random rants and references

There's a neat discussion at Instapundit.com on the topic of whether "we pay lawyers too much, and scientists and engineers too little".

As an ex-engineer with kids in each of those categories, I wonder if the trend to favoring lawyer salaries will continue. While it's true that a market that pays lawyers more will generate more lawyers, it's also true that all trends crest. It's troubling that only 4% of college students go into science or engineering when so much of our economic productivity is dependent on applied creativity in those fields. (I wonder if that figure includes Information Science & Technology?)

Some make the case that salary differentials can be offset by improvements in "qualty of life" issues in the lab bureaucracies. I think the more interesting (motivational) observation is that entrepreneural engineering and science can lead to pretty huge rewards - as it has recently in the computer and communications fields.

With enough broadband communications and some creative business modeling, you don't need to cluster engineers in central labs; you can offer a rural lifestyle and a collaborative internetted working environment. Faster please with the broadband infrastructure deployment.

As expected, Gov. Rendell vetoed the bill requiring voter identification in Pennsylvannia. From the Phillladelphia Inquirer, IDs at polls unnecessary, Rendell says:
"With the National Constitution Center as his backdrop, Gov. Rendell used Presidents' Day to announce his veto of a bill that would require all voters to show identification whenever they go to the polls.

Seated in front of a dozen of the city's African American leaders, Democrats all, Rendell said at a news conference that House Bill 1318 would have the effect of denying some people their right to vote.

The legislation, he said, would discourage voting at a time when 'we should be doing everything we can to increase voter participation.'

Rendell then flew off to Pittsburgh to repeat the announcement, making this perhaps the highest-profile veto of his term as governor.

Current law imposes an identification requirement only on individuals voting at a polling place for the first time.

Lynn Swann, Rendell's likely Republican opponent in the gubernatorial election this fall, blasted the veto. His campaign said in a statement: 'The idea that presenting a form of identification would somehow disenfranchise people is as ridiculous as it is untrue.'"

Well, looks like we will have a clear contest of views this year. It is extremely unlikely that the legislature can get enough votes to overcome the governor's veto. But, we may get a good debate between the parties on this issue.

In addition to the positive ID requirement, the bill would have precluded Philadelphia and other cities from having voting places in empty houses or politicians' houses; and improved the ability of our overseas military to have their absentee ballots counted. There is another legislative chance to improve military voting proceedures this year.

The veto was predictable, since it would hinder fraudulent voting - which seems to occur largely in bigger cities, where coincidently the Democrats harvest lots of votes. Of course, the Republicans benefit from military ballots. Practical political campaigning involves understanding and managing the regional demographics.

But for the rest of us, it hard to understand why there is any opposition to assuring voters get their ballot counted and not diluted or lost because of fraud. It seems strange that we are forced by HAVA to improve our voting machines, at considerable expense, without improving the liklihood of preventing ineligible people from using the machines.

Sort of like having a massive unbreakable safe - and posting the combination on the door. But the governor seems to view that condition as desirable, since correcting it is "unnecessary".

The Susquehanna Count Commissioners voted on 8February 2006 to replace the county's existing optical scanner and add ballot marking machines for the handicaped. At the meeting, it was made clear that the action was needed to comply with the Federal HAVA law and that the $328 thousand cost would be covered by federal funds.

This voting machines newspaper article cites a PA State Court ruling on Monday 13February 2006 which may delay that purchase and raises some questions about exactly what is "Required" by the law. From the article : "A court ruling spawned uncertainty about plans to replace obsolete voting machines in more than half of Pennsylvania counties including Lehigh and Northampton.
........
Pellegrini, the ruling judge, noted the federal law applies only to elections for federal office. In the Westmoreland County opinion, he suggested a combination of paper ballots for federal elections and lever machines for local and state races could be used.

Doug Hill, director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, said such a scenario would pose 'huge administrative problems' for county election officials.

DePaul said an election using paper ballots would be unfeasible without the use of optical scanners, which fall into the category of banned mechanical systems."

