Random items of interest:
- Chris Blattman on Diego Gambetta's book, "The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection." "The book tells a fascinating tale of the mafia, traced mostly from court transcripts, investigator files, and some interviews. He essentially advances an economic theory of the mafia: they are entrepreneurs and firms who collude and compete; the good they sell is not violence, or stolen property, but protection. That is, they enforce contracts in places the government can’t or won’t, like illegal and illicit markets, or areas where the police and courts are weak. They actively compete with the police to provide protection, and this good is in high demand. Every transaction done under the table cannot seek protection from the courts, and the mafia step naturally into this gap. Their name is their trademark, and they prevent new entry by force but also by complex social rules and ethnic identity."
- Thoughtgadgets points out that the Wikipedia page on the FT Hood incident is a good example of "crowdsourcing." That last term is the type of buzzword that is bound to get the intellectually inflexible fuming. ;-P
- Here are some examples of open source software for insurgency. The "Transborder Immigrant Tool" that works on a cell phone from the group, "Electronic Civil Disobedience." Some reviews of the tool (1) and (2).
- Video of unrest at UCLA due to a slated 32% increase in tuition. In short, the final round (the first being privatization of the cost) of closing off access to the US middle class is starting to accelerate.
- Chet Richards is shutting DNI. That sucks. I'm working on a way to save the archive of Boyd's and Lind's work on this site.
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