(Read the last post first; this one follows up on it.)
Okay. Lets put all reason and reality aside, and say - just for the sake of discussion - that you're a terrorist that has somehow managed to get a hold of a nuclear weapon. Since there's no possible way you've built it yourself (most countries can't manage that, much less your jihad focused ass), you've stolen from someone, or somehow managed to outbid the Americans (or their agents) on the black market, or else some other miracle. You have somehow manages to beg, buy, or steal of the most valuable, dangerous, and heavily guarded objects on the planet. There it is, sitting right in front of you on the table in your fortified bunker somewhere in the Hindu Kush.
Now what do you do?
You have come across the problem that all nuclear powers face: you have to get the bomb to the target area, so you can set it off. Otherwise, it's just a billion-dollar paperweight that will give you cancer if you stand too close. Does no good sitting in the bunker. How are you supposed to get it to the target?
Probably can't carry it. American nukes are very small, and even the Soviets managed man-portable backpack-bombs, but they had the benefit of plutonium. Critical mass (the amount needed to light up a nuclear chain-reaction) for plutonium is only about 22 lbs. But your bomb is almost certainly uranium, and even if it's made of pure U235, it's gotta have over 100 lbs of just uranium (52 kg.) for a critical mass, and that's not including the secondary materials that make your atomic weapon into a thermonuclear weapon. Incidentally, 52 kilos of uranium is only about the size of a softball; your nuke is really not all that big, but it's REALLY heavy.
You're not going to be able to get a missile system that can hit the US, so don't even think about it. Even among the nations that have built nukes, only the US, China, and Russia have a missile delivery system that can hit, say, New York from central asia. N. Korea is getting there, but their last ICBM test (July 5, 2006) failed just after launch, and landed in the ocean. Where it was probably visited by a ship like the Glomar Explorer (google it) within a matter of hours. But that's another story. Unlike the bombs, which require only exotic materials to build a fairly simple structure, missiles are built with the best computer guidance systems and engineered to the tightest mechanical tolerances you'll find on the planet earth. MUCH more difficult to build than the nukes. Besides, your nuke can be carted around in a pickup truck, but you need at least a train car to haul around an ICBM. Hardly practical, since you're necessarily operating in secret, lest you need to start dodging bombs and bullets from people who don't approve of you being a nuclear power.
All in all, your only realistic option is to somehow get your nuke onto a plane, and fly it to the target. But don't feel bad about this; air-mail has historically been the preferred method of delivery, even among the Superpowers. Quick history lesson. Delivery of nukes was the great military challenge of the late 20th century, and the technology never kept up with the fear and paranoia. There were historical fears that the soviets led the world in the "rocket race," but the truth is that the Americans have generally led the way. The soviets did make good rockets, but lacked the economy to build many of them; through the 1950s and early 1960s, a nuclear war would have seen most Soviet bombs being delivered by - get this - B-29 bombers. Four American B-29s landed in Soviet territory in 1944, and the Soviets not only never gave them back, but made thousands of exact copies, although with different engines. (Goolge "Tu-4.") Even after they retired the B-29/Tu-4, their main delivery system was still a propeller-driver bomber (Tu-95) through the 1980s. The reason that the Soviets tried to put nukes on Cuba was that they didn't have many missiles that could reach America from Russia. Technology has come along since then, but still: Despite all the missile development that's gone on, the cheapest way to deliver nukes remains loading them onto a plan and flying them to the target.
American nuclear defense knows this; the commonly perceived top American military base is the NORAD facility at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. NORAD stands for North American Air Defense. It is the nerve center of radar and satellite system that monitor every single object in the air surrounding the planet earth, from small planes taking off from dirt airstrips in Kamchaka to the tiniest bits of orbital trash in the near-earth skies. We know where the bombers are.
Still, it might work for you. Might be able to sneak a nuke in on a civilian flight. All you need to do it to get your nuke to an airport, find a plane, and take a ride. Should be simple, right?
The big problem you have now is doing it in secret, which is the biggest problem you'll face yet, even though you already have the nuke. The simple fact is that - although they can be taken by surprise - the Americans, spurred by the degree of threat, are REALLY good at finding nukes, and have spent truly staggering amounts of money on projects that don't exist to keep them appraised of the location of every single nuclear weapon on the face of the earth.
We'll put aside the political treaties and connections (reciprocal inspections, security agreements, and so forth) that probably informed the Americans that a nuke was missing from somebody's arsenal. We'll ignore that they were aware that a nuke was in unknown hands probably before your purchase check cleared. We'll focus on the practical, technological ends.
Stealth has always been a priority with nuclear weapons, even in wars between nations. A nuclear sneak-attack could knock out the Bad Guys, leaving them unable to retaliate. If the enemy's leadership disappear in a flash, you're well on the way to winning unscathed. So nations tried to develop that sneak-attack capability, at the expenditure of amounts that put the Manhattan project to shame, and even approached the amounts spent on ICBM projects. With all that expenditure, the best thing people could think of to hide nuclear weapons until delivered was missile submarines. Those subs are the consensus hardest-to-locate pieces of military technology on the planet. They hide in vast oceans, and with current technologies, the only times they come to the surface is when they're in port. They can, in fact, go months without air striking their acoustic-tile clad skins. As technologies continued to develop, the traditional way to find them - by the noise they make - has been complicated by the fact that the most recent models make less noise than the ambient ocean around them. Keeping track of them is like keeping track of holes in the water.
Doesn't matter. It is generally conceded that the United States knows the location of every single submarine in the world, at all times. As much money (or more) has been spent trying to defeat stealth technology as has been spent developing it, and between SOSUS networks, P-3 sonobouy drops, patrolling ships and submarines, and other things (like the fact that seawater is transparent to certain blue-green wavelengths that are visible from space to American spy satellites), nary a nuclear-armed submarine anywhere the world over gets into international waters without an American 688-class boat on its tail. We know where they are, and we can hit them in a matter of minutes or seconds, should the need arise. The stealthiest things on the planet cannot hide from the determined (and well-funded) efforts of clever Americans.
"Yeah but," you say: bombers and subs are military hardware that operate from fixed bases. Of course the Americans can track them coming and going. Radars (and other things) watch military flights. Sonars (and other things) watch the sea for military ships. But we can sneak in on a civilian flight! We can load the bomb onto a civilian ship (or even a boat) and sail into New York of San Francisco harbor! We can sail into Brazil and drive it up the pan-American highway! Only a handful of people will even know the plan, much less the exact location at any time! They'll never know, much less find us!
The problem is that American tracking of nuclear bombers and subs is exemplary of the sensory technology, not definitive. Really now. Uncle Sam has decades of experience working to defend itself from any possible means of nuclear attack, and routinely tracks the best technologies and methods that the world's developed nations are able to produce, despite their expenditures of billions trying to escape scrutiny. You really think he's going to get bamboozled by your AK-47 toting ass? Lets have a reality check, and take a look at some other, lesser known fields of sensory technology.
Signal intelligence is an American specialty, and has a long history. Intercepting the other guy's radio traffic can tell you all sorts of stuff, especially if you can break his cryptography, and listen to what he's actually saying. But even if you can't, his radio traffic can tell you things, like where his command staff is based: they spend a lot of time on radios giving orders. Track the signals, and you find him. Signal intelligence took off as an orbital technology in mid-1970, with the Cape Canaveral launch of the Rhylolite Program, which was designed to listen in on electromagnetic traffic the world over. It was a series of satellites with extremely large, extremely sensitive antennae pointed towards earth, listening 24 hours a day for electromagnetic radiation, primarily radio traffic. Even at that early stage, using 1970s technology, the Rhylolite birds were able to pick up the transmissions of Chinese hand-held radios during Chi-Com military exercises in Mongolia. The biggest problem with Rhyolite was that they could hear EVERYTHING, and there weren't enough resources to sift through the vast amounts of data being brought in for bits of information that was relevant. Given the vast volume of electromagnetic waves passing over the surface of the earth, how do you pick out what to listen to, and what can be ignored?
Now consider two things. First, America's ability to monitor traffic and transmission of electromagnetic radiation has improved, probably by several orders of magnitude over the last 35 years. Do some google searches on "very large array," "aperture synthesis," and "long baseline interferometry." Keeping those technological tidbits in mind, imagine America's ability - using a constellation of listening satellites working in concert - to listen to and locate anything on the face of the earth which is emitting any sort of measurable radiation. Even using widely known technology you can look up on wikipedia (and ignoring the cool stuff that hasn't yet reached the public eye) America is theoretically able to listen for electromagnetic signals using antenna that are SEVERAL MILES IN DIAMETER. It's not much of a stretch to assume that if ANY OBJECT is broadcasting ANYTHING, ANYWHERE, the United States can find it. If it's emitting, Uncle Sam is hearing it.
Second: consider that your nuke is - by very nature of being nuclear - continually broadcasting radiation on wavelengths that are precisely known to the United States.
If your bunker is deep enough, there is the possibility that Uncle Sam can't hear it broadcasting from where it sits on the table in front of you. The stone and earth over your head might be thick enough to stop all the rays before they reach open sky. But what about when it left the arsenal where it was supposed to be, and rode by plane, train, or automobile, to get where it sits now? Don't kid yourself about their abilities to track it, and - since they saw it arrive - they know where it is, and probably have a pretty good idea who you are, since they keep track of who is using what bunker in your part of the world. There are probably bombers on their way towards you now.
How are you going to move it away from where it sits without them see it, especially given the your fairly short life-expectancy with a rogue nuke in your possession? First, you might be able to shield it in enough lead and nickle for them to not be able to hear it. Probably not, and you don't even know how heavy the shielding needs to be, since the limits of American SIGINT capabilities are highly classified. But to be on the safe side, you probably need to stop every single bit of radiation from reaching air. This can be done. For example, crews of nuclear submarines spend all day around radioactive materials, but get less radiation exposure than people walking on the surface of the earth. The reactors are shielded, and being under water, crew members don't catch the harmful rays being thrown out by the sun. You can shield the emissions of your nuke. But then you have the same problems that non-American nuclear subs have: you have to transport a shielded nuclear source to withing striking distance without anyone noticing. How exactly do you plan to do that? People (reads: Americans and their agents) are going to notice several tons of shielding material being transported away from the site where a nuclear warhead suddenly disappeared from view. They're going to find you, and they're going to kill you.
Next option, and really the last option, it to take the nuke apart, in the hopes that you can break the nuclear components into pieces small enough that they can be shielded to the point where they're not emitting enough rads to be tracked. But then you have another problem: you don't have a nuclear weapon anymore, you have the parts to nuclear weapon. Which parts you have to transport from where they are to the detonation site by different means of transport, where they can then be re-assembled, all under the watchful eyes of people who know what you have, where you're coming from, and probably who you are. You have to move these parts (which are still emitting rads to one degree or another) right under the nose of people who are trying to kill you, and who will go to literally any ends to stop you. You're going to have to use several means of transport, and different routes for different parts. That means that more people are going to know about the operation, and it's that much more likely that someone will either slip up, or sell out to the millions that the Americans would pay either for the heads of you and you pals, or to simply buy the parts from you and your "trusted" minions.
All they have to do is catch one of your attempts at transportation of the components, since if they get any of your materials, you no longer have a critical mass of uranium. They're going to get you.
Once again, I've written myself out, and I'm boring of this subject. Hope fully this has been informative. Don't hesitate with any questions.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Friday, December 28, 2007
Weapons of Mass Sensationalism
The last time that a "Weapon of Mass Destruction" was used on any significantly effective scale was August 9th of 1945, when a little Japanese town mostly ceased to exist. It is a little know fact that that instance was not the most destructive bombing of the Home Islands that year. Neither was the bombing of Hiroshima a few days earlier. The most telling bombing was of Tokyo over March 9-10, when over 100,000 thousand people were killed by America's creative use of incendiary weapons against a city where the primary building materials were wood and paper. But there's no denying that the nukes were more dramatic, and were an excellent use of a terror weapon.
Imagine being the ruling military junta of Japan. It's August 10, 1945. Hiroshima was a bustling city four days ago. Nagasaki was a bustling city yesterday. It's been a while since you even pretended to be able to stop the B-29s from dropping shit on you. How long will the Americans be able to continue obliterating entire cities at 3-day intervals? Do you wait until the 12th, just to see what happens? Incidentally, they didn't. They decided to tender unconditional surrender THAT DAY, although it took a few weeks to overcome a minor coup d'etat and work out the various formalities.
We have seen minor uses of chemical weapons since then - sometimes every against military targets - and there has always been widespread paranoia about biological warfare, notwithstanding the lack of any effective track record. The simple fact is that weapons of mass destruction are either very hard to make, very hard to use, or both.
Lets go alphabetically, shall we? The formation of extremely virulent biological weapons is actual directly contrary to evolution. Germs are organisms, and thus naturally predisposed towards evolution which results in them living longer. A germ that instantly kills the host would never last; a host needs to live long enough to carry the germ to another host. The pressures of natural selection dictate that, over time, germs reach symbiosis with hosts, rather than becoming more and more deadly to the host. E. coli, for example, is a germ that most people fear. Never mind the fact that every human on the planet has E. coli resident in their digestive tract, where the bugs provide good service to humanity in turning food into energy. It has been co-existing with humanity for so long that - a few quirks aside - we actually help each other survive.
Any effort to create a supervirus goes against this trend, and this - to be blunt - is the reason that pandemics happen so rarely. Pandemics are no better for the germs than they are for the host, as the death of the host leaves the germs no place to live. This is a tough hurdle to overcome, since nature already has cornered the market on the most effective ways for germs to damage people, but not so badly that the germs are left without a home. Google "AIDS" and "influenza."
So biological threats, either natural or man-made, are not the great looming spectre that the media and governments try to portray them as. If you have good personal hygiene and enough sense to thing thoughts like "Gee, I'm not feeling very well. I should probably take it easy until my body fights it off," you're evolved enough to get through most biological problems.
Chemical warfare is not much greater a threat. There are certainly substances that are amazingly lethal, and a chemistry grad-student can make them in a home lab. But even organophosphates (nerve agents like Tabun, Sarin or VX) have a certain minimum dose that must be reached, and all have clear symptoms before you reach deadly levels. Also, there's only so much of the chemical to be delivered agent in any given delivery system (be the delivery system a bomb or a spray can or whatever). Thus, there is a built-in dilemma: to kill people, you have to concentrate your finite amount of poison against the targets, to heighten the chance of each target receiving a lethal dose. But to kill A LOT of people, you have to spread your finite amount of poison as broadly as you can. The compromise that is reached is that weapon designers try to fill an area with enough agent to give a lethal dose to a normal person, within space of the period that the weapon designer expects such normal person to linger in the area being targeted. People tend to move quickly along streets and sidewalks, so you need a very high concentration of chemical agent to area in order to affect them during the short time they're within the area. For the most part, chemical attacks only work in confined places, where people spend time standing around in the same spot, and (ideally) where they are unable to move into clean areas to get to fresh air. Subway trains and stations, for example.
