Podcasts about RAND Corporation

In this episode of GREAT POWER PODCAST, host Ilan Berman talks to Dr. Colin Clarke of The Soufan Center regarding the growing sophistication of extremist groups, the Trump administration's new counterterrorism strategy, and the intersection with America's Great Power Competition with China, Russia and other powers. MATERIALS REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE:- Colin P. Clarke, "The New Shape Of Global Jihadism," Statecraft and Strategy no. 1, Spring 2026, https://www.statecraftandstrategy.com/the-new-counterterrorism-terrain/the-new-shape-of-global-jihadism/.- Clara Broekaert and Colin P. Clarke, “The Pandemonium Narrative and Its Limits: Artificial Intelligence and the Islamic State's Innovation Pattern,” Hudson Institute Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, May 11, 2026, https://www.hudson.org/terrorism/pandemonium-narrative-its-limits-artificial-intelligence-islamic-states-innovation-clara-broekaret-colin-p-clarke. - Colin Clarke and Charlie Winter, “The Islamic State May Be Failing, but Its Strategic Communications Legacy Is Here to Stay,” War on the Rocks, August 17, 2017, https://warontherocks.com/the-islamic-state-may-be-failing-but-its-strategic-communications-legacy-is-here-to-stay/. - White House, United States Counterterrorism Strategy 2026, May 2026, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-USCT-Strategy-1.pdf. BIO:Dr. Colin Clarke is the Executive Director of The Soufan Center. His research focuses on domestic and transnational terrorism, international security, and geopolitics.Colin previously served as the Director of Research at The Soufan Group and as a Senior Research Fellow with The Soufan Center. Prior to those roles, Clarke was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, where he spent a decade researching terrorism, insurgency, and criminal networks. At RAND, Clarke led studies on ISIS financing, the future of terrorism and transnational crime, and lessons learned from all insurgencies since the end of World War II.

Aaron Brown is a quantitative analyst, risk manager, and author of the new book Wrong Number: How to Extract Truth from a Blizzard of Quantitative Disinformation. https://amzn.to/4frmg3n He's also about to debate gun control at the Soho Forum in August — and his preparation for that debate is a pretty good preview of what's in the book. Topics include: why out of 28,000 gun control studies, the RAND Corporation found only 20 that weren't statistically crippled; the smoking analogy and what it tells us about legislation that runs ahead of evidence; why gun laws burden legitimate owners and not criminals; why we have a crime problem, not a gun problem; The Lancet paper that claimed US aid saved 92 million lives; how to spot three red flags that tell you a statistic is BS; and Wonder Bread's motto "Helps build strong bodies 12 ways" — which nobody ever actually wrote down. Get the book → Wrong Number: How to Extract Truth from a Blizzard of Quantitative Disinformation https://amzn.to/4frmg3n TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 — Intro — Aaron Brown and Wrong Number 0:34 — The Soho Forum gun control debate — and who he's up against 3:45 — The proposition: abolish all restrictions on adult firearm ownership 4:48 — Lou on navigating gun laws across state lines (NJ → PA → NY) 7:25 — The wide cultural divide: Scranton airport vs. any other airport with guns 9:04 — RAND Corporation: of 28,000 gun control studies, only 20 weren't crippled by errors 10:04 — The smoking analogy — legislation running ahead of the evidence 12:15 — Gun control laws only burden legitimate owners — not criminals 12:43 — The Glock switch ban and the AR-15 — targeting the popular, not the dangerous 15:18 — "Trump is a fascist" — and you want him to take the guns? 15:42 — Stop calling it a gun problem. It's a crime problem. 17:47 — We can identify the 1% of kids likely to commit 20–30% of violent crime 19:31 — Genetic markers for violence — and why that's controversial 20:48 — The Nordic prison model — does it work, and could it work here? 22:09 — Immigration data: why lumping everyone together gets you bad answers 25:20 — Lou's joke about open borders (for immigrants like his dad, not his cousins) 25:39 — Aaron's Jewish smuggler ancestors — blocked from junk dealing by licensing laws 27:04 — Did US aid really save 92 million lives? The Lancet paper that can't add up 29:13 — They saved 114% of the people — including 46M in China, which gets no aid 31:22 — Most published research findings are false — and we've known since 2005 32:42 — DOGE cuts and the "millions are dead" narrative 36:15 — Three red flags that tell you a statistic is BS 39:18 — Wonder Bread's "12 ways" — nobody ever wrote them down 40:18 — Outro — Wrong Number and the Soho Forum debate Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081 Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU  Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r  TheLouPerez.com |  info@thelouperez.com  Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez #Statistics #Misinformation #GunControl #USAID #AaronBrown #WrongNumber #SohoForum #LouPerezPodcast #LionsOfLiberty #DataLiteracy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aaron Brown is a quantitative analyst, risk manager, and author of the new book Wrong Number: How to Extract Truth from a Blizzard of Quantitative Disinformation. https://amzn.to/4frmg3n He's also about to debate gun control at the Soho Forum in August — and his preparation for that debate is a pretty good preview of what's in the book. Topics include: why out of 28,000 gun control studies, the RAND Corporation found only 20 that weren't statistically crippled; the smoking analogy and what it tells us about legislation that runs ahead of evidence; why gun laws burden legitimate owners and not criminals; why we have a crime problem, not a gun problem; The Lancet paper that claimed US aid saved 92 million lives; how to spot three red flags that tell you a statistic is BS; and Wonder Bread's motto "Helps build strong bodies 12 ways" — which nobody ever actually wrote down. Get the book → Wrong Number: How to Extract Truth from a Blizzard of Quantitative Disinformation https://amzn.to/4frmg3n TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 — Intro — Aaron Brown and Wrong Number 0:34 — The Soho Forum gun control debate — and who he's up against 3:45 — The proposition: abolish all restrictions on adult firearm ownership 4:48 — Lou on navigating gun laws across state lines (NJ → PA → NY) 7:25 — The wide cultural divide: Scranton airport vs. any other airport with guns 9:04 — RAND Corporation: of 28,000 gun control studies, only 20 weren't crippled by errors 10:04 — The smoking analogy — legislation running ahead of the evidence 12:15 — Gun control laws only burden legitimate owners — not criminals 12:43 — The Glock switch ban and the AR-15 — targeting the popular, not the dangerous 15:18 — "Trump is a fascist" — and you want him to take the guns? 15:42 — Stop calling it a gun problem. It's a crime problem. 17:47 — We can identify the 1% of kids likely to commit 20–30% of violent crime 19:31 — Genetic markers for violence — and why that's controversial 20:48 — The Nordic prison model — does it work, and could it work here? 22:09 — Immigration data: why lumping everyone together gets you bad answers 25:20 — Lou's joke about open borders (for immigrants like his dad, not his cousins) 25:39 — Aaron's Jewish smuggler ancestors — blocked from junk dealing by licensing laws 27:04 — Did US aid really save 92 million lives? The Lancet paper that can't add up 29:13 — They saved 114% of the people — including 46M in China, which gets no aid 31:22 — Most published research findings are false — and we've known since 2005 32:42 — DOGE cuts and the "millions are dead" narrative 36:15 — Three red flags that tell you a statistic is BS 39:18 — Wonder Bread's "12 ways" — nobody ever wrote them down 40:18 — Outro — Wrong Number and the Soho Forum debate Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081 Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU  Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r  TheLouPerez.com |  info@thelouperez.com  Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez #Statistics #Misinformation #GunControl #USAID #AaronBrown #WrongNumber #SohoForum #LouPerezPodcast #LionsOfLiberty #DataLiteracy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

we present a comprehensive analysis of the current state and future trajectory of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) from the perspective of leading researchers and safety experts in 2026. A RAND Corporation report synthesizes various forecasting methodologies, noting that expert predictions have shifted significantly toward the near term, with many now expecting AGI to arrive in the 2030s. This research highlights a lack of mature infrastructure for validating these models and emphasizes the need for adaptive policy frameworks that can respond to deep uncertainty. Complementing this, a survey of AI safety leaders reveals a median expectation for AGI by 2033, alongside an estimated 25% median risk of human extinction or permanent disempowerment by the end of the century. Together, the texts underscore that talent, rather than funding, is the primary constraint on safety efforts and that institutional preparation must be prioritized as AI capabilities potentially outpace societal oversight.

*Content warning: divorce, conversion therapy, reorientation therapy, cyberstalking, stalking, emotional and psychological abuse, death threats, and criminal threats.Danny Cords is an organizational psychologist and victim advocate from Seattle. He began harnessing his voice and speaking out for others after leaving conversion therapy in his late teens. But his advocacy mission only intensified after being subjected to years of cyberstalking. He hopes to bring awareness and healing to victims all over the world, as well as legal change too. His related (and unrelated) work and efforts have been featured on the stage, television, radio, podcasts, and more. We are extremely grateful that Danny was willing to share all that came next in his personal, professional, legal, and media journeys.*Resources:  Danny Cords's website: https://www.dannycords.com/ End Tech-Enabled Abuse: endtab.org Organization for Social Media Safety: https://www.socialmediasafety.org/ *Sources: -Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, www.cisa.gov/cybersecurity-awareness-month-Cybersecurity, RAND Corporation, www.rand.org/topics/cybersecurity.html-Stalking Fact Sheet, The Stalking Prevention, Awareness, & Resource Center, www.stalkingawareness.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/SPARC_StalkngFactSheet_2018_FINAL.pdfFor additional resources and a list of non-profit organizations that can help, please visit http://www.somethingwaswrong.com/resourcesFollow What Came Next: Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-came-next/id1674051643 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whatcamenext_podcast/ SWW S25 E24 BTS and Q & A Part 2 *Content Warning: friendship betrayal, infidelity, stalking, domestic violence, institutional betrayal, institutional trauma, and murder. Free + Confidential Resources + Safety Tips: somethingwaswrong.com/resources   SWW Sticker Shop!: https://brokencyclemedia.com/sticker-shop SWW S25 Theme Song & Artwork: The S25 cover art is by the Amazing Sara Stewart instagram.com/okaynotgreat/ The S25 theme song is a cover of Glad Rag's U Think U from their album Wonder Under, performed by the incredible Abayomi instagram.com/Abayomithesinger. The S25 theme song cover was produced by Janice “JP” Pacheco instagram.com/jtooswavy/ at The Grill Studios in Emeryville, CA instagram.com/thegrillstudios/ Follow Something Was Wrong: Website: somethingwaswrong.com  IG: instagram.com/somethingwaswrongpodcast TikTok: tiktok.com/@somethingwaswrongpodcast  Follow Tiffany Reese: Website: tiffanyreese.me  IG: instagram.com/lookieboo Follow What Came Next: Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-came-next/id1674051643 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whatcamenext_podcast/ Follow Amy B. Chesler: Amy on IG: instagram.com/amybchesler Working For Justice: https://amzn.to/4eqWb3U Follow Lauren: Lauren on TikTok: tiktok.com/@okfineillmakeatiktok Lxrry Media on Instagram: instagram.com/lxrymedia *Sources: -“The Gabby Petito Foundation,” gabbypetitofoundation.org/

On this Land Warfare episode, sponsored by American Rheinmetall, Dr. Gian Gentile, a retired US Army colonel who is now a senior historian at the Rand Corporation think tank's Arroyo Center, joins Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian to discuss the latest on the Ukraine war including on the role of unmanned ground vehicles, lessons from the conflict, how armies learn lessons and whether the US Army is inculcating those lessons in its $252 billion 2027 spending request, how the need for more powerful electromagnetic and air defense capabilities as well as drones for surveillance will shape future vehicles, his new Korea Regional Review article “Ukraine War Ground Combat and its Implications for a Possible Future War Along the Korean DMZ,” the threat posed by Russia as Moscow continues to fight in Ukraine and increasingly provoke NATO's Baltic nations, priorities for Europe as nations rebuild their ground combat capabilities, and the role of land forces in the IndoPacific.

