“America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones.” That was the conclusion of the 2002 U.S. National Security Strategy. For a country whose foreign policy in the 20th century was dominated by the struggles against powerful states such as Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union, the U.S. assessment is striking. Nor is the United States alone in diagnosing the problem. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned that “ignoring failed states creates problems that sometimes come back to bite us.” French President Jacques Chirac has spoken of “the threat that failed states carry for the world’s equilibrium.” World leaders once worried about who was amassing power; now they worry about the absence of it.

Foreign Policy offers the The Failed States Index Map as another way to view the world. Read the article here.

SomaFM is kindly making some of the payola documents available for perusal. Most telling quote? After reading lists of travel expenses and schwag comes this little ditty:

WHAT DO i HAVE TO DO TO GET AUDIOSLAVE ON WKSS THIS WEEK?!!? Whatever you can dream up, I can make it happen!!!

How about integrity in the industry?

via Boing Boing

CheapyD over at Cheap Ass Gamer cuts to the chase with his editorial, How Rockstar Screwed Us and Why Jack Thompson is Right, and it is on the money. Rockstar’s crisis PR amateur hour did wonders to the public image of gaming and will very likely exact a toll on the industry as a whole. If not through legislation it will very likely that publishers will think twice about developing edgy games and will sink further into risk averse business practices. As if endless sequels aren’t bad enough it is likely that content will be sanitized for our controversy phobic culture. Videogames will join ranks with all the other empty and meaningless media in our nation like TV and newspapers. Thanks again, Rockstar. You suck.