But almost always, the time period required to receive a lethal dose is measured in minutes and seconds, rather than simply in seconds. (Adjusted for health, of course; takes less to kill an ailing sexagenarian than a 22 year old triathlete.) In general, if you're smart enough to think thoughts like "Gee, the air around here is a bit strange and making me nauseous; I should probably go find some fresh air," you're evolved enough to survive most chemical attacks.
Interestingly, the chemical agent that will cause the most damage from very short-term exposure is not a high-tech organophosphate nerve gas, but is mustard agents much like those being used back in 1918. 10 seconds of a less-than lethal-dose sarin gas will leave you cranky, irritable, and having bad dreams, from the lingering effect of miss-behaving neural connections. But 10 seconds of a less than lethal dose of mustard gas might leave you with open chemical burns, massively damaged eyes and mucus membranes, and severe respiration problems from chemical burns inside your lungs. Nasty shit, in many ways worse than anything developed since. But its not something that's going to wipe out a city. Chemical weapons just don't work that way.
Which brings us to nukes, the holy grail of the WMD topic. Lets put aside for now the idea of a nuclear military strike, and focus instead on a terrorist strike, perhaps inside the United States. Accept at the outset that such an event is extremely unlikely to EVER happen, both because of the nature of the weapon, and efforts to prevent such events from happening.
First, the weapon. As said previously, nukes are REALLY not all that complicated. You build a sphere (or cylinder) of low-grade, non-fissile uranium, containing a mixture of deuterium and tritium, and cored with a sphere (or tube) of fissile uranium. Then, right next to that sphere or tube, you put an atomic bomb. Which is really just a sphere of plutonium or high-grade (fissile) uranium inside another sphere of high-grade conventional explosives (C4 will work in a pinch). When you set of the conventional explosives of the atomic bomb, it squeezes down the plutonium or fissile uranium into a volume so small that randomly released subatomic particles of the compressed material cannot help but strike the nuclei of nearby heavy atoms, creating a chain reaction, which turns into an atomic explosion: Nuclear fission, a la Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Under the heat and pressure and bombardment of subatomic particles from the nearby fission blast, the deuterium and tritium in the other (secondary) assembly will undergo nuclear FUSION, sparked by the high-grade uranium core of the deuterium/tritium assembly (which responds instantaneously to the bombardment of sub-atomic particles the moment the fission blast goes off). The result is a miniature sun, which induces further fission into the normally non-fissile uranium casing of the deuterium/tritium assembly (which induced fission actually accounts for about half of the explosive yield). The results that are truly spectacular. So spectacular, in fact, that you don't want to observe them from a distance measured in anything less than round miles.
Like I said, there aren't even any moving parts! Yet in the last 50 years, only a handful of countries have been able to build these things.
The reason is the materials. Deuterium and tritium ("heavy water") are not so rare in the industrial world. But you need to have the right stuff. You also need a lot more heavy water than just the bomb components, since you'll use quite a bit processing your uranium, which is the real pain in the ass part of the process. Plutonium is exceedingly rare, dangerous, and difficult to work with, so most non-American bombs are made from uranium.
"Weapon grade" uranium is uranium that is at least 85% U235, although your uranium is usable in a bomb (becomes fissile) at about 20% U235. The problem is that less than 1% of naturally-occurring uranium is U235, the remainder being a different, slightly heavier isotope, U238. To get 65 or so kilos of fissile uranium for your bomb, you should expect to process over a ton of pure uranium. Since you're almost certainly going to have to start with some form of uranium other than the pure stuff, odds are you're going to have to separate the choice atoms you need from uranium ore: several hundred tons of mostly useless, slightly radioactive dirt. When you're done getting the U235, you'll also have U238 to build the components of your secondary casing, so don't worry about that. In fact, you'll have enough U238 left over for other things too, like improving the armor on your tanks and the lethality of your bullets, both of which applications are served well by the great mass of uranium.
So. You've got your mountain of uranium ore. Now you need a bunch of centrifuges. These are just machines with containers on the end of spinning arms. You fill the containers with material, and then start them spinning. Inside the containers, heavy particles get forced by centrifugal force away from the center of the spin. Because uranium is heavier than pretty much anything else that might be in your ore, it gets forced to the outside, and lighter materials settle towards the center of the spin. Keep spinning your ore and harvesting the outer layers, and eventually it's not ore anymore, it's uranium.
But then you have to start over again, because you need more than just uranium, you need U235. So you repeat the process, this time skimming off not the heavy stuff furthest from the center of the spin, but the light stuff closest to the spin axis. Because the U238 atoms are just over 1% heavier than U235 atoms, the spinning will tend to force the U238 to the outside of the spinning centrifuge, and any U235 atoms (remember, it's less than 1% of all uranium) will settle towards the center. Do this in a thousand or so centrifuges, repeating the process over and over again on the material from the center areas of other centrifuges, and you will eventually you will have enough U235 to build your bomb.
But once you've got the materials, you're home free. At least until you want to set your bomb off, but we'll get to that later.
Even considering that this is a huge oversimplification of the process, I hope you see what's involved in obtaining nukes, and understand why the Manhattan project was, up to that time, the most expensive research project ever undertaken by mankind. And I hope you also appreciate how difficult and expensive it is to build nuclear weapons, notwithstanding how simple the design is. People who have nukes rightfully value them far too highly to be giving them away, because every time you want another one, you have to come up with more materials. Another three thousand centrifuges spinning for three thousand hours. Sorry. Not for sale.
Even backed by Saudi Princes and oil money, Pakistan (for example) LITERALLY could not be offered enough money to give one over. They might sell a few centrifuges, or their excess ore, and perhaps even their unrefined uranium, but an actual Bomb? No way.
There are also the additional political reasons. Besides world reaction if word ever got out that terrorists had one of your bombs (it's not like there are a lot of people making them, after all), and besides the risk of one of your own billion-dollar weapons being turned against you, there is the political value you yield by losing a nuke. As said in the prior post, nuclear weapons are the ONLY reason that Pakistan is taken seriously, as comparted to places like Sudan, Liberia, or Venezuela. They are guarded accordingly, and I doubt sale is even contemplated. A man does not sell his bullets when he only has a handfull of them in the face of a hostile world.
Nuclear weapons, for both political reasons and for economic reasons, are, in fact, priceless, they cannot realistically be bought from the nations that build them. Further, people who are not allowed to have them but who are trying to get them can be prevented from building them, either by denying them access to the ore and other exotic materials, or by periodically blowing up some or all of the thousands of centrifuges needed for the process, thereby sending the nuclear aspirant back to square one.
Now, I've written quite a lot, and I'm going to go drink beer. Which means that the second part of the lesson (why - in addition to the problems of getting a nuke - human efforts make a terrorist nuclear attack pretty much fiction) will have to wait until next time. I hope this was interesting nonetheless.
Imagine being the ruling military junta of Japan. It's August 10, 1945. Hiroshima was a bustling city four days ago. Nagasaki was a bustling city yesterday. It's been a while since you even pretended to be able to stop the B-29s from dropping shit on you. How long will the Americans be able to continue obliterating entire cities at 3-day intervals? Do you wait until the 12th, just to see what happens? Incidentally, they didn't. They decided to tender unconditional surrender THAT DAY, although it took a few weeks to overcome a minor coup d'etat and work out the various formalities.
We have seen minor uses of chemical weapons since then - sometimes every against military targets - and there has always been widespread paranoia about biological warfare, notwithstanding the lack of any effective track record. The simple fact is that weapons of mass destruction are either very hard to make, very hard to use, or both.
Lets go alphabetically, shall we? The formation of extremely virulent biological weapons is actual directly contrary to evolution. Germs are organisms, and thus naturally predisposed towards evolution which results in them living longer. A germ that instantly kills the host would never last; a host needs to live long enough to carry the germ to another host. The pressures of natural selection dictate that, over time, germs reach symbiosis with hosts, rather than becoming more and more deadly to the host. E. coli, for example, is a germ that most people fear. Never mind the fact that every human on the planet has E. coli resident in their digestive tract, where the bugs provide good service to humanity in turning food into energy. It has been co-existing with humanity for so long that - a few quirks aside - we actually help each other survive.
Any effort to create a supervirus goes against this trend, and this - to be blunt - is the reason that pandemics happen so rarely. Pandemics are no better for the germs than they are for the host, as the death of the host leaves the germs no place to live. This is a tough hurdle to overcome, since nature already has cornered the market on the most effective ways for germs to damage people, but not so badly that the germs are left without a home. Google "AIDS" and "influenza."
So biological threats, either natural or man-made, are not the great looming spectre that the media and governments try to portray them as. If you have good personal hygiene and enough sense to thing thoughts like "Gee, I'm not feeling very well. I should probably take it easy until my body fights it off," you're evolved enough to get through most biological problems.
Chemical warfare is not much greater a threat. There are certainly substances that are amazingly lethal, and a chemistry grad-student can make them in a home lab. But even organophosphates (nerve agents like Tabun, Sarin or VX) have a certain minimum dose that must be reached, and all have clear symptoms before you reach deadly levels. Also, there's only so much of the chemical to be delivered agent in any given delivery system (be the delivery system a bomb or a spray can or whatever). Thus, there is a built-in dilemma: to kill people, you have to concentrate your finite amount of poison against the targets, to heighten the chance of each target receiving a lethal dose. But to kill A LOT of people, you have to spread your finite amount of poison as broadly as you can. The compromise that is reached is that weapon designers try to fill an area with enough agent to give a lethal dose to a normal person, within space of the period that the weapon designer expects such normal person to linger in the area being targeted. People tend to move quickly along streets and sidewalks, so you need a very high concentration of chemical agent to area in order to affect them during the short time they're within the area. For the most part, chemical attacks only work in confined places, where people spend time standing around in the same spot, and (ideally) where they are unable to move into clean areas to get to fresh air. Subway trains and stations, for example.
But almost always, the time period required to receive a lethal dose is measured in minutes and seconds, rather than simply in seconds. (Adjusted for health, of course; takes less to kill an ailing sexagenarian than a 22 year old triathlete.) In general, if you're smart enough to think thoughts like "Gee, the air around here is a bit strange and making me nauseous; I should probably go find some fresh air," you're evolved enough to survive most chemical attacks.
Interestingly, the chemical agent that will cause the most damage from very short-term exposure is not a high-tech organophosphate nerve gas, but is mustard agents much like those being used back in 1918. 10 seconds of a less-than lethal-dose sarin gas will leave you cranky, irritable, and having bad dreams, from the lingering effect of miss-behaving neural connections. But 10 seconds of a less than lethal dose of mustard gas might leave you with open chemical burns, massively damaged eyes and mucus membranes, and severe respiration problems from chemical burns inside your lungs. Nasty shit, in many ways worse than anything developed since. But its not something that's going to wipe out a city. Chemical weapons just don't work that way.
Which brings us to nukes, the holy grail of the WMD topic. Lets put aside for now the idea of a nuclear military strike, and focus instead on a terrorist strike, perhaps inside the United States. Accept at the outset that such an event is extremely unlikely to EVER happen, both because of the nature of the weapon, and efforts to prevent such events from happening.
First, the weapon. As said previously, nukes are REALLY not all that complicated. You build a sphere (or cylinder) of low-grade, non-fissile uranium, containing a mixture of deuterium and tritium, and cored with a sphere (or tube) of fissile uranium. Then, right next to that sphere or tube, you put an atomic bomb. Which is really just a sphere of plutonium or high-grade (fissile) uranium inside another sphere of high-grade conventional explosives (C4 will work in a pinch). When you set of the conventional explosives of the atomic bomb, it squeezes down the plutonium or fissile uranium into a volume so small that randomly released subatomic particles of the compressed material cannot help but strike the nuclei of nearby heavy atoms, creating a chain reaction, which turns into an atomic explosion: Nuclear fission, a la Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Under the heat and pressure and bombardment of subatomic particles from the nearby fission blast, the deuterium and tritium in the other (secondary) assembly will undergo nuclear FUSION, sparked by the high-grade uranium core of the deuterium/tritium assembly (which responds instantaneously to the bombardment of sub-atomic particles the moment the fission blast goes off). The result is a miniature sun, which induces further fission into the normally non-fissile uranium casing of the deuterium/tritium assembly (which induced fission actually accounts for about half of the explosive yield). The results that are truly spectacular. So spectacular, in fact, that you don't want to observe them from a distance measured in anything less than round miles.
Like I said, there aren't even any moving parts! Yet in the last 50 years, only a handful of countries have been able to build these things.
The reason is the materials. Deuterium and tritium ("heavy water") are not so rare in the industrial world. But you need to have the right stuff. You also need a lot more heavy water than just the bomb components, since you'll use quite a bit processing your uranium, which is the real pain in the ass part of the process. Plutonium is exceedingly rare, dangerous, and difficult to work with, so most non-American bombs are made from uranium.
"Weapon grade" uranium is uranium that is at least 85% U235, although your uranium is usable in a bomb (becomes fissile) at about 20% U235. The problem is that less than 1% of naturally-occurring uranium is U235, the remainder being a different, slightly heavier isotope, U238. To get 65 or so kilos of fissile uranium for your bomb, you should expect to process over a ton of pure uranium. Since you're almost certainly going to have to start with some form of uranium other than the pure stuff, odds are you're going to have to separate the choice atoms you need from uranium ore: several hundred tons of mostly useless, slightly radioactive dirt. When you're done getting the U235, you'll also have U238 to build the components of your secondary casing, so don't worry about that. In fact, you'll have enough U238 left over for other things too, like improving the armor on your tanks and the lethality of your bullets, both of which applications are served well by the great mass of uranium.
So. You've got your mountain of uranium ore. Now you need a bunch of centrifuges. These are just machines with containers on the end of spinning arms. You fill the containers with material, and then start them spinning. Inside the containers, heavy particles get forced by centrifugal force away from the center of the spin. Because uranium is heavier than pretty much anything else that might be in your ore, it gets forced to the outside, and lighter materials settle towards the center of the spin. Keep spinning your ore and harvesting the outer layers, and eventually it's not ore anymore, it's uranium.
But then you have to start over again, because you need more than just uranium, you need U235. So you repeat the process, this time skimming off not the heavy stuff furthest from the center of the spin, but the light stuff closest to the spin axis. Because the U238 atoms are just over 1% heavier than U235 atoms, the spinning will tend to force the U238 to the outside of the spinning centrifuge, and any U235 atoms (remember, it's less than 1% of all uranium) will settle towards the center. Do this in a thousand or so centrifuges, repeating the process over and over again on the material from the center areas of other centrifuges, and you will eventually you will have enough U235 to build your bomb.