The Air Force has spent years building China‑related expertise. But researchers find the personnel system doesn't always reward or retain that specialization. That leaves a gap between what strategy calls for and how careers actually play out. Dr. Miriam Matthews and Cristina Garafola from the Rand Corporation join us with their analysis.TAGSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of the Crazy Wisdom Podcast, host Stewart Alsop sits down with Joshua Bate, founder of Bonfires.ai and DeciWorld, for a wide-ranging conversation covering knowledge management, graph technology, ontologies, decentralized science, and the future of how humans organize and share information. They break down the differences between personal and enterprise knowledge management, explore why flat ontological graphs may be the key to making diverse knowledge bases interoperable, and get into why traditional RAG systems break down at scale and how graph RAG offers a more principled solution. The conversation expands into the philosophy of categorization, the slow death of basic "gentleman science" under institutional pressures, and how decentralized protocols might restore a kind of mycelial knowledge network connecting small groups of researchers, enthusiasts, and communities — much like the original spirit of the encyclopedia before it was co-opted by institutions. You can learn more about Joshua's work at bonfires.ai and deci.world or follow him on X at @Bonfiresai and @DeSciWorld.Timestamps00:00 - Stewart introduces Joshua Bate, founder of Bonfires.ai, discussing personal versus enterprise knowledge management and their fundamental differences at scale.05:00 - Joshua explains ontologies as classifiers for knowledge structures, describing their two-year search for a perfect ontology and ultimately building a flat, ontology-less graph protocol.10:00 - Stewart connects categorization to shamanic practice and intercategorical theory, noting how major companies like Netflix and Yahoo built graph-based ontologies while the discipline remains underappreciated philosophically.15:00 - Joshua traces Bonfires origins through decentralized science, explaining how NFT community excitement inspired redirecting capital toward funding unconventional researchers locked out of institutional systems.20:00 - Joshua describes building federated knowledge networks through hackathons and conferences, comparing the vision to what Wikipedia could have been with decentralized incentive structures.25:00 - Discussion shifts toward inevitable collapse of rigid scientific institutions, debating patchwork age theory, nation-state fragmentation, and rhizomatic versus arboreal knowledge structures.30:00 - Joshua articulates the mycelial network vision, enabling direct cross-cultural information access where individuals control their own narrative lens, warning against collective we thinking and authoritarianism.Key Insights1. Knowledge management exists on a spectrum from personal to enterprise, but the founder of Bonfires argues this split is artificial. He believes knowledge itself does not respect those boundaries, and that small groups, researchers, hobbyists, and large institutions all possess knowledge that can and should interoperate with each other.2. After two and a half years of searching for the perfect ontology to structure their knowledge graph, the team concluded that no perfect ontology exists. Their solution was to build the flattest possible graph structure with only events, entities, and edges, creating a base layer others can build specialized ontologies on top of.3. Graph-based knowledge systems are more efficient than traditional databases for AI traversal because once a graph is computed, it is relatively free to query. Graph RAG combines the discovery power of vector search with the structured precision of graph traversal, solving many hallucination problems associated with standard retrieval augmented generation.4. Basic scientific research, the soil from which applied discoveries grow, is deteriorating because institutional funding structures only reward commercially viable outcomes. The founder built his platform partly to redirect community-driven capital toward researchers who are doing important work without institutional support.5. The institutionalization of science has historically blocked the open exchange of ideas that drove the original scientific revolution. The human spirit for open inquiry has not changed, but people cannot pursue it without financial support, and building decentralized infrastructure could restore that possibility.6. A federated knowledge network would allow individuals to access information from any contributor and filter it through their own preferred lens, rather than receiving information pre-filtered by centralized platforms. This represents a form of information symmetry similar to how mycelial networks distribute nutrients across a forest.7. The concern is not whether current scientific and governmental institutions will change but in what direction the rebuilding goes. Those capitalizing on the transition carry the same incentives as the previous era, which risks reproducing the same problems inside new structures.

You know that feeling where you read a headline and your brain glitches? Where you think, "Didn't they literally say the opposite of this yesterday? On camera? With their face hole?"You're not imagining it. And you're not losing your mind.In this episode, Robin breaks down the documented, studied, historically proven strategy behind the constant contradictions coming out of Washington. This isn't incompetence. This isn't "mixed messaging." This is a destabilization tactic.She's covering:1. The RAND Corporation's "Firehose of Falsehood" propaganda model and why it works2. How the Trump administration's shifting, contradictory statements on the Iran war are a textbook case of managed chaos3. The Truth Default Theory: Why your brain is hardwired to believe authority figures even when you consciously know they're lying4. Learned helplessness: the psychology experiment from the 1960s5. Why "I just don't follow politics anymore" is what they want. 6. Who profits from your confusion7. How to stay connectedThis is not a news roundup episode. Also, you're not too sensitive. You're not too political. You're not too online. You are on the receiving end of an actual strategic choice. Let's talk about it. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/we-saw-the-devil-unfiltered-political-analysis--4433638/support.Website: http://www.wesawthedevil.comPatreon: http://www.patreon.com/wesawthedevilDiscord: https://discord.gg/X2qYXdB4Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/WeSawtheDevilInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/wesawthedevilpodcast.

Sharla Boehm earned a teaching degree from UCLA before channeling her talent for math into computer programming. While working at the Rand Corporation, she built a ground-breaking simulation, originally conceived to strengthen military communications during the Cold War. The simulation –and her work– would ultimately lay the foundation for the modern internet.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this week's episode of Security Dilemma, co-hosts John Gay and A.J. Manuzzi interviewed Dr. Jasen Castillo and Dr. John Schuessler, both Associate Professors and Co-Directors of the Albritton Center for Grand Strategy at Texas A&M University, about U.S. grand strategy and their current projects on extended deterrence and whether the United States can learn to live with rival regional hegemons.  Prior to joining A&M, Dr. Castillo worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Strategy and Plans Office, as well as at the RAND Corporation. Currently, he is working on a book project exploring the military requirements of deterrence and U.S. nuclear weapons policy. Dr. Schuessler, meanwhile, previously taught at the Air War College, was chair of the Foreign Policy Section of the American Political Science Association, and wrote the book Deceit on the Road to War: Presidents, Politics, and American Democracy.Learn more about the Bush School here!Apply for our ⁠⁠⁠Summer Conference⁠⁠⁠! https://jqas.org/2026-summer-conference/Listener Questions:We are opening up SD to listener-submitted questions! Submit questions you'd like to ask future guests ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Please specify the episode pertaining to the question in your response.Upcoming recordings include: JQAS Discusses the Marcellus PapersCyber Deterrence with Jon LindsayRussia-China Maritime Cooperation with Lyle GoldsteinThe Foreign Influence Fight for War with Iran with Nick Cleveland-StoutWorld Order After the Iran War with Danny Bessner

Are we using AI to assist our brains, or are we using it to replace our thinking? Join us for our upcoming RER Report Livestream as we unpack the critical intersection of generative AI, cognitive development, and the modern educational landscape. As AI tools become deeply integrated into our daily workflows and classrooms, we are facing a new phenomenon: "Knowledge Collapse." When information is delivered without friction, we lose the productive struggle required to actually synthesize knowledge.   In this episode of the Red Eye Report, we will dive into the latest research—from the RAND Corporation to the latest trials in cognitive retention—to explore the reality of how AI is reshaping the human brain and our educational systems. We will move beyond the hype to have a candid, data-driven conversation about the risks of learning atrophy, the systemic pressures driving student AI adoption, and how we can effectively pivot to Instructional Design 2.0.   theredeyereport.com facebook.com/redeyereport

La Madman Theory è una strategia geopolitica in cui un leader simula instabilità per intimidire i rivali. L'odierna imprevedibilità USA accelera la de-dollarizzazione e l'inflazione, colpendo direttamente BTP, mutui e portafogli. In questo video analizziamo l'evoluzione dell'"uso politico della follia" e le conseguenze pratiche sui mercati finanziari:

El GPS fue diseñado para guiar misiles. Hoy guía tractores. En este episodio te contamos cómo una tecnología militar desarrollada por el Departamento de Defensa de Estados Unidos terminó transformando la agricultura mundial, y por qué ese cambio importa más de lo que crees.Desde el primer satélite NAVSTAR lanzado en 1978 hasta el día en que Clinton desactivó la degradación del GPS en el año 2000, hay una historia de guerra fría, accidentes aéreos y agrónomos que llevaban décadas esperando una señal más limpia. Una historia que nadie cuenta en los cursos de agronomía.En el episodio exploramos cómo funciona la agricultura de precisión desde adentro: guía automática de tractores, mapas de rendimiento, aplicación variable de insumos y por qué todo eso tiene una conexión directa con el precio de los fertilizantes, la guerra en Ucrania y la dependencia global del gas natural.Si produces en campo o tomas decisiones sobre insumos, este episodio cambia la forma en que ves tu operación. No es teoría. Es lo que ya está pasando en miles de hectáreas en México, Argentina y Brasil ahora mismo.Suscríbete a Podcast Agricultura para más episodios donde la historia, la geopolítica y la agronomía se encuentran en el mismo surco.Escucha Agricultura Profesional:https://open.spotify.com/show/2ZuOW2DhD7PK4SM33gtFWy?si=e33021063a114550--Créditos musicales:INTROMusic from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/kevin-graham/53License code: 62TIV9S8Q1XCM65WOUTROMusic from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-rollLicense code: KUSUTAITXDLYUTHQ--Fuentes consultadas:Pace, Scott et al. "The Global Positioning System: Assessing National Policies." RAND Corporation, 1995. Documento que analiza el desarrollo del GPS como política nacional de Estados Unidos y sus implicaciones civiles y militares.National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing. "GPS.gov: The Global Positioning System." Sitio oficial del gobierno de EE.UU. con historia, arquitectura técnica y política de uso civil del sistema GPS.Pierce, Francis J. y Nowak, Peter. "Aspects of Precision Agriculture." Advances in Agronomy, vol. 67, 1999. Referencia académica sobre los fundamentos de la agricultura de precisión en la década de los noventa.Ag Leader Technology. Historia corporativa disponible en agleader.com. Empresa pionera en monitores de rendimiento para cosechadoras, fundada en Iowa en 1992.Zhang, Naiqian, Wang, Maohua y Wang, Ning. "Precision Agriculture — A Worldwide Overview." Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, vol. 36, 2002. Revisión global del

Trump Wants to Send Afghan Allies to Congo to Die. Hegseth Bans Mandatory Flu Shot for Troops. Va. Passes New Dem-Friendly Map. The Mets Really Stink.  Episode 500. Iran is seizing ships, Trump is shipping our Afghan allies to Congo, Hegseth is killing the flu vaccine mandate, and Virginia just turned gerrymandering into an arms race. Then Paul sits down with retired Air Force Major General Sarah Zabel — a 31-year veteran, cyber and strategy leader, and independent candidate for Congress in Idaho's 1st District — for a no-BS briefing on what strategic incompetence actually costs the country. If you're in the angry middle and wondering whether an independent veteran can really win in a so-called red state, this one is the proof of concept. Major General (Ret.) Sarah Zabel is a 31-year Air Force veteran and independent candidate for Congress in Idaho's 1st District. A graduate of the Air Force Academy with a computer science degree, she spent her career as a communications and cyber systems officer, deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, and served in senior roles at the Air Staff, Joint Staff, U.S. Transportation Command, and as vice director of the Defense Information Systems Agency. She retired as a two-star in 2018, worked as an adjunct researcher for the RAND Corporation, cared for her father through Alzheimer's, and authored "Fighting Chance," a book on the science of depression. -WATCH full video of this episode here. -Ditch your expensive carrier and support Independent Americans! Make the switch to Noble Mobile. -Join IVA and stand up to Trump's Forever Wars. -Learn more about Paul's work to elect a new generation of independent leaders with Independent Veterans of America. -Learn more about American Veterans for Ukraine here. -Remember Independent is an Attitude. -Learn more about The Headstrong Project for Veterans, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), and Department of Veterans Affairs resources in your area. Seeking support is not a sign of weakness. It's a show of strength. If you or a loved one are in immediate crisis, dial 988 and press 1, or text 838255. Connect with Independent Americans: Subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all podcast platforms Read more at Substack Support ad-free episodes at Patreon  Connect: Instagram  • X/Twitter • BlueSky • Facebook  Follow on social: @PaulRieckhoff on X, Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky -Join the movement. Hook into our exclusive Patreon community of Independent Americans. Get extra content, connect with guests, meet other Independent Americans, attend events, get merch discounts, and support this show that speaks truth to power.  -And get cool IA and Righteous hats, t-shirts and other merch now in time for the new year.  Independent Americans is powered by veteran-owned and led Righteous Media.  And now part of the BLEAV network!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode of The Emergency Mind Podcast, Dan Dworkis speaks with Aaron Clark-Ginsberg, a social scientist at RAND Corporation, whose work spans disaster response, risk governance, and organizational performance under extreme conditions. Drawing on experience as a wildland firefighter, disaster recovery volunteer after Hurricane Katrina, and applied policy researcher, Aaron explores why some systems adapt and learn after crisis while others repeatedly fail. The conversation moves across medicine, wildfire response, infrastructure, and emerging technology to examine how risk actually behaves in the real world.

