Month: December 2004

Scots pupils excel in international learning league. Scottish school pupils are outperforming their counterparts in countries such as the United States, Spain and Italy, according to research published yesterday. [The Scotsman]

Soldiers headed to Iraq grill Rumsfeld. WASHINGTON — US soldiers in Kuwait who are headed to Iraq put Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on the defensive yesterday, grilling him about extended tours of duty and the continued lack of armor to protect vehicles from roadside bombs. [Boston Globe — Front Page]

Support builds for minimum wage hike. Union leaders and advocates for the poor are uniting behind an effort to raise the state's $6.75-an-hour minimum wage for the first time since 2001 and to tie future increases to the inflation rate, a move that would make Massachusetts only the fourth state in the nation to establish… Continue reading Support builds for minimum wage hike

Samarra. Guerrillas looted an armory at a police station and then blew it up. This shows the difficult position the US in re: Iraqi forces. They need to be armed with the right weapons in order to defend themselves (which would boost morale). However, we won't give them the weapons they need because we are… Continue reading Samarra. Guerrillas looted an armory at a police station and then blew
it up. This shows the difficult position the US in re: Iraqi forces.
They need to be armed with the right weapons in order to defend
themselves (which would boost morale). However, we won't give them the
weapons they need because we are worried they will end up in the hands
of the guerrillas. [John Robb's Weblog

Dann does a redux of my 1996 research report (which was the “idea of the year” report at Forrester Research and the topic of their 1996 conference) called Personal Broadcast Networks. It was years ahead of P2P networks, RSS, xml-rpc, Grid, etc. Each of these tech innovations deliver and/or demonstrate parts of the vision in… Continue reading Dann

FT. Economic blowback from the GWOT (global war on terror). Major oil producers have dropped the first shoe on the dollar (the second shoe is China). They have reduced dollar exposure from 75% to 61.5% since 9/11. The trend is accelerating due to fears that assets will be frozen as part of the war on… Continue reading FT

FT. Non-state guerrillas in Columbia are using genetic engineering to boost revenues and defeat defoliation. The innovation continues (here's the Wired story on selective breeding). Colombian police have identified a genetically modified and super-hardy coca “tree” that yields up to eight times more cocaine than a traditional shrub… With the help of foreign agronomists, the… Continue reading FT