Lend-Lease

I've always been struck by the political aspects of the Lend-Lease program. Essentially it was a way to put a palatable (politically) face on the need for the U.S. to support Britain and its allies in what we know today as World War II. At the time, the President (Franklin Roosevelt) and a sufficient number of senators and congressmen understood the need well enough to get Lend-Lease passed — but the majority of Americans were dead-set against taking a position in the "European war". In fact there was considerable support for the Germans and Italians, including (sound familiar?) by a panoply of celebrities — "Lucky" Lindbergh and not a few Hollywood stars amongst them.

Until Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt took a lot of heat for having instigated and signed Lend-Lease. On that December 7, however — just like a certain Septemeber 11 sixty years later — public opinion swiveled about and all the public clamor faded away.

It's worth a good ponder about the behavior of societies. Consider that with hindsight Lend-Lease was, quite literally, a life-saver for the Allies of World War II (and that would include the U.S.). Further consider that if it wasn't for the courage and (dare we say it?) arrogance of a single individual — I mean President Roosevelt — it would never have happened. Think about the consequences if it had not happened...many historians believe the outcome of the war might well have been different. We might be living under the swastika-and-stripes, with a rising sun on the side...

Wikipedia has a good introduction to Lend-Lease, for those of you who are not familiar with it.

Quote for the day

Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then - we elected them.

   Lily Tomlin

Smart cat

A man absolutely hated his wife's cat and decided to get rid of him one day by driving him 20 blocks from his home and leaving him at the park. As he was getting home, the cat was walking up the driveway. The next day he decided to drive the cat 40 blocks away. He put the beast out and headed home. Driving back up his driveway, there was the cat! He kept taking the cat further and further and the cat would always beat him home. At last he decided to drive a few miles away, turn right, then left, past the bridge, then right again and another right until he reached what he thought was a safe distance from his home and left the cat there. Hours later the man calls home to his wife: "Jen, is the cat there?" "Yes", the wife answers, "why do you ask?" Frustrated, the man answered, "Put that son of a bitch on the phone, I'm lost and need directions!"

Bush bandwagon

Just knowing there's another Mark Steyn column for me to read is enough to put a smile on my face. Here's how he starts a column that notes the rising chorus of (gasp!) liberals saying "Maybe Bush was right after all...":

Come on, lads. You don’t want to be the last to leap aboard the bandwagon. The New York Times are running front page stories with headlines like “Unexpected Whiff Of Freedom Proves Bracing For The Middle East”. Daniel Schorr, the dean of conventional wisdom at National Public Radio, was for once almost ahead of the game, concluding his most recent editorial with a strange combination of words that had never before passed his lips in that particular order: “Bush may have had it right.”

Did he simply muff the reading? Did he mean to say: “Bush may have had it - right?” But apparently not. Ever since, the same form of words has mysteriously flowered from Toronto to London to Sydney. It’s the catchphrase du jour - like “Show me the money” or “You are the weakest link. Goodbye.” Now it’s “Could Bush be right?” Even America’s media naysayers have suddenly noticed that they can hardly hear their own generic boilerplate about what a Vietnam quagmire the new Iraq is over the sound of raven-tressed Beirut hotties noisily demanding Lebanon’s freedom in the streets of Beirut.

Over at Britain’s Guardian, meanwhile, the poor chaps are desperately trying to give credit to anyone but the reviled Bushitler. Here’s how Timothy Garton Ash opened his disquisition: “Has Osama bin Laden started a revolution in the Middle East?” Well, that’s one way to look at it. Maybe he could share the Nobel Peace Prize with Michael Moore and MoveOn.org.

Quote for the day

Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated.

   George Bernard Shaw

Extraordinary rendition

David Ignatius, writing in the Washington Post, makes some very good points on this topic. The whole column is well worth reading. Here's the way he starts:

Torture is immoral and illegal, and the refusal to allow it is one measure of a civilized society. But this ironclad moral argument doesn't necessarily apply to the practice known as "extraordinary rendition."

Rendition is the CIA's antiseptic term for its practice of sending captured terrorist suspects to other countries for interrogation. Because some of those countries torture prisoners — and because some of the suspected terrorists "rendered" by the CIA say they were, in fact, tortured — the debate has tended to lump rendition and torture together. The implication is that the CIA is sending people to Egypt, Jordan or other Middle Eastern countries because they can be tortured there and coerced into providing information they wouldn't give up otherwise.

The problem with this argument is that it assumes the CIA believes that torture works. But in 30 years of writing about intelligence, I've never encountered a spook who didn't realize that torture is usually counterproductive. Professional intelligence officers know that prisoners will confess to anything under intense pain. Information obtained through torture thus tends to be unreliable, in addition to being immoral.

But in conversations over the past several years with senior CIA officials and the heads of several Arab intelligence services, I've heard explanations for why the practice is used. These arguments for rendition at least ought to be understood, as Congress and the public struggle with the moral issues involved.

What's gained by transferring a prisoner to his home country for interrogation is emotional leverage, according to Arab and American intelligence chiefs. A hardened al Qaeda member often can't be coerced physically into giving up information, no matter how nasty the interrogator. But he may do so if confronted by, say, his mother, father, brother or sister.

In other words, torture doesn't work, the CIA knows it, but they also know that just placing the suspect in his home country can be an effective interrogation tool. That's completely plausible to me. I have no doubt that I'd be much more likely to spill the beans if I were in a prison here, with my wife begging me to talk, than I would if I was in (say) a North Korean prison. Mr. Ignatius concludes with this point:

Before you make an easy judgment about rendition, you have to answer the disturbing question put to me by a former CIA official: Suppose the FBI had captured Mohamed Atta before Sept. 11, 2001. Under U.S. legal rules at the time, the man who plotted the airplane suicide attacks probably could not have been held or interrogated in the United States. Would it have made sense to "render" Atta to a place where he could have been interrogated in a way that might have prevented Sept. 11? That's not a simple question for me to answer, even as I share the conviction that torture is always and everywhere wrong.

An excellent point, Mr. Ignatius.

Mr. Bush's speech

President Bush gave a speech yesterday at the National Defense university. You can (and should!) read it in full. It was a wide-ranging speech, but here are a few points I thought were particularly well made. First, on Lebanon:

And any who doubt the appeal of freedom in the Middle East can look to Lebanon, where the Lebanese people are demanding a free and independent nation. In the words of one Lebanese observer, "Democracy is knocking at the door of this country and, if it's successful in Lebanon, it is going to ring the doors of every Arab regime."

Across the Middle East, a critical mass of events is taking that region in a hopeful new direction. Historic changes have many causes, yet these changes have one factor in common. A businessman in Beirut recently said, "We have removed the mask of fear. We're not afraid anymore." Pervasive fear is the foundation of every dictatorial regime — the prop that holds up all power not based on consent. And when the regime of fear is broken, and the people find their courage and find their voice, democracy is their goal, and tyrants, themselves, have reason to fear.

History is moving quickly, and leaders in the Middle East have important choices to make. The world community, including Russia and Germany and France and Saudi Arabia and the United States has presented the Syrian government with one of those choices — to end its nearly 30-year occupation of Lebanon, or become even more isolated from the world. The Lebanese people have heard the speech by the Syrian president. They've seen these delaying tactics and half-measures before. The time has come for Syria to fully implement Security Council Resolution 1559. All Syrian military forces and intelligence personnel must withdraw before the Lebanese elections, for those elections to be free and fair.

The elections in Lebanon must be fully and carefully monitored by international observers. The Lebanese people have the right to determine their future, free from domination by a foreign power. The Lebanese people have the right to choose their own parliament this spring, free of intimidation. And that new government will have the help of the international community in building sound political, economic, and military institutions, so the great nation of Lebanon can move forward in security and freedom.

Today I have a message for the people of Lebanon: All the world is witnessing your great movement of conscience. Lebanon's future belongs in your hands, and by your courage, Lebanon's future will be in your hands. The American people are on your side. Millions across the earth are on your side. The momentum of freedom is on your side, and freedom will prevail in Lebanon.

On the prospects for a real peace between Israel and the Palestinians:

The bombing in Tel Aviv is a reminder that the fight against terrorists is critical to the search for peace and for Palestinian statehood. In an interview last week, Palestinian President Abbas strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, declaring, "Ending violence and security chaos is first and foremost a Palestinian interest." He went on to say, "We cannot build the foundations of a state without the rule of law and public order."

President Abbas is correct. And so the United States will help the Palestinian Authority build the security services that current peace and future statehood require: security forces which are effective, responsive to civilian control, and dedicated to fighting terror and upholding the rule of law. We will coordinate with the government of Israel, with neighbors such as Egypt and Jordan, and with other donors to ensure that Palestinians get the training and equipment they need. The United States is determined to help the parties remove obstacles to progress and move forward in practical ways, so we can seize this moment for peace in the Holy Land.

