The Real Order of Business is: 1) North Korea; 2) Iran

■"U.S. Weapons Envoy Pessimistic About Talks With North Korea," by James Brooke, New York Times, 30 April 2005, p. A8.

■"U.S. Aide Sees Arms Advance By North Korea: Cites Skill to Fit Nuclear Weapon on Missile," by David S. Cloud and David E. Sanger, New York Times, 29 April 2005, p. A1.

■"N. Korea, 6, And Bush, 0: Take my Quiz, and Shudder," op-ed by Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, 26 April 2005, p. A27.

■"Iranians Seek Nuclear Deal in Meeting With Europeans in London," by Alan Cowell, New York Times, 30 April 2005, p. A9.

■"Threats Shadow New Conference on Nuclear Arms: Iran and North Korea; A Deadlock Is Feared at Nonproliferation Talks Set for New York," by David E. Sanger, New York Times, 1 May 2005, p. A1.

■"U.S. Denounces North Korea After Reports of Missile Test," by Brian Knowlton, International Herald Tribune, 2 May 2005, pulled off web.

Just getting back up to speed following my three-year slumber (Damn! Again, I keep confusing myself with Friedman!), I revisit the state of stopping WMD proliferation in the remaining two legs of the Axis of Evil.

Well, I remain pretty happy with my ordering principle of: 1) let's tackle North Korea sooner versus later; and 2) let's not tackle Iran now, since they seem more ready to deal.

I think that's the way it's going to go. The further we get past Iraq, watch this administration ramp up the info campaign against Kim. And no, it won't be propaganda, because all those horrific stories are all so horrifically true.

Here's a great segment from that wonderful crank, Kristof, who's cranky about the right things:

North Korea is the most odious country in the world today. It has been caught counterfeiting U.S. dollars and smuggling drugs, and prisoners have been led along with wire threaded through their collarbones so they can't run away. While some two million North Koreans were starving to death in the late 1990's, Mr. Kim spent $2.6 million on Swiss watches. He's the kind of man who, when he didn't like a haircut once, executed the barber.

Is this the guy we're going to negotiate with? This is the guy we're going to trust because he's signed a piece of paper? This is the regime we want accommodation with?

Meanwhile . . .

The head of the Iranian negotiators, Muhammad Javad Zarif, citing remarks by other Iranian officials, said: "We engage in these talks in order to make a deal, and not to break one. We are hoping for tangible progress on reaching an agreement."

As opposed to North Korea calling President Bush a "philistine" and a "hooligan" as part of their warm-up a "philistine" and a "hooligan" Ö

Buy this book!

Dateline: Highlands Forum XXVI, Antrium 1844, near Taneytown MD, 2 May 2005

Saw brilliant presentation from C.K. Prahalad, author of The Power at the Bottom of the Pyramid, all about how you shrink the Gap and kill poverty through profits.

This presentation/book is full of stunning analysis of how globalization really spreads on a very ground-floor level.

His basic point: most big U.S. companies were built by selling to the poor, not the rich. Singer, for example, built it's whole company on lower classes buying their sewing machines (rich people had seamstresses and tailors), and they did this by pioneering buying on credit (e.g., $5 per month for 20 months).

People being poor isn't the problem, creating the economic connectivity to allow them to buy and sell is.

I bought the book on Amazon five minutes into his brief. Stunning, really. Can't wait to read it.

Critt: add the link.

Well, We're Moving On Up! To the East Side!

■"Living the Chinese Dream: Success Stories From the Poor Hinterland Help Share the Wealth," by Jason Dean, Wall Street Journal, 26 April 2005, p. A12.

■"A Hundred Cellphones Bloom And Chinese Take to the Streets," by Jim Yardley, New York Times, 25 April 2005, p. A1.

■"Give My Regards to Shanghai: Big Musicals Arrive in China, As Broadway Looks East; The 'Edelweiss" Singalong," by Blythe Yee and James Inverne, Wall Street Journal, 29 April 2005, p. D1.

First story has some great stats on China's rapid urbanization, which is the microcosmic experience of globalization, meaning it captures it in a nutshell.

