Tag Archives: politics

White Paper: Why Communities Resist Data Centers — and What Would Be Required to Make Them Welcome Neighbors

Posted on January 8, 2026 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary Data centers are now core civic infrastructure: they underpin AI systems, cloud computing, financial transactions, communications, logistics, healthcare, and public administration. Yet despite their indispensability—and despite demand driven by heavy users such as AI researchers, enterprises, and governments—data … Continue reading →

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White Paper: Quiet Signals, Loud Consequences: Symbolic Protest, Media Blind Spots, and Legitimacy Erosion in Contemporary Iran

Posted on January 7, 2026 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary Recent protest activity in Iran—circulating primarily through diaspora networks and informal media—reveals a phase of unrest that is symbolic, ritualized, and socially embedded, rather than spectacular or riot-driven. These actions include outdoor placement of office furniture, ritualized food … Continue reading →

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White Paper: Comparative Legitimacy and Institutional Failure Modes: Why the Baseball Hall of Fame and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Are More Contested Than Football and Basketball

Posted on January 7, 2026 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary This white paper examines why the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame have become persistent flashpoints of controversy, while the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of … Continue reading →

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White Paper: Illegibility in Polarized Times: What Polarization Prevents Societies from Seeing

Posted on January 6, 2026 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary Highly polarized environments generate a distinctive failure mode: illegibility. This condition arises when interpretive frameworks become so simplified, moralized, and identity-bound that entire categories of thought, motive, and responsibility are no longer visible to participants. Actors operating outside … Continue reading →

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Formation and Its Neglected Importance in Persons and Nations: A White Paper

Posted on January 6, 2026 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary Modern societies exhibit a persistent tendency to evaluate individuals and nations almost exclusively by outcomes: productivity, compliance, stability, growth, or crisis avoidance. This paper argues that such outcome-focused analysis systematically neglects formation—the slow, layered, and cumulative processes by … Continue reading →

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White Paper: Failure Modes When a Fragile State Holds a UN Security Council Seat: The Case of Somalia (2025–2026)

Posted on January 5, 2026 by nathanalbright

Executive summary Somalia’s election to a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council (UNSC) for the 1 January 2025–31 December 2026 term is a diplomatic milestone.  But the same conditions that make Somalia’s experience valuable—protracted conflict, high external dependence, contested … Continue reading →

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White Paper: Diagnosis and Prognosis of Legitimacy Failure in Iran (January 2026) and Its Consequences

Posted on January 5, 2026 by nathanalbright

Executive summary Iran is experiencing a compounding legitimacy failure driven by (1) acute economic deterioration (currency collapse, high inflation, shortages), (2) long-running procedural legitimacy erosion (perceptions of exclusionary elections and narrowing political choice), (3) security-first governance that treats dissent as … Continue reading →

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White Paper: Property Seizure from Private Owners — Who Benefits, and Where Courts Are Moving (2024–2026)

Posted on January 4, 2026 by nathanalbright

Executive summary Across U.S. jurisdictions, the headline story is not one single “land grab” mechanism but a portfolio of property-transfer pathways—tax foreclosure, eminent domain, civil forfeiture, and code/blight enforcement—that can convert private assets into public revenue, redevelopment land banks, or … Continue reading →

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White Paper: Legal Questions & Second-Order Effects of the U.S. Military Operation in Venezuela

Posted on January 3, 2026 by nathanalbright

January 3, 2026 edition This white paper analyzes the legal underpinnings and emerging second-order regional and global consequences resulting from the reported U.S. military action in Venezuela—specifically the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and assertions by Donald Trump that the … Continue reading →

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White Paper: How 25,000 Barrels of DDT Waste Could Be Dumped Near Los Angeles—and What That Reveals About Regulatory Failure

Posted on January 1, 2026 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary Reports emerging since 2020 indicate that industrial waste associated with DDT manufacturing was disposed in deep waters off the Los Angeles–Catalina corridor, including a debris field that early sonar interpretations suggested might include tens of thousands of barrel-like … Continue reading →

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