Newsletter - Monday, October 10, 2005

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The Newsletter from Thomas P.M. Barnett - Monday, October 10, 2005

Feature: City of New Orleans: What Hurricane Katrina Can Teach Us About Resilience
by Stephen F. DeAngelis, President and CEO, Enterra Solutions, LLC.

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Back on the road, and hating it

Dateline: SWA flights from Indy via Midway to Philly, 9 October 2005

Did what I could with the kids in the time I had. Saturday was big end-of-season city meet on cross-country. Kev did okay in his age group (about 40th, which means he should be looking for a top-20 ribbon next year as he hits the top grade in his range), but I'm afraid his training peaked him in mid-September. Coach a bit gung ho for my tastes on the mileage, so next year, I anticipate band will keep him from more than a few runs. The kids who peaked just right this year were the ones that missed the most practices, and I won't forget that next year.

Saturday afternoon was given to go-karting with the kids at a local speedway (racing is very serious here, no matter what the vehicle size).

Before heading to Terre Haute to visit the Nona Saturday night, I stopped by the house. Plumbing now laid throughout, with all the bathrooms and kitchen and washing stuff prepped and ready to roll. Most of the heating duct work also in place. All doors and windows and skylights also in place. Brick going up and shingles almost done on roof. Place will be seriously closed up by Halloween, giving two solid months of indoor work to meet a Jan 1 short-end-of-the-estimate timeframe, or three months to come in at 7 months total. I'm guessing the worst-case timeframe of 8 months, or through Feb, won't unfold. Our builder is keeping great pace and we're appreciating the workmanship throughout. Big electrical planning walk-through later this week.

Today at Nona's was mostly about hanging out with kids at local fantastic playground and then some end-of-season polar plunging in backyard pool, where temp hovered in the low 60s. Still, compared to the Atlantic Ocean off RI, not bad at all. We BBQ'd and listened to the Pack kick the Saints' asses, catching the broadcast over the Internet. Hope springs eternal.

I am more than depressed to hit the road again so quickly, but responsibility calls with Enterra and it'll be good to see some old friends in the process.

Admittedly, I am struggling with the schedule of travel. It's the crashing intersection of the secure-my-financial-future pathway (Enterra and its breakaway methodologies and technologies) with the pay-the-bills pathway (Leigh Bureau speeching) with the change-the-world pathway (all the free or low-to-no-cost appearances and advising) with just plain being a good husband and dad. It is hard to balance the trio with what really matters, but some balancing is inevitable. I will have to think hard and long about what's most necessary to my sense of accomplishment and duty in coming months and years. I'll never have more parenting to do than I have on my plate right now, so something will have to give.

The changing-the-world bit is hard to give up, because it animates me so, and it feels entirely unique. And when I lie on my deathbed I want to look back on unique things.

Paying the bills is hard to avoid, but just doing that and not providing for the future seems wrong as well, so Enterra beckons to a certain extent, even as it seems to be the one thing I can delay or even just skip in my life (let's face it, how many people actually secure their finances in their forties?). Then again, how many Enterras come along in one life? I'm 43, and it's hard to imagine a tighter fit of product and vision--I mean, REALLY HARD.

Ah, therein lies the rub.

Again, it's a question of balance. Better to have too much opportunity than not enough.

Next couple of days is strategizing with Enterra seniors, and yeah, I do expect to be re-fired up yet again after that regarding the company. It's hard not to be, because ever we go, we light people's fires. Same tricky balance there for Steve DeAngelis: so many opportunites, so little time, so much growth to be managed.

I hope to learn a lot about balance in the next 48 hours, or at least enough so I can get a better sense of how to get a bit more strategic on my sked/career. I have to start picking my spots better, because the current lifestyle is unsustainable. I won't be breaking my family to save anyone or to make any fortunes.

I guess I just like them all too much.

