Sun Tzu

“If the Taliban was trying to play on unease among Afghans and Western governments about the ability of the police and army to safeguard the country, they chose the right target and time.”

If the Taliban want to prolong a ground war with allied forces, they’re doing exactly the right thing! What better way to jeopardize troop reductions than by conducting assaults on high-profile targets and boasting about their strength over the Internet. If they really want to win control of the region, I think they’d be better off laying-low and keeping us misinformed. I mean, why not have us believe their supreme leader is dead. It would bolster the illusion that Afghan forces are ready to safeguard the country and keep troop withdrawals on-schedule. In due time they’d be left with a weaker adversary who they stand a better chance of defeating. Maybe then they can put down their guns and pick up some kind of responsible position in government. However, the way they’re acting now leads me to believe they really don’t want this war to end.

Decline of western civilization

There is a relationship between higher education ~> the location of high-tech industry ~> income levels ~> economic progress ~> tax revenue ~> state debt ~> S&P rating ~> consumer interest ~> upward mobility and standard of living . However, if Sacramento is trying to fight immigration by compromising it’s colleges and universities, which reduces the standard of living and creates greater competition for low-wage jobs .. they’re succeeding!

agents of expression

Most children learn to speak and understand what’s said effortlessly. It’s a spontaneous process that doesn’t require classroom training. The brain is innately tuned to extract the rules of spoken language. Observations show that parents rarely correct for rules of grammar during early childhood. However, they frequently correct for the rules of semantics ..making sure their children convey the proper idea [link]. That’s why it’s interesting for me to see that, while children may discover the correct rules of grammar on their own ..by adolescence they’re playing pretty loose with the rules of semantics they’d been taught. In other words, they frequently use well-formed sentences to fabricate and misrepresent what’s going down.

false memories

I have a confession to make. I’m just as guilty of self-delusion as the next (link). The other day someone asked me if I had been ‘surprised’ by the dot com crash of 2001. I was working in the computer industry back then and believed it was the ‘wave of the future’. So yeah, I was surprised. However, that’s not what I told him. I told him no, I wasn’t surprised ..and went on to explain how I had seen it coming. “Companies weren’t ready to abandon their way of doing business for the promise of e-commerce” I said “..even our own clients were backing away from some of the ambitious shit we were proposing.” Funny thing is, I wasn’t lying ..not intentionally anyway. That’s actually how I remember it. On closer inspection it’s clear to me what’s happening. I had replaced memories of what I was thinking before the crash with my accounts of it afterwards ..creating the illusion that I had seen it coming. What’s more, now that I think about it ..another fucked-up consequence of underestimating the surprise I felt was how it had kept me from recognizing warning signs of the next ‘big thing’ ..which was real estate before the market crash of 2007.

coastal zone

Julie tells me about a concert series playing Thursdays at Chase Palm Park. I feel confident I know where that is ..but she tells me I’m wrong. Now I’m standing where I thought it was ..and I know I’m wrong. This is Rainbow Park. A lifeguard explains that Chase Palm Park follows the shore and ends at the wharf. Somewhere in-between, it juts inland where there’s a small amphitheater. “You outta’ go see a show ..” he says “..they’re pretty cool.” “You gonna’ go..?” I ask. “Oh yeah!” Down by the water, I’m tracking a low flying pelican until I see it veer off just in time to avoid beaning a kid sitting in the surf. From that close, it looks like a small VW. The kid doesn’t seem to notice but his mother looks pretty shaken. Now I’m close enough to where I can tell her not to worry “..they’ve got sonar” I say. She goes “Whut ..?”  I tell her they got powers of  rapid navigation.  She goes “Oh ..” but doesn't sound too convinced.