Jack Cafferty, the crusty curmudgeon of tv anchors, just read
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Via the BoingBoing blog.
In a misguided attempt to supposedly curtail terrorists communicating on blogs, BoingBoing reports the following:
India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) passed an order to ISPs Friday to block several websites. The list is confidential. Indian ISPs have been slowly coming into compliance. SpectraNet, MTNL, Reliance, and as of Monday afternoon, Airtel. State-backed BSNL and VSNL have not started yet but likely will soon. The known list of blocked domains is *.blogspot.com, *.typepad.com and geocities.com/*.
Yes folks, the Indian government has decided to censor blogs and refused to explain why. This morning Shivam Vij managed to talk to Dr Gulshan Rai, director of CERT-IN, the only body authorised to issue directives to ISPs. His response: "Somebody must have asked for some sites to be blocked. What is your problem?"
An interesting (and I believe correct) perspective from Umair Haque of Bubblegeneration.com on the commoditization of strategy for businesses looking to respond to a turbulent and rapidly-changing environment
I think it is going to have to do with creativity. In a world where strategy is a commodity, creativity becomes the vital factor from which value flows. When everyone can think strategically about everything, the locus of value creation shifts from out-thinking everyone to out-creating them. The prime mover of value creation becomes putting the ability to create (goods, services, processes - even strategies) at the heart and soul of the firm.
Now, we see the hints of the revolution everywhere - from the death of mass culture/blockbusters, to the rise of free culture, to the exploding investment in innovation and design, to the flight of capital away from the US. I think it is going to create enormous challenges for firms - challenges which can’t be answered by thinking strategically; but can only be faced by thinking creatively.
All of which requires a sea change in the ways we manage; the ways we coordinate; in the primordial, deep DNA that every firm shares. It requires a new way of thinking about value - one with roots in creativity, not strategy.
I see this as related to the themes in Dan Pink’s most recent book (A Whole New Mind) and Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class.
And Constellation W.
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Wake up, folks !
It seems obvious to me that when you see on television John McCain and Newt Gingrich being interviewed (if you want to call it that) by Larry King about the difficulties that have erupted between Hizbullah and Israel, and they pronounce in sonorous, almost melodramatic tones "Yes, Larry, I DO think we could legitimately call this the start of World War III … "
… that this is the set-up line for stuffing the next major tranche of propaganda down everyones’ necks.
Think about it for a moment.
Politicians .. but not the President or the other President (Cheney) … saying on a widely watched television show that
- the citizens of the world are indeed facing WW III,
- Israel has every right to be flattening civilian sections of Beirut (after a not-in-power group of guerillas have kidnapped a couple of Israeli soldiers), and