That raises some questions for the Susquehanna action. The first is whether it will proceed. It's not clear that the ruling precludes the county purchase and it seems that delay may result in loss of the federal funding.

The next question revolves around Mr Hill's statement which claims that optical scanners are "banned". We are buying a replacement scanner and the reason is that the existing one does not meet HAVA specifications and the new one will. Hopefully, this is the case and Mr. Hill has mistaken what is "banned".

My impression of the County's planned system is that it is a good one; keeping the paper ballot and optical scanning equipment is a safe and simple way to assure an accurate and recoverable voting process. It's hard to believe that scanners are really banned since they are effective. But, not having read the HAVA rules, I can't comment on that or whether we really need to upgrade our scanner or add the 43 Auto Mark machine for handicaped voters.

I am struck by the fact the HAVA seems to require a small rural county to spend about a third of a million dollars (of federal tax money) to replicate basically the same system it had before. Given our small friendly population, I wonder if the new Auto Mark machines will really provide much practical benefit to our handicaped citizens; and if the Federal rules permit flexibility for rural entities to make simple cost-benefit trade-offs on these issues.

We are a very rural state. If only two thirds of our 67 countys are spending comparable sums, the PA bill is likely to exceed $15 Million for little obvious benefit. Seems like my taxes could be better spent.

I have been posting more in my persona of a 'Warmed Over Cold Warrior' to spare this blog my national security advocacy. But, now I have a great "2'fer" in this latest Michael Ledeen on Iran article. It provides penetrating insights into how the Mullahs view the West - our weaknesses and their opportunities; and should be read fully just for that. However, there is also a local rural PA angle.

After a rather sobering assessment of the Mullahs views and strategy , Ledeen notes that: "we now have the first encouraging signs that this administration is inclined to support revolution in Iran. Secretary of State Rice, after her laudable reform of the Foreign Service, has now asked Congress for an additional $75 million to advance the cause of freedom in Iran. This is good news indeed, especially since there were hints in her testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday that we have already begun supporting Iranian trade unions, and even training some of their leaders. "

And, recognizing that Iranian bus drivers are at the forefront of much recent anti-regime activity in Iran, he makes special notice that: "Even the world at large is beginning to bestir itself. Wednesday was a day of support for the Iranian bus drivers all across the civilized world. The AFL-CIO, driven by Teamsters’ President James Hoffa, in tandem with Senator Rick Santorum, has been leading the charge, now joined by unions in France, Britain, Spain, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Canada, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and Bermuda."

Ledeen considers that to be an impressive list of supporting nations and organizations. I certainly agree. I'm especially impressed by the fact that PA Senator Rick Santorum is leading this international charge for Iranian freedom with Hoffa and the Teamsters and AFL-CIO unions!

Senator Santorum is able to make common cause with the unions to advance America's national security interests and foriegn policy. Many other nations join this common cause. So, why can't the Democrats ? And why aren't they in the lead on this issue (or even present)??

Maybe someone should ask Casey where he stands on this. Or, better yet, just remember it when you vote in November. It's not just politics. It's really all about America.

After a 9 month hiatus, I restarted this blog with the intent of 'posting more on local rural aspects'. Instead , five of my first six posts were about the 'cartoon war' and Islamist Militancy. I've learned that my real interests are revealed more by actions than by stated intentions.

So, I'm starting a new blog, Warmed Over Cold Warrior , to discuss national security issues including the Iraq-Iran campaign in the Greater War on Terror (GWOT). The goal is to return to my original intentions for this R3 Blog, while indulging my interest in national security advocacy in the new blog. Hopefully, I'll keep posting in both.

I've read or listened to many discussions of Darwinism vs Intelligent Design(ID). There seems to be a lot of intellectual muscle and intensity arrayed against ID - often expressed as a strong (if not exclusive) preference for a secular over a religious world view.

