404 Error - Internet cannot be found

Because apparently no one in the Mediterranean knows where the utilities are buried, a single anchor may have taken out Internet service to about half of the world. That half being Asia, Africa and most of the Middle East. India's bandwidth will probably rerouted, but the world should expect delays and losses for at least a week. I'm sure that the U.S. government hadn't accounted for that when they ran their recent "Cyber Storm" simulation in February 2006. One of the consequences of this little game was the feds need do a better job of educating businesses and organizations about the role of the National Cyber Response Coordination Group and giving it more resources. They're repeating the exercise in March. This time around at least they'll have a real-world scenario to work from.

Mistakes were made

Remember that OTHER war on terrorism, the throw down between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006? Well the review is in and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is likely to keep his job, at least until the end of the year if he doesn't launch another war. The Winograd report, released Wednesday, socks the military and civilian leadership for three failings: 1) failing to get back the two kidnapped soldiers, 2) failing to decapitate Hezbollah, and 3) failing to stop the rocket attacks. In Winograd's words, Israel lost the war. Unsurprisingly, the leader of Hezbollah called it a victory for his organization. And despite the 33 IDF deaths, at least Israel waged a war it could afford to lose.

The calm before the Supers storm

It's rather fitting that the Super Tuesday primaries follow Superbowl Sunday because there'll be lots of armchair quarterbacking in both cases. In this respect, the pundits and the ballgame analysts are mirror images of each other, more interested in outcomes rather than the game itself. All the chatter in the news is what it has been from the start: color commentary on what the candidates need to do to win, followed by a roundup of why they lost (hint: they didn't get enough votes).

But in the end, it's not about who the winner is in these contests. Not really. For the game, it's really about the fans. The entire season led up to this game. The election is about the republic and the voters who ostensibly own it. I am reminded of something Ralph Nader said during a stop at Indiana University. He said we should be regarding our elected officials with the same rigor that we regard our sports heroes. That we should be looking as closely at their records as closely as we look at a player's statistics.

If we're going to engage in armchair quarterbacking in the coming days, lets at least ensure that the judgements are informed.

Organ grinders

Remember that old urban legend about going to a party, getting drunk, then waking up in a bathtub full of ice and discovering your kidney is gone? Well in India, it's no joke. Authorities have broken up a ring in a New Delhi suburb where just such a racket was taking place. Apparently the mastermind, who seemingly has fled the country, and his partners in this crime were taking from the poor to give to the rich. According to the New York Times account:

Four doctors, 5 nurses, 20 paramedics, 3 private hospitals, 10 pathology clinics and 5 diagnostic centers were involved, said the police officer in charge of the investigation, Mohinder Lal.

More disturbing is that the doctors had a worldwide waiting list of 48 people waiting for kidneys, giving darker overtones to the idea of outsourcing. The government is looking at amending the National Organ Transplant Act to make it simpler and stiffen punishments. Let's hope so. When you get your next organ, be sure to ask where it came from.

Oh no you didn't

You put WHAT in the microwave? CNN

Until the cow comes home. NYT

You got your 3 percent hike in my chocolate. Chicago Tribune

Because it's just so hard to find a good hitman these days. USA Today

Watch the skies! Time

Because it's hard work

It's time once again for that constitutionally mandated presidential drinking game and address to Congress. Bush will once again grapple with his greatest enemies: words and syntax. He's targeting congressional earmarks, every congressman's bread and butter. The chances of any significant reduction in earmarks has about a snowball's chance in Baghdad. He's also expected to call for continued patience in Iraq. It should be blessedly brief, clocking in at 42 minutes. Plenty of time to get hammered.

The Infinite Power of Language

Kandinski wrote that an arts community is wherever you happen to be. During the past week, South Florida continued to expand on that idea with the Fourth Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival. The organization brought together some of the very best American poets to Delray Beach, FL, to lead workshops and hold readings. The festival came to a roaring close with a poetry slam featuring Marty McConnell and Roger Bonair-Agard Saturday night.

The differences between a poetry reading and a poetry slam are not unlike those between a symphony orchestra concert and a jazz performance. What was clear was that the spoken-word roots of poetry are alive, but it seems they could be better. The reading and slam were both powerful and moving, but the audiences were relatively small. It seems that a better case needs to be made for these things. In schools and on television. One wishes that ordinary Americans could name and be as fluent in the achievements their top poets as easily as they can name their top football and baseball stars.

