Ollie's Blog

Mr. William Lind writes in his Defense and the National Interest blog today a piece titled, Two Elections in which he comments on the recent Iraqi and Israeli elections.

He notes that for elections «to substitute for war, not only the winners but also the losers must accept their outcome.« Not surprisingly, he holds little hope for this in Iraq and posits a civil war will likely break out again. His advice: «…what America needs to do in Iraq: get out now, fast, while it can.«

How terribly reminiscent of the last days in Saigon. Another lesson about the near-impossible task assigned to our military in fighting insurgencies and other forms of the «Fourth Generation Warfare« (4GW) prevalent today.

Even more troubling is his assessment of the impact of the rightward shift in the Israeli Knesset on America. He believes this raises the risk that Israel will attack Iran, with potentially disasterous consequences to our army in Iraq. Iran sits, he says, almost astride our principal supply routes in Iraq. They command the allegiance of the Shiite militias and a large part of the Iraqi army all of which could turn on and surround our troops.

Let us all hope that we disengage quickly in Iraq and that our Israeli allies stay cool despite the Middle Eastern pressure cooker.

The earlier article on digital slideshows focused on some key differences between the old 35mm slideshows and today’s digital presentations, and spent some time on the importance of the resolution of the digital slide projector. Today’s piece looks at the software part. Now that you have your folder full of “right-sized” images, what do you do with them? What are the commonly-used programs, what features do they offer, and how do you choose?

…Continue reading Digital Slideshows – 2

TidBits (”Mac News for the Rest of Us”) suggests that we declare Friday the 13ths henceforth as International Verify Your Backups Day. The idea is that everyone’s backup strategy needs to include steps to verify that the backups actually work. Think of the sinking feeling you would get if you pattted yourself on the back for months for religiously performing backups only to find the data wasn’t there when you tried to do a restore.

Take a few minutes today (and every Friday the 13th) to confirm that you can restore your most valuable data.

Most (over 80%, reportedly) supplies sent to the US forces in Afganistan enter that country through Pakistan, either via the Khyber Pass (famous for centuries) in Pakistan’s North West Frontier en route to Kabul, or via a lesser road further south that enters Kandahar Province. Additionally, the US has access to an airbase in Kyrgyzstan through which substantial amounts of air freight pass.

The picture at right from Panoramio shows how incredibly rugged the Khyber Pass route is and, by extension, how vulnerable our supply lines are as well.

Several articles have appeared recently that illustrate that our opponents understand this vulnerability.

On Tuesday, the NY Times reported, “Bridge Attack Halts NATO Supplies to Afghanistan.” Taliban militants successfully disrupted the route to the Khyber Pass for an unknown period. That same article notes that late last year, Taliban militants attacked US supplies stored in Peshawar, destroying 300 cargo trucks and Humvees.

Today, the NY Times writes that “U.S. Searches for Alternative to Central Asian Base.” Under apparent Russian pressure, the government of the former Soviet Republic, Kyrgyzstan, decided to cancel the arrangent with the US allowing use of its Manas air base for fuel and other heavy air shipments. This arrangement had been in place since 2001. The Russian influence is heavy in the former Soviet republics and it appears that Russia is flexing its muscles here, as well as in Europe.

Fighting a war requires secure supply lines. Our enemies are working hard at denying these to us. An earlier article (NYT December 30, 2008) noted that the US plans to widen its supply lines by lookng toward other routes through other Central Asian nations. While laudable, these routes, too, will require at least Russian cooperation, if not actual permission.

The first test of the Obama administration’s foreign policy skills is developing.

Kodak carousel trays

Life used to be simpler. In the old days, when I wanted to put on a slide show, I just gathered up my 35mm slides, arranged them in a Kodak Carousel tray (or two), and headed off to do the show. Everyone had carousel projectors and screens. There were some worries, but they seem minor:

• you could forget to screw the closing ring in tight on the slide tray; invariably, you would then proceed to dump your slides all over the floor; or
• the bulb on the projector could burn out (this can happen today, too, but not so frequently).

Now that we are deep into the digital media revolution, the choices of how to put your images up in front of an audience are myriad:

• Where do I want to put the images? Onto a screen? Or onto a big monitor or TV?
• Do I have to do anything special to my images? What resolution or size do I need to use?
• How do I want to run the show? Manually advance the pictures or make the show into a movie?
• Do I want to add audio? Motion (a la Ken Burns)? Video? Fancy fades and dissolves?

I have been looking into these questions recently and will address the first two points in the rest of this article, while I will post an article on the last two shortly. …Continue reading Slideshows in a Digital Age

The Austin News (KXAN) reported yesterday that what seem to me to be public-spirited hackers took over a computerized mobile construction warning sign and warned passing motorists that zombies were in the area (Nazi zombies at that). The solution: “Run for cold climates.”

Helpfully, it added that “The end is near!!!”

That seems ever so much more useful to Austin drivers than pothole alerts or whatever the sign originally reported.

Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of
you!
– Londo Molari

Tomorrow is Lunar New Year, a day celebrated with lots of fireworks throughout China and much of the rest of Asia.

Today ends the Year of the Rat and tomorrow and tomorrow starts the Year of the Ox. As James Fallows notes,

…the bovine animal in question is written 牛 and pronounced niu.

Thus if you get cards or emails from your Chinese friends saying «Happy Niu Year!« you can join in the hearty laughter at a good bilingual pun. This is a little tip in the interests of cross-national harmony and fellow feeling.  新年快乐 to one and all.

Happy Niu Year to all.

Stratfor’s newsletter of yesterday, Obama Enters the Great Game, examined two foreign policy issues that will confront our new president early on in his administration.

Obama has acknowledged that Afganistan is a priority issue and that he will move troops from Iraq to there in order to try to execute the Gen. David Petraeus strategy. At the same time, Russian relations remain a major issue as evidenced by events in Georgia during the campaign and by this month’s natural gas shutoff. …Continue reading Obama Enters the Great Game

We celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s  birthday this coming Monday and Barak Obama’s inauguration the next day.

In honor of the first, PBS re-ran the American Experience documentary, Eye on the Prize, which covers the civil rights movement from 1954 to 1985, momentous years in the US. They trace the civil rights movement to several factors:

• Black service in WWII.
• The integration of the military in 1948.
• The Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
• The lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi 1955

…Continue reading Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday and Barack Obama’s Inauguration