It had never occurred to me that to ask if that preference could be a major disadvantage to the survival of a society or a human collective, as Ralph Peters suggests in his essay on Survival Strategy - Middle Eastern Islam, Darwin and Terrorism. It's in keeping with his reputation as a iconoclastic and provocative thinker on timely topics. I'll provide some quotes, but you can read the whole thing here ARMED FORCES JOURNAL . He raises and discusses this Key Question:

"Why has the cult of the suicide bomber developed so swiftly today, and why is it rooted in the Middle East and not elsewhere (from Indonesia to Kosovo, Muslims behave violently but not suicidally)?
The answer is timely, given the current fuss about intelligent design versus the theory of evolution in our own country: Suppose that Darwin was right conceptually, but failed to grasp that religion is a highly evolved survival strategy for human collectives?"



Well, I wish he had a more optimistic ending for what it takes to win or survive. Read it all; it is a well-articulated and important insight. Discussing Darwin and ID becomes existentially more interesting if ID stands for Islamist Designs.

Last night's post on cartoons and nukes may have been a tad academic based on the more recent news from the UK Telegraph that US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites . It reports that: "Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb. Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

"This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months.""

Well, with Ahmadinejad removing UN seals, restarting uranium enrichment and making speeches of about Iran's willingness to change its policy about the NPT (and, by implication, its restraint to only peaceful uses of nuclear energy), this is not unexpected. What is odd is that the Pentagon chose to "leak" this information to a UK paper. Maybe they think that's a better way to get the message out without undue and misleading editorial clutter.

I guess the simple view is that Iran and the US are now engaged in a high stakes game of 'chicken'. It can be hard to back away once this game gets going. Perhaps this public show of US firmness will be matched by more immediate and active support (overt and covert) to Iranians that want to change their regime from within. Revolution is preferable to bombing.

Either way, I hope we are not playing a bluff and I doubt that we are. President Bush has said clearly and strongly that Iran can not be allowed nuclear weapons. I believe he means it. Clear firm policy is great; action is better. As Ledeen has been saying for a long time - Faster Please.

Over 2,000 years ago, Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War and it is still studied as a classic of military insight. Two key points are: that deception is vital to success in a war or an attack; and that a great general wins a war not by fighting battles but by overcoming the enemy's will to fight. These points are still valid today - and even more critical in an age when Information and WMD (or their threat) are primary components of conflict. Our military understand this; I'm not so sure about some of our politicians and news-media pundits.

But the real question is - are our militant Islamist enemies using Sun Tzu's precepts effectively against us? Recent events and analyses about the Danish Cartoons issue indicate that the answer is 'Yes'. Or, at least, that they are trying to do so on two levels - an immediate tactic and a longer term strategy.

The immediate tactic, as I've posted before, is to use the cartoon protests as a publicity diversion to deflect world attention and pressure away from Syria's involvment in murder of leading Lebanese officials and from Iran's nuclear program. Two recent items indicate that Iran knows how to play the deception angle.

First item: This AP article in the Washington Post, reports the Islamic World is Ready for Change: "The Islamic world is fed up with violence and extremism in the name of religion and is ready for an era of progressive, democratic Muslim governments, former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said Friday.
Khatami said current conflicts between the West and Islam have create a situation that "can only see ever-escalating violence, whether in the form of war and occupation and repression, or in the form of terror and destruction."
"After about two centuries of dispute between tradition and modernity in the world of Islam (there is) a high level of mental preparation for the acceptance of a major transformation in the mind and lives of Muslims," Khatami said in a speech at an international conference on Islam and the West."

Well, if the former Iranian President and well-repected Iranian representative to a major Islamic Conference is speaking so softly and reasonably, things can't be too scary. I guess we should relax and resume talking to them.

OH! but then there is this other Second 'Action' item happening back home in Iran at the same time: Last Monday, this ThreatsWatch Brief noted that: "In a move that parallels North Korea before they announced they had nuclear weapons, Iran has told the IAEA to remove its cameras, monitoring equipment and seals from Iranian nuclear facilities. Ali Larijani, the secretary of the High Council of National Security of Iran and former presidential candidate (2005), gave the IAEA until the end of next week to have the equipment removed."
Today,the UK newspaper, the Telegraph reports that Iran plant 'has restarted its nuclear bomb-making equipment': "Iran's controversial Natanz uranium processing plant has successfully restarted the sophisticated equipment that could enable it to produce material for nuclear warheads, according to reports received by Western intelligence."
"This crucial development follows Iran's decision to withdraw its co-operation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna after the body decided last week to refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council.
Iranian officials have moved quickly to obstruct the work of the UN nuclear inspectors still working in the country's nuclear facilities."

