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Misappropriated without Attrribution–Free Online, March 4, 2010

One Star for lack of ethics on the part of the publisher. Beyond five stars for content, free online as with all of Jack Davis’s stuff.  Upgraded to 3 stars for proper pricing (after Amazon’s cut, publisher only makes roughly 3 dollars per book, which is totally fair).

This product was misappropriated from Jack Davis, dean of the intelligence analysis scholar-practitioners. While materials created within the US Government by US Government employees are generally not copyrighted because the taxpayer funded their creation, they are a) available free online; and b) generally considered off-limits to sleaze-bag publishers that troll for stuff (this happens to all of us, in my case with my monographs for the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), all free online).

It’s nice that Jack’s work is respected and made available on Amazon, a truly global service.

It is very troubling that Jack Davis, who just asked me to find out who did this, has not been contacted by the publisher and offered both courtesy copies of his own work, and some modest recognition.

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Ten Years Late, More Whimper than Roar

February 7, 2010

David Walker

I was watching David Walker as he served nine of his fifteen years at Comptroller General, with light-weight whimpers to Congress until he finally got Peter Peterson to bail him out of government and give him a chunk of cash for making movies and writing a book and creating a web site that very few serious under 40 pioneers pay attention to.

I was thrilled to see him tell Congress in 2007 that the US was bankrupt–both Senator McCain and Senator Obama could have cared less–and so he walked quietly back to his holding cell at the General Accountability Office (GAO).  His “loyalty” to impeachable masters is just as troubling to me as the loyalty of our military leaders during the neo-con rampage.

This book loses one star for the publishers arrogance and ineptitude in failing to use all of the tools Amazon provides, so that readers like myself who read a great deal and do not buy books on whim, can actually look at the table of contents. If you want a sense what the author has to say, see the Wikipedia page on the US Federal Budget where the author’s fingerprints are elegantly visible.

If and when the publisher acts more responsibly and provides Look Inside the Book information as well standard entries via Amazon Advantage (about the book, about the author, editorial reviews), I will buy the book, read it, and review it.

The book loses a second star for being wildly praised by all the unethical losers that got us into this mess in the first place by sacrificing their ethics and selling the two party system out to Wall Street. Bill Bradley in particular is a major disappointment, he slunk off to Allen and Company where George “Slam Dunk” Tenet is also in hiding, and they have profited handsomely for betraying the public trust for over a decade. Edumund Burke said “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Even better is the following from Chief Justice Louis Brandeis:

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Amazon Page

Criminal Pricing in Sharp Contrast to Content

Majid Tehranian

I read a lot, and quite by accident (or courtesy of Dick Cheney who drove people back to books looking for answers) I am the top Amazon reviewer for non-fiction. I would have bought this book, along with the book I did buy today, Jeremy Rifkin’s The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis but one look at the price and a one word decision: NO.

This book is CRIMINALLY priced. As a publisher myself, I can assure one and all that in lots of 1,500 in hard cover, it costs at most two cents a page including color cover and graphics. Using the Amazon on demand printing option, the cost is even less. Authors must STOP allowing publishers to price their precious work beyond the reach of most people with a brain. I offer all my books free online as well as via Amazon.

Other books in this vein that are ethically priced include:
Reflections on Evolutionary Activism: Essays, poems and prayers from an emerging field of sacred social change
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution
Conscious Evolution: Awakening Our Social Potential
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World

and many more. Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, provides easy access to all of my reviews (over 1,500) in each of 98 reading categories including Catastrophe & Resilience, Cosmos & Destiny, and so on.

If the author will post this book free online, or if the publisher can be shamed into pricing it at under $35, I will buy it and review it.

Vote on Review

Amazon Page

Rotten Job by Publisher, Too Expensive

Chester W. Hartman et al

I would normally have bought this book, I used past Mandate for Change books to devise the twelve core policies for Earth Intelligence Network (Agriculture, Diplomacy, Economy, Education, Energy, Family, Health, Justice, Immigration, Security, Society, Water), and I was very intrigued by the title but there are three strikes here:

1) Publisher has not done their job in posting table of contents and other descriptive materials.

2) The book is way too expensive, it costs a penny a page for books in lots of 2,500 or so, the publisher is being greedy and not serving the public interest–the author should go with Amazon’s books on demand or post the book free online.

