zenpundit.com

Go here.  Hat tip to Chadmalik.

They are talking not “Great Depression” but a system perturbation  on an epochal scale that causes an economic Black Hole.

Makes John Robb look like Pollyana on antidepressants.

Pressing commitments forced me to miss tonight’s debate. In view of the lively comment thread sparked by a single, off-hand, political comment from me on Sunday, I’m curious how the readers saw the outcome of Debate III. I’d  much rather hear from you than the paid shills on cable news.

Although my own chances of being able to swing attending this event have grown dim due to schedule conflicts and professional obligations, I nevertheless wanted to give a warm endorsement to Boyd 2008. The conference the previous year was outstanding and the agenda this year looks to be cutting edge:

Boyd Conference Details Dec 6-7

What – There is an opportunity to hold a short, intense seminar on the applicability of Boyd’s ideas, particularly operating inside the OODA loop and grand strategy (sustaining our own morale and attracting the uncommitted), on the weekend of December 6-7 at the University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PEI. Canada!

Purpose – The theme would be applying these ideas to conflict in the post-Iraq era, and more specifically to the types of diffused, networked, “open source” armed conflicts that some have called “fifth generation warfare.”

We are also interested in exploring solutions, such as the role of “resilient communities” (RC), for countering them. As Oil and food prices have climbed and the mortgage crisis has grown, the need to think more about Resilient Communities has become more urgent. We may have to re-invent our world!

We envision this as a working seminar to help shape the policy agenda in the first year of the new administration.

So we’re looking for a couple dozen attendees, all of whom would either make short presentations on their areas of interest or participate in panel discussions and working groups.

We also hope that the participants will leave with their own agenda items – to improve resilience within their organizations or to prepare articles and opeds on these subjects in the months after the seminar.

There is also a Boyd Blog in operation.

My Chicago Boyz colleague James Bennett has a great op-ed piece on Gov. Sarah Palin in the UK Telegraph (hat tip Lexington Green). It’s one of the best concise pieces on Palin’s strengths – which most of the American press is desperately trying to ignore, either to help the Obama campaign with their scattergun negative personal attacks or in dumbing down their political coverage of Palin with warm-fuzzy topics to an intellectual level somewhere below that of People Magazine:

Sarah Palin is not such a Small Town Girl After All

…The first myth to slay is that she is a political neophyte who has come from nowhere. In fact, she and her husband have, for decades, run a company in the highly politicised commercial fishing industry, where holding on to a licence requires considerable nous and networking skills.

….Palin quickly realised that Alaska had the potential to become a much bigger player in global energy politics, a conviction that grew as the price of oil rose. Alaska had been in hock to oil companies since major production began in the mid-1970s.

As with most poor, distant places that suddenly receive great natural-resource wealth, the first generation of politicians were mesmerised by the magnificence of the crumbs falling from the table. Palin was the first of the next generation to realise that Alaska should have a place at that table. Her first target was an absurd bureaucratic tangle that for 30 years had kept the state from exporting its gas to the other 48 states. She set an agenda that centred on three mutually supportive objectives: cleaning up state politics, building a new gas pipeline, and increasing the state’s share of energy revenues.

This agenda, pursued throughout Palin’s commission tenure, culminated in her run for governor in 2006. By this time, she had already begun rooting out corruption and making enemies, but also establishing her bona fides as a reformer.

With this base, she surprised many by steamrollering first the Republican incumbent governor, and second, the Democratic former governor, in the election.Far from being a reprise of Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Palin was a clear-eyed politician who, from the day she took office, knew exactly what she had to do and whose toes she would step on to do it.

Read the rest here.

Listening to Gov. Sarah Palin. Nothing to change my mind regarding her qualifications to be Veep but the woman has first-rate political skills coupled with a genuine mean-streak that she can execute on live TV without looking like a cast-iron beeatch. That’s a neat trick that most VP and Prez candidates never master ( ask Bob Dole).

Joe Biden just went from heavy debate favorite to underdog.

Addendum:

Against most of my expectations,  a home run. No, make that a grand slam home run. McCain rolled the dice on his career with Palin and raked in the chips.

Addendum II:

Spengler on Palin and Biden. Hat tip to Dan of tdaxp.