T-6 HOURS AND COUNTING ....

Packed and ready -- three bags full, and I could have gotten all my clothes into less than half of a single bag. What was I thinking about, bringing all the extra "stuff?"

I feel like a racehorse at the starting gate -- all ready to go, and the gate won't open.

THE LIBERAL CASE FOR BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION

In The liberal case for pork, Bradford Plumer argues that “without pork, activist government [emphasis added] would wither and die.” In my (admittedly conservative) view, that statement alone is sufficient to make the case against pork.

But wait, there’s more. Plumer again:

Any big-government program on the progressive wish list will likely prove even more difficult to pass [without pork] .... Single-payer health care? Card check for unions? Reductions in carbon emissions? It won't get done without an orgy of earmarks to entice the inevitable skeptics in Congress. That won't be pretty, but if the price of, say, universal insurance is a bit of borderline corruption here and there, it's a tradeoff worth making.

So just add bribery and corruption to the list of tools the Democrats are willing to use to advance their “progressive” agenda.

Read the whole thing – and weep for America.

THE NEW YORK TIMES WANTS ME

To subscribe, that is. They'd have a much better chance if they had my name correct on the solicitation.

THE PATH TO 9/11

After watching both segments of The Path to 9/11 (ABC), I’m left with mixed feelings. As a docudrama, it struck me as being neither good documentary nor good drama, yet it remained oddly compelling.

It was the “cowboy western” component that made it neither good documentary nor good drama: the main characters all wore either white hats (O’Neill, Massoud, Clark,the CIA agent, FBI agent Colleen Rowley) or black hats (Berger, Albright, the American Ambassador to Yemen, Rice) that destroyed the essential “grayness” of terrorism.

Two elements struck me as compelling. One was the linkage of all the terror acts that preceeded the 9/11 attacks; the other was the bureaucratic ineptness and sensitivity to “process.”

Oversensitivity to process is, to me, the key takeaway from The Path to 9/11. As someone who has worked in the defense industry for years, I’ve seen entirely too much “process” in lieu of progress. The bureaucratic need to not step on another’s turf, to check - and recheck - with everyone who might possibly have an interest, to never offend any agency’s sensibilities, and to cover one’s a--, uh six, at all times means that nothing ever gets done until it proves to be too late.

Best quotes -

Massoud: "Are there any men left in Washington, or are they all cowards?"

Clark: "War is about killing the enemy and destroying his property. It's not about sitting around in a conference room and covering your own asses."

With respect to any lasting political impact, I think I have to take my cue from Instapundit - the Democrats indulged “their instinct for the capillary” in protesting. For me, The Path to 9/11 is an indictment of both parties, and the Democrat protest serves only to remind the viewers of, for example, Sandy Berger’s theft and destruction of classified documents from the National Archives. Why they would want to remind viewers of the very events that tend to support the parts they are protesting is beyond me.

My view: if there is any lesson to be learned from The Path to 9/11, it can be found in this quotation from a Heinlein juvenile (Double Star) that I read 40-something years ago:

“Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong – but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong! Heaven save us from the poltroons who fear to make a choice. Let us stand up and be counted.”

SEPTEMBER 11, 2006

My flag is flying.

Is yours?

MINIMUM PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS (for Systems Engineers)

Since I’m now less than two weeks from my departure date, I thought I should spend a little time comparing my performance so far to the minimum standards to see how I shape up.

Able to slow down from a dead stop

If taking 2 steps back for every step forward counts, I’m doing fine.

Able to add 1 and 1 to get the required estimate

Easy - the proof is in my checkbook balance.

Is self-impacting

I love beating my head against a wall - it feels so good when I quit. And it burns 150 calories an hour!

Capable of justifying the irrational, unreasonable, or incorrect

Just look at my resume.

Is self-defeating

Hmm ... I may have to work on this one.

Able to pursue multi-random directions simultaneously

Easy, I can turn on a dime and leave 9 cents change.

Capable of coping with, and following, infinite misdirections

Not a problem - I can do this alone. No outside help needed.

Able to consistently overcome success

So far, so good, but accidents happen.

