get  SB619 introduced in the state legislature calling for a Futures Commission whose goals is to investigate how to convert the weapons manufacturing industries to producing civilian, green products and retain and develop manufacturing in the state. The Commission that this bill creates will include representatives of labor, peace and environmental organizations.”

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