On Iraq's future:

Iraq's democracy, in the long run, must also be defended by Iraqis, themselves. Our goal is to help Iraqi security forces move toward self-reliance, and they are making daily progress. Iraqi forces were the main providers of security at about 5,000 polling places in the January elections. Our coalition is providing equipment and training to the new Iraqi military, yet they bring a spirit all of their own.

Last month, when soldiers of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment were on combat patrol north of Baghdad, one of their Humvees fell into a canal, and Iraqi troops came to their rescue — plunging into the water again and again, until the last American was recovered. The Army colonel in charge of the unit said, "When I saw those Iraqis in the water, fighting to save their American brothers, I saw a glimpse of the future of this country." One of the Iraqi soldiers commented, "These people have come a hundred — 10,000 miles to help my country. They've left their families and their children. If we can give them something back, just a little, we can show our thanks." America is proud to defend freedom in Iraq, and proud to stand with the brave Iraqis as they defend their own freedom.

I watched a video of the speech; not only was it well-written, it was delivered with great skill. I think Mr. Bush's communications skills have been misunderestimated...

Quote for the day

The best computer is a man, and it's the only one that can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.

   Dr. Werner von Braun, upon being asked if computers would replace men in spaceflight

KetchupWoman returns

Just when you thought the world was safe from KetchupWoman, she rises up out of the pickle barrel and utters some more nonsense. Now she's accusing the Republicans of having rigged the 2004 election by hacking the voting machines:

Heinz Kerry is openly skeptical about results from November's election, particularly in sections of the country where optical scanners were used to record votes.

"Two brothers own 80 percent of the machines used in the United States," Heinz Kerry said. She identified both as "hard-right" Republicans. She argued that it is "very easy to hack into the mother machines."

"We in the United States are not a banana republic," added Heinz Kerry. She argued that Democrats should insist on "accountability and transparency" in how votes are tabulated.

"I fear for '06," she said. "I don't trust it the way it is right now."

Please, KetchupWoman — stop the madness! You can find the full article here.

The Old Poodle

A wealthy old lady decides to go on a photo safari in Africa, taking her faithful aged pet poodle along for company. One day the poodle starts chasing butterflies and before long he discovers that he is lost. Wandering about, he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the obvious intention of having lunch.

The old poodle thinks, "Oh-oh, I'm in deep doo-doo now!" Noticing some bones on the ground close by, he immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat. Just as the leopard is about to leap, the old poodle exclaims loudly, "Boy, that was one delicious leopard. I wonder if there are any more around here." Hearing this, the young leopard halts his attack in mid-stride, a look of terror comes over him, and he slinks away into the trees. "Whew", says the leopard, "That was close. That old poodle nearly had me."

Meanwhile, a monkey who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard. So, off he goes but the old poodle sees him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figures that something must be up. The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard. The young leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, "Here monkey, hop on my back and see what's going to happen to that old conniving canine." Now the old poodle sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back and thinks, "What am I going to do now?" But, instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers, pretends he hasn't seen them yet and, just when they get close enough to hear, the old poodle says, "Where's that damn monkey? I sent him off half an hour ago to bring me another leopard!"

Eesti feline

I recently reconnected with Anton (whom I worked with at Previo/Stac), and somehow in the course of our email conversation cats came up. Imagine that!

Anton lives in Tallinn, Estonia.

Click on the picture for a larger version...

The old mule

The old farmer's mule had finally died of old age just before spring planting, so the farmer made a trip to town to buy another mule. His $125 didn't buy much, but he was satisfied with his purchase and he made arrangements to return the next day with a horse trailer to pick up the mule and the dealer agreed to keep it overnight for him.

Early the next day, the old man returned. "Jim," said the mule dealer, "that old mule died last night. I'm real sorry to have to tell you this. I know you were counting on it for your spring garden." The dealer offered Jim his money back, but Jim said a bargain was a bargain, loaded the mule on his truck and left.

A couple of months later the mule dealer happened to drive by Jim's place and was astonished to see Jim working his garden on a *NEW* $4,000 garden tractor. Honking his horn, he called Jim over and asked him how in the world he had managed to buy a tractor when not to long ago all he had was the $125 that he'd spent on the mule that died.

"Well", Jim explains, "After leaving with the mule, I had this idea. So I stopped off at the local print shop and had 2,000 $2 raffle tickets printed up. Grand prize: Gardening Equipment. I sold all the raffle tickets to people around town."

"Yeah, but where did you get the gardening equipment?"

"From you."

"No, I mean the equipment you had as the raffle prize."

"I got it from you."

"Jim, all you got from me was a dead mule."

"I know, that's what I raffled off."

"My Goodness, Jim! You raffled off a dead mule?! I'll bet that really made a lot of people mad when they found out about it."

"Naw, not really, the only one really ticked off was the winner, and I gave him his money back."

He never saw it coming

Mark Steyn's latest column is an even-better-than-usual (and that's a high bar in his case) example of his trademark combination of wit and commentary. Here's my favorite bit, talking about Bashar Assad's current situation (if you didn't already know it, Assad happens to be an ophthalmologist):

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The ophthalmologist never saw it coming. Assad's plan for a phased partial withdrawal over several months would have been hailed as a breakthrough a couple of years back. Now Bush swats it aside as too little, too late. In a poignant conclusion to his interview with Time last week, the neophyte dictator said: "Please send this message: I am not Saddam Hussein. I want to co-operate." You don't have to be an eye doctor to read the writing on the wall.

OK, that's enough ophthamology. The headline on Newsweek's cover, alongside the aforementioned Lebanese totty, was "People Power" - a novel concept in the Middle East, but very real. But just as worrying for Assad is a much older tendency in regional politics - the inclination to side with the winners. Right now, for Bush and the Iraqi people and the Lebanese people and Chirac and Blair and the House of Saud and pretty much everyone except the Canadian prime minister, the winning side looks like whichever side Bashar Assad isn't on.

That's a tough spiral to climb out of. Two years ago, Colin Powell took Jordan's King Abdullah to one side and told him, modifying a Rumsfeldian paradigm, that America saw him as part of "the new Middle East". The Sauds, Mubarak and Gaddafi are not entirely on board with this "new Middle East" thing, but since January 30 they've been doing their best to pretend they are - and the easiest way to do that is to stick some loser with the label of "old Middle East". Syria's prestige, such as it is, rests on its subordination of Lebanon. Abandoning that on a time frame demanded by Bush and the Beirut babes doesn't exactly communicate strength. The Iranians are still officially Assad's pals, but the word is that even they wouldn't be averse to a palace coup.

China builds wall around Taiwan

Scott hardly ever fails to make me laugh out loud with his ScrappleFace columns, but this latest one resonated with my funnybone...

Quote for the day

Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.

   Herodotus

Quote for the day

Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat.

   Hermann Goering

From a French supporter

I have taken the liberty of reproducing this letter in its entirety.

Dear President Bush,

I count among the very few intellectuals in Paris who from the start publicly supported an armed intervention against Saddam Hussein. My sole and simple reason for this position was the inhumanity of his dictatorship; my only regret was that it hadn't been toppled in 1991. I was thus exerting my citizen's right to voice public disagreement with my government's policy; and my philosophical right to contradict a quasi-unanimous French opinion that, from the far right to the far left, majority and opposition alike, from the grass-roots activist to the president of the Republic, stigmatized your initiative.

I therefore appreciate as a connoisseur the evolution of public feeling in France and Europe, highlighted by your recent visit to the Continent. You will have noticed how anti-American protests along the stops on your trip were few and far between. Nothing like those, massive and uncompromising, that were sparked here by the arrival of Nixon and Reagan. Likewise, when Condoleezza Rice gave her speech in the heart of the Paris Latin Quarter last month, no hostile group tried to spoil the party, even though the students of Paris are as prone to protest as those of Berkeley.

Do not think the conversation is over. It has only just begun. At the next setback for the warriors of freedom, as soon as a monstrous terrorist strike grieves the good people once more, the stupid litany will again catch its breath: Peace at any price, peace before all, peace even out of the graveyards!

Our former minister for foreign affairs, Dominique de Villepin, currently a rising figure in the French government, proclaimed urbi et orbi the radical antagonism between "two conceptions of the world." His own, that of Paris, stipulates the absolute precedence of peace, with freedom following some day or another. The opposite one gives precedence to freedom, the only foundation for a solid and lasting peace.

This second principle guided the first European democracies and great thinkers such as Kant. It inspired the best aspects of the American and French Revolutions. It commanded their Declaration of Human Rights. It is still inscribed today on public buildings of the French Republic, even though no one here in Paris knows how to read them in the right order anymore: "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité." Freedom is the No. 1 requirement, and it's the choice you made. Thank you, and well done.