Here's the daily catch:

■ Getting real about doing something about Africa

■ Yes, it will cost plenty for Canada to jump to spot #2 on global oil reserves

■ The tough choice on Miers: competency versus ideology (as in, be careful what you wish for)

■ Iran's meager military-market connection: as real as the mullahs allow it to get

Yes, it will cost plenty for Canada to jump to spot #2 on global oil reserves

■"In Canada's Wilderness, Measuring the Cost of Oil Profits," by Clifford Krauss, New York Times, 9 October 2005, p. A3.

The environmental footprint required to push Canada into Saudi Arabia-West status will be huge, but in such a remote province, expect the money to buy off most local resistance (those checks in the mail to every citizens are quite comforting). Have no illusions, the money will talk, and Canada will rise up the ranks.

And China will come calling Ö

As Canada's enviro minister stated, "There is no environmental minister on earth who can stop the oil from coming out of the sand, because the money is too big."

But there's no reason to use natural gas to clean the sand in order to make a dirtier fuel, which, as one environmentalist put it, is "like using caviar to make fake crabmeat." No, watch the nukes roll in as the key processing energy source, with the French (Total) leading the way on that score.

Getting real about doing something about Africa

■"Walking the Talk: Students and congregations take action on genocide," op-ed by Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times, 9 October 2005, p. A13.

■"As Economy Plummets, Zimbabwe Arrests Street Vendors: Food, gasoline and even seed and fertilizer have become hard to find," by Michael Wines, New York Times, 8 October 2005, p. A3.

Kristof can get awfully moralizing sometime, despite an excruciatingly naÔve appreciation of the military requirements for some of the big bets he asks America to make, like stop being a "wimp" on African genocide.

Easier said than done, my friend, and if you think college students collecting donations for the African Union will do the trick, you're just plain dreaming.

Great to see college kids feeling some sense of moral outrage and thus duty, but they need to get a whole lot more realistic on what stopping genocide in Africa will take. We can't pretend that we're going to send lotsa money to the AU and have them do all the dirty work for us, making sure no American lives are lost in the process.

And let's be even more clear: if we think nation-creating in Iraq is hard, what with all the pissed-off young men running around with arms and bombs, then we're in for an even harsher reality in most of Sub-Saharan Africa, where the effort--and the time involved--will be that much more draining.

You want to stop killing, you better be prepared to do some, and you better be prepared for American troops to do a lot of the killing, because most allies, including local African ones, won't bother showing up with any numbers until the hard stuff is mostly done.

So, great to see the growing outrage among the young and religious groups. I just hope someone's making the connection between the same SysAdmin function we needed for Iraq and the one we'd naturally end up using in Africa to stop or prevent genocide. It's the same force, folks, driven by all the same considerations. Outsourcing this all to the Africans or the Europeans or even the Chinese is not possible. We either lead or no one gets in the way. It's as simple as that.

So, as far as the college youth leader who likes to brag about donating $20 to prevent genocide in Africa (he follows up with the challenge, "What are you doing?), wake me when he's ready to cowboy up for the SysAdmin force, to include carry a weapon.

Because there is business to be done, my friend, all over the continent. Mugabe is making hundreds of thousands of people homeless, putting them on the run in a series of nasty crackdowns coming post his rigged re-election. With seeds and fertilizer growing scarce and skulls getting cracked regularly, watch for Zimbabwe to have its share of starving people next year. Serious percentages of the population will go malnourished this winter, and it will only get worse with time.

Want to prevent that genocide from emerging? Better support your local SysAdmin sheriff. And better be arguing for some Core-wide A-to-Z system for deciding how to unleash the Leviathan that will be required to push that Big Man Mugabe out of office.

Won't be pretty, and $20 won't cover it for the college boys.

Iran's meager military-market connection: as real as the mullahs allow it to get

■"Iran's Stocks Plunge After Vote for U.N. Review of Nuclear Program," by Nazila Fathi, New York Times, 9 October 2005, p. A5.

You thought the former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani lost the election?

Well, sort of.

