If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
   -Isaac Newton

Technorati Tags: quotes

There are a large number of posts I have started and abandoned in the past weeks, often abandoning them not only because of my dissatisfaction with the quality of my writing, but also because of the lack of symmetry and balance in the posts themselves. The titles include, but are not limited to:

Confusing appearing with being

Long ago…

It’s past time we accept that ALL reporting is biased…

And one that actually has a quotable passage:

An odd linkage of popular culture and politics of the day…

…comes from Salon.com (you can watch an ad to see the entire story, to me it’s less obnoxious than a registration):

But before we all hail George Lucas for raising the level of political discourse in American cinema (and on that score, the accolades have already begun to roll in), let’s remember that all of the “Star Wars” movies — even the genuinely superb “The Empire Strikes Back” — have a relatively simple piece of rhetoric as their backbone: Good must triumph over evil.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with that as a theme for a series of fantasy movies. But it’s much too simplistic to be taken seriously as a political statement. And it’s the kind of oversimplification that plagues both sides of the current political divide. Neither of the Georges — Lucas or Bush — seems to realize that a black-and-white ethos is no template for a world that too often includes shades of gray.

I’ve read the published script for the soon to be released, ostensibly last-ever Star Wars movie, and there are some not-so-subtle digs that are sadly made more relevant by the recent passage of the Real ID Act as an amendment to a military spending bill along with many of the other bills passed into law, executive orders, and other changes in how the government exerts its power over citizens in the years since September 11, 2001.

Lost innocence?

The Star Wars movies going from good non-political popcorn-movie fun to a political statement on freedom in the United States is an unintentional metaphor that almost perfectly describes the path trodden in the years since the release of the first movie, going from the apparently clear and seemingly symmetric dichotomy of “good guys-bad guys” inherent in the Cold War to the confused moral and factual ambiguity of a so-called War on Terror that appears to be more of a fabrication of the spin-machines than a true conflict of civilizations, regardless of how some wish to portray it.

—

I write a lot, and I delete 90% of what I write.

Theodore Sturgeon once wrote, “Ninety percent of everything is crap.”

I often fear that more than 90% of what I write is crap, which is why at least 90% of it is deleted.

An unusual case of symmetry in areas I have wished to post has arisen where others have posted on the topics from their respective points of view and I can retain the balance, and despite the seemingly unrelated nature of the posts there is more than one thread connecting them.

The fundamental connecting thread, the weakening of their respective arguments by naked partisan (and more than quasi-extremist) attacks on “the other side”, which if not undertaken could have actually persuaded those not of similar political persuasions to support the cause outlined.

First from Thoughts in the Daedalnexus (thanks to Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice for the link), where there are a few swipes at “the right” that were not needed to make the fundamental case:

I have a question. Are we at war, or aren’t we? We have soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan killing and dying on the President’s orders, so in that sense we are at war. Bush II says we’re at war, and when the President says so, his authority gives his words more weight than, say, mine. But in almost every way I can think of, we’re not at war. Engaged in a dangerous conflict, yes, not actually at war.

How have we, as U.S. citizens, been asked to sacrifice for the so-called war on terror? We’ve been asked to give up some civil liberties in the pursuit of “homeland security,” but that’s pretty much it. Cutting our per-capita gasoline consumption would dramatically reduce the profits of nations like Saudi Arabia, nations that have been shown to bankroll Islamist terrorism. Reducing the flood of money going into terrorist bank accounts would probably have a dramatic effect on the conflict. Instead, Congress has refused to even consider raising fuel efficiency standards, and the IRS still gives a tax credit for the purchase of large trucks and SUVs purchased by small businesses, making gas consumption MORE attractive, not less.

We’re running a huge budget deficit that is partly the result of our continuing military actions abroad, yet the President and Congress have not asked the American people to pay the higher taxes required to make war. Not only that, but taxes have actually dropped dramatically since the supposed war started.

Perhaps most damning in many respects is the fact that we have not been asked to sacrifice ourselves, our children, our husbands, or our wives to the war effort. Our professional, all-volunteer military (read “mercenary army composed of the undereducated and the poor”) has not yet been supplemented with draftees, something that is all but inevitable in a real war. Instead, our government is requiring year-long tours of duty in a combat zone with six months or less R&R before being redeployed to another combat zone. This tactic is gradually killing military preparedness, driving the most experienced soldiers out of the military altogether, and making recruitment more and more difficult for the Army, the various National Guards, and the Reserves.

