"There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life." -- Frank Zappa All links in orange open in tastefully small new windows. |
| Updated: Sunday, 3-30-2003 The virtue of patience War observations and posts are being complicated and interrupted by my having only seven weeks to draw up a 20,000-user intranet, but 10 days into this war of choice (as opposed to war of necessity) one thing is driving me crazy -- the endless speculation as to timelines. American news consumers are somewhere between feelings of why wasn't it over in a week and the age-old wartime refrain of getting the troops home by Christmas. Get used to one thing quick folks ---thousand of GIs will still be in Iraq this time next year. Get used to another thing, too. Any lack of speed that saves lives is a good thing. It would be useful if the mainstream media communicated a better sense of the theory of standoff weapons -- the ability to hit the enemy when the enemy cannot hit you. War planners have long assumed that once within a certain distance to Baghdad, Iraqis will use chemical weapons. So if those weapons are delivered by an artillery shell with a range of say 10 miles, then it is prudent to stay 11 miles away from that artillery and blast it to bits from a distance. There is no doubt that coalition forces had to stop and refit. Most of the mechanized machinery of this war requires four to eight man-hours of maintenance for every hour of use, so the opening drive deep into Iraq was the metal version of a horse being rode hard and put up wet. And there's no doubt that three brigades (essentially a full division) are now protecting supply lines instead of engaging Republican Guards. So what? My philosophy of being a militaristic peacenik is driven by the idea of never putting good people in a situation where they can die for stupid reasons. How long might U.S. forces have to play cat and mouse in plucking at specific little targets? Who cares if it saves lives? The U.S. struck with total air impunity for 40 days before moving on the ground in '91. If the ever-shortening American attention span can't handle a deliberate military operation where every action is taken at maximum advantage, then good people will be dying for stupid reasons. To paraphrase James Webb's line, those deaths should mean something. It's okay to go slow. Please remember there are three valid answers to a yes and no question -- yes, no, and no decision at this time. History shows a lot of what could be considered a bad decision was actually more of a case of a decision being made at a bad time. Artificially created pressures can carry severe consequences. A few years ago, a decision at a bad time meant you were paying $2 billion for a dot com. In today's time, bad timing can get people killed. Veteran military types are familiar with the concept of "do something even if it's wrong." There are times when indeed this is absolutely correct course, that the cost of inaction is higher than any cost of action. And folks, this is not one of those times. As the U.S. military closes a circle on Baghdad, it can choose its own location of units. It can choose evacuation routes for non-combatants. It can choose to wait and double the troops in the ring. And it can aggressively extend its forward defensive perimeter to keep down the number of potential chemical weapons targets. As Gen. Brooks said the other day, the enemy always gets a vote, so in that regard, please consider this a vote for the virtue of patience. Somebody who was against this war shouldn't necessarily want to start see it end quickly. That artificial constraint of "swiftness" could get more people killed. Updated: 3-30-2003 The invisibility of victoryI'd like to be one of the few Americans publicly saying God bless the Turks. Mainstream media has provided a steady diet of Bush Administration criticism for failing to win Turkish cooperation, and by extension, the loss of a strong Northern Front. This is quite unfair. The U.S. didn't fail, democracy won. Ninety percent of all Turks wanted nothing to do with this war, and the wishes of the people were fulfilled in a political process. Also in the news this week, the setback suffered by President Bush in getting his tax cut plan cut in half. Excuse me? A $350 billion tax cut for the rich just got passed. That's a tremendous political accomplishment being characterized as a defeat. Sure makes it easy to see why it's called trickle-down when in actuality the money keeps trickling up.
Updated: 9:25 p.m., 3-24-2003 My old buddy Brian Kolcum pointed this article out earlier in the day; I went back and read it after seeing Peter Jennings ask Richard Perle: "So, it's your war -- how do you think it is going?" Anti-Semitism is ugly. Advocating genocide against Islam is even uglier. The idea that well-connected Beltway insiders truly believe that America should go conquer everyone who disagrees is a sure path to World War iI, World War IV and World War V. To quote that great philosopher Rodney King: "Can't we all just get along?"