OK, maybe the soft words are like the cartoons; just a cover and deception tactic to buy time to get those nukes. But what happens if Iran gets some nukes? We have a lot more nukes and ample delivery means, so can't we just rely on deterrence? Perhaps so; perhaps not. Depends on culture values and intentions - the longer term strategy.

One scary view is that Ahmadinejad truly believes in the Coming of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi. His coming is preceded by global catastrophe; he then leads the people to a reborn world of Islamic peace and dominance. Some posit that Ahmadinejad views his mission is to pave the way for the Mahdi - and a nuclear war would provide the requisite catastrophe. Not all Muslims believe in the imminent apocalyptic coming of the Mahdi. Others see a different path to the same goal. Their alternate strategy follows Sun Tzu's advice about supreme generalship winning without fighting.

That view is expressed by Olivier Gutta, who argues, in the Weeky Standard, that we are facing a long term threat of Islamist domination of which the The Cartoon Jihad is only a first major step. He writes "(the) protests over cartoons of the prophet Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper last September were anything but spontaneous. The actions of Islamist agitators and financiers have deliberately drummed up rage among far-flung extremists otherwise ignorant of the Danish press. The usual suspects--the regimes in Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran--have profited from the spread of the disorders, and even the likes of tiny Kuwait has reportedly offered funds to spur demonstrations throughout France. More important, however, and perhaps less widely understood, the cartoon jihad is tailor-made to advance the Muslim Brotherhood's long-term worldwide strategy for establishing Islamic supremacy in the West.
A new book published by Le Seuil in Paris in October may further Western understanding of this reality. Written by the Swiss investigative reporter Sylvain Besson and not yet available in English, it publicizes the discovery and contents of a Muslim Brotherhood strategy document entitled "The Project," hitherto little known outside the highest counterterrorism circles.
"The Project" is a roadmap for achieving the installation of Islamic regimes in the West via propaganda, preaching, and, if necessary, war. It's the same idea expressed by Sheikh Qaradawi in 1995 when he said, "We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America, not by the sword but by our Dawa [proselytizing]."Thus, "The Project" calls for "putting in place a watchdog system for monitoring the [Western] media to warn all Muslims of the dangers and international plots fomented against them." Another long-term effort is to "put in place [among Muslims in the West] a parallel society where the group is above the individual, godly authority above human liberty, and the holy scripture above the laws."

I do not know whether the "The Project" is a real actionable plan or just a set of desirable goals (wish list). But that strategy tracks well with the very detailed analysis and insights of Bat Ye'or in her book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis . The conditions of Muslim enclaves in Europe seem well suited to that strategy. The European Muslim immigrant residents are not integrated into the broader national community. It's easy to see them forming their own self-regulated Islamic areas, under Sharia rules, and requesting "tolerance" from national governments that value diversity. In practice, this is already happening in some places. If demographic trends continue, there would be no need for a real war. High Muslim birth and immigration rates, combined with low European birth rates, will suffice.

And if Old Europe's residents wake up and start serious resistance ? Well, then, those Iranian nukes would present a strong argument to just go along with a gradual encroachment. The threat of nukes is a more effective policy weapon than their detonation.

If one side can enlist Sun Tzu, so can the other. The counter to cultural absorption, ala "The Project", is cultural integration without surrender of primary values; and that's the "winning without fighting" path America has always followed with immigration. As for other countries, the answer is tougher. They need to find their own will for national cultural survival and the policies that will work for them . We can offer them a useful template for integrating immigrants and can support their efforts to assert the values of their (really, our shared) Western civilization including a renewed emphasis on individual freedom under consensual law.

