If we really had any brains, we wouldn't spend another second on you, but on the people who can truly make a difference: the "unlikely" voters.

Larry David appears in the HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

Are You Undecided? Or Not?

GOES satellite imagery is also used to estimate rainfall during the thunderstorms and hurricanes for flash flood warnings, as well as estimates snowfall accumulations and overall extent of snow cover. Such data help meteorologists issue winter storm warnings and spring snow melt advisories. Satellite sensors also detect ice fields and map the movements of sea and lake ice.

Geostationary Satellite Server

Finally! A map of everyone's favorite fictional berg, Springfield!

map of springfield

Paul Krugman's latest column opens with the recent death of an Arab TV journalist during an attack by US forces.

Isn't Krugman an economist?

Doctors recommend balancing your daily Krugman spintake with an equal and opposite dose of Stratforeality.

Krugman claims that with a larger troop deployment to Afghanistan in early 2002, we could have captured bin Laden. Not true; by then, he was already in Pakistan, and a million US troops across the border in Afghanistan wouldn't have netted bin Laden. In this, Krugman completely misses the point. He seems to think the US should demonstrate its true might by producing bin Laden's head on a platter for the world's conspicuous consumption. No -- that victory belongs to Pakistan now. For all the chatter about "listening to our allies", the Democrats seem quite insistent on dictating the global time table according to domestic priorities.

Krugman blames the insurgency on insufficient troop strength immediately following the invasion. Those troops could have curtailed the looting, but they would not have prevented the insurgency. He seems to forget that the insurgency is comprised of insurgents, and in general, eliminating the former requires eliminating the latter. The US does not need to double or triple its troop strength to eliminate the insurgents; currently deployed forces could retake Falluja this afternoon, if ordered. When Krugman refers to "the prospect of a casualty toll that would have hurt [Bush's] approval rating", he neglects to mention that the casualties in question are Iraqi, not American.

For a Kerry supporter, his arguments are rather lacking in nuance. Despite his criticism of Rumsfeld's New Way of War, Krugman and the like minded are still missing a critical point, and it is one that Rumsfeld himself keeps front and center. To parafuse Sherman and McNealy:

War is hell. Get over it.

Taking On the Myth

Bullet-point people traffic in the meaningless business-speak of the management consultant, language that eschews equally the nuance and hard numbers of reality.

Don't forget about process. Power pointers can't get enough of process. For them, a briefing about the process of creating a briefing would be quite exciting, even though some would surely fail to recognize the circularity of it all. Any attempt to describe it would be understood as a failure in process. "We'll just add a decision diamond ... here ... and ask, 'Is this briefing about itself?'"

It's like a pointer that contains its own address. That's the essence of a Power pointer.

When the 'Spreadsheet People' Go to Vote

There are two sorts of people in the information-age elite, spreadsheet people and paragraph people.

This is cute, but not particularly rigorous. It's really a set-up for the letters that would surely follow -- and they did.

As expected, the spreadsheet people rush in to nitpick the column, pointing out problems with the data, citing counterexamples, and more. By comparison, the paragraph people argue that the framework itself is flawed, or that blue is really red.

Ruling Class War

Safer, more family-friendly, environmentally conscious and orderly, Black Rock City has evolved into a lovely place to live.

The Taming of the Burn

70 percent of women who think Mr. Bush is more likeable than their husbands prefer John Kerry.

The Latest Poll

What is here? With some caveats, most major, many minor, and some obscure books dealing in some fashion with intelligence matters are listed. As often as possible, these are accompanied by comments or reviews.

The Literature of Intelligence

Now perhaps, as many of us return from summer vacations, we can temper their sadness by remembering that work is often more bearable when we don't, in addition to money, expect it always to deliver happiness.

Workers of the World, Relax