But once you've got the materials, you're home free. At least until you want to set your bomb off, but we'll get to that later.
Even considering that this is a huge oversimplification of the process, I hope you see what's involved in obtaining nukes, and understand why the Manhattan project was, up to that time, the most expensive research project ever undertaken by mankind. And I hope you also appreciate how difficult and expensive it is to build nuclear weapons, notwithstanding how simple the design is. People who have nukes rightfully value them far too highly to be giving them away, because every time you want another one, you have to come up with more materials. Another three thousand centrifuges spinning for three thousand hours. Sorry. Not for sale.
Even backed by Saudi Princes and oil money, Pakistan (for example) LITERALLY could not be offered enough money to give one over. They might sell a few centrifuges, or their excess ore, and perhaps even their unrefined uranium, but an actual Bomb? No way.
There are also the additional political reasons. Besides world reaction if word ever got out that terrorists had one of your bombs (it's not like there are a lot of people making them, after all), and besides the risk of one of your own billion-dollar weapons being turned against you, there is the political value you yield by losing a nuke. As said in the prior post, nuclear weapons are the ONLY reason that Pakistan is taken seriously, as comparted to places like Sudan, Liberia, or Venezuela. They are guarded accordingly, and I doubt sale is even contemplated. A man does not sell his bullets when he only has a handfull of them in the face of a hostile world.
Nuclear weapons, for both political reasons and for economic reasons, are, in fact, priceless, they cannot realistically be bought from the nations that build them. Further, people who are not allowed to have them but who are trying to get them can be prevented from building them, either by denying them access to the ore and other exotic materials, or by periodically blowing up some or all of the thousands of centrifuges needed for the process, thereby sending the nuclear aspirant back to square one.
Now, I've written quite a lot, and I'm going to go drink beer. Which means that the second part of the lesson (why - in addition to the problems of getting a nuke - human efforts make a terrorist nuclear attack pretty much fiction) will have to wait until next time. I hope this was interesting nonetheless.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
The World Turns
World politics took a decided downturn this Thursday, December 27, with the martyring of Benazir Bhutto. Bhutto, a former prime minister of Pakistan - the only woman ever elected head of a Muslim state - recently returned to her nation following eight years of exile in Dubai, and was in good position to again be elected to Pakistan's highest available republican position. Given the political climate, such post ("Prime Minister") would theoretically have been co-equal with that of Army Chief of Staff and Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf, who came to power in 1999 through a coup d'etat. Musharraf seized headlines this fall by suspending Pakistan's constitution in the name of addressing civil unrest. The reality was that other branches of the constitutional government (the Supreme Court) were about to rule on Musharraf's ability to legally run for another term in office. Such political abuses have never been smiled upon by other countries, particularly where they involve placing the local (Pakistani) Supreme Court Justices under house arrest.
It was into this picture that Bhutto returned to pick up the reigns of her left-of-center political party, in hopes of getting the nation back onto the right track after many years of civic violence, economic insolvency, and perpetual border conflicts with India, all of which Pakistan had gotten the worse of. Bhutto's return was marked with a variety of bombings intended to take her life, including a series of bombs going off at a rally on October 19, which killed over 140 people, an impressive tally by any terrorist's standards.
Benazir Bhutto was shot several times by a gunman, who then set off the explosive harness he was wearing, killing an additional 20 people. This also is an impressive figure for a human bomb, as the laws of physics generally play against mass mayhem from a device that can be easily concealed on a person. Moment of silence for a truly remarkable woman.
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Naturally, there is rife speculation as to who is to blame, with the usual suspects coming to bear. The first, and - candidly - most likely, is the existing regime, or some faction thereof, which would have had to share power with Bhutto's camp following election. In the prior election - before Bhutto's return as a candidate, and before Musharraf suspended the constitution - Musharraf had won over 95% of the relevant vote. His camp cannot have been pleased about being upstaged by, of all people, a woman. The other usual suspect is - wait for it - al Queda, who really didn't like Bhutto based on their traditionalist Muslim opinions, further exacerbated by Bhutto's historic and ongoing efforts to work with The West. Both those suspects had motive, means, and know how (as above, bomb-making is not easy, since in many ways the laws of physics work against you).
Anyone who claims to be surprised by the sudden death of Bhutto doesn't know much about the Muslim world, or about Pakistani history and politics. Bhutto's own father - a former Prime Minister in his own right - was tried and executed himself by the Pakistani government that deposed him. This event led to Benazir's first stint in exile (that time in England), before her own reign as PM. Add in the general strife intrinsic to both that part of the world, and in any state trying to accommodate fundamentalist virtues into a 21st century economy, and SOMEBODY was going to die. Unfortunately, that's often the way of things. And not surprisingly, the one who died was someone other than the reigning King, who had full control of the national military.
Which brings us to the point of the issue. Pakistan, but for One Thing, is generally a pimple on the ass of the world. No major economic hubs. No great natural resources to take advantage of. Historically a re-headed stepchild of a parent nation (India) that openly hates it. Pakistan regularly made things worse by pretending to be significant, and by pissing in everyone's international soup by maintaining ties with pariah nations like, for example, Afghanistan's former Taliban government-in-exile. Notwithstanding the fact that the current decedent was extremely charismatic (and spoke excellent English), Pakistan is hardly a country worth writing headlines about, any more than headlines are written about political strife and changes in other insignificant nations. Raise your hand if you know who Charles Ghankay Taylor is? Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev? How about Mohamed Farrah Aidid? Omar al-Bahir? Yeah. Little power-plays make great opportunities for the world media to leach onto as humanitarian studies, but in the grand scheme of things, nobody really gives a shit.
But for that One Thing. On May 28, 1998, Pakistan conducted tests in which it detonated several nuclear weapons, which were home-grown, with assistance (most likely) from China. Plutonium-based weapons, in the hands of a state with a government not far removed from a warlord autocracy, and which could most politely be called "in transition."
Realistically speaking, this poses no direct threat to the United States. First, there is the fact that Pakistan's best nuclear shot would do only moderate damage to the United States (vaporizing a few cities) whereas the American counterstrike would turn the entire nation of Pakistan into a plain of scorched glass. Second, there is the fact that Pakistan has nations other than the U.S. high on its shit-list, and there are only so many Nukes to go around. And Third, a nuclear attack against the United States poses a daunting logistical challenge, which Pakistan can't (yet) overcome. Nukes have been around for over 50 years; other items of cutting-edge technology from the WWII period can be bought at the dollar store (digital calculators) or built in your garage (jet engines). Nukes aren't even all that complicated, except for the difficulties in procuring the components. They don't even have any moving parts. So setting off a nuke is really not so important as setting off a nuke where you want it to go off. Having a nuke inside your borders, as coveted as that position is, is useless: you can't set them off until they're inside your enemies' borders.
In reality, the vast majority of expenditures towards nuclear warfare are not for the bombs themselves, but for the delivery systems. Which is a common trend. After all, a bullet, for example, costs only pennies: the gun that fires the bullet will typically be more valuable than the bullet by several orders of magnitude. A nuke is by far the most expensive bullet imaginable, and the delivery systems are the most complex and expensive devices every built. After all, the challenge is to build a weapon that, when the trigger is pulled, can hit a spot - give or take 50 yards or so - SEVERAL THOUSAND MILES AWAY. It's not easy, and it's not cheap, even though the smartest people on the planet have been trying to solve the problem for sixty years. But the practical upshot is that Pakistan - like every Asian nation except Russia and (to a surprisingly limited degree) China, lacks the ability to conduct direct nuclear attacks against the United States. They've got good bullets, but their guns are too short ranged to hit so distant a target.
For all the fervor in the media, the risk of Pakistan selling nukes to someone else (e.g. a terrorist group) is also not so severe as you might imagine, for reasons beyond the scope of this writing. If you're interested in that subject, let me know; I'll write about it.
But notwithstanding the lack of a direct threat, the United States is and should be very interested in the instability created by the targets that Pakistan can hold at risk. Notably India, a close economic partner of the United States. Likewise China, with whom we have our ups and downs. And also a great many places where Americans (typically soldiers) are present, where Muslims don't want them present. Like the Middle East. As a nuclear nation, however constrained, Pakistan MUST be taken seriously. The White House can politely ignore events in Liberia, Nepal, Somalia, and/or Sudan. It can just roll its eyes at Argentina and Venezuela. But it is important that events in Islamabad Go Right.
Returning then to the death of Benazir Bhutto. The current ruling regime is in pretty good shape; it they can weather the storm of public outcry following the death of so beloved a figure as Bhutto, they will be sitting high on the hog, in full control, without meaningful challengers to their authority. Lets hope their deniability of the assassination (be such denial either true or merely plausible) weathers the storm, because the simple truth of the matter is that there's not a damn thing that anybody is going to do about this, save possible for Bhutto's followers. Everyone else is much more interested in preserving the status quo as it stands, including the United States. It is even possible that Musharraf receives aid from the United States, overtly or covertly, to prevent destabilization of a nuclear power. Hopefully we'll do it with enough tact to avoid another one of those Shah of Iran issues.
So, let us mourn the loss of a truly remarkable woman. And let us hope that more people will not need to die to keep things turning smoothly.
It was into this picture that Bhutto returned to pick up the reigns of her left-of-center political party, in hopes of getting the nation back onto the right track after many years of civic violence, economic insolvency, and perpetual border conflicts with India, all of which Pakistan had gotten the worse of. Bhutto's return was marked with a variety of bombings intended to take her life, including a series of bombs going off at a rally on October 19, which killed over 140 people, an impressive tally by any terrorist's standards.
Benazir Bhutto was shot several times by a gunman, who then set off the explosive harness he was wearing, killing an additional 20 people. This also is an impressive figure for a human bomb, as the laws of physics generally play against mass mayhem from a device that can be easily concealed on a person. Moment of silence for a truly remarkable woman.
...
...
...
Naturally, there is rife speculation as to who is to blame, with the usual suspects coming to bear. The first, and - candidly - most likely, is the existing regime, or some faction thereof, which would have had to share power with Bhutto's camp following election. In the prior election - before Bhutto's return as a candidate, and before Musharraf suspended the constitution - Musharraf had won over 95% of the relevant vote. His camp cannot have been pleased about being upstaged by, of all people, a woman. The other usual suspect is - wait for it - al Queda, who really didn't like Bhutto based on their traditionalist Muslim opinions, further exacerbated by Bhutto's historic and ongoing efforts to work with The West. Both those suspects had motive, means, and know how (as above, bomb-making is not easy, since in many ways the laws of physics work against you).
Anyone who claims to be surprised by the sudden death of Bhutto doesn't know much about the Muslim world, or about Pakistani history and politics. Bhutto's own father - a former Prime Minister in his own right - was tried and executed himself by the Pakistani government that deposed him. This event led to Benazir's first stint in exile (that time in England), before her own reign as PM. Add in the general strife intrinsic to both that part of the world, and in any state trying to accommodate fundamentalist virtues into a 21st century economy, and SOMEBODY was going to die. Unfortunately, that's often the way of things. And not surprisingly, the one who died was someone other than the reigning King, who had full control of the national military.
Which brings us to the point of the issue. Pakistan, but for One Thing, is generally a pimple on the ass of the world. No major economic hubs. No great natural resources to take advantage of. Historically a re-headed stepchild of a parent nation (India) that openly hates it. Pakistan regularly made things worse by pretending to be significant, and by pissing in everyone's international soup by maintaining ties with pariah nations like, for example, Afghanistan's former Taliban government-in-exile. Notwithstanding the fact that the current decedent was extremely charismatic (and spoke excellent English), Pakistan is hardly a country worth writing headlines about, any more than headlines are written about political strife and changes in other insignificant nations. Raise your hand if you know who Charles Ghankay Taylor is? Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev? How about Mohamed Farrah Aidid? Omar al-Bahir? Yeah. Little power-plays make great opportunities for the world media to leach onto as humanitarian studies, but in the grand scheme of things, nobody really gives a shit.
But for that One Thing. On May 28, 1998, Pakistan conducted tests in which it detonated several nuclear weapons, which were home-grown, with assistance (most likely) from China. Plutonium-based weapons, in the hands of a state with a government not far removed from a warlord autocracy, and which could most politely be called "in transition."
Realistically speaking, this poses no direct threat to the United States. First, there is the fact that Pakistan's best nuclear shot would do only moderate damage to the United States (vaporizing a few cities) whereas the American counterstrike would turn the entire nation of Pakistan into a plain of scorched glass. Second, there is the fact that Pakistan has nations other than the U.S. high on its shit-list, and there are only so many Nukes to go around. And Third, a nuclear attack against the United States poses a daunting logistical challenge, which Pakistan can't (yet) overcome. Nukes have been around for over 50 years; other items of cutting-edge technology from the WWII period can be bought at the dollar store (digital calculators) or built in your garage (jet engines). Nukes aren't even all that complicated, except for the difficulties in procuring the components. They don't even have any moving parts. So setting off a nuke is really not so important as setting off a nuke where you want it to go off. Having a nuke inside your borders, as coveted as that position is, is useless: you can't set them off until they're inside your enemies' borders.
In reality, the vast majority of expenditures towards nuclear warfare are not for the bombs themselves, but for the delivery systems. Which is a common trend. After all, a bullet, for example, costs only pennies: the gun that fires the bullet will typically be more valuable than the bullet by several orders of magnitude. A nuke is by far the most expensive bullet imaginable, and the delivery systems are the most complex and expensive devices every built. After all, the challenge is to build a weapon that, when the trigger is pulled, can hit a spot - give or take 50 yards or so - SEVERAL THOUSAND MILES AWAY. It's not easy, and it's not cheap, even though the smartest people on the planet have been trying to solve the problem for sixty years. But the practical upshot is that Pakistan - like every Asian nation except Russia and (to a surprisingly limited degree) China, lacks the ability to conduct direct nuclear attacks against the United States. They've got good bullets, but their guns are too short ranged to hit so distant a target.
For all the fervor in the media, the risk of Pakistan selling nukes to someone else (e.g. a terrorist group) is also not so severe as you might imagine, for reasons beyond the scope of this writing. If you're interested in that subject, let me know; I'll write about it.
But notwithstanding the lack of a direct threat, the United States is and should be very interested in the instability created by the targets that Pakistan can hold at risk. Notably India, a close economic partner of the United States. Likewise China, with whom we have our ups and downs. And also a great many places where Americans (typically soldiers) are present, where Muslims don't want them present. Like the Middle East. As a nuclear nation, however constrained, Pakistan MUST be taken seriously. The White House can politely ignore events in Liberia, Nepal, Somalia, and/or Sudan. It can just roll its eyes at Argentina and Venezuela. But it is important that events in Islamabad Go Right.
