Late Great Mornings

Sometimes animals, like people, are difficult to love. The schnauzer with the rage complex, the mangy cat with one eye, the exotic tropical spider that farts venom at anything that moves – these animals may live out the remainder of their days at animal shelters and pet stores, never knowing the affections of family. We like to think there’s someone for everyone, and the cat or spider will go home with some scrawny teenage deathrocker who will faithfully lower mice into the cage and feel inspired to write awful poetry about the critter. But more often these animals end up like the lonely 41-year-old lady who can be found at every workplace, and who launches into a world weary monologue about her life when you say “good morning”. There’s a reason why nature, collectively, tends to back away from these creatures.

But other animals make things easy. Duke, our rescue golden retriever, makes things easy.

Rescue animals can come with many problems – having suffered abuse or neglect at the hands of previous owners, or in some cases spending months in the wild as strays. Anyone contemplating pet adoption should be warned that Duke is an anomaly. His worst crime consists of leaping on people to say hello and snatching up socks that have been left in doggie-accessible places (at large under the chaise lounge). He’s pleased beyond reason to obey any commands that he knows – and he’s anxious to learn more, provided a liver-flavored treat is occasionally obtained in exchange. He has an impressive control over when and how he relieves himself.

Those are only the material benefits. The real goods can't be measured. When it’s Sunday morning, and you’re making some scrambled eggs, and the sun is coming through the window and Wilco is offering up some alt-rock on the stereo – there’s no greater spiritual balm than a golden retriever waiting nearby, regally upright and impossibly loyal, ready to play.

CIN Weekly had an article recently on pet adoption, for people local to Cincinnati. National information can be found at Petfinder.com.

Norwood Rights and Revenue

Property rights advocates, and those who oppose Kelo, are pleased with the decision made by the Ohio Supreme Court. In a case that attracted heavy national attention the state judiciary sided with the Gamble family of Norwood and defended them against the idea of eminent domain for tax revenue purposes only. The developers and Norwood officials can't force their plans on unwilling residents.

But this ruling doesn't settle the issue completely. According to DailyPundit:

The best defense against eminent domain abuse is action by state legislatures to amend state law -- and state constitution if necessary -- to stop would-be land grabbers in their tracks.

In the future developers will think twice before running roughshod over neighborhoods and communities with the confidence that the government will back them - but they're not going to abandon these prospects entirely, until there's a law on the books.

And meanwhile, the city of Norwood is a mess. The moral victory has been won for one family, but everyone else has the worst of both worlds: A mostly-vacant lot and an eyesore and zero positive impact on Norwood's tax base. Local officials are already claiming that they'll need to lay off teachers and firemen.

Growth does matter, and somehow needs to be achieved without abusing individual property rights. People who gnash their teeth over greedy corporations need to explain how they are going make their tax nut - especially if they're big supporters of government programs. An enormous empty lot isn't a source of any tax revenue, either from citizens or commerce, and it adds to the perception that Cincinnati has surrendered economic development to more business-friendly neighbors.

More coverage here and here.

Chasing Some Tail

Buzz aplenty over Wired editor Chris Anderson’s book “The Long Tail”, which contends that the efficiencies and mass customization of an Internet economy are increasing the net value of products that haven’t traditionally been interpreted as popular.

For example, the 7406th book title on the bestseller list might not be profitable for a bricks-and-mortar store to keep in stock; but Amazon, because of sheer scale, is going to make a healthy buck selling zillions of copies of that same book. And so niche markets and segmentation open up and become profitable as the technology efficiencies multiply. The “tail” of the news business might be cable, radio, the blogosphere, and podcasting – in that descending order. Collectively these formats eroded the magnitude and impact of the “head”, the traditional nightly network news, which has a seen a precipitous decline in market share over recent years.

In today’s WSJ Lee Gomes takes a whack at this theory and suggest that on a simple percentage basis, hits are still a critical factor, and they dwarf niche sales. Anderson smacked right back with a post that contains with a lesson in fractions: He points out that simple percentages don’t tell the story. The denominator is getting massive as the online economy provides the capacity for an enormous back catalog to be made available to consumers, and furthermore Gomes was very selective in the examples he chose.