The decent greeting given to you on the ancient Continent is not due, you will have easily noticed, to an abrupt conversion of the elites in France, Germany, Spain or Belgium who brashly speak for the whole of Europe. World news embarrasses their preconceptions. People confront terror and choose the ballot box at the peril of their lives; that was the reality both in Afghanistan and Iraq. They defend free elections against the mafias and those nostalgic for the Soviet order: this is Ukraine and Georgia. The street and the "pacifist" circles of Western Europe have thus been forced to bow down temporarily before this evidence of unexpected courage.

During your journey, you reiterated your enthusiastic support for the soft revolutions that struggle for freedom on the boulevards of Beirut and achieved it on Kiev's Independence Square.

You didn't hesitate either to criticize, in measured terms but in a loud and clear voice, the autocratic straying of Vladimir Putin. Again, well done! And in doing this you astounded the capitals of Western Europe who fight to win the favors of the master of the Kremlin and do not dare proffer the slightest criticism against him, a reflection of how much they underestimate the strength and truth of this aspiration for democracy sweeping through the former Soviet empire as well as through the "Arab world."

From Budapest in 1956 to Kiev in 2005, the movement of emancipation that changed the face of Europe over the past 50 years is now tackling despots all around the planet. It puts the will to live free at the very beginning of the beginning. It is instituting the principle of civilized life for the 21st century.

The success of your most recent journey proves that European opinion, under the pressure of sheer facts, is capable of putting asleep its anti-American prejudice. Please dare, Mr. President, to not give up on the necessary common support for the battles for freedom. Do not give up your obligation to prevent rogue states from selling any kind of weapon indiscriminately, helping nuclear proliferation and effectively or morally supporting the battalions of hatred that crisscross the planet with three professions of faith in their pocket: hatred of America, hatred of the Jew, hatred of women.

I could not conclude this letter of congratulations without mentioning my reservations and a burning regret that you did not have a word for the tragedy that has obsessed me, haunted and pursued me for the past 11 years and I fear will continue to till my grave. You did not let the word Chechnya be heard. Remember Grozny, Mr. President, once a city of 400,000, the first capital to be razed by a European army since Hitler punished Warsaw in 1944. Think of this small people, less than a million inhabitants, which has lost between a fifth and a quarter of its population over the last decade. In proportion, imagine France being bled of 13 million people, America of 60 million.

Please conceive that over the last three centuries, a colonial war has thrice led this indomitable community to the brink of disappearing. First under the weight of the czar's merciless armies. Then when in three days Stalin and Beria threw the entire population in the Gulag. And the third time today, when civilians are being indiscriminately hit in the name of Mr. Putin's conception of "anti-terrorist operations." The free press around the globe bears witness to the unthinkable actions of the Russian army. I confirm their bleak portrayals, having illicitly gone to see them for myself on the ground.

Why such stubbornness? Why so little compassion? Moscow's obstinacy isn't based on strategic reasoning or interests in fuel. This tiny territory is a threat to no one, all the more so since the pro-independence combatants have pledged to honor demilitarization under international control. The main reason for Russian cruelty in the Caucasus, Tolstoy had already spotted it, is pedagogic. What matters is to make an example, and to teach to Russians themselves what it costs not to follow ukases. In 1818 general Ermolov gave Czar Nicholas I the key to this endless combat: "This Chechen people inspires by its example a rebellious spirit and a love for freedom even in your Majesty's most devoted subjects." "Respect of minorities," you said. "Freedom," you insisted. Will you allow, Mr. President, a people that greets the foreigner with these words — "freedom comes in with you!" — to be exterminated?

To demand that President Putin set himself free from this ominous tradition is to help him get out of an autocratic whirl into which he is sinking. To do so is to defend an oppressed minority and support Russian democracy. I pray you to remind Mr. Putin publicly that in these times in which, against all odds, information does come through, a people that annihilates one another cannot be free itself. Our common civilization is going straight to suicide by close-mouthed toleration of the war crimes and insults against humanity.

Respectfully yours, A. Glucksmann.

Italian secrets

Whatever you think of Giuliana Sgrena (the rabidly communist, anti-war reporter for the Italian Communist journal Il Manifesto), the fact that American forces fired on the car carrying her to freedom is a tragedy. But why would it happen? Surely Sgrena isn't accurate when she claims that American troops "targeted" her (gee, thanks, Eason Jordan, for putting that thought into her head)?

Personally, I don't believe she was targeted at all. The story coming from the American side — that her car was fired on simply because it didn't stop at a checkpoint, despite warnings — is much more plausible than her story. But here is some additional information that might further explain how this could have happened:

Italian agents likely withheld information from U.S. counterparts about a cash-for-freedom deal with gunmen holding an Italian hostage for fear that Americans might block the trade, Italian news reports said yesterday.

The decision by operatives of Italy's SISMI military intelligence service to keep the CIA in the dark about the deal for the release of reporter Giuliana Sgrena, might have "short-circuited" communications with U.S. forces controlling the road from Baghdad to the city's airport, the newspaper La Stampa said.

This is from an excelent article in the Washington Post, with other interesting details.

Quote for the day

Washington [D.C.] is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.

   John F. Kennedy

Active counter-intelligence

Bill Gertz writes in today's Washington times that the U.S. targets spy services abroad. All I can say is "Sheesh — it's about time!" From the article:

The new mission for counterintelligence is to identify foreign spies and terrorist threats, and then develop "a counterintelligence doctrine of attacking foreign intelligence services systematically via strategic counterintelligence operations," Miss Van Cleave said.

The offensive counterintelligence strategy is part of the Bush administration's policy of pre-empting strategic threats. It is also part of President Bush's announced plan to promote democracy and freedom and undermine global tyranny, she said.

In the past, counterintelligence often was limited to "catching spies." Previously captured spies, including CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, a Russian mole in the FBI, "caused stunning losses," Miss Van Cleave said.

In the battle against terrorists, new counterintelligence activities will target the intelligence services of state sponsors of terrorism, such as Syria and Iran.

"The intelligence services of state sponsors may represent the key links in the global terrorist-support network," Miss Van Cleave said. "Terrorist groups perform traditional intelligence activities in the way they gather information, recruit sources and use assets."

Under the new strategy, U.S. intelligence agencies will more aggressively work to disrupt terrorist operations by targeting their intelligence links.

The strategy was approved March 1 by the president, and formal guidance to the CIA, FBI and other security agencies involved in counterintelligence work will be issued in the next several weeks, a U.S. intelligence official said. A formal report on the strategy also will be made public and sent to Congress, perhaps as early as this month.

Google hacking

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin for finding this. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's article 'Good guys' show just how easy it is... does exactly what the title says. And it is scary to think how some careless people who happen to be in possession of some of your personal information could do this to you. From the article:

It turns out that the powerful search engine, in the hands of a knowledgeable cybertrekker, can ferret out all kinds of sensitive information never meant to be made public. All it takes are sophisticated search terms. The terms go beyond specifying key words to include file types. The right terms can even find information deleted from corporate or government Web sites but temporarily cached in Google's massive warehouse of data.

Kirk Bailey, the city of Seattle's chief information-security officer, calls his Agora compatriots "the primary defenders of the virtual world in the Northwest." Before launching eight teams of hackers from companies such as Intel Corp. and computer-security consultants IOActive, Bailey declared that "our mission is to find answers on how to fix these problems."

This sends chills down my spine...because I use Google everyday in my work, using just such "sophisticated" search terms, and I know darned well how powerful it is. After reading this, I immediately set out to look for any personal information on myself...and found some! Yikes! I fired off three emails to try to get that taken care of...

Quote for the day

It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful they are.

   Clive James

125 years old!

Maria Olivia da Silva, 125, poses for a portrait at her home in Astorga, in the Brazilian state of Parana, on Feb. 10, 2005. She was born on Feb. 28, 1880. She is quite possibly the oldest woman in the world, and certainly in her native Brazil.

A walk

This afternoon, tiring of the programming I've been working on, I took a walk with my dog Lea. We tramped along a trail that is usually hot and dusty, through one of the drier parts of the local terrain. Today was very different, though. We got a little over a half-inch of rain yesterday (bringing our total for the year to 13.66"!), and for the hour or so we were walking it was partly cloudy, bright, and a very pleasant 60 degrees. The normally dry terrain is dry no more — the ground everywhere is completely saturated, and puddles are in every flat place. After several months of wet weather, all the chapparal plants have now responded; green is everywhere. Most striking to me (perhaps because it's been six years or so since I last saw this) is the rocks and steep decomposed granite slopes. They are now covered with rich layers of life: lichens, mosses, and small plants of various kinds. Some of the boulders in my yard look as though they've been upholstered with bright green carpets.

