Word: commonnesses
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What I call the McMafia - the new international criminal networks - now dominates a shadow economy which accounts for around 15% of the world's GDP. Inextricably bound up with straightforward criminal markets is a spiraling level of corruption throughout much of the world. For a common strategy of criminal syndicates is the "capture" or "semicapture" of a state. American and European law-enforcement agencies now categorize the West African country of Guinea-Bissau as the world's first "narcostate," a place where the levers of official power are now entirely at the disposal of operations moving cocaine from South America...
...both sides - 30 to 40 men. "Given that all were armed to the teeth, it was only a matter of minutes before they started shooting," continued Tarasov, "It was just like a gangster movie - totally unreal." Tarasov was lucky; he escaped alive. But at the time, such battles were common in Russia, as protection rackets met to hammer out contractual difficulties between the businesses whose interests they protected...
...these sundry violations - of any democratic sensibility or common sense - are not simply side effects of a resurgent Russian authoritarianism. They're indicators, Lucas argues, of a more threatening development: the re-emergence of the battle for Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, the Baltics - the whole former Soviet space. While Europe sleeps, he suggests, Moscow's secret police are infiltrating foreign governments, establishing a transcontinental energy monopoly and exploiting divisions between Paris, Berlin, Warsaw and Tallinn. Exacerbating all of the above is the fact that no one is doing much to counter this angry, revanchist Russia...
...Compare People—that can tell you these things. I receive dispiriting emails from Compare People once a week, telling me about my most powerful peers, or my most attractive qualities, or people it has found who are similar to me. These people seem to have nothing in common other than being poorly ranked in terms of “smells good.” Supposedly, the only way to improve my standing is to invite more people. But just asking for more comparisons will do little to alter people’s opinions...
...something quirky about Harvard’s celebrities. In a sea of excellence, those who manage to be famous must also be, in a way, notorious. Whether by appearing on reality television, writing a sex blog, or just being extra abstinent, these celebrities set themselves apart from the common run of overachievers by doing something no one else can. And until I can coax out some talent of my own—I do play the accordion—I’ll just have to live vicariously through them...