Returning then to the death of Benazir Bhutto. The current ruling regime is in pretty good shape; it they can weather the storm of public outcry following the death of so beloved a figure as Bhutto, they will be sitting high on the hog, in full control, without meaningful challengers to their authority. Lets hope their deniability of the assassination (be such denial either true or merely plausible) weathers the storm, because the simple truth of the matter is that there's not a damn thing that anybody is going to do about this, save possible for Bhutto's followers. Everyone else is much more interested in preserving the status quo as it stands, including the United States. It is even possible that Musharraf receives aid from the United States, overtly or covertly, to prevent destabilization of a nuclear power. Hopefully we'll do it with enough tact to avoid another one of those Shah of Iran issues.
So, let us mourn the loss of a truly remarkable woman. And let us hope that more people will not need to die to keep things turning smoothly.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
This Weeks Football Action
Item 1: The Steelers are hurting, but I suspect that a lot of it is hangover from the big loss to NE last week. Against a Team of Destiny like that, players got hyped, got excited, and then felt a huge let-down upon learning that they didn't stack up. Even the hallmark PIT run defense was weak against JAX, which was the main reason for the loss. No disrespect to JAX, which is definately a team on the rise (which not incidentally conincides with better play on the offensive and defensive lines), but in the long run, PIT will bounce back. It helps that PITs remaining games are against STL and BAL, even if they are on the road for both. There is just enough time, against opponents that are just a bit soft, for PIT to get healthy and on a roll headed into the playoffs. I don't think they can beat either NE or IND, but they can beat SD, and any of those games will be fun to watch.
Item 2: Backing into the playoffs is never a good thing, and it's happening to some good teams. Dallas looked horrible against PHI, in a game that would have been more of a blowout but for some good sportsmanship from Westbrook. Dallas also has to go on the road for the last two games of the season. But the biggest threat acually comes from within. Faced with tough, physical defenses (CAR and WAS), DAL might choose to "rest starters" for the last stretch, depending on how close GB is to taking away home field: both are 12-2, but DAL has the tiebreaker. However, GB should beat both CHI and DET to close out the season, which might be enough pressure to save DAL from themselves. Any serious Dallas fans should be cheering for GB to keep the race close, lest Wade Phillips back off on the throttle and let his team stay cold or get colder headed into the playoffs. When a talented team or a talented player struggles, they need to play through it; resting doesn't help. DAL is good enough to win the NFC, but needs to right the ship, and will need two full games of good play from the starters to go into the playoffs in good shape. These games matter for more than just playoff seeding. If they rest starters in either of their last two games, they will get beat by either GB or MIN. Rest assured that NE will start all of their regulars againt both MIA and NYG; regardless of seeding, Bellichick knows how important it is to keep your guys hot and in rhythm, which requires them to play every week.
Item 3: The San Francisco defense managed to spend less time on the field that an opponent's defense, and got a win. Of course, a big part of this was that the SF offense got to play against the CIN defense, which at one point over the season only had two healthy LBs on their entire roster. Still, the SF D played well against a pretty good group led by Carson Palmer; if the offensive unit can get them some breathing time and a lead, they have the talent and the coaching to be a legitimate threat to beat anyone (except NE).
Item 4: Notwithstanding a bad outing in bad weather againt NYJ, the Pats continue on the road to breaking the 1972 Dolphins' record as the only team in history to go undefeated. Although I'm not a big Pats fan, this pleases me. If ever there was a bunch of arrogant self-rightous fucks who deserve to get knocked off their pedestal, it's the 1972 Dolphins.
Item 5: Atlanta, in danger of falling into from the fourth level of hell into the fifth, has hired Bill Parcells to take over as head coach. I'm not a big Parcells fan; a whole lot of his big victories came when he had a guy named Bellichick running his defenses. Bill P. hasn't won a SB without Bill B. Bill B. has won several without Bill P. You do the math. On the other hand, Bill P. is an excellent teaching coach, and has the right mentality to clean house and kick ass in ATL, where the team has siezed on the readily available excuses to play half-ass football all season. I don't know why this move by ATL surprises anyone, especially since Bill Cowher turned them down. Parcells has made a career righting ships anyway; he's the man for the job, and Art Blank is in a position where he has to do SOMETHING to get things headed in the right direction. Personally, this is the first good decision he made since he traded up to draft Michael Vick.
Item 2: Backing into the playoffs is never a good thing, and it's happening to some good teams. Dallas looked horrible against PHI, in a game that would have been more of a blowout but for some good sportsmanship from Westbrook. Dallas also has to go on the road for the last two games of the season. But the biggest threat acually comes from within. Faced with tough, physical defenses (CAR and WAS), DAL might choose to "rest starters" for the last stretch, depending on how close GB is to taking away home field: both are 12-2, but DAL has the tiebreaker. However, GB should beat both CHI and DET to close out the season, which might be enough pressure to save DAL from themselves. Any serious Dallas fans should be cheering for GB to keep the race close, lest Wade Phillips back off on the throttle and let his team stay cold or get colder headed into the playoffs. When a talented team or a talented player struggles, they need to play through it; resting doesn't help. DAL is good enough to win the NFC, but needs to right the ship, and will need two full games of good play from the starters to go into the playoffs in good shape. These games matter for more than just playoff seeding. If they rest starters in either of their last two games, they will get beat by either GB or MIN. Rest assured that NE will start all of their regulars againt both MIA and NYG; regardless of seeding, Bellichick knows how important it is to keep your guys hot and in rhythm, which requires them to play every week.
Item 3: The San Francisco defense managed to spend less time on the field that an opponent's defense, and got a win. Of course, a big part of this was that the SF offense got to play against the CIN defense, which at one point over the season only had two healthy LBs on their entire roster. Still, the SF D played well against a pretty good group led by Carson Palmer; if the offensive unit can get them some breathing time and a lead, they have the talent and the coaching to be a legitimate threat to beat anyone (except NE).
Item 4: Notwithstanding a bad outing in bad weather againt NYJ, the Pats continue on the road to breaking the 1972 Dolphins' record as the only team in history to go undefeated. Although I'm not a big Pats fan, this pleases me. If ever there was a bunch of arrogant self-rightous fucks who deserve to get knocked off their pedestal, it's the 1972 Dolphins.
Item 5: Atlanta, in danger of falling into from the fourth level of hell into the fifth, has hired Bill Parcells to take over as head coach. I'm not a big Parcells fan; a whole lot of his big victories came when he had a guy named Bellichick running his defenses. Bill P. hasn't won a SB without Bill B. Bill B. has won several without Bill P. You do the math. On the other hand, Bill P. is an excellent teaching coach, and has the right mentality to clean house and kick ass in ATL, where the team has siezed on the readily available excuses to play half-ass football all season. I don't know why this move by ATL surprises anyone, especially since Bill Cowher turned them down. Parcells has made a career righting ships anyway; he's the man for the job, and Art Blank is in a position where he has to do SOMETHING to get things headed in the right direction. Personally, this is the first good decision he made since he traded up to draft Michael Vick.
Being on the spot
Having recently moved to a new job, I am one of those lulls where I'm in the process of getting up to speed on the cases that I've been handed - essentially data assimilation - but where I don't have a great many responsibilities, and as yet, I lack the tools (primarily due to technical and software problems) to make forward progress in the few responsibilities that have been assigned to me. Thus, for the first time in several years, I am in a position where almost nothing is dependent upon me and my efforts. This is a nice change of pace in my ongoing career as a professional mercenary, where my daily duties typically affect the ultimate distribution of hundreds of thousands of dollars of other peoples' money.
So, although my new office is considerably smaller than my old, still lacks a couch upon which I might spend my lunch-breaks relaxing, and requires me to be present a full hour earlier than my last office. I am enjoying myself. And that without even having received one of the larger checks which represent my primary motive for relocating. Even for someone like myself - who needs to be on the spot to get over my own intrinsic inertia and laziness - being off the spot can be nice every once in a while.
But I believe that the ability to deal with being on the spot is an excellent character trait, and - having thoughts about it a bit over the weekend - I've reached the conclusion that the best success comes not from being able to shine in the spotlight, but from being consistent in the spotlight.
The general consensus is that the most difficult position in sports is being an NFL quarterback. Personally, I think that NHL goaltenders don't get credit for the shit that they face: imagine a job where every time you make a mistake, a red light goes on over your desk, a 90dB horn sounds, and 20,000 people yell and throw garbage at you. That's the job description. Also, Quarterbacks generally have it in their power to win games; they control the offense, and they are - almost by definition - the ones depended on to come through with the points that will win the game. Goaltenders, by contrast, don't have that ability to win: the best a goaltender can hope for is to not lose. He can keep the puck out of his own net, but he's not going to score any goals for his own team, and unless the guys in front of him can score a goal or three, his own efforts are largely a footnote. Except, that is, in the minds of the fans who blame him for not doing his part in a 2-1 loss.
But in both positions, it seems that solid, consistent performance is better than occasional spectacular play. A goaltender gets help from his defense; while a stud G is the holy grail of team building, 6 solid defensemen go a long ways towards cutting down a team's GAA. A quarterback who can make big plays is certainly a better asset than one who can't, and the ultimate is a QB who can make the big plays while avoiding the big mistakes. (See: Brady, Tom). But even a mediocre QB can win a Superbowl if he can avoid the big mistakes. (See: Dilfer, Trent.) Coaches and coordinators can work around a QB who doesn't have game-breaking skills; you have him hand off a lot, and when he must throw, you run a lot of screens (where the onus is on the receiver and blockers to make the play) and rollouts (where the QB only has to read half of the field before throwing, and can always run out of bounds rather than force a play). A bad QB who is aware of his limitations can still get the job done, and at the very least, can be coached to make fewer mistakes than the hot young stud with the cannon arm on the other sideline.
The problem, as with many other aspects of life, is that people (especially QBs) think they're much better than they actually are, and their egos write checks their abilities can't pay. (See: Grossman, Rex.) They try to force the play, try to play beyond their ability, and end up sacked or picked off. The former is merely unfortunate. The latter is often catastrophic, as turnover ratio is the single greatest indicator of success in the NFL. Example: last season's Baltimore Ravens (13-3) led the league in turnover ratio. This years Baltimore Ravens (4-10) are last in the league. As was stated by Bonaparte, the route to victory is to make fewer mistakes than your opponent.
Returning to QB play: you need a guy who knows what he can and cannot do, and play within his limitations. As an interesting aside, the best statistical indicator of QB success in the NFL is not his NCAA yardage, or completion percentage, or TD throws. The best way to project success is to look at the number of games he STARTED in college. The more games he played, the more he's learned about what he can and cannot do, and the more experience he has doing the things within his abilities. There is an endless list of great talents who came out their JR and SR years to take a run at the NFL. But the greats generally stayed in college for four years before going pro.
To parlay this into team building: often times it is an uphill project, with public sentiment against the organization. Fans and media want teams to draft the sophomore from the SEC who can throw the ball 80 yards, even if he only started 8 games in his college career. They want "upside," not consistency. As an anecdote, Coach Mike Shannahan of the Broncos has taken a lot of flack recently for his team's losing ways. To be perfectly blunt, he deserves a lot of the criticism: he took one of the top defenses in the league and - with a few minor changes - turned them into a bunch that can't stop the run OR the pass. Whoops.
On the other hand, I support fully the decision to drop Jake Plummer for Jay Cutler. Cutler is a solid kid who started 45 games in college (a record for Vandy), and he's going to get better. He's not a guy who can win Superbowls, be he might grow into that guy. Plummer, on the other hand, is done growing, and has always been one of those guys that had high highs, but very low lows. He might win a game for you, but was almost as likely to throw a game away by doing something stupid. The Broncos would NEVER have won the Superbowl with Plummer at the helm, since winning the Superbowl requires at least three consecutive victories in the playoffs. Against playoff teams, there was no realistic chance that Plummer would go three or four contests without suffering a catastrophic meltdown that would cost Denver the game. The goal was a SB title, so Plummer had to go. He had the skills, but not the consistency. Can't justify his gutting of the defense, but Shannahan is doing it right with his offense (except for the historically filthy offensive line play, which I'll not go into right now).
For goaltenders: consistency is - if anything - more important. The scale by which they are judged from a practical perspective is generally not the spectacular saves they make, but the bad goals they give up. If a goalie can keep his focus, stay solid, and avoid errors that end up as pucks in his net, he will do well. Statistics are considered after the fact, but during the game, if a goalie gives up a goal on a great play, it rallies his team around him. "He guys, our keeper is standing on his head out there; we gotta give him some more help." But a goalie who gives up a bad goal loses the trust and support of his teammate. "We limit the other team to long-shots and weak plays, and our keeper STILL can't stop them." Far better to be solid, because that solidity is one of the few things that sets keepers apart.
Even more so than QBs, the difference between a top goaltender and a scrub goaltender is TINY. A hypothetical average G with a middle-of-the-pack defense will start about 40 games per season, and face about 25 shots per game, for a total of 1000 shots. A top-flight goaltender (Hasek, Brodeur, Luongo) will have a season save percentage of about .900, and give up about 2 goal per game. A mediocre goaltender will have a percentage of about .850, and give up 3 goal per game. Do the math: the difference between the best and the scrubs is ONE GOAL PER GAME. The goaltenders who can make that ONE EXTRA SAVE night in and night out win Vezina trophies and go to All Star games. They date models and drive Ferraris. They get enshrined in Tornoto. The guys who can't make that ONE EXTRA SAVE every game get sent to the minors for "conditioning," get labeled as career back-ups, and hear sportswriters in their home cities talk about the upcoming draft, and hot French-Canadian prospects in the QMJHL.
There is certainly no substitute for the ability to shine. But not at the expense of being solid.
So, although my new office is considerably smaller than my old, still lacks a couch upon which I might spend my lunch-breaks relaxing, and requires me to be present a full hour earlier than my last office. I am enjoying myself. And that without even having received one of the larger checks which represent my primary motive for relocating. Even for someone like myself - who needs to be on the spot to get over my own intrinsic inertia and laziness - being off the spot can be nice every once in a while.
But I believe that the ability to deal with being on the spot is an excellent character trait, and - having thoughts about it a bit over the weekend - I've reached the conclusion that the best success comes not from being able to shine in the spotlight, but from being consistent in the spotlight.
The general consensus is that the most difficult position in sports is being an NFL quarterback. Personally, I think that NHL goaltenders don't get credit for the shit that they face: imagine a job where every time you make a mistake, a red light goes on over your desk, a 90dB horn sounds, and 20,000 people yell and throw garbage at you. That's the job description. Also, Quarterbacks generally have it in their power to win games; they control the offense, and they are - almost by definition - the ones depended on to come through with the points that will win the game. Goaltenders, by contrast, don't have that ability to win: the best a goaltender can hope for is to not lose. He can keep the puck out of his own net, but he's not going to score any goals for his own team, and unless the guys in front of him can score a goal or three, his own efforts are largely a footnote. Except, that is, in the minds of the fans who blame him for not doing his part in a 2-1 loss.
