THE DEFIANT WAR; When it began three years ago, few people could have anticipated that the combat in Iraq would last so long or that the enemy would become a stubborn and resilient insurgency

The San Francisco ChronicleOn the third anniversary of the beginning of war in the harsh environment of Iraq, the physical well-being of U.S. forces seems far better than the state of the ethical health of our country's military and civilian leadership

9/11: Yesterday and tomorrow; How we could lose the war on terror

The San Francisco ChronicleThe war on terror has become a global intifada, but despite our all- out commitment we're not much safer than before 9-11. As the conflict enters its third year, the greatest threat is that our failure to cripple al Qaeda and its allies will inspire the rise of even more terror networks. The dark, looming specter is the possibility that 10 years from now, there will be 10 al Qaedas -- fanatical, highly organized and well disciplined terror networks, some of them in secret service to rogue (or maybe not-so-roguish) nations that really do possess weapons of mass destruction

A better way to fight the war on terror; Mobile 'hunter networks' are the right strategy to combat guerrilla fighters

The San Francisco ChronicleThe movement of U.S. troops rotating into and out of Iraq is an eye- catching logistical ballet, but the repositioning of U.S. special forces teams around the world merits more attention. In their potential impact on the course of the war on terror, these elite "hunter networks" can better carry the fight directly to al Qaeda and its affiliates, ripping them apart cell by cell

In the fight against terrorism, the long war is the wrong war; Sooner or later, terrorists will get, and use, WMD

The San Francisco ChronicleThe war on terror may require a long, long time, as the Bush administration insists, but time is not on our side. Continuing attempts by the administration to make a virtue of the prospect of a drawn-out conflict only encourage mistaken thinking. For if the war does last decades, our chances of losing it rise dramatically

The Dangers of Military Robots, the Risks of Online Voting

The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2771281John Arquilla considers the evolution of defense drones, and why Duncan A. Buell thinks we are not ready for e-voting

The End of War as We Knew It? Insurgency, counterinsurgency and lessons from the forgotten history of early terror networks

The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10,1080/01436590601153861The growing potency of networked organisations has manifested itself over the past decade in the fresh energy evident among terrorists and insurgents—most notably al-Qaida and Hezbollah. Networks have even shown a capacity to wage war toe-to-toe against nation-states—with some success, as can be seen in the outcome of the First Russo-Chechen War (1994 – 96). The range of choices available to networks thus covers an entire spectrum of conflict, posing the prospect of a significant blurring of the lines between insurgency, terror and war. While history provides some useful examples to stimulate strategic thought about such problems, coping with networks that can fight in so many different ways—sparking myriad, hybrid forms of conflict—is going to require some innovative thinking to go along with more traditional introspection about the relevant lessons of history

Where's Osama this election?

The San Francisco ChronicleThe silence coming from the caves is deafening. Having toppled the sitting Spanish government by staging an attack in Madrid days before an election in March 2004, and apparently helping George W. Bush win re-election in November of that year - thanks to the timely release of an oddly meditative videotape - Osama bin Laden seems to be sitting this one out

Sustaining and enabling territorial resilience through making actions. The Make in Progress case study.

The recent evolution of production models within urban context shows a possible scenario characterized by new interactions between design-driven innovation, making, creativity and social innovation. The paper analyses this scenario combined with the idea of Territorial Capital as a model to study a specific territory (EU Leader Project; 1999)1 by looking at a case study : Make in Progress, which explores new models of interaction between creative industries, makers, DIY people, artisan and SMEs within urban area and industrial district. The goal of this paper is to analyze how the phenomenon of Open Creative Lab (Ibert, 2015)2 can contribute to the resilience of the territories and how unexpected localized creative communities could emerge. To answer this question the paper focuses on the relationship and the potential of social innovation and service design (Meroni-Sangiorgi,20113; Stickdorn-Schneider,20124) in the territorial enhancement processes, through the making. In this case, the making gets the role of enabler in development of the territorial capital (Arquilla-Bianchini-Maffei-Carelli,20145), becoming from a purpose, as it often happens in most of the process of creation of making places such as fablab and makerspaces (Walter,20146; Gershenfeld,20077), to a real opportunity to be used to make the most interesting characteristics of a territory emerge: people and their capabilities. In detail, the case study of MakeinProgress (MiP) will be analyzed as an applied case of this theory. MIP is born from a real opportunity from the territory: the architectural recovery of the space of a former Filanda, totally funded by local and supralocal authorities by a process of public financing, in the beginning started as incubator and later converted by the intervention of design. We analyzed the territory, defined possible scenario, verified the applicability of this scenario by isolating potential of the area, modified and adapted scenario to the real potential of territory coming to set up an experimental model of action (MiP as demo service). Thanks to this activities was demonstrate how a laboratory in the suburbs, a suburb that did not imagine a possible development in creativity, acts as empowering latent elements showing unexpected capabilities and resilience

Effects of predator activity on the nesting of American Black Ducks and other birds on barrier islands in the mid-Atlantic coast

Landscape change throughout North America has resulted in heightened nest predator population and declining avian productivity. Essential to establishing effective management design is an understanding of differential predation pressure among avian groups as group specific responses to predation impact may exist. The objective of this study was to examine the efficacy of predator trapping on the nest success and density of ground nesting avifauna in 2004-2005 in the Virginia Coast Reserve, specifically dabbling ducks, Canada Goose and Willet. Second, we determine the impact of predation on ground nesting birds by relating indices of predator abundance to nest density and nest success for island plots. Overall Mayfield nest success for dabbling ducks was 54.4% (n = 12) in 2004 and 17.7% (n = 30) in 2005. Green Transformed nest success for dabbling ducks was 34.5% (n = 25) in 2004 and 23.0% (n = 42). For Canada goose, overall Mayfield nest success was 53.1 (n = 37) in 2004 and 47.7% (n = 39) in 2005. Overall Green Transformed nest success for Canada Goose was 59.5% (n = 57) in 2004 and 50.6% (n = 51) in 2005. Finally, overall Green Transformed nest success for Willet was 53.7% (n = 110) in 2004 and 46.0% (n = 118) in 2005. Nest success estimates on island plots varied greatly. There was no difference in nest success between trapped and non-trapped islands for dabbling ducks (P = 0.1990), Canada Goose (P = 0.4860), Willet (P = 0.4920) and artificial nest success (P = 0.4200). Likewise, there was no difference in nest density between trapped and non-trapped islands for dabbling ducks (P = 0.2408), Canada Goose (P = 0.2950), and Willet (P = 0.1381). Several factors may explain this result including a lack of trapping efficacy, design flaws, low intensity of trapping, and differences in island habitat affecting avian nest site selection and sample size. Nest success for both dabbling ducks (P = 0.0225) and Willets (P \u3c 0.0001) was inversely related to predator activity, as measured by artificial nest success. In contrast, Canada Goose (P = 0.6686) showed no relationship between nest success and predator activity. For Canada Goose (P = 0.0064) and Willet (P = 0.0029), nest density decreased with increasing predator activity on island plots. Biased nest detection, philopatry to islands with reduced predation risk, and active selection for reduced predator environments may explain the higher nest density on islands with reduced predator activity. On barrier islands in Virginia, dabbling duck nest densities are independent of predator activity (P = 0.1981). I hypothesize that, in this system, the availability of brood rearing habitat for ducks govern island selection above predation risk