Star Trek Review

Warning: Spoiler Alert!

The new Star Trek movie is out, and I thought I'd offer my own synopsis and review.

The movie's plot, such as it is, starts in the past of the future portrayed as the present in the old series. It then fast forwards twice, but it's still in the past. A familiar character from the old series falls through a plot hole and drastically alters the present from what it was supposed to be. Somehow, that doesn't seem to matter, and everyone meet up and become friends as if nothing happened. Kirk goes from adult delinquent to cadet to ship Captain in just a few short plot twists, all the while fighting an enormous plot-hole generating Romulan mining ship that somehow has enough weapons to take on multiple Federation ships simultaneously. Everything that falls into the plot hole is either transported through time or destroyed, except for the movie itself, which somehow does both.

Fortunately, there's enough action, half-naked women, and other visual effects to keep your attention firmly unfocused. All in all, best Star Trek movie ever.

Ruminations of Poe

So I wanted to have a drink today, because it was that kind of week. I almost went to a bar, but instead went to the supermarket for a bottle of sherry. I ended up with a bottle of Savory & James' Amontillado. I was tempted to ask the clerk if they had a cask of it, but I'm confident he wouldn't have appreciated my wit. Nevertheless, there are a few people I wouldn't mind walling up in my basement.

It's pretty good, though not sufficiently better than the cheap stuff to justify the price. It's also a medium sherry, and I prefer the cream sherry so this isn't as smooth as I'd like.

Anyway, it's been a long week. And please no one remind me its only Wednesday.

I'm going to pretend none of you know exactly what I do for a minute. I run a team of trainers, 5 people plus me. We all have different backgrounds in intelligence: two including me are all-source analysts, two are signals analysts, one is an ISR analyst, and one has a background in Naval operations. We train various analytical tools and travel to many different locations to train on site. It's actually a little more complicated than that, but I won't bore you with the details.

I used to train a tool called Analyst's Notebook when I was at JFCOM 2 years ago. Actually, I'm certified through i2, its designer, to teach it. Did I mention I also used it in Iraq as a senior intelligence analyst? Our analysts use it here, but make such terrible products with it, that I want to rip my eyes out of my sockets when I see them. But no one wants training.

This Amontillado is growing on me. Not bad at all.

Oh, and I have to listen to everyone bitch about what a terrible tool Analyst's Notebook is, but no one knows anything about i2's other products. Their Analyst's Workstation is jaw-dropping amazing. The Postal Fraud Investigators use it, and their brief at the 2005 i2 User Conference just blew me away. The "cutting edge" analysis we do here doesn't even come close to what the Post Office was doing 4 years ago. And almost everyday I have to hear how Analyst's Notebook sucks.

I looked into previous analyses and comparisons of Analyst's Notebook this week, so I can build on them to offer a more comprehensive review for the unit we have that experiments with tools. One of my trainers had a conversation today with someone who got my request for said documents. Apparently he said I needed to "get with the program" and that I "didn't see the big picture" because no one uses Analyst's Notebook. I guess he means besides every analyst in our building, and, oh the 2,000 agencies in 200 countries including FBI, DIA, CENTCOM, EUCOM, and everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Target, Wal-Mart, and American Express. He's one of those I wouldn't mind bricking up in my basement.

As a side note, I also found out this week that our new site at work has a blog feature. The site is on what's called SIPRNET, or Secure Internet Protocol Router Network. It's an encrypted intra-net for the intelligence community and doesn't connect to the internet at any point. I think I'm going to use that as a medium to talk about Analyst's Notebook, i2's other tools, how to do better analysis in general, etc. Maybe more people will read that blog than this one.

Update: I find this amazing, but it's come to my attention that some otherwise intelligent and well-read people I know do not get the above reference to Amontillado. In case you this didn't occur to you, Google Amontillado and Poe. That should do the trick.