Most importantly, we must recognize that we are engaged in a serious conflict, whether we wish it or not, and that the opponent is not the religion of Islam, nor all Muslims. The opponents are a number of (connected, often cooperating but not monolithic) regimes and terrorist organizations that seek to impose their fundamental religious vision as a political rule over other Muslims and us. Their vision can not succeed while America stands as a shining counter example of the power of freedom to improve people's lives. This contest of wills can not be avoided. And the opposition can not be allowed to operate under cover of their nuclear umbrella.

Consequently, we must maintain our national policy of forward engagement that involves both the use of military force and the advancememt of democratic forms of governance as a means to open up new economic, cultural, and political opportunities to the Islamic world.

Iraq is a key demonstration model for this policy and seems to be providing a good regional example of the viability (and attractiveness) of democracy working with secular and religious interests. The Iraqi's are forming their own government their way with our help. I think the policy is succeeding and that the intensity of the Syria's and Iran's reaction is a good indicator of that success and of fear that the Iraq democratic model may spread to their less free people.

Muslim rioting over the Danish cartoons is a best viewed as a product of Militant Islamic information warfare. This does not mean that all rioters are militants and certainly not that all muslims are Islamic Militants. But some are and they are doing the inciting as a means of leveraging the world's 1.3 billion muslims and the religion of Islam for their own ideological war and power. We need to stay mindful that we are in a war with these people and have been, at their initiative, for decades if not longer. It's just recently that we have forced to recognize this war is real and threatening to us and is being played out in many arenas from the military to the cultural.

There are several good articles following up on the theme of my post about the "Cartoon Wars" being orchestrated.Thanks to a lot of good investigative blogging, we now know that much of the riot instigation (for political benefit) is due to Syria and Iran; that the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood and some Danish Imams played a big initial role - even to the point of including 3 extra (highly inflamatory) bogus cartoons; and that the Egptian newspaper, al-Foger, published the original cartoons in mid October,2004 and excited no violence or outrage at that time. Here are a few good references and links for more.

This article by ThreatsWatch.Org cites statements by both US and Lebanese officials that show some clear-sighted understanding of what is happening and the need to respond. It also has a photo of that Egyptian paper with the cartoons ( so much for the sanctitiy of Mohammed's image). It starts: "US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called out Iran and Syria for their part in inciting and fostering ongoing riots in their own countries and elsewhere throughout the region. In accusing the two countries of implication, Ms. Rice said, “I don’t have any doubt that given the control of the Syrian government in Syria, given the control of the Iranian government – which, by the way, hasn’t even hidden its hand in this – that Iran and Syria have gone out of their way to inflame sentiment and to use this to their own purposes, and the world ought to call them on it.”" Read it all.

For more on the role of the Danish Muslim militants and the organization of the info war plot , see this Powerline Blog: The cartoon intifada, cont'. It covers several other pertinent links. For continuing coverage, keep checking Powerline blog as well Michelle Malkin's blog, where you can see the for the original 12 cartoons as well as the bogus extra 3.

By the way, one of the extra 3 was billed as showing Mohammed with a pig's snout; but the fact is that it was a grainy fax image from a french newsphoto of a clown at a hog calling contest. Scroll to this blog item from Michelle Malkin: "THE LYING DANISH IMAMS, posted by her on February 08, 2006 .Trust the blogosphere to publish these images side by side for you to draw your own conclusions.

Last March, I posted on E-Reading - New Foms for New Functionality and discussed the difficulty of predicting the future based on current paradigms (or the trap of thinking that New Functionality must follow Old Form). I discussed the E-Ink spin-off from the MIT Media Lab that was teaming with Sony and others to offer very readable electronic book forms. I suggested that Sony might combine that technology with its Portable Playstation (PSP) to offer consumers a single multifunction box.

