Ouch My Head Hurts!

The Harriet Miers three ring circus.

As I cruise the blog-o-sphere I am struck by two things.
1)Both the left and right want a savage bloody battle (the right a bit more then the left).
2)That senate hearings use to actually have a practical purpose.

When the first supreme court justices were appointed there was no Internet, email, TV, radio or telegraph. The media of the day was newspapers, there were a lot of them, and they make the screaming heads of cable news channels seem mild. Anyone with a printing press and an attitude could lie his way to infamy. Ben Franklin had a lot of fun with this, when he published letters about his foes and competitors, while attributing them to a third person. At one point he published an article saying a competitor was dead, knowing full well he wasn't. (Rupert Murdock, the new Ben Franklin? Yeeeew!)

IMHO the reason he could get away with this, is that he had his tongue very firmly planted in his cheek, while performing these actions, and had a genuine love of knowledge and wisdom. He was also a voice of moderation in the continental congress. (Ben Franklin the first Centrist?)

But I digress. The point I am trying to make is that the Internet has accelerated the pace and

invasiveness to an incredible level. It seem like there is no point having actual hearings. Lets just have and online poll and let the whole country vote on the nomination. The microscope of the conventional media 20 years ago is nothing compared to the current level of information mastication occurring today. You can use a site like memeorandum.com to look at an original news item, then watch it discussed in blogs, then watch the blog entry be chewed on by other blogs. By the time a physical hearing occurs few minds are left to influence. All that really is left, is for the senators to play sound byte gotcha.

It would appear that Miers has been nominated, probed and rejected even before a hearing date is set. I get the distinct feeling that the bloggers have voted, and her fifteen minutes are up. Why bother with those pesky elected representatives? I'm not sure I'm happy about this.

The picture that is emerging on the net is that of the worst kind of person. A fawning sycophant, who will say whatever the listener wants to hear, just to get on the supreme court. But I've never meet the women! Heck, I've never even seen her interviewed on TV. Has she even had a sit down, pre-staged, pre-scripted “interview” on FOX? I have heard nothing but bad things. Yet I have the sense she is getting the shaft.

I know the president is busy. Syria needs invading, most of his confidants are about to be under indictment, his poll numbers suck, Iraq, yadda, yadda, yadda...... But this whole nomination thing just doesn't feel right.

It feels like he wants it to fail.
Harriet Miers, human sacrifice?
Isn't All Hallow's Eve coming up?

Disasters that didn't happen:

There is an article at Tech Central Station that really struck a nerve in me (and I don't mean in a good way).

It was about the avian flu and disasters in general. You can make you own judgements about the article, but one section really ticked me off.

“After all, our recent history is full of doomy media sensations that never amounted to much. Remember global cooling? Or swine flu? Or Y2K? Even the recent SARS breakout proved to be dangerous but not devastating. “

I think the general public needs to realize that the reason previous “doomy media sensations” didn't amount to much is that professionals working in those fields sacrificed health, sanity, life and limb to ensure that nothing happens.

I helped vaccinate people against Swine flu when I was in high school. We did just about everybody in the town. So of course they didn't get sick.

I was involved in insuring our critical systems were Y2K compliant. They were definitely not, and replacing them by the deadline damn near killed me. My health hasn't been the same since. If people like myself hadn't fixed a plethora of problems, things would have gotten really ugly.

SARS is a highly contagious and deadly virus. There was an outbreak in North America. If not for the diligence and dedication of health professionals it could have easily spread and been the 21 century equivalent of the 1918 pandemic.

There is a reason the death toll from the last two years of hurricanes hasn't numbered in the tens of thousand and it starts with a bunch of much maligned people called federal employees. These are people who (in spite of the anti-government belligerence of the current administration) work long hours and make considerable sacrifice to ensure you know a hurricane is coming.

People need to stop laughing at the disasters that didn't happen, an thank god that someone is out there watching their back.

Hurricane Wilma and the wrath of god.

If you had told me in March that we were going to have three Cat 5 storms in the Gulf of Mexico this year, I would have been really skeptical. I've plotted the data and read the papers, but three Cat 5's !? I know the data indicates more storms, and more intense storms, but this is getting a little ridiculous. The trend lines also indicate that next year will be as bad, if not worse. There is no way we can pay for this kind of repeated damage. My dad has a condominium in Florida. He tells me that they still haven't finished repairing last year's damage.

On a different note:

I left the Catholic Church at the age of 18. After looking at the other available religions I became and agnostic. Over the years I have drifted to atheism. But the programming the vicious little nuns inflicted on me has remained intact. They created a virtual nun in my brain. Over the years I have managed to gag her and lock her in a mental closet. But after all the earthquakes, tsunamis, bird flu and hurricanes, she has managed to spit out the gag and is screaming at the top of her lungs, "Mankind has been very bad and god is now punishing you".

I am a man of science. I do not believe in the wraith of god, the current spat of disasters are natural processes. Indications are that some have been aggravated by man's cavalier attitude toward nature, but still, they are just the laws of Physics at work.

On the other hand, that nun is getting really annoying.

Is western civilization coming to an end?

There have been doom sayer ever since there has been anything worth dooming. Prophets, politicians, writers, sages, wise men, wackos, newspapers, radio, tv and cult leaders have been selling doom for quite a while. There is always a market for their wares, so sales have been brisk over the centuries (millennium?). Just off hand, I can't think of a prediction of doom that ever came about. On the other hand, its only been within the last 200 years that we had anything resembling modern science, and only within the last 50 that we have the computer available to model nature.