Lea was completely absorbed by all the smells. Anytime you have moisture in the desert, a wonderful assortment of saturated odors follows. Sages are perhaps the most evident, but there's also rosemary and a slew of herbacious species that I can't identify. Crush almost any leaf and your nose will be richly rewarded. We smelled a very strong musky animal smell at one point: cat. It may well have been a bobcat or even a mountain lion somewhere nearby.

The most unusual thing I saw (actually, heard) turned out to be a pair of flickers. They were atop a telephone pole, engaged in some sort of mating ritual, including the male feeding the female (a very typical birdly behavior). But the male flicker was making a noise that I'd have sworn was a woodpecker rapidly pounding at the pole — but it was clearly a vocalization (I could see the male's beak opening in sync with the sound). He repeated this vocalization several times while I was standing right beneath the pole; it was a very convincing replica of a woodpecker.

The female was unimpressed, and flew away — presumably in search of a more suitable mate.

Quote for the day

A professional politician is a professionally dishonourable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.

   H. L. Mencken

He made it!

What an amazing feat! The GlobalFlyer is a remarkable technological achievement all by itself. But what really amazes me is that someone could stay awake enough to fly a jet aircraft for 67 hours, taking only catnaps of 20 minutes eacy along the way! You can read all about the GlobalFlyer on its site, along with complete coverage of the voyage...

An amazing message from Berlin

I haven't linked this, as it's a paid site — but if you happen to be a WSJ subscriber, it's well worth reading the whole thing (today's commentary page). Meanwhile, here's the startling conclusion:

George Bush is an underestimated American president for whom a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a simple corollary of his courageous political vision: the defense of freedom and democracy against Islamic fundamentalism, not only with words, but also with deeds. Added to this, and in contrast to his first term, he is pursuing this idea in harmony with the State Department, together with Condoleezza Rice. Supported by Tony Blair, America — the world power — is determined to defend the free West. Many Europeans, in contrast, stand on the sidelines and confuse multicultural tolerance with tolerance toward the intolerant.

What would these Europeans say if, in four years, the Bush balance sheet even approaches the following scenario: An independent Palestinian state in stable coexistence with Israel; freedom of opinion prevails in Iraq and the people still vote; Iran has no nuclear weapons; al Qaeda is destabilized; the number of terrorist attacks world-wide continues to decrease; and the American economy is flourishing as a result of determined domestic reforms and tax cuts.

What a turnabout, if the cliché of the reactionary cowboy is replaced by the image of a misjudged but later admired fighter for freedom! When Mr. Bush arrived in Europe, he quoted from his second inaugural address: "We cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time. We must reject anti-Semitism from any source, and we must condemn violence such as we have witnessed in the Netherlands. All our nations must work to integrate minorities into the mainstream of society, and to teach the value of tolerance to each new generation." The Germans couldn't believe their ears. No, they won't immediately give up their anti-Americanism after this visit. But the smiling, congenial George Bush made their dislike a little more difficult to defend.

The "other" red meat

Writing at townhall.com, Joel Mowbray observes that thought leaders in the conservative ranks seem to have picked their next target: the U.N. Joel begins this way:

It’s official: The United Nations has become the right’s other red meat.

At the 33rd annual Conservative Political Action Conference—the largest annual gathering of conservatives, which took place last month—the UN garnered more passion, more intensity, and more stage time than any other was an issue. Two years ago, it was barely a blip.

Because of its unique mix of heavy-hitter beltway insiders, rank-and-file activists from around the country, and highly motivated college students, CPAC is the best leading indicator of where the conservative movement is headed. And that means the United Nations had better brace itself.

It's an interesting piece, worth reading through (and clicking through to the links he provides)...

A SecState to be proud of

Mentioned in a short-but-sweet post at PowerLine:

Reader Carol Herman has forwarded the email message to her son from Charles Hampton, one of the Marines detailed to provide security for Secretary of State Rice in in Jerusalem last month. On the morning of her departure, the Marines positioned themselves to have a photograph taken with Secretary Rice. The forwarded message reports that "she shook every one of our hands, looked us square in the eye, and said, 'thank you for your service.'" Hampton comments: "boy, i don't care what else she might do, i'm behind her 100%! that little, personal touch felt SO good."

Among the few and the proud is Charles Hampton, second from the right in the photograph above. Coincidentally, The Age reports: "Iraq dents Marines' recruitment drive." Shouldn't this photograph be used in the Marines' recruiting efforts?

Note: click on the picture at right to get a larger version of it...

Close in the rear-view mirror

An excellent roundup of the consequences of the January 30th Iraqi elections, thanks to Bill Kristol.

Bubba

No Butter for Bubba, the 22-Pound Lobster
By MIKE CRISSEY, Associated Press Writer
2 Mar 2005

PITTSBURGH - He could be older than Warner Bros. studio, General Motors and the Boy Scouts. He could have survived two world wars and Prohibition. He could have been dinner.

He's Bubba, a 22-pound leviathan of a lobster pulled from the waters off Nantucket, Mass., and shipped to a Pittsburgh fish market.

"It is overwhelming," owner Bob Wholey said. "If you see it, you will never forget it. Customers are just in awe."

On Tuesday, Wholey gave the lobster to the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, which will send him to an aquarium at a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum.

Based on how long it typically takes a lobster to reach eating size — about five to seven years to grow to a pound — Bubba may be 100 years old.

That would make the crustacean older than Warner Bros. (1907), the Boy Scouts (1910) and the states of Arizona and New Mexico (1912), not to mention the first commercial radio station (1920), television (1927) and computers (1943).

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent Wholey a letter asking him to work with the group to release Bubba back in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maine.

Another group calling itself People For Eating Tasty Animals reportedly offered Wholey a hefty price for the lobster. At Tuesday's price of $14.98 a pound, Bubba would retail for about $350.

Bob Bayer, executive director of the University of Maine's Lobster Institute, is skeptical and estimates that Bubba is likely 50 years old, but doesn't know for sure. Warm water and plenty of food may have more to do with a lobster's size than how long it's been alive.

"We have looked at all kinds of things to figure out if there is any way to age a lobster. I'm guessing 100 years is probably too high but I can't argue with it because you don't know," Bayer said.

No matter his age, Bubba dwarfs a typical 1 1/2-pound lobster. He's about three feet long and took up about half a 4-foot-by-4-foot tank at Wholey's Market. A lobster sharing his tank was about as big as one of Bubba's claws.

A handful of people who wandered by the tank Tuesday were impressed. One woman quietly said, "Wow," while a man said, "He's serious."

Although his business is to sell seafood, Wholey says Bubba was never bound to be boiled and buttered. And he's become a little philosophical after seeing the lobster, which could be twice his 54 years.

"I don't think you could eat something that big. ... What range of emotions does a lobster have? Greed? Lust? Love? I'm just going to give him to the zoo and hope he lives another 100 years," Wholey said.

"If you sat down and ate this thing, wouldn't that be a bit shellfish?"

UPDATE: Bubba died this morning (3/3) after being moved to the zoo. No explanation yet, though rumor has it that a couple of pounds of butter disappeared from the zoo's employee cafeteria at the same time...

Around the world

Steve Fosset — adventurer extraordinaire — is at it again! He's in the air on an attempt to be the first to make a non-stop solo plane trip around the world. If all goes well, he'll be back at his Salina, Kansas starting point sometime tomorrow.

From a Fox News article:

Fossett was over Pakistan at 49,500 feet around 11 p.m. EST, traveling east at 390 mph.

His experimental single-engine GlobalFlyer (search) had consumed 25 percent of its 18,000 pounds of fuel, while Fossett had downed at least three diet chocolate milkshakes. The jet took off after sunset Monday from Salina.

"At this time everything is going very well, I'm very happy with the situation and I think we've got a good chance," Fossett said during a call from the plane, according to his Web site.

Fossett's mission control in Salina estimated he will complete the 23,000-mile journey at midday Thursday.

Quote for the day

If the Government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have.

   Gerald R. Ford

Welcome home, warriors

Welcome home, warriors of the Lincoln group. Thank you for your service to all of us. The UT has a little coverage and a few photos.

Iraqi feline immigrant

BANGOR, Maine — A little Iraqi has a new home in Maine.

H.P. the cat was adopted by National Guard troopers serving with the 152nd Field Artillery Battalion. Spc. Jesse Cote said the cat was starving and toothless when they found it.

But the GI's were able to nurse H.P. back to health. The cat ate and slept with the soldiers and even helped them. Cote said H.P. would be the first to react to mortar fire and was their warning of incoming.

When the soldiers were returning to Maine, they raised $700 to fly H.P. to the United States . No one's sure how H.P. got its name -- but Cote said it could stand for Here Puss.

Cedar Revolution

The "Cedar Revolution" in Lebanon continues, and down (so far as I can tell) an entirely admirable path. The BBC coverage, amazingly, was the best I could find (several stories and lots of photos are up there). Events are proceeding so rapidly there that it's very difficult to keep up.

