My friend Andrew just came up with a brilliant concept that we’re calling The Three Tiers of Competitive Advantage. He pitched it to me as a fantasy parable where a king is preparing to die and he brings his three sons in to pick which will follow him. The first talks about how he’s unbeatable with a sword.…
My Respect for Christopher Hitchens Just Went Up Quite a Bit
One of my favorite writers is Christopher Hitchens. I came to know him through his latest book on religion, titled “God Is Not Great“. His writing in that book is purely spectacular; I’ve never seen anyone with such a firm mastery of English. Anyway, Hitchens is a character. He recently attained his American citizenship and is, and think…
Why Bush’s War On Terror Is Failing: A Risk Management Perspective
By now we’re all quite familiar with the Bush administration’s stance on security. It essentially boils down to the best defense being a good offense. Or, to put it less philosophically, people can’t attack you if they don’t exist. The problem with this line is that it gives insufficient weight to reality. Let us start with a formula…
An Alternative View of the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict
Here’s an alternate way of viewing the issue — one that isn’t heard very often. Israel = Palestine. They are the same. All of the land belongs to both groups of people. The Israelis cannot throw out a group of people who lived there before Israel was formed, and the Arabs cannot ask the Jews to leave for…
A Real Solution To The Israeli/Palestinian Conflict
I’ve been thinking about this issue heavily for over a decade (since going to the Middle East while in the military), and I’ve always had a bit of cognitive dissonance concerning my opinions on the matter. Last week, however, I was presented the actual answer, and it was strikingly elegant. I was shown this new perspective by a…