We're joined by our co-authors to discuss a few Lewis Center studies on Measure ULA, a transfer tax in the city of Los Angeles, that made a big splash. This is part 10 of our series on misaligned incentives in housing policy.Show notes:Manville, M., & Smith, M. (2025). The Unintended Consequences of Measure ULA. UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.Ward, J., & Phillips, S. (2025). Taxing Tomorrow: Measure ULA's Impact on Multifamily Housing Production and Potential Reforms. RAND Corporation and UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.Green, D., Jambulapati, V., Liebersohn, J., & Velayudhan, T. (2025). Fiscal Externalities of Transaction Taxes: Evidence from the Los Angeles Mansion Tax. Available at SSRN 5273034.Manville, M., Smith, M., & Phillips, S. (2025). The Consequences of Measure ULA: Some Clarifications. UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.Shane's blog post about the BAE report on the impact of a 15-year waiver on the ULA tax for new multifamily and commercial development.

Over the last 50 years, nearly $79 trillion that could have gone to the bottom 90%…didn't. Where did it go—and what did that cost you? Nick and Goldy are joined by Carter Price, senior mathematician at the RAND Corporation, to break down how rising inequality reshaped wages, growth, and even the federal budget—and why the economy feels so disconnected from everyday life. Because this isn't just about who got richer. It's about what everyone else lost. Carter Price is a Senior Mathematician at the RAND Corporation and Professor of Policy Analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy Social Media: @CarterCPrice Further reading:  Measuring the Income Gap from 1975 to 2023 RAND Budget Model: Groundbreaking insights into the everyday impacts of federal policy Unlocking the Tax Code with RAND's Tax Code Analysis Tool Preliminary Strategies for Reducing the Burden of Federal Debt Impacts of the Retirement Savings for Americans Act Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Facebook: Pitchfork Economics Podcast Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Threads: pitchforkeconomics TikTok: @pitchfork_econ YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics Twitter: @PitchforkEcon, @NickHanauer Substack: ⁠The Pitch⁠

This week, President Trump announced that the end of the Iran war may be in sight, while news outlets report the US is deploying thousands of troops to the Middle East. Then, Democratic governor of Kentucky Andy Beshear hints at a 2028 presidential campaign while making jabs at Vice President JD Vance. And, book publisher Hachette found that a book that they were about to publish was 78% AI-generated. Mike Cosper and Clarissa Moll discuss these headlines, and then Clarissa speaks with Ben Smith and Isaac Bledsoe from the American Institute for Boys and Men to discuss the trend that fewer men are going to college. What's to account for the shifting demographics in college attendance? REFERENCED IN THE EPISODE: Getting Men Re-engaged in College by Isaac Bledsoe and Ben Smith CT's education reporting GO DEEPER WITH THE BULLETIN: Join the conversation at our Substack. Find us on YouTube. Rate and review the show in your podcast app of choice. ABOUT THE GUESTS: Isaac Bledsoe is a senior research assistant at the American Institute of Boys and Men (AIBM) with an interest in transitions to adulthood, as well as fatherhood and family. Isaac was a research assistant at the Urban Institute, supporting a national survey of Early Head Start directors and a study to understand and improve parents' experiences with Georgia's child care subsidy program. Ben Smith is a researcher at AIBM with an interest in male labor market decisions and educational outcomes. He previously worked as a policy researcher at the RAND Corporation where he frequently focused on issues related to labor, employment, and financial decision making. His research provides an in-depth, ethnographic look at the ways some Americans manage day-to-day financial volatility. ABOUT THE BULLETIN: The Bulletin is a twice-weekly politics and current events show from Christianity Today moderated by Clarissa Moll, with senior commentary from Russell Moore (Christianity Today's editor-at-large and columnist) and Mike Cosper (senior contributor). Each week, the show explores current events and breaking news and shares a Christian perspective on issues that are shaping our world. We also offer special one-on-one conversations with writers, artists, and thought leaders whose impact on the world brings important significance to a Christian worldview, like Bono, Sharon McMahon, Harrison Scott Key, Frank Bruni, and more. The Bulletin listeners get 25% off CT. Go to https://orderct.com/THEBULLETIN to learn more. “The Bulletin” is a production of Christianity Today Producer: Clarissa Moll Associate Producer: Alexa Burke Editing and Mix: Kevin Morris Graphic Design: Rick Szuecs Music: Dan Phelps Executive Producer: Erik Petrik Senior Producer: Matt Stevens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode Jerry and Stably discussed Leap of Faith by Michael J. Mazarr. Mazarr, a RAND Corporation scholar, draws on every available memoir, declassified document, and interviews with senior administration officials to dissect how the United States stumbled into the Iraq War. His central argument is that there was never really a decision — the invasion happened through a process of drift, assumption, and institutional momentum, with no memo ever formally ordering it. Jerry and Stably walked through Mazarr's typology of the principals — Bush and Wolfowitz as values-driven, Cheney and Rumsfeld as power-oriented unilateralists, and Powell and Rice as multilateralists — and how their clashing psychologies at every turn undermined coherent planning. They discussed how the easy initial victory in Afghanistan gave the administration a dangerously false sense of what a small-footprint war could accomplish, Saddam's catastrophic misreading of American intentions, and the near-total absence of any post-invasion plan. The conversation turned to the eerie parallels with the current situation in Iran, and whether the lessons Mazarr draws — about American missionary zeal and intuitive, values-driven foreign policy judgment — are simply baked in.

Day 1,488.Today, after another weekend of so-called peace talks over Russia's war in Ukraine, we search for signs of a diplomatic breakthrough (spoiler: there isn't one). We report on a fresh wave of long-range Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russia that forced at least 15 Russian airports to suspend flight operations and also examine the so-called “Gamechanger” plot – allegations of a plan to stage a fake assassination attempt on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to boost his chances in next month's election. Later, we catch-up with Michael Bohnert at the RAND Corporation, and ask whether Ukraine's Flamingo cruise missiles and interceptor drones are now setting the pace for aerial warfare and military innovation.Contributors:Francis Dearnley (Host on Ukraine: The Latest). @FrancisDearnley on X.Dominic Nicholls (Host on Ukraine: The Latest). @DomNicholls on X.With thanks to Michael Bohnert of RAND.NOW IN FULL VIDEO WITH MAPS & BATTLEFIELD FOOTAGE:Every episode is now available on our YouTube channel shortly after the release of the audio version. You will find it here: https://www.youtube.com/@UkraineTheLatest CONTENT REFERENCED:Putin tells Trump: I'll stop giving Iran intel if you cut off Ukraine (The Telegraph):https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/03/20/putin-trump-iran-intel-ukraine/ What the Ukraine war tells us about the Iran conflict (Valerii Zaluzhnyi in The Telegraph):https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/03/21/ukraine-war-tells-us-about-iran-conflict/ President Stubb of Finland: ‘We must face reality – the West has split' (David Blair's Interview in The Telegraph):https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/22/president-stubb-finland-interview/ How Telegram became a death sentence for Russian soldiers (The Telegraph):https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/03/20/how-telegram-became-a-death-sentence-for-russian-soldiers/ Ukrainians in disbelief over West's failure to stop Iran's deadly drones (Adrian Blomfield in The Telegraph):https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/03/20/trump-iran-ukraine-russia-drone-warfare/ What Is Ukraine's Interceptor, One of the World's Most In-Demand Drones? (UNITED24):https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/what-is-ukraines-interceptor-one-of-the-worlds-most-in-demand-drones-17055To tilt Hungarian election, Russians proposed staging assassination attempt of Orban (Washington Post):https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/03/21/hungary-election-interference-russia-orban/ WEEKLY NEWSLETTER:Our weekly newsletter includes maps of the frontlines and diagrams of weapons, answers your questions, provides recommended reading, and gives exclusive analysis and behind-the-scenes insights.. It's free for everyone, including non-subscribers. Join here – http://telegraph.co.uk/ukrainenewsletter EMAIL US:Contact the team on ukrainepod@telegraph.co.uk . We continue to read every message, and seek to respond to as many on air and in our newsletter as possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Caroline Batka analyzes PMCs in Private Military Contractors: Understanding the Non-State Actors Changing the Institution of War. This lecture draws on Dr. Caroline Batka's compendium of research on Private Military Contractors (PMCs) and examines how they are reshaping the modern institution of war. The presentation explores key similarities and differences in how the U.S. military and the European Union employ and integrate PMCs, clarifies PMC terminology and classifications, and assesses their relationship to mercenaries, warlords, and other non-state actors. The lecture also examines the Wagner Group as a distinct and influential non-state organization. Dr. Caroline Batka is a senior military analyst at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. She is currently working on a study funded by the Slovak Research and Development Agency examining hybrid warfare in Europe. This includes studies on the societal factors facilitating receptivity to pro-Russian disinformation in Slovakia; the organizational structure of the Wagner Group; the EU's use of private military and security contractors; and Slovak-Polish defense industrial base collaboration. Dr. Batka is also an adjunct professor at Bay Atlantic University in the Political Science and International Relations Department where she teaches Public Administration. In 2020-2021, Dr. Batka worked at King's College London on a study of the U.S. military personnel's interprofessional bonds with private military contractors. In that role, Dr. Batka conducted and analyzed qualitative interviews with contractors and coauthored a published article. From 2018-2020, she taught US Foreign Policy at Webster Vienna Private University. Beyond her academic experience, Dr. Batka has worked in a range of non-profit oversight and government capacities. From October 2011 to July 2016, she worked at RAND Corporation in Washington, D.C. where her research focused on Army operations and planning, military programs and policy, health care, and veterans' issues. Dr. Batka served as RAND's liaison to the U.S. Army G-3/5/7 (Operations and Plans). In this capacity, Dr. Batka led coordination and communication between the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, G-3/5/7 and the RAND leadership team. Dr. Batka has honed expertise in U.S. military and veterans' health and mental health issues. She has conducted dozens of studies for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on the effectiveness of treatment programs and policy for PTSD, depression, and traumatic brain injuries. Dr. Batka is also a skilled and experienced qualitative researcher. She has conducted, coded, and analyzed hundreds of interviews with policymakers and stakeholders on a range of specialized and sensitive subjects, including military sexual assault, mental health and health policies and programs, and identification of potential DoD programs and activities for consolidation or elimination. Dr. Batka also has extensive experience working with surveys, cenarios analysis, and case studies. Prior to working at RAND, Dr. Batka has worked at the National Academy of Public Administration, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the Disabled American Veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and on Capitol Hill. Dr. Batka holds a PhD from Comenius University, a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Washington in Seattle, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Communication from Virginia Tech **Learn more about IWP graduate programs: https://www.iwp.edu/academics/graduate-degree-programs/ ***Make a gift to IWP: https://wl.donorperfect.net/weblink/WebLink.aspx?name=E231090&id=3

If buyers don't care about your product story, how do you meet them where they are and still drive revenue growth? In this episode of Sharkpreneur, Seth Greene interviews Brent Keltner, Ph.D., Founder and President of Winalytics LLC, who leverages his experience leading marketing and sales teams and achieving multiple growth results to explain why most go-to-market efforts fail: they begin with the seller, not the buyer. He explains how to establish a “journey-first” approach that allows buying committees to self-educate, aligns internal teams around a shared value proposition, and turns discovery into the engine that drives real revenue growth. Key Takeaways:→ Most teams talk about themselves first, but buyers care more about what is in it for them.→ A strong value proposition starts with the outcome the buyer wants.→ The best value propositions connect product value, business value, and enterprise value. → Buyers prefer to educate themselves, so companies should give them clear ways to learn at their own pace. → Discovery should be a major part of the sales process because it helps build support across the buying committee. Brent Keltner, Ph.D., is President of Winalytics LLC and the creator of Winalytics' Journey First Growth methodology. Winalytics helps mid-market and enterprise clients accelerate account-based B2B growth. The team has expertise in various industries, including education, human capital, healthcare, and SaaS. Before starting Winalytics, Brent expanded growth as a revenue leader at four different companies. He began his career as a Ph.D. social scientist at Stanford University and the RAND Corporation. His first book was the Revenue Acceleration Playbook. He has published articles on marketing and sales strategy in MarketingProfs, CEOWorld, the Sloan Management Review, the California Management Review, and Sales and Marketing Magazine. Connect With Brent:Website: http://winalytics.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/winalytics-llc/

Tara breaks down Donald Trump's warning to NATO, the strategic reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and the international chess game with China, Iran, and global oil markets. From U.S. energy independence to exposing allies who refuse to defend their own tankers, this episode uncovers the real story behind the headlines and the media spin. SUMMARY In this episode, Tara analyzes the latest developments in U.S.-Iran tensions and NATO's role—or lack thereof—in the crisis. She explains Trump's call for allies to step up in protecting tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz, highlighting the strategic importance of American-led escorts and the risks of inaction for NATO members. Tara covers Trump's recent energy announcements, including the construction of the largest, cleanest refinery in Texas, and explains how this move strengthens U.S. energy independence while undercutting China's influence in global oil markets. She also debunks media narratives claiming the U.S. had no plan for the Strait of Hormuz, detailing decades-long planning, including insights from the Pentagon, Rand Corporation, and Trump's own 1988 statements in The Art of the Deal. Finally, Tara explores the broader geopolitical implications: how the reopening of the strait under U.S. control preserves the dollar's dominance in oil trade, pressures allies to act, and exposes countries that have relied on U.S. defense funding without contributing. KEY TALKING POINTS Trump warns NATO: step up or face a “very bad future” if Iran tensions escalate U.S.-led escort of tankers through the Strait of Hormuz secures global energy trade Strategic refinery announcement in Texas to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil Debunking media myths: Trump had long-standing plans for Hormuz, dating to 1988 The geopolitical chess game: China, Europe, and Asian countries' roles in energy markets Impact on global oil pricing, the U.S. dollar, and energy independence Exposure of allies who rely on U.S. defense funding but fail to act SOCIAL MEDIA BLURB Trump calls out NATO, secures the Strait of Hormuz, and reshapes global energy! Tara breaks down the strategy, media myths, and what this means for allies and oil markets.

