Infinite Monkey Theorems

Things worth reading…   

or at least pondering and forgetting quickly… 

So… how good is China’s new stealth fighter?  Not sure, but I’d start by asking this guy(here via MSNBC): 

HONOLULU — A former B-2 stealth bomber engineer was sentenced to 32 years in prison Monday for selling military secrets to China in the latest of several high-profile cases of Chinese espionage in the U.S.

US economics…

Businesses have not yet started hiring as UE claims are up.  Some of it is due to delays due to weather were people who would’ve claimed last week didn’t, but still not a good sign (here via BizTimes.com):

New applications for U.S. jobless benefits jumped by 51,000 to 454,000 last week, the U.S. Labor Department reported today, up from 403,000 during the previous week….

The four-week average of new claims, climbed 15,750 to 428,750, the highest level in two months, the Labor Department said. 

Additionally, the CBO reported this week, what all politicians have known for decades, but have consistently ignored…. social security is a looming and ever-growing problem (here via EpochTimes): 

In its Budget and Economic Outlook report for fiscal years 2011 to 2021, the CBO anticipates that the Social Security program will run a $45 billion deficit for 2011, and will be in the red for at least the next ten years. 

And…

According to the Associated Press, if present Social Security spending and funding levels are sustained and adjusted for the coming influx of Baby Boomers applying for and collecting Social Security checks, the program’s trust fund could be emptied by about 2037.

President Obama’s thoughts about this re: State of the union speech… no problems at all… full remarks here:

Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years.  (Applause.)  Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected.

Not “affected’?  I guess that doesn’t discount it from affecting us…. but why worry about that when we can spend more money on things we don’t need (speech cont’d):

Next, we can put Americans to work today building the infrastructure of tomorrow.  From the first railroads to the Interstate Highway System, our nation has always been built to compete.  There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products.

Tomorrow, I’ll visit Tampa, Florida, where workers will soon break ground on a new high-speed railroad funded by the Recovery Act.

That’s some vision there; to ignore the looming crisis and instead deflect to a new boondoggle.  & not just a boondoggle, but it seems this is the answer to so many of life’s troubles… the environment, traffic congestion, sprawl…. yes, this magical elixir that is so incredibly great, that it can’t possibly survive without federal government to operate.

But wait… it will create jobs!  (speech cont’d):

There are projects like that all across this country that will create jobs and help move our nation’s goods, services, and information. 

Of course if it’s a “jobs’ program” and not a new transportation program (look over here – shiny stuff)… well, let’s let Milton Friedman discuss jobs’ programs (here):

Milton recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: ‘You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.’ To which Milton replied: ‘Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.’

Either way, here is a good response to the State of the Union from Cato.

Lastly, more great stuff from the Economist.  This time an Ideas Arena

As business leaders, politicians and journalists meet at the World Economic Forum’s annual summit in Davos to discuss the year ahead, The Economist will be inviting readers and guests to participate in a series of online debates questioning the future of global leadership. From now until February 18th, we’ll be examining the rapid emergence of a single global elite whose decisions, and opinions, affect us all.

Update:  Yesterday in a DA post, F*$k North Korea, I noted from Stratfor about North Korea’s attacks on a South Korean island that:

…the sustained shelling of a populated island by North Korea would mark a deliberate and noteworthy escalation…

For those unfamiliar with Stratfor, they are a professional intelligence gathering organization and not simply another media outlet for international news.  With that in mind, phrases like “deliberate and noteworthy escalation” are very serious (unlike standard TV media where everything will kill you and everything is horrendously worse than it ever has been).

DA further noted, that while there were open questions, the facts….. are not open:

…A soverign and free nation, was just attacked and had its citizens murdered by a bully,a terrorist sponsor, an illegal weapons supplier, a despotic and opressive human rights abuser, all run run by an idiot who propagandizes others in his divinity….

Now there has been an increase in the level of rhetoric and threat response from the US (here).  Speaking of normal media’s rethoric, the title: Obama sends U.S. warship to Yellow Sea in show of strength as two Koreas teeter on the brink of all-out war is instructive.

Either way the US response has gotten better:

…Mr Obama earlier issued a statement condemning the ‘outrageous’ assault and underlining America’s close ties with Seoul.

