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anonymous

Russia: The Fate of Conscription - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...00520_russia_fate_conscription

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 20 May 10 - Cached
  • Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov was quoted May 19 as saying that Russia could not professionalize its military with contract soldiers.
  • The Russian military has long been large and conscripted. Even today, almost half of Russia’s 395,000-strong active duty army is drafted — and despite significant reforms like dropping the period of conscription from two years to one, the living and working conditions for a Russian conscript remain notoriously abysmal.
  • Stretching from the International Dateline to Europe, Russia spans most of the eastern hemisphere and suffers from extremely long, essentially indefensible borders.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • it is difficult to overstate the depth and complexity of the challenge of military reform in Russia. At every turn, reformists must overcome entrenched vested interests within the military and rigid, outdated paradigms. Even if they accomplish this, they must then face the perennial Russian challenge of defending the indefensible. If Russia can no longer afford or populate a large standing army, it must have one that is more agile and capable.
  • anonymous on 20 May 10
     
    May 20, 2010
anonymous

Despite apparent Iran setback, Turkey expands its reach - 0 views

www.mcclatchydc.com/...ite-apparent-iran-setback.html

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 20 May 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 20 May 10
     
    By Scott Peterson at Christian Science Monitor on May 19, 2010. Thanks to Ed Webb for the pointer.
anonymous

Are predictions of endless war self-fulfilling? - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/...post.cfm

geopolitics predictions

shared by anonymous on 20 May 10 - Cached
  • The implicit assumption of the entire conference was that there will always be wars.
  • "No," Mansoor replied immediately when I asked him if he thought international war would ever end, as some scholars have recently proposed. He acknowledged that since World War II there have been relatively few international wars and no wars between major powers (although of course the U.S. and the Soviet Union fought through proxies). But he likened our era to the century of relative calm following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.
  • There are many more democracies in the world now, and democracies rarely fight against each other (although they obviously fight against non-democracies, as Mansoor pointed out). Moreover, modern media rub our noses in war's ugliness as never before.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • What bothers me most about Mansoor's vision of the future is its potential to be self-fulfilling.
  • anonymous on 20 May 10
     
    By John Horgan at Scientific American on May 19, 2010
anonymous

A New Clue to Explain Human Existence - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...18cosmos.html

layscience

shared by anonymous on 19 May 10 - Cached
  • Physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory are reporting that they have discovered a new clue that could help unravel one of the biggest mysteries of cosmology: why the universe is composed of matter and not its evil-twin opposite, antimatter.
  • In a mathematically perfect universe, we would be less than dead; we would never have existed. According to the basic precepts of Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics
  • Maria Spiropulu of CERN and the California Institute of Technology called the results “very impressive and inexplicable.”
  • anonymous on 19 May 10
     
    By Dennis Overbye at The New York Times on May 17, 2010
anonymous

Millennials keep their chins up despite high unemployment in economic downturn - 0 views

www.csmonitor.com/...mployment-in-economic-downturn

generations

shared by anonymous on 19 May 10 - Cached
  • For one, the recession, while the deepest since the Great Depression, is not dragging on so long that all hope of finding a good job has evaporated. For another, there's a decent government safety net now, in the form of food stamps and unemployment benefits. Millennials, moreover, seem destined to become the most educated generation ever and see themselves as having a lot on the ball. And let's not forget the soft landing provided by parents, widely considered the most overprotective, don't-cut-the-apron-strings cohort of parents in US history.
anonymous

Investing in the Poor - 0 views

www.marginalrevolution.com/...investing-in-the-poor.html

economics

shared by anonymous on 19 May 10 - Cached
  • The Unincorporated Man is a science fiction novel in which shares of each person's income stream can be bought and sold.  (Initial ownership rights are person 75%, parents 20%, government 5%--there are no other taxes--and people typically sell shares to finance education and other training.)
  • anonymous on 19 May 10
     
    By Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution on May 19, 2010.
anonymous

What a U.S.-Iran Entente Would Look Like - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...what_usiran_entente_would_look

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 19 May 10 - Cached
  • STRATFOR has long been saying that with no viable military options to attempt to curb Iranian behavior, and an inability to put together an effective sanctions regime, Washington has only one choice, and that is to negotiate with Tehran on the issues that matter most to both countries.
  • Iran already has the largest military force in the region — which will only grow more powerful once Tehran is no longer encumbered by sanctions.
  • The United States has been hobbled by the memories of the 1979 hostage crisis for a generation now
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The trajectory of this hypothesized rapprochement coincides with the trajectory of increasing American military bandwidth. Though American ground combat forces remain heavily committed at the moment, this will change in the years to come.
  • The United States is on this trajectory with or without Iran, but with an American-Persian rapprochement, it is possible on a more rapid timetable and to a greater degree.
  • Europeans, especially the French and the Germans, would welcome a Tehran-Washington reconciliation
  • Russia has no interest in seeing the United States and Iran come to terms with each other.
  • The more distracted the United States is, the more room Russia has to entrench itself in the former Soviet space and keep Europe under its thumb.
  • anonymous on 19 May 10
     