In this week's episode, I look back at the movies and streaming shows I watched over winter 2025/2026 Instead of Coupon of the Week, you can get SILENT ORDER: OMNIBUS ONE for free at my Payhip store at this link until March 31st: https://payhip.com/b/lhCyU TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 294 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is March the 13th, 2026 and today we are looking at my movie and streaming TV show reviews for Winter 2025 and 2026. We'll also have Coupon of the Week and an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. Before we get into all that, let's start off with Coupon of the Week. Actually, we are not going to have Coupon of the Week this week because originally I scheduled a Coupon of the Week for Silent Order: Omnibus One to get you 25% off it. However, I was able to get a BookBub Featured Deal to give away Silent Order: Omnibus One for free on the 17th. So instead, the episode description will just have a link to where you can get Silent Order Omnibus One for free at my Payhip store. Next week, regular Coupon of the Week will return. Now for an update on my current writing, publishing and audiobook projects. As of this recording, I am about 51,000 words into Blade of Wraiths. I had hoped to be a little further at the end of this week, but there was quite a bit of real life stuff to do this week that took up a lot of time. I didn't make quite as much progress as I had hoped, but I did make some progress, so that's good. I'm still hoping to have the book out in April if all goes well, but we will see. I'm also 5,000 words into Dragon-Mage, which will be the sixth book in the Rivah Half-Elven Thief series (six of nine planned). That hopefully will be out in May if all goes well. In audiobook news, the main recording on Blade of Storms (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) is finished. Just have some proofing to do yet and then get through processing. Then hopefully the audiobook should be available on all platforms by next month. Recording is also underway for Wizard-Assassin, the fifth book in the Rivah Half-Elven Thief series. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:00 Main Topic: Movie/TV Show Review Roundup Now let's move on to our main topic this week, my movie roundup. Spring is near, so it's time for my Winter 2025/ 2026 Movie Review Roundup. I admit this is a bit shorter than my usual movie roundups because for a couple of months I didn't see anything I really felt like writing about. Not in a bad way or depressed sort of way, but I just didn't see anything I felt interested enough to write about, whether good or bad. The new year brought new movies to watch and now we have enough for a Movie Review Roundup. As always, the movies and shows are in order from my least favorite to my most favorite. The reviews are based on nothing objective, but only my own thoughts and opinions. First up is Operation Fortune, which came out in 2023. This is a Guy Richie action comedy with Jason Statham in the lead, which probably describes all you need to know about it. Like if you say the phrase "Guy Richie Action Comedy with Jason Statham in the Lead", this would be the movie that popped into your head. Statham plays Orson Fortune, an elite special forces operative. When a mysterious device is stolen by terrorists, the UK government sends Fortune to retrieve it. Fortune teams up with a group of specialists and then sets out to punch bad guys and save the day. Some good action sequences, some funny bits, and Hugh Grant was hilarious as the evil arms broker billionaire, but definitely a paint by number action movie. Enjoyable to watch, but nothing deep. Overall Grade: C Next up is Legend, which came out in 1985. This is a very weird movie told as sort of an '80s style dark fairy tale. The premise is that the Lord of Darkness wants to destroy all light (as lords of darkness are wont to do). But to do that, he needs to kill a pair of unicorns. He sends his goblin minions to do the deed. Meanwhile, Princess Lili is in love with Jack, a forest child who lives in harmony with various elves and dwarves and other natural creatures. When the goblins kill one of the unicorns and take the other back to Darkness's subterranean fortress, Jack and Lili have to team up to rescue the last unicorn and defeat Darkness. The creature work and all the puppets and suchlike look amazing. Poor Tim Curry delivered an excellent performance under that mountain of prosthetics he had to wear as Darkness. That said, I don't think Tom Cruise had quite learned how to act yet, and I'm afraid he kind of stood around with a blank expression most of the time. So I'd say Legend is an interesting fantasy classic, but definitely very niche. Overall Grade: B- Next up is Anaconda, which came out in 2025. This is a very meta, bonkers, and yet nonetheless entertaining comedy movie. It kind of went off the rails while shouting "WHEEEEEE" the entire time. College friends Doug, Griff, Claire, and Kenny are entering middle age and are all dissatisfied with how their lives have turned out. Doug wanted to be a director, but instead makes wedding videos. Griff is a struggling actor. Claire is a divorced lawyer and Kenny is a "Buffalo drunk (he only drinks beer and wine and just some, but not all of the hard liquors). When Griff acquires the rights to make the next movie in the Anaconda series, the four friends jump at the chance to make it as an indie film. Scraping together their savings, they set off for the Amazon to film their snake movie. However, they find themselves caught in the middle of a fight between illegal gold miners and the Brazilian government and there is an actual giant anaconda that is hunting both the gold miners and idealistic American filmmakers. This was very meta since the characters were making a movie in the Anaconda series…in a movie in the Anaconda series. Despite that, it was very funny and I enjoyed it, though it might be a bit too tongue in cheek for some viewers. Comedy, alas, is ever subjective. Overall Grade: B- Next up is Fackham Hall, which came out in 2025. Sometimes a movie is funny but dumb. Sometimes a movie is dumb but still funny, and sometimes a movie is just plain dumb. However, I'm pleased to report that Fackham Hall is the best of the three: funny, but dumb. It's a goofy but affectionate parody of Downton Abbey and the kind of movie that isn't afraid to make jokes simply for the sake of jokes. Interestingly, halfway through the movie takes the right hand turn and becomes a parody of an Agatha Christie novel. It was pretty funny in the vein of the Naked Gun or Airplane movies, though a few of the jokes might be too raunchy for some viewers. Overall Grade: B- Next up is Wrecking Crew, which came out in 2026. I would say this was one part buddy cop comedy, one part noir mystery, and one part John Wick style violence. When private investigator Walter Hale is killed by a hit and run in Hawaii, both his sons (by different mothers) conclude that it was murder. Straight laced James (played by Dave Bautista) is a Navy SEAL with a stable family life, while Maverick cop Johnny (played by Jason Momoa) is frequently drunk and on the outs and on the outs with his girlfriend. Nevertheless, both half-brothers independently realize that shady corporate interests killed their father and set out to find his killers. They must also deal with their complicated feelings with their father and overcome their deep seated resentment of each other. This was a pretty fun action movie, though the violence level is definitely John Wick level and might put off some viewers. Honestly, it made me wonder if there's a "Hawaiian Noir" mystery genre, the way that "Nordic Noir" novels were popular for a while. Overall Grade: B Next up is The Running Man, which came out in 2025. This is both very dark and very funny, and I think it was actually better than the original movie from the 1980s. It explores the same concept. Future America is a dystopia ruled by the Network megacorp and Glen Powell's character needs to get medicine for his daughter, but he can't afford it, so he tries out for the Network's cruel reality shows and lands a spot on the biggest one of all, The Running Man, where contestants have to stay alive and hidden for 30 days while they're hunted by mercenaries and the general public gets rewarded for informing on them. This definitely had strong Idiocracy vibes as well and the satire of contemporary American culture was very cutting and probably quite accurate. I do think this movie deserved better than to flop at the box office like it did, but perhaps it will have a long life on streaming. Overall Grade: B Next up is A Few Good Men, which came out in 1992. This is a high quality legal thriller carried by Tom Cruise's and Jack Nicholson's performances. Today, Tom Cruise is largely famous for extreme stunts like driving a motorcycle cycle off a cliff (it did make for a good movie) and various personal eccentricities, but both he and Nicholson really can act and their scenes together are great. Sometime between this and Legend (which we talked about earlier), Cruise really figured out how to act on screen. Anyway, when a Marine is killed during a hazing ritual, Lieutenant Kaffee (played by Tom Cruise), is called in to investigate, aided by Lieutenant Commander Galloway (played by Demi Moore). Colonel Jessup (who was played by Nicholson), the commander of the Marines in question, wants to cover up what really happened, and Kaffee and Galloway set out to prove that the Marines charged with murder were in fact following orders when the hazing ritual went wrong. Of course, the movie hinges around Kaffee's and Jessup's final confrontation in the courtroom. I have a theory that all genres are in fact variants of fantasy. Like romance is the fantasy of true love, thrillers are the fantasy of violence and so forth. This movie would be the fantasy of the legal thriller, where the bad guy cracks on the stand. In real life, of course, when generals screw up, the privates, the NCOs, and the junior officers get thrown under the bus while the generals go on to cushy gigs at the Rand Corporation or Lockheed Martin. The strength of the performances makes the fantasy and therefore the movie work. Overall Grade: A Next up is The Paper, which came out in 2025. I ended up with a month of the Peacock streaming service, so I decided to give The Paper a try. It is a spinoff of the classic The Office [US] sitcom from the 2000 to 2010s. The premise is that failing paper company Dunder Mifflin from The Office has been purchased by a large conglomerate called Enervate. Enervate 's core business is toilet paper and other paper bathroom products, but they also own the Toledo Truth Teller (we'll refer to that as TTT) newspaper, and they use paper pulp that isn't good enough for toilet paper to print the paper. TTT is a regrettably normal local American newspaper in that it's mostly AP Wire articles and ads, with one reporter who covers local sporting events. Things start to change when Ned Sampson takes over as the new editor of TTT. Ned was formally Enervate's best toilet paper salesman, but he has a romantic view of journalism and wants to be a reporter. As a favor to him, the CEO lets him take over TTT. There he meets Mare Pritti, an Army vet in charge of the paper's layout who also wants to be a real journalist, and the two of them hit it off despite their immediate attraction. Ned has to navigate his coworkers (who range from useless to insane and useless to even more insane), corporate politics, rival bloggers, and his growing attraction to Mare. It was a pretty funny first season and I enjoyed it. There's allegedly going to be a second season, so if that happens, I will definitely watch. Overall Grade: A Next up is Conan the Barbarian, which came out in 1982. I actually saw this before like 15 years ago, but I saw it again at the end of February, so it's time to write about it. This is a very specific movie that deserves its status as a cult classic, and I do think it is better than Legend. It wasn't particularly faithful to any of the Conan stories, but it somehow did a good job of capturing the essence of the character. This was one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's first movies. It might have even been his first one, though I'm not sure. He didn't quite have the whole acting thing down yet, so he played Conan as strong, stoic, and mostly silent, which worked quite well for the character. James Earl Jones was excellent as Thulsa Doom, the evil wizard and cult leader who is Conan's nemesis. I guess in the 1980s, if you wanted your fantasy or science fiction film to be successful, you needed your villain to be an armored figure either played by or voiced by James Earl Jones. The Riddle of Steel scene where Conan throws all Doom's atrocities into his face and Doom goes, "ah" in the sense that, "yeah, I get why you want to kill me," was great. The fight scenes and stunts are all the more impressive in hindsight because obviously they're all practical effects and efforts since CGI didn't exist yet, especially given the large number of horses in the movie, since no horses are notoriously very difficult to work with in film. I once heard an experienced rider say managing a horse is like managing a two year old, albeit a two year old that weighs a thousand pounds and is much stronger than you are. The soundtrack by Basil Poledouris is a classic and deservedly so. Like, modern day oligarchs come across less as dark lords and more like malevolent dorks because they travel by private jets and electric car and yachts and so forth. By contrast, Thulsa Doom thunders across the countryside with his Riders of Doom, accompanied by Basil Poledouris's score with trumpets, drums, and choral parts. If you really want to be an intimidating bad guy, your entourage needs to be armored cavalry riders and you need a Basil Poledouris light motif. Conan the character sometimes gets stereotyped or dismissed as a masculine power fantasy (erroneously in my opinion), but the female characters in the movie are pretty good. Conan's mother faces off against the Riders of Doom by herself and Thulsa Doom himself has to use his mental magic to kill her. Prince's Yasmina is kind of the McGuffin of the movie, but she has a character arc as well where she turns against Doom and helps Conan to fight him. Compared to many '70s and '80s film heroines, Valeria was very good. For example, Lois Lane in the 1978 and 1980 Superman movies screams a lot and basically causes Superman to make a lot of bad decisions while being dead weight. By contrast, Valeria kills a bunch of bad guys with her sword, fists fights some evil spirits to save Conan, and then literally comes back from the dead as a Valkyrie to help Conan in the final battle with Thulsa Doom's goons. So this is definitely worth watching as a cult classic of the fantasy genre, though it does have a lot of nudity even by the standards of '80s movies. Overall Grade: A Now for my favorite thing I saw in Winter 2025/ 2026, which was Wonder Man, which came out in 2026. I was surprised by how much I liked this. The main character is Simon Williams, who is a struggling actor in LA. He's a good actor, but he's also an enormous theater nerd with an encyclopedic knowledge of both film and theater, which means he tends to overthink his performances, to the exasperation of the director and crew, which gets him fired a lot. One day he meets Trevor Slattery, the highly eccentric British actor who unknowingly was recruited to play the fake Mandarin back in Iron Man 3. Trevor has since kicked drugs and alcohol and returned to his one true love, acting. He ends up taking Simon under his wing and together they set out to get auditions for Wonder Man, a remake of Simon's favorite superhero movie from when he was a kid. However, both Simon and Trevor have secrets. Simon is concealing actual superpowers since superpowered individuals are not allowed in major film and television productions for safety and legal reasons due to a hilarious side story involving Josh Gad. Trevor was actually recruited under the threat of returning to prison by the Department of Damage Control to spy on Simon since they suspect he has superpowers but can't prove it and they want to find enough evidence to arrest him. The tension of all these plot threads keeps ratcheting up until the final episode. Anyway, this was an excellent self-contained "ground level" Marvel story without a lot of callbacks or cameos or getting lost in the increasingly complex MCU continuity. The friendship between Simon and Trevor, two extremely eccentric actors, was both touching and hilarious. Overall Grade: A+ So those are the movies and streaming shows I watched in Winter 2025 and 2026. So that's it for this week. Thank you for watching The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show enjoyable and interesting. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes with transcripts at https://thepulpwritershow.com. Stay safe, stay healthy, and see you all next week.