…The White House called on North Korea to end ‘its belligerent action.’…

And:

…President Obama has ordered a U.S. warship to Korea in a shetow of strength to prevent an escalation of one of the most serious confrontations in the region for decades….

I say gotten better, because we should stand by our allies and in cases like these, even stand with countries who aren’t necessarily strong allies if they are a free people being attacked by a despotic country.

The open question however is: Will this matter?

As North Korea is just bully and a coward, there’s reason to think this isn’t the end.  Stratfor noted in an update on the situation today, that North Korea does indeed (more…)

Early yesterday afternoon (local time in South Korea), North Korea began shelling a South Korean controlled island with artillery (from Stratfor here):

…Though details are still sketchy, South Korean news reports indicate that around 2:30 p.m. local time, North Korean artillery shells began landing in the waters around Yeonpyeongdo, one of the South Korean-controlled islands just south of the NLL. North Korea has reportedly fired as many as 200 rounds, some of which struck the island, injuring at least 10 South Korean soldiers, damaging buildings and setting fire to a mountainside. South Korea responded by firing some 80 shells of its own toward North Korea, dispatching F-16 fighter jets to the area and raising the military alert to its highest level….

What’s interesting to note, is that North Korea has murdered South Koreans before, such as the recent sinking of the ChonAn, but as Stratfor puts it (emphasis added):

…While the South Korean reprisals — both artillery fire in response by self-propelled K-9 artillery and the scrambling of aircraft — thus far appear perfectly consistent with South Korean standard operating procedures, the sustained shelling of a populated island by North Korea would mark a deliberate and noteworthy escalation…

(more…)

Just 9 short years ago & I can still vividly remember every detail.  Where I was, the helplessness I felt, the drive to NYC to help on 9/12…. 17 hours straight.  The cloud of smoke hovering over the city from the smoldering rubble, clearly visible @ even 3 AM.  The posters of missing loved ones everywhere, the spontaneous candle light vigils, the make shift memorials on street corners, at buss stops, at fire & police stations, pictures hung up from school children outside of one while a cop lit the candles as nightfall descended…

But as that month drew closer to an end, my mind still asked the question “I wonder how long all this fellowship will really last?”

The reality? It lasted about two months, then back to politics as almost usual.

Which was bad enough, but then there came this week, the 9th anniversary of those attacks and all I heard was election year squabbling.

It’s strategic, one of the required steps in any war is to define your enemies clearly.  This not only helps your side focus, but also helps draw people into a common cause.

So here we are…. Mosque building here, Koran burning there….all politics.  All attempts to rally a base of voters, on both sides, my trying to paint the other side as “those people”, trying to connect them to unpopular ideas, trying to change your vote.

What a shame – so many heroes lost, so much more blood to be spilled in response, many more being asked to do very difficult things, many more heroes yet to die, many others returning, some with disabilities from which they will never recover, some with injuries, unseen by looking at them, the mental stress…. all who returned, changed forever.

& yet still…. election politics.  Strategic positioning, rhetorical maneuvering…. just politics.

For those who, like me, think it should mean much more than this, a solemn reminder (here):

Ahhhh… wikileaks, we hardly knew ye.

As most know by now, Wikileaks has posted tens of thousands of classified documents and is apparently under control of more (here via Yahoo News/AP):

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration on Friday implored the website WikiLeaks to stop posting secret Afghanistan war documents, as the Pentagon pressed its investigation of the massive security breach by bringing a soldier under scrutiny back to the U.S. for trial….

You can read here at HuffPo where it’s all the fault of the current journalistic establishment, you can read here via Reuters where the Pentagon says Wikileaks has “blood on its hands”, or here via MSNBC where these documents prove the “Real Face of Pakistan” or here via CATO on the overreaching  process which is classification (a good read).

In the end, it’s likely people will go to jail.  Whether there are/were too many classified documents, whether these documents separately or together actually represent a risk, or even if most of the country thinks they should’ve known about all these documents prior to their release, the government can not allow intelligence agents to freely distribute this type of material without punishment.

I could foresee a potential scenario with protests and such that might change the outcome, but the trial is likely years away and we will care about something much more recent at that time that this dustup.  If celebrities have taught us one thing and one thing only, it’s that the American public has a very short attention span.

Meaning, that while the chance exists, it’s likely remote.