If the United States is truly at war, we should behave as if we are. Instead we’re cutting our own throats economically and militarily, and we’re bankrolling the very enemies we’re in conflict with. We cannot continue to destroy ourselves this way. Unfortunately, I have little confidence that the federal government can change this suicidal course. It will take the people realizing that they’ve been led astray by ideologues and idiots before a new course out of this conflict may be charted.

A not unreasonable set of questions, but unfortunately diluted by the remarks starting with the parenthetical “read ‘mercenary army composed of the undereducated and the poor’”. I know more than a few of those who have served and still serve in the Armed Forces of the United States, and they have NOT been undereducated, poor, nor mercenary. To a man (and yes, all the ones I know are male) they have been intelligent patriots who are well educated and serve because they believe in the underlying principles of our nation, not because they are being “mercenaries”.

So, even though I am predisposed to accepting the argument presented, the partisan swipe renders it almost unappealing to me without a tremendous effort to overcome my emotional negation.

Similarly, a post from Donnie (now posting under his real name) at Cadillac Tight, in a post on 24 July that seems to have disappeared from the post chain but still exists in the RSS feed and on his server, again the underlying theme of the post has merit, and is something I have been meaning to post upon for a long time, the inadequate (to say the least) compensation we offer to those fighting for us, but the argument is weakened by the partisan swipes, this time directed at “the left”:

Not so fast, Chomsky…

—

Well, yeah. Recruiting is a problem in wartime, after all…and I’ll discuss that a bit further down in this post. First, though, let me point out to the left side of the blogosphere that they may not want to climb too many steeples to shout this news from, as one of the article’s points is:

an improving economy

Sigh. DCSPERS, what can we do with ‘em?

Gah! Remember, lefties, your “worst economy since Hoover” posts of the past (we do, you know, we remember), and consider how we’ll jam them down your throats once you start gibbering and capering about as if this Times article is GOOD news for your side.

Now then, recruiting. Yes, there’s a war on, and before I get into any suggestions about how to address the recruiting problem, let me just say for the record that I think this administration has made a very big mistake in this regard. I understand the rationale behind the “go about your normal lives” approach to handling the domestic side of the war, given I have a pretty good understanding of the terrorist’s goals - they’d like to fuck up our infrastructure something fierce, and rationing, et. al. would do a large portion of that job for them. Where I disagree with the president’s approach to “business as usual” is in how he’s neglected to reinforce the fact that while those of us who have already served our time, or who can’t serve any time for one reason or another should, actually, go about our business, those who haven’t served, but can, SHOULD.

And yeah, we’re at the point where that needs to be said, and reinforced, and said again. This administration isn’t doing that, and I’m fully aware of why they aren’t - it’s a political decision for them, and it by God shouldn’t be. Look, there’s no election looming on the horizon (last time I checked, 2006 is still 15 or so months away), the Rove “scandal” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, the SC situation was brilliantly handled with a perfect nominee, and things, in general, are well for the Republican party. It’s beyond time to get back to the business of prosecuting this war.

So, that kind of leads me into some recommendations. First, what I already said: Mr. Rumsfeld, and Mr. Bush need to make it clear, by whatever means necessary, that recruiting is a problem, and that Americans who are able to serve their country in uniform should do so, for the same reasons they have in the past, from Valley Forge to Normandy. This nation is at war, because it has been attacked - we are not involved in a “Police Action”, or a “Peacekeeping Force” - we are AT WAR. We are defending our country against an aggressive enemy.

Next - the new recruiting package is nice. I mean, folks, it’s nice. Had I the opportunity back in my day of availing myself of those re-enlistment bonuses, enlistment bonuses, college funds, and special pay, I’d be a lot farther along in my retirement planning than I am now, of that I assure you. The mistake that’s just waiting to be made here, though, is that I can guarantee you some nimrod in the DoD will propose rolling back all of those cool incentives once the war is over (or even after it’s simply settled a bit). Don’t do it. I beg you guys, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, whatever persuasion you are, don’t roll these incentives back. We need a professional NCO and Officer corps, and we need them to be by cracky excellent NCOs and Officers…what better way to keep good people than to, well, reward them for being good?

