Posts Tagged Politics
Iran Navy Makes Rather Shallow Claims
Posted by zeruch in Observations, Politics, Technology on July 25, 2010
The Navy Times pubbed something on a recent statement by the former chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards,
We have set aside 100 military vessels for each (U.S.) warship to attack at the time of necessity,
Set aside? You mean they are just sitting idle now and have nothing to do? The statement borders on absurd if for no other reason that it is worded in a way that presumes some kind of parity. If I sent 100 rowboats and fishing trawlers against a single U.S OHP class frigate, I’m still quite certain who is going to prevail in such an altercation.
While I won’t sell short the actual fact that Iran has a respectably trained naval contingent and is actually focused on defense (it is less a true navy and more of the Persian equivalent to the Coast Guard in terms of ability and role), it has historically been small, and has no real striking capacity outside the Strait of Hormuz. They do have some Russian built submarines and destroyers, but no capital ships and limited overall profile in terms of striking ability.
For Gen. Morteza Saffari to make such a claim (assuming it isn’t really bad translation) is somewhere between histrionic and asinine.
This tendency for certain governments to engage in really bizarre PR theatrics would be laughable if it didn’t hint at a dangerous level of insularity and paranoia. The most comedic example of such behavior would probably be Baghdad Bob (actually known as the former Iraqi Information Minister محمد سعيد الصحاف, and prone to some truly bizarre statements, although Kim Jong-Il is not too far behind) but the flipside is that this still throws an uncomfortable light on those distinctions between what has been called procedural v. instrumental rationality…how we deal with political actors based on being able to discern what their actual decision space is, versus projecting our own convenient assumptions about them (or buying into without qualification what they are trying to project to us).
QoTD: Gideon Rachman on certain wonkish persons
Specialists in nuclear deterrence occupy a world that requires the coldly rational contemplation of completely insane courses of action.
FT 2010-07-20 Britain’s Nuclear Choice can be cheap and scary
Arms control, recent events…
ACW has a post about the collected papers and meeting notes of the American Academy’s 1960 summer study on Arms Control, and tangentially related to that (by nature of the hostile nature of nuclear extortionist state, the DPRK) is an analysis of the recent torpedo attack on the South Korean ship, Cheonan.
There is some video and audio available of Steve Coll of the New America Foundation on the Globalization of Terror, with an intro by Scott Sagan (who, along with Kenneth Waltz wrote the seminal work, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate) at CISAC, as part of the Payne Lecture series.
Basically, I’ve noticed that there really has not been a lot of political science/current events related stuff on here recently -lots of doodles and non-defense tech, but not much else- and given my steady diet of foreign policy material, that seems odd.
I recently dug up my heavily annotated copy of Sagan & Waltz, as well as the old edition of and American Defense Policy anthology I pored over 10 years ago. Between that and a desire to work on a political leadership series of illustrations has my head very much back in this space.
The Ideology of Cost Benefit Analysis
Posted by zeruch in Law, Observations, Politics on February 4, 2010
These might seem like general ideas, but they are a clear signal that Obama and Sunstein plan to purge cost-benefit analysis of its conservative bias.
I am amazed that cost-benefit even has a long perceived conservative bias. CBA can, by design, go in any number of directions based on the factors put into the analysis.
Having a method perceived the way the article presents it either just goes to the awe-inspiring daftness people can exhibit when something the individual does without ideological pandering about their own mundane affairs, becomes a political hammer associated with a particular bent or the article itself is assigning a theory to explain otherwise simple opportunistic shifts in administration behavior.
SVLUG: David Weekly and “Infrastructure Memes”
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Visual Arts, linkedin on February 4, 2010
On a lark I caught the last portion of David Weekly’s Infrastructure Memes talk at SVLUG. It was probably the first SVLUG meeting I had been too in 7-8 years, and the crowd was notably smaller, and no Rick Moen or Marc Merlin to be found.
The talk itself was a good mix of items that seemed quite obvious (then again, community building -both online and in real space- is not exactly alien territory for me), along with some interesting statistics and some things which struck me as quite interesting.
The discussion on trademarks and the states that use first-to-file systems was animated, although much of it seemed to forget that part of issue will always lay in regional/local political imperatives versus any transnational tendencies brought about by bandwidth and pagerank (although it isn’t totally immune to either).