Turns out the mullahs pick him to run the Expediency Council, which is basically a sort of supreme court that mediates disputes between the mullah-run Guardian Council and the elected government-sort of like John Ashcroft getting to be Attorney General after losing a race for the Senate to a dead guy . . . in his home state!

The Expediency Council is given "final say over all government actions."

Why does this matter?

UN's IAEA votes to refer Iran to the UNSC last month, and Iran's meager stock market drops 30% pronto in the days that follow. Local stock analysts say they've seen nothing like it before, as what Iranian money there is heads to Dubai, which just opened up its markets to foreign investors.

Does this tell you that the IAEA is powerful? Hardly. It says the military-market nexus--even in tired, authoritarian Iran--is powerful.

And all this connects through Rafsanjani, who recently gave a powerful speech in which he said, "Managers at this sector should know that we need diplomacy and not slogans Ö This is the place for wisdom, the plase for seeking windows that will lead you to the goal."

So what "windows" does the U.S. offer right now? We need Iran desperately as an ally over time if we hope to bring real stability Beirut, Jerusalem and Baghdad. We need Tehran to suffer heightened connectivity with the global economy, bringing foreign direct investment in, not watching it fly out.

Here's one of my Iran's entries in my Conclusion, "Heroes Yet Discovered":

Iran's John Marshall: John Marshall was the first great Chief Justice of the United States, who, more than any other figure in U.S. judicial history, established the independent role of the Supreme Court within America's federal government.
What Iran currently lacks is a judicial authority that is free and clear of the influence of the unelected supreme leader, or ayatollah. When the role migrates from the ranks of the unelected leadership to the elected government, this will be the clearest sign that Iran's theocracy has come to an end.

What's so weird and interesting about what the Ayatollah did here with Rafsanjani is that he basically took him and institutionalized him in the role of opposition government, with a strange, supreme court-like role in adjucating differences between the government and the executive, just like here. Not exactly migrating to the "elected government," but oddly closer, huh?

Seems like even the Ayatollah realizes the need for Iran's "John Marshall function," however inadvertently.

The tough choice on Miers: competency versus ideology (as in, be careful what you wish for)

■"Justice Miers? Get Real: The case for a new nominee," op-ed by John Tierney, New York Times, 8 October 2005, p. A29.

Really good piece, til about halfway through, by the always interesting Tierney.

He goes through all my reasons for wanting Miers to succeed, despite my better judgment: 1) it could be far worse if Bush picked a real Scalia; and 2) not bad to have that someone who's not part of the weird, insular, "judicial monastery," as Bush calls it.

The problem is, of course, that Miers seems to have so little to recommend her. Hell, Bush picks Oprah tomorrow and she sweeps in with HER real-world experience, but Miers comes off as a non-judge David Souter, picked for the doubleplusgood attributes of being both Bush loyalist and having no written legal record of note. Not a great combo.

Justice nominees usually get rejected in a fit of pique, and Bush has certainly earned his from both Left (for all the usuals) and Right (for disappointing them with both Roberts [whether most realize it yet or not] and--far more so--with Miers). What the opposition to her nomination have going right now is powerful: a passionate out-of-power party and too few in-power-party stalwarts to stand at the nominee's defense.

This could get really ugly, but I am loathe to wish for something better, because I feel that, in Miers' defeat, we'll set the stage for a truly right-wing justice in her place. In my mind, centrists and Dems the country over were lucky to see O'Connor and Rhenquist so "moderately" replaced. Roberts will be a good herder of cats, I believe, and Miers was unlikely to do much harm, being an intellectual lightweight.

If Miers goes down, and I now believe it is entirely possible (when the Wills and the Kristols abandon you and the Left is gearing up, you're in real trouble), we may all end up being happy with Roberts' tendency to rule as a real centrist (which I believe he will), because what we end up with post-Miers may be fairly hardcore.

Good potential upside: Bush's desire to fill the Fed chairmanship with a crony is probably moot now.

More errata self-discovered

Just finished the hardcover final version through the acknowledgements, and found two mistakes (grammatical) on page 355.