But it seems to me that the “hits” are having their market share eroded from an entirely new angle, the way media itself is morphing towards user-created content. This type of media isn’t a formalized product that can be stocked by iTunes or Amazon. Right now user content is a couple of dense teenagers with a video camera and a YouTube account. Are people going to buy fewer tickets to ‘Spiderman 3’ because they would prefer to watch those morons light each other on fire? Of course not. But the spectacular explosion of D-I-Y media will eventually erode traditional markets, given enough time. Music, broadcasting, and eventually movies are heading in that direction, and the current numbers matter less than the prevailing trend.

Another impact of the “Long Tail” is cultural. We can communicate in several zillion directions about entertainment, products, and experiences that fit our highly individual passions and localized interests. One of the most popular posts here on Spacetropic, over time, has been the one I wrote about the obscure Irish band Stump. And I was reminded recently that the item I wrote about ‘The Dubliner’ for the Cincinnati Beacon continues to generate page views and discussion months after it was new. For better or for worse we live in a culture where, thanks to technology, everything that was ever done is always present. If it can be digitized it’s immortal, and now even the physical stuff stays around longer in niche market sales.

You don’t need to be an economist or the editor of Wired to conclude that this will increasingly put the voodoo whammy on traditional scarcity and demand.

Oops. Israel Bombs Peacekeepers

Did you know there were U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon?

Who knew?

I would never have known, but during lunch I was reading an editorial in the Wall Street Journal today about how maybe, somehow, the best thing to do is hand Lebanon back over to the Syrians and solemnly demand that president-for-life Bashar al-Assad finally put an end to Hezbollah. At one point in the article the writer mentioned UNFIL. I paused mid-sandwich and noted the irony that the U.N. (a group that some people claim should be sent in now to resolve the situation) is, in fact, already there, and they've been there for quite a while.

Then tonight I saw the news that the IDF, in an act that was apparently entirely deliberate, bombed four of these UNFIL peacekeepers into pink mist, saving them from the indignity their next performance review ... which, to be honest, probably wouldn't involve metrics related to actually keeping peace, knowing the U.N.

Now seriously, the Israelis usually don't do things like that by accident, and I expect they had previously identified this particular U.N. outpost on a map. In all of the handwringing over the tragedy, has anybody bothered to ask why they thought this was necessary?

Adlai Stevenson - The Home Game

Looking for a new home-based business? How about analyzing Google Earth satellite imagery for intelligence information related to our national security? An article today in the WaPo (via Instapundit) describes the discovery of a new Pakistani nuclear facility:

The reactor, which reportedly will be capable of producing enough plutonium for as many as 50 bombs each year, was brought to light on Sunday by independent analysts who spotted the partially completed plant in commercial-satellite photos.

Talk about transparency. The dark machinations of rouge regimes can now be discerned by any yokel with a modem. Well ... not really. There needs to be some training. Telling a missile production facility apart from a Dairy Queen requires expertise - and mistakes can lead to messy results - but the raw information is available to anyone.

Rich Reynolds, a consultant at a security consultant group quoted in the Congressional Quarterly, suggests that Hezbollah positions can easily be spotted using Google Earth. And the trail back to the weapons suppliers - Iran, China, Syria - is also very obvious. Some specifics of our data collection methodology are too advanced for the general public (at least until some low-ranking official feels disgruntled enough to call the New York Times) but the bare fact of the role these countries play is well documented.

Iran is problem number one, and everyone knows it. But we have a political problem in convincing other countries. The article notes that an "Adlai Stevenson moment" - recalling the fateful confrontation of the Soviet Union's UN representative with evidence of Cuban missiles - is simply not in the cards right now. If we throw down the evidence on Iran we better be conclusive, willing, and politically able to act decisively. And despite the ongoing controversy the public relations failure on Iraq's WMDs is an obvious liability when it comes to making serious charges in front of the global community.