Power from Trash

In one of my earlier posts, I referred to a new method of generating power from turning trash into energy. I just read another story about it today here. Two plants in the U.S. are running into problems, but I hope they get up and running soon. Basically, what theses facilities do is gasify matter, harnessing power in the process and getting back a solid slag and a burnable gas as well. The plant uses two thirds of the power it produces to keep the process going, so there's a small net power gain.

Opponents say recycling is a better solution for our trash problems, but no one is saying the two are mutually exclusive. Precious metals from our old electronics, scrap iron, and other usable materials should definitely be recycled, but there's plenty more that will not biodegrade and can not be recycled (dirty diapers come to mind). If we can both get rid of our landfills and generate clean energy in the process, I don't see why we shouldn't. It would be a waste not to.

Third Party Candidates

If I believed in a soul, I guess you could say I've been doing some soul-searching lately, at least when it comes to my political affiliation. I've been a supporter of Bush in the past for various reasons, and had planned on voting on McCain/Palin this fall. However, I am becoming more and more disillusioned with the two party system.

Our media outlets all but refuse to cover any of the third-party candidates and independents, despite large followings and popular causes. The corporations that own the vast majority of the U.S.'s media organizations are the same ones funding our 2 major political parties. They've ceased reporting on their own malfeasance while pushing through congress the laws they need in order to make more money. Most Americans want to change the status quo in many ways, with both major candidates claiming to be the one to make that change. The Republican Party seems to be finding it hardest to portray that image, mostly because it has had a President in office the last 8 years and 20 out of the last 28 years. The Democrats, as some are apt to point out, have the largest political party in the country, have a majority in both houses of congress, a majority of governorships, and a majority of state legislatures – and I'm to believe that all they need is another President to finally start making some changes against the "establishment." Both major candidates have taken large sums from corporations and both have voted to support corporate interests over the needs of American citizens. This race has become more like Kodos vs Kang than even the creators of the Simpsons could have imagined.

This year, I'm considering supporting Ralph Nader for president. I haven't been an active supporter on all his issues in the past, but I can't say I'm opposed to any of them either. Worker's rights, solar power, Middle East peace, civil liberties - how can anyone say they're adamantly opposed to those? What's far more important to me, however, is the need to reign in corporate interests in America, get off our oil dependence, and take care of our environment. These are things that can not wait, can be easily undone or made worse, and impact us all. No other candidate has shown commitment to these issues. Unfortunately, I will probably not return home in time to vote, nor have I requested an absentee ballot, since I had counted on being home in time. To compound this, Nader does not accept donations from federal government contractors, nor am I allowed to wear political T-shirts here in Iraq. So, apparently, writing this blog is about as much support as I'm able to give right now.

Before voting this year, consider the third party candidates and independents. Wikipedia has a list of all the parties in the U.S. At the very least, you can contact the media and ask they cover third-party candidates and allow them to participate in debates (click the link on the right-hand side and send an email to 30 producers, editors, and shows at once). I know many people don't want to throw their vote away on someone they think can't win. It's this kind of thinking that is perpetuating the two-party system. We must vote for the one we want as president, regardless of their odds at winning.

Hot, Flat, and Crowded

I recently finished Thomas Friedman's latest book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America, a sort of a sequel to his 2005 book The World Is Flat. He hopes to spark Code Green, an initiative for Americans to lead the world in clean energy production, higher efficiency standards, and reduced waste among other related things. He's working on an additional chapter, to be released in the next edition and is seeking input from readers. I submitted the below on his website.

I just finished reading HFC and previously read TWIF and have enjoyed them both. And while I appreciate Mr Friedman's zeal and practical advice for fixing our energy-climate mess, I feel it doesn't come within an order of magnitude of saving us. His recommendation to use less and become more efficient is akin to telling a family with massive debt and no job to spend less. Sure, it beats spending more, but they need to get a new job, pay down all the debt, and build up savings if they want to have any hope of a future. After the gains in efficiency are realized and alternative clean energy sources distributed, we still need to replant our forests, clean our water and air, and cool our planet.

