Paul Graham is an essayist, programmer, and programming language designer.
Worth a Look: Essays by Paul Graham
Worth A LookSearch: Capitalism for India
SearchesThis is an extraordinarily exciting Search, and we deeply regret not having the time to devote to creating a new article on this topic. Here therefore are a few humble thoughts. If the leadership of Gujarat Province were to offer us a job testing and developing this in India, we would be on the next flight out.
Capitalism. Capitalism in its purest form is the process of adding value for the greater good of the community being served, with profit being a legitimate valuation of the value being added by the combination of entrepreneurship, innovation, and dedication.
– Western Capitalism has become predatory, immoral, and corrupt. It has commoditized the human (both the employee and the customer), created a false cycle of adversie, consume, discard, and repeat, and it does not reflect the “true costs” of what it consumes, such that Exxon, to take one example, receives $4 per gallon of gas, with enormous profit, but receives an additional $12 per gallon in costs that are externalized to the public and the future. Under no circumstances should India adopt Western Capitalism in its present form. Emerging variants of Western Capitalism that are at least a decade away from being mainstream include Natural Capitalism based on Ecological Economics, which are substantive, and Bill Gates' “Creative Capitalism” which is just a marketing slogan.
– Eastern “Capitalism” is something we do not understand as well as we should, but it is a very exciting potential mix that is conflicted. On the one hand, we stand in awe at the micro-finance initiatives of the Gameen Bank, and we respect the Islamic prohibition of ursury, but we also see some terrible disadvantages from excessive revenue in the oil countries; corruption among dictators and royal families long overdue for being sent into exile, and the uneven influence of religious figures, both Islamic and Jewish.
Both forms of capitalism are based on imposed scarcity of money, and rule by secrecy. Both also permit absentee landlords, which we consider wrong.
Journal: Chuck Spinney Sends–Viet-Nam RMK-BRJ Reprise….Wanna Fix New Orleans? Just move it to Afghanistan….
08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Ethics, Military… because, even though Obama may think he is weighing his policy “options,” the Pentagon is busily politically engineering the the flow of infrastructure funds needed to lock in the constituent support for its Long War.
2014 or Bust: The Pentagon’s Afghan Building Boom
Nick Turse and Tom Engelhardt, November 06, 2009
In our day, the American way of war, especially against lightly armed guerrillas, insurgents, and terrorists, has proved remarkably heavy. Elephantine might be the appropriate word. The Pentagon likes to talk about its “footprint” on the geopolitical landscape. In terms of the infrastructure it’s built in Iraq and Afghanistan, perhaps “crater” would be a more reasonable image.
American wars are now gargantuan undertakings. The prospective withdrawal of significant numbers/most/all American forces from Iraq, for instance, will — in terms of time and effort — make the 2003 invasion look like the vaunted “cakewalk” it was supposed to be. According to Pentagon estimates, more than 1.5 million (yes, that is “million”) pieces of U.S. equipment need to be removed from the country. Just stop and take that in for a second.
Of course, it’s a less surprising figure when you realize that the Pentagon managed to build, furnish, and supply almost 300 bases, macro to micro, in Iraq alone in the war years. And some of those bases were — and still are — the size of small American towns with tens of thousands of troops, private contractors, and others, as well as massive perimeters, multiple bus routes, full-scale PX’s, fast-food outlets, movie theaters, and the like.
Search: OSINT (Open Source Intelligence)
SearchesThis entire site is about Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and more recently, its two applications in the public interest now that “OSINT” has been captured and buried by governments–anyone dumb enough to “classify” OSINT has no clue.
The two new applications are Public Intelligence in the Public Interest (PI2) and, originally a Swedish military peace intelligence concept articulated by Col Jan-Inge Svensson, Land Forces (Ret) and others, M4IS2 (Multinational Multiagency Multidisciplinary Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making).
The Handbooks and the Historic Contributions are “best of OSINT” in practical terms. The References and History of Opposition contain a lot of information about the inherent conflict between secret bureaucracies and the real world. The original one-page of links, BASIC, and the original LIBRARY table of all contributions within OSS.Net, remain useful.
The two core references in the literature remain:
Contributing Editor: Berto Jongman
Authors & Editors
Albert J. (Berto) Jongman (1955) majored in western sociology at the University of Groningen in 1981. During his studies he gained practical experience as a research assistant at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in Sweden. From 1982 to 1987 he worked as a researcher at the Polemological Institute of the University of Groningen where he dealt with several research topics including the quantitative study of war, political violence, armament and disarmament issues and human rights. In 1987 he moved to the University of Leiden where he acted as datamanager of the Project on Interdisciplinary Research on the Root Causes of Gross Human Rights Violations (PIOOM). He also worked on several research projects, including the World Conflict and Human Rights Map, 20th Century Genocides and Monitoring Human Rights Violations. In 2002 he moved from academia to government. Since early 2002 he works as a senior terrorism analyst for the Dutch Ministry of Defense. His ‘World Directory of Terrorist and other Organizations associated with Guerrilla Warfare, Political Violence and Protest,' was included in the award-winning ‘Political Terrorism. A New Guide to Actors, Authors, Concepts, Data Bases, Theories, and Literature' (2nd edition, 1988) edited by Alex P. Schmid. During the 1990s he regularly contributed to the Dutch Yearbook on Peace and Security. Currently an update of Political Terrorism is being prepared under the title Handbook of Terrorism Research that will be published by Routledge in the Spring of 2010. In his current function he participates in a number of Advanced Research Working Groups of NATO and in activities of the Dutch National Coordinator for Counterterrorism.
CENTCOM Week in Review Ending 5 Nov 09
UncategorizedHot Topics
AA: Europe reluctant to send more troops to Afghanistan 11/03/09
AA: Russia Is Dying To Learn Its Census Data 11/04/09
AA: Australia unlikely to send more troops 11/05/09
AA: Der Spiegel: Mossad hacked Syrian computer to uncover nuclear site 11/02/09
AA: India, Pak again resorting to blame game 11/05/09
AF: Anti-American rumors gain traction in Afghanistan 11/03/09
AF: The case for withdrawal from Afghanistan is not yet made 11/05/09
EG: Egypt opens Rafah crossing for stranded Palestinians 11/01/09
IQ: Iraq surge could be model for Afghan war: US admiral 11/04/09
IR: Iran's Military Power Subject to New US Study Used for China 11/02/09
SA: Saudi warning over Hajj politics 11/03/09
TJ: Tajikistan grants amnesty to prison population 11/04/09
Below the Fold: Instability, Special Operations, Security Forces, Foreign Affairs, Crime
Journal: Independents Rising
Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence
INDEPENDENCE PARTY BREAKS RECORDS;
142,817 VOTES FOR BLOOMBERG ON COLUMN C
DELIVERS MARGIN TO CITY'S FIRST INDEPENDENT MAYOR
Unofficial returns released by the Board of Elections put the IP total on Column “C” at 142,817 votes, nearly 26% of Bloomberg’s total and 13% of all votes cast. This means that 1 in 4 Bloomberg voters chose to vote on the Independence Party line.
The vote for the mayor on the Independence Party line was an increase of 91% over its total four years ago, when it drew nearly 75,000 votes on its crucial Column
