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"You have to hand it to Standard and Poor's. Forget their two-trillion dollar math error. The whole idea that these clowns are evaluating the creditworthiness of the United States is just loony. For starters, these are the same people who brought us the crisis, by blessing junk sub-prime loans as AAA securities. And they did so because they were paid as consultants by the same financial scoundrels who created the securities."

Malcolm Turbull on Wikileaks, "There will be a medium term impact on the candour with which people talk to American officials. Frankly if I were an American citizen I would be less outraged with Assange than I would be with a Government that can allow such a gigantic breach of security. The United States will need to demonstrate that it has changed its ways, and it is not that hard. Most large organisations will not permit downloading of material to an external medium without express authorisation as those of you who work for large firms should already know. And it goes without saying that if a young Private can copy so much classified material off his own volition, how vulnerable are US systems to more sophisticated operatives who have the backing and expertise provided by foreign intelligence agencies. We will remain forever, I imagine, rightly angry at the recklessness of receiving and publishing so much confidential material. So far it seems less harm has been done than might have been the case, but the risks are extraordinary and if only one life was lost, if only one sensitive operation was compromised then the heavy responsibility for that must lie with Assange. I would like to hope that in the future such revelations will be more discriminating, but it is hard to be confident. The lesson for Governments, apart from improving their security, is to assume that everything said or written will, sooner or later, see the light of day. That may not be a good thing, and it certainly doesn't make life easier, but it is, I fear, a reality. The Governments with most to fear from such disclosure are those whose public statements are at odds with their private opinions - and as I noted earlier so far it appears, to its credit, that the US State Department's private cables have been consistent with their public policy."

What were current consumer confidence readings? It would take weeks or months to find out, and even then only selected countries would be reported on.I kept asking myself, what is the point of having a forward indicator when it takes so long to get the data?Remember that consumer confidence is not drawn from government data that needs to be tallied in highly secure data rooms.It is just an aggregation of our views Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/crowdsourcing-the-future-introducing-global-real-time-consumer-confidence-tracking-2011-5?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29#ixzz1NtezvKXE

Absent significant changes on the spending and/or revenue sides of the federal budget, long term deficits will encumber a growing share of federal resources and test the capacity of current and future generations to afford both today's and tomorrow's commitments. Continuing on this unsustainable path will gradually erode, if not suddenly damage, our economy, our standard of living and ultimately our national security. Incremental approaches to budgeting will need to give way to more fundamental and periodic reexaminations of the base of government, ultimately covering discretionary and mandatory programs as well as the revenue side of the budget. Having identified the major fiscal challenge facing the nation, and given our role in supporting the Congress, we believe that GAO also has an obligation to provide policymakers with support in identifying issues and options that could help to address these fiscal pressures. In this report, we draw on our past and pending work-about 90 percent of which is either requested by the Congress or required by law-- to provide policy makers with examples of the kinds of hard choices stemming from these challenges in the form of questions for elected officials and other policy makers to consider.

" Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organization, will lead a meeting in Oxford today of international business, government and other leaders to address the gridlock in international and national attempts to deal with key global problems. The meeting launches the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations. The Commission seeks to address the growing short-term preoccupations of modern politics and identify ways to overcome today's impasse in key economic, climate, trade, security and other negotiations."

"The year is 2020 and the unthinkable has happened: The United States, Russia and several of their neighbors have announced a union called Polario, based on their proximity to the North Pole. Economic, security and shared threats have forced the hands of the two leaders of this new union and former Cold War rivals. Their alliance in a union appears to be the only way to solve their problems."

LONDON-Today, Monday 27 February, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files - more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods, for example:

Psychologists and other social scientists (most economists excepted) have learned a lot in the last few decades about what makes us happy. They have taught us that, in affluent societies, money doesn't buy as much happiness as people think. Indeed, for people living above subsistence, it may buy very little. They have also taught us what affects well-being more than money: close relations with family, friends, and community; meaningful work; security (financial, job, and health); and democracy.

"A generation of far-reaching social change lies ahead for Australia. There will be a serious struggle to adapt to climate change as water security becomes a critical issue for many coastal cities and for agriculture. "

SOIF's Vision Policy-makers and business leaders make better decisions when informed by strategic foresight, resulting in greater prosperity, security and well-being. SOIF's Way of Working Build a community and foster links internationally Host conferences, seminars, training events focusing on foresight approaches and tools Convene foresight activities involving multiple partners or countries, support foresight studies and develop foresight capacity

The Australian online media space is bracing for a brave new entrant, with former Age editor Andrew Jaspan's The Conversation website set to launch in February under the managing editorship of ABC Media Watch researcher and ex-Crikey tsar Misha Ketchell. Crikey can reveal the planned $8.4 million project - a news and commentary portal penned by academics - recently secured its short-term financial future after fears of a funding shortfall threatened to leave it stillborn.

looks totally cool and great example of ugc, but where is their rss feed ;(

"The Horizon Scanning Centre is located within the National Security Coordination Secretariat. HSC explores and investigates, through horizon scanning, case studies or other initiatives, key emerging issues as well as risks or uncertainties across various domains that would have significant impact on Singapore."

"The 4th International Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning Symposium will be held from 18 to 19 October 2011 in Raffles City Convention Centre, Singapore. The symposium is organized by the National Security Coordination Secretariat at the Prime Minister's Office. About 300 international participants are expected for the by-invitation-only symposium, mainly from governments, think tanks and private enterprises with a strong interest in horizon scanning."

"On Friday, a federal grand jury in Dallas indicted Barrett Brown, a former self-proclaimed Anonymous spokesperson, for trafficking "stolen authentication features," as well as "access device fraud" and "aggravated identity theft." Brown has been detained since he was arrested in September for allegedly threatening a federal agent. "

A Silicon Valley startup that collates threats has quietly become indispensable to the U.S. intelligence community