Two Words For A Big Boost

Next time you get an assignment at work, identify its scope and success metrics, then repeat them to your boss, and once you're both on the same page, get confirmation you understand what's required and when its due.

It's called Expectation Mirroring, and it's all the rage.

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The New Reality: Martyrs With Nuclear Weapons

I gotta tell ya, my spine started quivering the more I considered what this article, basically about nuclear deterrence being moot to an enemy willing to die, is suggesting.

Here's a chunk:

"What makes suicide bombing especially relevant [as demonstrated in recent years by muslim extremists] to the nuclear question is that, by design, it unsettles the theory of deterrence. When the suicide bomber dies in an attack, he means to send the message "You cannot stop me, because I am already willing to die." To make the challenge to deterrence even more stark, a suicide bomber who blows up a market or a funeral gathering in Iraq or Afghanistan is willing to kill innocent bystanders, including fellow Muslims. According to the prevailing ideology of suicide bombing, these victims are subjected to an involuntary martyrdom that is no less glorious for being unintentional."

Nuclear holocaust: A risk too big even for martyrs?
-- International Herald Tribune - Fri, Oct 27, 2006

"The last two decades have seen a challenge to this Islamic tradition of warfare under law, a challenge driven mostly by the attempt to justify suicide bombing despite its evident inconsistency with Islamic tradition. On the subject of suicide, the Koran could hardly be clearer: "Do not kill yourselves; for surely God has been merciful to you." Faced with this explicit text, the solution of the militant Islamist ideologues has been to avoid the category of suicide altogether and to treat the bomber as a martyr rather than as one who has taken his own life. This interpretation is not very convincing in historical terms: martyrdom classically meant that another person killed the Muslim warrior, not that he pushed the button himself. Nevertheless, many Muslims now seem to find the argument convincing. Even among rather secular Muslims, it has become standard to refer to suicide bombers as martyrs."

Nuclear holocaust: A risk too big even for martyrs?
-- International Herald Tribune - Fri, Oct 27, 2006

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Do Unto Your Waiter ...

More than a few prominent CEO's (which by the way, it's refreshing to hear some non-criminal or obscenely compensatory news about), interviewed for this article apparently feel that your attitude towards wait/ers/resses, assistants, and others in similar positions, is a damn good indicator of your character... and I agree.

"CEOs live in a Lake Wobegon world where every dinner or lunch partner is above average in their deference. How others treat the CEO means nothing, they say. But how others treat the waiter is like a magical window into the soul."

CEOs say how you treat a waiter can predict a lot about character
-- USA Today - Fri, Apr 14, 2006

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