[spectre] From Bruce Sterling

[Oliver Grau]

*Handy Davos report here from a guy who somehow managed to slip through
the pro-global barbed wire. A useful corrective for people who imagine
that the well-meaning cabal at Davos actually accomplishes anything.

*You know, these Stratfor guys are based here in Austin, but the way they
moan on about the prevalence of armed geopolitics, you would think they
had personally crushed the Red Army inside the Fulda Gap.

*Three thousand scrawny Al Qaeda guys are worth bankrupting the US
airlines over, yet it never occurs to these Stratfor guys that 300 million
righteously ticked-off Europeans might kick the living daylights out of
Monsanto, McDonalds and Microsoft (for a start).  Not to mention the
current regime's beloved American oil companies.

*Check this out: "What Turkey or Saudi Arabia or India do has a direct,
potential effect on the United States. What Germany or France do really
doesn't matter that much in a practical sense."  Oh yeah. Sure.  You bet,
pal.  Now that's strategic forecasting, that is. I'm dumping my euro
holdings and loadin' up on rupees right now.

*Since nobody took me up on my five-dollar prize to stop bitching about
Rhizome, I am offering a new, TWENTY-dollar prize for the most alarming
nettime flame that I can print out and slip under Stratfor's office door
at 2 AM.  No, I'll do even better than that.  I will mail that faltering
American cash to you inside a brand-new, free, Bruce Sterling book.

bruces