Able to build mountains of fantasy from molehills of non-viable facts

Trivial. Mt. Everest is small by comparison to the mountains of fantasy I create every day.

Looks like I’m mostly ready - a little more work on becoming fully self-defeating, but I’ve got some time to master that before I leave.

JAN’S VW DIDN’T CRASH

Day by Day by Chris Muir is a long-time favorite of mine. I hate to mess up a good story line (start here; then go forward three or four days), but Jan’s VW didn’t crash - I saw it on southbound I-395 as I left work yesterday. It had to have been Jan’s; there was the “we love the world” license plate holder, a PETA sticker, and a bumper sticker touting the anti-war Democratic candidate for Senate.

Sorry, Chris, the police must have picked up the cell phone somewhere else.

CATBLOGGING - GETTING READY FOR WORK

Shadow and Daisy prepare for another long day at work. So little time, so many things to do: move rugs, climb drapes, knock over pictures, annoy the dogs, guard the stairs, ....

NEWS YOU CAN USE

Heard on WTOP radio (FM 103.5 in Washington DC) yesterday: "Fat people eat more." Wow. What a blinding insight ....

The lead was apparently an intro to this bit of "interpreted" research, which is another thinly disguised attack on the fast food industry. Will the nanny-staters ever give up?

AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND KELO

Location, location, location – the mantra of the housing market. When I moved to the Washington DC metro area, the general rule of thumb was that the price of the same house would increase about $10,000 for each mile closer it was to the city center. A $100,000 house 60 miles away would be a $500,000 house at 20 miles, and so on.

Affordable housing – a big political football here in DC and its environs - in cities is a physical impossibility without subsidies, and location is the reason. It’s not the cost of the house that makes it unaffordable; it’s the cost of the location.

The solution to problem of creating affordable housing is obvious – Kelo. If, as the Supreme Court affirmed, a government entity can exercise eminent domain and provide the property to a private company in order to increase the local tax base, as the city of New London did in Kelo, then it follows that a government entity can also exercise eminent domain to reduce its tax base.

So all the city need do is to exercise it’s eminent domain rights in a section of the city, declare that area to be a no-development zone, and voila! – instant affordable housing.

It’s not as outlandish an idea as it sounds. The city would condemn the property, buy it at its fair market value, and then resell it to the original owners at a drastically discounted price with the caveat that the property can only be maintained, never improved, and that the essential nature of the neighborhood be maintained. Two bedroom, 1 bath bungalows must remain two bedroom, one bath bungalows; apartment houses must remain apartment houses; commercial buildings with mom-and-pop stores must remain commercial buildings with mom-and-pop stores.

Is it a subsidy? Sure, but a one-time subsidy not to be repeated. Would it work? Ask Susette Kelo. She might still be living in her home.

UPDATE: Matthew J. Parlow, a law professor at Chapman University addresses Kelo - and affordable housing. Worth a read.

ANALYSIS ENGINES - A RANT

After attending a two-day Analysis IPR, or “in-process review” for those not familiar with the acronym, I’m annoyed and frustrated. The greatest analysis engine that has ever existed is the 3-lb lump of grey matter behind the eyes and between the ears, yet most attendees use it to drive their vocal chords instead.

I know I’m being over the top here; even a bit unfair, since the questions being asked aren’t easy to analyze, and the available data is chaotic, incomplete, and possibly even irrelevant. But polling (trend analysis in this case) doesn’t answer the questions being asked. It can’t; at its best, trend analysis can indicate correlation, but not causation.

What is needed is for the participants to quit using those analysis engines as vocal chord drivers and instead give some hard-headed thought to what effects can or should occur given the input changes being made. (That’s called hypothesis formulation, by the way.)

Then give an equal amount of thought to what measurements need to be made to either prove or disprove the hypothesis. That includes making sure that the measurements can in fact be made. I remember some years back a colleague of mine developed a brilliant analytic solution to a geolocation problem we had been working for years. His mathematical solution was complete, correct, and absolutely spot-on. But in order to do the mathematics, he had to structure the problem is such a way that the input estimation variables needed were not physically realizable. Meaning that the solution could never be tested, since the data needed to test his solution could never be measured. Back to the drawing board ....