China's rural population was at 80% of the total pop back in late 1970s to just under 60% now, so urban pop goes from about 1 out of every five in late 70s to 2 out of every five now.

Why is this so crucial to growth? Need the labor to industrialize, so you have to get the labor, especially the females, OFF the farm and into the city.

But even more important, urban labor earns so much more, meaning more to tax for government revenue, thus more money for social welfare, infrastructure, etc. All that urban-based revenue likewise means more domestic demand plus probably lotsa "remittances" to the hinterland, meaning the wealth gets spread. Urban disposable income is close to $1,200 now (disposable means, after all the basic bills are paid), whereas rural disposable is slowly growing at around the 300 dollar range.

And you know what? All that disposable income buys a lot of cell phones (they're everywhere in the cities), and all that connectivity, which is hugely horizontal (meaning it connects people to one another, not giving the government any increased control over individuals but certainly reducing it), speaks to an economics-driven pluralism that ultimately becomes a politics-driven pluralism.

My point is this: the successful movement from the rural to the city is the key to making China work, to shrinking the Gap, to making globalization truly global. These are some of the big themes of Blueprint for Action.

Finally, the sign of the big city coming into its own is the same sign of the former Gap country coming into its own: here comes the foreign entertainment that now views big cities in China as potential cash-cow territories. Broadway feeling a bit down? Why not send road shows to China? This cite goes into an existing note in BFA.

Follow the Yuan, Follow the Yuan

■"A Currency Afloat (for All Of 20 Minutes)," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 30 April 2005, p. B1.

■"The Global Savings Glut," op-ed by Robert Samuelson, Washington Post, 27 April 2005, p. A23.

■"China Sets Bank IPO in Motion: Injections of $15 Billion Into ICBC Is Viewed as a First Installment," by Andrew Browne, Wall Street Journal, 26 April 2005, p. C16.

■"China Heads List of Problems for New Trade: Congress Is Pressing Battle on Piracy," by Elizabeth Becker, New York Times, 30 April 2005, p. B3.

■"Currency Game, Yet Again, Focuses on Yuan Revaluation," by Craig Karmin, Wall Street Journal, 29 April 2005, p. C1.

The biggest uncertainty/certainty in the global economy today is that China's yuan is too cheap vis-‡-vis the dollar, to which it is pegged, thus increasing our massive trade deficit with them (the biggest source in the global economy today of our overall trade deficit).

Recently, all the talk and effort in the system was about engineering the slow fall of the dollar, which is occurring. Now, with that accomplished, all attention in the system turns toward China and the inevitability that it must revalue the yuan.

Why this matters: the fundamental imbalance of the world today is that Americans spend too much and save too little, and there is the tendency to assume it's all our fault, when in reality it reflects the larger global environment in which the Asians tend to save too much and spend too little. If they're not doing that, then guess what? It's a whole lot harder for Americans to continue spending too much and saving too little.

This weird imbalance reflects the tipping point we're at now: the New Core pillars (like China), which have integrated themselves into the global economy over the past couple of decades, have reached the point where their savings/investment focus needs to shift somewhat to allow domestic spending designed to create domestic markets and domestic demand. Otherwise, the global economic system as a whole gets perverted into a sort of specialization where the Old Core (U.S. especially) consumes and they (the New Core) produce, leading to this irrational fear that the global economy will somehow lock into that dynamic forever!.

So again, lotsa speculation on when China will finally revalue the yuan, which is just a single-point version of a float, where the currency would adjust on a daily basis according to currency exchange markets. Ultimately, we want the yuan to float, as do the Chinese, but for now, keeping it pegged works well for the Chinese to keep their exports cheap, plus it gives them time to create the other types of currency and market controls needed to make having a floating currency be a good thing rather than a bad thing (good = it becomes another mechanism to control the economy in a macro-sense, by not letting the currency get too strong or too weak; bad = it allows pressures to infiltrate the economy that might overwhelm it if there aren't other mechanisms that allow adjustments). The U.S. lets its dollar float, but we have a lot of other mature mechanisms that allow the government to steer the economy in a rough sense, like restricting or expanding the money supply, the Fed raising or lowering interest rates, the Treasury selling bonds or buying them back by reducing the debt, etc.). China doesn't have all those mechanisms yet, and until they do have a critical mass of them (how much? Good question), it's not in their best interest to let the yuan float.