A better analogy is pushing a ball down a hill. Imagine our environment is the stone ball that chased Indiana Jones when he took the Idol. We've been steadily pushing that ball for a couple hundred years down a slight hill. After tremendous effort, we finally got it to start rolling on its own, but we've only pushed harder every year. We've cut down forests, burned our finite fossil fuels, and eaten and used our planet's resources with unrelenting frenzy, dumping and spewing our waste where ever convenient. And now we're told we need to push that ball a little less. Meanwhile, the damage we've done is continuing on its own. The carbon we've already released will continue to heat the planet for centuries or more, the mines we've exhausted will continue to poison rivers, the species we've pushed to extinction will never return. We need to stop pushing altogether, and with singular purpose as a human species move to the other side of the rock and commit to the largest single endeavor man has ever begun and slow this rock down. After that Herculean feat is accomplished and we've managed to stop it, we need to redouble our efforts and redouble them again to push that rock back up the hill. We'll never get our environment back to where it was, but any state above our current one gives us a better chance of survival. The bottom of the hill is not a place where we want to end up. Easter Island holds a glimpse of that for us. There, the islanders wiped out all 17 species of trees to the very last one. Their population crashed from 20,000 to 2,000 once they exhausted everything exhaustible. There's no getting the ball back up the hill there. And if we don't get in front of this thing, if we don't undo the damage we've done, we'll end up at the bottom of the hill.

In addition to the plans for new clean energy, higher standards of efficiency, etc, we need to address how we're going to undo the damage already done to ensure this biosphere remains habitable. We can pepper the seas with iron to induce an algal bloom, we can spray water vapor in the air to seed clouds and increase our albedo, we can rebuild our forests tree by tree if need be, or better yet all of the above and more. But unless plans like these are incorporated into Code Green, we're doing little more than spending less on our children's credit cards.

Palin a Brilliant, yet Telling Choice

First off, I think McCain's choice for Vice President, Sarah Palin, was a brilliant one, one that's going to shake up a race that has been tied or too close to tied to matter for weeks now. She's appeased the religious right, which has to have been a prime consideration of McCain from day one. I wish it weren't true, but McCain almost certainly couldn't win without their backing. She appeals to young voters who want change, women voters for several reasons, moderate voters who don't want a Romney or worse in the office, and anyone who wants accountability in our government. The selection is also a brilliant counter and block to the Democrats' strategy of painting McCain/Running Mate as the next Bush/Cheney. Can anyone now seriously imagine a meaningful comparison between the two? The fact that she's an unknown draws a lot of attention to her, which has meant that in the last few days no one is covering Obama/What's His Name and their recent Obamapalooza Democratic National Convention. I think her selection is going to change the race. Palin's record of going after corruption and high government salaries (including her own), spurning lobbyists, etc is not only change, but specific change that resonates with everyday voters of both parties. The Obama campaign better come up with something more than just "Change" and do it fast.


In addition to all that, I think McCain's choice says more about himself than it does about her. McCain calls himself a Maverick, and perhaps when he ran in 2000 he was one. The McCain of 2008, though, has been in Washington too long, not to mention going through four bouts of cancer. He doesn't have the fight in him he used to. We all picture ourselves the way we were when we created our self-identity, typically as young adults. Though we age and change, our self-identity doesn't, and thank FSM frankly. But McCain's self-described Maverick persona is little more than that these days, and by picking Palin I think he is picking what he sees of himself in her. She's a straight-talking wild-cat, a non-politician, an everyday person, and resolute on fixing things that need fixing. She's not only what John needs, she's what he wants to be again...minus the chick part.

Dust Another Day

I took these at 7:30 this morning outside my room. Iraq didn't go forward an hour this year, so 7:30 is basically like 8:30 back home in terms of brightness. Nice, huh? It didn't get any better all day, though the light turned more orange. I never saw the sun. D1 there is my room.


I think the sun is in the general direction of the picture below. Then again, maybe not.



At least the temperature was nice. It was only about 95 most of the day without all the heat from the sun. It's been 130+ in the sun recently, and 115-120 in the shade. Given the choice between the two, I'll gladly take the dust, though I have to wonder how much makes it into my lungs.