The festival showcased some of the very best modern poetry has to offer and more people deserve to be better exposed to it. While it is true that there are those in that rarified community of professional-academic poets who sniff at the idea, the reading and slam made a persuasive argument for the act of public sharing that these forms have to offer. Otherwise, to paraphrase poet C.K. Williams, in the end we're just apes turning pages.

Nothing is ever what it seems

What's love but a sweet biological notion? Time

The West bet on a modernizer. Payoff came in spades. Newsweek

Stick that in your hookah and smoke it. U.S. News

Star Wars - The Near Peer menaces. The Economist

Coming full circle

Funny how things work out. President Bush came into office giving away money, and now he's going out doing the same thing. The first time around it was about giving back the surplus that had been created by the earlier Clinton administration. This time it's about trying to stimulate the economy and prevent it's headlong rush into recession. In 2001, spending did occur, but it was a pre-Sept. 11, 2001 world and consumers cannot be relied upon to spend the proposed rebate the same way.

The numbers in the House proposal work out like this:

• Individuals who earned more than $3,000 but paid no income tax: $300
• Couples who earned more than $3,000 but paid no income tax: $600
• Most individual who file income taxes: $600
• Most couples who file income taxes: $1,200
• Families with children: An additional $300 per child
• Rebate caps for individuals who earn $87,000, and couples earning $174,000
• Rebates would cost about $100 billion
• Business tax cuts would be about $50 billion
• When do legislators hope to get a bill to President Bush? Feb. 15
• When would the checks go out? May

It still has to pass the Senate (and they may want to see some changes), but it's likely that this incumbent protection act is likely to pass in some form. But we're headed for a recession. It seems no longer a matter of if, but rather when and how bad. Just be sure the government's check clears this time.

Seeing red

While many were busy mourning the loss of actor Heath Ledger Wednesday, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released it's estimate of this fiscal year's projected budget deficit. The Bush administration is going into the red to the tune of $250 billion. That includes 1) war spending and 2) the nation's evolving economic woes but doesn't account for 3) the yet to be negotiated economic stimulus package. What's not gotten attention of late is federal debt. We've racked up a deficit total of $ 9,188,640,287,930.39 as of Jan. 18. That's more than the GDP of China which comes in at $ 7,043,000,000,000. In this election season, the economy is an issue but budget spending has been off the radar. Maybe what these deficit issues really need are those Geico celebrity spokesperson ads.

And the wall came tumbling down

In Gaza they proved that "stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage." Following an Israeli-imposed blockade against Hamas-held Gaza because of recent rocket attacks, the Palestinians took it upon themselves to tear down a wall between Gaza and Egypt. About 350,000 flooded their neighbor to go on a "shopping spree." It appears that goats, gasoline and cement were hot items on shopping lists. Because Egypt and Israel are friends, Israel bit its lip and asked the Egyptian government "please do something" and "keep your promises." But Egypt won't force the thousands of Palestinians on their doorstep to return home. And of course, Israel's neighbors aren't very happy about all of this either and are taking their standard stands. In the end though, the nations of the Middle East continue to prove that "the fences aren't just out there they're in here ... inside your heads."

Economic Cloverfield

Well, it now seems everyone is expecting that the Bear is about to do to the markets what the monster in Cloverfield does to New York City. The Dow's 400 point drop Tuesday at the opening bell is an indicator that it won't be pretty. While Fed Chairman's Ben Bernanke's program of hack and slash may satisfy the markets, all of which except for London tanked anyway, he's still likely to to catch hell. Meanwhile, India's market is being considered "safer", Europe will be forced to respond, and China plunged.

Rest assured though that it's your helpless consumer who is getting killed in this unfolding economic monster movie -- because it's the more volatile fuel and food prices that hits them directly in the pocketbook -- while hapless generals and leaders flail about trying to do something to make it stop.

A little late in the game

Omar Osama bin Laden is asking dear old dad to please stop using violence to achieve his ends and to stop killing civilians. Too bad his old man didn't hear this (or if he did he didn't heed it) from him when the two parted ways in 2000. Omar claims big daddy Osama wants a truce. According to the Associated Press account:

"My father is asking for a truce but I don't think there is any government (that) respects him."

Why is that?

Omar's claim would be a bit more believable if Papa Osama was actually releasing videos asking for one.

Who's resurrecting the electric car?