Fucking Java programmers straight out of fucking DeVry shouldn’t make more money than seasoned 11-B E-5’s. No way.

Next - Don’t fuck the vets, man…don’t fuck the vets. If you touch any VA legislation, or any VA funding, you’d by God better be improving it, not re-allocating it, or downsizing it, or “managing” it, or re-distributing it. You know, even in peacetime, fucking the vets is frowned upon - just ask William Jefferson Clinton, or John “Jeng-Giss-Khan” Kerry. You go and fuck the vets in wartime, and kiss your ass goodbye the next time you send those absentee ballots out to the soldiers, whether there’s an (R) after your name or not. Guaranteed. Worse still, (R)’s or (D)’s aside, you’re telling the very folks you want to enlist that you don’t give a shit about them if they become disabled, or need lifelong care.

Don’t even give anyone the impression that you’re fucking the vets, OK?

Next - and this relates to the first “Next” - those contractors you are experimenting with? The ones who are supposed to replace E-1’s through E-6’s in specialist jobs? Cut that shit out, guys. That’s not even remotely cool, it’s stupid, stupid, stupid. Let me tell you something - you give an E-2 or an E-3 the incentives the Times article mentions, give them a solid benefits package, enough cash to play poker with their contemporaries on the outside, and a goddamned career they can both be proud of and support their families on, and you won’t have to play fuck-fuck with “contractors”. You’ll also take a big step towards building that professional NCO corps I mentioned earlier.

Finally, and nearest and dearest to my own heart, the Combat Arms guys? The ones you take great pains to sidetrack extra pay to in various ways, shapes, and forms, but you really can’t get them what they deserve, or need?

Pay those guys. Just fucking pay them, and pay them well. Give them the very best weapons and equipment money can buy, give them all the honor and glory you have to offer, give them better pay, and quarters, and ceremonies, and clubs and facilities and beer and fucking whatever it is they want. Give it to them - there’s no excuse not to, all PC bullshit aside. Every Company Clerk I’ve ever known realized deep down inside that the guys with the bayonets deserve more pay and bennies than they do, so why the hell don’t you, the fucking DoD realize it?

Pay them. Pay the goddamned Infantry, and the Artillery, and the Combat Engineers, and the Armor, and the Air Cav, and the Signal Corps guys in the field, more than you pay the Personnel Clerks, or the JAG clerks, or the Quartermaster specialists, or the MPs, or the Medical Service Corps (different from the Medical Corps). Pay them, pay them, pay them.

Pay the Paratroopers and Air Assault soldiers well. Pay the Pathfinders and Jumpmasters better. Pay the Rangers more than what a fucking plumber takes home. Pay the Special Forces guys better than the Rangers. Pay the Delta guys, and the senior NCOs and Officers in each Combat Arms specialty even more. Cough it up, pay ‘em.

Cut out the bullshit with the National Guard guys getting second class equipment and billets in fucking wartime - if they are going to see the goddamned elephant, give ‘em a fucking cattle prod to use, at the very least.

Get rid of even the appearance of under equipping and/or underpaying our most important citizens, and you know what? You’ll recruit more of them.

That is all.

Again, the points made are valid from any reasonable standpoint, and in my opinion outstanding and should be immediately acted upon, but the impact is diminished because of the swipes at “the left” before the opening of the statement of what is needed to fully support the Armed Forces we need.

Civil discourse, I’ve given up on that as a chimera that never really existed.

Now I have been reduced to being focused on showing how arguments are lessened by the partisan attacks.

One of the most critical and insightful military historians of recent times, B.H. Liddell Hart, wrote a book called Strategy, which extolled the virtues of the indirect approach.

I think that many of those who are making partisan arguments could learn much from this book, and this indirect approach.

In an indirect approach to their goal, perhaps, just perhaps, they may very well persuade those who otherwise would not have listened.

Technorati Tags: commentary, some thoughts, weblogs

Contributor A, at Asymetrical Information, writes upon a topic that is often neglected, but I find truly important, even though it will make the eyes of most of you glaze over completely, the evils of farm subsidies as practiced by the United States, Japan, and (although mentioned only incidentally by Contributor A I must note it as the most egregious offender) the European Union.