Still, keeping the yuan pegged artificially to the dollar at roughly 8 yuan to 1 buck ad infinitum can't work either, especially as China racks up huge trade surpluses with a number of states-especially the U.S. All those surpluses generate political pressure in their trading partners for protectionism vis-‡-vis China. This is growing now in the U.S., and China, being smart enough to know that some surplus is better than none, even if they're not maximizing their possible short-term gains.

So China's been signaling all over the dial that it's ready to do it sometime soon, and experts expect it will happen on the eve of a major holiday segment over in China, so it would fall on low business-activity days.

Well, on Friday, the yuan actually seemed to float for about 20 minutes, trading a tiny bit more expensively (6 one-thousandths of a yuan). And baby, did it spook some markets for those twenty minutes, since next week is a major holiday sequence in China, meaning all the close watchers figured, "baby, this is it!"

Well, maybe it was and maybe it wasn't.

But clearly it's coming. It's coming because China can't afford a protectionist response from the Old Core, because they're expecting that "old money" to progressively invest in their banking industry so as to help China reorganize all those bad loans (roughly a trillion). Getting banking up to snuff is a key component to having the yuan float in the future.

So for now, to buy time, China will revalue to get our Congress off their trail, and on to something really scary, like outsourcing to India!

Yeah baby! Get off the Chinese economic threat and shift over to the Indian economic threat!

Friedman would be proud.

Way cool briefing at Highlands

Dateline: Highlands Forum XXVI, Antrium 1844, near Taneytown MD, 2 May 2005

Got THE brief from a senior player that helped put together the Defense Science Board's seminal report, "Transition to and from Hostilities," which I cite quite a bit in BFA. A brilliant report in terms of analyses, although the recommmendations are less than ideal, in my mind.

Still, probably the best thing DSB has ever produced.

Find it on the web at www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2004-12-DSB_SS_Report_Final.pdf.

Ask Tom

How DO you go from here to here

and here

and here

and here

and here

in a couple of hours?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. . ..

Not an early morning person, me thinks. . . ..

On Taiwan, Everything Old is New Again

■"60 Years Later, China Enemies End Their War: TV Handshake Aimed at Taiwan Separatists," by Joseph Kahn, New York Times, 30 April 2005, p. A1.

■"China Tries to Isolate Taiwan's President," by Joseph Kahn, New York Times, 26 April 2005, p. A6.

■"Nationalist Chairman's Visit to Mainland Spurs Taiwanese Interest in Accords," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 1 May 2005, p. A17.

■"Taiwan Communication Plan Stirs New Hopes for a Thaw," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 2 May 2005, off web.

Isn't it amazing how every time there's an alleged close call on conflict between China and Taiwan, if you actually follow the story long-term, each such plus-up in tension inevitably triggers a new and deeper accommodation.

It happens again this time.

The close-call on the December 04 elections (would Chen Shubai's party win a majority in the Taiwanese parliament and then do something stupid, like a meaningless name change, to trigger a military crisis with China?) now segues into a clever, divide-and-conquer strategy by Beijing to highlight the reality that a slim majority-at best-supports Chen's party, but when the question isn't "Do you want Taiwan to assert its independence?" but rather "Do you want to do something that puts at risk the rising economic connectivity between Taiwan and the mainland?" it's really a strong majority that prefers that economic vision of a joint future worth creating.

So China's hosting opposition party leaders, including the head of the legacy party of the Kuomintang once headed by Chiang Kaishek, the Jefferson Davis of the Chinese civil war after World War II. So this guy showing up and shaking hands in Beijing is a big deal, reminding the world how far the two sides have come from that conflict.

This is not a story about communists vs. democrats, but a story of two Chinas: one much farther ahead in democracy than the other, but both moving in the same Core-integrating direction.