What started me writing this, is an article from the Times in the UK.

It foams at the mouth more than I like, but it got me thinking of my grandparents. They lived through the great depression, and it permanently changed the way they looked at the world. I am going to assume everyone reading this has never been homeless and starving. That no tech savvy blog reader has ever know true want, gone for days without food or been tossed out on the street penniless and alone. The generation that experienced the great depression have, for the most part, left the building. With their passing goes a wisdom born in fire and tribulation. That wisdom can be summed up in the boy scout phrase “be prepared”.

One of my grandmothers had an enormous garden. As long as she was able, she grew her own food and canned it for future use. Gramma knew what it was like to have nothing, and she wasn't going to go there again.

The great depression was about a level of deprivation that most living Americans have not experienced. Oh sure, we have a cataclysmic hurricane every once in a while, and the occasional mega flood, but historically speaking they are really small potatoes. Even the great depression didn't destroy our civilization. Governments still operated, goods came to market and things eventually returned to “normal”.

As I ramble on, I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make. Should we all put concrete bunkers in our backyards and stock them with food? No! I once read an article about Bosnia's civil war. It said something that stuck with me for years, and I'm paraphrasing: “Individuals don't survive, but a community can”. If civilization collapses and you have resources, someone will come along, shoot you and take them.

I guess I just wish people would have a better knowledge of history. That they would understand that civilizations come and go for a lot of different reasons, but eventually the do leave. It looks like the Anasazi lost a battle with climate change, while a Peruvian civilization ended because tectonic upheaval cut off their aqueducts. Did the Mayans loose to deforestation? The Minoans went out with a volcanic blast. And does anybody want to take a stab at why Rome fell?

Living in fear, with an apartment stacked with cases of Spam and drinking water, is silly. But living in complete denial about our own mortality is just as silly.


PS: The Seattle times has a really nice series of articles on climate change (make sure you scroll down and click on the pretty graphs). Including a question and answer series with a respected climatologist.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002549346_globewarm11.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002552576_qa_globalwarming.html

SUN TZU ON THE ART OF WAR
I've always liked Sun Tzu's “ON THE ART OF WAR”. I find it fascinating that the advice is still so pertinent and applicable in the modern world. For those of you who have not read it, you need to. There is a reason it is still used in military academies today.

So let's evaluate Iraq with his criteria:

14. By means of these seven considerations I can
forecast victory or defeat.

13. (1) Which of the two sovereigns is imbued
with the Moral law?
(2) Which of the two generals has most ability?
(3) With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven
and Earth?
(4) On which side is discipline most rigorously enforced?
(5) Which army is stronger?
(6) On which side are officers and men more highly trained?
(7) In which army is there the greater constancy
both in reward and punishment?

1 Moral law: All sides have declared the moral high ground and all have squandered it.

The USA with torture and lies. Al Qaeda with the bombing of civilians. The Sunni for refusing to accept that they will no longer rule through torture and intimidation. The Shia militia for a willingness to “take it to the streets”. The Kurds because they are more interested in breaking up Iraq than peace.

Winners: Nobody!

2 General's Ability: If we were talking about conventional warfare it would be USA all the way, but we aren't fighting that war. Besides I've worked for our generals for 20 years and never been impressed with their ability to adapt. Add to that, being hobbled by political considerations, bureaucracy and an unwillingness for Americans to tolerate slaughter. For the type of war we are currently engaged in, I give the advantage to the insurgence. Not because their leaders are so good, but because ours are so bad at this type of war.

3 Heaven and Earth: My reading of this is climate and terrain. The insurgence has the advantage. The terrain is cities, where conventional military is at a disadvantage. The climate is desert. We are not a desert people. We are fighting in an alien land.

4 Discipline: The US military has a lot of discipline. It's questionable that any true command structure even exists in the insurgence, let alone being able to enforce an order.

5 Which army is stronger? In a conventional battle the US wins. In an insurgency? Simple force size numbers just don't matter as much as will. Are US solders willing to routinely and intentionally blow themselves up? We have the larger number of solders in the field, but we can't tell an insurgent from a civilian. And every time we shoot the wrong guy we enlarge the number of sympathizers. What good is strength if you can't find the target. Plus its their homes they are fighting for. I say we are currently tied, but their strength is increasing while ours is waining. Advantage to the insurgence.

6 Training: In a conventional war the USA wins, but this is not a conventional war. The knowledge base is available to the US military but will they use it? Can we afford to rotate troops back for training? Insurgencies tend to be more nimble than a standing army. Advantage will finally go to whoever masters the learning curve. After 20 years working as a civilian for the US military, I do not see them learning and adapting quickly. The insurgence has the simpler task of continuing to adapt their stealth killing tactics. It's a lot easier to teach someone to detonate themselves or a roadside bomb, than it is to train them to find an insurgent.

7 Constancy both in reward and punishment: US soldier are better feed, better supplied, have a regular pay checks and medical care. I give the advantage to the USA.


So whats our totals.

Advantage for the USA = Reward, Discipline
Advantage for the Insurgence = Heaven and Earth, Stronger, General's Ability, Training
Tie= Moral law

Just for fun here is my evaluation of the US revolutionary war (from my recent reading of “1776”).

Advantage for England = Reward, Discipline, Training, Stronger,
Advantage for the USA Insurgence = Heaven and Earth, Moral law
Tie= General's Ability,

Remember in the end it took French assistance to defeat the British.