Iconic Shorthand

To save time and space, and more importantly, to stop having to repeat the same dry information in front of regulars while I bring new visitors up to speed, I’m going to implement a little shorthand. I’ll be using icons at the start of each post to quickly identify which (if any) Elements of National Power are most relevant. If someone wants to question the reference in a comment, that’s OK, I just don’t want to have to go through the whys and wherefores every single time.

BTW: At this moment, I have no idea if this blog has received any browsers that are not either a friend, invited reviewer, or a relative. I’ve asked some of my friends and relatives to give me their comments offline and am tweaking my approach to ‘doing’ this site largely based upon their inputs.

Here are the Elements of Power icons:


Military: I picked the B-2 because the AK-47 with bayonet doesn’t shrink down very well at web resolutions .

Economic: Symbol of my currency of choice: the Dollar. I would have liked to also have included symbols for the Yen and British Pound, but that made the icon too busy.

Cultural: This was toughest to decide upon, because all the really good stuff doesn’t shrink down very well. But I settled on using a Celtic Knot as a good representation of a culture, and since I’m of mostly Celtic descent, I figured "why (k)not?".

Demographic: People silhouettes. Self explanatory.

Organizational: The ‘Org’ chart (What Else?)

Geographical: Easy one: a map.

UPDATE: I had to modify this post to cut down the number of graphics- Blogger seems to limit me somewhat in this area.