Called the “Godfather of the Silicon Valley's Indian Mafia” by Fortune magazine, Kanwal Rekhi's successful journey through the top ranks of the tech world in many ways mirrors the rise of modern India. Now Rekhi comes to Commonwealth Club World Affairs to share his personal account of business leadership and of U.S.-India relations.In his rapid rise through the tech industry, Rekhi rubbed shoulders with luminaries such as Gates, Jobs and Ellison, and he would go on to advise presidents and prime ministers on culture-shifting policies. He is perhaps best know for his work inspiring and launching the careers of thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs, many of whom have become millionaires and even billionaires. He shares stories of his life, career, and outlook in his new book The Groundbreaker, reflecting on what it meant to be an American at the dawn of the digital age, what it means to be an American now amid massive change and uncertainty, and why he believes democracy is crucial to the role that entrepreneurs play in building a better tomorrow. Drawing on his roles as an advisory board member at Stanford's Institute of Economic Policy Research and Rand Corporation's Center for Asian Pacific Policy, Rekhi explores the precarious but interdependent relationships between the United States, India, China and Russia; and how competition and alliances might evolve in the future, especially between America and India; and why the cooperation of the world's oldest democracy and the world's largest democracy is crucial to the continued balance of global power. Join us to hear Rekhi's call to action—for dreamers, doers, and those brave enough to bet on themselves.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“All my life, I've absolutely opposed all terrorism by anyone under any circumstances. I define terrorism as the deliberate killing of noncombatants.” — Daniel Ellsberg, October 2001Last week we had Tom Wells on the show talking about Henry Kissinger's moral indifference to the loss of innocent lives in the Vietnam war. Henry Kissinger, of course, was no fan of the Pentagon Papers— the leaked documents that showed the American government was lying about Vietnam, thereby changing public opinion about the war and helping end it. And the Pentagon Papers are forever associated with one brave man: Daniel Ellsberg, Harvard economist, RAND Corporation strategist, marine, Pentagon insider—and America's most famous whistleblower.Ellsberg died in 2023 at the age of 92. Now his son Michael Ellsberg has co-edited a posthumous collection of his father's previously unpublished writing. Truth and Consequence: Reflections on Catastrophe, Civil Resistance, and Hope draws from a hundred boxes of handwritten notebooks in nearly illegible script, spanning fifty years of moral reckoning. Daniel Ellsberg didn't much care about publishing these notes. His son thought otherwise.What emerges is not another memoir of the Pentagon Papers but a book of ideas—about the nature of evil, the morality of obedience, and what Ellsberg called “civic courage”: taking nonviolent risks when your democracy is in danger. He was inspired not by intellectuals but by young draft resisters going to jail. Daniel Ellsberg's moral lineage ran from Thoreau through Gandhi to Martin Luther King. And his moral absolute was uncompromising: the deliberate killing of civilians is “terrorism”, whoever orders it. By that definition, Daniel Ellsberg defined Harry Truman as a terrorist. Not to mention morally indifferent politicians like Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.Michael Ellsberg is candid about growing up in Berkeley with a father who was loving but distracted—a free-range parent who spent his evenings filling yellow legal pads rather than playing baseball. He's equally candid about what his father would be saying right now: that whatever rationale exists for the Iran war, there are official plans and reasoning that the American public should know about but doesn't. The Pentagon Papers proved the government lied. The question, as American bombs once again rain down on innocent civilians, is whether anything has changed in the last sixty years since “terrorists” like Henry Kissinger lied to the American public about Vietnam. Five Takeaways•       You Are Being Lied to More Than You Realise: That was Ellsberg's message in 1971, and his son says it's his message now. Whatever rationale Trump has for the Iran war, Michael Ellsberg argues, there are plans and reasoning the public should know about but doesn't. The Pentagon Papers proved the government lied about Vietnam. The question is whether anything has changed.•       The Establishment Man Who Became a Traitor: Daniel Ellsberg was Harvard-educated, a RAND Corporation strategist, a marine, a Pentagon aide working under McNamara. He was not a hippie. He was a silent-generation insider who watched the system lie about a war everyone inside knew was hopeless—and decided the public had a right to know.•       All Deliberate Killing of Civilians Is Terrorism: In an essay written in October 2001, Ellsberg proposed a moral absolute: the deliberate killing of noncombatants is terrorism, whoever does it—left or right, aggressor or defender, first world or third. By that definition, Hiroshima was terrorism and Truman was a terrorist. No lesser-evil exceptions.•       Civic Courage Is as Important as Military Courage: Ellsberg modelled what he called “civic courage”—taking nonviolent risks when democracy is in danger. He was inspired by draft resisters going to jail, not by intellectuals writing op-eds. The lineage runs from Thoreau through Gandhi to Martin Luther King. Ellsberg saw himself in that tradition.•       This Book Is a Son's Labour of Love: Daniel Ellsberg spent decades filling yellow legal pads in nearly illegible handwriting. He didn't much care about publication. His son Michael and longtime assistant Jan Thomas thought otherwise. Truth and Consequence draws from a hundred boxes of notebooks spanning fifty years—a book of ideas, not just a memoir of action. About the GuestMichael Ellsberg is the son of Daniel Ellsberg and the co-editor, with Jan R. Thomas, of Truth and Consequence: Reflections on Catastrophe, Civil Resistance, and Hope (Bloomsbury). He is the author of three previous books. He lives in Berkeley, California.ReferencesBooks and references mentioned:•       Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg•       The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsberg•       The Most Dangerous Man in America — Oscar-nominated documentary about Daniel Ellsberg•       The Ellsberg Paradox — Daniel Ellsberg's contribution to decision theory, still discussed in economics•       Previous Keen On episodes: Tom Wells on the Kissinger tapes; McNamara and his mental breakdown; Truman's decision to drop the bomb•       Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. — the civil disobedience lineage Ellsberg claimed as his ownAbout Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: From the Kissinger tapes to the Pentagon Papers (03:37) - Why Daniel Ellsberg matters now (06:21) - The establishment man who became a whistleblower (09:16) - McNamara, RAND, and the stalemate nobody would admit (11:19) - Randy Keeler and the draft resisters who changed everything (12:17) - Gro...

Thank you so much for listening to the Bob Harden Show, celebrating almost 15 years broadcasting on the internet. On Thursday's show, we discuss legislative “wins” for Public Education in this Florida legislative session with the Florida Citizens Alliance Ryan Kennedy. We visit with Cato Institute Health Policy Studies Director Michael Cannon about the Rand Corporation's study on Medicaid spending. We visit with CEI Senior Economist Ryan Young about the economic impact of the war in Iran on our economy and economies world-wide. We also visit with the former Mayor of Naples Bill Barnett. We have terrific guests scheduled for Friday's show including attorney William Yeatman and author and Professor Andrew Joppa. Access this and past shows at your convenience on my web site, social media platforms or podcast platforms.

In this episode of NucleCast, Adam is joined by Dr. Stacie Pettyjohn, senior fellow and director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security, for a thoughtful discussion on the growing role of artificial intelligence in defense and military operations.Dr. Pettyjohn explores how AI is increasingly shaping everything from logistics and decision‑making to nuclear command and control, while weighing the potential benefits against the serious risks of integration. The conversation examines AI's capabilities and limitations, the ethical and strategic challenges it presents, and what its use could mean for nuclear deterrence and autonomous weapons.She emphasizes the importance of balancing innovation with safety, responsibility, and strategic stability as AI becomes more deeply embedded in modern defense systems.Stacie Pettyjohn is a senior fellow and director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security. A leading expert on U.S. defense strategy, force planning, airpower, and wargaming, her work focuses on the future of warfare, including artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, drones, and nuclear deterrence in a multipolar world. Previously, she served on the Joint Staff, chaired a Defense Department advisory subcommittee on force integration, and spent more than a decade at RAND Corporation leading major studies and defense wargames. Her work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and other major outlets. She holds a PhD from the University of Virginia.Socials:Follow on Twitter at @NucleCastFollow on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/nuclecastpodcastSubscribe RSS Feed: https://rss.com/podcasts/nuclecast-podcast/Rate: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nuclecast/id1644921278Email comments and topic/guest suggestions to NucleCast@anwadeter.org

Boortz talks about the current situation in Mexico after the killing of El Mencho. He talks about the issus of drugs, a reduction study that was done by the Rand Corporation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Boortz talks about the current situation in Mexico after the killing of El Mencho. He talks about the issus of drugs, a reduction study that was done by the Rand Corporation.Atlanta's ONLY All Conservative News & Talk Station.: https://www.xtra1063.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2016 the nonpartisan global policy think tank RAND Corporation published a piece called "The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model: Why It Might Work and Options to Counter It" that outlined ways Russia was flooding the internet and social media with false claims, and why this technique — which featured a lack of consistency or relationship to truth — was effective in both creating confusion and getting people to tune out because there was just too much information swirling around. We talk with one of the researchers behind the 2016 perspective to learn how it came about, how they did their research, and what it means through the lens of today, far beyond Russian propaganda.