    May 19, 2010
anonymous

The Psychological Diversity of Mankind - 0 views

lesswrong.com/...hological_diversity_of_mankind

longnow

shared by anonymous on 18 May 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 18 May 10
     
    By Kaj_Sotala at Less Wrong on May 9, 2010. Cochran and Harpending's basic thesis is that the notion of a psychological unity is most likely false. Different human populations are likely for biological reasons to have slightly different minds, shaped by selection pressures in the specific regions the populations happened to live in. Hat tip to Robin Hanson at Overcoming Bias.
anonymous

I, Pencil: My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read - 0 views

www.econlib.org/...rdPncl1.html

economics philosophy whimsy

shared by anonymous on 18 May 10 - Cached
  • Actually, millions of human beings have had a hand in my creation, no one of whom even knows more than a very few of the others.
  • There is a fact still more astounding: the absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of such a person can be found. Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work. This is the mystery to which I earlier referred.
  • anonymous on 18 May 10
     
    A fantastic piece (thanks to Adam Gurri) about the mysterious world of the modern supply chain.
anonymous

Seeds of Discontent - 0 views

www.slate.com/toolbar.aspx

sustainability

shared by anonymous on 18 May 10 - Cached
  • It's not inherently good or bad—what matters is how you use it.
  • anonymous on 18 May 10
     
    Tagline: "Should environmentalists just say no to GMOs?" By Nina Shen Rastogi at Slate Magazine on May 18, 2010.
anonymous

Seeds of Discontent - 0 views

www.slate.com/2253787

sustainability

shared by anonymous on 18 May 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 18 May 10
     
    Tagline: "Should environmentalists just say no to GMOs?" By Nina Shen Rastogi at Slate Magazine on May 18, 2010.
anonymous

Germany, Greece and Exiting the Eurozone - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ny_greece_and_exiting_eurozone

geopolitics geography

shared by anonymous on 18 May 10 - Cached
  • the economic underpinnings of paper money are not nearly as important as the political underpinnings
  • The trouble with the euro is that it attempts to overlay a monetary dynamic on a geography that does not necessarily lend itself to a single economic or political “space.”
  • Europe is the second-smallest continent on the planet but has the second-largest number of states packed into its territory.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • the Continent’s plentiful navigable rivers, large bays and serrated coastlines enable the easy movement of goods and ideas across Europe.
  • Europe’s network of rivers and seas are not integrated via a single dominant river or sea network, however, meaning capital generation occurs in small, sequestered economic centers.
  • southern Europe lacks a single river useful for commerce. Consequently, Northern Europe is more urban, industrial and technocratic while Southern Europe tends to be more rural, agricultural and capital-poor.
  • For centuries, Europe was home to feuding empires and states. After World War II, it became the home of devastated peoples whose security was the responsibility of the United States.
  • To join the eurozone, a country must abide by rigorous “convergence criteria” designed to synchronize the economy of the acceding country with Germany’s economy.
  • two scenarios of eurozone reconstitution that have garnered the most attention in the media
  • Germany would therefore not be leaving the eurozone to save its economy or extricate itself from its own debts, but rather to avoid the financial burden of supporting the Club Med economies and their ability to service their 3 trillion euro mountain of debt.
  • Germany could reintroduce its national currency with far more ease than other eurozone members could.
  • German banks own much of the debt issued by Club Med, which would likely default on repayment in the event Germany parted with the euro.
  • The option of leaving the eurozone for Germany
  • If Athens were able to control its monetary policy, it would ostensibly be able to “solve” the two major problems currently plaguing the Greek economy
  • Athens could ease its financing problems substantially.
  • the first thing the Greeks will want to do is withdraw all funds from any institution where their wealth would be at risk
  • The resulting conundrum is one in which reconstitution of the eurozone may make sense at some point down the line. But the interlinked web of economic, political, legal and institutional relationships makes this nearly impossible. The cost of exit is prohibitively high, regardless of whether it makes sense.
  • anonymous on 18 May 10
     
    May 18, 2010
anonymous

Germany: Creating Economic Governance - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...y_creating_economic_governance