Updated: 7:05 p.m. 3-24-2003 Blog Rolling ... Just a quick reminder to the US television networks that your embedded photographers are more than breathing tripods. I see the British reporters and when they get their three minutes, they generally have a packaged piece and the reporter is doing a voice-over. I certainly haven't watched war 24/7, but seems to me most of the American reporters I see are doing standups. Get your face out of there and give me pictures of the war, especially when all it takes is a Mac and a copy of Final Cut Pro. ... An American language gateway for Arabic news, www.albawaba.com, has been getting my attention. Poked around the site today looking for some idea of who was behind it all, without luck, but I did find some humor in their meta-tag keywords " xxx, Arabian, Horse, Joe, Camel, xxx" ... From NPR's marketplace, each burning oil well in Iraq is losing $2 million per day. From George Will, an American battle tank gets half a mile to the gallon. And in the Department of the Obvious department, why aren't all U.S. military personnel in desert camo? Anybody else see a lot of green standing out on that burnt-dust landscape? ... Will Femia's blog roundup on MSNBC notes that some war blogs are so popular, mirror sites have been erected to handle the traffic. One particularly interesting site is Command Post. From there I clicked to Curmudgeonly and Skeptical, which has a number of amusing visuals, including a hysterical Nancy Pelosi nude. As always, though, The Man in this field is Glenn Reynolds and Instapundit. ... I wish I had Mr. Reynolds' time. I could blog all night but I have second-tier interfaces to diagram. Someday, I'd like to talk information architecture to TV networks. Losing 3.5 inches of a 12.5 inch-tall screen to bottom-of-the-screen crawls and banners is pretty heavy in the pixel overhead department -- especially when it crops the bottom of the picture. "Teamsters were last seen stuffing Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo." Steve Martin.
Updated: 1:10 p.m. 3-23-2003 Geneva Conventions Go to this Arabic translation site: http://tarjim.ajeeb.com/ajeeb/default.asp?lang=1 Then type in www.aljazeera.net. Then look at the Al Jazeera home page protest pictures, and make your own decisions about whether you are influencing the US Administration or being used in ways beyond your original intent. ... It's apparently time for a reminder that journalism is not against the Geneva Conventions. First, the old reporter kicks in for a minute. It's not the Geneva Convention, it's the Geneva Conventions -- plural. If I remember correctly, there are four, and only one applies to prisoners. It's the same way copy editors would always catch you for the Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control. There's more than one center: it's the Centers for Disease Control. Anyway, on this beautiful Sunday morning, with flowers blooming and birds chirping, there are grim pictures available of (reportedly) dead and captive American soldiers via Arabic television networks. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld apparently saw the video of two such POWs for the first time on CBS' "Face The Nation," because within minutes, the Pentagon looked to be urging US networks not to show the video, claiming it's a violation of the Geneva Conventions. It would be a pretty indisputable fact that the creation of such a videotape by the Iraqis would violate the Geneva Conventions prohibiting the turning of prisoners into public curiosities. It would be a legitimate question about showing these videos for reasons of taste (for instance, no pictures of dead GIs were published in World War i until 1943). But it is an entirely different matter for the U.S. military to be telling U.S. journalists what they can and cannot broadcast. Remember that the U.S. military invokes no censorship (the First Amendment rules, dude) unless operational security is involved. Fair enough. So how can it keep this tape off the air? The answer is easy. The Department of Defense controls the access to the war zone, and any news outfit that rubs the DOD the wrong way runs the risk of losing that access. And if that access is gone, your network's ability to compete is gone. We are hearing the word courage a lot nowadays in terms of the soldiers. We will soon see if the word courage will apply to the mainstream American media. *** Update 3-24: Matt Drudge posted stills from the video on his site. Very disturbing stuff, but that's the point -- war is very disturbing stuff. -30- (back to top)
Updated: 12:20 p.m. 3-22-2003 Moving On Up I've been told that of all the things I write, I'm best at porn for women. Maybe that's what I need to put this blog on the map. War, information architecture -- and reports on the power of that long slow breath on the nape of the neck, that slow soft touch of ... never mind. Make love, not war indeed. It's a beautiful spring day here and the time commitments are the blog, the weekend IT diagramming, The First Dumpling and the Chesapeake Bay 200 yards away. With half of fifth of tequila left, the blog is going to be put in perspective soon. So on the principle that here is the place to post observations you don't get from mainstream journalism, let's bullet-point this thing and move on.
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Updated: 12:10 a.m. 3-21 March Madness ... NBC reports the FBI will make a visit to an Arab-American, or ask them to come in for a voluntary conversation, on the grounds they are wanting to prevent hate crimes. Now there's a twist. ... Surrender as "an act of honor." Near-genius phrasing by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Don't always agree with him, but I've always been impressed by his complete command of the quote. ... President Bush has emphasized time in two straight national speeeches, that the war could take longer than expected, and that we would fight at a time of our own choosing. He's been well-briefed. The Arabs are notorious talkers. It's a cultural thing. Life moves slower in heat. These surrenders, George, they take some time, have some tea, sit down. ... U.S. generals probably are more concerned with the storms slated to arrive Monday than they are with many Iraqi units. It's a moonless sky this weekend, so planners need to move now to be able to attack then. ... Coalition forces in the north will be without the concentrations of tanks and vehicles they would have had if Turkey hadn't been so freaked out by the Kurds. The triangle of the Turks, Kurds and Iranians remains a top concern in the Something Goes Wrong category, especially in the case of a long military occupation.