The beeb had this to say about the resignation of the current Lebanese government:

The cabinet resigned two weeks after the killing of the former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri.

"We want an interim cabinet to uncover the truth about Hariri's assassination, draft a law and oversee elections this spring," opposition MP Ghassan Mukheiber told the AFP news agency.

The lawmaker stressed that Syria must withdraw its troops - which have been in Lebanon for some 30 years - before the elections.

The opposition is also calling for the resignation of a number of senior officials in Lebanon's security services.

Isn't it wonderful what can happen when "the people" realize that they actually are empowered?

By the way, the photo at right is of a woman protester in Lebanon. The graphic on her cheek is of the Lebanese flag, which has a stylized "Lebanon cedar" on it. That cedar is the traditional national symbol of Lebanon...

Quote for the day

We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavours and furniture polish is made from real lemons...

   Alfred E. Newman

Performance evaluations

"Since my last report, this employee has reached rock bottom and has started to dig."

"His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity"

"I would not allow this employee to breed"

"This employee is really not so much of a has-been, but more of a definite won't be"

"Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap"

"When she opens her mouth, it seems that it is only to change feet"

"He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle"

"This young lady has delusions of adequacy"

"He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them"

"This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot."

"This employee should go far, and the sooner the better"

"Got a full 6-pack, but lacks the plastic thing to hold it all together"

"A gross ignoramus - 144 times worse than an ordinary ignoramus"

"He certainly takes a long time to make his pointless"

"He doesn't have ulcers, but he's a carrier"

"I would like to go hunting with him sometime"

"He's been working with glue too much"

"He would argue with a signpost"

"He has knack for making strangers immediately"

"He brings a lot of joy whenever he leaves the room"

"When his IQ reaches 50, he should sell"

"If you see 2 people talking and one looks bored, he's the other one"

"A photographic memory but with the cap over the lens"

"A prime candidate for natural deselection"

"Donated his brain to science before he was done using it"

"Gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn't coming"

"Has 2 brains, one is lost, the other is out looking for it"

"If he were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week"

"If you give him a penny for his thoughts, you'd get change"

"If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean"

"It's hard to believe that he beat out 1,000 other sperm"

"One neuron short of a synapse"

"Some drink from the fountain of knowledge, he only gargled"

"Takes him 12 hours to watch 60 Minutes"

"The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead"

What wonderful things!

The pro-Syrian Lebanese government resigns. Israel traces the recent Tel Aviv bombing back to Syrian operatives (or Islamic Jihad, operating out of Syria). Mubarak in Egypt suddenly — after over 20 years — declares that true, open, free multi-party elections will be held. What on earth is going on?

I can only think of one plausible explanation: President Bush's policy of fomenting democracies is working...big time!

Are nukes the worst?

Hearing the news about the suicide bomber in Iraq who killed 100+ people and injured 100+ more got me to thinking... What's worse? Nuclear weapons in Iran, or this "asymmetrical warfare" that's taking such a terrible toll?

While the instantaneous effects of a nuke are clearly worse (tens or hundreds of thousands of people killed), the insidious effects of asymmetrical warfare — if it's successful — might be a larger problem than nukes in the long run. After all, if some rogue country (take your pick) actually decided to use a nuke, I'm pretty sure that that would be the last significant action of whatever government employed (or supported) that action. The world would be shocked into taking concerted action, and they wouldn't be dilly-dallying about. With terrorism (the unfancy name for asymmetrical warfare), this obviously ain't so. The effects keep on going and going and going. It's bad enough for us to read about it, or to see video clips — but try to imagine what it must be like to actually live in the midst of this, day after day. It must be extraordinarily disheartening...which makes me admire the spirit of everyday Iraqi even more. Despite the well-known fact that the terrorists are targeting the government job recruiting centers, and especially those in Shiite areas...the people still keep lining up for those jobs.

Quote for the day

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning today is young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

   Henry Ford

Watching Europe implode

The U.S. can sit back and watch Europe implode, says Mark Steyn. You can read his fine column both for insight and for entertainment — only Mr. Steyn could weave "decolletage" into this topic so artfully and amusingly. Here's the heart of his observations:

Most of the so-called constitution isn't in the least bit constitutional. That's to say, it's not content, as the U.S. Constitution is, to define the distribution and limitation of powers. Instead, it reads like a U.S. defense spending bill that's got porked up with a ton of miscellaneous expenditures for the ''mohair subsidy'' and other notorious Congressional boondoggles. President Ronald Reagan liked to say, ''We are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around.'' If you want to know what it looks like the other way round, read Monsieur Giscard's constitution.

But the fact is it's going to be ratified, and Washington is hardly in a position to prevent it. Plus there's something to be said for the theory that, as the EU constitution is a disaster waiting to happen, you might as well cut down the waiting and let it happen. CIA analysts predict the collapse of the EU within 15 years. I'd say, as predictions of doom go, that's a little on the cautious side.

But either way the notion that it's a superpower in the making is preposterous. Most administration officials subscribe to one of two views: a) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater; or b) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater where the whole powder keg's about to go up.

I wonder what it means, to the world and to the U.S., if Mark is right and the European Union "implodes"? I need a glass of wine and a few hours of ponder for that one...

All but won

Jack Kelly is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and I've often enjoyed his relatively (for the MSM) clear-eyed commentary. But he outdid himself today with an excellent column that says very straightforwardly what the MSM has claimed all along was impossible: that the war in Iraq is "all but won." Amongst the gems:

It will be some months before the news media recognize it, and a few months more before they acknowledge it, but the war in Iraq is all but won. The situation is roughly analogous to the battle of Iwo Jima, which took place 60 years ago this month. It took 35 days before the island was declared secure, but the outcome was clear after day five, with the capture of Mt. Suribachi.

And this conclusion:

Those who get their news from the "mainstream" media are surprised by developments in Iraq, as they were surprised by our swift victory in Afghanistan, the sudden fall of Saddam Hussein, the success of the Afghan election and the success of the Iraqi election.

Journalists demand accountability from political leaders for "quagmires" which exist chiefly in the imagination of journalists. But when will journalists be held to account for getting every major development in the war on terror wrong?

Jack Kelly is my MSM hero for the day...

Captured: Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan

This upstanding citizen was also very much wanted for his support of the Iraqi insurgency.

The news reports I read all either imply or state directly that al-Hassan's capture was an operation run entirely by the Iraqi security forces. If this is true, it's yet another positive indication about their increasing effectiveness. The past couple of weeks have been full of these indications — very good news, as this is the prerequisite to bringing our troops home.

Buried in the AP news report on this story is this:

Iraqi authorities on Saturday said they were close to capturing the country's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida in Iraq mastermind believed to be behind much of the insurgent violence in Iraq. One of al-Zarqawi's key aides and a man who served as his driver were arrested Feb. 20.

"Al-Zarqawi is very close to falling into the hands of justice and there will be good news in the coming days," Dawoud said Saturday.

Even better news, if true — and yet another positive indicator about the performance of the Iraqi security forces.

The full AP story is here..

Perfect innocence

There was a much married woman who walked into a bridal shop one day and told the sales clerk that she was looking for a wedding gown for her fourth wedding.

"Well", replied the sales clerk, "exactly what type of dress are you looking for?"

The bride to be said: "A long frilly white dress with a veil."

The sales clerk didn't know quite what to say but she finally said, "Frankly, madam, gowns of that nature are considered more appropriate for brides who are being married the first time -- for those who are a bit more innocent, if you know what I mean?"

"Well", replied the customer, more than a little put out. "I can assure you that I am as innocent as the rest of them.Believe it or not, despite all my marriages, I remain as innocent as any first time bride."

"You see, my first husband was so excited about our wedding he died as we were checking into our hotel. My second husband and I got into a terrible fight in the limo on our way to the reception and have not spoken since. We had that wedding annulled immediately."

"What about your third husband?" asked the sales clerk.

"Well", said the woman, "he was a Democrat and every night for four years he just sat on the edge of the bed and told me how good it was going to be."

Quote for the day

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.

   Erica Jong

H-2A on the way!

Japan's enormously expensive space booster program suffered a major setback in 2003 when one booster suffered a malfunction that ended in the mission's failure. Today's launch was the first successful one since that disaster.

Their space program recently got a big boost in funding for two reasons: North Korea's demonstrated missile capability, and China's successful manned space program. Japan, in 180 degree turnaround, recently said they were re-examining the idea of having their own manned program.

You can read all about this launch in this brief article.

What is a favicon.ico?

If your site supplies a favicon.ico file (in Windows icon format), then Internet Explorer (and some other browsers) will display an icon for your site in the address bar and in favorites lists. This has now evolved into a more flexible standard, which you can read about in this good Wikipedia article.

