What do Neil Young and T. Boone Pickens have in common? In many aspects of their lives, not very much. One is an icononic acoustic rock musician, who has been writing creative material for over forty years, and is widely known for his liberal political stances. The latter is a well established oil tycoon and […]

In three days, one million units have been sold, and 10 million downloads of the software have been performed from a host of 500 applications. All of this activity occurred for a product that did not even exist 14 months ago. What will this lead to?
Apple announced that in the first three days of the […]

The phrase “thinking outside the box” refers to a process in which individuals and groups disregard outside limiting parameters of the norm, and generate ideas to solve problems. Often in this process, thinking patterns are different and unconventional, almost always the participants enter in from a new or different perspective. In some instances this […]

The economic relationship between Venezuela and the United States is centered around oil. Venezuela produces 3.8% of the world’s oil and the U.S. imports 10% of its oil from Venezuela. Of the amount of crude oil that the country exports, the U.S. purchases 44% of it. In 1998, Venezuela democratically elected Hugo Chavez as its President. In 2002, a political coup forced Chavez to lose power for nearly 48 hours; massive protests and a lack of military support for the coup’s leaders assisted Chavez’s return to power. The political relationship between Venezuela and the U.S. has been contentious. President Chavez recently denounced the Bush administration at a United Nations meeting. The relationship has been on a collision course for many years, with increasing oil profits fueling Venezuela’s growing political power in the South American region.

At the urging of a friend, I have cautiously entered the world of cell phone text messaging. Email and voice are still my communication methods of choice, and I have yet to become fluent in text messaging. I cannot bring myself to use messaging abbreviations like “u” for “you”, “ruok” for “are you […]

In July of 2005, there was a highly successful summit meeting involving Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh and United States President George W. Bush. According to Indian Embassy sources, it signaled a significant level of transformation in India-U.S. relations wherein the establishment of a global partnership was the focal point. Both Prime Minister […]

The Global Positioning System is a U.S. space-based global navigation satellite system that provides, amongst other benefits, dead certain positioning, time and speed information, and navigation services to users. The GPS consists of three parts: earth-orbiting satellites, control and monitoring devices located on the ground, and GPS receivers held by users. These components communicate via […]

Several months ago, mentions by the media of the term Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) were few and far between. SWF commonly was thought of as an acronym for Single White Female, but a new common reference to SWF may be on the horizon. Currently, SWFs with estimated values of two to three trillion U.S. dollars […]

A widely published Reuters news service article entitled “Iran Leader Suggests U.S. Ties Possible in Future” indicated that Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei stated that restoring ties with the United States now would harm the Islamic state, but that he would not rule it out in the future (Reuters, January 3, 2008). Further high points […]

Following the exhaustive back-and-forth Weapons of Mass Destruction debate that culminated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the National Intelligence Council’s November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) should come as no surprise— except to those who read the last NIE. Conflicting with the statements of the 2005 report, the most recent estimate assessed that Iran […]