Geeks and wonks don’t seem to hang out together as much as they should.
The most interesting part for me was talking to David briefly after his presentation and asking him about places where he saw the intersection of hackerspaces and design/aesthetics folken. He gave me GAFFTA, and I was blown away. How such a group had been sitting right under my nose…?
“Triple zero” home poses an interesting concept
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Politics, Technology on December 24, 2009
German architect Werner Sobek has designed a house that is aesthetically pleasing, but is also “energy self-sufficient (zero energy consumed), produces zero emissions, and is made entirely of recyclable materials (zero waste)”
This kind of construction, while not suitable everywhere, certainly offers potential in more places than Stuttgart, and I am sure there are many variations on that theme that can be adapted to different climates and geographies.
It poses a cool dilemma; improve houses so that power costs get reduced, putting less strain on the grid (assuming you cannot do as Sobek did and use solar/geothermal sources. If you combine it with solar/geothermal/wind/wave options where economically and structurally feasible, you present the possibility of local areas over time becoming net producers in a distributed mesh, obviating the much larger points of failure in the electrical utility plants and by fluctuations in the petroleum markets.
At the same time, you threaten the utilities and the petro-giants. I personally do not find that to be a bad thing. Competition breeds good things usually, and right now competition in that area is still a bit emaciated. Frankly, the idea of efficiency in terms of needs as well as consumption is beneficial on many levels. The individual ones get discussed in the tree-hugging contingent often, but I think there are everything from regional quality of life improvements as well as wider policy implications (once you reach a certain critical mass) for everything from infrastructure to national security.
That last statement is clearly not a short term achievable, but other signs that this kind of thinking is starting to take hold exists elsewhere, including the US military.
I like the idea of even homes by default having some form of power generation built in, if only as a stand by in case of brown/blackouts. From a design standpoint, I also like lots of glass, although I wouldn’t mind some kind of system that allows for more privacy that some of his designs appear to afford:
Putin is Straight Up Gangsta
Posted by zeruch in Observations, Politics, Pop Culture on December 6, 2009
So, apparently Vladimir Putin is very O.G. (Original Glasnost) as he hangs out at a political rally with Russian hip-hop acts.
Putin, wearing a turtleneck sweater and jacket, went on stage to present awards to participants in “Battle for Respect,” a hip-hop music contest run by Muz TV, a Russian rival to MTV.
The punchlines write themselves folks.
It’s not that this is inherently laughable (although on some surreal level it is) but that the very American mode of kitsch campaigning seems to have gone viral along with its pop culture almost into the realms of sketch comedy material is what really caught my attention.
Putin is the first leader of post-Soviet Russia who was not either overshadowed by the events they helped to propel (Gorbachev) or their personal foibles (Yeltsin), so to see him in such an event seems totally at odds with that image of detached intensity that he projects in formal interviews and appearances.
Economic Woes Hit Iraqi War Veteran and Artist
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Observations, Pop Culture, Visual Arts, linkedin on November 15, 2009
Peter and Jennifer Damon established the Middleborough Art Gallery, but the economy has forced its imminent closure:
When the Iraq War veteran returned to Massachusetts in 2003, he took up an old hobby, painting, to get the feel of his new prosthetic arms. But as he gained dexterity with his new limbs, Damon discovered that his artwork was more than just an exercise….In 2006, Damon and his wife, Jenn, fixed up an old building in downtown Middleborough, transforming it into exhibition space for work from Damon and other local artists….The couple will be forced to close the gallery this week…as the economy began to slump, so did sales at the gallery.
I wish I could do something for this guy right now, but ultimately all I can do is hope that his next venture (which he appears to already be planning for) is a roaring success.
The couple will be forced to close the gallery this week, but for the former helicopter mechanic and his wife, the venture is a launching pad rather than a failure. Peter Damon said his new role as a painter has given him a platform to raise awareness about veterans’ issues.
Art is often, in and of itself, a catharsis. A compulsion. It often offers more than the deceptively simple act of making “pretty pictures” and reading about someone like Peter Damon reaffirms that for some of us.