Meantime we're fast approaching the point where we can decide for ourselves by playing along at home, over the Internet.

Philip, What's the Frequency?

Say what you like about 'The Dean' - the guy is a tenacious example of, uh ... opinionated citizen activist journalism, let's call it. There's no better illustration than this clip.

If you're like me you don't really understand half of the questions that are lobbed by 'The Dean' at his arch-nemesis, Hamilton County Commissioner Phil Heimlich (R), who can be seen hurrying towards his car, away from the camera. Nevertheless there's a rich satisfaction that comes from watching a public official be taken to task with full-blown, Geraldo-like intensity.

Politicians of any stripe tend to be loathsome creatures - vain, opportunistic schlubs who deserve less respect than the good upstanding public employees who drive trash trucks. They should always be reminded that they work for us, and not themselves, or the interests of their cronies - and they should be made to worry about the possibility that a fellow with a fictitious name and a video camera might occasionally pop up in the parking lot to ask questions.

Consider Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R), who not only accepted bribes to the tune of $2.4 million dollars, but also, according to a recent inquiry, took full advantage of congress' ability to pass secret budget items by stuffing in line-item pork for his district. And you have to figure that for every one of these frauds that gets sent to prison there are several more who remain at large despite criminal activity.

I'll leave it for others to critique or defend Phil Heimlich, but I'm glad he knows he's being watched. Let transparency fall on the just and the unjust alike. And incidentally, don't miss the Beacon coverage (with video) of the Arab-Palestinian-Lebanese-Nazi conflagration on Blue Ash last Sunday.

Geek Content Innovation

I'm not a fan of the Star Wars Galaxies online game -- but a posting on Digg has me thinking about customers, communities and the 'market as a conversation' hypothesis.

This body of knowledge is familiar to anyone who has ventured near the much-hyped realm of business strategy, which currently teaches that companies should listen to their customers, especially the passionate ones, and in some cases can even use inventive and obsessive users as a kind of unfunded research and development to prototype new products and market opportunities. Wired magazine, for example, ran an article about how Lego geeks - grown men who, yes, play with blocks - served in a pivotal capacity during the redevelopment of the 'Mindstorms' line. And other examples abound. Cincinnati's big consumer products company (cough, cough) has made almost a scientific discipline out of studying consumer behavior for clues to product improvement.

So here's how this one goes: A group of 'Star Wars Galaxies' geeks were royally miffed about a series of official upgrades to the game that were made by Sony Entertainment, upgrades which, to use gamers terminology, really sucked. So they set about the task of reverse-engineering a previous version of the game. You still need a licensed copy of the game to play, but the server code (the part of the game that 'lives' online and manages the interaction of the players) is now open-sourced, freely available, and devoid of the sucky gameplay elements that had previously made the SWG geeks so pissy.

Sony might still sue the dickens out of this group - even though a case can be made that they haven't broken the EULA. Sony already supposedly tried to hire some of the developers working on the server emulation. But if they're smart they'll watch and learn. They might give the upstarts some help in reverse engineering the code -- perhaps in exchange for some kind of splashy announcement that anyone who uses the bootleg version of the game does so at their own risk, and Sony cannot be held liable, etc.

It's always amazed me the extent to which certain genre fans, especially Star Wars, feel like they own the intellectual property. If they can't pay for the fantasy experience they're perfectly willing to haul off and invent their own. How far can this type of product innovation go? In the future media companies might be able to do very little work, and simply produce artwork and the basic premise of a story and let the fanbase do the rest. Maybe the fans need to be won over with with one mindblowing movie or game, one original incarnation of the media - but after that any sequels or derivative work are only going to pale in comparison.

The upgrades, so to speak, are bound to be driven by an eye to increased revenue, instead of improved experience. Companies should learn how to make money from providing the core assets, but otherwise let the geeks take over.