Gunner User So I am wrapping up work at 2-ish yesterday morning, and I hear Carl Rochelle (NBC via CNN) saying that the Iraqi anti-aircraft gunners fire their weapons without turning on their tracking radar, because anyone who flashes an Allied warplane with their radar is dead within seconds. Perfect! The perfect analogy to a computer user saying he reads the company bulletins when he's really surfing basketball brackets. Just picture Mahmoud up there blasting away with total ineffectiveness. He looks like he's using the machine, and he can tell you everything you want to hear about using the machine, but his net output is zero. And he lives to sit in his sandbagged cube another day. It's a long, lonely battle to build more usability into computers. But it sure beats the hell out of digging holes in the desert.
Updated: 10:00 p.m. 3-20-2003 Desert Sprinkle That's not the case, of course, if you're on the scene and the ground is shaking and things are a harsh and rattling loud. There's plenty of violence flying around. It's just off camera. It's the job of the talking heads to bring such understanding to the news consumer, but in all actuality, they just fill time between the muzzle flashes. In the East Coast sniper case, all the expert conventional wisdom was just flat wrong; here, it's the Shock And Awe Theory that's taking its lumps. So let a blogger circulate a point of view or two. Military history says a soldier's chance of surviving a surrender is directly proportional to how many people are with him. This makes perfect sense; 10,000 POWs puts the victor's focus on control and subsistence of a large group. Now imagine a small-scale firefight, and you've spent your day shooting across a field killing people. And now you expect to be able to throw down your weapon at the very end and say "Hey, you can't kill me" and get away with it? Especially when I'm armed and looking at you and you just killed my poker buddies? So tonight, hundreds of clanking machines are churning dust wakes across a moonlit desert. The 1st U.S. Marines are on the move. And now we have a new definition of pathetic. You stand up to surrender because you're not going to die for a leader who treats you like crap. And the Marines don't even stop. More likely to pick up a propaganda leaflet than another prisoner. Can you imagine what the first leaflet is going to bring on e-Bay?
Updated: 12:55 a.m. 3-20-2003 Bombs away Think about it. Why not make what looks like an effort to try and kill Saddam, fill the interval with psy-ops and false orders to Iraqi commanders, and then repeat as necessary? Allied forces do not gain the tactical advantage of night-vision until the new moon of the weekend anyway. Why engage in battle if you don't have to? Interesting approach. I 'm all for anything that keeps total casualties down. For reasons outlined earlier, I believe folks should limit their comments to narrow areas in the first few days of any war. So tonight let me talk about the cradle of civilization, the road to Baghdad, the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys. Rivers favor the defense in warfare. Dams pose tremendous defensive advantages since tanks can't go through mud. Remember, flooding as a weapon is only possible if you have absolutely no concern for the people who live there. Worse still for the attacking force is that the land is rich in historical treasures and areas of religious importance. And if you're trying to disperse an aerosol chemical weapon from an unmanned plane, a valley is one way to keep it from scattering. Straight-line, it's 400 miles from the Kuwaiti border to Baghdad. Allied forces could very well attempt a flanking move of the entire Tigris and Euphrates area, which would skip both enemy resistance and treasures of civilization. The opponent is expecting a jab. So go with a hook. As I contemplate the meaning of Rolling Rock beer and war on live TV (can you imagine what a Battle for Baghdad could pull in pay-per-view?) I'm watching a purported statement of Saddam Hussein being broadcast on Iraqi TV. My immediate impression is that it is not him. The standard thinking would be that it was one of his doubles. But my wack take at 12:55 in the morning is that the U.S. has done more than knock their TV off the air, the U.S. has hacked it. and that what I just witnessed was an Allied broadcast. Think about it. Make it look and sound as legit as possible, then use it to dispense misinformation later. Maybe even kill him on the air, at least in a Hollywood stunt man sense, as the ultimate psy-op weapon. Try to imagine what that could draw in pay-per-view. Somewhere Don King is feeling patriotic. Updated: 5:40 p.m. 3-19-2003 Irony, etc. ..."Fight with a happy heart." From StrategyPage, General J.N. Mattis' all-hands message to the 1st Marine Division. ... So how should a U.S. military member act in Iraq? Well, here were the nine rules of conduct in Vietnam. ... Some IT stuff. Say RIP to the original iMac. And from News.com's "Today in Tech History," this 1997 quote from U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter: "In my own ignorance, I have to accept the real possibility that if we had to decide today just what the First Amendment should mean in cyberspace we would get it fundamentally wrong." ... And while waiting for the bombs to start dropping, this quote from a caller to WRVA in Richmond. "Who would have ever thought we'd see the day where the best rapper is white, the best golfer is black, and the Germans don't want to go to war?"