Mao! My Skin
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Observations, Politics, Pop Culture on November 7, 2009
I often read issues of The National Interest. One from a few months ago had an Andy Warhol portrait of Mao Tse Tung on the cover, which had a minor edit by post-it note left on it by the Missus.
The Missus rocks, verily.
Federal Register goes ‘Web World’
Posted by zeruch in Law, Observations, Politics, Technology, linkedin on October 5, 2009
The Federal government is making the move to take some of its massive tomes of announcements, and making it available back to the beginning of this decade via an XML feed; the Post posts:
Starting Monday, issues dating back to 2000 will be available at Data.gov in a form known in the Web world as XML
The ‘web world’ makes it sound like they are moving the register to a planet of hyperactive arachnids (lets face it, layman English copy about tech topics always sounds slightly inept), but the point is the same, that it is an improvement over the rather clumsy way to currently navigate the voluminous daily postings. The span of topics and its comprehensive nature -never mind the often dry, technocratic language- can make tackling this kind of material normally an exercise in masochism.
They quote one staffer, “the changes online may inspire someone to find the next best way to publish, display and distribute the Register.” Well, how about an RSS feed system that you can setup via keyword (a la the clean setup SimplyHired has)?
This invites all manner of possibilities for content analysis/visualization projects.
Some additional good commentary about the announcement is over here.
…something has gone terribly wrong.
Posted by zeruch in Observations, Politics on October 4, 2009
I am one of the least amicable people towards almost every single TV and talk radio political commentator of any political stripe, if for nothing else than the mendacious levels of vapidity coupled with buggered cyclonic spin that permeates every broadcast.
But from time to time, one will state something very important, even if it is completely obvious to anyone who isn’t living in a cognitive convenience bubble.
Joe Scarborough often shows the personal grace of a stevedore after a root canal and the objectivity of a hack (case in point, his somewhat flat drubbing at the hands of Zbiegniew Brzezinski, who simply operates at a different level altogether and is not prone to falling for infotainment people trying to goad him into a useless soundbyte exchange) but at the very least he has the excuse that he was a former member of Congress and his views on MSNBC are largely in line with his voting record.
However, he does seem as of late to take issue with the corrosive partisanship that has turned every single topic into bipolar political trench warfare by small groups of very loud people talking and behaving badly. Very very badly.
In a piece that starts about President Obama and his failed bid to get the Olympics in Chicago for 2016, he states emphatically that he finds the attempt laudable, “…not for the sake of his city, but for the good of his country. The fact President Obama failed makes me respect him more for taking the chance, and the fact many right-wing figures opposed the President’s mission shows just how narrow-minded partisanship makes us all.”
This is a ruse, as his real point -and a valid one- is in what the “narrow minded partisanship” indicates. His focus is on the last two decades; and even though partisanship has ebbed and flowed since the very first administration, there has been an ascending level of shrillness and myopia since the Clinton/Gingrich battles of the early 90s that seems to keep churning out ever larger batches of angry and stupid. The title of this post is based on his quote about how bad things have become:
…NBC News Legend Tom Brokaw remarked to Pat Buchanan about how the level of partisanship is even more intense today than during the depths of the Watergate crisis. Brokaw was commenting on Congressman Grayson’s comments, but he could have easily
been talking about Joe Wilson or death panels or the bizarre claim that the President “hates all white people.”
His follow up is fairly dead on also:
Some of the rhetoric is dangerous. But what we saw from some conservative corners regarding the President’s failed Olympics bid was just plain stupid.
Why limit it to just this event? I cannot even begin to explain how disenchanted with humanity one becomes when watching people making colossal jackasses of themselves trying to accuse and inveigle anyone who will listen with indictments of words no one seems to know the definition of anymore: Socialist, Marxist, Fascist, Racist, Liberal, Conservative, Libertarian, etc. People just apply them with a sneer and extra helpings of vitriol in the hopes of making their otherwise intellectually malnourished memes carry the right emotional turmoil.
He seems to be of the impression that “…there are a growing number of Americans who believe we cannot continue going on this way” but unless we actually decide to make the concerted effort to stop giving immense airtime and mental bandwidth to these folks (and the commensurate gravity it exerts on elected officials who feel obligated to pander to these wingbats) we will be stuck with the crippled discourse we have.