Guinness With Hippies

Yesterday evening I happened across a few bloggers at the local Irish pub, Molly Malones in Pleasant Ridge. Jason "the Dean", Andrew Warner, Jacqueline Henretta, and Justin Jeffre (the characters behind the Cincinnati Beacon) were all quaffing beverages after attending the big protest in Blue Ash involving pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian/Lebanese factions. From their discription of the event, and from the press coverage, it sounds it was like complete mayhem.

Later, hopefully, there will be video of the event at the Beacon website. (I don't want to give it away, but as you might expect - if you follow local indie media - 'The Dean' was simultaneously an observer and particpant in the events as they were going down.) It was nice to stop and have a beer with those guys, since I regularly give them a hard time with sarcastic comments and snide remarks about how Andrew needs a better grasp of history.

Their take on yesterday's protest left me thinking about the whole concept of "waging peace". I took a course, years ago, in which Ghandi and Sun Tzu were given equal heft, and the professor asked the question - if we went after peace as vigorously and with as much preparation and passion as warfare - wouldn't we be much more likely to be successful in eliminating conflict?

This notion of muscular pacifism is appealing on the surface, but it never seems to show up until it's too late. How does the pacifist convince Hezbollah to stop importing missles? What do you say to the Chechnyan rebel who has seen his family slaughtered by the Russian Army? Once war ignites the pacifists claim the answer is simply to stop fighting -- but some deeper injustice remains clenched at the root of the conflict. Where were they all along? And the answer is always self-blame. It boils down to: If Amerca and Israel just looked at how they've been acting they would understand why people like Hezbollah have suffered historical injustice, and they therefore (somehow) have the right to kidnap soldiers. In other words peace is the answer because everybody is at fault. According to this philiosophy there's no such thing as a sucker punch, or a militant group that really wants a fight.

The media is quite obvious in their spin today about how Condoleeza Rice is "finally" getting around to shuttle diplomacy. But I tend to agree that too much enthusiasm for premature diplomatic solutions will only preserve the deep-seated tensions in the poltical landscape - and when they are unleashed again later there will actually be more bloodshed.

Update: Post amended, having been taken to task by JH of 'The Odessa Files'.

U.S. Marines In Lebanon Again

Military people have a keen appreciation of history. Any commanding officer worth his salt can probably deliver an impromptu lecture on the north African campaign in WWII or the machinations of Napoleon. Usually it’s a matter of being a domain expert in warfare – since the tactics of yesteryear are still educational today. But it’s also a matter of military culture, since the traditions and experiences of individual units and divisions become, over time, a matter of identity and pride.
So one tidbit in the news today struck me: The marine unit currently deployed to help rescue U.S. citizens in Lebanon is the same unit that suffered 241 casualties in the barracks bombing in 1983. The irony won’t be lost on these servicemen, and they certainly remember that Iran, by way of Hezbollah was responsible. Does our civilian leadership remember?

YPs and the Old School

Cincinnati mayor Mark Mallory intends to put together a kitchen cabinet of young professionals (YP s) to advise on keeping the city youthful and energetic in the areas of commerce and culture.

Something needs to be done. The urban core is losing population and key business districts are gradually in decline. One obvious example is blogger and businessman Nick Spencer, who recently decided to relocate his nightclub from the crime-ridden Over-the-Rhine neighborhood to nearby Kentucky.

For people who are not familiar with the area, the northernmost parts of the Bluegrass State along the Ohio have a long history of playing the opportunistic hustler to Cincinnati’s stodgy, top-hat traditionalism. For decades now the cheapest whiskey and most topless girls could only be obtained by taking a bridge south. Now the place is really booming - even "reputable" businesses prosper and attract commerce away from the Ohio side. Combined with the explosive growth of Cincinnati’s northern and eastern suburbs the impact is severe on the heart of the city.

Will a kitty pile of YP s be of any assistance when it comes to getting politicians to effectively turn the tide? The idea sounds reasonable, but some like Brian Griffin at Cincinnati Blog think the key is diversity. In addition to his role as blogger and media critic extraordinaire he is the president of Cincinnati Advance. He suggests the same faces are seen over and over again on the young professional circuit, and fresh blood is needed.