On page 355, it reads:

"As with China's rising economic clout in Asia, the United States gets its way on FTAA by first pursuing a series of NAFTA-like regionally specific free trade agreements with Central American (the current hot-button issue of a Central American Free Trade Area, or CAFTA) and Andean South American (Andean Free Trade Area, or AFTA).

Obviously, the mistakes (2) are found in the use of the adjective "American" in the first mentions of both regions, when the proper noun "America" was called for.

It should read:

"As with China's rising economic clout in Asia, the United States gets its way on FTAA by first pursuing a series of NAFTA-like regionally specific free trade agreements with Central America (the current hot-button issue of a Central American Free Trade Area, or CAFTA) and Andean South America (Andean Free Trade Area, or AFTA). [The italics are mine and serve here only to mark the altered text]

Having reread the Acknowledgments, it's time to list those three mistakes as well.

On Page 364:

"Steffany Hedenkemp" should read "Steffany Hedenkamp"

Not much excuse for that one, since Steff is one of my original New Rule Sets Project LLC partners. I apologize profusely for letting that mistake slip by.

Also on Page 364:

The first mention of Steve DeAngelis is marred by the misspelling of his last name as "DiAngelis." This one I do blame on Putnam because my typed corrections page of 4 July definitely had his name down correctly.

I did confuse matters, though, by contacting Putnam very late in the game to make sure DeAngelis was in the text (I was so consumed by the family move this last summer that I lost track of many such things, as in, "Did I do that or not?"), and by raising the issue, I think I triggered the third mistake on page 364, which was simply the repeating of "Steve DeAngelis" (this time spelled correctly!) in my listing of others I wanted to thank at the bottom of the page. Clearly, by calling out Steve earlier in the text, I didn't want or need to repeat his name in the larger list, although I'm sort of glad this mistake happened because at least I got his name right somewhere.

For now, that brings up the list of mistakes to eight. I know it will grow longer, but I'm doing okay given the length and complexity of the material. Having finished my first full read of the finished text, I am, by and large, still quite ecstatic about the outcome, to include the editing from stem to stern. Typos come and go, but Mark and I and Putnam got the book we wanted and--I hope--the world needs now.

Critt: on the Errata page, just put the blockquoted sections from this post in order to keep the list clean.

Signposts - Sunday, October 9, 2005

Signposts is a weekly digest of major op-ed and feature analyses from the blog of Thomas P.M. Barnett -- www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog -- and is distributed via email in html format.

To receive the current issue send an email to get.signposts@thomaspmbarnett.com. Auto-response delivers the current issue to your Inbox.

A System Perturbation that brings India and Pakistan closer?

We saw how India stood up like a serious, capable and caring Core power with the Asian Tsunamis. Could even greater and better things result here?

One to watch:

Massive Quake Kills Thousands In S. Asia

Temblor Measures 7.6; Pakistan Is Hit Hardest

By John Lancaster

Washington Post Foreign Service

Sunday, October 9, 2005; Page A01

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 9 -- Rescuers struggled to reach victims of the devastating earthquake that struck near the Indian-Pakistani border in the disputed Kashmir region Saturday. The quake killed thousands of people, most in remote parts of northern Pakistan.

Officials initially said the powerful, 7.6-magnitute temblor killed at least 2,000 people. But the toll was widely expected to rise, and by Sunday morning, the Pakistani army's top spokesman said the military believed more than 18,000 people had perished, according to news services. He said 41,000 people had been injured.

"It is a national tragedy," Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan told reporters. "This is the worst earthquake in recent times."

Find it here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/08/AR2005100800287.html

A better choice for the Nobel Peace Prize

Choosing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its Director General, Mohamed ElBarade, was WEAK, really WEAK!

God, just a bit after choosing that incompetent Kofi Annan and the UN.

Please, tell me what this choice does other than seek to embarrass the Bush Administration over Iraq.

Then tell me what the IAEA has ever accomplished--ever. Anywhere. Any time.

They point fingers and nothing more. And they're constantly getting it wrong or late.