Updated: 7:40 p.m. 3-17-2003 The Chart Before the Hoarse I dug up this example because when I'm consulting, I need to be able to quote an expert's opinion instead of spouting my own. It's even better when the names I drop (Tog and Tufte, Emil Ruder and Jan Tischold) ring no bells. There are a lot of ways to get a client to listen, and damn few of them work. I close by quoting a political consultant's classic line to his candidate: "I know what you are paying me to give advice. I'd love to know what you'd pay me to take it." ... I have found someone with a more stupid hobby than my collection of potato chip bags. Check out Gary Duschl's one million chewing gum wrappers. ... Folks, you have to read the Baghdad Blog while it is still available. The lavender-scented candle in a bomb shelter is the kind of detail -- and humanity -- the established media used to provide. Updated: 7:40 p.m. 3-17-2003 Who, What, When, Why, War It used to be the oldest rule in the legislature -- politics end at the water's edge. Once the shooting starts, the common wish must be for a swift victory that's as bloodless as possible. Even if history doesn't support your optimism. I'm old school and I admit it. In the old days, in the early days of war, you kept your mouth shut and did nothing that would give aid or comfort to the enemy. Yes, dissent is patriotic and free speech is one of the things these G.I.s will be dying for. My call for discretion is not constitutional, it's taste. The classy thing to do (are you listening Tom Daschle?) is to stifle it for awhile. Raise hell later if you want. Just give it a rest for a few days. The news in advance of President Bush's speech (I'm scrambling to post this before he talks at 8 p.m.) includes details of Iraqi preparations and sabotage. As I argued last week, Mr. Bush, if you're on this course, then for God's sake don't muck it up. Surprise. Sucker punch. Blast Away. To put in terms my neighbors would get, "by whatever means necessary." That was the lesson from Nam. Once you decide to fight, you fight all out or not at all. We can assume, and again, for strict cred sake, I'm posting this before Bush speaks, that a 48-hour deadline to Saddam is more of an evacuation window for non-combatants than a serious diplomatic effort. On a battlefield level, the biggest advantage of the US military is night vision, and the dark of the moon doesn't arrive until the weekend. So if you believe in surprise, expect bombs to start flying Wednesday night. As I type, NBC's war-extended Nightly News drones a-war in the background, and you know, it's what they are not saying that scares me most. In Desert Storm One, the Iraqis did not use chemical weapons because they feared we would go nuclear if they did. There's no talk of weapons of mass destruction as an escalation anymore. It seems that in a way, the US wants to see chemical weapons used. Not like there's some secret Bush conspiracy to slaughter soldiers, but it's as though the administration wants to be able to say: "See, I told you so." Say what? The US could topple Baghdad in the Heritage-Foundation-favored 10 to 12 days, and if such an outcome cost 20,000 some GIs in a desert, then it was not worth it. Don't dare call it a victory. And don't dare forget that when it comes to the sanctions-pressed people on the other end of this air war, Mr. Bush, you are asking them to embrace democracy while democracy is flattening their homes. *** "Tonight the French declined to be interviewed." Lisa Myers, NBC. Update: 3-16-2003 Should The Wide World Roll Away As of right now, researchers don't know if SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, is caused by a virus or a bacteria. But they do know that neither antibiotics nor antivirals are doing any good, and worse, that the disease has a wicked way of infecting health care workers. Medical experts have long worried about super strains of diseases that are beyond antibiotics. Perhaps people should remember that the conquering of infection (a medical miracle) is a fairly recent event in human history. (Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1929.) Assuming, for a moment, that this disease is not the beginning of the end of life on Earth, it might be a useful lesson to those alleged educators who want to deny evolution and teach that wack-ass creation science. Remember the case of the Kansas State Board of Education? Folks, evolution is not a theory in need of further fossil proof. Evolution is a fact. Everything evolves and adapts, and you don't need fossils to prove it. Tiny things, simple organisms, mutate at amazing rates. One of the best places to observe natural selection and evolution is in medicine. Yes, everything evolves -- even viruses and bacteria. If I'm facing death in a raging epidemic, and I've been deciphering server logs, if I'm puttting in free overtime while a new plague approaches, I will be seriously bummed. Perhaps we should indeed live every day like our days could end suddenly. It certainly makes a better slogan than a financial plan. I found the whole concept of a worldwide alert on a rapidly spreading fatal disease quite unsettling. On a rational level, you play it down; on a cellular level, it connects. Makes me want to smell my girlfriend's hair. *** Stephen Crane, the guy who wrote "The Red Badge of Courage" from his imagination and wrote" The Open Boat" after experiencing life as a war correspondent, would have made a great blogger. He wrote books and articles and even poetry. Like most Americans, I can recite very few poems from memory, and unlike most everyone on the planet, most of the poems I can recite are Crane's. So with sweeping death looming and The First Dumpling 102 miles away, this Crane poem came to mind. It's from The Black Riders and Other Lines. As with most Crane works, the first line is also the title.