From Stanford and the RAND Corporation to leading revenue teams in the commercial world, Brent Keltner, PhD, has spent his career decoding how complex B2B deals are actually closed. As founder and president of Winalytics, Brent helps mid-market and enterprise teams move beyond product pitching to true account-based growth. He's the author of “The Revenue Acceleration Playbook” and the forthcoming “Journey First Marketing,” a book that challenges one of B2B's biggest bad habits: obsessing over individual personas when companies actually buy in committees. In this episode, Brent reveals why traditional contact-focused marketing leaves so much revenue on the table and how to flip your entire go-to-market motion around a simple idea: accounts buy, personas don't. You'll hear how to design websites that speak to every member of the buying committee, why customer stories should be your #1 content asset (not #5), and how to connect product value, business value, and corporate value so that users, budget owners, and risk-averse stakeholders all see themselves in your message. https://youtu.be/2dCBKj9vf88 Brent also breaks down a practical roadmap for teams stuck in contact scoring and lead chaos. He explains how to use tools like ChatGPT on top of your CRM to spot real buying committees (not just random clickers or competitors snooping), how to build three aligned content streams for your core buyer types, and how to reuse a single customer story across your entire funnel, website, social, sales decks, and beyond. Whether you're a CMO, CRO, founder, or product marketer, you'll come away with a clearer picture of what true account-based enablement looks like in the real world and how a few smart changes can unlock faster, more predictable growth. Quotes: "Accounts buy. Personas don't, and every part of your marketing should reflect that reality.” “If your customers aren't saying it consistently, it isn't true, no matter how often your CEO repeats it.” “Customer stories are the only asset that turn ‘me selling to you' into ‘we solving a problem together.'” Resources: Winalytics LLC Brent Keltner on LinkedIn The Revenue Acceleration Playbook: Creating an Authentic Buyer Journey Across Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success on Amazon

Noam Dworman, Dan Naturman and Periel Aschenbrand are joined by Michael Mazarr, Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation, author of 10 books including Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America's Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy. Mazarr explains why the Iraq War was not an Israel-driven conspiracy but a catastrophic American decision born of post-9/11 panic, hubris, and bureaucratic failure. It's a needed rebuttal to takes like Dave Smith's, which mistake confident rhetoric for serious historical analysis. Leap of Faith available here:  https://a.co/d/06H6wnO1

Today's episode is the second in a three-part series that examines the potential consequences for China if a military operation against Taiwan were to fail. In each of these episodes, we're speaking with authors of a recently published German Marshall Fund study of the possible costs that China would incur across four different, but interrelated areas: the Chinese economy, the military, Chinese social stability, and international costs. Our podcast today focuses on the potential costs for domestic social stability. To recap, the study considered two scenarios occurring in the next five years. In the first scenario, a minor skirmish escalated into a multi-week maritime blockade of Taiwan by China. Although several dozen members of the Chinese and Taiwanese military were killed, US intervention eventually forced China to de-escalate.  In the second scenario, a conflict escalated into a full-fledged invasion, with Chinese strikes on not only Taiwan but also US forces in Japan and Guam. After several months of heavy fighting, Chinese forces were degraded and eventually withdrew after suffering many tens of thousands of casualties. Joining us today are Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Jake Rinaldi. Sheena is an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and visiting research faculty at the US Army War College. Jake is an associate political scientist at the RAND Corporation.Timestamps: [00:00] Introduction  [02:11] Why This Matters to US Policymakers [04:37] Managing Social Stability During Conflict with Taiwan  [08:01] How the CCP Identifies and Suppresses Sources of Instability[10:44] Social Stability Organizations and Institutions  [15:06] Domestic Pressures & Potential Party Responses [19:00] Estimating Public Support for Reunification [23:09] Scenario 3: Protracted Conventional Conflict [26:55] Lessons Learned from COVID Lockdowns [31:28] Long-Term Implications for Stability Post-Conflict 

Xi Jinping is purging again. Generals once seen as untouchable are gone, rivals erased, loyalty enforced through fear. Is this the move of a leader under real threat or the paranoia of a man who has ruled too long and trusts no one? To find out more, Venetia talks to Political Scientist Shanshan Mei from RAND Corporation.UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been to Beijing, the first British leader to do so in eight years, talking trade, visas and whisky tariffs while security concerns barely made the script. We hear from The Telegraph's Ben Riley-Smith, behind the smiles come burner phones, burner laptops, fears of honey traps and even planes being bugged. Economic opportunity versus national security. Values versus power. Meanwhile Britain faces its own reckoning. Spies in Parliament. Phones hacked inside Downing Street. A vast Chinese mega embassy rising in central London amid warnings from MI5. Venetia is joined in the studio by The Telegraph's Gareth Corfield and Rozina Sabur to discuss the extent of the national security threat posed by China.Read Rozina Sabur's hacking scoop: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/26/china-hacked-downing-street-phones-for-years/Read Gareth Corfield's embassy scoop: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/12/revealed-china-embassy-secret-plans-spy-basement/Read Colin Freeman's analysis: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/27/general-zhang-youxia-chinas-nuclear-secrets/Producer: Peter ShevlinExecutive Producer: Louisa Wells► Sign up to our most popular newsletter, From the Editor. Look forward to receiving free-thinking comment and the day's biggest stories, every morning. telegraph.co.uk/fromtheeditorContact us with feedback or ideas:battlelines@telegraph.co.uk @venetiarainey@RolandOliphant Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Story Point Estimations are failing your Team! - Here We Go Again...Story Pointing wasn't a completely novel idea. It evolved out of the Delphi method — a research technique that helped drive consensus and forecasting built on collective wisdom. In 1950s, RAND Corporation began using it as a way to forecast the effect of technology on warfare.So, it wasn't just an idea dreamed up by someone in the Agile community randomly — no. It's actually based on a scientific approach. Something that's been applied and true in other disciplines for many, many years.And, when Scrum needed a prescriptive technique to help the Teams estimate and measure the amount of work the Team could consistently deliver Sprint after Sprint, this became a recommended approach.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

This episode with my friend and HBS classmate Todd Wilcox was recorded before Todd was nominated for his current role as Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security. We speak about his background and views on business and the world. Todd Wilcox was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security (DS) on October 14, 2025. In this role, he leads the security and law enforcement arm of the U.S. Department of State, ensuring a safe environment for U.S. foreign policy operations. He oversees a global team of Special Agents, Diplomatic Couriers, Security Engineering Officers, Security Technical Specialists, contractors, and administrative personnel.Mr. Wilcox brings decades of leadership experience as a decorated combat veteran, former CIA case officer, and successful entrepreneur. Before joining the State Department, he founded Patriot Defense in 2005, a company dedicated to supporting those who defend America. He served as its Chief Executive Officer for 10 years before transitioning to Executive Chairman, where he guided the company's vision and acquisition strategy.Prior to his business career, Mr. Wilcox served as an Arabic-speaking CIA Field Operations Officer focused on Middle East and counterterrorism issues. His final assignment was as the CIA Liaison Officer to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in Orlando. He joined the CIA in 1997 after serving in the U.S. Army, where he earned the Green Beret as a Special Forces A-Team commander and completed a combat tour during Operation Desert Storm.Mr. Wilcox's achievements have been recognized by the U.S. Army ROTC Hall of Fame, Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award, and the Orlando Business Journal's Veterans of Influence Award. He has served on the boards of the National Defense University Foundation, RAND Corporation's Center for Middle East Public Policy, and the Orlando Economic Partnership.An active member of the Young Professionals Organization (YPO), Mr. Wilcox also serves as Treasurer of Business Force, a nonprofit political action committee.

Director Paul Jay discusses his upcoming documentary How to Stop a Nuclear War, featuring Daniel Ellsberg's final interviews before his death. In conversation with Cole Smith, a former Air Force nuclear missile operator, Jay explains why Ellsberg's journey from Cold War hawk to whistleblower provides the perfect lens for understanding our current nuclear crisis. The discussion covers Cold War lies, the risks of AI-controlled nuclear systems, and concrete steps toward disarmament, including phasing out ICBMs and ending launch-on-warning policies. TranscriptListenDonateSubscribe Cole SmithIt's a privilege to be here, obviously, in a space that's strange for me because I used to work in these silos or ones that were very similar to these. For five years, I was a nuclear missile operator in the Air Force from 2012 to 2017, during which time many journalists, including Geoff Brumfiel, who's here somewhere, did fantastic reporting on some of the shortcomings of the missile force. Anyway, that's a whole other story.It does strike me after the last panel that what we've moved into after lunch is something that is sort of a tone shift in some ways. There's an old quote that you might have heard that a lot of people attribute to Damon of Athens, which is, "Show me the songs of a people, and I care not who writes the laws." I think in some ways, that is not to say that policy is not important, but that one of the ways that we have to move forward on this subject is through the stories that we tell.So, Paul, if you could begin by telling us where you're at with your film. If you could also just catch us up on how you came into your career to be a filmmaker on this subject.Paul JayHi. I think it's a brilliant idea to have the meeting here. Seeing that missile out there. I grew up at a time when I was... I have a young son, he's 13. He's actually up here. I made a deal with him. If he sat through all the panels, he gets to go trail riding in Bentonville.Cole SmithCan I get in on that deal?Paul JayAbsolutely. Please, because I won't get on a bike. He could use some company. So I was around his age during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I was well aware. I was into newspapers when I was six, seven years old, so I was as scared to death as everyone was during that time. By the time I was in high school, I had quit in grade 10 and never went to university because I was absolutely sure I'd be dead by the age of 20.It's interesting because my film features Daniel Ellsberg. When he worked at RAND Corporation, he was offered a pension, and he laughed and said, "I'm not putting money into a pension fund. We're not going to be here."But by the '90s and the end of the '90s, I was pretty much in as much denial about the risks of nuclear war as most others. Then, in around 2018, I read Dan Ellsberg's book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, and that book scared the shit out of me. I said to myself, "This is the most important book I've ever read in my life because of what's at stake." So, I interviewed Dan, and eventually he agreed that I could make a documentary film featuring him, and so the more I get into the topic, the more I realize how dangerous the moment is.Before we watch the trailer, I would like a promise from everyone. Of course, you're not going to make it, but I'm going to ask anyway. Can everyone please stop saying, since the end of the Cold War? It did not end. The Cold War wasn't just about the Soviet Union. The Cold War was about suppressing domestic dissent, weakening workers' unions. It was about exaggerating the external threat, whether it was the Soviet Union or now China.Listen to the rhetoric of President Trump. Is it different than McCarthy's? Is it different than the 1950s? How about Joe Biden saying he's going to defend Taiwan and risk nuclear war? How is that different than what we heard all throughout the Cold War? The Cold War didn't end. We are in the midst of it, and most of us are looking at the world through the filters that we were taught as children, a fabric of lie after lie after lie.If I had more time, I could give you the whole history of the lies, but Dan Ellsberg asked us with this film, he said directly, he said he thought we had the opportunity to do what the Pentagon Papers did, which is uncover the lies of the nuclear era. And then we also want to propose solutions, which you'll see a little bit teased in the trailer, because I am a clinical optimist. Every rational bone in my body says there's nothing to be very optimistic about, and we'd better face up to this.You know, the danger of the moment we're in, yes, since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and probably far more dangerous because maybe we'll talk a bit about AI. We're at a convergence of the existential threat of climate, the existential threat of nukes, we don't know about new pandemics, and the financial architecture. '07, '08, if you listen to the business community that really knows, '07, '08, it was a whisper of what's coming. It's all coming at the same time.So are we humans going to make it? Well, every rational bone in my body says, probably not. As I said, I'm a clinical optimist, and I really do think we can make it, but we'd better face up to this crazy fabric of bullshit that we swim in.Cole SmithTo pivot back to you, Paul, a trusted voice to me, and obviously to you as well, one of the most trusted voices in terms of patriotism to this country, for me, is Daniel Ellsberg. But one of the things that I come up against as a former nuclear missile operator is when I talk to people under a certain age and tell them what I used to do, they look at me like, "What are you... People still do that?"Not to be disrespectful, but Daniel Ellsberg may fall into that category as well for a lot of Americans, where it's become a name that means a lot to maybe fewer amount of people, which, of course, is all the more reason to make a film about him. But I wonder if you could speak a bit about Daniel Ellsberg, and the question that every filmmaker gets is, why now? And so why is it important to lead into this conversation with his voice, specifically at this point in time?Paul JayWell, first of all, it's not a film about Daniel Ellsberg. It's a film about our current moment, what's at risk, and what we can do about it. My approach, my belief is we cannot really face up to the reality of the risk and what solutions are if we don't get past our Cold War mentality. Because we have such a built-in belief system that's been deliberately fabricated, promoted, and inculcated in Americans, in Canadians, and Europeans, right from 1945, '46, at the very least. The reason Ellsberg is a good way to tell the story, part of the story, is because he was a true believer. Ellsberg was the most militant Cold Warrior you could possibly find. I don't know if you know who Curtis LeMay was, but he was almost on the same page. He didn't want to launch. Curtis LeMay was, for people who don't know, the head of STRATCOM, the guy who actually firebombed Japan, ordered the dropping, and actually engineered the dropping of the nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ellsberg was on his page.And then over the course of his time working at RAND Corporation, advising the Pentagon and the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he started to realize this is all based on lies. They lied about the bomber gap. They said the Soviets had 1,000 nuclear bombers, when the Americans only had about 300, 400. The truth turned out to be completely the opposite.Then they had, and out of that, by the way, I'm going to cover some things pretty fast here, but if you want to know more, I'm around. They created something called the SAGE Radar System that came out of the bomber gap, where, "Oh, they're going to come get us with bombers. We're going to have a radar system in Northern Canada that's going to have BOMARC missiles. When they come in, we're going to shoot them out of the sky because they have the advantage; they have more bombers."First, it was a lie. There were no bombers. Second of all, the bloody thing never worked because they never figured out how to deal with radar jamming. But get this, and how come none of you... Raise one person who has ever heard of the SAGE radar system before. Maybe Matt. Not even Matt. Okay, here's one. Oh, two, three. That's remarkable. I almost never get-Cole SmithYou're in good company today.Paul JayI don't know if you know this, but the SAGE Radar System... Now, the Manhattan Project was the biggest industrial project in the history of the United States, and SAGE cost three times more than the Manhattan Project. Did you know that? I didn't know that until recently. It was a boondoggle. It was a scam. It never worked.Then they have the missile gap. You saw it here. "Oh, they have a thousand. We only have 40." It turned out the Soviets had four. But out of that, they created a program called BMEWS, B-M-E-W-S. This was linked to SAGE, and it was going to have a system that could knock out ICBMs on the way in. Never worked. The whole thing was nonsense. Another in today's dollars, billions and billions of dollars.It's been lie after lie, and you can draw a line from this lying right to the Golden Dome, because the anti-ballistic missile systems... I mean, my line about it is, "It's not about the dome, it's about the gold." These are boondoggles, but they're very dangerous boondoggles because they can destabilize the whole balance of nuclear power. Because the problem... I'm jumping way faster, but we don't have much time. The problem with the Golden Dome is that it's SDI of Reagan, but with AI.So, is it possible, and you know that they've always said it's impossible to hit a bullet, meaning an incoming missile, with a bullet, meaning a missile. Now they're saying, "Oh, no, with AI, now we can hit a bullet with a bullet." But it's an entire lie, because even if you can,