China's leadership not looking so crude in its diplomacy right now, is it?

In a Shocking Move, Friedman's New Book Declared "Brilliant" by New York Times!

■"The Wealth of Yet More Nations," book review ofThe World is Flat (Thomas L. Friedman) by Fareed Zakaria, New York Times Book Review, 1 May 2005, p. 10.

I honestly believe that Tom Friedman, as brilliant as he is, couldn't get an honest review in the Times if he wanted. Simply too valuable a product.

Fareed's review (schoolmate from Harvard) is a good one, but it has that scratch-my-back-next-please feel to it. All the journalist/strategists of the world unite!

But Zakaria's biggest point is a huge one: Friedman's now back to "tech rules all," and has abandoned a sense of what we, in my business, call the "pol-mil" (my wife, for years, thought I worked for a guy called Paul Mill, because I kept babbling on about "him" at the dinner table every night). Pol-mil refers to political-military, and it's a term of art to remind the economic world that security is the "everything else" they (the business types) tend to forget, just like the Pentagon tends to ignore the "everything else" beyond war.

So Friedman, who wrote the classic economic determinist track of globalization (Lexus and Olive Tree), then dived into pol-mil with Longitudes and Attitudes, now has gone back to his first love. I say Friedman's like Meg Ryan after one of her "serious" films: she always found the audience didn't believe her in those roles, so she tended to follow them up with a classic romantic comedy (paging Tom Hanks!). I think Friedman felt like a fish out of water on pol-mil, so he's returned to his "romantic comedy," which is economic determinism. Hence his three-year Rip Van Winkle excuse of now finally acknowledging the rise of India and China (World is Flat).

But what I wait for is the honest review that says, "Come on, Tom, how can you pass that off as new analysis after the Times and Journal have been running those stories for . . . oh . . . about two years now!

That, plus the whole "flat" thing seems terribly old in a world where things move fast. Friedman's column had said he was writing on a book of geo-politics, but alas, he's written just a book on geo-economics, so back to the cheerleading role.

Is he a brilliant describer of new economic and technological trends? Absolutely. But pretending that you can figure out the future of the world by quoting the Bill Gateses of the world is a bit myopic. Sure, you could push that stuff before 9/11, but not after.

Plus, Friedman disappoints me terribly with the underlying message of this book: don't obsess with threat of terrorism, instead obsess with the economic threat of India and China!

Come on! Is that the only way to get attention nowadays? Swapping security fears for economic ones? This is geo-strategic?

Reminder to myself on The New Map Game

Dateline: conference center at Antrim 1844 (think I finally got spelling right!), Taneytown MD, 2 May 2005

Good conference call with Alidade et. al this morning on The New Map Game. Reminds me that I have a stack of biz cards that I've collected that I need to go through and start pinging all the people I've interacted with over PNM over the last year.

Seeing the great potential with this game reinforces my desire to slow down in May and focus on promoting this game. I need to dive very deep. The opportunity for networking--or hell, just jump-starting my perspective on Vol. III--here is just too great for me to pass up with anything less than a huge effort.

Being here at Highlands reminds me how cool these events are (great people, same place), but what we're going to try and do with Alidade is one big step better: not just a workshop but a wargame (or, as I like to think of it, a peacegaming effort). This Highlands is way cool because instead of the usual thinking ahead on failure, this is a think-ahead on success (doing SysAdmin better). The New Map Game will seek to do the same.

Just got intro'd here as "Mr. Connectedness." I just love that. I want to pretend, like Gladwell, like I branded that term, like it never existed before I used it. Silly and unreal, but a great thing to pull off if you can. I mean, look at Gladwell now on both "tipping point" and "blink"!

As the GWOT Turns . . .

■"The Way of Commandos: Is the War Getting Dirtier?," by Peter Maass, New York Times Magazine, 1 May 2005, p. 38.

■"Last Syrian Force Leaves Lebanon: Beirut Is Still Mired Deep in Political Uncertainty," by Hassan M. Fattah, New York Times, 27 April 2005, p. A1.