But in both positions, it seems that solid, consistent performance is better than occasional spectacular play. A goaltender gets help from his defense; while a stud G is the holy grail of team building, 6 solid defensemen go a long ways towards cutting down a team's GAA. A quarterback who can make big plays is certainly a better asset than one who can't, and the ultimate is a QB who can make the big plays while avoiding the big mistakes. (See: Brady, Tom). But even a mediocre QB can win a Superbowl if he can avoid the big mistakes. (See: Dilfer, Trent.) Coaches and coordinators can work around a QB who doesn't have game-breaking skills; you have him hand off a lot, and when he must throw, you run a lot of screens (where the onus is on the receiver and blockers to make the play) and rollouts (where the QB only has to read half of the field before throwing, and can always run out of bounds rather than force a play). A bad QB who is aware of his limitations can still get the job done, and at the very least, can be coached to make fewer mistakes than the hot young stud with the cannon arm on the other sideline.
The problem, as with many other aspects of life, is that people (especially QBs) think they're much better than they actually are, and their egos write checks their abilities can't pay. (See: Grossman, Rex.) They try to force the play, try to play beyond their ability, and end up sacked or picked off. The former is merely unfortunate. The latter is often catastrophic, as turnover ratio is the single greatest indicator of success in the NFL. Example: last season's Baltimore Ravens (13-3) led the league in turnover ratio. This years Baltimore Ravens (4-10) are last in the league. As was stated by Bonaparte, the route to victory is to make fewer mistakes than your opponent.
Returning to QB play: you need a guy who knows what he can and cannot do, and play within his limitations. As an interesting aside, the best statistical indicator of QB success in the NFL is not his NCAA yardage, or completion percentage, or TD throws. The best way to project success is to look at the number of games he STARTED in college. The more games he played, the more he's learned about what he can and cannot do, and the more experience he has doing the things within his abilities. There is an endless list of great talents who came out their JR and SR years to take a run at the NFL. But the greats generally stayed in college for four years before going pro.
To parlay this into team building: often times it is an uphill project, with public sentiment against the organization. Fans and media want teams to draft the sophomore from the SEC who can throw the ball 80 yards, even if he only started 8 games in his college career. They want "upside," not consistency. As an anecdote, Coach Mike Shannahan of the Broncos has taken a lot of flack recently for his team's losing ways. To be perfectly blunt, he deserves a lot of the criticism: he took one of the top defenses in the league and - with a few minor changes - turned them into a bunch that can't stop the run OR the pass. Whoops.
On the other hand, I support fully the decision to drop Jake Plummer for Jay Cutler. Cutler is a solid kid who started 45 games in college (a record for Vandy), and he's going to get better. He's not a guy who can win Superbowls, be he might grow into that guy. Plummer, on the other hand, is done growing, and has always been one of those guys that had high highs, but very low lows. He might win a game for you, but was almost as likely to throw a game away by doing something stupid. The Broncos would NEVER have won the Superbowl with Plummer at the helm, since winning the Superbowl requires at least three consecutive victories in the playoffs. Against playoff teams, there was no realistic chance that Plummer would go three or four contests without suffering a catastrophic meltdown that would cost Denver the game. The goal was a SB title, so Plummer had to go. He had the skills, but not the consistency. Can't justify his gutting of the defense, but Shannahan is doing it right with his offense (except for the historically filthy offensive line play, which I'll not go into right now).
For goaltenders: consistency is - if anything - more important. The scale by which they are judged from a practical perspective is generally not the spectacular saves they make, but the bad goals they give up. If a goalie can keep his focus, stay solid, and avoid errors that end up as pucks in his net, he will do well. Statistics are considered after the fact, but during the game, if a goalie gives up a goal on a great play, it rallies his team around him. "He guys, our keeper is standing on his head out there; we gotta give him some more help." But a goalie who gives up a bad goal loses the trust and support of his teammate. "We limit the other team to long-shots and weak plays, and our keeper STILL can't stop them." Far better to be solid, because that solidity is one of the few things that sets keepers apart.
Even more so than QBs, the difference between a top goaltender and a scrub goaltender is TINY. A hypothetical average G with a middle-of-the-pack defense will start about 40 games per season, and face about 25 shots per game, for a total of 1000 shots. A top-flight goaltender (Hasek, Brodeur, Luongo) will have a season save percentage of about .900, and give up about 2 goal per game. A mediocre goaltender will have a percentage of about .850, and give up 3 goal per game. Do the math: the difference between the best and the scrubs is ONE GOAL PER GAME. The goaltenders who can make that ONE EXTRA SAVE night in and night out win Vezina trophies and go to All Star games. They date models and drive Ferraris. They get enshrined in Tornoto. The guys who can't make that ONE EXTRA SAVE every game get sent to the minors for "conditioning," get labeled as career back-ups, and hear sportswriters in their home cities talk about the upcoming draft, and hot French-Canadian prospects in the QMJHL.
There is certainly no substitute for the ability to shine. But not at the expense of being solid.
Monday, December 10, 2007
The Most Holy Of Subjects
In this space wherein I wax philosophic about pretty much any damn thing I please, it occurs to me suddenly that I've never once expressed my thoughts on the most holy and divine subject that graces the human mind. I've never discussed football. I trust this installment will go some distance towards remedying this oversight, and might become a running item here on HT.
But whatever. If nothing else, writing about football will spare me from doing anything resembling work, here on my fifth-to-last day at my current employment. This is important, considering that my tacit bosses, while handing out bonuses at our company X-mas party over the weekend, made clear that they don't consider me to be an employee at that this point. Thus, the only reason I have to work at all is courtesy, and since I received not even the Christmas card with which everyone else received a bonus check, the courtesy well has run dry as well. But don't worry about me; I won't miss the bonus money, and I'm sure I'll find ways to fill the next few days.
So on to football.
First, the big and obvious thing that everyone is talking about: Every time some jackass challenges the Patriots, they end up paying for it. I for one fully support the Pats' behavior this season, which causes me to recall comments I've made about DOTJ's prior significant others. Specifically, the idea that if someone is acting like a jackass, you are fully within your rights to point out that they are a jackass.
Now then. Early this season, somebody suggested that the Patriots' prior superbowl victories are 'tainted' by developments this season. Putting aside the fact that anyone who thinks about it will realize just how asinine the violated rule was, and how insignificant the behavior was, the results are clear: the Patriots winning, and usually winning handily. Let's consider the psychology.
It was not a big deal when the media challenged Bill Belichick's personal integrity. He doesn't have any. He would probably admit this himself. Personal integrity has no usefulness when it comes to winning football games. But as soon as the media challenged his ability to legitimately win, he and his team have been merciless. So we won through cheating, eh? Okay. Check this shit out. Now, we're thirteen games later. And the funny thing is, just as Bill's ability to play that particular us-against-the-world card in the locker room was waning (in early November), Don Shula does Bill the huge favor of saying to the national media that, should the Pats go undefeated, there should be an asterisk next to that entry into the record book. Don Shula, the same coach who himself lost a first-round pick for cheating, challenging Bill Belichick's behavior. Then other members of the '72 Dolphins - ignoring that the '72 Dolphin would get destroyed by the '07 Dolphins, much less the '07 Patriots the Dolphins will play in Week 16 - saying to the national media that the Pats' season so far is unimpressive, and still not even in the same neighborhood as their '72 season. The only undefeated team in NFL history, affirmatively challenging the Patriot's abilities. Very smart. Very witty. The Patriots will do their best to make those men look like the jackasses they have already shown themselves to be.
Finally, second-year Steelers defensive backs (who are only starting because the starters are injured) going to the national media with guarantees that they're going to win against New England, in New England. That has been the most recent challenge, and the Pats made him and his team look like jackasses on Sunday. I especially liked the early game moment when, in a jaw-jacking session after his first TD pass of the day, a Steelers defender called Brady a "pretty boy." Gee, why don't you go up to the best QB in the game, with the best receiving corp since Rice-Taylor-Craig-Jones, and challenge him to kick your ass as hard as he possible can?
What the hell are these people thinking? Honestly? And for anyone who is criticizing the Patriots for their behavior, you need to shut the hell up. You are making things worse rather then better, and the Patriots, aside from the scores, have been nothing but gentlemen. Every week, their media comments are limited to how they can still get better. About the things they need to work on. No one in that locker room is chest-pounding, despite the amazing things they're doing on the field. And the really amazing part is that they're doing it on a playing field that is as level as a decade of league tampering can make it. Working under the same salary cap structure as anyone else, the Patriots have been consistent performers, consistent winners, and have built a team for the ages. They are not spending any more on talent than your team, they're just doing it better than your team is. They're winning because, from the front office on down to their third-string practice-squad guys, they're doing it better and smarter than anyone else.
Now they do have their flaws: they're getting old and slow at linebacker, which has been made clear by some teams. But the coaches are game-planning to win with the older slower guys, and the front office is working the big-picture to help out as well. They already started last off-season, by signing Thomas, who is Vrabel's heir apparent. This up-coming off-season, expect that Pats to draft and/or trade to get heirs-apparent to one or all of Seau, Brushi, and Harrison. The Patriots will continue to do it right, and they will continue to win. If you don't like it, stop them. In the meantime, shut the hell up.
Now, thoughts on less spoken-of things.
No. 1: The Indy Defense. Were it not for the Pats, the Colts would be the talk of the league as an all-time best team, for their improved play on defense. Over time, Tony Dungy has built the kind of Tampa-2 defense he loves, and the results are showing. The Indy defense is #1 in the league against the pass; a hallmark of the Tampa-2, which showcases fast, sure-tackling, under-sized defenders. This defense had mixed results for the Bucs; while they did win a Superbowl, the defense has its weakness, which is interior run defense. You beat the Tampa-2 by running up the middle, and kicking the teeth down the throats of linemen, linebackers, and safeties who are relative "pretty boy" defenders. The simple fact is that the small, fast linebackers and safeties that make the Tampa-2 work aren't very good at shrugging off blocks from 300+ pound linemen and 250+ pound fullbacks.
The difference is that the Indy offense is light years beyond anything that the Bucs had, and it's tough to play an interior-run offense when the other team has a big lead, as the Colts usually do; you have to throw, because you need to score. So you can't play a patient, run-first offense against Indy like you could against the Bucs. Thus, HT's choice of teams not called the Patriots to knock off Indy over the rest of the season and/or playoffs: Minnesota, which has a great interior running game, and a defense that can get the Colts off the field. My pick would have been San Diego, which has a great inside (and outside) run game, and a defense that can get the Colts off the field. But they lost their starting FB, the hugely-under-rated Lorenzo Neal, possibly for the season. The Colts would beat Pittsburgh. PIT has a great defense, but their running game is based on the outside running of Willie Parker, where size matters less; the Colt's defenders are fast enough to catch him. The Colts would also beat Green Bay (Grant is also an outside kind of guy).
Dallas is the contender with the best chance, since Marion Barber is very much a straight-ahead kind of guy. But I have doubts about the Dallas secondary's ability to get Manning off the field. Still, if not for the Pats, the possible Superbowl match-up of Indy and Dallas would be having a lot of hype talked about it.
Item 2: Behind the Pats, the most feared team in the league at this point should be the Minnesota Vikings. As above, they have superb run defense, their pass defense has improved greatly, and they've been generating a lot of turnovers all year. They also have a run-focused offense good enough that you can't really stop it, even though you know what's coming (but see below). A lot of people said that the Vikes offered too much when they lured free-agent LG Chad Hutchinson away from SEA a few seasons ago. Look at the results: Shaun Alexander had a career year running behind Hutchinson on the left side of the line. Now, Alexander is not going anywhere, and both Chester Taylor and Adrian Peterson are having a lot of fun running behind Hutchinson on the left side of the line. The Vikes are going to have problems against quick-strike offenses against whom they might fall behind, but between their ability to run the ball, control the clock, and create turnovers, the Vikes will have no problems in bad-weather playoff games. Even the big-boys fear the Vikes, or else they should.
Item 3: As an extension of the above, the game film of the Vikes' blowout of San Francisco over the weekend will become a fixture in the libraries of defensive coordinators the league over. Notwithstanding the loss, the Niners, who have no offense to speak of and who lack the critical run-stopping NT for their 3-4 defense, had a game plan that held Adrian Peterson to THREE yards on 14 carries. Chester Taylor got over 100 yards, but 84 of them came on one big play, the only big-play the SF defense gave up on the day. Setting aside that play, Taylor got 17 yards on 7 carries. Unless they can fix their running game to get by the game-plan created by Mike Nolan and his staff, the Vikes are going to have problems against teams with an SF-caliber LB corps (which is actually a pretty short list; the biggest problem with the 49ers defense is that it spends too much time on the field) when they meet such a defense married to an offense better than SF (which list of offenses includes every team in the league, except possibly MIA). But back to the point: every team that faces Adrian Peterson for the rest of his career will watch and try to duplicate what SF did in a 27-7 blow-out loss. Yes, the universe is strange that way sometimes.
Obvious Item Of The Week: Teams with solid play on the offensive and defensive lines won. (DAL, NE, IND, NYG, BUF.) Teams with soft play on the offensive or defensive lines lost. (MIA, KC, OAK, SF, ARI.)
I could go on and on about football. But I'm afraid that it's time for my nap.
But whatever. If nothing else, writing about football will spare me from doing anything resembling work, here on my fifth-to-last day at my current employment. This is important, considering that my tacit bosses, while handing out bonuses at our company X-mas party over the weekend, made clear that they don't consider me to be an employee at that this point. Thus, the only reason I have to work at all is courtesy, and since I received not even the Christmas card with which everyone else received a bonus check, the courtesy well has run dry as well. But don't worry about me; I won't miss the bonus money, and I'm sure I'll find ways to fill the next few days.
So on to football.
First, the big and obvious thing that everyone is talking about: Every time some jackass challenges the Patriots, they end up paying for it. I for one fully support the Pats' behavior this season, which causes me to recall comments I've made about DOTJ's prior significant others. Specifically, the idea that if someone is acting like a jackass, you are fully within your rights to point out that they are a jackass.
Now then. Early this season, somebody suggested that the Patriots' prior superbowl victories are 'tainted' by developments this season. Putting aside the fact that anyone who thinks about it will realize just how asinine the violated rule was, and how insignificant the behavior was, the results are clear: the Patriots winning, and usually winning handily. Let's consider the psychology.