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 18 May 10 - Cached
  • Berlin has written some very large checks to ameliorate the economic crisis — Germany’s combined contributions to the Greek bailout and the eurozone rescue fund are about 151 billion euros ($192 billion), not counting the German portions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) contributions — but in return, Germany wants to redefine how the eurozone is run.
  • The EU project has its roots in the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. As originally conceived it had two purposes. The first was to lock Germany into an economic alliance with its neighbors that would make future wars between Western Europeans not only politically unpalatable but also economically disastrous. The second was to provide a politico-economic foundation for a Western Europe already unified under NATO in a military/security alliance led by the United States against the Soviet Union. The memory of World War II provided the moral impetus for European integration, while the Cold War largely provided the geopolitical context.
  • As STRATFOR has said, the eurozone had a political logic but was economically flawed from the start.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • the eurozone has thus far been exceedingly economically beneficial to Germany. Berlin’s 151 billion euro contribution to the two bailout funds pales in comparison to the overall boost in exports that Berlin has received since forging the eurozone.
  • Furthermore, if the euro were to fragment or disintegrate, the EU would essentially end as a serious political force. Currencies are only as stable as the political systems that underpin them.
  • A collapse of a currency — such as those in Germany in 1923, Yugoslavia in 1994, and Zimbabwe in 2008 — is really just a symptom of the underlying deterioration of the political system and is usually followed closely by exactly such a political crisis.
  • The immediacy of the crisis is the impetus for such radical changes to Europe’s “economic governance.” French President Nicolas Sarkozy actually proposed something similar in the wake of the September 2008 crisis, but Berlin sternly rejected him at the time. The crisis that has followed, however, has changed Germany’s mind.
  • The bottom line is that Germany and other member states are shelling out cash and breaking EU treaties because it is in their national interests to do so at this particular moment. If they are to institutionalize such rules for the long term, it is inevitable that they will be broken once national interests revert back to the standard concerns of sovereignty over fiscal policy.
  • Once Germany has paid for its leadership of Europe, will it also be willing to enforce its leadership with direct punitive actions? And if it does, how will its neighbors react?
  • anonymous on 18 May 10
     
    May 14, 2010
anonymous

Iran Nuclear Swap Deal Signed - Original Document - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/..._deal_signed_original_document

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 18 May 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 18 May 10
     
    Final document as obtained by CNNTurk from the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
anonymous

Greece: Defense Spending and the Financial Crisis - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/..._spending_and_financial_crisis

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 18 May 10 - Cached
  • the modern Greek state owes its independence to the support of the United Kingdom, which sought to use Greece as a means to balance the unraveling Ottoman Turkey with the rise of Imperial Russia in the early 19th century.
  • With the disappearance of regional power Yugoslavia and the Soviet superpower, however, such support has ended.
  • Greece spends more on defense as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) than any other EU member including the United Kingdom, which maintains a global defense reach, and Poland, which sees itself as needing to be ready to hold out against the vastly superior Russian army.
  • anonymous on 18 May 10
     
    From May 17, 2010.
anonymous

Twitter Forefather Leaves, Aims to Disrupt Banking Next - 0 views

www.readwriteweb.com/...x_payne_banksimple_twitter.php

technology social

shared by anonymous on 17 May 10 - Cached
  • Imagine a Web-based bank that lets you deposit checks by simply photographing them with its mobile app. It lets you make cash withdrawals from ATMs all over the country at no cost, sometimes even reimbursing you for fees you get charged by other companies.
  • Today Payne announced that he's leaving Twitter to co-found an online banking startup with just such a vision, called BankSimple.
  • BankSimple says it will be "an easy, intuitive, and social bank for people who appreciate simple online services." The company emphasizes its lack of fees, saying that other banks grew greedy when they moved beyond making money from interest on deposits.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Traditional banks need "a wake-up call," McKibben wrote, "regarding the need for responsive, personalized customer applications." "In the longer term, the concept of a proprietary online commercial banking platform will be obsolete," McKibben wrote in a report with Stessa Cohen, "and banks will only orchestrate and not control access to services and information."
  • anonymous on 17 May 10
     
    By Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb on May 17, 2010.
anonymous

Disintermediation: The disruption to come for Education 2.0 - O'Reilly Radar - 0 views

radar.oreilly.com/...termediation-risks-trends.html

shared by anonymous on 17 May 10 - Cached
  • There will always be physical schools - students need to go somewhere during the day to enable the engine of modern economic progress: two parents working. But these schools will evolve into things that look more like civic centers - hubs for community involvement and rich relationship-building
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 17 May 10
       
      My mind drifts to a calm, blue place when I read this. The process of learning strikes me as almost arbitrary now that the technology of the Internet has lodged itself in the world. Not only would this "community center" idea be great for learning, but it could nourish the soul a bit more. There are few of what you might consider "secular" churches out there: places where you can share your feelings. The religious world seems to have a monopoly on that. I can see that gap being filled by enriched education environments.
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