George Friedman has written a “geopolitical intelligence brief” entitled “The United States and the ‘Problem’ of Venezuela.” In that analysis, published under Friedman’s byline, but more likely written by one of his editorial assistants, concludes that the confrontation between President Hugo Chavez and the US government is irrelevant because Venezuelan oil exports continue flowing to the US, and these oil exports won’t be suspended because Chavez needs the US more than the US needs Venezuela. “Sometimes,” Friedman concludes, “there really isn’t a problem.”

Normally I would not respond to Friedman’s “analysis” publicly, because I worked five years with Stratfor (until Sept. 2, 2005) as the senior (and practically only) analyst responsible for the firm’s Latin America geopolitical analyses. However, after receiving over 150 e-mails from colleagues across the Americas in the past 12 hours requesting my reaction to his analysis, I have posted this response.

Hugo Chavez, George Friedman and Stratfor

Muslims riot in protest, cartoons of The Great Prophet. We shake our heads in wonder, disbelief. This is not "radical Islam", many are run-of-the-mill Muslims. What are they thinking? Why so upset over sketches? This is no great puzzle should all those spinning and stuttering "analysis" perform a simple task. Read the Koran. Read it as Jacques Barzun suggests: with pencil in hand; underline and circle; with marginalia of surprise, sympathy, outrage, confusion. Annotate - make it your Koran - absorb and comprehend.

Jacques Barzun says, Annotate Your Koran

FYI, Neko Case's new album, "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood", is due out March 7. Her tour begins on March 17, with stops in Boston (at the Roxy) on April 5, DC on April 9 (at the 9:30 Club), Atlanta's Variety Playhouse on April 14, and Memphis on April 15.

She'll be on the Tonight Show on March 9.

An early review of the album gives it four and a half stars, which is the same as they gave a year ago to U2's "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb".

Silver star.

This is better with the audio/video, but the transcript is still quite worthwhile.

Rose: Did you get what you needed from the budget in order to carry out the kinds of thing that is you think are a part of this battle against terrorism, this long war, and this attitude that you're reflecting now? In terms of the kind – how you're shifting from a Cold War to a different war.

Rumsfeld: The budget is fine. It's going to --
Rose: You can live with it?
Rumsfeld: We can live with it and we ought to do a better job of spending it. In other words, it is --
Rose: In terms of weapon systems?
Rumsfeld: Well, no. Weapons systems are one thing. Everyone talks about this airplane or that ship.
Rose: Right.

Rumsfeld: I'm more interested in intelligence gathering, connecting intelligence to the operations in real time so that you can actually stop something from happening. That's what we need to get better at. It is the soft stuff. It is the connectors. In linking the services in a way that you leverage that capability. Increasing precision in your attacks. Speeding data to the user, the person who needs it. The operator of that -- to have that data in his hands so something good can come of it. That's what we need. Sure, we have to worry about platforms and ships and guns and tanks and planes and that stuff. That is not what the department of defense has to be about.

MemeStreams is what it has to be about.

And the paragraph highlighted above is going on a posterboard in my office.

Interview with Secretary Rumsfeld on the Charlie Rose Show

ICANN policy wonks and CircleID readers (is that redundant?) may flock to this report, if they haven't already seen it.

This document is the Preliminary Task Force Report on the Purpose of Whois and of the Whois Contacts. The report was produced by the Whois Task Force of the GNSO, and published following a unanimous task force vote on publication for public comments on 18 January, 2006. The report comprises the task force's work on tasks 1 and 2 of its terms of reference. On 2nd June, 2005, the GNSO Council agreed terms of reference for the Whois Task force. These terms of reference required the Whois Task Force to complete the following tasks regarding the purpose of Whois:

(1) Define the purpose of the WHOIS service in the context of ICANN's mission and relevant core values, international and national laws protecting privacy of natural persons, international and national laws that relate specifically to the WHOIS service, and the changing nature of Registered Name Holders.

(2) Define the purpose of the Registered Name Holder, technical, and administrative contacts, in the context of the purpose of WHOIS, and the purpose for which the data was collected.

I'm sure the serious wonks have already seen this ...

Preliminary Task Force Report on the Purpose of Whois and of the Whois Contacts

If you followed the threads, Who really gets hurt by 'prioritization' of the Internet, and Postage Is Due for Companies Sending E-Mail, you may want to see this follow-up.

In a major blow to Internet firms such as Amazon.com and Google, the House Energy and Commerce Committee expects to scrap plans for "network neutrality" safeguards in forthcoming telecommunications legislation, congressional and industry sources said. Instead, the panel would move a streamlined video franchising bill sought by AT&T and Verizon Communications, which are deploying video services that will compete with cable companies.

House Panel To Nix 'Network Neutrality' Safeguards

Quorum sensing provides a mechanism for bacteria to monitor one another's presence and to modulate gene expression in response to changes in population density. Camilli and Bassler (p. 1113) review how the synchronous response of bacterial populations to small molecule autoinducers that is involved in quorum sensing confers social behavior to bacteria. Autoinducers are packaged in a variety of ways and have varying half-lives, depending on their roles. Autoinducer signals are integrated within each cell by second-messenger systems, probably by cdiGMP signaling.

Bacteria Have Social Lives Too

A new feature allows people to explore the music, movie, and book collections on the Internet Archive using other patron's bookmarks. http://www.archive.org/bookmarks-explore.php

A personal bookmark can be set on any details page and then seen on your own bookmarks page: http://www.archive.org/bookmarks.php

You can see other people's bookmarks... for instance here is mine: http://www.archive.org/bookmarks/brewster

Enjoy.

-brewster

Social Bookmarking at the Internet Archive

Read the decision, if you please.

Adult publisher Perfect 10 won a partial victory in its efforts to stop search engines' display of its photos in image search results.

Today, Judge A. Howard Matz of the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California said Perfect 10 is likely to succeed in proving that Google directly infringes its copyright by creating and displaying thumbnail copies of its photographs.

Google and A9 May Stop Showing Perfect 10s

Real Estate market statistics (including median asking prices and home inventory numbers) for cities/metros across the United States.

City: Atlanta, Georgia
25th Percentile: $139,900
50th Percentile: $195,000
75th Percentile: $319,000

City: Boston, Massachusetts
25th Percentile: $329,000
50th Percentile: $429,000
75th Percentile: $619,900

City: Los Angeles, California
25th Percentile: $460,000
50th Percentile: $609,000
75th Percentile: $890,000

City: Nashville, Tennessee
25th Percentile: $129,000
50th Percentile: $188,900
75th Percentile: $339,900

City: San Francisco, California
25th Percentile: $580,000
50th Percentile: $720,000
75th Percentile: $888,000

HousingTracker: Median Home Prices & Housing Inventory Data