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Real Life From Building the Boat to Being Captured by the Chinese

February 16, 2010

David J. Steele

I watched my father build the Piver Tri-Maran in his garage and front yard of our home in Saigon, South Viet-Nam (at the time). This book is a still exciting story of an oil engineer and manager (at the time in charge of all Esso supply for all of Viet-Nam) who built a boat from scratch and sailed it from Saigon toward Hong Kong.

20 miles off the coast of Hainan (by his calculations) he was rammed by militia-pirates and the boat sunk, leaving him in the water. He was taken prisoner and vanished from the public eye. Months later he was released into Hong Kong with some photos of pieces of his boat washed up on shore, and his sextant.

The best part of the book for me has always been his account of being treated as a guest rather than a prisoner in China, and when asked what Americans drank with their meals, his response “a big bottle of beer.” That's what he got, and he claims that is why he only lost 40 pounds or whatever it was.

I still have the “little red book” he was given to read while a prisoner. My positive opinion of the Chinese has been shaped in part by their very dignified treatment of my father as a quasi-prisoner, combined with my finishing high school in Singapore at a time when Minister-Mentor Lee Kuan Yew was just hitting his statesmanlike-stride.

2010/02/16

MILNET Headlines 15 February 2010

Uncategorized

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Cyber-Security: DISA to establish safe haven outside the Internet

Cyber-Security: U.S. Internet security plan revamped

Threat-China: The Last Shuttle and the Rise of China

Threat-China: Who needs aircraft carriers and cruise missiles when you have IOUs?

Threat-China: Why China's Naval Rise Could Help The World

Threat-Google: Google Buzz Abandons Auto-Following Amid Privacy Concerns

Threat-Google: Too Easy: How a Simple Hack Can Turn Your Numeric Google Profile URL Back into a Gmail Address

Threat-Ideas: Jihad of the Pen

Threat-Iran: Are The Ayatollahs Using COIN? http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2010/02/this-week-at-war-are-the-ayato/

Threat-Iran: RAND: Mullahs, Guards, and Bonyads: An Exploration of Iranian Leadership Dynamics

Threat-Nuclear: Nuclear sites vulnerable to break-ins

Threat-Terrorism: How Bin Laden Lost The Clash Of Civilizations

Threat-Terrorism: U.S. hunts for English-speaking bombers

Threat-USG: Justice Dept. defends warrantless cell phone tracking

Threat-Whaling: Whaling: Will Greenpeace trial in Japan put whalers on notice?

U.S. Intelligence: A U.S. Intelligence Breakthrough in the Persian Gulf?

US Strategy: A Plan for ‘Best Practices’ on National Security Reporting

US Strategy: Turning The Taliban

2010/02/152011/10/22

Journal: Glenn Beck–What Would the Founders Do?

Cultural Intelligence

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Glenn Beck has gone public with a pox on both parties. We consider this significant.

He is also spinning up the Constitution and the words of the Founding Fathers while calling on Congress to exercise its Article 1 powers.

America appears to be making a decisive turn away from the two-party system and toward a demand for a restoration of electoral reform and integrity in all aspects of governance and politics.

2010/02/152010/02/15

Graphic: New Logo for Earth Intelligence Network

Balance, Citizen-Centered, Earth Orientation, Multinational Plus

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2010/02/152010/02/15

Happy Birthday Arno Reuser–Master Librarian

08 Wild Cards, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Librarian Intelligence, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Real Time, Threats, Topics (All Other)

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PLATINUM LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Arno “The Curious” Reuser

Mr. Arno Reuser, Arno the Curious, is a Master Librarian who has done more for the practice of Open Source Inteligence (OSINT) in support of national security than anyone else in Europe. He has been a pioneer in the explotiation of badly-delivered OSINT from private sector vendors, writing original PERL programs to make sense of their feeds; he has known how to make the most of the Internet; and above all, he has known how to find and engage human intellects around the world, each capable of producing unique tailored knowledge not available online or in print. He is the Master Librarian of the OSINT world and all seven intelligence tribes.

When InterNET is InterNOT (2008)

Virtual Open Source Agency (2006)

Librarian Tradecraft (2003)