It was not a big deal when the media challenged Bill Belichick's personal integrity. He doesn't have any. He would probably admit this himself. Personal integrity has no usefulness when it comes to winning football games. But as soon as the media challenged his ability to legitimately win, he and his team have been merciless. So we won through cheating, eh? Okay. Check this shit out. Now, we're thirteen games later. And the funny thing is, just as Bill's ability to play that particular us-against-the-world card in the locker room was waning (in early November), Don Shula does Bill the huge favor of saying to the national media that, should the Pats go undefeated, there should be an asterisk next to that entry into the record book. Don Shula, the same coach who himself lost a first-round pick for cheating, challenging Bill Belichick's behavior. Then other members of the '72 Dolphins - ignoring that the '72 Dolphin would get destroyed by the '07 Dolphins, much less the '07 Patriots the Dolphins will play in Week 16 - saying to the national media that the Pats' season so far is unimpressive, and still not even in the same neighborhood as their '72 season. The only undefeated team in NFL history, affirmatively challenging the Patriot's abilities. Very smart. Very witty. The Patriots will do their best to make those men look like the jackasses they have already shown themselves to be.
Finally, second-year Steelers defensive backs (who are only starting because the starters are injured) going to the national media with guarantees that they're going to win against New England, in New England. That has been the most recent challenge, and the Pats made him and his team look like jackasses on Sunday. I especially liked the early game moment when, in a jaw-jacking session after his first TD pass of the day, a Steelers defender called Brady a "pretty boy." Gee, why don't you go up to the best QB in the game, with the best receiving corp since Rice-Taylor-Craig-Jones, and challenge him to kick your ass as hard as he possible can?
What the hell are these people thinking? Honestly? And for anyone who is criticizing the Patriots for their behavior, you need to shut the hell up. You are making things worse rather then better, and the Patriots, aside from the scores, have been nothing but gentlemen. Every week, their media comments are limited to how they can still get better. About the things they need to work on. No one in that locker room is chest-pounding, despite the amazing things they're doing on the field. And the really amazing part is that they're doing it on a playing field that is as level as a decade of league tampering can make it. Working under the same salary cap structure as anyone else, the Patriots have been consistent performers, consistent winners, and have built a team for the ages. They are not spending any more on talent than your team, they're just doing it better than your team is. They're winning because, from the front office on down to their third-string practice-squad guys, they're doing it better and smarter than anyone else.
Now they do have their flaws: they're getting old and slow at linebacker, which has been made clear by some teams. But the coaches are game-planning to win with the older slower guys, and the front office is working the big-picture to help out as well. They already started last off-season, by signing Thomas, who is Vrabel's heir apparent. This up-coming off-season, expect that Pats to draft and/or trade to get heirs-apparent to one or all of Seau, Brushi, and Harrison. The Patriots will continue to do it right, and they will continue to win. If you don't like it, stop them. In the meantime, shut the hell up.
Now, thoughts on less spoken-of things.
No. 1: The Indy Defense. Were it not for the Pats, the Colts would be the talk of the league as an all-time best team, for their improved play on defense. Over time, Tony Dungy has built the kind of Tampa-2 defense he loves, and the results are showing. The Indy defense is #1 in the league against the pass; a hallmark of the Tampa-2, which showcases fast, sure-tackling, under-sized defenders. This defense had mixed results for the Bucs; while they did win a Superbowl, the defense has its weakness, which is interior run defense. You beat the Tampa-2 by running up the middle, and kicking the teeth down the throats of linemen, linebackers, and safeties who are relative "pretty boy" defenders. The simple fact is that the small, fast linebackers and safeties that make the Tampa-2 work aren't very good at shrugging off blocks from 300+ pound linemen and 250+ pound fullbacks.
The difference is that the Indy offense is light years beyond anything that the Bucs had, and it's tough to play an interior-run offense when the other team has a big lead, as the Colts usually do; you have to throw, because you need to score. So you can't play a patient, run-first offense against Indy like you could against the Bucs. Thus, HT's choice of teams not called the Patriots to knock off Indy over the rest of the season and/or playoffs: Minnesota, which has a great interior running game, and a defense that can get the Colts off the field. My pick would have been San Diego, which has a great inside (and outside) run game, and a defense that can get the Colts off the field. But they lost their starting FB, the hugely-under-rated Lorenzo Neal, possibly for the season. The Colts would beat Pittsburgh. PIT has a great defense, but their running game is based on the outside running of Willie Parker, where size matters less; the Colt's defenders are fast enough to catch him. The Colts would also beat Green Bay (Grant is also an outside kind of guy).
Dallas is the contender with the best chance, since Marion Barber is very much a straight-ahead kind of guy. But I have doubts about the Dallas secondary's ability to get Manning off the field. Still, if not for the Pats, the possible Superbowl match-up of Indy and Dallas would be having a lot of hype talked about it.
Item 2: Behind the Pats, the most feared team in the league at this point should be the Minnesota Vikings. As above, they have superb run defense, their pass defense has improved greatly, and they've been generating a lot of turnovers all year. They also have a run-focused offense good enough that you can't really stop it, even though you know what's coming (but see below). A lot of people said that the Vikes offered too much when they lured free-agent LG Chad Hutchinson away from SEA a few seasons ago. Look at the results: Shaun Alexander had a career year running behind Hutchinson on the left side of the line. Now, Alexander is not going anywhere, and both Chester Taylor and Adrian Peterson are having a lot of fun running behind Hutchinson on the left side of the line. The Vikes are going to have problems against quick-strike offenses against whom they might fall behind, but between their ability to run the ball, control the clock, and create turnovers, the Vikes will have no problems in bad-weather playoff games. Even the big-boys fear the Vikes, or else they should.
Item 3: As an extension of the above, the game film of the Vikes' blowout of San Francisco over the weekend will become a fixture in the libraries of defensive coordinators the league over. Notwithstanding the loss, the Niners, who have no offense to speak of and who lack the critical run-stopping NT for their 3-4 defense, had a game plan that held Adrian Peterson to THREE yards on 14 carries. Chester Taylor got over 100 yards, but 84 of them came on one big play, the only big-play the SF defense gave up on the day. Setting aside that play, Taylor got 17 yards on 7 carries. Unless they can fix their running game to get by the game-plan created by Mike Nolan and his staff, the Vikes are going to have problems against teams with an SF-caliber LB corps (which is actually a pretty short list; the biggest problem with the 49ers defense is that it spends too much time on the field) when they meet such a defense married to an offense better than SF (which list of offenses includes every team in the league, except possibly MIA). But back to the point: every team that faces Adrian Peterson for the rest of his career will watch and try to duplicate what SF did in a 27-7 blow-out loss. Yes, the universe is strange that way sometimes.
Obvious Item Of The Week: Teams with solid play on the offensive and defensive lines won. (DAL, NE, IND, NYG, BUF.) Teams with soft play on the offensive or defensive lines lost. (MIA, KC, OAK, SF, ARI.)
I could go on and on about football. But I'm afraid that it's time for my nap.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Back to the Important Stuff
With my professional life once more going in the right direction, I nonetheless find myself floating in a state of limbo. Although I gave notice at my current position on Friday, my current overlings were not so gracious as to simply fire me on the spot, thus requiring me to spend the next two weeks in a job that I don't want, managing matters that will - in the very near future - become someone else's problem. As I make no bones about my status as a professional mercenary, the only regret that I feel is that some other warrior will be the one to wield the weapons I've gathered against the Plaintiffs when several cases go to trial. Alas. Alack.
The end result of this professional limbo (with it's slight salting of professional regret) is that I really have no great impetus to do anything remotely resembling work. Thus, I expect to be posting on these pages quite a bit in the coming weeks. I hope this will satisfy the only person who reads these pages.
Now then. People who know me and who don't generally give comparable assertions of shock upon learning that I don't have what most Americans would define as television. I do have a TV, upon which I get about 5 1/2 channels through my improvised rabbit-ear antenna. No satellite. No digital cable. No cable. While there are two or three shows that I'd like to be able to see, I don't even miss TV, and I note that, lacking 1000 channels, I have a great deal more free time for other pursuits.
But I do have quite a few DVDs, as one of the beauteous things about Las Vegas is the multitude of pawn shops, from which one can outright buy a DVD for not much more than one would pay to rent that same movie. While one cannot generally go looking for a particular title to take home, any trip to any relatively respectable pawn shop (the respectability of pawn shops ALWAYS being relative) will yield a DVD purchase of opportunity. So, over the years, my collection has been filled with some notable classic films, and a great many more films which *I* consider to be classics.
As an extension to my prior thoughts about mankind's remarkable ability to delude itself, and as I was going through my movie collection over the weekend, I considered the Allegory of The Cave, as expressed in Plato's Republic. In brief, the story holds than men are savages staring at a blank cave wall. Behind them, the sun is shining into the cave, against the wall that they are looking at. This setting is being taken advantage of by Puppet Masters, stand behind the savages, and use the cave wall as a screen, upon which they project a shadow-puppet screening for the unenlightened masses. The message is that what people perceive has only a passing relationship to reality; we do not see the sun, nor the Puppet Masters, nor even the puppets themselves. All we see is the shadows that are being cast into our line of sight. Plato goes on the hypothesize that no chains other than those within our minds bind us where we are, staring at the shadow puppets, and that it is probably within our power to stand up, turn around, and behold The Real World. In doing so, our initial response would most likely be pain in looking at the world we had to the point perceived only as a shadowy reflection. Pain would be followed by an attempt to go back to being a simple observer of the shadows we have for so long been familiar with. That would followed by acceptance of the "enlightened" state of accepting what was really going on. This would probably be a lonely state, since all our friends would still be caught up in the puppet show, and would be too involved in it to even consider the idea that the illusion is not the reality, much less work up the cojones to turn and look at the reality itself.
For a spectacular modern-day rendition of the Allegory of The Cave, complete with the gamut of emotional responses from the One who actually stands up to see reality, just rewatch The Matrix, which in many ways seems drawn directly from classic Plato. The illusory world, peopled with subjects who unknowingly embrace the illusion. The One who awakens to reality, and the associate pains. Even the result of another's (Cipher's) attempt at - having awoken - returning to the illusion. There is also the expression of combined interaction of the subjects of the illusion and Masters of the puppets: the human audience, although completely at the mercy of The Matrix, are nonetheless active participants in the tableau being projected. They go about their lives in what they believe to be full autonomy, and they interact with each other and with the projected construct, bound only by the in-built limitations of the construct, which they are unable or (in a more Platonic vein) unwilling to transcend. They do not even perceive the nature of their bondage, except for the few who feel the splinter in their mind, the undefined, inexpressible feeling that Something Is Wrong. The Matrix Puppet Masters, rather than being gods on high, are merely slightly more awakened; they perceive the construct not as something to break out of, but merely as a tool to influence and control the subjugated populace. They are down and dirty, not standing on high acting only through the puppets, but working directly with the subject audience, and - as Agent Smith - becoming more and more like the sheep of their flock. The movie truly is a wonderful expansion of the ideas offered by Plato several thousand years ago, and is another prime example of the unappreciated brilliance and depth of modern American culture, perhaps the moreso because "Plato" does not - to my knowledge - appear in the credits. The Matrix, of course, holds a place of honor among my video collection, and not just because it involves a Carrie Anne Moss wrapped in skin-tight vinyl. Although that helps.
But, instead of our possibly residing within a computer-generated dream world (a contrivance extrinsic to the Platonic tale, providing The Matrix with villains and also a back-story within the grasp of the lowest-common-denominator movie-goer), consider what recent science tells us, and consider the substance of the reality in which we find ourselves: To the best of human science's ability to determine, the universe as we know it is only a facade. Conceived at its largest and at its smallest, our universe defies description, and there is simultaneously more to it and less to it, than we can explain.
From the broadest possible perspective of the world's leading astrophysicists, the universe doesn't make sense. It moves wrong. Unless, that is, you adopt the postulate that 95% of the universe (by mass) is unaccounted for "dark" matter and energy. Now, there is the distinct possibility that somebody simply fucked up the math; Newtonian physics is more or less incapable of mathematically modeling the gravitational interaction of more than two bodies on each other, and there are a lot more than two interacting gravitational bodies in the known universe. There's also the chance that - and this is a much more likely scenario - we've managed to overlook a necessary part of the equation which explains the phenomenon we observe. But as it stands now, science tells us that the physical universe we can perceive acts like something that, mathematically, is more than an order of magnitude larger than what we see. In short, the universe, viewed on a broad scale, is internally inconsistent with itself, and becomes consistent only when you accept that 95% of the universe is beyond normal perception. Thus, the inconsistency is not reality, but merely a failure of perception, engendered by our misconstruing of events as they unfold in the shadow-puppet theaters. At least now we have demonstrable, mathematical proof that most of reality is beyond our ability to observe. Does that not make you wonder what really is going on in the 95% of the universe that is NOT visible on the cave wall in front of us?
Now take the narrowest possible view of the universe, as seen in the behavior of subatomic particles. The cutting edge of particle physics (do a wiki search on "string theory") holds that, at the most basic levels, matter is composed of nothing except vibrating "strings" of energy, and that the matter formed by the strings is defined not by the structure of the string, but by the energy of the vibration. The primary difference between a human-perceivable photon and a purely (at this point) theoretical graviton is not primarily of structure, but of energy flowing though the structure. While string theory offers a solution to the "dark" matter and energy quandary addressed above by postulating the structure of reality based on interaction of eleven spacetime dimensions into our perceivable universe (those dimensions form the "dark" matter and energy), what it boils down to is that matter at its most basic levels is not defined by it's structure, but by it's energy. Energy, by definition, has no material form; it is merely an inequality of potentials that exists relative to points. In string theory, the inequality of potentials is provided by the aforementioned interaction of eleven dimensions across every point of realspace, which converge into strings, and thereby form reality. This is, of course, a huge oversimplification of a theory that is really only understood by a handful or so of exceptionally intelligent people, but I hope that the point will come across: according to the best minds on the planet, the universe as we perceive it is comprised of the energies generated by the competing influences of multiple, imperceptible dimensions intersecting in every point of the known spacetime continuum. Again, the puppet theater, with forces we can scarcely imagine coming together to show us the abundantly clear and tangible pictures of reality that we see every day.
Finally, there is the human portion of the equation. I've already noted mankind's remarkable ability to pick and choose the realities is deigns to believe in. How much of what we see is merely a result of what we choose to see? Mentalists have demonstrated that a body under deep hypnosis, which is told that it is being touched with a red-hot iron, will form blisters as if burned, even if the actual object used to touch the subject is a pen, or a rolled-up newspaper, or a fingertip. It's an old parlor trick for a hypnotist to put someone under, stick a pin through their hand, and tell the subject to bleed on one side of their hand, but not the other. It works. Further experimentation with group-minds (which downplay the role of the individual, and thus paradoxically heighten the individuals psychic involvement) have suggested limited abilities of levitation and telekinesis in the current stage of human evolution. What does this suggest not only about the universe beyond our percetion, but our ability to interact with that universe?