My suggestion is that diversity shouldn’t always mean “young”. In the words of Perry Farrell, "All the guys That really have the money / are too old to have a good time with it". People in their 50s and 60s have wealth and business acumen to know what works, and while many of them don’t have the energy to pursue new businesses themselves, they are often willing to be silent backers or patrons of the arts. I’ve heard of groups locally, of retired executives from P&G or Chiquita who are willing to review business plans and put young entrepreneurs in touch with others who can help get ideas off the ground. And there’s always a crazy old lady who wants to write a check to the theater – if only you can find her.

Maybe it’s a traditionalist, social fabric thing, but YP s only seem like one part of the overall equation. We’ll need many productive relationships across boundries - partnerships between private and public firms, parents involved in schools - and the wisdom and generosity of the old-school business mensches. If we can broker those interactions, with or without the assitence of polticians like Mallory, then we have a chance to really get this city moving again.

Bill Clinton Knows

According to a local Connecticut paper:

Former President Bill Clinton is slated to campaign on behalf of the three-term incumbent Monday in Waterbury, Lieberman's campaign spokeswoman said today.

Given the recent prominence of Jack Murtha, John Kerry and the Kos netroots - it's clear that the anitwar left has a big footprint in today's Democratic Party. Joe Lieberman - who was the vice presidential nominee only six years ago - is now in the nomination fight of his life against antiwar Democrat Ned Lamont, who is now catching up in the polls.

Bill Clinton doesn't agree with with Joe about Iraq. Instead Bubba is campaigning because he can read the tea leaves. If Lieberman, the most visible "stay the course" Democrat is ousted from the party then the balance has shifted too far away from average America. Millions of patriotic citizens have some serious problems with a war that seems to be going nowhere and costs $250 million each day. But as much as these things trouble us the notion of bailing out is even worse. (Some claim to support the troops but not the war. I always want to ask - if it's not "mission acomplished" what should the banners read when we bring the boys home? Mission abandoned? Welcome home, we gave up because it was too difficult?)

The Republicans will do a big happy dance if Lieberman loses the nomination on August 8th. Nationwide advertising campaigns will exploit the fact that the Democrats can't tolerate anyone who dares to dissent from the antiwar orthodoxy. Clinton knows that outcome would have a huge negative riple effect on 2006 midterms, and he also may know that Hillary's "centrism", which will need to be in full gear by 2008 will become more glaringly phony if old Joe isn't around to hold down the right flank.

Bill Clinton is a very, very smart man - and both parties should carefully study the political implication of a move like this.

[Via Instapundit]

The New Stupid

At the ripe age of 35 I am a cranky old man. I've always been entranced by new technology and culture, but here's what makes me old school: I think the habits and perspectives of many of my fellow citizens are turning, every so gradually, into mushy, self-serving crap. Too much excuse making, moral equivalence, blame shifting and, worst of all, stupidity.

I'm not talking stupid like a Pepsi commercial.

I'm talking about the deep-seated entrenched stupid that puts biases and opinion ahead of deep, factual knowledge. I'm talking about the kind of stupid that has rigid moral (or secular) certainty about the events of the day but cannot offer any historical perspective, doesn't know the world of ten years ago, a hundred years ago. The type of stupid that hears a few words of what is being said, leaps to conclusions, and then waits, oblivious, for the other person to stop talking before spraying out a defensive, reactionary and semi-coherent response that is entirely devoid of logic and betrays not the slightest bit of foreknowledge of what was said previously.

Our information culture doesn't support a more measured, studied kind of interaction. To keep up with the blast of bits and babble we feel compelled to respond without thinking, mulling anything over. Silence is anathema, and quantity trumps quality every time.

1559 or Fight

Charles Krauthammer adds his voice to the growing chorus of people who say that Israel needs to finish the job, otherwise a "ceasefire" will amount to delaying the inevitable.