Even as Detroit continues to keep it's head firmly buried in the sand, a chase is on to solve the problem of Middle-East oil dependence. A number of individuals are working to win the Automotive X Prize to create a mass producible green machine that will replace the modern gas guzzler. The problem has been the vehicle holding a charge. With the evolution of battery power, the problem is now infrastructure. Enter the Israelis, who have a strategic interest in solving this problem. If their little experiment succeeds, we could be on our way to a real revolution. We need it quickly because China, which already has serious air-qualtiy problems, has a rapidly expanding car culture. The irony may be that the solution to our carbon footprint problems may just come out of the region responsible for fueling much of it.

Facing west

It's an interesting moment in history because rarely do we get to watch the evolution of a democratic society from birth. In this case, what we are watching is the change in Ukraine as it turns away from Russia and toward the West. Part of that is the nation's move to join the World Trade Organization, which it is set to do Feb. 5. Meanwhile, Yulia Tymoshenko, who almost certainly did not cry her way into office, is set to follow the former Soviet republic of Georgia in putting the issue of NATO membership before the people in a referendum. How these decisions will affect it's relationship to Russia, from whom it imports 35 percent of it's oil and natural gas, remains to be seen.

The crouching tiger

India is a complicated reality. With a population of more than 1 billion and about 5,000 years of history and culture, how could it be otherwise? While we've been recently offered new visions of India's past and future, it's the present that is giving the world's largest democracy conniptions. While it’s economy continues to expand, the country is also still dependent on foreign aid. On it's march to taking it's place on the world stage, it's facing tough climbs on basic issues such as health and education. It's ability to solve them will be the key challenges in its rise as a world power.

Doing the electoral math

Never mind the headlines about who is winning what races over the course of the primary season.

They're red herrings. What really matters is the math.

There are some interesting things going on when you look at the numbers. The GOP now has a clear front-runner: Mitt Romney. John McCain is a distant second. For the Dems, the numbers are more interesting. Barack Obama is ahead of Hillary Clinton by two delegates. That lead could widen when the Democrats hold their primary in South Carolina on Saturday.

But the really interesting news in the numbers is John Edwards. It's not that he's in third, it's that he presently has the delegates to tip the nomination. I don't think he's necessarily playing to win at this point, he's playing for influence. And if the race stays tight, Edwards may very well determine who becomes the Democratic nominee.

What happens in Nevada surely won’t stay in Nevada

Who’s being more naïve, the American voters or the Europeans hoping for a Democratic president? The Economist

Independents Say – Part I: “Help them John McCain! You’re the GOP’s only hope!” Time

Independents Say – Part II: Bloomberg says he won’t run for governor. Wired

Because history and entitlement may not be enough. Newsweek

Sensing a trend

What would the world be like without us? Recent speculation began with Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us and continues Monday night with the History Channel’s Life After People. The January edition of National Geographic offers something a little less theoretical in the article The Emptied Prairie that explores “the feral edge” that is North Dakota’s ghost towns.

It's the infrastructure, stupid

West Palm Beach, FL, has labored under a number of recent water problems. Now the city has yet another mess on its hands: leaky pipes. But for anyone who wants a larger view of the reality of cities and how they work, The Works: Anatomy of a City by Kate Ascher is a great place to start. In her book she dissects the infrastructure of New York City. The effort is very readable and richly illustrated.

Art Basel

At the annual art event that is Art Basel: Miami, in December, there was a lot worth commenting on, but there was one work in particular that sticks with me. It was this huge, six-legged monstrosity by Arcangelo Sassolino. The insect-like metal creation that looked like something out of a sci-fi horror movie. One man I spoke to noted that it was the scariest thing he had ever seen. When I replied that he must never have seen the works of Joel Peter Witkin, he quickly amended that statement. The machine randomly carved marks onto the stone beneath it, all by itself. A mechanical sculpture trying to produce art. An object actively interacting with its base.

Reading list

One of the more facinating reads of late is Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--and Why They Fall by Amy Chua. It's a very important read because it not only charts the rise and fall of hyperpowers, it also shows how tolerance has changed since the days of the Persian Empire. It, of course includes the Roman Empire, but it includes a lot of historical hyperpowers of which you've probably never heard. And you don't necessarily have to read the chapters in order. It also shows how the nature of power has changed from military to commercial power.

As to her idea of 'glue' that keeps the hyperpower's "subjects" together, I think that expansion of what Thomas Barnett refers to as the "integrated core" in his book The Pentagon's New Map may be the 'glue' that Chua notes is currently missing.