Now then. Look at any object on the table in front of you. Imagine if you could move it without touching it. Imagine it sliding across the table into your waiting fingers.
...
...
...
...
It didn't move, did it? Don't worry, you're not alone; it almost never does.
Now ask yourself, how freaked out would you have been if it had moved?
Do you really lack the abilities of telekinesis or telepathy, or is your mind simply unwilling to use the ability, out of fear of the consequences? How terrifying would it be to so suddenly stand up and look at the reality behind the puppet theater we have grown so used to? Without the lies and illusions about which we wrap ourselves, how would we cope? It is no coincidence that the greatest examples of phenomenal behaviors are seen in children; they haven't yet been convinced of the inflexibility of our "reality," and can ply the fringes of their own abilities without bursting any programmed in socio-religeous bubbles. When a child tells you that he can read your mind, is he saying it because of a juvenile flight of fancy, or is he saying it because the shadow theater hasn't yet convinced him that such things are "impossible." As adults, we take for granted that there is, in fact, the spoon, and that bending it is more than just bending ourselves. Further, we teach that reality to our children. Alas. Alack.
Which brings us back to Plato. The underlying message of the Allegory of The Cave is to suggest that mankind endlessly strive, in whatever great or small means at his disposal, to look beyond the puppet theater. To find the Truth by taking of the chains which exist only in our own minds. And barring genocidal catastrophe, we shall; evolution turns endlessly, and our children shall inevitably be smarter, stronger, and faster than we are. But shall they achieve more because they're intrinsically better, or simply because they are one generation closer to being bored of the charade, and telling the puppet masters fuck off?
The end result of this professional limbo (with it's slight salting of professional regret) is that I really have no great impetus to do anything remotely resembling work. Thus, I expect to be posting on these pages quite a bit in the coming weeks. I hope this will satisfy the only person who reads these pages.
Now then. People who know me and who don't generally give comparable assertions of shock upon learning that I don't have what most Americans would define as television. I do have a TV, upon which I get about 5 1/2 channels through my improvised rabbit-ear antenna. No satellite. No digital cable. No cable. While there are two or three shows that I'd like to be able to see, I don't even miss TV, and I note that, lacking 1000 channels, I have a great deal more free time for other pursuits.
But I do have quite a few DVDs, as one of the beauteous things about Las Vegas is the multitude of pawn shops, from which one can outright buy a DVD for not much more than one would pay to rent that same movie. While one cannot generally go looking for a particular title to take home, any trip to any relatively respectable pawn shop (the respectability of pawn shops ALWAYS being relative) will yield a DVD purchase of opportunity. So, over the years, my collection has been filled with some notable classic films, and a great many more films which *I* consider to be classics.
As an extension to my prior thoughts about mankind's remarkable ability to delude itself, and as I was going through my movie collection over the weekend, I considered the Allegory of The Cave, as expressed in Plato's Republic. In brief, the story holds than men are savages staring at a blank cave wall. Behind them, the sun is shining into the cave, against the wall that they are looking at. This setting is being taken advantage of by Puppet Masters, stand behind the savages, and use the cave wall as a screen, upon which they project a shadow-puppet screening for the unenlightened masses. The message is that what people perceive has only a passing relationship to reality; we do not see the sun, nor the Puppet Masters, nor even the puppets themselves. All we see is the shadows that are being cast into our line of sight. Plato goes on the hypothesize that no chains other than those within our minds bind us where we are, staring at the shadow puppets, and that it is probably within our power to stand up, turn around, and behold The Real World. In doing so, our initial response would most likely be pain in looking at the world we had to the point perceived only as a shadowy reflection. Pain would be followed by an attempt to go back to being a simple observer of the shadows we have for so long been familiar with. That would followed by acceptance of the "enlightened" state of accepting what was really going on. This would probably be a lonely state, since all our friends would still be caught up in the puppet show, and would be too involved in it to even consider the idea that the illusion is not the reality, much less work up the cojones to turn and look at the reality itself.
For a spectacular modern-day rendition of the Allegory of The Cave, complete with the gamut of emotional responses from the One who actually stands up to see reality, just rewatch The Matrix, which in many ways seems drawn directly from classic Plato. The illusory world, peopled with subjects who unknowingly embrace the illusion. The One who awakens to reality, and the associate pains. Even the result of another's (Cipher's) attempt at - having awoken - returning to the illusion. There is also the expression of combined interaction of the subjects of the illusion and Masters of the puppets: the human audience, although completely at the mercy of The Matrix, are nonetheless active participants in the tableau being projected. They go about their lives in what they believe to be full autonomy, and they interact with each other and with the projected construct, bound only by the in-built limitations of the construct, which they are unable or (in a more Platonic vein) unwilling to transcend. They do not even perceive the nature of their bondage, except for the few who feel the splinter in their mind, the undefined, inexpressible feeling that Something Is Wrong. The Matrix Puppet Masters, rather than being gods on high, are merely slightly more awakened; they perceive the construct not as something to break out of, but merely as a tool to influence and control the subjugated populace. They are down and dirty, not standing on high acting only through the puppets, but working directly with the subject audience, and - as Agent Smith - becoming more and more like the sheep of their flock. The movie truly is a wonderful expansion of the ideas offered by Plato several thousand years ago, and is another prime example of the unappreciated brilliance and depth of modern American culture, perhaps the moreso because "Plato" does not - to my knowledge - appear in the credits. The Matrix, of course, holds a place of honor among my video collection, and not just because it involves a Carrie Anne Moss wrapped in skin-tight vinyl. Although that helps.
But, instead of our possibly residing within a computer-generated dream world (a contrivance extrinsic to the Platonic tale, providing The Matrix with villains and also a back-story within the grasp of the lowest-common-denominator movie-goer), consider what recent science tells us, and consider the substance of the reality in which we find ourselves: To the best of human science's ability to determine, the universe as we know it is only a facade. Conceived at its largest and at its smallest, our universe defies description, and there is simultaneously more to it and less to it, than we can explain.
From the broadest possible perspective of the world's leading astrophysicists, the universe doesn't make sense. It moves wrong. Unless, that is, you adopt the postulate that 95% of the universe (by mass) is unaccounted for "dark" matter and energy. Now, there is the distinct possibility that somebody simply fucked up the math; Newtonian physics is more or less incapable of mathematically modeling the gravitational interaction of more than two bodies on each other, and there are a lot more than two interacting gravitational bodies in the known universe. There's also the chance that - and this is a much more likely scenario - we've managed to overlook a necessary part of the equation which explains the phenomenon we observe. But as it stands now, science tells us that the physical universe we can perceive acts like something that, mathematically, is more than an order of magnitude larger than what we see. In short, the universe, viewed on a broad scale, is internally inconsistent with itself, and becomes consistent only when you accept that 95% of the universe is beyond normal perception. Thus, the inconsistency is not reality, but merely a failure of perception, engendered by our misconstruing of events as they unfold in the shadow-puppet theaters. At least now we have demonstrable, mathematical proof that most of reality is beyond our ability to observe. Does that not make you wonder what really is going on in the 95% of the universe that is NOT visible on the cave wall in front of us?
Now take the narrowest possible view of the universe, as seen in the behavior of subatomic particles. The cutting edge of particle physics (do a wiki search on "string theory") holds that, at the most basic levels, matter is composed of nothing except vibrating "strings" of energy, and that the matter formed by the strings is defined not by the structure of the string, but by the energy of the vibration. The primary difference between a human-perceivable photon and a purely (at this point) theoretical graviton is not primarily of structure, but of energy flowing though the structure. While string theory offers a solution to the "dark" matter and energy quandary addressed above by postulating the structure of reality based on interaction of eleven spacetime dimensions into our perceivable universe (those dimensions form the "dark" matter and energy), what it boils down to is that matter at its most basic levels is not defined by it's structure, but by it's energy. Energy, by definition, has no material form; it is merely an inequality of potentials that exists relative to points. In string theory, the inequality of potentials is provided by the aforementioned interaction of eleven dimensions across every point of realspace, which converge into strings, and thereby form reality. This is, of course, a huge oversimplification of a theory that is really only understood by a handful or so of exceptionally intelligent people, but I hope that the point will come across: according to the best minds on the planet, the universe as we perceive it is comprised of the energies generated by the competing influences of multiple, imperceptible dimensions intersecting in every point of the known spacetime continuum. Again, the puppet theater, with forces we can scarcely imagine coming together to show us the abundantly clear and tangible pictures of reality that we see every day.
Finally, there is the human portion of the equation. I've already noted mankind's remarkable ability to pick and choose the realities is deigns to believe in. How much of what we see is merely a result of what we choose to see? Mentalists have demonstrated that a body under deep hypnosis, which is told that it is being touched with a red-hot iron, will form blisters as if burned, even if the actual object used to touch the subject is a pen, or a rolled-up newspaper, or a fingertip. It's an old parlor trick for a hypnotist to put someone under, stick a pin through their hand, and tell the subject to bleed on one side of their hand, but not the other. It works. Further experimentation with group-minds (which downplay the role of the individual, and thus paradoxically heighten the individuals psychic involvement) have suggested limited abilities of levitation and telekinesis in the current stage of human evolution. What does this suggest not only about the universe beyond our percetion, but our ability to interact with that universe?
Now then. Look at any object on the table in front of you. Imagine if you could move it without touching it. Imagine it sliding across the table into your waiting fingers.
...
...
...
...
It didn't move, did it? Don't worry, you're not alone; it almost never does.
Now ask yourself, how freaked out would you have been if it had moved?
Do you really lack the abilities of telekinesis or telepathy, or is your mind simply unwilling to use the ability, out of fear of the consequences? How terrifying would it be to so suddenly stand up and look at the reality behind the puppet theater we have grown so used to? Without the lies and illusions about which we wrap ourselves, how would we cope? It is no coincidence that the greatest examples of phenomenal behaviors are seen in children; they haven't yet been convinced of the inflexibility of our "reality," and can ply the fringes of their own abilities without bursting any programmed in socio-religeous bubbles. When a child tells you that he can read your mind, is he saying it because of a juvenile flight of fancy, or is he saying it because the shadow theater hasn't yet convinced him that such things are "impossible." As adults, we take for granted that there is, in fact, the spoon, and that bending it is more than just bending ourselves. Further, we teach that reality to our children. Alas. Alack.
Which brings us back to Plato. The underlying message of the Allegory of The Cave is to suggest that mankind endlessly strive, in whatever great or small means at his disposal, to look beyond the puppet theater. To find the Truth by taking of the chains which exist only in our own minds. And barring genocidal catastrophe, we shall; evolution turns endlessly, and our children shall inevitably be smarter, stronger, and faster than we are. But shall they achieve more because they're intrinsically better, or simply because they are one generation closer to being bored of the charade, and telling the puppet masters fuck off?
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Futher Musings on Self-Interest
In continuing the vein of my searching for a new and/or better position, I'm increasingly amazed at my current boss' complete immunity to reality. Make no mistake, I'm a huge believer in fantasy myself, and will go the great lengths to avoid substantial work or responsibilities, but the simple fact of the matter is that at some point, self-preservation must inevitably force us to face facts. People are almost always remarkably adept at convincing themselves that they're right - and the more intelligent we are, the more elaborate and convincing our lies to ourselves become - but human survival instincts almost always pull us out of our delusions before the situation becomes untenable. Our psyches, after Milena of practice, have evolved into a form where we easily believe the lies we tell ourselves to maintain our day-to-day happiness, while at the same time not holding to those lies so dearly that we cannot abandon them the moment that a greater need must be served.
Truly remarkable, how dynamic we can be when necessary, isn't it?
But I've recently been disappointed at how slow on the uptake people can be when presented with impending disaster. One of the attorneys recently left my firm for a much more high-paying job, leaving three of us. The response from On High to those of us remaining was that the job he took wasn't as good as he thinks it is, couldn't possibly pay as well as he claimed it did, and you really should stay with us and build this place into a firm that can afford to pay you more. By the way, Young Associates, we have been inundated with resumes and been very impressed with people we've interviewed. In light of the number and quality of applicants for the opening left by the recent departure, we consider you guys to be interchangeable, and replaceable. (It's merely an aberration that the first three offers we made to prospective hires were refused, in favor of better offers.)
Presented with this, I made a call or two, and now have an offer to move to another firm, do exactly the same type and quantity of work that I do now, and earn myself a 25% to 50% pay raise (depending on how bonuses play out), simply by reporting for work at an office further down the street. I'll be giving notice tomorrow, leaving my current firm - which had four active attorneys a month ago - with only two full-time litigators. I know for a fact that another of my current co-workers, who is even more soured on the situation than I am, will be following me out the door with roughly the same expediency that I'm following the former departure out the door (about four weeks between departures).
What I wonder is if my current superiors are going to be able to pull their heads out of their collective asses to stop to bleeding? There is simply too much work here to be managed by two (soon to be one) persons, and the hiring process - even after several weeks - appears to be going nowhere, no matter what the bosses are telling themselves and each other. Barring immediate action, the Las Vegas office is going to bleed out. Will that immediate action be forthcoming? For my part, I don't greatly care about all this one way or the other; my loyalty to this firm is exhausted, and I've already decided to leave. It's largely academic, and an excellent example of behavior I should watch for in myself. But I'm curious if my bosses are going to have the realization a la Don Quixote, that they've been acting insane for the last year or so, and have nothing more to show for it than the chamber-pot they've been using as a helmet. Will they snap out of it in time? Will their need to have attorneys to handle the 120 active cases in Las Vegas be strong enough to overcome the delusions they've formed?
If nothing else, it should be fun to watch.
Truly remarkable, how dynamic we can be when necessary, isn't it?
But I've recently been disappointed at how slow on the uptake people can be when presented with impending disaster. One of the attorneys recently left my firm for a much more high-paying job, leaving three of us. The response from On High to those of us remaining was that the job he took wasn't as good as he thinks it is, couldn't possibly pay as well as he claimed it did, and you really should stay with us and build this place into a firm that can afford to pay you more. By the way, Young Associates, we have been inundated with resumes and been very impressed with people we've interviewed. In light of the number and quality of applicants for the opening left by the recent departure, we consider you guys to be interchangeable, and replaceable. (It's merely an aberration that the first three offers we made to prospective hires were refused, in favor of better offers.)
Presented with this, I made a call or two, and now have an offer to move to another firm, do exactly the same type and quantity of work that I do now, and earn myself a 25% to 50% pay raise (depending on how bonuses play out), simply by reporting for work at an office further down the street. I'll be giving notice tomorrow, leaving my current firm - which had four active attorneys a month ago - with only two full-time litigators. I know for a fact that another of my current co-workers, who is even more soured on the situation than I am, will be following me out the door with roughly the same expediency that I'm following the former departure out the door (about four weeks between departures).
