Poetry, Security

Ika wa ikaga

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Comments on Bruce’s blog got me thinking about the word for squid, which turns out to be “ika”. It’s possible it could sound like a cuckoo if the seller is yelling. And if they have a dry sense of humor they might throw in a phrase like “Ika wa ikaga?” Roughly translated I think it means “how’s the squid” or “how about some squid”. Puns in a native tongue are funny, but foreign puns are absolutely fascinating — they are like keys to unlock the treasure of another culture.

I also found a visual connection with squid and birds in Japan mentioned on the japantimes.co.jp site:

Ika is generally written with phonetic kana characters, most likely because of the unusual kanji characters it has been assigned. It is written “thieving crow,” because the bird has been known to swoop down and grab squid as they float lazily on the ocean’s surface or hang on the massive drying racks used to make the jerky-like surume-ika.

Here’s another attempt at a haiku for Bruce…

Trawler nets glide by
Mother squid caresses eggs
in obscurity

Poetry, Security

Squid Security

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A repeat of my comment on Bruce’s blog…

Interesting that he started bringing poetry into his blog about security. :)

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Bruce, you’re too modest. I suspect you could wax poetic about the squid and security…perhaps something like:

The squid grabs its eggs
caressing and washing them
as the trawlers trawl

Speaking of interpretation, Marylin Chin’s poem “The Floral Apron” has an interesting take on squid and Chinese culture, the family, etc.

http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/poetry2/chin_marilyn.html

The poem ends with:

And although we have traveled far
we would never forget that primal lesson
-on patience, courage, forbearance,
on how to love squid despite squid,
how to honor the village, the tribe,
the floral apron.

Security

Alito takes the stand

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Three significant issues stand out after the Alito hearings:

1) He clearly does not think the Constitution protects a woman’s choice (the right to choose, as some might call it), and he indicated that Roe v. Wade is not settled law.

2) He clearly believes in an even more powerful executive branch. In fact he supports the notion of a “unitary executive” in order to give the President broad powers that are not subject to control by Congress. And he even refused to rule out the right of the President, with the absence of imminent threat, invading another country without first getting congressional authorization.

3) He clearly does not believe Congress has the authority under the Constitution to make laws meant to protect families from harm. Even though the Supreme Court ultimately said he was wrong, Alito stood fast by his opinion in the Rybar case that Congress couldn’t ban machine guns. Incidentally, this has provoked the Brady Center to announce their opposition to Alito, the first candidate that they have ever opposed. I believe they referred to his opinions as “right-wing judicial activism”. Pretty harsh stuff coming from a center named after President Reagan’s Press Secretary. Morerover, Alito stood by his opinion that seriously narrowed the Family and Medical Leave Act. I’m sure we all remember when he said there was no evidence for the notion that women are disadvantaged in the workplace when they are not allowed to take family leave. The Supreme Court trounced all over that one as well. Even Rehnquist said in the majority opinion that Alito’s position relative to women in the workplace defies common sense.

So it looks like if you hate women, like automatic weapons, and think executives should be able to operate without oversight…Alito’s your man.

Energy, Security

Go big BlueFuel

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After all the hubub this past year about the great advances in Bosch fuel injection technology, it is no surprise to hear about…

BLUETEC diesel technology, which will make its U.S. debut this fall on the 2007 Mercedes E 320 sedan. DaimlerChrysler says BLUETEC is so clean it can meet emissions regulations in all 50 states, including the five states where diesels aren’t currently sold because they can’t meet emissions standards: California, Massachusetts, Maine, New York and Vermont.

That’s encouraging, but of course Mercedes has some of the most advanced diesel engineering in the world. This isn’t your grandma’s grumbling, smelly clunker, we’re talking about. Personally, I’m curious whether the 2.5L V6 turbo-diesel quattro Audi Allroad will finally be imported — talk about the ultimate active-lifestyle high mpg with comfort road-warrior vehicle, it’s almost enough to make you want to move to Canada, eh? Ok, ok, I never said I was good at marketing.

Back to engineering, the article explains…

…diesels are 30 percent more efficient than gas engines, and unlike gas-electric hybrids, which get better fuel economy in city driving, diesels are equally efficient on the highway.

Silent but deadly And diesel-electric hybrid? Even the HumVee is going to DEH (rebranded the Shadow RST-V), according to military.com. They wax poetic about “going green”, but let’s face it, dependence on fuel is a giant security vulnerability issue — the more efficient a vehicle the less risk to soldiers from a supply chain.

Special Forces are about the only group that bother with any real concept of environmental friendliness since it plays to their favor, whereas Army is about mowing down and establishing control, Sherman style, but I digress.

The AP article about the Mercedes and new diesel technology also mentions:

…a big boost this October, when U.S. diesel retailers are required to begin selling low-sulfur diesel. In the past, diesel could have a sulfur level of up to 500 parts per million; low-sulfur diesel has no more than 15 parts per million.

The real question for the future is whether car manufacturers will start allowing pure-veg-oil to run in their vehicles rather than whether someone can improve petro production by reducing a toxic additive. The additive was introduced in the first place to get rid of the inherent shortcomings of petro-diesel versus the bio alternative.

Of course less sulfur is better and should have been forced years ago, but the real solution is to move away from overly centralized distribution and refinement and proprietary assets that have artificially high (protected) value.

When information started being pushed around on workstations and PCs it exploded the processing market. When fuel creation can be localized in a similar fashion then we will really see advances in energy technology and a drop in risk. It’s like the shift from mainframes (petroleum production) to the PC (bio-diesel refinement), which again creates a whole new set of security issues (more resilience, but need for managing decentralized controls).