Quote for the day

Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.
Such are the heights of wickedness to which men are driven by religion.

   Lucretius

First photo

The photo at right is allegedly the first photo ever published on the World Wide Web. The story is reproduced below; here is the CERN site as reference.

Back in 1992, after their show at the CERN Hardronic Festival, my colleague Tim Berners-Lee asked me for a few scanned photos of "the CERN girls" to publish them on some sort of information system he had just invented, called the "World Wide Web". I had only a vague idea of what that was, but I scanned some photos on my Mac and FTPed them to Tim's now famous "info.cern.ch". How was I to know that I was passing an historical milestone, as the one above was the first picture ever to be clicked on in a web browser!"

Silvano de Gennaro

Politics, networking, and process

Michael Barone wrote an insightful article about the differences between the campaigns in Bush vs. Kerry. His thesis is that the Bush team prevailed partly by employing a brand-new, cutting-edge kind of political organization. In particular, it was one that reflects the changes over the past few decades in America. In the middle of the article, Mr. Barone says:

This is not command-and-control management, but management by networking, by holding people accountable and letting them learn from each other how to do better. And in post-industrial America, it got better results than command-and-control management. In crucial states with the largest volunteer organizations, the numbers speak as loud as Giuliani's — turnout rose 28 percent from 2000 in fast-growing Florida and 20 percent in slow-growing Ohio.

The Bush campaign used connections — networks — to recruit volunteers and identify voters. The campaign built on existing connections — religious, occupational, voluntary — to establish contacts. If a Bush volunteer was a Hispanic accountant active in the Boy Scouts, the campaign would reach out through him to other Hispanics, accountants and their clients, and Boy Scout volunteers. Of course, the campaign put much effort into contacting people in religious groups — particularly evangelical Christians, but also Catholics and Orthodox Jews. And the Bush campaign reached out to people with shared affinities who tend to be Republicans. The campaign consulting firms National Media and TargetPoint identified Republican-leaning groups — Coors beer and bourbon drinkers, college football TV viewers, Fox News viewers, people with caller ID — and devised ways to connect with them.

An interesting insight, and one that resonates strongly with me. I work for a small company (about 100 people) whose employees and contractors are scattered all about the globe, from Australia to Estonia. We are exactly the kind of "networked" company Mr. Barone is talking about, and that the Bush campaign emulated. Modern technology and modern social customs enabled this, and the Bush team leveraged it to the hilt. By contrast, the Democratic team was organized in a more traditional and hierarchical fashion Ᾱ which Mr. Barone contends was a significant part of their downfall.

Take the time to read the whole article; it's a good one...

Quote for the day

A cat will look down to a man. A dog will look up to a man. But a pig will look you straight in the eye and see his equal.

   Sir Winston Churchill

Paper money

On February 25, 1862 (during the Civil War), the U.S. Congress passed the Legal Tender Act. The act authorized — for the first time — the use of paper notes to pay the government's bills. This ended the policy of using only gold or silver in transactions.

Colleen has a brand-new baby girl!

Sierra Lynn was born this past Saturday morning, and momma Colleen and baby went home on Monday. All is well, everybody is doing great. Colleen reports that Sierra is "an absolute joy, even if she does keep us awake at all hours." Somehow I'm not surprised that momma feels this way about her new baby!

For those of you who don't know Colleen, she and I have worked together now for quite a few years at two different companies. She is one of FutureTrade's product managers, with lots of very specialized knowledge and skills in some really arcane parts of the trading world — strange things that most people don't even know exists, such as FIX protocol, OATS reports, and the clearing process. She's also one of the FutureTrade folk scattered around the globe: she lives in Florida with her husband, who is a Navy pilot and was one of our brave warriors in Iraq.

All of us in her "FutureTrade family" are vicariously sharing in just the tiniest little bit of her joy and happiness...

Update: Animal cruelty in Lawson Valley

I got a report this evening from someone who drove by the overcrowded, mud-swamp hell farm on Lawson Valley Road. She reports that the sheriff and several animal control personnel and vehicles are on the scene, and the poor animals are being loaded into trucks to be taken away to somewhere safe.

Maybe this will be the good ending to the otherwise very sad story...

Fantastic images from Mars and Saturn

At right is a thumbnail of the most detailed image of Saturn ever taken. If you click on the image, you'll get the full-sized (gigantic!) photo with all the amazing detail intact. This image is what every amateur astronomer wishes he could see through the eyepiece of his earthbound telescope. The picture is actually a composite — a mosaic — of many smaller pictures, all stitched together. The pictures were all taken by the Cassini satellite that is currently exploring the Saturnian system. JPL has a nice write-up about the image here.

Every time I see stunning images like this, I am reminded once again of the high value of these robotic missions as compared to manned spaceflight. Somehow the visual image has far more impact, emotionally, than reading about the results of other instruments that are returning data perhaps even more important than the images. But those images...they are what really gets my imagination soaring. I can use the image as a tool to imagine actually being there, in orbit around Saturn, witnessing in person what this image is showing me. Somehow a graph of (say) ion energy over time doesn't have quite the same impact...

The bottom image at right is yet another fantastic panorama taken by a Mars rover. This time it's Spirit that took the pictures, pausing on its trudge up the Columbia hills toward Larry's Lookout. Once again, if you click on the thumbnail you'll get the original gigantic picture from NASA. The large image is rich in interesting detail of rock formations, boulders strewn about, and the hills through which Spirit is roving. There's plenty of detail to give you a real appreciation of just how far up in the hills Spirit is right now.

I'd give a lot for a (safe) chance to stand there alongside Spirit...

Strange weather continues

Now the storm cells are arriving from the northeast (the opposite of the storms of the last few days). This indicates that the center of the storm has passed us, and we're getting the dregs of the tail-end of it. The lightning terrifies one of our field spaniels (Lea); she runs to be with us, no matter what we're doing, and cowers nearby, trembling pitifully. Our other field spaniel (Mo'i) acts like he doesn't even notice the thunder...

The little bit of rain we've received this afternoon has pushed the gauge up to 12.99 inches for the year...

Mount St. Helens update

The USGS site is well worth exploring — lots of good information, and plenty of photos. I particularly enjoy the VolcanoCam.

The latest report includes this:

Small collapses of hot rock from the south end of the growing lava dome sent several ash clouds upward and over the crater rim during the past 24 hours. Shortly after 3 a.m. this morning a seismic signal from such an event was accompanied by a bright glow that persisted on the VolcanoCam for about 15 minutes. The glow results from the collapse exposing hot, incandescent rock deeper in the dome. Crews are in the field today taking photographs and, wind conditions permitting, dredging rock samples from the lava dome.

The presence of glowing rock got a lot of people's attention, as it indicates that molten lava is very close to surface, and could potentially erupt at any time. From all I've read, none of the geologists are really expecting an explosive eruption (though they're way too cautious to rule that out). What they're really expecting is a nice, quiet, "normal" eruption wherein some lava starts flowing. Of course nobody really has any idea how much or at what rate.

Zero tolerance run amuck

The full story sure sounds ridiculous. In particular:

Rojas said she was shocked to learn that her son was being punished for a Level 4 offense -- the highest Level at the school. Other violations that also receive level 4 punishment include arson, assault and battery, bomb threats and explosives, according to the Code of Student Conduct.

What are these school officials thinking?

A couple of the columnists that I read regularly (James Taranto and his excellent Best of the Web Today newsletter, and Randy Cassingham's hysterical newsletter This is True) frequently highlight these zero tolerance crazinesses. And there is a good web site devoted to exposing these incidents with the goal of changing the zero tolerance policies: ZeroIntelligence.net From their site:

Zero Intelligence is a play on "Zero Tolerance", the knee jerk reactionary policies that plague our school systems. The implementation of a zero tolerance policy is the equivalent of giving up on common sense, reasonability and intellect. All infractions are grouped into types with uniform punishments regardless of the individual facts of the incident. Possession of Advil is treated as if it were equivalent to pushing crack. An honor student with the wrong type of pencil sharpener is punished the same as a known delinquent with a switchblade would be. Improper use of an inhaler leads to arrest as assault with a weapon. It is easy to see why we call these "Zero Intelligence Policies".

The most frightening part of the above paragraph is that all of the examples cited are real. They are not hyperbole or fiction for effect. They all actually happened in various school systems in the United States. These and countless other incidents show just how badly zero tolerance policies fail our children.

Personally, I find these "zero tolerance" policies very disturbing. I can only hope that our young people are born with enough sense to realize that the real world they will face as adults doesn't work the way their schools do. I fear, however, that what is actually happening is akin to some of the other grand experiments we've made with our schoolchildren Ᾱ a disaster in the making that will result (again!) in lowering America's competitiveness with the rest of the world.