3) No other comments? It would appear neither the existing Administration nor anyone else cares about what’s in this book. I would, if it were better documented and more reasonably prices.

Strike three, this book is OUT.

BUT: If anyone has this book and wants to share the Table of Contents, I would be very interested, my contact information is on the About page of PBI/PIB.

To access my other 1,500 or so reviews, 99% non-fiction, in 98 categories, use Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, where all reviews lead back to Amazon pages for the respective books.

My own two mandate for change books, both free online as well as here at Amazon:
Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography)
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Am working on a third, being posted chapter by chapter at PBI/PIB, seeking comments, critques, etcetera.
INTELLIGENCE for EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainaabilty. Goes to the printer 1 February at the latest.

Vote on Review

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Been There, Done That, Shinseki & LISTENING

Greg Jaffe

This is unquestionably a great book but it is so narrow, and so oblivious to the larger context within which the U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki GOT IT RIGHT and knew exactly what was needed, and the impeachable offenses of Chenez, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Feith, that I have to respectfully limit it to three stars in order to make the points that no one seems to want to acknowledge:

1) General Powell let us all down when he failed to resign on principle and challenge Cheney who committed 23+ documented impeachable offenses, including letting 9-11 happen and taking us to war against Iraq for the oil, on a platform of 935 documented lies. ALL of our generals, but Colin Powell especially, should be shamed for not protecting America against domestic enemies bent on bankrupting the country morally and financially

2) General Shinseki, and General Schoomaker, and General Garner all got it right, but did not go the distance in challenging a corrupt civilian leadership. I have often fantacized about what would have happened if Shinseki had thrown his stars on the table, resigned, and thrown Wolfowitz down the steps of Capitol Hill as he so richly deserved.

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Amazon Page

Badly documented and therefore suspect

Ian McCallum

Amazon Page

Annoying

John Petersen’s earlier work was vastly more interesting and more structured than this little 4.5 inch by 7 inch 100 page double-spaced blowing in the ears of Gary Hart and Leon Fuerth, among others. See my reviews of his earlier work:
Out of the blue: Wild cards and other big future surprises : how to anticipate and respond to profound change
The Road to 2015: Profiles of the Future

This book lacks a strategic analytic model and fluffs around the edges of important literatures without ever striking the right note.

The author is a dedicated, intelligent practitioner, but he is neither a scholar nor an analyst in the classic sense of the word–I found this book, in the larger context in which I read and think, annoying. A form of classic comic book for busy people in Washington who will nod and confirm the author’s sagacity without ever recognizing that there is really nothing here.

There is not a word in this book about corruption, integrity, information asymmetries, data pathologies, or the out and out rape of America by the two political parties.

The author is flat out wrong when he states on page 52 that “Humans don’t deal well with discontinuites and rapid change.” That alone dropped this book to three stars, and the rest of the fluffy-face stuff kept it there, including the intelligent but recycled and truncated material from earlier books.

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Exhorbitant Pricing, June 22, 2008

Diane Kresh

I am adding this book to my list of excessively expensive books. I only list those books I would havb bought had the price been reasonable. It cost the publisher less than $5.00 to print this book. Amazon pays 45% of the retail price, so call it a $25 return. That is too much and completely contrary to the desperate need for making it easier for information to be shared.

I urge all authors to post free online copies of their work and to retain original copyright as we do at OSS.Net and Earth Intelligence Network.

Scambled Brains, Good Tid-Bits Served in a Trash Can, August 9, 2008

Dick Morris

Dick Morris is without question one of the most gifted observers of the US scene. He is also one of the laziest.

I no longer pay for his books, having learned that he is the intellectual equivalent of a chef that serves his food in a trash can, but a friend had it, I borrowed it, and with the sense of discomfort that comes from eating out of a trash can, here are a few thoughts.

1) This is another formula book in which 1,000 news items are lined up, darts are thrown, and rhetorical diarrhea comes out. Individually, the items are both well-known to those that read a lot, and very fine for those that do not.

2) This is also a book that puts stuff out in an unbalanced manner, ranting and railing on one thing without noting that we are equally guilty of “the other thing” that is not mentioned. See my chapter notes below.

3) This is an online-source book, the equivalent of a comic book, drawing exclusively from online sources and using so many “ibids” in the notes (not that people who buy such a book would need or both with the notes) as to be irritating.