Finally give another equal amount of thought about how to acquire the data. That means ignoring the mass of existing data until it can be shown to contain the relevant data. Then - and only then - begin to look at that mass of chaotic, incomplete, and possibly irrelevant data that’s been collected for every purpose except yours.

Here’s an analogy. The current analytic process is akin to taking three 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles, mixing them together, turning over every piece until only the backs show, putting them together, and only then turning the three completed puzzles over to see the pictures.

Did I mention that I’m annoyed and frustrated?

MISSILE DEFENSE SUCCESS?

Not good news for North Korea and Iran ....

Air Force Lieutenant General Henry “Trey” Obering III, Missile Defense Agency (MDA) director, announced today it has successfully completed an important exercise and flight test involving the launch of an improved ground-based interceptor missile designed to protect the United States against a limited long-range ballistic missile attack.

The interceptor missile was launched at 10:39 am PDT (1: 39 pm EDT) from the Ronald W. Reagan Missile Defense Site, located at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. For this exercise, a threat-representative target missile was launched from the Kodiak Launch Complex, Kodiak, Alaska.

Although not a primary objective for the data collection flight test, an intercept of the target warhead was achieved.

Since the intercept was not a primary objective of the test flight, we’ll have to wait and see if the test was really successful. Nevertheless, the fact that an intercept occurred indicates that the basic engineering problems are pretty well under control.

OPEN MOUTH, INSERT FOOT

In his Washington Times commentary “The Rumsfeld horripilation” R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. was doing just fine defending Mr. Rumsfeld until the ninth paragraph:

Is the thing possible? Do the likes of Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi think we are no better than the Iranian Islamofascists who whoop it up for suicide bombers and are governed by a zany who looks like an eternal graduate student from one of our cow colleges?

As a graduate (BS, 1968; MS, 1973; PhD, 1978) of a “cow college,” I don’t know whether to demand an apology of Mr. Tyrrell or Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid, but I want to assure all three that an Iranian Islamofascist would have an easier time graduating with honors from Harvard or Yale than he would gaining admission to my alma mater).

LETTER FROM IRAQ

A soon-to-be co-worker currently in Iraq emails:

I think I've been here too long already, today was only 118 and I wasn't sweating. In fact tonight it felt chilly at 109.

Proves you can get used to anything.

OBSERVATIONS ABOUT TWO WORDS

The words: “Thank you.”

Three times in the last two weeks I’ve been “thanked for my service” for volunteering to go to Iraq on a research assignment for the Department of Defense. This from people who are nearly strangers – a waitress at a restaurant I eat at regularly; a nurse at my doctor’s office; and a business executive at my daughter’s office. In all three cases, the “thank you” was spontaneous and genuine.

The observations.

One, I can’t imagine how meaningful the words must be to a soldier, sailor, marine, or airman who is going over, gotten back, or otherwise serving our country. I’m a civilian – contractor, not government employee – going to a location that can’t possibly be much more dangerous than my daily commute to work, and I left each encounter with a lighter heart and greater respect for my fellow Americans.

Two, try it yourself when you see someone in the military. I know they’ll appreciate it, and I suspect you’ll walk away feeling a little brighter as well.

Third, from a political perspective, I have to wonder if the Democrats and other anti-war types are overestimating the anti-war sentiment in real America. My sample space is trivially small, but these folks’ “thank-you’s” were genuine. I can’t possibly know their political leanings, but my strong sense in every case was that whether they thought the US should have gone to Iraq in the first place, they were committed to staying until the job is done.

If I’m right, the 2006 elections will be interesting indeed.

GARRISON KEILLOR IS A GHOUL

In an August 23 Chicago Tribune commentary titled “Why shouldn’t their voices be heard?” Garrison Keillor proved his bona fides as a ghoul and voyeur. Arguing that the 911 tapes from the World Trade Center should be publicized, he wrote:

The city argued that to hear people in anguish in their last minutes constitutes invasion of privacy. The truth is that the callers had no interest in privacy; they were desperate to be heard, and censoring them now is a last insult by a bureaucracy that failed to protect them in the first place.