Moonlight in Lawson Valley

I got up at about 3:30 am, woken by bright light in my eyes. Looking outside, the light was bright enough for me to see some color in the back yard, from a big, beautiful full moon and skies clear from horizon-to-horizon. The uninhabited hill behind our house had a bright spot near its peak, almost as if someone was up there with a work light. Took me a minute (this was before coffee, mind you), but I figured it out: the exposed rocks are covered with a film of water, and the moonlight was reflecting from that. That film of water could only be coming from a spring, and there's not much of the hill that's higher than those rocks — an indication of just how much rain we've absorbed around here in the past few weeks.

And speaking of rain...the grand total for the year-to-date now stands at 12.95 inches. The National Weather Service is forecasting a "chance of rain" for Monday through Wednesday of next week, but the next few days look like we're going to have nice weather. It will be very nice to see the sun for a few days...

High oil prices

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I really hate paying $50 or more to fill up my truck. On the other hand, economic incentive is probably the only way we'll ever get weaned from oil.

If gasoline prices stayed at very elevated prices for a few years, I suspect entrepreneurs and inventors all over the place would be coming up with clever ways to increase fuel efficiency (such as the new hybrids) or to switch to some alternative power source (such as hydrogen derived from solar power). I have no idea what these new inventions might be, but I have a lot of confidence in the cleverness of inventors highly motivated by the profit opportunity. That's the problem I see with low gasoline prices — there's no profit in an alternative that can't be as cheap as that fermented dinosaur you're filling your tank with...

The picture is ripped from the Drudge Report; it's a collection of oil traders gone mad. I suspect this is how they look every day, but how would any of us know?

Do you...Skype?

Skype is a small piece of free software that anybody can download and install on their computer. It lets you make free phone calls over the Internet to anyone else who has Skype. Unlike all the previous attempts to do the same thing, Skype actually works — in fact, it works amazingly well, in some ways better and more convenient than a telephone. To use it there are only a few requirements: you must have a computer with audio (sound) capability, you must have a microphone (or better yet, a headset), and you must have an Internet connection (even a dial-up connection will do).

Seventy four million people have already downloaded Skype. You can download it yourself. It's poised to have a big impact (i.e., wipe out) ordinary telephones, as a column in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) relates. They make this observation:

Despite all the skepticism that surrounds the notion of giving away (as Skype does) a service that the telecom operators charge for, this is serious stuff. Sure, the "free" price tag alone is for many an unbeatable proposition. (And don't be fooled: There is a lot of money in "free," as many companies have demonstrated in recent years.) It is serious because of what happened during my conversation with Susan. Using Skype's file-transfer feature, we exchanged documents and pictures related to the project we were discussing in real-time. We Googled information and shared it immediately by sending links to one another through Skype's instant-messaging tool. And at a certain point we needed to ask our colleague Alberto for an update. My Skype "buddy list" showed that he was online, probably in his office in Lugano, Switzerland. We suspended the discussion for five seconds, the time it took me to set up a Skype conference call with six clicks, and there we were, the three of us, talking freely and for free across the ocean.

That's what really makes VOIP so potentially disruptive (Skype is just its most aggressive incarnation; I expect it to ignite a VOIP-boom this year). When a phone call becomes a mere application on the network, then it can interact and converge with many other applications and with online presence (the information provided by the "buddy list") to create a rich, dynamic and amazingly flexible communication environment.

As a Skype user myself, I couldn't agree more. Something that article didn't point out is that Skype has a very direct plan to make money: they've set up "gateways" through which Skype users can call ordinary telephone users, and vice versa — and these will not be free. While in the end Skype may cause conventional telephones to disappear, the need for mobile phones (and the gateways) will remain. Sounds like a good business model to me...

Twelve inches!

I peeked at the rain gauge this morning: 12.36" since January 1st. The storm that dumped the most recent several inches on us is forecast to end this afternoon — but now the National Weather service predicts another storm to arrive next Monday!

Anybody know where a good used Ark can be purchased?

How did Jamul get its name?

With a half-hour of googling, I could find very little information on the web about the origins of the name "Jamul". I did locate this site: Silvas in Old Town San Diego, which makes the assertion that Jamul is derived from "hamull", a Kumeyaay word that means "greens used for food". The site says further that the Kumeyaay named places according to what they saw at that place. They make no citations about sources for this information (though there are citations for other things, and a bibliography), so I have no way to judge its accuracy.

As I was doing this research, I happened across a paper posted on the San Diego Historical Society site about a piece of Jamulian history I'd never heard of: the Jamul Portland Cement Works. It's a fascinating read if you're interested in the small details of local history. But a search of the San Diego Historical Society's site led to an even more interesting article about the Jamul Massacre of 1837. I had no idea any such thing had occurred here!

SHA-1 broken

Bruce Schneier reports (on his excellent "Schneier on Security " blog) that SHA-1 has been broken. Many of you have never heard of SHA-1, so a brief explanation is in order: SHA-1 is the most commonly used "cryptographic hash" — a specialized software or hardware function that is used as a kind of building block for many kinds of cryptographic systems. For example, the certificates that your web browser decodes (to let you use secure web sites) depend on cryptographic hashes.

Bruce's posting is an interesting read, and contains a pointer to a short paper by the three Chinese scientists who actually did the breaking. As Bruce points out, the sky is not falling:

For the average Internet user, this news is not a cause for panic. No one is going to be breaking digital signatures or reading encrypted messages anytime soon. The electronic world is no less secure after these announcements than it was before.

But there's an old saying inside the NSA: "Attacks always get better; they never get worse." Just as this week's attack builds on other papers describing attacks against simplified versions of SHA-1, SHA-0, MD4, and MD5, other researchers will build on this result. The attack against SHA-1 will continue to improve, as others read about it and develop faster tricks, optimizations, etc. And Moore's Law will continue to march forward, making even the existing attack faster and more affordable.

Jon Callas, PGP's CTO, put it best: "It's time to walk, but not run, to the fire exits. You don't see smoke, but the fire alarms have gone off."

The bar in the (forever) ongoing war between the cryptographers and the cryptanalysts just got raised a bit higher. It reminds me a bit of an earlier technological battle that I participated in, between the copy protection vendors and the folks (like me) who found ways around their clever tricks. Whatever the underlying technology, physics, and mathematics, there always seem to be either mistakes made or unexpected vulnerabilities uncovered that allow the "other side" room to exploit. But there is a huge difference with the cryptographic systems: the world generally (cryptanalysts aside) takes the efficacy of cryptographic systems for granted as they're used every day for secure web browsing, digital signatures, and the like. These systems protect transactions involving immense sums (in aggregate, I mean), and they protect the privacy of all of us — even if you don't use the Internet, information about you is all over it.

So this was for me a somewhat discomfiting news report. The good news, I suppose, is that the team who first managed to break SHA-1 (at least I hope they were the first!) is more interested in publishing their results than they are in exploiting them. Let's hope that's a continuing phenomenon in the cryptographic wars...

Tornadoes in San Diego County?!

What's next? Locusts? Frogs? Volcanic eruptions? From the National Weather Service:

Bulletin - Eas Activation Requested Tornado Warning National Weather Service San Diego CA 248 PM PST Tue Feb 22 2005

The National Weather Service In San Diego Has Issued A

* Tornado Warning For... Orange County In Southwest California This Includes The Cities Of... Westminster... Tustin Foothills... Tustin... Stanton... Santa Ana... San Juan Capistrano... San Clemente... Placentia... Orange... Newport Beach... Mission Viejo... Laguna Niguel... Laguna Hills... Laguna Beach... Irvine... Huntington Beach... Garden Grove... Fullerton... Fountain Valley... El Toro... Dana Point... Costa Mesa... Anaheim Extreme Northwestern San Diego County In Southwest California This Includes The City Of Oceanside... San Onofre

* Until 345 PM PST

* At 247 PM PST... National Weather Service Doppler Radar Indicated A Severe Thunderstorm Capable Of Producing A Tornado 8 Miles South Of Dana Point... Moving North At 25 Mph. Spotters Have Indicated Funnel Clouds And Waterspouts With This Area Of Storms Which Will Likely Move Onshore Over The Next 45 Minutes To An Hour.

* The Tornado Is Expected To Be Near... Newport Beach By 300 PM PST Dana Point By 305 PM PST San Juan Capistrano By 310 PM PST San Onofre... And San Clemente By 315 PM PST

The Safest Place To Be During A Tornado Is In A Basement. Get Under A Workbench Or Other Piece Of Sturdy Furniture. If No Basement Is Available... Seek Shelter On The Lowest Floor Of The Building In An Interior Hallway Or Room Such As A Closet. Use Blankets Or Pillows To Cover Your Body And Always Stay Away From Windows.

If In Mobile Homes Or Vehicles... Evacuate Them And Get Inside A Substantial Shelter. If No Shelter Is Available... Lie Flat In The Nearest Ditch Or Other Low Spot And Cover Your Head With Your Hands.