■"U.S. Sees Drop in Terrorist Threats: Al Qaeda Focusing Attacks in Iraq and Europe, Officials Say," by Dana Priest and Spencer Hsu, Washington Post, 1 May 2005, p. A1.

■"U.S. Recruits A Rough Ally To Be a Jailer," by Don Van Natta Jr., New York Times, 1 May 2005, p. A1.

A quick turn of the dial on the GWOT, starting with good story from Peter Maass in NYT mag on Iraq's situation, suggesting that it's going down the path of El Salvador, defined as hit squads fielded by government tracking down and fighting insurgents. Story focuses on scary former Baathist security guy (Sunni) who was sentenced to death by Hussein for trying to overthrow him, now is put in charge of defeating the insurgency by the successor government. He's got a shadowy American special ops guy advising him who cut his teeth in El Salvador in the 1980s. So the question is, does Iraq go down the path of never-ending death squads on boths sides (the insurgency's already got theirs, so it's a matter of fighting fire with fire).

Scary to read? Sure, but a realistic perspective. Many scores to settle, and the assassinations will go on for years. Famous old Polish film "Ashes and Diamonds" just out on DVD. It explores the postwar situation in Poland right after WWII, and it's instructive, because the story follows two professional assassins who used to kill Nazis and now kill communists. They know they won't win, but it's all they know, so they keep killing until they themselves go down. There will be plenty of "ashes and diamonds" in Iraq for many years. No matter how well we did this Big Bang, that would have happened. But how we deal with it is crucial. Some of this boys-will-be-boys stuff we can't stop, but we can work hard to prevent this from devolving into an endless cycle.

Elsewhere in the Big Bang, Syria is gone from Lebanon. I feel like I've been asleep for three years and I just woke up to a new world!

No, wait a minute, that would be Tom Friedman.

I've only been lost to writing for about 4 months, so while I'm thrilled to see this development (one predicted by no Middle East experts as possibly resulting from Big Bang, mind you), it just pushes Lebanon into a new realm, one that suggests that the U.S. will have to find a lot of compromises with Shiite populations in the region. Remember, Hezbollah is now the long pole in Beirut's tent. That means connectivity to the new Shiite-dominated Iraq and-of course-Tehran.

Post article confirms an argument I've offered for a couple of years now in the brief: following 9/11 we go on the offensive and that means "global terrorism" is now back to its regional reach pattern of the 1970s and 1980s, meaning they can blow stuff up at will in the Middle East (great) and they can reach into southern Europe (think Madrid 3/11/04) and Russia (think of the connectivity to the Chechen conflict and the attacks like Beslan).

Point being: our Global War on Terror (GWOT) means allies in Europe will catch most of the direct blowback, while we're back to being fundamentally safer and out of the fire zone. Something to remember.

Finally, remembering my Wired story and my proposal for a Switzerland-like supermax for terrorists picked up-hopefully-by a Core-wide World Counter-Terrorism Organization. Story is about how U.S. has sort of done just that with Uzbekistan, not exactly the pick of the litter, and not even a step up (particularly) from either Abu Ghraib or "Gitmo" in Cuba.

My point: when Core doesn't positively define the new rule set, a bad definition inevitably emerges by default. So inaction and lack of ambition and vision costs. You won't be happy with the default pathway, which will prove to be just as pathway dependent as any other.

Connected at Highlands

Dateline: Highlands Forum XXVI, Antrium 1844, near Taneytown MD, 2 May 2005

You know, switching back and forth between my Mac laptop and my PC desktop reminds me of when I drove a stick and my wife drove an automatic: the jumping back and forth is a weird sort of mental exercise.

I delivered the Esquire beast to Mark on Saturday, all 11,000 words. I also sent a copy to my old mentor, Hank Gaffney, for a sanity check. He found some serious boners, and sounded some very nasty criticisms of the subject, but he just HATES the guy, so I had to take the latter in stride while fixing the former.

So there I was Saturday at noon, for the first time in about 4 months not facing any sort of deadline or intense urge to write something, and it was like a giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders, I kid you not.