Um, Garrision, when were you anointed the knower of all truth?

[T]he first thing we thought, seeing the burning buildings on TV was: What is it like for the people in there?” We wanted to know.

No, Garrison, we didn’t. You did. You’re the ghoul, not us. Did the thought ever occur in that split-pea-sized brain of yours that perhaps, just perhaps, the families of those who died might not want their husbands, wives, parents, children and friends final anguish to be that for which they are remembered?

Nah. Of course not. They’re just hicks; not the nuanced elite. They don’t count. This is too important for them to matter. Besides, it’s a delicious opportunity to slam the President:

[I]nevitably, politicians began to seize the day and turn it into a patriotic tableau starring Themselves.... [A] few days later the Current Occupant mounted the wreckage with bullhorn in hand and vowed vengance, and the media were glad to focus on the martial moment ...

Garrison Keillor, you’re a ghoul, a vampire, a voyeur. You lack humanity; you discredit the human race.

WORLD’S BIGGEST JERK – CHICAGO DIVISION

My wife and I were having a quiet breakfast in a Chicago diner ... until we were rudely interrupted by the entrance of Chicago’s candidate for the World’s Biggest Jerk. Daisy won’t let me use the language I’d ordinarily use to describe his behavior, so I’ll have to limit myself to describing him as huge – as in barely able to wedge himself into the booth, unkempt, loud, arrogant, self-centered, demanding, and viciously rude.

Ordinarily I’d blow him off as just another jack-, um, jerk, until I overheard (as if I could have avoided it) him boast of being on welfare and only use cabs for transportation. No buses for him – too slow, too inconvenient. Never mind that the (employed) person he was meeting was taking the bus.

That did it for me. Here’s a man on welfare, too “important” to take a bus, willing to embarrass his companion into paying for his meal, demanding more than was on the menu, constantly complaining, viciously rude to the waitress, and I’m picking up the tab with my taxes.

What’s wrong with this picture?

SUNDAY NIGHT CATBLOGGING

Shadow doing what he does best - waiting for dinner.

A VIEW FROM THE WINDOW

Chicago, 9 am. (Idea shamelessly stolen from Andrew Sullivan)

ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIENTIOUS DEMOCRATS

I'll let this speak for itself. [Thanks to Instapundit]

GOING TO IRAQ - PART I (ORIENTATION)

Since I’m going for a 90 day or so tour in Iraq starting in late September, I thought I’d summarize my experience so far by commenting on the orientation tour that began this assignment.

The orientation itself was quite common-sense:

Iraq has two seasons - hot and hotter.
Always wear your body armor/helmet when outside camp.
Don’t get captured - it’s bad for your health.
The base exchange is well-stocked; if you can buy ‘em at Wal Mart,
you can buy ‘em here.

What was interesting about the experience were the attendees themselves. About half were military officers, the rest civilians. The officers were typically field-grade, and many were preparing for their second, and in some cases, third tour. They were serious, business-like, optimistic, opinionated, and yes, realistic. Much of the value of the orientation session came from listening to their discussions of what went well, what didn’t go well, and how to improve.

The civilians were even more interesting as a group. I don’t know what I did expect, but I didn’t expect what I saw. The civilians divided rather neatly into two equal groups: under 35 and over 55 - no “middle-aged.” In all other aspects, a more diverse population I’ve never seen. No two alike in terms of personal history, occupation, or field assignment. Two were women; one going to the field where weapons qualification was required (she qualified “Expert”), the other to an embassy assignment. One man was a former State Department contract worker recently back from Afghanistan. Two were retired Army, one officer and one enlisted. The retired officer was going on a technically-oriented field assignment; the retired enlisted man was going to the International Zone as an Iraqi culture expert. And then there was me.

One last item on the age gap. The younger group, as a group, tended to be quite adventurous and enthusiastic about ‘making change happen;’ the elders, me included, tended to be more business-like and less sanguine about our ability to change things.

