A team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has just announced a new breakthrough in the field of graphene research, leading to the next generation of high-efficiency solar cells, computers and other advanced technologies. Graphene, a new material that was discovered less than 10 years ago, is an ultra-thin, superstrong, superflexible electron conductor. As for how to explain the Berkeley Lab research in lay terms, let’s just say that if graphene had a personality it would have its own reality show, and it would give Total Divas a run for the money.
Aircraft carriers:feedback. A Brilliant and well-informed Reader reminded that Spain and Italy also have built aircraft carriers, making a total of seven builders. A search of the web indicates that nine navies have aircraft carriers and most have trouble doing so. Another Brilliant naval warfare expert and Reader calls them “big targets.” Feedback welcome.
A CRISIS OF TRUST AND CULTURAL INCOMPATIBILITY: A Red Team Study of Mutual Perceptions of Afghan National Security Force Personnel and U.S. Soldiers in Understanding and Mitigating the Phenomena of ANSF – Committed Fratricide – Murders
May 12, 2011
Jeffrey Bordin, Ph.D. [Major (P) U.S. Army]
N2KL Red Team Political and Military Behavioral Scientist
jeffrey.bordin@afghan.swa.army.mil
EXTRACT
Unfortunately, the rapidly growing fratricide – murder trend committed by ANSF personnel against ISAF members is a valid COIN measure of the ineffectiveness in our efforts in stabilizing Afghanistan, developing a legitimate and effective
government, battling the insurgency, gaining the loyalty, respect and friendship of the Afghans, building the ANSFs into legitimate and functional organizations, and challenges the efficacy of the ‘partnering’ concept . This is all the more a paradox given ISAF’s assumption of and planned reliance for the ANSFs to be able to take over the security burden before it can disengage from this grossly prolonged conflict. This study shows that certain behaviors and policies (such as night raids and home searches
that directly involve U.S. Soldiers) have generated a great deal of animosity among much of the Afghan civilian populace as well as with many ANSF personnel that impedes the overall strategic effort. Such practices are simply unacceptable if ISAF is to be
even marginally successful here.
With a diplomatic attitude more reminiscent of a spoiled brat grabbing his toys and leaving the room, US President Obama has resorted to diplomatic snubs and childish criticisms of Russian behavior as if the Russian leaders were small children.
In a press conference Obama described the Russian President as having a “slouch…looking like that bored schoolboy in the back of the classroom.” Yet behind the childish form of the latest White House refusal to meet President Putin before the G-20 St. Petersburg Summit is a grim reality:
Washington is rapidly losing its way to impose its will in the world on multiple fronts and the Putin snub is an impotent reflection of that loss of power. The real issues in US-Russian relations go far deeper.
The Text Radar content intelligence and big data blog covered a multitude of issues surrounding the impact that big data is having on the way that more and more industries process and gain insights from their data.
When President Obama escalated the war on Afghanistan, he revived virtually every known lie about the war on Iraq, from the initial WMD BS to the “surge.” While Americans remain unfathomably ignorant about the destruction of Iraq, a majority says the war shouldn't have been fought. A majority says the same about the war on Afghanistan. This is, pretty wonderfully, impeding efforts toward a U.S. war on Syria or Iran.
The new wars were supposed to cure the Vietnam Syndrome — that public reluctance to support mass murder for no good reason. The Pentagon is now turning to the source of the disease. The war in most need of beautification for Americans, the military has decided, is the war the Vietnamese call the American War.
Most people in the United States have no idea that this was, like all other recent U.S. wars, a one-sided slaughter — in this case, of 3.8 million Vietnamese men, women, and children. But most Americans know the war was awful, even on the side of the aggressor. The Vietnam Syndrome (popular opposition to wars) still frightens war makers.
Obama is usually opposed to any “looking backwards,” as doing so might involve prosecuting criminals for their crimes. But, making a big exception, he is dumping 65 million of our dollars into prettying up the war on Vietnam.
Please read the following statement, put together by some U.S. veterans of that war, and sign onto it here.
An Open letter to the American People about a
Project to Accurately Commemorate the American War in Viet Nam
We are coming up on the 50th anniversary of key moments in the American war in Viet Nam. As peace and justice activists, we believe it is crucial that the realities of the war be faced squarely. President Obama has announced his plan for a 13-year-long commemoration funded by Congress at $65 million, featuring a full panoply of Orwellian forgetfulness and faux-patriotism. On May 25, 2012, President Obama proclaimed: “As we observe the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, we reflect with solemn reverence upon the valor of a generation that served with honor. We pay tribute to the more than 3 million servicemen and women who left their families to serve bravely, a world away from everything they knew and everyone they loved … fighting heroically to protect the ideals we hold dear as Americans. Through more than a decade of combat, over air, land, and sea, these proud Americans upheld the highest traditions of our Armed Forces.”. The purpose of the official proclamation — rather than honestly looking backward so as to glean and educate about important lessons — will be to promote an ex post facto justification of the war, lay lingering doubts to rest, and provide a stamp of approval without attending to or contending with the horrors of the war that many of us opposed.
Here is some more good news about solar. Click through to see the illustrations, it will make the story clearer.
