Globalization: Will "cyberwarfare" usher is a new cold war?

Or should we come up with a new term to describe it, say, a "cool war." If that sounds too rad, how about "Warm War." Cyber warfare isn't comprised of shooting bullets and lobbing missiles, but it is more destructive than the Orwellian propaganda pandering, back-room diplomacy, espionage and military mobilization and sabre-rattling that we came to understand as daily life during the Cold War.

Worse yet, since it is much more an act of conventional hostility, could it heat up to an actual shooting war? Remember, China is a very important trade partner, as well as money lender. How could we possibly afford hostilities with the Chinese?

From the New York Times:

In Cyberspace, New Cold War
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/world/asia/us-confronts-cyber-cold-war-with-china.html?src=recg

ANTHRO: Culture Wars in anthropology

Marshall Sahlins

Napoleon Chagnon

Marshall Sahlins, one of the most eminent cultural anthropologists alive, through down the gauntlet when Napoleon Chagnon, one of the most notorious cultural anthropologists alive, was admitted to the National Academy of Sciences.

Naploeon Chagnon in the mid 1960s

The war within anthropology between nature and nurture has been recast as a debate about the respective importance of genes and environment. At a more philosophical level, the discipline has been split for decades between the positivist, empiricist scientific tribe, and the literary, interpretive humanistic tribe.

From time to time there is detante, but when memoirs get published or there are elections in the American Anthropological Association, the barbs get sharpened, the drums start beating and the natives get restless.

The endless cycle of warfare returns to the valley.

Here's a New York Times article about how Chagnon became the center of a controversy that spans all of anthropology:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/magazine/napoleon-chagnon-americas-most-controversial-anthropologist.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Here's another article about the controversy:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/25/prominent-anthropologist-resigns-protest-national-academy-sciences

If that's not enough, try these from Nicholas Wade:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/science/national-academy-of-sciences-scholar-resigns-over-napoleon-chagnons-admission.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/science/napoleon-chagnons-war-stories-in-the-amazon-and-at-home.html

NPR chimes in:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/02/26/172951757/the-napoleon-chagnon-wars-flare-up-again-in-anthropology

GEO: The most friendless people in the world

A few years ago though I read an associated press news item about a gropup in Burma known as the "Rohingya." They were described as "The most friendless people in the world." U had never heard of them before, and Until recently I never heard of them again. Now they are back in the news.

The Rohingya are a persecuted minority living under a brutal regime that is unfriendly even to its citizens, and these were people who, while they had been living in the country for centuries, were not considered citizens and had no rights under the law. Furthermore, there is no place for them to go, because they have no other home country and no country seems all that thrilled about taking them in.

Even undocumented immigrants in the United States, the Palestinians and other stateless ethnic minorities have advocacy groups and friends in governments around the world. The Rohingya have virtually nobody troubling themselves on their behalf.

This article in Time Magazine rbought them back to my attention:

Horror at Sea: Adrift for Months, Starving Asylum Seekers Threw 98 Bodies Overboard

Upon further searching it seems the Rohingya have quietly crept back into the news cycle, although they are hardly front page, above the fold. The term "genocide" is being used now, and like Rwanda, like Sudan, the major media outlets have been largely silent. That will probably change when the calamity escalates. I shudder to think of how bad ethnic violence has to get before it gets noticed.

GEO: Horse: It's what's for dinner- globalization and food supply concerns

This has been in the news a lot recently despite the fast news cycle (after all, it takes a lot to knock the Grammy's the Oscars, Superbowl, Downton Abbey and the Walking Dead off the front page).

From Reuters, via the Huffington Post.

Horsemeat Scandal Raises Concerns Over Europe's Food Quality Control

CHINA: Rare Earth Elements, Global Trade and China

Interesting look at the global trade in rare Earth elements (REEs) and China's impact on the industry.

Understanding China's Rare Earth Metals Market: What Changing Regulations Could Mean