Is our Middle East intellgence as bad as 9/11/2001?

After 9/11 happened, we were told one of the first things to be fixed were the weaknesses in our Mideast intelligence. We were told that lack of information sharing and lack of human intelligence had allowed Osama Bin Laden to operate freely, and large below the radar. Thus was born the "Department of Homeland Security". Ten years later, reasonable people are asking if anything has really changed, since all of the Jasmine Revolutions took us by surprise.

Did we have adequate intelligence of what was about to happen? The obvious answer is "no," across the board. The ensuing debate about why we were caught so flatfooted will undoubtedly reverberate over the next several months. We are not looking for predictions, but for more information for policy makers and less reliance on foreign intelligence services. Our dearth of human sources in the Middle East has been a problem for decades during many administrations. And what we need now are more resources and operations, not fewer.

If it turns out that after 10 years and multiple billions of dollars have been spent that we have no better understanding of the Middle East, then we have been deceived and a special prosecutor may be needed. At the very least, the Bush Administration needs to be called out for not delivering an effective intelligence apparatus to President Obama.

Banning photographers at accidents is a mistake

In the old days, the main danger of an accident was a rubber-necker (someone slowing way down to look at an accident). These days, the cell phone sniper is a much bigger danger, as people try to use their cell phones to grab an amazingly gory or dramatic picture of an accident scene. So, it is no surprise that some lawmakers want to ban photographs at car accidents. After all, isn't that the best way to force people to do the right thing, and spare families the trauma of seeing pictures of injured loved ones?

Nope. The fact is this law will be essentially unenforceable... except for cases where law already exist - where someone endangers someone else to get the shot by driving dangerously or getting in the way of emergency responders. And if anyone tries to enforce it, they are more likely to take energy away from the wounded in favor of punishing the stupid.

Let Free Speech win in this case. Forget these well-meaning, but foolish laws.

The most prepared person in the room wins!

A large portion of my job is helping to plan future projects, and come up with designs for new logic that will run for decades to come. It is tough when there are so many different voices in the room, each with their own perspective and priorities (for example, each developer wants to use the coolest new technology because it's fun, each manager wants to re-use existing stuff because it's cheap). How do I make sure it is my design that wins? As this article reminds us, it is by being the most prepared person in the room.

When they gathered at that first meeting to hash things out, Jefferson made sure to show up with meticulously prepared architectural drawings, detailed budgets for construction and operation, a proposed curriculum, and the names of specific faculty he wanted to import from Europe. No one else in the room was even remotely as prepared; the group essentially had to capitulate to Jefferson’s vision, and the University was eventually founded more or less in accordance with his plans.

Two of the most powerful forces in human nature are laziness and self-interest. While a man will argue himself until he's red in the face to defend his selfish point of view, he is unlikely to bother if anyone gives him the excuse to be lazy instead. Give a man a plan that is already fully-formed, and 99% of the time he'll go along with it.

Please, use this revalation only for Good. ;-)

February 10, 2012... a day which will live in infamy?

I have enjoyed every iteration of Star Wars - even Episode 1 - but I am not sure if I am ready for a 3D Star Wars. But ready or not, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is coming in 3D on February 10, 2012. Then again, maybe it will be the first film I see in 3D. We shall see.

The Post Office is broke... again

Why are Americans so worried about turning over control of our Health Care to the Federal Government? Because even the oldest Federally-controlled corporations - the Post Office - is dead broke. The postmaster reports that they will be out of money by October. If they can't get it right in in 236 years, what hope do they have to fix an already-broken health care system?

Donahoe said that as of Sept. 30 his agency will owe the federal government a payment of $5.5 billion to fund medical costs, in advance, for future retirees, and in November it will need to make a $1.3 billion payment for worker's compensation.

"The Postal Service will not have the cash available to make both of these payments. We need legislation this year to address that fact," he said.

If it does come down to crunch time, said Donahoe: "We will deliver the mail." Employees will be paid, as will suppliers, he said. "The thing we will not do is pay the federal government."

Without some important changes to the law the post office "cannot survive as a self-financing entity," Donahoe said.

Invented by a Mod-Blog Friend

Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater on collective bargaining

The budget crisis in Wisconsin has radicalized both Liberals and Conservatives on the issue of Collective Bargaining. While the Governor Scott Walker just wants to place limitations on the collective bargaining of government workers, some Conservatives are actually likening Unions to antitrust violations, implying that unions are inherently bad and actively harmful.

Labor unions like to portray collective bargaining as a basic civil liberty, akin to the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and religion. For a teachers union, collective bargaining means that suppliers of teacher services to all public school systems in a state—or even across states—can collude with regard to acceptable wages, benefits and working conditions. An analogy for business would be for all providers of airline transportation to assemble to fix ticket prices, capacity and so on. From this perspective, collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty...

There is evidence that right-to-work laws—or, more broadly, the pro-business policies offered by right-to-work states—matter for economic growth. In research published in 2000, economist Thomas Holmes of the University of Minnesota compared counties close to the border between states with and without right-to-work laws (thereby holding constant an array of factors related to geography and climate). He found that the cumulative growth of employment in manufacturing (the traditional area of union strength prior to the rise of public-employee unions) in the right-to-work states was 26 percentage points greater than that in the non-right-to-work states.

While the current state of unions may be a problem, the fact is they into existence because of abuses by management. History is like a pendulum that oscillates between extremes. Let's not over-correct against the abuses of unions without recognizing their virtues.