Update: 3-15-2003 Blog Mart Update: 3-14-2003 Brush With Fame Her picture illustrates a classic difference between my old world of newspapers, where pictures can be played big, and the web, where pictures eat bandwidth. I'll scan the full-size (uncropped) picture and post it as soon as I can get my scanner working again (seems I've lost my GEARPPCS). Call it porno for painters, but I just know that Paige's brush is a Wooster, and I probably have some Woosters that are older than her. Keeping a brush for years and years is the main reason why every wife out there should give their man a brush spinner for Father's Day. And if you want to baffle him with a tool he doesn't know how to use, consider a basin wrench.
... Just flat stumbled onto Rex Sorgatz and Fimoculous. First-class work. And I knew those Puma ads were bogus. (PS: If you're visiting his site, and you're curious about SXSW references, it translates to South By South West. Started out as a big radio trade show and evolved into an even bigger swag-filled, music-fest-a-looza.) Savidge Nation CNN's man in Kuwait, Martin Savidge, arrived on the same wing of a freshman dorm at Ohio University at the same time I did. Not wishing to overstate anything, but I had a really good college career. I won plum internships. I did well on the college paper. Had a pretty solid 16-year career. So now let me tell you about Savidge. First, in his younger days, he's drop-dead gorgeous in a ski-buff, rugged kind of way, and he's got this voice from God. He'd walk into a room and you could hear the panties drop. In a matter of like days he's on WOUB and like within a month he's anchoring morning drive time and within a few more months, he's packing up because he's got a job with the f------g BBC. Everybody knew he would be famous. Wish him safety in Kuwait. The Marines he's with, too. Here's how Savidge signed off on a recent CNN.com piece:
-30- (Back To Top) Updated: 03-13-2003 Goddamit Here's the scene. It's a dark and stormy night on Interstate 95, and at a busy exit just north of Fredericksburg, traffic is backing up out onto the freeway. Three or four cars in the middle lane all realize this at the same time, and veer into the right lane. Brake lights start stretching out like Mardi Gras beads, and suddenly there's a car cutting in about six inches in front of me. So I slam on the brakes and swerve right. I miss the cutting-in car, but now I have to worry about skidding into the ditch. It all goes kind of fast, but I turn into the slide a couple of times, straighten up, and get out of harms way. I get back up to speed, get out of that lane and get on down the road. Next exit pops up, and still feeling a bit jittery, I pull in for a cup of coffee. And as I get under the gas station lights, I see everything that was on the passenger seat is now on the floor. Worse, everything that was in my laptop case pockets -- pockets that close with velcro --is now scattered. When I hit the brakes, that thing went flying. An hour and a half later, I'm home inspecting the G4 Titanium Powerbook for damage. And I see a cracked CD slot and a bend in the titanium. Everything checks out in terms of working, but I suspect the entire base wrap-around molding will need to be replaced, and I can't see any scenario where it won't cost a bundle. Anyway, I should be linking to cool sites and All Things Blog, but a Rolling Rock sounds better right now. Updated: 03-12-2003 All Things Blog ... Some Web history -- a 1990 screenshot from Tim Berners-Lee's computer. For interface geeks, note the left-hand scrollbars. Another bit of history -- an under-construction page from 1996 (Best viewed in Netscape 1.1 !!!) is still under construction in 2003. ... If you have never read this modern classic, read it now -- Absolute PowerPoint. God, I wish I'd written this first, but props to Ian Parker for a brilliant piece of work. This is a MS Word version of an article that first appeared in The New Yorker. Updated: 03-11-2003 Oy I can't get too fired up about this latest bit of gotcha politics, considering the war and all. In a slower news cycle, it could reach Trent Lott levels, and depending on the evidence, probably rightfully so. There's an interesting spin here. The local Republican congressman, who could be expected to pile on the Democrat anyway, just happens to be Jewish. Eric Cantor, who inherited a well-polished political machine from the Congressman from Philip Morris (Tom Bliley) is fast-track rising. Remember the name. Eric Cantor. First Kill All The Users For folks who haven't spent time in the Information Technology world, here's all you need to know. The IT industry hates the user. Oh, there is plenty of lip service, but the folks who handle the technology first worry about the best handling of that technology. It's not content, it's data, and users are the stupid people who have to call the help desk. The technology is generally the latest, alleged best -- even if this means a nightmare of making all these different best things work together. The technologists make their money by making it work, and they make more money if something new and cool and groovy comes along that starts their process all over again. It's not malicious, it's not a conspiracy, it's a marketplace. And it moves at frightening speed. My perspective is quite skewed from most of my dot comrades. They come from programming; I come from journalism. They come from jargon-laced PowerPoint presentations and page after page of plans in MS Project. I come from a tradition of boiling it all down to who, what, when, where and why. I start with the