However, two other stories in combination seem to ask a better question.  Not that I have the answer, but an interesting question nonetheless.

The first one, via Wired (here) reports that the Army private suspected of the leaks was admonished of leaks during training.

The second, via Yahoo News/AP (here) talks of a civilian informant discussing how he helped the Army private deliver so many documents through seemingly innocuous encrypted network transmissions.

It seems we have a case where a ‘hacker’, those anti-social untrustable sorts, is helping immensely, while our trusted and thoroughly checked Army private is leaking classified information.

Therefore in a sense, we appear to have two people operating against what we would see as their normal mindsets.

What I want to ask – is are we looking for mindsets anymore?

Let’s start by defining mindset:

In many LEO (Law Enforcement Officer), special forces, self defense classes, and the like the talk about 4 points (some say 3 – the Triad) of training:  Mindset, tactics, skill, & equipment (or gear).  Seeing the 4, you can see tactics & skills might be combined as one is classroom learning and the other is practice, but either way.

Their point is that without mindset, tactics are meaningless.  Without mindset & tactics, skills are meaningless and on and on.  The idea is knowing inside yourself what course of action you will be able to take and might take is the first required step to move forward in training.

Not that I want to state that finding a particular mindset is easy.  As lots of people in corporate America I’ve taken more than a few personality tests.  Additionally, being naturally introspective and curious, I’ve taken most of the free ones as well.

Since my testing was more of a purely academic exercise in that I wanted to see if I agreed with the tests, but also wanted to see if I didn’t did all the tests say the same thing, I didn’t “cheat”.  I answered the questions as honestly as possible (some questions can have different answers depending upon mood; this is in general why longer tests are more accurate as they can more easily reduce this noise).

Having done so on more than a few tests however, I could probably get any answer anyone wanted.  It’s not quite this easy for me as my information comes solely from experience, but for someone specifically studying they can end with the results they desire.

I believe in our desire to reduce conflict and always appear fair, we have started evaluating others based upon only technicalities in lieu of broader ideals.

We look for glimpses of complex thought, a good analogy (even if not apt), or even that perfect phrase that sums things up (we like these things on t-shirts & bumper stickers) all while we seemingly dismiss the actions of those around us.

So in the end I think, we have many people with skills, but seemingly few with the mindsets we wish to see.

& not because we can’t see, but because we don’t want to see.

It’s natural.  Most will forgive their friends and families for major transgressions while simultaneously starting wars over minor infractions from those they don’t like or don’t know.

Additionally, we escalate people we like in society, whether deserving or not (see: reality tv). We allow marketing to win over facts.

The facts here seem easy:  whether you dislike the government and most of what it does and believes that it classifies way too many documents (like I do) or whether you believe that most classifications are correct because the government knows better what we shouldn’t know, is irregardless.

Under current law and current understanding the outcome is obvious.

Boxer might lose?!?!  In what has to be either a sign of the end times or a sign of our bright future, Senator Barbara Boxer is in a tight race against former HP CEO Carly Fiorina (via the Atlantic here):

The latest Field poll looks a bit troubling for Sen. Barbara Boxer: she leads her Republican opponent, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, by just three percentage points (47% to 44%)…

San Fransisco’s City Council, in an attempt to prove themselves the absolutely dumbest people on Earth, might ban the sale of pets (via Huffington Post here):

…If the ordinance passes San Francisco could be the first city in the nation to ban the sale all pets except fish….

The IMF tells the US to slow down on spending (via the Hill here):

The United States must rein in its deficits sooner than President Barack Obama wants, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Thursday.

In an annual report on the U.S. economy, the IMF said the U.S. faces a “central challenge” in implementing a “credible fiscal strategy” to ensure that public debt is put on a sustainable path without putting the economic recovery in jeopardy….

The NSA responds to the WSJ article (posted here yesterday) concerning the “Perfect Citizen” program (via the Atlantic here):

Today’s Wall Street Journal article by Siobhan Gorman, titled “US Plans Cyber Shield for Utilities, Companies,” is an inaccurate portrayal of the work performed at the National Security Agency. Because of the high sensitivity surrounding what we do to defend our nation, it is inappropriate to confirm or deny all of the specific allegations made in the article. We will, however, provide the following facts: PERFECT CITIZEN is purely a vulnerabilities-assessment and capabilities-development contract. This is a research and engineering effort. There is no monitoring activity involved, and no sensors are employed in this endeavor. Specifically, it does not involve the monitoring of communications or the placement of sensors on utility company systems. This contract provides a set of technical solutions that help the National Security Agency better understand the threats to national security networks, which is a critical part of NSA’s mission of defending the nation. Any suggestions that there are illegal or invasive domestic activities associated with this contracted effort are simply not true. We strictly adhere to both the spirit and the letter of U.S. laws and regulations….