So I took my boys duck pin bowling, which is a real Rhody trip (have to get a bunch of those in before we leave). Smaller pins, quite small balls, and you score just like bowling for the first two balls in each frame. You just get a third ball in each frame. Harder than hell to get spares or strikes. I mean, REALLY! But you don't wear out your elbow and your kids can bowl quite effectively, because the ball's so small. We had a blast and ate a bunch of crap from the counter.

Then back home, waiting on Warren, but knowing he was doing the deep dive and was unlikely to come up any time soon, so took Kev, Jerry and Vonne Mei to Y for a swim, followed by gelato at a local ice cream shoppe.

I caught up on all my newspapers from the last week (that's how busy I was on the Esquire piece, reading them while Kev and I watched "The Great Escape" on DVD and ate a Tombstone. Kev, to my amazement, stayed up until midnight because he's so into WWII.

Sunday was slow, rainy day. Planted flowers for spouse. Then sun out, and threw 300 catches (as we count them) with Em and Kev, and then 100 with Jerry using a tennis ball and him wearing a glove for the first time.

*******

Then fly to BWI, pick up a car at around 11pm and drive to this antique hotel in Taneytown MD (Atrium 1844) where I stay in the carriage house in the "safari" room. No internet there, but wireless in the main mansion, so life is just good enough.

Warren is working the piece like crazy now, and I needed to be on-call today.

First day of Highlands Forum XXVI is pretty cool. Andy Marshall and Art Cebrowski here, plus David Ignatius from the Post. Rest are mostly Pentagon-centric types from the high-tech sector, meaning this Forum's exploration of the SysAdmin role (I speak tomorrow) is very IT-focused.

Morning started with fascinating presentation by Sultan Bakarat, a York U. prof who specializes on postconflict reconstruction. His description of the time mismatch on aid offered versus rising long-term needs is exactly the same as the main lesson learned my colleague Bradd Hayes and I came up with for the United Way of Rhode Island when we did our after-action on the Station Nightclub Fire in Warwick (money thrown at problem very fast, but it's unabsorbable by the victims, whose long-terms needs emerge slowly. In short, it's like giving cake and Cokes to a victim of starvation: that cure is almost worse than the disease, because the body can't take it in while it's in that condition.

Great new acronym: GONGO = Government Operated/Originated Non-Governmental Organization.

I now know how Art Cebrowski felt about his definitions of Net-Centric Warfare and the tendency of people to turn it into a straw man. On panel this morning a Canadian postconflict reconstruction expert is asked about my concept of connectivity, and his immediate response was that it can't all be about the private sector and free markets, proving he's never read PNM. There's that assumption that if you're an American and have ever been identified with the Bush administration, that you can be easily turned into a straw-man definition of yourself, meaning easily charicaturized into something that narrowly captures your vision. So I'm just about private-sector investment connectivity and military force. Why? Where do I say that? Doesn't matter. This is why the second book will be so important-and so powerful.

Cool on the Highlands Forum handout book: on recommended readings they list PNM, plus the Chicago Boyz dialogue on the SysAdmin force, plus my blog.

********

Over break, I meet the Canadian officer (David Last) whose response to the prompt on PNM struck me as rather narrow (I wanted to scream out, "But [dot dot dot] you know nothing of my work!" Turns out he has read PNM and has used it and the old New Rule Sets stuff on energy with the Canadian government. So I am reminded what an incredibly thin skin I have (Lighten up!). Interacting with Last made me feel good, because I like the Canadians so much on this subject, considering them "early money," so any sense that they see me too narrowly would disturb me greatly.

Funny side note: Last says my descriptions of Highlands Forum XXV on the blog was his essential source on how to get ready for this one-his first. Connectivity rules, as always.

Anyway, ego assuaged, I relax a bit.

Had to leave session for a bit for conference call on The New Map Game. Also spoke with Mark by phone over break on his continuing edit of my piece. He said he has removed some of my "adoring" comments about my subject. Hearing that, plus realizing my thin skin on the PNM mentions here, confuses me: am I basically a suck-up or an egomaniac? Can I be both?

Or am I just an excitable boy still, despite the widening middle-age spread at my waist and the thinning hair in back?

