Just finished watching this old clip from a Ted Talk in 2005 by military strategist Thomas Barnett. With an amazing amount of humor, he makes a lot of sense when he discusses that the U.S. military’s bigest problem is it’s own success, or what he calls our “catastrophic success”. He rightly says that we field a “first half team” in a league that insists on keeping score until the end of the game and that we can run the score up on anybody but then get our butts kicked in the second half.

The blurb from the web site:

In this bracingly honest and funny talk, international security strategist Thomas P.M. Barnett outlines a post-Cold War solution for the foundering US military: Break it in two. He suggests the military re-form into two groups: a Leviathan force, a small group of young and fierce soldiers capable of swift and immediate victories; and an internationally supported network of System Administrators, an older, wiser, more diverse organization that actually has the diplomacy and power it takes to build and maintain peace.

Saw a clever business logo today while driving for a piano tuning company:

        “sound wisdom for the upright”

Guess I like it because I had to think about it a bit before I caught the various play on words it contained.

Turns out this is a snippet from Proverbs 2:7

    He stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
         He is a shield to those who walk in integrity,

Ok, this is not an actual image of the guy riding his bike at 164 mph in Eugene. He had his video camera pointed at his speedometer.

According to the article at the Eugene Register-Guard this is believed to be the fastest recorded speeder in Oregon. Others have claimed to be faster but this one is documented. The video also shows the guy’s recklessness. According to the officer it shows the bike speeding between two freight trucks and passing on the freeway shoulder.

A Eugene motorcyclist who sped past an off-duty Oregon state trooper on Interstate 5 may have set the mark as the state’s fastest speeder on record.

Oregon State Police stopped the red and black Honda motorcycle just north of Eugene on Sunday afternoon and found a digital video camera attached to the front of the bike aimed at the speedometer and front windscreen. When they downloaded the images, they saw the driver hitting a top speed of 164 mph.

“I thought I’d seen it all,” said Senior Trooper Jeff Leighty, who first spotted the cyclist. “It’s absolute insanity.”

Troopers arrested Eugene resident Ben Howard Kelley, 37, on a charge of reckless driving and booked him into the Lane County Jail. He has since been released.

Leighty said he was in an unmarked police car returning to Salem from an assignment in Roseburg when a motorcycle squeezed between him and another car at extremely high speed just north of the Belt Line Road construction zone. He estimated that the bike was doing better than 100 mph.

The bike slowed down in traffic a short distance later, and Leighty, who did not attempt a pursuit, drew close enough to see the license number. He radioed the information to a state police dispatcher, and troopers Thomas Hunt and Clay Cole from the Springfield patrol office were able to stop the bike a few miles north of Eugene.

“I was a motor officer for five years, and I know reckless operation when I see it,” Leighty said. “He just absolutely disappeared.”

“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”
– Niels Bohr

I just finished listening to a back issue of EscapePod titled Niels Bohr and the Sleeping Dane.

The story is based on Bohr’s escape from German-occupied Denmark and at first appears that it is going to be some kind of alternate history story and not science fiction, especially since there were no robots or rocket ships. As a sci-fi coming-of-age story combining metaphysics and physics it was an enjoyable listen.

EscapePod is a sci-fi podcast that usually has some good stories and this was no exception. Niels Bohr and the Sleeping Dane was written by Jonathon Sullivan and in this podcast it is read by Stephen Eley.

I saw this ad over at Dark Roasted Blend and thought that it had a Michaelangelo quality.

I just finished listening to the C-Span recording of former White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove, as he addressed members of the Young America’s Foundation at George Washington University.
I was impressed with much of what he said and even enjoyed the responses to a couple of the hecklers. He made a number of comments about the Democratic candidates that I thought really show the reason I cannot vote for a democrat (but still has not convinced me I can vote republican).

What really caught my attention was his discussion of McCain’s “100 years in Iraq” quote. He begins by saying that Obama, then Clinton, and now the media has completely twisted his reply. I now have to go look for the quote to make sure he is not spinning it. But the point Rove made was that we have been in Germany for more than 80 years — why should we not be in Iraq for 100? We have been in Korea for more than 60 years — why not Iraq for 100? Ok, I can make an argument why we should not be in either Germany or Iraq, but the folks who are having problems with the 100 years in Iraq comment do not have a problem with our presence in Germany or Korea. Should we not pull out of Europe and Asia before we pull out of Iraq?

The audio begins with a speech by Sen. McCain but you can fast forward through that if you want.