Mark Fallon provided the keynote presentation on countering violent extremism to over 500 international police officials at the International Association of Women Police (IAWP) conference in Lexington, Kentucky. The IAWP was established in 1915 to strengthen, unite and raise the profile of women in criminal justice internationally.

Col. Muammar Gadhafi will not only go down in history as being one of the world's most brutal and brazen despots, but also as one of its weirdest. From his wardrobe changes to the way he tries to woo women like former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a visit to a psychologist's couch is long overdue.

In what amounts to a fight over who gets to write the history of the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath, the Central Intelligence Agency is demanding extensive cuts from the memoir of a former F.B.I. agent who spent years near the center of the battle against Al Qaeda. The agent, Ali H. Soufan, argues in the book that the C.I.A. missed a chance to derail the 2001 plot by withholding from the F.B.I. information about two future 9/11 hijackers living in San Diego, according to several people who have read the manuscript. And he gives a detailed, firsthand account of the C.I.A.'s move toward brutal treatment in its interrogations, saying the harsh methods used on the agency's first important captive, Abu Zubaydah, were unnecessary and counterproductive.

Only a handful of counterterrorism agents really understood the threat in 2001 -- a tight group from various intelligence and law enforcement agencies who for years had tried unsuccessfully to sound the alarm. Robert McFadden, a longtime counterterrorism investigator with the U.S. Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), was one of them. When the first plane hit the World Trade Center's North Tower, McFadden was where he had been for much of 2001, in Sanaa, Yemen. He was a member of the team investigating the attack on the USS Cole, which Al Qaeda had bombed a year earlier in the harbour of Aden, killing 17 American sailors.

Don Borrelli, former assistant special agent in charge of the FBI-NYPD joint terrorism task force, and senior vice president with security firm the Soufan Group, said the rhetoric is no joke.

Borelli said public awareness has been the government's most valuable asset in foiling plots since 9/11. Twice this year, law enforcement authorities were alerted by business people to the suspicious activities of suspects who were later charged with plotting attacks.

TSG's Mark Fallon presenting on strategic approaches to counter violent extremism at the International Police Executive Symposium (IPES) in Karlskrona, Sweden. IPES provides a forum to foster closer relationships among police researchers and practitioners, globally.

Mey said the recent unrest in London could alter planning for 2012, much like -- on a far different scale -- 9/11 shifted the priorities of security officials several months before the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. Prior to the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., Mey said he and others were primarily focused on the possibility of domestic-based terrorism because of the 1999 riots around the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle and the Centennial Park bombing during the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta.

"A tax on stupidity" is how a former colleague of mine (who typically opposed most forms of taxation) liked to describe, and justify, revenue raised by governments through lotteries. A somewhat similar type of taxation, but with a less offensive rationale (and name), are Pigovian taxes.

Stephen White spoke to the BBC Radio Ulster Talkback program about the riots in London and elsewhere in the United Kingdom, and the wisdom of the proposal of sending Northern Ireland Police Officers to Police London.