Think in terms of demi-centuries and continents, not years and individuals.

Technorati Tags: opinion

As a benificiary of the protection of intellectual property (IP) in more ways than one, I ordinarily respect “pay to read” articles on the Internet and only quote sections that can be covered by a reasonable interpretation of “fair use”.

However, in the wake of the bombings and other recent events in London, The Economist, in general a very level-headed publication, even on topics that strike close to their home, has published a “subscriber-only” article that I believe is so important for Americans to read that I must risk the wrath of the IP police.

Traditions are very important in England. Given that they have an unwritten constitution that is based on tradition more than a document (living, interpreted, strictly by the original intention, or whatever preference you have for the US Constitution and its reading by the US Supreme Court), it is not surprising that other, less critical but possibly equally important traditions are honored, and not only in the breech.

The tradition of the London Bobby, the policeman armed with only a truncheon, even if that, is old and revered…

…and apparently now dead in the face of terrorism, even though the Irish Republican Army and their fellow travelers committed similar atrocities of killing innocents.

The new face of London’s police
Jul 28th 2005
From The Economist print edition
Policemen and politicians are shooting from the hip. That’s bad

LONDONERS are living under a shadow. Nine bombs since July 7th in the hands of young men who without warning sought to take as many lives as they could - including their own - represent an alarming new threat. One lethal shooting, of an innocent Brazilian man by London’s Metropolitan Police on July 22nd, bears witness to the perils of the response.

In extraordinary times countries seize on extraordinary measures. The police marksmen who gunned down Jean Charles de Menezes in an underground train were acting under procedures designed to stop a suspected suicide-bomber before he detonates his charge - in the words of their former boss, to “destroy his brain instantly, utterly”. In the rush to arm itself against the bombers, the government this week laid the ground for emergency anti-terror legislation that includes powers to stop those training terrorists or planning an attack, to prosecute anyone “glorifying” or fomenting terror, and possibly to let police hold suspects for up to three months.

Because suicide attacks are new to Britain, it is right that the country should examine its defences. But Mr de Menezes’s violent death contains two lessons - that the police and the security services will make full and frequent use of their “exceptional” powers, and that they will make mistakes.

Guard the guards

Since those first blasts, the police have on 250 separate occasions thought they might be dealing with a suicide-bomber, the chief of the Metropolitan Police reported this week. They have almost opened fire no fewer than seven times, Sir Ian Blair disclosed. His moral - that “we have got as close to calling it as ‘that’ and we haven’t” - and news of an inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into the shooting were designed to be reassuring. Instead they suggest that, in the three to six months of the inquiry, police procedures that have once failed fatally will be tested thousands of times.

That matters because the police face some hard questions about Mr Menezes’s shooting at Stockwell in south London. On what grounds was he followed as he left the only entrance of a block which contained not only a flat under surveillance, but many others beside? Why, if police thought he was dangerous enough to kill once he boarded a tube, was he first allowed to board a bus? Was he warned when he began to flee the (plainclothes) police pursuing him? When the new guidelines for shooting-to-kill suicide-bombers were introduced at the start of 2002, why weren’t the public or Parliament told?

A YouGov poll for The Economist shows overwhelming public support for the police and their tactics (see article). That is partly a well-deserved reflection on an investigation that has rapidly identified the terrorists. But the public should temper its gratitude with vigilance. Britons need to be sure that, if the investigation into Mr Menezes’s death finds fault with the operation, police procedure and training will change, and that whoever is responsible will be held accountable.

It seems likely that the police over-reacted on the basis of poor information. Politicians do the same under pressure. Emergency legislation which is at first judged a triumph often turns out to be either authoritarian or foolish. The internment of suspected Irish terrorists without trial in the 1970s turned out to be counterproductive; Britain made itself a laughing stock when it gave employment to resting actors who were paid to read the words of banned Sinn Fein politicians.

We have seen the future

Good policing is about good information. Draconian or daft laws corrode the very links to Muslim Britain that the government and police say they need to combat terrorism. The new legislation will be drafted in haste, but is likely to remain in force for a long time. Although the second wave of bombs on London on July 21st failed to detonate, it carried a baleful message: bombings and manhunts will be part of British life for many years.

