United States
United States
Fair Observer provides inclusive, insightful and non-partisan analysis of important American issues, events and trends.
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Crowdfunding / Hollywood / Kickstarter / Knowledge@Wharton / Startups / United States / Veronica Mars / Veronica Mars Kickstarter Campaign / WB / Focus Article / Business & EntrepreneurshipThe success of the "Veronica Mars" Kickstarter campaign has illustrated that crowdfunding is a reliable source of capital for both start-up businesses and established firms. The campaign to front a movie based on the cult television show "Veronica Mars" through crowdfunding broke records for the fastest project ever to raise $1 million on Kickstarter. It was the website's biggest film project so far, and it has the most backers of any project to date. What it probably didn't do, Wharton experts say, is throw open the doors of crowdfunding to major motion pictures. But that's OK: Crowdfunding is successfully helping entrepreneurs raise capital without the need...
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Adobe / Cloud Computing / Computing / Creative Suite / Knowledge@Wharton / Online Cloud Services / Photoshop / United States / Focus Article / Business & EntrepreneurshipAdobe is favoring subscription-based software and online "cloud" services. If support for the company's cloud transition sticks, other vendors may quickly adapt. Adobe, the leading software company targeting creative professionals, is exiting the shrink-wrap software business in favor of subscription-based software and online "cloud" services. While perhaps painful at first, the business model change will be ultimately beneficial for consumers and Adobe alike, and other software companies are likely to follow, say experts at Wharton. On May 6, Adobe said it would stop developing its flagship Creative Suite, which includes applications such as Photoshop, in...
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Antony Evans / crowd-funding / Deeba Fahami / Fundraising / Glowing Plants Project / Kickstarter / Stanford / synthetic biology / United States / Vibrio Fischeri / Focus Article / Science & Technology / Environment & SustainabilityBy Deeba FahamiIn a world of austerity and shrinking research budgets, the crowd-funding method at the core of the Glowing Plant Project offers a radically different approach to scientific research funding. The first synthetic biology project that has launched on Kickstarter, the Glowing Plant Project, brings a whole new approach to scientific research. This project, which has raised over $365k in under four weeks, aims to create a real glowing plant using synthetic biology. The project is testing the new frontier of science in which science is conducted outside the walls of a big institution. About the Project Antony Evans, the project manager says: "The goal of the project is to educate the public...
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360° Analysis / Algerian War / Colonialism / Extremism / France / Informed Comment / Islam / Juan Cole / Muslims / Russia / Stalin / terrorism / Tsar / United States / World War 1 / World War 2 / Europe / Middle East / Africa / Global Security / AsiaBy Juan ColeTerrorism is a tactic of extremists within each religion, and within secular religions of Marxism or nationalism. No religion, including Islam, preaches indiscriminate violence against innocents, argues Juan Cole. Contrary to what is alleged by bigots like Bill Maher, Muslims are not more violent than people of other religions. Murder rates in most of the Muslim world are very low compared to the United States. As for political violence, people of Christian heritage in the 20th Century polished off tens of millions of people in the two world wars and colonial repression. This massive carnage did not occur because European Christians are worse than or different from other human beings, but...
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360° Analysis / Boston Bombings / Chechen-Russian War / Chechens / Chechnya / Iliana Hagenah / international security / terrorism / Tsarnaev / United States / Europe / Global SecurityHistorically, radical jihadists in Chechnya do not have the ideological ambition to form a network of Chechens against the US, argues Iliana Hagenah. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher once called Chechen rebels "freedom fighters" but they are now seen by many as radical Islamists. Chechen Islamists have recently been making the headlines. Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the two brothers who recently bombed the Boston Marathon, are suspected to be products of the radical Islamist movement that has gripped Chechnya and parts of the Chechen Diaspora. Chechen history offers clues about whether these radical jihadi Islamists are part of a broader anti-American network...
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Anthony Orlando / Ethanol / Manhattan Project / Renewable Energy / United States / Focus Article / Global Change / Environment & SustainabilityAmericans still want investment in renewable energy in a bid to distance themselves from Middle Eastern oil producers. James Gaddy knows manure. Chicken manure, to be exact. He’s spent years working with it. That may not sound like much fun to you and me, but Gaddy is on a mission to power the earth — and, in the process, save it. Specifically, Gaddy has figured out a way to produce ethanol from the bacteria in chicken manure. And it’s cellulosic ethanol, not the corn-based kind that siphons land in Iowa, jacks up the price of food, and results in almost as much greenhouse gas emissions as gasoline. No, this stuff is the real deal. It dramatically reduces greenhouse...
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360° Analysis / AIPAC / Congress / DEFENSE GUIDANCE PLAN / Ehud Barak / George W. Bush / Iraq / Iraq War / Israel / Israel Lobby / Neoconservatives / Politics / Saddam Hussein / Stephen Zunes / terrorism / United States / US Imperialism / WMD / Middle East / Global SecurityStephen Zunes argues that the blame for the Iraq War should not be put on the Israel lobby but the Bush administration and US imperialism. This is the last of a two part series. Read part 1 here. “Pro-Israel Jewish neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, and other neo-cons behind the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) were among the key architects of the policy of ‘preventative war' and were the strongest advocates for a US invasion of Iraq.” While it is true that a disproportionate number of neoconservative Jews were among the policymakers who pushed for a US invasion of Iraq, it is also true that a...
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Ahmed R.Teleb / Edouard Lambert / Eugen Ehrlich / google / google.ps / Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr / Larry Page / Palestine / Politics / Roscoe Pound / sociological jurisprudence / United States / Focus Article / Global Change / Middle EastBy Ahmed TelebMaking the decision for Google to change google.ps' website to mention "Palestine," CEO Larry Page didn't look at international law. Instead, he looked at what social institutions had done regarding Palestine. In turn, Google too followed suit. Google's decision on May 3 to change google.ps' tagline to “Palestine,” implicitly recognized it as a state. It also encapsulated a jurisprudence (philosophy of law) that harkens back to a world-wide quasi-revolution in law from 100 years ago, called by many at the time, the solution to “a crisis of democracy.” Today, that approach may herald a new period of legal transition as recent technology and new economic realities collide with old laws...
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Ban Ki Moon / carbon dioxide / Carbon Emissions / climate change / Cristina Simonetti / greenhouse gases / United States / Europe / 360° Context / Global Change / Middle East / Americas / Africa / Asia / Environment & SustainabilityAs the last significant climate change conference took place six months ago, it is essential to observe developments and create awareness about the issue. Background It was not until after the efforts of a few highly committed scientists in the 1950s and 1960s, such as Hubert Lamb in England and J. Murray Mitchell in the US, that climate change was accepted as a scientific concept. Today, however, the issue is no longer about finding proof, but solutions. At the simplest level, we can define weather as what is happening to the atmosphere at any given time, while climate is what would be expected to occur at any given time of the year based on statistics built up over a long period of time....