Just as in Kuwait in 1991, what must follow the air campaign is a land invasion to clear the ground and expel the occupier. Israel must retake south Lebanon and expel Hezbollah. It would then declare the obvious: that it has no claim to Lebanese territory and is prepared to withdraw and hand south Lebanon over to the Lebanese army (augmented perhaps by an international force), thus finally bringing about what the world has demanded -- implementation of Resolution 1559 and restoration of south Lebanon to Lebanese sovereignty.

The resolution in question calls for Hezbollah to disband and Syria to stop fiddling with Lebanese politics. It's a yet another exercise in meaningless diplomacy that has little impact on actual events, but it makes sense on paper.

Despite the propaganda war -- the mad rush to the cameras with dead babies from both sides -- the fact remains that Hezbollah wants this war despite the wishes of the Arab League. Once the rockets run out and safe passage has been booked to Damascus for the militant leadership they'll probably start making noises about how they are willing to come to the table, but they'll do their worst to maintain a firm political stake in Lebanon.

The closest analogue is Afghanistan (remember, it's the war everybody can agree on). You've got a crackpot gang of hardcore militants that have taken advantage of a battered nation as a staging area for terrorism. Nobody wanted to harm the Afghan people, but nobody wanted to see the Taliban half-defeated either. Likewise, if Hezbollah can be uprooted and dismantled without triggering a wider war with Iran or Syria then the Israelis need to get it done.

Cowboy Mouth Diplomacy

Nary a week after Time declared the end of "cowboy diplomacy" from the Bush administration we've got the media fluttering because the president suggested, while sitting around munching peanuts with T-Blair and other G8sters, that Syria and Hezbollah should, and I'm quoting directly here, "stop doing this shit".

For some people this will reinforce deeply-held beliefs that the current occupant of the White House is a tactless churl who cannot maintain the politesse that would otherwise make us less noxious to Europeans. Goodness what an embarrassing fool we have at the helm of our nation they will say -- and Nina Totenberg can be relied upon to offer a commentary during this evening's NPR that will express confusion and dismay.

Except for the fact that most Americans agree with the president. George might be unrefined - and in my opinion the overall effectiveness of this administration is in shambles right now - but this latest blunt language would receive an almost unanimous head-nodding if expressed among the adults at the average neighborhood barbeque. A group of axe-grinding, opportunistic militants attacking Israel for no good reason - backed by sick, backwards nations like Iran and Syria?

They should stop doing that shit.

Crime Time Review

For the past fifteen years I've lived in the city of Cincinnati proper. For the first time in all of those years I was actually a crime victim. It was a crime of opportunity that involved a loose van window and an attractive target on the front seat - it was almost asking for it - and it pales in comparison with what is read in the news (or what blogger Nick Spencer has reported over the months running a business in Over-the-Rhine).

Times like this, though, are a chance to know your credit card companies on a very intimate basis. Does the average representative in the Ivan Pavlov memorial call center have any idea how to handle a call once the customer says something like "please cancel my card to prevent fraud"? Nope! As usual when you deal with institutional CSRs, English is a second language and competence is optional.

The tale can be told in a series of gas station transactions, and any thief worth his salt knows you only have a limited number of hours to make use of your plastic quarry. It's kind of a race between corporate incompetence and criminal malfeasance. Somewhere there's a thief with a full tank of gas, a pocket full of trucker speed and a backseat spilling over of Frito-Lay's finest. They would have probably made a sizable investment in alcohol too, but I think they had stopped selling by the time of the robbery.

If I understand correctly, it's the merchants and the credit card companies who will ultimately be buying those stolen goods. In every one of those gas stations there are video cameras and a detailed record of when Charlie Cutpurse swiped the card. How hard would it be to match those two things together and fax a video capture to the cops? Maybe I'm looking for a technological solution to a problem with social roots, but frankly I don't really care.