For the sake of my marriage, I hope it's the latter.

********

As of 1130, Highlands techies set up wifi booster so I can surf from laptop while at big U-table.

********

Weird, because I was to show up at table this morning, but only spot left was at top of U (power positions), so I sit one-off from main host from Pentagon, Lin Wells, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for info tech, and two-off from Andy Marshall, and three off from Art Cebrowski.

Not my usual space. By and large like to be on end of U, close to screen, in part because I tend to work nonstop at conferences and don't like that to be so apparent.

********

Funny, but this morning I intro'd myself by saying I spoke at last Highlands and it triggered a series of dynamics that led to my firing at College. So I said I was "excited" to be here again to see what might happen this time!

********

Last time at Highlands they had wifi, and Rebecca MacKinnon and Ethan Zuckerman were surfing throughout. I felt like such a PC loser with my aging Gov Gateway. Now I am supercool with my wireless Mac!

*******

Was working a massive blog of stories plus this long compilation of narrative that I started last night on plane, planning to post it all Tuesday night (assuming this antique hotel would have no connectivity).

Now that I am connected, I will simply just start patching it all up as I go along.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

Okay, that's it! Get fully vertical before you call me first thing in the morning, from the road. And finish yawning before you start bossing me around!

Catalyst:

Essence of the conversation: In Writer's Seclusion

Revisionist history: Liar, Liar Webmaster's Pants on Fire!

We got a conference call for The New Map Game at 11am. Be there, Aloha.

Liar, liar webmaster's pants on fire!

Dateline: Atrium 1844, Taneytown MD, 2 May 2005

Staying at antique hotel not far from Gettsburg. Missed the tour yesterday with historian James MacPherson, but played catch with two eldest (300 catches!) and for the first time with son Jerry (100, but Jerry got about 30 of them as we counted up). Some things are worth it.

Flew to DC last night late and drove here for Highlands Forum XXVI. You remember last one. My talk on CSPAN basically led to my getting fired from the College.

This one is all about the SysAdmin force and transitioning from hostilities to peace. Art Cebrowski here, and so is David Ignatius again, which is cool. I speak tomorrow morning just on my SysAdmin concept. Art leads panel right after. He looks good and is here with wife Kathy, who's a sweet heart.

Thank God for wireless connection in main mansion and God love my Mac! Warren is working my text obsessively over the weekend. He is scary smart when he gets going like this. Many talks on phone today. Hope I don't miss too much of proceedings.

Blogging stories all day. Will post tonight.

In Writer's Seclusion

Dateline: Historic hotel in Gettysburg Virginia, 2 May 2005

Today and tomorrow Tom is at the Highlands Forum, exploring the SysAdmin concept. During this time he'll also be with Mark Warren, completing his writing assignment for Esquire.

Though offline now, he'll return -- with catch up on news articles -- Tuesday night.

Download 25May2005 The Newsletter From Thomas P.M. Barnett

Download here: http://thomapmbarnett.com/journals/barnett_2may2005.doc

New cover, new contents. Leaner. Let me know what you think. Ask Tom.

Contents for this week:

About this Newsletter ÔøΩ Pg. 3

Feature: Gameplay for The New Map Game ÔøΩ Pg. 4

Furthermore: from the Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog ÔøΩ Pg. 6

. The New Map ÔøΩGamedÔøΩ ÔøΩ Pg. 6

Ask Tom ÔøΩ Pg. 9

ÔøΩ Winfred ÔøΩ Pg. 9

ÔøΩ M. McGreevy ÔøΩ Pg. 10

ÔøΩ Blake Hounsell ÔøΩ Pg. 11

ÔøΩ Walter Jonas ÔøΩ Pg. 13

Support The Newsletter From Thomas P.M. Barnett ÔøΩ Pg. 14

ÔøΩ Map poster ÔøΩ Pg. 14

ÔøΩ Books ÔøΩ Pg. 15

ÔøΩ Music ÔøΩ Pg. 15

ÔøΩ Software ÔøΩ Pg. 15

Glossary (Updated April 29, 2005) ÔøΩ Pg. 16