Not sure where the time went since my last post… but it flew by.  I’m back from my unintended vacation from blogging and will resume tomorrow.

Between a deadline and presentations in DC next week, blogging will be so light there is a good chance nothing will go up between now and next Friday. 

In the meantime, peruse these recent posts

• Not Afraid to Talk: our adversaries aren’t, why are we?
• Synchronizing Information: The Importance of New Media in Conflict
• What the SecDef Didn’t Call For, But Should Have
• In-sourcing the Tools of National Power for Success and Security
• Targeting Public Opinion is not new
• Measuring "Public Diplomacy"?
• Winning Informatized Wars: The China Report
• AFRICOM: DOA or in Need of Better Marketing? No and Yes.
• and Elvis and the Psychological Struggle

or look through the top picks, the categories or use the spiffy search engine at the top right.  The Google-powered search works creates a tabbed result set.  The tabs are: this blog, the Short List of highly recommended blogs, Wikipedia, Small Wars Journal, and finally the web in general.  And it’s not only cool looking but scary fast.

I’ll still have access to email. 

Squeezing in a family holiday while working against deadlines means no time for posting for a few days.  "See" you next week.

A while back I created the ConflictWiki as an open source and independent wiki hosting cross-cultural (institutionally speaking) content. The target communities included, but isn’t restricted to, those studying "hybrid wars," counterterrorism, intelligence, private military companies, private intelligence companies, peacekeeping and peacemaking, reconstruction and stabilization, and public diplomacy.

ConflictWiki.org was to be the clearing house for information and it was off to a good start with a large number of entries created (many by the blogger Bourbon and Lawndarts). 

I was never happy with the wiki interface as I wanted to structure the content to make it easy to read by both human and machine for easy extraction into other systems.  I have been looking at migrating off the wiki platform with its arcane (to me) formatting language to the MovableType platform. 

Short list of advantages of MovableType:

• easy blog style / HTML editing
• entries can have comments like blogs (using "pages" of MT 4.x, these are similar to but not blog entries)
• hierarchical filing
• easy cross linking

Short list of advantages of the MediaWiki platform:

• changes to entries easily tracked and discussed
• can comment on entries
• not hiearchical

What are your thoughts?  Nothing has yet filled the gap ConflictWiki was intended to fill.  It’s time to breathe new life into it but what direction do we — it’s a collaborate effort — take it?  Stay with Wiki?  Go to MovableType?  Another platform? 

After a blogging hiatus brought on by last week’s travel and a flu that came on after a busy family weekend, I’m back.

If you didn’t notice, this blog’s subtitle has changed and my dog’s profile has been replaced by a less attractive mugshot of me. However, the icon for the site will remain the dog and not a minature me.

And now, back to blogging…

Posting will be light to non-existent this week. For the why, see this post. However, feel free to talk amongst yourselves. If you’re at the Army War College this week, give me a shout via email.

If you’re here for the first time, check out the Highlighted Picks on the right and the categories on the left and enjoy.

A heads up that posting next week will be very light to nil. On Monday, 14 January, I will be chairing two panels at the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Conference in Los Angeles. These are the same panels I chaired in May of last year in D.C.: Science as Diplomacy and Blogging for Technology: Science and the New Media.

And perhaps because I’m just not happy with the weather here in Los Angeles, Tuesday through Thursday (14-17 Jan), I will be at the Army War College for a workshop, New Media and the Warfighter. And then on Friday, 18 January, I’ll be in D.C., flying home that evening.

If you’re around any of these locales, drop me an email…

I’ve heard from some that they had problems registering to comment on the site. I think I’ve fixed this, so if you tried in the past and failed, try it again. After the fix yesterday, a few quickly commenting here.

Have a safe and happy new year!

This map shows visits to this blog from Asia for the first two weeks of December 2007.

Interesting. Thanks for coming by everybody.

An opportunity to review what’s been posted on the site and what others are linking to. These are not typically the most popular posts for a given time, but somebody thought they were interesting enough to link to on their blog.   