Lat... Lon 3371 11810 3317 11737 3337 11740 3347 11753 3369 11747 3393 11791

Eleven inches!

Woke up this morning (again!) to the sound of gentle rain falling. Looked at the rain gauge, and...we've now had just over 11 inches for the year-to-date. And it's still raining, and the weather service is predicting two to four inches more for this storm.

Debi and I took a short drive through our valley late yesterday afternoon, just to see what the rainfall's effects had been. Every dirt road (and there are lots of them out here) has erosion gullies on it, and streamlets running through or along them. A friend's property that normally has a dry streambed running through it now has a raging stream, eroding away the banks and falls at a visible rate. And the creek running through Lawson Valley is at levels we've never seen in our six+ years living out here. In some places, culverts under driveways have been overwhelmed, and the creek is flowing over the driveway as if it were a ford. Where the main road traverses the creek, so far the bridges and culverts aren't threatened — but you can see how they might be if we got even more rain! If that should happen, we have an alternate way out of the valley, up a four-wheel drive road that doesn't cross any streams. We normally think of that road as our "fire escape" — but it may turn out to have other uses...

Betting on the hockey stick

The recent questions raised about the notorious "hockey stick" graph (by scientist Michael Mann) are gaining just a little bit more public traction than have other questions raised about global warming over the past few years. Dr. Mann's graph purports to clearly show global warming, and one can imply from the timing of the "warming" that the impact of human activity is at fault. But first amateurs (reminds me of the blogs!) and then mainstream scientists have started to raise questions about Dr. Mann's methodology. The usual response to these sorts of questions in the world of science is to make your methods available for peer review — something that Dr. Mann is apparently refusing to do. Of course, this raises all the more question, as there is no legitimate reason to withhold this information.

In an opinion piece on Friday, the Wall Street Journal briefly tells the story of Dr. Mann's graph, including the extraordinary impact his graph — because of its "clarity" — has had on the impetus behind responding to global warming. They summarize:

But the important point is this: The world is being lobbied to place a huge economic bet — as much as $150 billion a year — on the notion that man-made global warming is real. Businesses are gearing up, at considerable cost, to deal with a new regulatory environment; complex carbon-trading schemes are in the making. Shouldn't everyone look very carefully, and honestly, at the science before we jump off this particular cliff?

Well, that's a valid point all right — $150 billion a year is not chump change by any measure. Of course we should be sure of the science before we place this particular bet (or any like it).

But perhaps a more interesting issue is this: how do we avoid having this sort of tempest-in-a-teacup in the first place? Why is global warming being treated as though it were proven fact, instead of what it really is: an intriguing theory?

I am not a scientist, and I don't even have an opinion about whether global warming is in fact occurring. But it seems to me fairly obvious that the scientists who are investigating global warming have a clear vested interest in the world having great concerns about it. It is this great concern, after all, that causes governments and philanthropic organizations to cough up vast amounts of cold, hard cash for targeted research. Surely it's true that before the scary bogeyman of "global warming", scientists studying climatology didn't have nearly so effective a grant-generating tool. And equally surely, not every scientist (or their manager) is unaffected by this fact. Does anyone doubt that the climatologist whose work spectacularly supports global warming (like Dr. Mann) finds it easier to get grants than the climatologist whose work casts doubt on it? This is a classic setup for producing biased results — a system of incentives for those who produce one outcome, and disincentives for those who produce the other.

And it's exacty what we — the country and the world — don't need: biased information (whether it is flawed or not) to base vital policy-making on. Surely there must be a better way...

Ten inches!

Looked at my rain gauge a moment ago, and we've just crossed ten inches for the year. Yahoo!

Self-portraits from Mars

Spirit and Opportunity have been roving on Mars for over a year now, doing lots of great science. Both of them are long past their design lifetime, and are off on extraordinary unplanned exploration. Spirit is climbing some low mountains, hoping for both informative geology and a good view. Opportunity just finished thoroughly exploring a small crater, and after that found it's own heat shield and studied that. It's now off on a long trek across the mostly featureless plains its on, in the hope of making it to another crater.

Spirit is in pretty good shape, but is suffering from a few problems of old age. For example, it has a "sticky" wheel that sometimes drags a bit. And it has an intermittently shorted wire that is so far not causing any problems, but could. Spirit also has a coating of dust on its solar cells that reduces the amount of power they provide. This dusting of the solar cells was expected, and in fact was something that the mission planners thought was likely to be what finally killed off the rover — but so far, the coating is much less than expected and is not causing major problems. Occasionally the operations planners include relatively quiet days to let Spirit's batteries charge up, but that's about the only impact of the dust.

Opportunity, on the other hand, is surprising everybody. Not only is it still in tip-top shape, but it also inexplicably has far less dust than even Spirit! Also, photo observations have shown that the dust has been somewhat mysteriously cleaned off a few times during Opportunity's travels. Explanations proffered have included kindly Martians, dust devils, vibrations while travelling on steep hillsides, and (probably most likely) convenient gusts of wind. Whatever the causes, Opportunity is doing great — and there's good reason to hope that it can trek a few miles across the plains to visit another crater.

The two self-portraits at right (Spirit on top, Opportunity on bottom) were made by using the panoramic camera that each rover has. If you click on them, you'll get truly enormous high-resolution versions that are suitable for printing or making Windows desktop backdrops from. These panoramic cameras are mounted on a mast sticking straight up out of the middle of each rover. The mast was mostly intended to give this camera a little extra visual range. But that same mast allows pointing the camera straight down and taking a whole series of pictures (each covering a small piece of the rover) that can be laid side-to-side to make up a complete self-portait, like a mosaic. Software that's readily available even to amateur photographers (called "stitching" software) allows putting all these images together to make seamless composite images, and that's what the JPL folks did to make these. That's also why the images have such a strange shape — the rovers only took the small pictures where the rover would actually be in the picture.

In my opinion, the twin rover missions to Mars are great examples of federal government money well spent — as opposed to the enormously expensive and relatively unproductive manned space missions. The Mars mission is one that I cannot imagine attracting commercial interest sufficient to fund it, though the commercial world would certainly be interested in providing the vehicles, support systems, and services involved in such a mission (and of course to some extent private enterprise is involved). But the Mars missions have hard-core science as their objective, and they are abundantly delivering on that. To the extent we believe government should be funding pure science, such missions are excellent candidates. The manned missions, by comparison, are pathetic. There's little justification for them in terms of the science delivered, and even less justification when their stupendous cost is factored in. There may — may — be more plausible justification from a commerical angle. But if that is truly so, then private enterprise would do a much better job of funding and executing it. For all these reasons, I am very much opposed to a government-funded manned space program...

Of Moonbats and Leftist Loonies

Trying to figure this out led me on quite a googling expedition — there are hundreds of thousands of hits on the word "moonbat", nearly all of them from recent political blog postings. I kept getting distracted by intriguing phrases, like "AutoRantic Moonbat" and "barking moonbat", and "moonbat central". The challenge was to find anything that wasn't part of the blogosphere. I didn't find much:

    "Moonbat" is the name of a painting.

    A U.S. military plane (a night bomber) was once nicknamed "Moonbat".

    Lots of people have named their cats "Moonbat".

For me, the term made instant sense the first time I read it. "Moon" conjures up the crazies that come out in the full moon, and "bat" conjures up "batty" and all its related terms and phrases. Fits very nicely to those the term is applied to! It strikes me as one of the least contrived of the new words I've run into recently...

Several sites led me to either Little Green Footballs or Libertarian Samizdata (both are great blogs) as the originators. Wikipedia gives the nod to the latter, and just over two years ago:

Moonbat is a pejorative political slogan coined in 2002 by Perry de Havilland of "The Libertarian Samizdata," a libertarian weblog. The term enjoys great currency in the libertarian blogosphere, where it is used to disparage modern liberals, peace protestors, and other ideological opponents. SEE ALSO: Feminazi, Idiotarian.

Definitions

1. "Someone on the extreme edge of whatever their -ism happens to be." (de Havilland )

2. "someone who sacrifices sanity for the sake of consistency" (Adriana Cronin)

3. "... human whose cerebral cortex has turned to silly putty causing him or her to mentally slide down the evolutionary ladder to the level of a winged rat who is influenced by the moon and wants to suck your blood. Also not-so-affectionately known as a "Democrat"." (www.barking-moonbat.com F.A.Q)

4. Not liberals, but leftists. Whereas liberals are patriotic, leftists seek to undermine their national strength. Anti-war protestors, likely to call the US military "nazis," apt to blame the 9-11 attacks on a US government and Zionist conspiracy, are moonbats. Liberals who oppose the war, are not.

5. A poster at the liberal/progressive website Democratic Underground.

Whatever the actual origins of the word, it's a winner in my book...