John Robb cites research by Peter Schwartz' GBN:

The overwhelming message was the antipathy non-Americans now feel towards the US. And Americans just weren't seeing that at all. There was no war on terrorism anywhere outside the US. In fact, there was a clear perception that the US was the problem. The scenario that everyone else was talking about was how could you constrain the US, not how could you defeat terrorism. So there are completely different perceptions of the world.

This is like a cigarette company relying today on the brand it established two generations ago.The world changed, people have new information, and they are more skeptical of spin.  

It is not enough to be America. We need to engage all our external stakeholders. Cluefully. Even gonzonomically.

Time to renew voice of america. Fund libraries. Sponsor student exchange programs. Give blogs to the starving people of a dark continent. Send Rageboy to any of the evil empires. Build hospitals. Send drugs.

Listen.  

I have a Leonid hangover from getting to bed at 6am.

Worth it.

It was like being inside a puffed up souffle, darkness pierced by blazing light ripping where a chef slashes it open.

Close your eyes and see phosporous-hot streaks across your eyelids.

I know what an invasion from Mars will look like, ships too numerous to count flashing too fast to see across a night sky.

Fragments happily careening through the cosmos for eons, only to run into our gravity well of a speed trap, coming to life  for a few seconds before becoming dust.

I had a sense of moment; generations will be born and die before nature's clock brings the meteor shower back. Reminds me of being in a Richter 7 earthquake, a bloody riot.

We had print-to-fax a long time ago. Why not Print-to-Blog? Weblog as printer driver!

Make it so I can post from almost any app.

Most apps have a document object model on the sending end. I think there are components that render to html. We have the programming hooks on the receiving end. What's left? 

[a klog apart Blue Sky Radio]