• David at Kings of War enjoyed and reminisced over the Find x post. MR friend David also linked to and added (in a post smartly titled Public Diplomacy 2.0) to my What the SecDef Didn’t Call For, But Should Have post published over at Small Wars Journal.
• The ZenPundit, MR friend Mark, also linked to my SWJ post.
• Another friend of MR, Chris, raised some good questions on my What the SecDef Didn’t [Say… should have used ‘Say’ instead of ‘Call For’] at Opinio Juris. Smart questions. Offline, Chris has given me some great input on an article that will be in a forthcoming book and/or a magazine (waiting on the latter’s acceptance and revision/shortening/updating suggestions). Chris questions will be in Part II of the Smith-Mundt discussion to come next week. Part 1.5 is here if you missed it.Michael at HoTS has a suggestion on personnel. He also used my commentary on a Heritage backgrounder to further his also wise Think Tank 2.0 concept. (Disclaimer: Mike and I have been talking offline about TT2 for a while…)
• The Skeptic الشكاك linked to this post on robots in war. At some point, I’ll actually get back to that report, finish polishing it, and submit it to a journal.
• Kent’s Imperative also linked to the same post talking about my "research into the psychological impact of unmanned systems in the battlespace."
• Jason, the Armchair Generalist, friend of MR (FoMR?), did the same.
• The Arabist felt bad for laughing (as many of us did) at this video on first responders.
• MR friend Adrian linked to MR in a post titled Collateral damage from Information Operations.
• Melissafrei’s Weblog is looking at private military companies and linked to one of my recent posts on the subject.
• Mike at Haft of the Spear (HoTS as he likes to call it), wrote on the proposed deal between 3Com and Huawei and linked to two old MR posts on Huawei here and here.
• Immediately after SecDef’s KSU speech and before What the SecDef Didn’t [Say], SWJ linked to Defense Secretary Urges More Spending on the "Civilian Instruments of National Security".
• McMasterChef did the same.
• Back to Kings of War, in The Theatre of Operations in the ‘War of Ideas’, David linked to the passage David Galula wrote on propaganda and highlighted my law of the modern battlefield of the mind:
• ‘The fungibility of force decreases as information asymmetry increases. In other words, the pen can be mightier than the sword in a world were perceptions matter more than fact.’

Also, have you seen this post? Searching MountainRunner is even easier

If you use the GoogleToolbar like I do, and if you search this blog like I do, then the MountainRunner toolbar button is for you.

Typing in the search box and then clicking the dog will search the blog or you can simply go to the home page by clicking the dog or, it gets better, click the drop arrow and read the news feed. No Ginsu knives, however.

To install, click here. I’ve submitted it to the Google button gallery as well.

I’m happy to share the incredibly easy steps w/ anyone or read about it here to dispel rumors of my technical prowess.

Now that that high priority project is out of the way…

I’m proud to say that over this Thanksgiving weekend, I stayed away from anything related to this blog, public diplomacy, and war. Save for family time, eating (lots of eating), and reading (and enjoying) Ben’s latest book (his first book is here), I did virtually nothing. Posting resumes this week…

Happy Thanksgiving to all. And to those who don’t want the American holiday that celebrates a 386 year old meal, happy Thursday.

While my tradition of a 10k meter Thanksgiving Day pool workout ended a couple of years ago, a six year old tradition of giving thanks for our troops overseas has not. While giving thanks for family, food, friends, and shelter, remember the soldiers, sailors, Marines and Airmen on duty around the world, not just those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A couple of admin notes:

• I’ve updated the blogroll, adding some blogs that were accidentally dropped and updating others.
• Checkout ZenPundit’s cool new design and new url.
• Checkout Adam’s new blog, Rethinking Security (his old blog, Simulated Laughter is going away)

Who linked to MountainRunner recently? Not much this time…

Mike starts his Christmas list recalling an offline comment on his pink Pearl (maybe it’s not pink, but it may as well be). 

There are times when I see something that interests a friend and forward it with the hopes it spurs a smart post). Jason’s post, Depth of Stupidity, is one example.