I’m not saying I automatically disagree that their statement is completely accurate, but we should not forget the NSA is the same agency who for years denied even having something like Echelon.

During a school assembly for students enlisting in the Marine Corps, two teachers disrupted the assembly by protesting the war (here):

…For the fifth consecutive year, school resource officer Nick Pasquarosa recognized those seniors who had enlisted in the military. “While Nick was speaking, one faculty member held up a sign saying “End war” and another female teacher stood beside her,” said Assistant Principal Ann Knell. “The two faculty members sat down and did not clap during a school-wide standing ovation for those students.”….

It’s truly unbelievable we have such dolts teaching our children.  I guess it’s sort of analogous to the blind leading the blind, but in this case the students knew better than the teachers so it’s more like… the blind leading the seeing?

Please don’t misunderstand – I could care less about their actual stance and more about the time, place, manner, and assumptions with which they decided upon this course of action.

First, it’s well known that public schools are NOT bastions of free speech, nor are they paragons of oppression either.  But through time and court precedent, educators should (and most likely do) know that the primary responsibility to the children is education.  So any free speech that disrupts that process can be prevented and/or punished.

For instance, if I went to school with a pro-drug message, I would be sent home.  If I wore a blank arm band in memory of fallen soldiers, I would likely still be sent home, but ultimately win.

Second, and in my opinion more importantly, is the arrogance with which the teachers acted.  Keep in mind, that this is their employer giving an assembly which they believe brings value to their students (clients).  Yet they still protested?  I use the term arrogance, because I think we can safely say they assumed, and possibly correctly so, that they will not be fired.

This is what really gets me.  Not only did they believe they were in the right to disrupt a school proceeding, but they seem to believe it’s about freedom.  When in reality, if any company in the world decided to gather its employees to spotlight process X, a protest would certainly be met with immediate firings.  This would also be true in a private school setting.

Yet these teachers are claiming a right to do this and that it’s a teaching moment.  I would submit to them they should use it as a learning moment it should be instead instead of arrogantly attempting to parlay this into a “teaching” opportunity.

On each Memorial Day, I try to research at least one individual act of courage to remind myself  about the nature of those we’ve lost.

This year, I read about a 19 year old, who sacrificed himself to save his fellow soldiers.  While on patrol in Iraq, their Humvee came under attack.   His job, manning the 50 cal machine gun on top of the vehicle is critical to their success.  This day however (whole thing here):

…While Private McGinnis was manning the M2 .50-caliber Machine Gun, a fragmentation grenade thrown by an insurgent fell through the gunner’s hatch into the vehicle. Reacting quickly, he yelled “grenade,” allowing all four members of his crew to prepare for the grenade’s blast.  Then, rather than leaping from the gunner’s hatch to safety, Private McGinnis made the courageous decision to protect his crew. In a selfless act of bravery, in which he was mortally wounded, Private McGinnis covered the live grenade, pinning it between his body and the vehicle and absorbing most of the explosion. Private McGinnis’ gallant action directly saved four men from certain serious injury or death….

Born on June 14th, 1987, Private First Class Ross A. McGinnis lost his life to save others on December 4th 2006, in a place very far from home, because we asked him to go.

There are those that would say this doesn’t matter all that much since we shouldn’t be in Iraq in the first place.  There are others who would argue strongly that even if you disagree, soldiers like this one are protecting our lives and our freedoms.

For me, not all wars are about saving our freedoms.  Not every use of the military…. well, even most uses of the military, does not qualify as “protecting” Americans.  Like all countries throughout history, our military is a foreign policy tool that we don’t like to use.

For me…. it’s not about protecting me or protecting our freedoms, it’s a simple as this:  our country, through our elected representatives, asked this child to go to war.  He went.

Yeah, that’s enough for me.