A choice like this is so weak, so lame, so lacking in courage. Christ, even I'd pick Nunn-Lugar (and oh boy do those two want it bad!) over this.

Here's a daring choice for a dangerous time, right out of my Conclusion ("Heroes Yet Discovered") in Blueprint for Action:

The first Islamic leader to win the Nobel Peace Prize: Of course, the temptation here is to suggest that Iraq's primary Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Husaini Sistani, has within his grasp the current opportunity for such greatness in post-Saddam Iraq, exerting such control as he does over the political evolution of the country. But if not there, such a development must happen eventually somewhere as part of Islam's inevitable Reformation-like recasting of itself in the region, so as to allow countries therre to build sufficient ecoonomic connectivity with the outside world to accomodate the growth in job creation necessary to process the huge youth bulges currently making their way through societies. [p. 335]

Now THAT would have been a daring and courageous choice that subtly stuck it to the Bush neocons while simultaneously recognizing how much bloodshed (yes, bloodshed) has been avoided thanks to Sistani's truly wise leadership. The fact that Iraq isn't yet in an all-out Shiiite-Sunni war is due primarily to that man's leadership. That sort of peace-enhancing leadership is exactly the sort of thing the Nobel Peace Prize should be recognizing. This guy is taking huge risks and saving lives.

Compare that to IAEA or Nunn-Lugar and there is no comparison.

Daring times require daring choices, Picking IAEA was about as unimaginative as you can get (when too scared to pick someone truly meaningful, select a bureaucrat from an international organization).

Coming home, finally

Dateline: Northwest flight from Memphis to Indy, 7 October 2005

Somehow I luck into first class. I deserve it.

Next couple of days I focus on the family.

Critt: line up somebody else for the newsletter.*

Here's the daily catch:

■ Explaining a global war

■ Nation-creating is all there really is--inside the Gap

■ Zoellick working Brazil, Brazil working the Old Core

■ I want my DTV! Says rural India

■ The Big Bang spreads . . . the rough way

■ Jerry's video workout game awaits

*Check your email

Zoellick working Brazil, Brazil working the Old Core

■"State Dept. Deputy Walks In on Trade Fight as Brazil Visit Starts," by Joel Brinkley, New York Times, 7 October 2005, p. A5.

■"Brazil Threatens Trade Sanctions Against China," by staff,

Wall Street Journal, 4 October 2005, p. A15.

Brazil is hopping mad about the U.S. not obeying a WTO judgment against us over our cotton subsidies, and it's threatening sanctions just as Bob Zoellick stops by for make-nice talks.

So he threatens back, knowing it's a bad idea but doing it because he wants to scare the Brazilians from doing anything rash.

But the Brazilians are not being rash, they're representing the New Core and Gap visa-a-vis the Old Core's intransigence on the criminally harmful ag subsidies.

I say, you go Brazil. You're doing God's work.

Bob is smart. He knows Brazil's markets are hard to break into, but once in, there's plenty of moolah to be made. Then again, there's that old Brazil joke: Brazil, country of the future--and it'll always be so.

Time to stop babbling about the potential of U.S.-Brazilian trade and start making it happen. Getting pissed over Brazil's emerging role as trade champion for the Gap is wrong. We need to welcome it.

And it's not just Brazil targeting us. They'll do it to the Chinese too.

Then again, everyone wants to do it to the Chinese.

Nation-creating is all there really is--inside the Gap

■"What Were They Thinking?" op-ed by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, 7 October 2005, p. A31.

Good piece that points out that the real intell failure on Iraq was not WMD, but how much the Civil Affairs crowd was hoodwinked into believing that Iraq's infrastructure was reasonably salvageable.

I write about this in Blueprint for Action, describing my time at a worldwide convention of civil affairs officers last summer. To a man, each said they were blown away by how blown away Iraq's infrastructure already was by the time they got there, with the looting being the final blow.

