Category: Uncategorized

While I'm kind of a Petraeus fan, not sure he is a good fit for D/CIA.  Also not sure Panetta is a good fit for SECDEF.

NPR.org
April 4, 2011

Gen. Petraeus Being ‘Seriously Considered' For CIA Director, NPR Reports

By Tom Bowman

General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, is expected to leave that job by early fall. And the question has been, where does he go from there?

Several sources, including government officials, say Petraeus is being seriously considered for CIA director, and would take the job if offered.

The current spy chief, Leon Panetta, is currently seen as the top replacement for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who says he will step down this year.

Phi Beta Iota: If this were not so real, it would be shocking.  The White House is treating the government as nothing more than a staging ground for cronies, not as a weighty public responsibility demanding the best possible non-partisan mix.

See Also:

Petraeus Being ‘Seriously Considered’ for CIA Director [NY Magazine]

General David Petraeus tipped to take over CIA [Telegraph UK]

Journal: Reflections on Integrity

Yemen, Egypt, Egypt-Iran, Libya, Coalition, Ivory Coast

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Tuesday, 22 March 2011

Global Guerrillas

JOURNAL: Alternative Currencies

Spent some time talking with some smart folks working on alternative currencies in  SFO.  Here's the conclusions from this conversation.  Alternative currencies can do three things:

1. Serve as a store of value.  Presumably, this currency holds value better than existing currencies.  In this way, it acts like an asset (land, etc) but is more fluid/granular to allow its use in transactions.  Think gold and commodity backed currencies.  A way to apply this approach to a resilient community is to combine it with a food reserve (a currency backed by food you can eat if things break down — see the Mendo Credit Slip as an example of this).

2. Enable a loyalty program.  In short, these currencies entice people to do business with a favored group of individuals/companies.  Think local/regional currencies or commodity currencies backed by locally produced products.  This can be a powerful way to accelerate consumption of local goods (keep the supply limited, focus on superiority via quality/freshness, etc.)

3. Jumpstart a local/virtual economy.  Full cycles of transactions from producer to buyer and back again.  This is very difficult to do.  A good example of success is Austria's depression era Worgl.  Why did it succeed?  It made the Worgl important to both producers/retail and consumers.  As in: the town that issued the Worgl accepted it as payment for taxes.  It then launched infrastructure projects that paid the employees partly in Worgls.

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On May 17 & 18, the Conscious Capitalism Institute is hosting a conference at Bentley, with the theme being Conscious leadership & Marketing.  Some participants will be bestselling author Marianne Williamson, Whole Foods Founder John Mackay, marketing guru Faith Popcorn, Harvard's Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Jeffrey Hollender, Co-Founder and Former CEO at Seventh Generation and a stellar array of other speakers.

Processes of Radicalization and De-Radicalization
Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF)

Bielefeld, Germany April 6-8, 2011

The conference is hosted by the International Journal of Conflict and Violence (IJCV) Wilhelm Heitmeyer, Donatella della Porta, Gary LaFree in cooperation with the Working Group “Orders of Violence” in the German Association for Political Science (DVPW)

Conference Home Page

The International Conference on Cyber Conflict is CCD COE’s third annual conference and will be held on

June 7-10, 2011 in Tallinn, Estonia.

In 2011 the conference will have a closer look on Cyber Forces discussing their defensive and offensive as well as management and policy aspects. Different views on cyber defense and operations in the current and envisaged threat environments will be combined, touching also related topics of interest.

Conference Home Page

Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Coalition Summary

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