EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:   
   - We look at a metric that assesses the transparancy of various govts   
     to releaseing information in rehgard to UFOs and related activity   
   - An AI program with limited reasoning abilities and acess to a lot of   
     data tries to crteate a simule/robust model that can explain the metric.   
   - The top national characteristics explain "a lot" of the   
     country-to-country variation in the transparency metric.   
   - Using each model we can determine which groups have the most to lose   
     or gain by maintaining secrecy or becoming more open on the issue.   
     And weather or not the Big Report may try to masquerade as one thing   
     but actually be another.   
      
      
   AI s/w is likely a prime example of the GIGO principle.  So you have   
   to be careful what you ask.   
      
   So I might be headed out onto a limb here and cutting it off behind me   
   by asking what factors make some countries adopt relatively open UFO   
   disclosure policies and some others not so much?   
      
   The conspiracy literature is full of this kind of discussion, but   
   there are ways to attack it logically. Much the same can be done to   
   look into similar questions regarding politically contentious issues   
   such as climate change (which is where some of this s/w originates and   
   has been used more or less successfully over the past 30y :).   
      
   But GIGO. How to frame the question so the answer is not so much   
   garbage but maybe just a bit noisy?   
      
   We first need to try to assess which countries *are* open and which   
   transparent in releasing what UFO infoatmion that have.  Obviously   
   this is difficult. Governments change from time to time and they tend   
   to assess their own willingness to be transparent in a much rosier   
   light than they actually indent or do commit to.  You can't just take   
   their word for it. They might -- let's pretend this is totally a   
   fcition account -- release lots of seemingly interesting material on   
   the "strategic influence" basis of snowing the public into believing   
   they are being totally transpatent, yet the "real" or other critical   
   information is not rekeased for one or other reason. Knowing human   
   beinfs as we do a big part of that is inertia/laziness. But there is   
   always an argument there is an advantage of some kind to maintaining   
   an assymetry of information. If something is secrete you can use that   
   to your advantage.   
      
   So I will list a number of countries and assess their openness on   
   UFO's from 0 to 1. In my first cut of this exercise I only had a list   
   of a half-dozen countries and graded them 0 and 1. And got some   
   interesting answers from the s/w. I then expanded the data to include   
   some "half" values for some other countries. And got much the same   
   answers from the s/w.  The list below is a 3rd cut.   
      
   You may disagree with my probably biased assessments. But the output   
   for my biased input gives a very interesting set of reasons for the   
   scores I assiged.   
      
   My assessments are based on nebluous ideas I've gleaned over the years   
   from reading newspapers and sometimes working in various countries in   
   more-or-less "secret" projects. Some of these were military-related.   
   Mostly they were scientictic/engineering and a couple economic.  All   
   these areas have their secrets and you "get the vibe" of how the   
   respective govts handle information that can be used to various   
   advantages just by keeping your eyes and ears open.   
      
   But the numbers might be wrong in many respects.   
      
   If any gentle reader has some other opinion they can back up, or maybe   
   know or believe there is objective data that could determine "how   
   transparent" govt's in various countries are on UFO information,   
   please let me know. Otherwise I will just tend to bumble along and do   
   it myself. :)   
      
   The "openness" data I put into the s/w is as follows:   
      
   Country		HowOpenOnUFOS		FromPersonalExperience   
   australia	0			*   
   belgium		0.5   
   canada		0			*   
   china		1   
   denmark		1			*   
   finland		1   
   france		1   
   germany		0.5   
   italy		1   
   netherlands	0.5			*   
   norway		1			*   
   nz		1   
   russia		1   
   spain		1   
   sweden		1			*   
   uk		0   
   us		0			*   
      
   I've marked the countries where I've worked and have some idea, no   
   matter how nebulous and biased, how their govt's treat various kinds   
   of secrets that might show them up in a negative light.  You'll notice   
   Australia is marked relatively low -- i.e. 0 "not open".  Officials   
   like to think AUS is an open country and they express that view "all   
   the time", but I've found from sometimes bitter experience it is not   
   the case. Reinforcing that opinion I'll not that even now the govt   
   broadcaster is treating the Big UFO Report about to be released as a   
   big joke. For the past few years the various UFO disclosures and   
   Pentagon acks (perhaps part of a psyops program anyway) have not been   
   mentioned at all AFAIK. Seemingly part of govt if not editorial policy.   
      
   Anyway. We can put this little list into my s/w that has access to 10s   
   of 1000s of databases, and can download and setup new ones using Bing   
   and Google search anytime it likes, what kind of factors tend to   
   closely predict my "openness metric".   
      
   Here's the top 10 factors it says behave similarly. It doesn't take   
   much interpretation to decide which groups may have something to gain   
   from keeping UFO information secret and why. If you've read the   
   conspiracy blogs at all you may have come across the relevant ideas.   
   It seem a case where the craziest-sounding ideas actually have some   
   support in the "somewhat" objective data. :)   
      
   Top 10 results:   
      
   Code         R2              \beta +- 90% CI   
   wegy         0.76811542:     -0.20642 +- 0.102206   
   mktcap       0.66274481:     -0.667662 +- 0.245049   
   priwork      0.65152626:     -2.28217 +- 0.858731   
   ind-tax      0.63352639:     0.686624 +- 0.268688   
   lymph        0.55727877:     -0.312857 +- 0.297236   
   colpro       0.55522595:     -0.102587 +- 0.0526253   
   leuk         0.53307168:     -0.287561 +- 0.286873   
   fossil       0.52268474:     -0.194245 +- 0.122038   
   coal         0.50319713:     -0.233418 +- 0.119329   
   tvown        0.49754161:     1.48555 +- 0.768092   
   (All models fit the log of the code values to the transparency value).   
      
      
   The "R2" gives each predictive model's ability to predict the openness   
   number (from my table, above) from the relevant variable.   
      
   At the top is "wegy" -- the amount of waste material produced from   
   each country's energy industry.   
      
   Obviously certain energy sources create a lot more waste than others.   
      
   Amusingly I have touched on some of this before in relation to other   
   data that suggests UFO activity seems to concentrate on overflying   
   some countries more than others and which factors of those countries   
   seem to predict the amount of such activity.   
      
   The 2nd-place in the list is "market capitalization per capita".   
   Amazingly the UK has the highest "mkcap". Mental mode: how much money   
   is at stake.  And there are conspiracy blogs that also claim a group   
   in the UK controls the release of UFO information world-wide.   
      
   The 3rd item is "workforce in the private sector". This is a percent   
   of the population. It seems the higher the workforce involved in the   
   private sector the more secretive the relevant govt is. Who knew?   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)