Which is why, as Britain contemplates new emergency powers, it needs to build in safeguards against the constant danger of mistakes and the police’s tendency to make full use of their powers. One protection is for all new legislation and policy to require an annual revision. A ritual, perhaps, but one that creates the scope for debate and a reminder that what has come to be part of the furniture of law enforcement was once seen as a regrettable sacrifice of liberty to security.

For the same reason, new legislation should when possible be supervised by judges and, better, the courts. The three months sought by the police is too long to lock someone away without charge. The lengthy incarceration of an innocent young Muslim man (that, after all, is who would be confined) would destroy his faith in Britain and the loyalty of his family and friends. If there is a case for legislation to allow suspects to be held more than 14 days, the person to contain the security services’ zeal is a judge.

But the best place for suspected terrorists is in the dock. That is a reason to help bring people to trial, by creating a new charge of acts preparatory to terrorism and also to overrule the security services and admit as evidence information from intelligence intercepts. There are ways to minimise the fear this will compromise intelligence operations.

The third safeguard is free speech. Nobody likes preachers spouting hate. Under today’s laws a jury convinced that their words lead directly to violence can put them in jail. But the new laws would outlaw something far vaguer and harder to define—and sweep bookshops and websites into the net.

That is both foolish and draconian. Foolish because in an open society and the age of the internet such a ban on free speech would not work. Draconian because it elevates the jihadis’ arguments. Are they so potent that they should be dignified by being banned? Are not the counter-arguments upon which British society is founded stronger? Nothing would be more beguiling to disillusioned Muslim youth than the illicit words of imams banished by British bureaucracy.

Tony Blair this week vowed that his government would yield “not one inch” to the terrorists. It just has.

Even in the face of repeated attacks, even without a written bill of rights that we enjoy in the United States, there are those in the United Kingdom who call for preservation of the unwritten rights that are so easily lost in the heat of calls to “destroy the evildoers!” that inevitably arise after atrocities.

It is our reaction to the actions of the evildoers, the compromises to our freedoms and liberties we are willing to make that result in us oppressing ourselves as much as the evildoers tell their followers they are supposedly oppressed by us, that convert us into the very evil we are portrayed as by those who hate us, our reaction and any actions taken in consequence that in the end determines who wins this conflict.

Think carefully before you act, a lesson taught to me when I was very young.

Think carefully before you act.

Whose side are you on?

What actions do you support?

Technorati Tags: commentary

…and it’s because I’m in France, damn it.

If anyone has or knows of a really cheap copy of Team America - World Police, let me know.

I need to see this movie to figure out how much irony the boys of South Park fame put into it, but I haven’t been able to find a DVD that will play in my (region 1, aka the US) DVD player here in France, but I don’t want to spend a fortune buying a new copy and shipping here to the heart of darkness if the movie sucks (and the definition of “sucks” is what I think of the movie, not anyone else…).

Technorati Tags: general

While at work researching patents possibly related to a new idea I have that just might be patentable, I ran across a patent of mine that I had forgotten.

I was tracking down the patents referred to a in recently issued patent that was tangentially related to my new idea; unfortunately I have to be that thorough about these things. So, I looked at the full text and diagrams of the referred patents, making sure that my new idea wasn’t already covered. There was one patent that stood out in a way that I couldn’t quite place, so I payed particlar attention to it.

I didn’t recognize it from the title or the abstract, but when the first diagram appeared on the web browser I went back to look at the inventors.

There was my name as first inventor, no less.

Then I couldn’t resist the vanity search, and I discovered the company I worked for 13 years ago had been busy little bees after I had left and had obtained four patents in Japan that I had no idea existed (completely legitimate according to my contract).

I also had several patents issued by the European Union and recognized by the WTO from my current employer that I was also unaware of until today.

This all prompted some rather odd and uneasy feelings, knowing there are things out there with my name attached as “inventor” that I did not know existed.

Not completely coincidentally, there is a lot of uneasiness about the current system of patenting inventions in the United States.

Technorati Tags: personal, science, technology

Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch.
   -Robert Orben

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.
   -Kurt Cobain

Technorati Tags: quotes