perspective that the app or the site or whatever you are working on should be so simple the instructions could fit on a 3 by 5 card. No more manuals that nobody reads anyway. The fancy terms for what I do is information architecture or user interface design. Truthfully, in terms of the final product I just consider myself an editor. In terms of the process, I get to be the trial lawyer for the underdog user. I get the chance to make it as simple as possible. And that's always a great position to be in, even if I lose a lot of arguments because of technology, politics, money or whatever. Hey, to quote that great philosopher Dr. Phil, people either get it or they don't. Most people would never ask why Windows puts the start menu and the close window buttons as far apart as possible. They'd never notice the difference in the screen tops on a Mac versus a PC, or see the difference a better-drawn scroll bar can make. People put up with MS Word's hinkiness because they think it's a computer, it's supposed to be that way. Well, it doesn't have to be. A lot of people put up with bad interfaces because they have precious little experience with good ones. For the record, this latest gig looks pretty sweet. Now as with most of my work, I'm totally non-disclosed, and truthfully, I prefer it that way. Whenever I rant about IT, it's ranting about years of experience in the industry at large. I never rag on my fellow cube dwellers. They've got enough to do already. That's why they are eating lunch at their desk. Updated: 03-10-2003 Breath OJ bin Laden Think of what Bush and theatre commander Gen. Tommy Franks must consider when timing the launch of this apparently inevitable war. Surprise. Of all factors in successful battle, surprise (and its cousin, deception) is arguably the most important. Do you leave people in harms way (UN inspectors, war correspondents, Arab diplomats) in an attempt to perform a sweeping opening success? If political considerations place the deadline on the 17th, then military considerations would say attack on the 16th. If the enemy expects an attack on a new moon, is the loss of a battlefield advantage (night-vision) outweighed by the documented benefits of surprise? Surveillance. The US military reportedly has bombs that will fry every single electronic device in its classified-meters range. The benefit of eliminating the enemy's command and control, a staple of war planning, is counter-balanced by our use of following electronic signals as a way of finding targets. One can argue the "coalition of the willing" would be better off taking 'em all out. In '99, the Serbs used decoys to guide bombs to shrubbery instead of tanks. Remember the "accidental" bombing of the Chinese embassy? Always struck me as a classic case of a weapon following radio emissions. Saddam. Call it the OJ bin Laden factor. How much proof is required to prove Saddam is dead? If the US puts a couple, bunker-busting mini-nukes on each of his 11 palaces, and strafe and rocket his next 10-best likely locations, and do all this at D-Day plus one minute, the goal could be achieved but the proof might be dusted. The US entered Afghanistan armed with a bin Laden family DNA sample. Does that strike anyone else as over-the-top? Seriously, though, the larger question is if the U.S.military can afford another Afghanistan -- conquer the country but miss the main target. Conversely, is it worth getting a bunch of your most elite commandos killed just so you can provide proof of death? I must note right here, since I'm using lines such as "better off taking 'em all out," that I'm from a family of military veterans, I'm a military history buff, and I'm a peacenik fundamentally opposed to this campaign. The United States has chosen to confront instead of contain; one can assume the moves will prompt the very use of the weapons Americans were trying to deter. Considering the potential of weapons of mass destruction, casualty levels topping Vietnam are not far-fetched. And at that level you have to ask if dumping Saddam Hussein was worth it. I can see Tom Clancy now, quoting a grousing tank commander rolling toward man-made thunder. "Saddam didn't have the range to hit us. We had to move in close enough and do him the favor." Conventional wisdom suggests the Iraqis don't have much fight in them and mass surrenders are predicted. In Desert Storm, after bombardment and casualties and days of extreme adrenaline binges, Iraqi soldiers white-flagged big-time. History suggests, however, that some willing to run while defending Kuwait may not be as prone to running when defending their own neighborhood. To put this military campaign in terms an IT worker can absorb, let's look at the milestones and deliverables. In particular, look at Day Four, Days 10-to-12, and 30 Days Same As M*A*S*H. Gen. Franks has a tough act to follow, considering the last war ran only 100 hours, so speed and mobility dominate American plans. The trick lies in being able to strike the enemy when the enemy is in no situation to strike back. Remember, there is no historic evidence that anyone will actually attack while wearing a protective NBC suit. Forget the Pentagon line, chemical weapons bring most everything to a stop. The second milestone revolves around factors hard to estimate at this time -- captive fliers, human shield hostages, smart bombs going dumb because of smoke screens and cheap GPS jammers. The hidden terror in starting a war is the spinning of events beyond original scope. What are the ramifications of nuclear weapons going off? What happens if Israel or Saudi Arabia are