As the Japanese police prepare for a raid on the Aum Shinrikyo compound, cult leader Shoko Asahara launches a desperate chemical weapons attack in downtown Tokyo. During the height of Monday morning rush hour, Aum terrorists target five commuter trains with sarin gas, killing 13 people and scarring the psyche of an entire nation. In the aftermath, survivors struggle to pick up the pieces of their lives and adapt to new realities.    SOURCES: Amarasingam, A. (2017, April 5). A history of sarin as a weapon. The Atlantic.  Brackett, D. W. Holy Terror: Armageddon in Tokyo. 1996. Cotton, Simon. “Nerve Agents: What Are They and How Do They Work?” American Scientist, vol. 106, no. 3, 2018, pp. 138–40.  Danzig, Richard; Sageman, Marc; Leighton, Terrance; Hough, Lloyd; Yuki, Hidemi; Kotani, Rui; Hosford, Zachary M.. Aum Shinrikyo: Insights Into How Terrorists Develop Biological and Chemical Weapons . Center for a New American Security. 2011 “Former ER Doctor Recalls Fear Treating Victims in 1995 Tokyo Sarin Attack.” The Japan Times, March 18, 2025.. Gunaratna, Rohan. “Aum Shinrikyo's Rise, Fall and Revival.” Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses, vol. 10, no. 8, 2018, pp. 1–6.  Harmon, Christopher C. “How Terrorist Groups End: Studies of the Twentieth Century.” Strategic Studies Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 3, 2010, pp. 43–84. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26269787.  “IHT: A Safe and Sure System — Until Now.” The New York Times, 21 Mar. 1995. Jones, Seth G., and Martin C. Libicki. “Policing and Japan's Aum Shinrikyo.” How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa'ida, RAND Corporation, 2008, pp. 45–62.  Kaplan, David E. (1996) “Aum's Shoko Asahara and the Cult at the End of the World”. WIRED.  Lifton, Robert Jay. Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism. 1999. Murakami, Haruki. Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche. Translated by Alfred Birnbaum and Philip Gabriel. 2001. Murphy, P. (2014, June 21). Matsumoto: Aum's sarin guinea pig. The Japan Times.  Reader, Ian. Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan: The Case of Aum Shinrikyo.  2000. Tucker, Jonathan B. “Chemical/Biological Terrorism: Coping with a New Threat.” Politics and the Life Sciences, vol. 15, no. 2, 1996, pp. 167–83.  Ushiyama, Rin. “Shock and Anger: Societal Responses to the Tokyo Subway Attack.” Aum Shinrikyō and Religious Terrorism in Japanese Collective Memory., The British Academy, 2023, pp. 52–80.  Williams, Richard. 2003. “Marathon Man.” The Guardian, May 16, 2003. “Woman bedridden since AUM cult's 1995 sarin gas attack on Tokyo subway dies at 56.” The Mainichi (English), 20 Mar. 2020, “30 Years After Sarin Attack — Lessons Learned / Brother Kept Diary For Sister Caught in Sarin Attack, Chronicling Her 25-Year Struggle With Illness” The Japan News, 19 Mar. 2025, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Day 1,412. Today, as military and political chiefs from the Coalition of the Willing meet in Paris, President Zelensky continues to reshuffle his top team, including the replacement of the man behind Operation Spiderweb, a move that has been criticised in Ukraine. We have a look at how 2026 is being reported in the Russian media and, later, we speak to an analyst from the RAND corporation about how AI is now being fielded on drones in the war.ContributorsDominic Nicholls (Associate Editor of Defence). @DomNicholls on X.Lily Shanagher (Foreign Reporter). @LilyShanagher on X.Michael Bohnert (Engineer & Researcher, RAND Corporation). @mbohnert on X.SIGN UP TO THE ‘UKRAINE: THE LATEST' WEEKLY NEWSLETTER:http://telegraph.co.uk/ukrainenewsletter Each week, Dom Nicholls and Francis Dearnley answer your questions, provide recommended reading, and give exclusive analysis and behind-the-scenes insights – plus maps of the frontlines and diagrams of weapons to complement our daily reporting. It's free for everyone, including non-subscribers.LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST IN NEW LANGUAGES:The Telegraph has launched translated versions of Ukraine: The Latest in Ukrainian and Russian, making its reporting accessible to audiences on both sides of the battle lines and across the wider region, including Central Asia and the Caucasus. Just search Україна: Останні Новини (Ukr) and Украина: Последние Новости (Ru) on your on your preferred podcast app to find them. Listen here: https://linktr.ee/ukrainethelatestSubscribe: telegraph.co.uk/ukrainethelatestEmail: ukrainepod@telegraph.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this special year-end edition, hosts Ray Powell and Jim Carouso reflect on a transformative 2025 in the Indo-Pacific, examining the dramatic shift from conventional diplomacy to hard power politics under the Trump 2.0 administration. The episode provides a comprehensive review of the podcast's most impactful conversations, from national government leaders to topical experts, while analyzing the year's major geopolitical developments.Trump 2.0 and the Hard Power PivotJim and Ray discuss how the year began with U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel's appearance, marking the podcast's first sitting ambassador interview. Following President Trump's January inauguration, 2025 witnessed a fundamental reorientation of American Indo-Pacific policy away from soft power initiatives toward military deterrence and economic leverage through tariffs. They discuss how this approach disrupted established norms and international agreements, with potential Supreme Court challenges to executive power looming in 2026.China's Gray Zone and Political Warfare CampaignsGray zone and political warfare emerged as a dominant theme, with a topical episode featuring the RAND Corporation's Todd Helmus becoming the year's most downloaded audio content. The hosts recall what they learned about China's comprehensive political warfare strategy, which treats peacetime as a mere continuation of conflict through non-military means. Notable coverage included the extraordinary incident where two Chinese Coast Guard vessels collided near Scarborough Shoal, producing the year's top video episode as Beijing's propagandists struggled for four days to craft a narrative blaming the Philippines for a setback they couldn't admit to.Regional Flashpoints and ConflictsThe podcast provided critical context for unexpected conflicts, including the India-Pakistan and Thailand-Cambodia border wars. These complex, multi-generational disputes were unpacked by regional experts like Indian strategic analyst Nitin Gokhale and former Cambodian Ambassador Pou Sothirak.The Trump-Modi Relationship UnravelsWhat began as a seemingly stable partnership deteriorated rapidly in 2025, with Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin providing blunt analysis of an unexpectedly cooling U.S.-India relationship. The Trump administration's surprising pivot toward Pakistan represented a stunning reversal from Trump 1.0 policies, raising questions about Quad's future effectiveness and regional security cooperation.Transnational Crime and Human TraffickingInvestigative reporting by the Washington Post's Sue-Lin Wong exposed the exponential expansion and brutal reality of scam compounds across Myanmar, Cambodia and the Philippines, where human trafficking victims are forced into “pig-butchering” and cryptocurrency fraud operations. We also featured Washington Post reporter Rebecca Tan discussing the methamphetamine crisis fueled by Chinese precursor chemicals flowing through lawless Myanmar territories into markets across Asia.Historic Interviews and Podcast Milestones2025 brought unprecedented access, including interviews with Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro and the podcast's first head-of-state guest, Palau's President Surangel Whipps Jr. Documentary filmmaker Baby Ruth Villarama also came on to discuss Beijing's failed attempt to suppress her West Philippine Sea documentary, while North Korean defector Timothy Cho shared his harrowing escape story.​The hosts also recall the podcast's experiments with live broadcasts covering Australia's election results and China-Japan tensions.2026 OutlookMonthly listenership quadrupled in 2025, establishing the podcast as the leading Indo-Pacific affairs platform. As 2026 approaches, the hosts anticipate continued geopolitical turbulence, Supreme Court tariff decisions and evolving great power competition dynamics across the region.

Healthcare premiums keep rising, but plan quality often stays the same (or gets worse). In this conversation, Shaun Enders sits down with Donovan Pyle—CEO of Health Compass and author of Fixing Healthcare—to unpack why the employer-sponsored healthcare market functions the way it does. Donovan explains the "hidden supply chain" behind your healthcare spend, why broker incentives often conflict with employer outcomes, and how CEOs can start reclaiming wasted dollars by getting unbiased, fiduciary-aligned guidance and improving visibility into unit pricing. Key Topics Covered Why employer healthcare spend feels unstoppable, and why that belief is "trained" The healthcare supply chain and how lack of transparency drives waste How brokers were historically designed to function (and why incentives matter) Why networks can hide prices and distort the price/quality relationship The "discount off infinity" problem behind EOBs (Explanation of Benefits) Regulatory capture and why some states limit small-business options Certificate of Need ("CON") laws and how they restrict competition The shift toward fiduciary models (similar to what happened in retirement plans) Practical steps for CEOs: visibility, vendor stack, and unbiased advisory support Chapters / Timestamps (YouTube-style) 00:01 – Welcome + why this topic matters to Shaun (20 years of premium increases) 01:17 – The big numbers: employer-sponsored coverage, $1.3T spend, and the "waste" claim 02:03 – Why finance/HR teams aren't set up to understand healthcare procurement 03:54 – The broker dilemma: "the only voice you have" vs. conflicts of interest 05:29 – Why Donovan focuses on the employer-sponsored market (not Medicare/Medicaid) 07:27 – The origin story: the first U.S. insurance plan (1929) and what became Blue Cross 09:26 – Brokers as "retail distribution" and why costs rising helps the sell-side 11:59 – ACA, cost-plus dynamics, and why vertical integration changed the game 14:52 – Reframing healthcare: not one line item—a supply chain 16:31 – Shaun's parallel: higher education costs and "cracks in the veneer" 19:14 – The strategy universe expands once you get unbiased advice 21:21 – Cash pricing: why individuals sometimes get better pricing than big insurers 23:34 – Shaun's billing experience: allowed vs billed, even in integrated systems 25:35 – EOBs as marketing: "Island Speak" and the illusion of savings 29:40 – Small business reality in CA/NY/WA: limited options and why 34:50 – Certificate of Need ("CON") laws: regulating supply and blocking competition 42:07 – ACA subsidies: what's expiring and what the market may revert to 46:31 – The most practical step: get unbiased, fiduciary-aligned advice 51:16 – Parallels to financial services: commissions → fee-based fiduciary models 57:14 – Real example: PBM RFP leading to multi-million-dollar savings 59:18 – Bringing it back to purpose: time, meaning, and what drives Donovan 01:05:29 – Where to find Donovan + free executive summary roadmap https://assessment.healthcompassconsulting.com/tba Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/9vEdj0XBOyI Connect with Shaun: www.CallTSG.com www.BusinessFinanceAndSoul.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunenders/ People / Organizations Mentioned Donovan Pyle – CEO, Health Compass; author of Fixing Healthcare Validation Institute – referenced as a place to find fiduciary-based firms RAND Corporation (2021 study referenced) – cash pricing / employer pricing dynamics David Goldhill – author of Catastrophic Care (chapter: "Island Speak") Harris Rosen – Rosen Hotels (Orlando), example of long-term employer healthcare strategy Resources Mentioned Free executive summary + roadmap: FixingHealthcare.com Book: Fixing Healthcare (Donovan Pyle) Book: Catastrophic Care (David Goldhill) Disclaimer This episode discusses healthcare financing and benefits strategy from an employer perspective. It is not medical, legal, or financial advice.