With age comes wisdom, perhaps - or at least caution.

SODUKU

Any takers? This one is rated “very hard” and I’m forced to agree. I can get this far (black is for the starting numbers; blue is for my contributions) without guessing. I still (naively?) believe it can be solved by logic alone, but the proof is in filling in the blanks ....

UPDATE (9/1/2006): Reader Janet G. reports that she has solved the Soduku puzzle without resorting to guessing. Congratulations!

CHICKENHAWKS

I’ve noticed spotty outbreaks of the ‘chickenhawk virus’ in the blogosphere since the war in Lebanon began. If ‘chickenhawk’ is the proper term for a pro-war advocate without prior military service, doesn’t it follow that ‘chicken’ is the proper term for an anti-war advocate without prior military service?

JEEZ - NOW FAUXTOGRAPHY

Just when you think media reporting of Iraq/Iran/Israel can’t possibly get any worse, we find that even the photographs are fraudulent.

RIGHT, LEFT, AND WRONG

Over breakfast last week my wife (who’s a elementary teacher preparing to return from summer vacation) observed that the teachers in her school didn’t seem to care about the children.

At the micro level, I think she nailed the problem with modern education: the Right wants highly qualified teachers, a structured curriculum, and testing, and the Left wants unionized teachers, a “social justice” curriculum, and no testing. Neither gives a rat’s a-- (Ed. Note: Michael, stop that! Uh ... OK, Daisy, OK) --behind about the children themselves.

It seems to me that the three most-sought characteristics of an excellent teacher should be, first, a genuine love of children. There is simply no substitute for caring. Second, a love of, and enthusiasm for, learning. Teaching isn’t rocket science; a PhD isn’t required. Neither is a Master’s degree, or for that matter, a Bachelor’s degree. And third, a modest ability for classroom management. It used to be called “Motherhood 101” but motherhood (and fatherhood, for that matter) is now out of fashion.

If all educators shared those three characteristics, education would not be in the state it is today.

LAWYERS ACTING FOOLISH

This one is rich. I wonder if the plaintiff and defendant know that they’re paying the bill?

WHAT IS A SYSTEMS ENGINEER?

My neck of the woods is densely populated by PhDs, mostly of the science, business, political science, and economics variety, There are very few engineers. Since I’m the only one to define myself as a systems engineer, I’m often asked “Just what is a systems engineer?” My usual response is to answer “The opposite of an expert.” Here’s why.

An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he eventually knows everything about nothing.

A systems engineer is one who knows less and less about more and more until he eventually knows nothing about everything.

It’s a joke, people, but with a ring of truth. The job of a systems engineer is to wander around a project on the lookout for the (usually bad) unintended consequences of engineering design decisions and prevent them from happening. (Ed. note: he wanted to call this blog “Unintended Consequences,” but we wouldn’t let him. Shadow, keep out of this.)

The job requires a little knowledge about a lot of different things, and the experience of having already made most of the common bad decisions. (Ed. note: he has lots of experience. Down, Daisy Mae.) Which is why systems engineers are usually graybeards - male and old enough to sport gray beards if they choose (and I do).

The good part of systems engineering is that it is hard; correctly done, one of the toughest in engineering today. The bad part is that success is invisible and failure obvious. You never know whether a successful outcome is a result of the systems engineer’s efforts or dumb luck. Unsuccessful outcomes, though? One guess where the finger of blame points ....

COMMENTS POLICY

Comments are welcome, and opinions - even strong opinions - are encouraged as we are interested in what you have to say. But - there are some caveats.

Shadow is not a fan of all upper-case or lower-case posts and he has an intense dislike of spelling errors. Use your spell-check and keep your shift key under control; otherwise he is liable to delete your comments on purely aesthetic grounds.

No vulgarity, no ad hominem attacks - none! Daisy Mae is adamant. She considers either to be prima facie evidence of opinions not worth reading and will delete them with no prior notice. Be warned.

Other than that, welcome to Shadow’s World. Look around, enjoy, and we look forward to meeting you.

START TIME

Since Shadow is too busy sleeping, Daisy has taken over as web mistress.