attacked? What if the American public is shocked at five-figure casualties and $3.50-a-gallon gasoline? What if the Kurds, Turks and Iranians all start trading artillery rounds? The final milestone, 30 days out, is dominated with logistics. If the war still rages, serious reloading will be required. If it's peace, it's time for cleaning up the rubble. If it's a muddle, it's the logistics of shipping body bags home. You think you have a crummy job? How about decontaminating a corpse? If you're wondering about my track record on this things, here's a link to my '99 Kosovo column, "War For Dummies." And I close by saying that as I write this, the world is on the eve of a UN vote on military force. While history suggests UN stands for Usually Nothing, you still have to admire one aspect of Bush's current spin. Bush didn't win the popular presidential vote, but won the procedural one. Now at the UN, he's going to lose the real vote and declare victory on the majority. Straight tripping, boo. Blogging ... I'd feel better about Desert Storm The Sequel if the technology wasn't based on Windows. From Broznews, here's a report on the only military Mac in the desert. ... Alan Boyle says the search for extraterrestrial life is honing in on 150 promising signals. He also has some interesting stuff about the full moon of the 18th, and how it's a factor in Iraqi war plans. I can't wait for confirmation of life on other planets. Can you imagine the impact of thet news on organized religion? ... And while on religion, from Nick Denton via Ken Layne, a journalists-must-read Kuwaiti newsroom bulletin. Updated: 03-09-2003 Being a heterosexual male, my knowledge of show tunes (and Broadway shows in general) remains quite thin. I understand and appreciate the talent and all, but my tastes run more Flaming Lips than Rent. I do know, however, that the First Dumpling would love to go to New York City for a weekend of fine dining and Broadway shows, and every male knows what that means. "Two tickets for 'La Boehme,' please." Broadway producers were shocked this week when, in the final hours of a contract negotiation with union musicians, fellow theater unions announced they would not cross the picket lines of their brothers. If you keep track of old-school labor organizations, this "surprise" to the producers shows their ignorance and much as their greed. These adjoining walkouts happen all the time. Decades ago, I saw a 2,000-employee construction job come to a dead stop because nobody would cross a Teamsters picket line. And there were 18 Teamsters on that job. During my short stint as a movie carpenter, I heard a union member talk of working in NYC, and where the stagehands and the musicians both got 15 minute breaks morning and afternoon. So the stagehands would take their break and just as everybody would be coming back, the musicians would take theirs. Presto. Instant 30-minute stoppage, and outrage from the producers trying to pay the bills (including, most importantly, the front money for shows that take time to become a hit). Financially supporting a Broadway show is indeed high investment and high risk, and Mr. Fifth Avenue, that's not my concern. I'm already plunking down big money for these tickets, and it baffles me -- at these prices, why can't you keep everybody happy and still make a profit if you unveil the Next Big Thing. Mr. Producer, I'm willing to pay ten or more times the price of a movie because I'm willing to pay a premium to see it live, produced in real time by real people. Replacing live musicians with karoake machines is not high-dollar entertainment. Relying on computers makes it like television or a movie, so why the extra money? Since all organized labor stories/columns should include details of the last offer so peope can make their own judgments, the Virginian-Pilot reported producers wanted to cut 24-member orchestras to 15. It's been a long time since I was watching Eric Kunzel and the Cleveland Symphony, but isn't an orchestra already supposed to have 30-some people? Being in the South, it's never socially correct to bring up union matters. My take is that by not even politely talking about such issues, little things unnecessarily become big things. This Broadway-goes-dark story is just the latest case in point. Because of some should-be-simple work rules, a $5 million a day tourist industry screeches to a halt. Our political and economic practices have got to be able to do better than that. Updated: 03-08-2003 ... Have to say that my first visit to Snark Hunting was quite pleasing. Be sure to check out the entry on female Viagras. ... From OscureStore, clown faces kiddie-porn charge. I'm a sucker for such stories and always look for the "I used to know him. He seemed like a regular guy" quote. ..."Where will land-locked Switzerland defend its America's Cup?" asks Tim Blair. ... Someday I'll find the appropriate way to produce the magnum opus on romantic food. After being raised a Midwestern beer and barbeque type, it was quite an enlightenment to see and learn the mystical powers of a good Chardonnay or champagne. Very complex relationships of flavors with garlic-soaked olives, fresh pineapple, horseradish cheese, and the best oysters in the world, the salty fresh ones from just-up-the-coast Chincoteague. Life's too short to skimp on the crackers. Last updated: 03-07-2003 Web Wanders ... Haven't figured out what to make of Gen. J.C. Christian. ... Here's an Apple parody and total rant, though it's a bandwidth clogger. ... From the War Room at cursor.org, an interesting milk carton. ... A favorite parody site, Landover