Does it make me an insensitive conservative because I think thieves who break into vehicles should be caught and thrown in jail? At the end of the day I am more amused than annoyed - but I've discovered I'm really in favor of law enforcement. The Cincinnati cop who showed up last night was a real gem (I've met my share of losers). Of all of the folks involved in last night's transaction I'd say it was the thief and the cop that get the highest professional marks for effectively executing thier particlar roles. As crime victims we get a 'C' -- we've re-learned some things that should be obvious about vehicle windows. And I'm giving the financial institutions a 'D' for the usual bumbling corporate idiocy.

The Players From Redmond

Microsoft has decided to take on Apple's iPod with a music player that will allow for wireless downloading of content. And it's not a bad idea: The value proposition to the consumer will be that a PC isn't required. Songs will be plucked from midair, like the oldtime radio, provided you have reliable access to a WiFi network.

Although it's funny ... perhaps on some subconscious level Microsoft knows that anytime Windows is removed from the equation, well, consumers usually have a much better experience with technology. But what Microsoft fails to understand is how they always come across like shoddy opportunists who are constantly following the true innovators. Once a market is defined and opened up by a new technology Microsoft can be counted on to come around, sniffing after a revenue stream. This has been true for videogame consoles, windows software, browsers, and various segments of the server market. They start by offering a half-assed improvement to the previous technology, and they finish by using their weight and muscle to bring into line all of the other vendors and providers in that market space.

Sure, everybody takes a shot at the alpha dog. It's unfair that a colossus in the marketplace is expected to tread more lightly than it's nimbler counterparts. But that's the game. And part of Microsoft's problem is that it seems to veer so far away from it's core products to make a few bucks. Nobody has any warm fuzzies about a company that keeps slumping from one market to the next while relying on the fact that we are forced (for no good reason, really) to use Microsoft Office, despite the fact it hasn't offered anything besides marginal improvements in years.

True innovation - in the form of a product or market which is defined from the start without influence from others - this is rare to the point of nonexistence when it comes to Microsoft, which is astounding when you think of how many big bright brains they have working up in Redmond.

Missile Attack 2006

If you haven't seen Team America, the time is now. North Korean foolishness is among the many items of ridicule, alongside overblown Hollywood blockbuster cheese, American arrogance, and numbwit celebrity actors. With the events of the past few days it's impossible not to think about the puppet version of Kim Jong Il from that movie tossing Hans Blix into a shark tank and singing about a crazed, tyrannical loneliness.

So what to make of the news that the tinpan dictator is now blowing up fish in the Sea of Japan? Does any sober human being imagine that sternly worded statements from the U.S. State Department will have any effect? What about the glowering stare of Condi Rice - who does a better 'pissed off' than any Bushie?

Crazy people change the game entirely. Even the appeasement crowd must eventually concede that there is nothing, ultimately, that works when you mix nuts with angry. Clinton administration officials have been on the news channels in the past couple of days suggesting vigorous bilateral negotiations -- a Clinton specialty, we might recall. But if we actually bother to review the results of our last efforts along those lines we might be less enthused. Dear Leader lobbed his last Long Dong in 1998, even while squeezing two light-water reactors from Mrs. Albright and company. Not exactly "getting to yes".

In response to something unrelated (global warming) John Derbyshire of The Corner coined the hypothesis of collective imprudence, which might apply to North Korea. It simply states that "no large collectivity of human beings (nation-state or larger) will ever act to avert an obvious calamity until that calamity begins to cause really major, dramatic, unignorable damage". And maybe it's a self-validating hypothesis, but it's alarming to think we are such a lazy species -- motivated either by material lust or the need to snatch our asses away from the fire at the very last minute. But what's really causes us trouble is the intuitive tendency of psychotic jackasses like Mr. Jong Il towards exploiting the HCI for maximum advantage.

Let's just hope there are no accidents. If one of these medium range missiles goes clattering into downtown Tokyo it will be very illuminating to see how one of the great warlike nations of the last century responds to a clear and present danger. And by the way - show of hands. Does anybody aside from fringy progressives still think Ronald Reagan's kooky 'missile defense' scheme is still a lousy idea? Didn't think so.