Friedman's larger point is also key: we're doing nation-creating in Iraq, not rebuilding. In the Highlands Forum meet I attended last May (the second one on the SysAdmin concept, not the Dec 04 one on the "Pentagon's New Map"), this was the huge theme put forth by the Defense Science Board and their magnificent "Transition To and From Hostilities" report.

It is crucial for us to remember this: we will create nations in the Gap, not rebuild them. The military-market nexus will be redefined in our understanding through this effort. There is no alternative.

Explaining a global war

■"10 Plots Foiled Since Sept. 11, Bush Declares," by David E. Sanger, New York Times, 7 October 2005, p. A1.

■"New York Named In Terror Threat Against Subways: Iraq Intelligence Cited; U.S. Officials Say Data Is Unverified--City Sets Increase in Security," by William K. Rashbaum, New York Times, 7 October 2005, p. A1.

■"President Bush's Major Speech (Doing the 9/11 Time Warp Again; Sounding Old Themes on Iraq)," editorial, New York Times, 7 October 2005, p. A30.

■"Britain suspects Iranian link to bombings in Iraq: Republic may be giving weapons to militants, Blair says," by Cesar G. Soriano, USA Today, 7 October 2005, p. 11A.

■"Al Qaeda Tells Ally in Iraq To Strive for Global Goals," by Douglas Jehl and Thom Shanker, New York Times, 7 October 2005, p. A10.

■"Bali Suicide Bombers Said to Have Belonged to Small Gang: The new terror threat: ad hoc groups of freelance jihadists with few outside links," by Raymond Bonner, New York Times, 7 October 2005, p. A3.

■"NATO to Expand Force and Task In Afghanistan," by Carlotta Gall, New York Times, 7 October 2005, p. A8.

I thought Bush's speech was a good one for the record books, for the history books, and for the long haul. It showed he could view today's struggle within a much larger context, both historically and in the sense of understanding war within the context of everything else, as I like to say.

But the NYT editors are right: Bush, while sounding all the right notes, is not leading the government particularly well. Back to David Ignatius' point: despite all the rhetoric on CEOs, Bush and his team do not follow up particularly well.

Bush has defined the dynamics at work here, in this global war, but not a good finishing line, nor has he shown much willingness to wheel and deal to secure victories along the way. We need adaptive planners right now: guys and gals who can play the game on the fly, not just sticking to their guns at each moment in the process.

Bush just can't tell us what he's prevented, he needs to tell us what he's building-the future worth creating.

Meanwhile, the terrorist alert in NYC comes off as the latest convenient excuse, reminding all to be scared. But without Bush convincing us better to be hopeful, that's a downward spiral over time. He needs to give us steps, a blueprint for action. Claiming prevented terrorist strikes, no matter how valid, feels like driving by looking at your rear-view mirror.

Iran is connected to the insurgency in Iraq, and we need to reach some modus vivendi with them, cause we ain't invading any time soon. We need a plan for that. We need a road map. We need a blueprint.

Because Al Qaeda's got one, and when your enemy's blueprint strikes people as more coherent than yours (or let's say, coherent enough for your average jihadist gang in Indonesia to feel they're got their marching orders), you're in trouble, especially when you're asking your closest allies to do things that make them feel VERY uncomfortable.

Bush is talking the talk better, now his team needs to walk the walk. We need to feel purpose and strategy and coherence in everything they do, because you know what? It's all connected.

I want my DTV! Says rural India

■"Rural India Goes Digital: Satellite TV Pushes Into Remote Areas, Meeting Pent-up Demand," by John Larkin, Wall Street Journal, 4 October 2005, p. A15.

India, despite the high-tech and the "Shining India" of recent boom years, is massively rural still in its population spread. Until recently, those poor people got two dull state TV channels and that was about it.

Now digital satellite's busting out all over the place, and its impact is profound. I lived in a remote area growing up, and I remember what it was like when cable first appeared. It was indeed wild compared to what we had previously known.

