Insecure Gulf

The subtitle is The End of Certainty and the Transition to the Post-Oil Era. The author is Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, deputy director of the Kuwait Research Program on Development, Governance, and Globalization in the Gulf States, based at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Ulrichson takes the present day oil-rich conditions, and imagines what they may mean sometime in the future when the oil resources are depleted and the world is making a transition to a non-oil based economy.

See what you think. You can get a Google preview of the book here.

GCC has team in NCAA Final 4 for second time in 5 years

The Gulf Coast Conference Countries are having great success out of proportion to the GCC's reputation in men's college hoops.

First it was George Mason University in 2006 with its UAE RAK roots.

Now it's Virginia Commonwealth University with its Qatar roots.

Both are members of a prestigious club: teams that have made it to the NCAA Men's Basketball Final 4.

VCU defeated the titan, Kansas, to reach The Final 4. May Qatar (and the UAE) have the same success in the skies over Libya.

The VCU-Qatar ties are in the arts. Coincidentally, today, US News & World Report ranked VCU #1 in sculpture, and #4 in fine arts.


Did I mention I live in Richmond, Virginia, home to VCU?

Stateside, George Mason and VCU are known as members of the Colonial Athletic Association.

Colonial? Hmmm. How about Trucial?