On March 20th, 1995, the Tokyo subway system was flooded with sarin nerve gas in a coordinated terrorist attack by the religious cult Aum Shinrikyō. Led by the charismatic new-age guru, Shoko Asahara, the well-funded and technologically ambitious Aum organization manufactured and deployed chemical weapons in an attempt to bring about the end of the world. In the chaos that followed, 13 people were killed, thousands were injured, and the international community shuddered at the possibility of future attacks by fringe political groups.    SOURCES: Amarasingam, A. (2017, April 5). A history of sarin as a weapon. The Atlantic.  Cotton, Simon. “Nerve Agents: What Are They and How Do They Work?” American Scientist, vol. 106, no. 3, 2018, pp. 138–40.  Danzig, Richard; Sageman, Marc; Leighton, Terrance; Hough, Lloyd; Yuki, Hidemi; Kotani, Rui; Hosford, Zachary M.. Aum Shinrikyo: Insights Into How Terrorists Develop Biological and Chemical Weapons . Center for a New American Security. 2011. Gunaratna, Rohan. “Aum Shinrikyo's Rise, Fall and Revival.” Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses, vol. 10, no. 8, 2018, pp. 1–6.  Harmon, Christopher C. “How Terrorist Groups End: Studies of the Twentieth Century.” Strategic Studies Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 3, 2010, pp. 43–84. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26269787.  “IHT: A Safe and Sure System — Until Now.” The New York Times, 21 Mar. 1995. Jones, Seth G., and Martin C. Libicki. “Policing and Japan's Aum Shinrikyo.” How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa'ida, RAND Corporation, 2008, pp. 45–62.  Kaplan, David E. (1996) “Aum's Shoko Asahara and the Cult at the End of the World”. WIRED.  Lifton, Robert Jay. Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism. 1999. Murakami, Haruki. Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche. Translated by Alfred Birnbaum and Philip Gabriel. 2001. Murphy, P. (2014, June 21). Matsumoto: Aum's sarin guinea pig. The Japan Times.  Reader, Ian. Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan: The Case of Aum Shinrikyo.  2000. Tucker, Jonathan B. “Chemical/Biological Terrorism: Coping with a New Threat.” Politics and the Life Sciences, vol. 15, no. 2, 1996, pp. 167–83.  Ushiyama, Rin. “Shock and Anger: Societal Responses to the Tokyo Subway Attack.” Aum Shinrikyō and Religious Terrorism in Japanese Collective Memory., The British Academy, 2023, pp. 52–80.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's easy to blame algorithms and AI for corroding our information ecosystem, but our guest this week argues that we have a just as much, if not more of a role to play in creating the environment we want to see. Ray Block Jr. is the Brown-McCourtney Career Development Professor at Penn State and the Michael D. Rich Chair in Countering Truth Decay and RAND Corporation. He joins us to discuss the new report, "Rebalancing the Information Ecosystem and Renewing Shared Societal Commitments for Information Use," published by RAND earlier this fall. Block's scholarly research includes community organizing and social identity. You'll hear that perspective come through in this conversation, which focuses on how social fabric — not fact checking or tech policy —is the key to creating a healthy information environment and, in turn, a healthy democracy. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Were you inspired by "Star Trek" (or one of its innumerable spinoffs) as a young person? We know we were, so it was a pleasure to invite Glen Swanson, author of the new Star Trek history book "Inspired Enterprise" onto the show. We've all heard lore about the original series, but Swanson, who was previously the Chief Historian at the Johnson Space Center, used his prodigious skills to perform a deep dive into the topic. From Gene Roddenberry's original inspiration to working with Caltech, the RAND Corporation, and NASA; and on to the design of the good ship Enterprise itself (and the very popular AMT models that followed), this book provides everything you need to know to be a certified Trekker. Headlines: Comet 3I Atlas confirmed as a comet, not a spacecraft & NASA releases new images and details of the comet SpaceX's Starship Version 3 booster suffers damage during test Uranus reaches yearly opposition—best viewing opportunity Main Topic: The Real Inspirations Behind Star Trek Glenn Swanson shares career highlights as a NASA historian and magazine founder How Gene Roddenberry's background and influences shaped Star Trek NASA's direct involvement and technical guidance for Star Trek's creators The significant role of the aerospace industry, Rand Corporation, and real-world science in Star Trek's development The story behind NASA and the Smithsonian Enterprise shooting model connections AMT's plastic model kits fueled fan obsession and supported the show's visuals Influences from movies like Robinson Crusoe on Mars and Forbidden Planet Space Station K7 design's origins traced to NASA and Douglas Aircraft concepts Star Trek's impact on inspiring real-life astronauts and the space community Glenn Swanson's book, "Inspired Enterprise," and how you can get a signed copy Hosts: Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik Guest: Glen Swanson Download or subscribe to This Week in Space at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Bernie Sanders says a vast amount of wealth - $50 trillion - has moved from 90% of the population to the wealthiest Americans since the 1970s. The figure comes from a study by Carter Price, a senior mathematician at nonprofit research institute the RAND Corporation.Tim Harford speaks to Carter to understand how he calculated his figures and what they really mean.If you've seen a number in the news you think we should take a look at, email moreorless@bbc.co.uk Presenter: Tim Harford Producer: Nicolas Barrett Series producer: Tom Colls Sound mix: Giles Aspen Editor: Richard Vadon

Is your Empire feeling less than fresh? Does it feel like the modern world's best days are behind it? Do conquest and global power politics not hit as good as they used to? Welcome to the Age of Stagnation, a time when the fruits of the Industrial Revolution can be enjoyed but not replicated.It's making us all a little crazy, especially world leaders. With us today on the show is Michael Beckley, a political science professor at Tufts University and his career includes stretches at the Pentagon, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the RAND Corporation. To hear Beckley tell it, stagnation might not be such a bad thing. If we can avoid repeating the worst mistakes of the 20th century and let go of a “number go up” mind set, then maybe we can all learn to enjoy a long age of stabilization.The diminishing returns of the Industrial RevolutionWinners and losers in the Age of AscentMoore's Law sputters outStabilization isn't so bad. “We're some of the luckiest people who've ever lived.”Shenanigans and shithouseryAI isn't “ready” yetWhy conquest doesn't work anymoreChina as a paper tiger in the age of stabilizationAmerica's unique advantages“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” - Mike TysonThe Stagnant OrderI Tried the Robot That's Coming to Live With You. It's Still Part Human.Michael BeckleySupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My conversation with Dr Colin Clarke starts at about 34 minutes after headlines and clips Subscribe and Watch Interviews LIVE : On YOUTUBE.com/StandUpWithPete ON SubstackStandUpWithPete Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day. This show is Ad free and fully supported by listeners like you! Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 750 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous soul Colin P. Clarke, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of The Soufan Center. His research focuses on domestic and transnational terrorism, international security, and geopolitics. Dr. Clarke previously served as the Director of Research at The Soufan Group and as a Senior Research Fellow with The Soufan Center. Prior to those roles, Clarke was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, where he spent a decade researching terrorism, insurgency, and criminal networks. At RAND, Clarke led studies on ISIS financing, the future of terrorism and transnational crime, and lessons learned from all insurgencies since the end of World War II. Clarke is also an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) – The Hague, a non-resident Senior Fellow in the Program on National Security at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), an Associate Fellow at the Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET), and a member of the "Network of Experts" at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. He serves on the editorial board of three of the leading scholarly journals in the field of terrorism studies, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence, and Perspectives on Terrorism. Clarke has testified before Congress on numerous occasions as an expert witness on a range of terrorism-related issues, appears frequently in the media to discuss national security-related matters, and has published several books on terrorism and armed conflict, including his forthcoming Moscow's Mercenaries: The Rise and Fall of the Wagner Group (Columbia University Press, 2026). Clarke has briefed his research at a range of national and international security forums, including the U.S. Army War College, U.S. Air Force Special Operations School, Society for Terrorism Research International Conference, the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF), and the Counter ISIS Financing Group (CIFG), which is part of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. In 2011, he spent several months as an analyst with Combined Joint Interagency Task Force-Shafafiyat at ISAF headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan, working for General H.R. McMaster, the former U.S. National Security Advisor, where he was responsible for analyzing criminal patronage networks in Afghanistan and how these networks fueled the insurgency. Clarke has a Ph.D. in international security policy from the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA). Join us Thursday's at 8EST for our Weekly Happy Hour Hangout! Subscribe and Watch Interviews LIVE On YOUTUBE.com/StandUpWithPete ON SubstackStandUpWithPete Pete on Blue Sky Pete on Threads Pete on Tik Tok Pete on YouTube Pete on Twitter Pete On Instagram Pete Personal FB page Stand Up with Pete FB page Gift a Subscription https://www.patreon.com/PeteDominick/gift Send Pete $ Directly on Venmo All things Jon Carroll Hire DJ Monzyk to build your website or help you with Marketing

Day 1,321.Today, we break down Ukraine's escalating drone war targeting Russian industry and examine how Ukrainian intelligence claims China supplied satellite imagery of US-funded factories. We also cover the latest riots in Georgia and election results in Czechia, analysing what they reveal about European political stability. Later, following a weekend of explosions across Russia and occupied Crimea, a RAND Corporation analyst joins us to assess Putin's weakening oil industry, the potential breaking point for Russia's energy sector, and how a proposed European “drone wall” could reshape the continent's defences.Contributors:Dominic Nicholls (Associate Editor of Defence). @DomNicholls on X.Francis Dearnley (Executive Editor for Audio). @FrancisDearnley on X.With thanks to RAND Analyst Michael Bohnert.CONTENT REFERENCED:‘The Battle for Odesa: Ukraine's Culture War' (Francis & Dom Video Documentary):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28HqbQLYGMM Europe is facing its ‘Pearl Harbor moment' (Landbergis in The Telegraph):https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/10/05/europe-faces-pearl-harbor-moment/ Georgia's presidential palace ‘attacked' after pro-Russia party's win (The Telegraph):https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/10/05/georgia-protests-presidential-palace-georgian-dream-tbilisi/ Santander hires former head of British Army (The Telegraph):https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/10/06/santander-hires-former-head-of-british-army/ BOOK NOW: 'UKRAINE: THE LATEST' LIVE, IN-PERSON:Join us for an in-person discussion and Q&A at the distinguished Honourable Artillery Company in London on 22nd October at 7pm.Our panel includes General Sir Richard Barrons, former head of UK Joint Forces Command and latterly one of the authors of Britain's Strategic Defence Review, and Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukraine Forum at the Chatham House think tank. Tickets are open to everybody and can be purchased at:https://www.squadup.com/events/ukraineliveThey are going fast, so don't delay!SIGN UP TO THE ‘UKRAINE: THE LATEST' WEEKLY NEWSLETTER:http://telegraph.co.uk/ukrainenewsletter Each week, Dom Nicholls and Francis Dearnley answer your questions, provide recommended reading, and give exclusive analysis and behind-the-scenes insights – plus maps of the frontlines and diagrams of weapons to complement our daily reporting. It's free for everyone, including non-subscribers.Subscribe: telegraph.co.uk/ukrainethelatestEmail: ukrainepod@telegraph.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.