What happens when very traditional social scenes are given access to a huge new array of information sources? Here's a great example:

Indeed, Mr. Thakor, the Lodra farmer, has used information gleaned from his village's new Doordarshan service to purchase a new type of cattle feed that produces more milk from his cows and makes his family an extra 45 rupees a day. He plans to use the extra cash to finance a truck purchase under a promotion he also saw on TV.

I lived a summer in the Soviet Union, still a decently robust authoritarian state at that point (although I admit to flashbacks whenever I bump into the idiocy that is TSA), and what I remember most is this: you were totally in the dark on consumerism there. It was stunning. You simply had no idea from any TV or newspaper or radio where to go to buy stuff you needed or just wanted. Instead, you wandered around the city, gossiping constantly with everyone, trying to figure out where stuff could be had. It was stunningly inefficient, and I was constantly flabbergasted by the desert-like deprivation of ads, having grown up expecting to have this info thrown at me day-in and day-out. Mind-numbing to most, until you're forced to go without it cold turkey. Then, my friends, you'll be amazed how much you'll miss it.

India's rural poor have a pent-up consumerism that will match everything we saw with China's rural poor when ag reforms turned those people loose as well (all those pix of the farmer dragging a big TV home on his cart).

In 20 years, just like with China, the world will be looking at a TV market in India that's as big or bigger as any in the world-and one full of people wanting to spend money. Smaller amounts, granted, but then do the per capita math.

Jerry's video workout game awaits

■"The PlayStation Workout: Videogames That Get Kids to Jump, Kick and Sweat," by Tara Parker-Pope, Wall Street Journal, 4 October 2005, p. D1.

I futurized too late in a recent blog where I mused on the inevitable gaming technology where my five-year-old could go physically immersive in his video games (he already engages in one helluva workout just with his body English):

The new videogames, known as "exergames," come with special equipment to replace the traditional joystick--including pads kids can jump and dance on, isometric; equipment that requires muscle to control a game and cameras that put kids in the center of kung-fu and skateboarding action. Some games even include caloric counters.

Hard to be a futurist nowadays.

The Big Bang spreads . . . the rough way

■"Radicals in Iraq Begin Exporting Violence,Mideast Neighbors Say: Rebels Enter Jordan for Attack, Kuwait Finds Bomb Cache As Fighters Cross Borders," by Jay Solomon et. al, Wall Street Journal, 7 October 2005, p. A1.

It's not just Saudi Arabia where the locally-derived jihadists are returning home for the weekend and blowing up a police station or two.

Yes, Jordan's Abdullah and Egypt's Mubarek warned of this as an outflow of the Iraq takedown, and it worried them, because maybe they'd finally have to deal with all the angry young men in their respective systems.

Good thing or bad? Bad in content, of course, but very good in terms of speeding the killing. We can do this nice and slow, or we can do this fast and rough, as Tina Turner used to growl onstage before singing "Proud Mary."

Al Qaeda has been quite open about its strategy of stretching the Americans thin. But rather than stretching us out, this development incentivizes the locals to deal with this long-held hatreds and grudges, like the massive chip on Musab al Zarqawi over how Jordan's treated him in the past.

In the end, what will have to change for all this violence in the Middle East to stop is not our withdrawal, but political reform in the region. Keeping this fight suppressed, or having it exported to our shores like it was on 9/11 is certainly a safer route for the local authoritarian regimes. Then again, I think 9/11 put us past caring about those regimes' stability like we used to.

Bush basically runs a race with Osama: who can destabilize the region's regimes first? Both sides want change, but only one wants to replace the current autocracies with a religious dictatorship. What Bush wants solves the problem. What Osama wants merely extends it.

Bush may suck at execution, but his strategic instincts are sound. He's not looking to leave these problems to the next generation, and yet, unless his execution gets better, that's exactly what he'll end up doing.

One to win the war, one to win the peace

We need a U.S.-led Leviathan to win the war, and a multinational SysAdmin to win the peace.

Playing with FiRE

Look closely. Nobody does it better.. . . . ..

Dave Davison and Tom Barnett

"seeking ways to join with others in leaving the legacy of a sustainable world"