Monthly Archives: June 2009

Security

Somalia Begs for Invasion

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The New York Times reports that Somalia’s Parliament has asked its neighbors for military intervention.

Somali lawmakers pleaded Saturday for international military intervention within 24 hours to help fight Islamic insurgents in the lawless African nation, where fierce fighting has resumed in the capital.

The Parliament is clearly losing its grip to violent opposition, but the question is whether their call for intervention makes any sense in terms of security.

US policy there, as I have mentioned before, seems to have been about unfettered aim at anti-American groups and targets. Air and missile strikes in Somalia, as well as clandestine operations, might be seen by Washington to be a great way to illuminate the shadowy pockets of Al Qaeda, but it motivates local populations to be even more anti-American (like Al Shabab) and fuels lawless profiteering (piracy). The Ethiopian incursion, which was supposedly requested by the parliament at that time, not only failed to stabilize the situation but led to a failure of government. Ethiopia’s occupation and then withdrawal (arguably more about U.S. anti-terror operations than nation-building) ended with another vacuum of power and the loss of government, not preservation…which brings us back to today’s question.

The U.S. military strategy in the Horn has failed, Ethiopia’s invasion failed, Kenya is unlikely to want to take on unilateral action and an even greater refugee situation, and I can not see Djibouti officially involved in anything (although it is quietly involved in everything related to French policy in Africa). The African Union (AU) mission in Somalia, however, seems to have been successful enough for the United Nations to call it sufficient. This is something the Somali government should not dismiss lightly. A call for greater AU involvement would make the most sense for defending the country’s government. Perhaps the reason for calling upon neighbors for invasion instead of increased AU presence is related to regional politics. A test of the AU is whether it can navigate through Eritrea’s influence on the Horn. Nonetheless, given U.S. and Ethiopian examples, the AU seems like the best option at this point to help stabilize the city and state.

History, Poetry

Three Riddles

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by Jonathan Swift

In Youth exalted high in Air,
Or bathing in the Waters fair;
Nature to form me took Delight,
And clad my Body all in White:
My Person tall, and slender Waste,
On either Side with Fringes grac’d;
Till me that Tyrant Man espy’d,
And drag’d me from my Mother’s side:
No Wonder now I look so thin;
The Tyrant strip’t me to the Skin:
My Skin he flay’d, my Hair he cropt;
At Head and Foot my Body lopt:
And then, with Heart more hard than Stone,
He pick’t my Marrow from the Bone.
To vex me more, he took a Freak,
To slit my Tongue, and made me speak:
But, that which wonderful appears,
I speak to Eyes and not to Ears.
He oft employs me in Disguise,
And makes me tell a Thousand Lyes:
To me he chiefly gives in Trust
To please his Malice, or his Lust.
From me no Secret he can hide;
I see his Vanity and Pride:
And my Delight is to expose
His Follies to his greatest Foes.

All languages I can command,
Yet not a Word I understand.
Without my Aid, the best Divine
In Learning would not know a Line:
The Lawyer must forget his Pleading,
The Scholar could not shew his Reading.
Nay; Man, my Master, is my Slave:
I give Command to kill or save.
Can grant ten Thousand Pounds a Year,
And make a Beggar’s Brat a Peer.

But, while I thus my Life relate,
I only hasten on my Fate.
My Tongue is black, my Mouth is furr’d,
I hardly now can force a Word.
I dye unpity’d and forgot;
And on some Dunghill left to rot.

The “slit tongue” reference might seem odd today, but it comes from an ancient theory about making some birds “talk” as explained by John Marzluff and Tony Angell in the book “In the Company of Crows and Ravens”:

Security

BaaCode for Icebreaker Clothing

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Icebreaker is a company that makes wool clothing. They provide a page where you can enter a code from your clothing to find out all kinds of information about its “source”:

Your unique Baacode will let you see the living conditions of the high country sheep that produced the merino fibre in your Icebreaker garment, meet the farmers who are custodians of this astonishing landscape, and follow every step of the supply chain. We’re sure you’ll find the experience as inspiring as we do. Enjoy your journey back to the source.

“Traceability” seems like a really good way to get a handle on the information that has to be displayed on packaging like sulfur, or nuts, or types of sweeteners. The use in garments is nice too, but seems more like a novelty than a necessity.

I wonder if anyone has invented a device that could scan a barcode, identify the product and then immediately advise whether the contents and/or source is suitable for purchase. That could save shoppers significant time/effort and help drive change in the market.

On the flip side, I wonder if Icebreaker monitors who checks their BaaCode and from where.

The demo code they offer for testing is 213C3F390 and the URL seems to support automated/scripted testing, like this:

https://www.icebreaker.com/site/baacode/trace.html?language=en&baacode=213C3F390

How long before someone runs every alphanumeric and downloads their database? Maybe there’s no threat. I mean what could anyone do with a database of wool fiber supply chain information? Could suppliers use it to reveal competitive info and set prices?

Energy, Food, Security

Degrading Plastic

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A story from last year’s TheRecord.com explains that plastic can now be degraded by natural microbes at an impressive rate. The solution? A high school student figured out he should isolate the most productive strains by testing them on plastic bags.

He knew plastic does eventually degrade, and figured microorganisms must be behind it. His goal was to isolate the microorganisms that can break down plastic — not an easy task because they don’t exist in high numbers in nature.

First, he ground plastic bags into a powder. Next, he used ordinary household chemicals, yeast and tap water to create a solution that would encourage microbe growth. To that, he added the plastic powder and dirt. Then the solution sat in a shaker at 30 degrees.

After three months of upping the concentration of plastic-eating microbes, Burd filtered out the remaining plastic powder and put his bacterial culture into three flasks with strips of plastic cut from grocery bags. As a control, he also added plastic to flasks containing boiled and therefore dead bacterial culture.

Six weeks later, he weighed the strips of plastic. The control strips were the same. But the ones that had been in the live bacterial culture weighed an average of 17 per cent less.

That wasn’t good enough for Burd. To identify the bacteria in his culture, he let them grow on agar plates and found he had four types of microbes. He tested those on more plastic strips and found only the second was capable of significant plastic degradation.

Next, Burd tried mixing his most effective strain with the others. He found strains one and two together produced a 32 per cent weight loss in his plastic strips. His theory is strain one helps strain two reproduce.

The risk of plastic now has to be recalculated.