Here are the chapters with one line comments. I end with an outline of the book I would enjoy helping Dick Morris write–he is capable of it, he just needs structure, disciple, and a bit more seriousness in his life.

1 President Obama: What Would He Do? Extreme left scary story
* Misses the point: NEITHER of the two clowns have a strategy, a policy matrix (Agriculture, Energy, and Water need to be planned together) or a balanced budget to back up their lies.

2 How the Liberal Media Downplays Terrorism. Absolutely correct–Madeline Albright started the deal.
* Ignores the 25 high crimes by Dick Cheney and the 935 documented lies told to the public to falsely connect terrorism to elective war on Iraq

3 Liberal’s Secret Plan to Muzzle Talk Radio. Yawn
* Misses corruption of mainstream media, lobbying to close down Internet Radio, and breach between conservatives with a philosophical grounding and brains, and talk radio idiots that give all of us a bad name

4 The Do-Nothing Congress. Tars the Democrats.
* Ignores the reality that both parties are evil, corrupt, and lazy.

5 Foreign Companies, American Pensions, and Iranian Bomb. All true.
* Ignores fact that US sells 5 times more proliferation than Russia, 3 times more than UK, we provided Iraq with bio-chem, and “our” government loves 42 of the 44 dictators.

6 The New Lobbyists (for Foreign Interests). Duh.
* Ignores the vastly more corrosive effect of our own lobbyists.

7 The Du-baing of America. Money talks, but the authors exaggerate in their continuing anti-Clinton angst. Dick Cheney, not Bill Clinton, is the main man here.

8 The Plastic Fleece: Credit Card Company Abuse. Duh. 29.9%
* This is only possible because Congress got bought off and eliminated caps. The Bible calls it usury. Advanta, Citi-Bank, Chase, are all under investigation while smart people pay off the principal and tell them to go fish for the usurious interest.

9 Teachers. Duh. You get what you pay for, but this is much much worse–the extreme right is going for charter and church schools to create little me’s, the left is accepting substandard schools, and the smartest kids know that schools are so out of date as to be worthless.

10 Released from Guantanamo, They Kill Again. Please. Try looking at our own prison population, and then be serious about the role of morality in domestic and international standing and efficacy.

11 How Hedge Fund Billionaires Live Off Tax Breaks
*which they paid for because we let them

12 How the Teachers’ Union Rips off its Members
* All Unions are a disgrace and rip off their members.

13 Re-Building Luxury Second Homes in Flood Area at Our Expense. Right on.
* Now try to understand and explain why we continue t o legitimize paving over nature

14 The Subprime Loan Crisis: Why the Greedy are Going Free
* Please. We all know the Feds settle white collar crime at a penny on the dollar. This is news?

15 How Halliburton Rips Off the Pentagon
* Please. 9-11 missile allegedly destroyed the computers with the forensic evidence of the 2.3 trillion Rumsfeld could not account for; Dick Cheney ordered to sole source for Halliburton and sent Paul Bremer in to stop a “premature” withdrawal of US forces until Halliburton was done looting

16 Blocking Toys that Poison Children from China. Duh.
* What about fair trade versus free trade, end of Big Box Swindle stores like Wal-Mart, etcetera?

17 How Company Bill Clinton Works for Fleeces the Vulnerable Elderly. More angst, need therapy.
* Reality is that the federal government is ripping everybody off, to the point that Buffet, Bogle, and Soros are actually worried that Wall Street corruption has gone too far

18 From Movie Lights to Lighting Up: How Films Induce Teens to Smoke. So tired its dead.
* What about success of abstinence and safe sex, the actual REDUCTION of teen smoking, the new-found teen appreciation for body building?

Dick Morris is gifted, and he sells his gifts in ways that bring in money from the light weight minds. Here’s the book he could write before November:

INDEPENDENCE NOW

Part I: Strategy for Restoring the Republic
Part II: How Wall Street and Government Profit from Each of the Ten High-Level Threats to Humanity
Part III: How We the People Can Restore Public Interest Across the Twelve Policy Domains
Part IV: How We the People Can Build and Play the EarthGame and Operate Spaceship Earth Without Government and Corporate Corruption

Learn more at Earth Intelligence Network. Dick, you know where to find me. Try being a grown-up.

Better books on the details:
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
The Closing of the American Mind
High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health

Good News Books:
Society’s Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Run, Dick, Run! See Dick Go.