A few linked to Doing Strategic Communications in Iraq, or Not: Dave at SWJ noted I got my "dander up"; Josh Foust gave me two hands: the (first hand) Conjecturer and the Second Hand Conjecturer; and Wolf Pangloss’s Fish Taco Stand (?) linked to it as well for a definition of CLCs.

Dave at SWJ linked again: MountainRunner cuts to the quick in pointing out something we should be very concerned about in Iraq OKs Raids on Blackwater.

Alias linked to Bringing the real world home and knowing their real world.

Periodically I like to recognize who’s linking to MountainRunner… this is one of those times. Here are the links for the last ten days as I procrastinate revising an article:

• First, the U.S. State Department’s blog, DipNote, put MountainRunner on their short blog roll. Let me be honest about this: I think it’s way cool to be on that blogroll.

And now for the other links:

• MountainRunner friend Dave Dilegge at SWJ linked to Iraq OKs Raids on Blackwater.
• hgecom in China linked to the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods
• Dan was happy people publicized his survey.
• The Conjecturer likes talking BW, they linked to In Iraq, Blackwater is Old News (of course, this was cross posted as second hand news).
• Robatic Science copied Danger Room’s killer robot post, grabbing my post Robot Kills 9, injuries 14 in the process (a lot of people did that).
• The Conjecturer (cross-posted… where else but at the Second Hand Conjecture) linked to Fraying of State.
• Persian IT Clips linked to… well the link’s broken but I’m pretty sure it was to one of the robot posts.
• MR’s friend Meatball One at Swedish Meatballs linked to my Galula quote
• The Small Wars Journal Blog linked my post on Malcolm Nance’s post at… SWJ
• Lurch at Main and Central linked to MR because of Danger Room’s BW logo contest.
• MC Master Chief (cross-posted at American Footprints) both linked to the about State’s BDS chief resigning.
• MR friend Pat at WhirledView linked to State’s Insular World.
• MR friend Adam Elkus in his Guns of Baghdad post at DNI, linked to IEDs as Weapons of Strategic Influence.

An observation on linking to MountainRunner: when posting on robots, links from China goes up and the readership in Iran, India, Pakistan, China, and elsewhere in SE Asia shoot up as well.

Lots on my plate so posts will be short if they appear at all for the rest of this week. Too bad too because there’s lots of interesting news, reports, and posts begging for comment.

It’s been a big 10 days of links to MountainRunner. Lots of links to my recent posts on robots in war.

Noah Shachtman at Danger Room linked to Robot kills 9, injuries 14, which was picked up by Boing Boing, and many, many others.

Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic, Madisonian, linked to Implementation of ethical controls on robots.

CANinKandahar linked to DOD Approved Strategic Communication Plan for Afghanistan.

Josh Foust at A Second Hand Conjecture linked to The real Diplomacy of Deeds and Congress continues to screw up its priorities and we still don’t get privatization issue.

PR Watch picked up my article in GOOD Magazine and linked to MountainRunner, as did ZenPundit and Noah.

Both Andrew Sullivan (big shout out to Sullivan, Thanks for the links!) and Small Wars Journal (same to you Dave!) linked Revising History.

And, Kent’s Imperative linked to both Noting DipNote’s Noteworthiness (Updated) and A role model for DipNote? 

Thanks for the links everyone.

No blogging for a couple more days for personal reasons. Nothing bad, in fact it’s because of some very good news, but it limits my time for the blog. I expect to be posting again by Wednesday.

I’ll be in DC Monday (24 Sep) through Wednesday (27 Sep) for the NDU Seminar: The Battle of Ideas: Messages, Mediums and Methods and other meetings. If you’re out there, drop a note and maybe we can grab a drink, alcoholic or not.

Two very different and completely unrelated posts in one…

Today a very good friend of mine, Jimmy Dean Freeman (that link is to his MySpace page), is running the Angeles Crest 100 for the second time. Last year he ran the 100 miles through the Angeles Crest National Forest in 26.5 hrs. This year he’s shooting for a remarkable sub-24hrs.

Continue reading “Off-topic: AC100 and USC v Nebraska
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