Baptist Church, has some competition. WhiteHouse.org is brilliant and the parody of Ready.gov is pretty good, too. ... Blogging is such a craze, even President Bush has one. Updated: 03-06-2003 "Funny thing," I tell the girlfriend. "First time New York threatened this kind of ban, Philip Morris threatened to move out of town. Just a few years later, they get away with it." And lo and behold, today's Richmond Times-Dispatch: PM is moving its tobacco headquarters to Richmond. The city is thrilled. Those HQ folks make major money; we're talking housing sales, job creation, all kinds of economic-multiplier stuff. Left unsaid, of course, is how many of these people will agonize over giving up Park Avenue for small-town living. To which I say: First, everything is slower here, but your checks will go 50 percent farther, so deal with it. Secondly, get to know the James River. Try kayaking (rapids under a skyline!)! or fishing or bird watching (eagles!) or anything that gets you on or near that water. There's plenty wrong in this town; the river helps balance it out. Third, y'all will be moving into the old Reynolds Metals headquarters. This is a magnificent , tree-lined campus with historic Owings, Skidmore and Merrill buildings. I know the place well. I had a nice freelance thing going with Reynolds before Alcoa bought them up. (Hey, I've always been the human cost of corporate movers and shakers.) The world's largest Confederate museum is a pale comparison to The Big Apple, but there's a lot to be said to be in a city and culture where people appreciate you. Home field advantage counts. (Mr. Marshall would have written more, but he had to run out and buy a pack of Marlboros for $2.54.) Updated: 03-05-2003 ... While awaiting 20,000 funerals and $3.50 a gallon gas, check out this poster from the Victoria Peace Project. There's also a 1983 picture of Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein shaking hands. The photo is from a U.S. government archive. ... There's an apparently legitimate Baghdad Blog. The March 2 entry notes that trenches are being filled with oil around the city to create a monster smokescreen in case of war. Great military planning, unless you happen to live there and need to breathe. ... Kurt Vonnegut Jr. believes a great reality TV series would be "C students at Yale." He also tells "In These Times" that he's not exactly happy with the upcoming Iraq War. ... While I'm at it, there's the Propaganda Remix Project, and an excellent use of a 404 page. Factoids ... A classic from Harpers: $13,500 was the maximum severance package for 4,500 laid-off Enron employees; the top 140 executives averaged $5.3 million a year. ... At $40 billion in wealth, Bill Gates is worth more than the bottom 40 percent of the U.S. population, more than 100 million people. 03-04-2003 Deceptive Marketing Award of the Year Updated: 03-02-2K3 What's more interesting, however, is Virginia Beach's war against itself -- the lure of development tax dollars weighed against the loss of open space, traffic congestion and pollution -- and how it is reflected in the paper. Sunday's front section had six pages of ads saluting realtors for their record year (kind of a wanted poster for eco-terrorists) and the local section front had a story on a developer who's trying to pass off an upscale development as environmentally friendly (and not getting away with it, apparently). On the very last page of the local section, what newsies would call buried, was a story about a fellow advocating that when it comes to housing, the people who work in cities should be able to afford to live in them. Wow, in Virginia that qualifies as communism. Later in the day, the Ocean Park Civic League stuffed a flier in my girlfriend's mailbox. They are organizing to stop development of the last largest undeveloped tract on the Lynnhaven River, a waterway so fouled you can't harvest crabs from Crab Creek anymore. Here's a diagram for replacing 69 nine empty acres with an unbelievably dense . 1,776 units. The landowner paid $350,000 for the property in 1972, and now wants $25 million to leave it alone. If my math is right, that's a 7,200 percent rate of return. Hey, a man's gotta eat, doesn't he? 03-01-03 02-28-03 3-9-03 update on Dean. The doctor got grilled by Tim Russert on Meet The Press but came out relatively okay (especially since he was arguing a hard point to argue -- the middle). He's not nearly as polished as Gary Hart, but seems to be getting better. Expect the "Democratic John McCain comparisons" to grow. How About The Real Double Tax? About the blog
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"Infovore." Term coined by Les Orchard, the fellow behind Agent Frank. "Corporadoes." Found it in a Sam Smith headline. Been reading a lot of his stuff lately. "Friction." A substitute for "fog of war." Details here. "Blogosphere." The world of Web blogs. Strikes me as a pretentious term, but so it goes. What do you expect from an industry that can't decide on the proper spelling of Web site. Wordburst: From the site No More Mr. Nice Blog, a new term for Iraq-war opponents France, Germany and Russia: "The axis of weasels." |
| About The Author |
Mr. Marshall is a reporter turned web developer turned information architect and interface designer. If he ever won a McArthur genius grant, he'd study Earth-friendly building techniques. If he won a Niemann Fellowship, he'd study the myth-making aspects of American capitalism. If he ever won the lotto, he would, over his lifetime, give away more money than he actually won. Mr. Marshall resides in Richmond, VA. |