What I wonder is if my current superiors are going to be able to pull their heads out of their collective asses to stop to bleeding? There is simply too much work here to be managed by two (soon to be one) persons, and the hiring process - even after several weeks - appears to be going nowhere, no matter what the bosses are telling themselves and each other. Barring immediate action, the Las Vegas office is going to bleed out. Will that immediate action be forthcoming? For my part, I don't greatly care about all this one way or the other; my loyalty to this firm is exhausted, and I've already decided to leave. It's largely academic, and an excellent example of behavior I should watch for in myself. But I'm curious if my bosses are going to have the realization a la Don Quixote, that they've been acting insane for the last year or so, and have nothing more to show for it than the chamber-pot they've been using as a helmet. Will they snap out of it in time? Will their need to have attorneys to handle the 120 active cases in Las Vegas be strong enough to overcome the delusions they've formed?
If nothing else, it should be fun to watch.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Jobs and Self-Interest
I've been at my current job for about three years now, and it's been fun. I sign my own work, take my own cases to trial, and I have relative autonomy about how I handle my caseload: so long as everything gets done, my timesheet is full, and I'm available to take calls between 9 and 5, nobody really gives a damn if I take a two-hour nap on the leather couch I have in my office, and then take an extended lunch-break because the nearest Chipotle is a bit of a drive. Fortunately, we ultimately moved into a new building, from which a Chipotle is only a few blocks away, and where my large windows give me an excellent view of Redrock Canyon and the Spring Mountains. This move has significantly decreased my gasoline expenses, but with no net gain, since my Chipotle expenses have skyrocketed.
But all is not well.
My firm can no longer afford me, and is unwilling to even try. I've been in the game for five years now. Law firms are able to pay salaries to mid-level associates either by pyramid-building with younger associates, or by cherry-picking mid-level (higher billable) work for such mid-level people to handle. My firm has made it abundantly clear that there will be no pyramid-building beneath me, and has no mid-level billable work for me to do. Further, all three partners - all of whom work out of our Reno office - refuse to believe that I can move to a different Las Vegas firm and make 150% of what I'm making here, to do the exact same job. The party line is that I should be working to build this firm into a place that can afford to pay me what I think I'm worth, because I'm not really getting unsolicited calls from other attorneys to come work with them; those people calling with those job offers are not serious. It was pure serendipity that I sent out five resumes one morning, and had four interviews lined up before the close of business that day. Apparently, the associates of my firm's Las Vegas office are suffering from collective hallucinations about how much the market demands our services and expertise, and how much the market will pay for that service and expertise.
In my very first discussion with my current boss, he said that, when you're in business, the biggest problem you face is finding and keeping good people. How much of that is because good people always need to move to another job to catch up to the market rate they should be getting paid already?
While it's certainly easy to quote Adam Smith as I turn my back on my current peers to look for another job, I have problems with that. First of all, I think Adam Smith had it wrong; read up on the Nash Equilibrium Theory (or just watch "A Beautiful Mind"). While it's a toss-up as to which scenario we're LESS likely to face on large scale: either the dynamic closed system envisioned by Nash, or the vacuum of relevant collateral and/or intersectional interests which would allow us to pursue Smith's selfish ways, the truth is probably somewhere in between. Besides which - while I am generally as rational as a human being is capable of being - I'm pissed off. Neither Smith nor Nash included spite in their calculations of human responses and interaction, further muddying the grey area between the two. Turns out that emotional response pretty much short-circuits any sort of rational behavior. Anyone who has ever dated a member of the female species should be acutely aware of this phenomenon.
But putting aside the psychosis inherent in X-chromosomes, and returning to my current job situation, the simple fact of the matter is that even if my current firm offered to match whatever salary I get ultimately offered elsewhere, I'd probably still leave. I'm chuckling as I imagine the response of my current bosses once I do inevitably Give Them The Finger, and leave them with 38 active case files that need to be managed by someone. Fucking bastards.
But it is what it is, the firm will do just fine without me, and all this too shall pass. And I'll be fine. And making more money, to boot.
I'm not sure what all this says about me, including that John Nash and Adam Smith do, in fact, come into my thinking as I pursue the future of my professional career. But I think it must say something.
But all is not well.
My firm can no longer afford me, and is unwilling to even try. I've been in the game for five years now. Law firms are able to pay salaries to mid-level associates either by pyramid-building with younger associates, or by cherry-picking mid-level (higher billable) work for such mid-level people to handle. My firm has made it abundantly clear that there will be no pyramid-building beneath me, and has no mid-level billable work for me to do. Further, all three partners - all of whom work out of our Reno office - refuse to believe that I can move to a different Las Vegas firm and make 150% of what I'm making here, to do the exact same job. The party line is that I should be working to build this firm into a place that can afford to pay me what I think I'm worth, because I'm not really getting unsolicited calls from other attorneys to come work with them; those people calling with those job offers are not serious. It was pure serendipity that I sent out five resumes one morning, and had four interviews lined up before the close of business that day. Apparently, the associates of my firm's Las Vegas office are suffering from collective hallucinations about how much the market demands our services and expertise, and how much the market will pay for that service and expertise.
In my very first discussion with my current boss, he said that, when you're in business, the biggest problem you face is finding and keeping good people. How much of that is because good people always need to move to another job to catch up to the market rate they should be getting paid already?
While it's certainly easy to quote Adam Smith as I turn my back on my current peers to look for another job, I have problems with that. First of all, I think Adam Smith had it wrong; read up on the Nash Equilibrium Theory (or just watch "A Beautiful Mind"). While it's a toss-up as to which scenario we're LESS likely to face on large scale: either the dynamic closed system envisioned by Nash, or the vacuum of relevant collateral and/or intersectional interests which would allow us to pursue Smith's selfish ways, the truth is probably somewhere in between. Besides which - while I am generally as rational as a human being is capable of being - I'm pissed off. Neither Smith nor Nash included spite in their calculations of human responses and interaction, further muddying the grey area between the two. Turns out that emotional response pretty much short-circuits any sort of rational behavior. Anyone who has ever dated a member of the female species should be acutely aware of this phenomenon.
But putting aside the psychosis inherent in X-chromosomes, and returning to my current job situation, the simple fact of the matter is that even if my current firm offered to match whatever salary I get ultimately offered elsewhere, I'd probably still leave. I'm chuckling as I imagine the response of my current bosses once I do inevitably Give Them The Finger, and leave them with 38 active case files that need to be managed by someone. Fucking bastards.
But it is what it is, the firm will do just fine without me, and all this too shall pass. And I'll be fine. And making more money, to boot.
I'm not sure what all this says about me, including that John Nash and Adam Smith do, in fact, come into my thinking as I pursue the future of my professional career. But I think it must say something.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Standards. And Rebellion Therefrom.
I generally dislike standards, be they cultural or otherwise, as contrary to human potential. In my experience, supported by scientific research, people are what they believe themselves to be. Those who are confident in their ability to be successful generally are successful, as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Children who are told by teachers and parents that they are intelligent and capable of solving problems show statistically higher levels of intelligence and problem-solving ability than children who do not receive such encouragement. "Fake it until you make it" does work as a personal business model, and "God helps those who help themselves" speaks for itself as a truism.
In general, conformity to standards and norms is a primary restrictor on human potential and advancement; in science, technology, medicine, politics, and any other field that you'd care to chose, advancements are made by INDIVIDUALS, rather then by SOCIETIES. As a parallel to my prior thoughts on culture, the primary reason that America has led the world in science, technology, and industry for the last century grows directly from America's lack of artificial social constructs (cultural or socio-religious) which define and restrict individuals to a specific social caste. America worships ABILITY. Regardless of who your parents are, regardless of their social station, in America, if you can, you may. And if you are good enough, we will help you. Academic scholarships, for example, and the greater the potential you show, the more you will be helped to reach it. A prodigy might be born in a Guam slum, or a West Virginia mountaintop, or in South Jersey, and the American System will find that child anywhere within our sphere of influence. We provide them with the best available education, and put them to work at whatever field in which they excel. If you have it in you to shine, not only will you be allowed to, you will be asked to, regardless of prior social or political associations. Without rigid stratification of social levels, American society is - by Old World standards - the height of chaos and disorganization. But make no mistake: the melting pot is boiling, but the cream is rising to the top.
The end result is America's propagation of two things: mediocrity, and brilliance. American mediocrity is very banal, and appears even to be sinking. Bad music, worse movies, "reality TV," veneration of pop-culture icons; the United States middle class is becoming increasingly illiterate, uneducated, and despondent under it's own weight. Apathy and welfare. Illness without healthcare. Unemployment arising from unemployability. These are facts of life of the vast middle class: While the System does nothing to hold them down, it also does nothing to lift them up from what their own means will provide them.
But the brilliant. Oh, the brilliance they show. Look at the technological and industrial growth of just the last 100 years. Digital computers were first invented in the 1940s. You can now by a computer comparable to those first models for $1. They used to take up an entire room. Now they don't even need batteries, so long as there is a nearby light-source to draw from. Jet engines were only a theory a century ago. Now you can build one in you garage. All of this the work of great minds, working free from external constraints. Einstein believed that he did his best work in "productive isolation," and fled from his native Germany (to Cal Tech in Pasadena, California) when the German government their began to take issue with his Zionist views. One of the greatest minds in human history had to flee his homeland, because of the homeland's cultural developments. Like so many other people of ability in the last 200 years, he was feeling repressed, held-back, and unappreciated in the Old World. So packed up his bat and ball and came to the New. Thanks for coming, Al; you were American culture and history boiled into one man.
Take, by contrast, China. Theoretically, Chinese economics, industry, and science draw from the world's largest talent pool. Don't tell me that genius children are not being born every day. Don't tell me that most of that nation's populace living in medieval conditions is from lack of viable alternatives. The simple fact is that China has been locked into rigid social caste system for 2500 years. It has been free of much in the way of revolutions, but the lack of revolutions includes the scientific and economic as well as the political. Thank you, Confucius, for guaranteeing that one of the worlds greatest power-bases has stood stagnant for millenia; we'd all be speaking Chinese if not for you. But there was you, and they bought in to you, and the end result is a nation who's last great contribution to science and technology was gunpowder. (Even that didn't make it far beyond use in fireworks until the more dynamic and open-minded nations of Europe got their hands on it.) Thank you Chairman Mao, for stepping in and setting up a new regime every bit as stagnant, rigid, and stratified as Confucianism. You, as a nation, are the paradigm of the "Culture" that America is so blissfully free of, and prospering for the lack. You have millenia of tradition, where that tradition is a stone around your neck, anchoring you against any change in the cultural, political, or scientific status quo. Even with a billion backs to bear the load, you cannot get out from under its weight. Truly you are a model for other nations to take heed of.
The point of all this: REBEL. Let no one dictate the limits of your growth, or the extent of your capabilities. Great minds are those that break free from constraints, because such constraints preclude an individuals rise to greatness.
In general, conformity to standards and norms is a primary restrictor on human potential and advancement; in science, technology, medicine, politics, and any other field that you'd care to chose, advancements are made by INDIVIDUALS, rather then by SOCIETIES. As a parallel to my prior thoughts on culture, the primary reason that America has led the world in science, technology, and industry for the last century grows directly from America's lack of artificial social constructs (cultural or socio-religious) which define and restrict individuals to a specific social caste. America worships ABILITY. Regardless of who your parents are, regardless of their social station, in America, if you can, you may. And if you are good enough, we will help you. Academic scholarships, for example, and the greater the potential you show, the more you will be helped to reach it. A prodigy might be born in a Guam slum, or a West Virginia mountaintop, or in South Jersey, and the American System will find that child anywhere within our sphere of influence. We provide them with the best available education, and put them to work at whatever field in which they excel. If you have it in you to shine, not only will you be allowed to, you will be asked to, regardless of prior social or political associations. Without rigid stratification of social levels, American society is - by Old World standards - the height of chaos and disorganization. But make no mistake: the melting pot is boiling, but the cream is rising to the top.
The end result is America's propagation of two things: mediocrity, and brilliance. American mediocrity is very banal, and appears even to be sinking. Bad music, worse movies, "reality TV," veneration of pop-culture icons; the United States middle class is becoming increasingly illiterate, uneducated, and despondent under it's own weight. Apathy and welfare. Illness without healthcare. Unemployment arising from unemployability. These are facts of life of the vast middle class: While the System does nothing to hold them down, it also does nothing to lift them up from what their own means will provide them.
But the brilliant. Oh, the brilliance they show. Look at the technological and industrial growth of just the last 100 years. Digital computers were first invented in the 1940s. You can now by a computer comparable to those first models for $1. They used to take up an entire room. Now they don't even need batteries, so long as there is a nearby light-source to draw from. Jet engines were only a theory a century ago. Now you can build one in you garage. All of this the work of great minds, working free from external constraints. Einstein believed that he did his best work in "productive isolation," and fled from his native Germany (to Cal Tech in Pasadena, California) when the German government their began to take issue with his Zionist views. One of the greatest minds in human history had to flee his homeland, because of the homeland's cultural developments. Like so many other people of ability in the last 200 years, he was feeling repressed, held-back, and unappreciated in the Old World. So packed up his bat and ball and came to the New. Thanks for coming, Al; you were American culture and history boiled into one man.
Take, by contrast, China. Theoretically, Chinese economics, industry, and science draw from the world's largest talent pool. Don't tell me that genius children are not being born every day. Don't tell me that most of that nation's populace living in medieval conditions is from lack of viable alternatives. The simple fact is that China has been locked into rigid social caste system for 2500 years. It has been free of much in the way of revolutions, but the lack of revolutions includes the scientific and economic as well as the political. Thank you, Confucius, for guaranteeing that one of the worlds greatest power-bases has stood stagnant for millenia; we'd all be speaking Chinese if not for you. But there was you, and they bought in to you, and the end result is a nation who's last great contribution to science and technology was gunpowder. (Even that didn't make it far beyond use in fireworks until the more dynamic and open-minded nations of Europe got their hands on it.) Thank you Chairman Mao, for stepping in and setting up a new regime every bit as stagnant, rigid, and stratified as Confucianism. You, as a nation, are the paradigm of the "Culture" that America is so blissfully free of, and prospering for the lack. You have millenia of tradition, where that tradition is a stone around your neck, anchoring you against any change in the cultural, political, or scientific status quo. Even with a billion backs to bear the load, you cannot get out from under its weight. Truly you are a model for other nations to take heed of.
The point of all this: REBEL. Let no one dictate the limits of your growth, or the extent of your capabilities. Great minds are those that break free from constraints, because such constraints preclude an individuals rise to greatness.
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