Noelle Bush’s Court Hearing to…
Bob Morris @ Oct 15th 2002 19:59 - Category: Unfiled ;
Noelle Bush’s Court Hearing to be Open.
Gov. Jeb Bush’s daughter cannot have her drug court hearings closed to the public, a judge ruled Tuesday
Archive for October 15th, 2002
Carter: US “In Bed” with…
Bob Morris @ Oct 15th 2002 14:43 - Category: Unfiled ;
Carter: US “In Bed” with Israel
Former US President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jimmy Carter on Monday voiced a sharp criticism of President George W. Bush’s ongoing policy in the Middle East, saying the current US administration was mistreating Palestinians while being ‘in bed’ with Israel.
“We’re in bed, you might say with the Israelis and we won’t even talk to the leaders of the Palestinians,†Carter said
Maybe the war has already…
Bob Morris @ Oct 15th 2002 14:40 - Category: Unfiled ;
Bush: Al Qaeda now part…
Bob Morris @ Oct 15th 2002 13:09 - Category: Unfiled ;
Bush: Al Qaeda now part of Saddam’s army.
Bush has made some pretty asinine comments while trying to justify a war with Iraq. But this one tops them… [Daily Kos]
Did Hell freeze over?
Bob Morris @ Oct 15th 2002 13:09 - Category: Unfiled ;
Did Hell freeze over?
Northern Ireland’s Catholic-Protestant administration won’t be revived unless the Irish Republican Army disbands, leading British and US officials predicted Tuesday.
Direct rule imposed on Ulster
Bob Morris @ Oct 15th 2002 09:56 - Category: Unfiled ;
Direct rule imposed on Ulster
Northern Ireland’s power sharing government was put on ice last night, amid fears it could take months to defrost relations between unionists and republicans, which reached their lowest ebb in years after the discovery of an alleged IRA spy ring 10 days ago.
“WELCOME TO HELL,” the graffiti reads.
As Britain suspended the Northern Ireland Assembly on Monday morning, construction workers were adding an extra 3 metres of wire meshing to a “peace wall” separating the Catholic enclave of Short Strand from Cluan Place, a cul de sac in Protestant-dominated East Belfast.
The loyalists of Cluan Place say the most recent trouble began in May when nationalists began hurling pipe bombs, bricks and petrol bombs over the wall. Five months later, they say, the attacks remain a nightly occurrence.
Networks vs. hierarchies
Bob Morris @ Oct 15th 2002 00:19 - Category: Unfiled ;
Networks vs. hierarchies
Jemaah Islamiyah, the organisation which may be responsible for bomb blasts in Bali that killed 183 people, was the al-Qaeda of South-East Asia
Hierarchical organizations like military or the White House assume other organizations must also be organized hierarchically. They assume terrorist organizations have one leader at the top giving orders and a clear chain of command.
Therefore they will believe Jemaah Islamiyah to be a subsidiary group operating under orders of bin Laden and consequently will spend much unproductive time ranting about how we must get bin Laden since he was responsible for the Bali bombing.
This almost unquestionably is not what happened. Terrorist groups are networks, not hierarchies. They don’t have a head that can be cut off. Think multiple organizations with spheres of influence, with the spheres overlapping. That is a network.
This isn’t just my idea, it’s also the subject of a fascinating book by Rand Corporation analysts.
Networks and Netwars:
The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy
John Arquilla, David Ronfeldt (editors)
Available on the Rand website free in PDF format.
From the introduction:
The fight for the future is not between the armies of leading states, nor are its weapons those of traditional armed forces. Rather, the combatants come from bomb-making terrorist groups like Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, or drug smuggling cartels like those in Colombia and Mexico.
On the positive side are civil-society activists fighting for the environment, democracy and human rights.
What all have in common is that they operate in small, dispersed units that can deploy anywhere, anytime to penetrate and disrupt. They all feature network forms of organization, doctrine, strategy, and technology attuned to the information age. And, from the Intifadah to the drug war, they are proving very hard to beat.
Structure of social movements. We found that the most common type of organization was neither centralized and bureaucratic nor amorphous, but one that was a segmentary, polycentric, and integrated network
- Segmentary: Composed of many diverse groups, which grow and die, divide and fuse, proliferate and contract.
- Polycentric: Having multiple, often temporary, and sometimes competing leaders or centers of influence.
- Networked: Forming a loose, reticulate, integrated network with multiple linkages through travelers, overlapping membership,
My belief is the traditional military mind has trouble understanding networks because the structure is so alien to them. You can’t just bomb bin Laden and that’s the end of the terrorist threat. Not when there’s dozens of such groups forming and splitting and regrouping at will. Nor does bin Laden appear to have a permanent place of residence for us to bomb, which is another characteristic of a Net - diffuseness.
The Green Party and Leftie/Enviro organizations in general are also Networks. The current growing Peace movement is a perfect example of hundreds of networks organizing on their own towards a common goal. This movement has no head. No one person or group is in charge. Groups form as needed to do something. There are no leaders who can issue orders.
As a final point - networks understand hierarchies better than hierarchies understand networks.
And now - Organic Cheetos!
Bob Morris @ Oct 15th 2002 00:10 - Category: Unfiled ;
And now - Organic Cheetos!
When Warren Weber and a band of other shaggy Northern California farmers started growing organic lettuce in the 1970s, they never thought it would come to this: organic Cheetos.
Frito-Lay, maker of the popular neon-orange snack food, is plowing into the organic market. So are dozens of other mega-producers - the very companies that organic farmers once derided.
Indeed,new federal regulations for organic food are forcing smaller farmers in California to drop out, and instead say their food is “chemical free”.
Just as organically produced food moves into the mainstream with federal oversight and a USDA seal of approval, Coleman and many other pioneers of the organic farming movement in California are dropping out, unable or unwilling to fill out the paperwork and pay the necessary fees to get certified as “organic” under new U.S. Department of Agriculture rules that take effect next week.
China has to act now…
Bob Morris @ Oct 15th 2002 00:07 - Category: Unfiled ;
China has to act now to stop Aids, Annan says
BEIJING - China has ‘no time to lose’ in preventing a massive outbreak of Aids and the crippling social and economic costs it would bring to the world’s most populous country, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said.