I was wrong. Sony has decided to offer the Sony Reader which debuted at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show and will hit the shelves this April. It's a paperback book size, half pound device that can store 80 books. The user selects a book and turns the pages on the screen, just like a paper book. Storage can be increased by adding memory cards or sticks. New books can be down loaded from the CONNECT Store, which offers both new bestsellers and older titles. This seems to deal with the problem of accessing copywrited content.

Ralph Kinney Bennett has a good review of the Sony Reader in this TCS Daily article, ranging from the advantages of traveling with an E-library in your pocket to the comforts of a paper book when the power is out.

I doubt that books will cease to be a viable medium for many of us. I do think that we will have many more electronic options to read books, see videos, and play games in convenient form. As well as to create and communicate our own media as personal e-publishers and distributers.

And I'm not giving up on the idea of a converged Reader - PSP device in the future.

One of the more ominous aspects of the recent Muslim riots over the Danish cartoons, depicting Mohammed in various terrorist contexts, is their apparently spontaneous outbreak world-wide. It seemed to me to need a lot of orchestration to occur so widely four months after publication and, sort of, "Just-In-Time" to apply global publicty pressure when both Sryia and Iran need it most. The following blog articles shed a lot of light on that insight.

This Power Line Blog post has a good summary and links to the current Cartoon War and Muslim riots ( which Austin Bay refers to as "war"). In particular, it cites Charles Moore's UK Telegraph Op-Ed, If you get rid of the Danes, you'll have to keep paying the Danegeld , which notes :"It's some time since I visited Palestine, so I may be out of date, but I don't remember seeing many Danish flags on sale there. Not much demand, I suppose. ....
Why were those Danish flags to hand? Who built up the stockpile so that they could be quickly dragged out right across the Muslim world and burnt where television cameras would come and look? The more you study this story of "spontaneous" Muslim rage, the odder it seems. .... those flames were lit (literally, as well as figuratively) by well-organised, radical Muslims who wanted other Muslims to get furious. How this network has operated would make a cracking piece of investigative journalism."

The Mudville Gazette has a lot more background on the orchestration of spontainity about the cartoon wars , concluding with : "The evidence above makes it increasingly apparent that the events surrounding 'toonrage' have been carefully orchestrated, well planned and coordinated."

So, why would all the careful coordination and planning erupt in action now? Well, the IAEA has just voted to refer Iran's nuclear efforts to the UN Security Council - an event which has been preceeded by many threats of retaliation from Iran . The UN is pressing Syria very hard on the murder of top Lebanese officials. Both regimes are concerned (correctly) about US and UN pressure that could become regime threatening.

Hezbollah and Hamas are strongly funded by Iran and operate in both Syria and Lebanon. Last week these terrorist organizations held high level coordination meetings with the Presidents of Syria and Iran in Damascus. Three embassies have been burned and destroyed - Danish and Norwegian in Damascus and Danish in Lebanon. Large scale demonstrations and embassy burnings can not occur in Syria without government approval. And Michael J. Totten posts from Beirut that "Most of today's mobsters don't even live in the city at all. They appear to be poorly educated reactionaries bussed in from Tripoli and Hezbollahland." As a contrast, only a relatively small non-violent protest rally occured in Turkey.

Connect these dots as you wish. My view is that we are in a serious long term war with Islamic militants (or fascists or radicals) and that our opponents are expert at using the media and public opinion as a weapon.

Well. It has been a year since I began this blog on 6 February 2005.

I posted about a hundred items in three months with the last on 9 May. This met my goal of one post a day; but self-imposed obligatory daily book reports on my current reading became a drag.

Also, by last May, it became evident that my favorite horse, Tuffeting - a superb home-bred pacing champion and stallion, was seriously ill. So, I left my computer to spend more time walking him and caring for him during his last months.

I noticed that about half my posts last year were on current events, and the rest split evenly between Social Security reform and Information Technology impacts on rural life. I think this next year, I'll try to post more on local rural aspects, but keep a strong interest in current events. And definetly avoid the trap of "obligatory posting" - so the frequency may be somewhat random.

My posts are mostly to help me clarify my thinking on topics that interest me. I'll try to make them appealing to a broader audience than just one. Hope you enjoy them.