Random Bits for 09.14.09
Posted by zeruch in Observations, Politics, Pop Culture on September 14, 2009
- So, what about the idea of micro-insurance payments in the developing world, in much the way that microfinance has grown? Apparently, not so much. I am not remotely surprised, as the main requirement of institutional stability and impartiality is not as ingrained as in the industrial and post-industrial economies. It simply will take a while before this idea takes off.
- A small visual example of how media can exaggerate figures, to the point of utter meaningless fiction. That is, unless it is not left unchecked.
- In a move bound to elicit jeers and puzzlement, Rodney King beat up a cop. And won. Well, it was a retired cop, and it was a boxing match, but he still won. The irony is bizarre.
- Data visualization: U.S. Bank closures for 2009.
- Also bizarre, how about more utterly reality-immune scare tactics from so-called anti-piracy groups…only this time add ‘lacking in taste’ and ‘laughably gaudi’ and -to quote the vernacular, ‘EPIC FAIL!’ If that ad doesn’t inspire its target audience to pirate -if only out of sheer desire to taunt whatever marketing village idiot concocted this idea- I am not sure what would.
- The following Forbe’s article encapsulates my attitude on political discourse from the past decade succinctly in the following assessment:
The Silly Season ceases to be “silly” when what passes for political debate in America turns not merely stupid or witless, but certifiably demented.
To be brutal (but necessary) I truly cringe at the shockingly ignorant level of discussion online, in print and certainly on TV News. It is a jarring display of doggerel that insults the intellect and sours the stomach with its completely unhinged, rock-stupid commentary that would have made the founding fathers weep.
Random Bits for 7.27.09
Posted by zeruch in Uncategorized on July 27, 2009
- It has been years since I went snowboarding. My K2 gear is in mothballs somewhere, and I pretty much stopped when my last board accrued more mileage than likely expected (eventually the left binding completely gave out). But these new boards illustrated with the Miles Davis Quintet look mighty tempting. It’s like “well, I love the looks of them, and if I get one, I’d have to go back to boarding again.”
- L0pht Heavy Industries is back. Sort of. Good for them.
- In the heavy weird department, I had no idea that there were self-styled neo-Nazi’s in Mongolia. It seems almost patently absurd, but it is scary what a combination of hyper-nationalism and spun up xenophobia against your two neighbors (Russia and China) will create. Then again, neither of those neighbors has been neighborly for most of their history with Mongolia, which is something these fringe whackaloons seem to attempt to leverage each and every time.
- Speaking of China, a Pentagon official was recently caught turning over defense secrets to them. Not good at all.
- The Flowering Nose in Slugland. Yes, that is the title of a web-game that was designed partially by the late Seth Fisher, whose skill as an illustrator were quite evolved -and ecentric- for someone so young.
The U.S. Political Primacy Issue and Hip Hop Feuds
Posted by zeruch in Politics, Pop Culture, linkedin on July 13, 2009
Rare is any editorial relating to hip hop music that attempts gravitas succeed. It most often comes off as lacking academic rigor or editorial constraint, turning it into a poseur showpiece (notable exceptions being things like Jeff Cheung’s Can’t Stop Won’t Stop reader). Rarer still is anything using current hip hop hagiography to define recent events in a novel context.
Yet Marc Lynch and his Jay-Z vs the Game: Lessons for the American Primacy Debate, and I was both laughing at the chutzpah and the coherence of it. Thanks to Mr. Kucharo for passing me this gem.
It is the kind of article that I would make mandatory reading for high school and undergrad college students of politics/current affairs. It even mentions Organski & Kugler’s power transition theory (yes, Professor Siverson, you hammered that one into my head successfully) and ideas of hard and soft power made popular by Joseph Nye.
The merits of the arguments are almost moot in the stones required to type the whole article out. Lynch can write with a fair amount of insight, even if you can’t always assent to his final opinion, or his musical preferences.
Sorry folks, I’m an old school/alt-school kind of guy. Gimme Biz Markie and A Tribe Called Quest over Jay-Z and the Game any day.
Independence Day
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Observations, Out and About, Politics, Visual Arts on July 4, 2009
