WhirledView

The FBI Database Continued Yet Again

by CKR

The Washington Post and the federal government are saving bandwidth for us (or something) by recycling this story.

The problem was clear in January of last year. The Washington Post caught on a month later. And then a reprise in June. Today the Washington Post reports it again.

It's basically the problems I surmised in my first post. Government agency decides it needs something so special that it has to be built from scratch, no off-the-shelf modifications for them. Nobody else ever thought such wonderful thoughts. And besides, it's easier to deal with our usual contractors, even if they have no experience in this area.

It's easier to deal with the usual contractors because they're properly respectful, don't spit their coffee across the table when you make a particularly stupid request or demand that it be done your way, cost be damned. Actually, they don't usually say cost be damned, because it's a cost-plus contract and all parties know that it will be paid, whatever. And this was to fight the War on Terror.

This seems to have been the "hook" for today's WaPo story:

The Aerospace Corp., a federally funded research-and-development firm in El Segundo, Calif., was hired for $2 million in June 2004 to review the program and come up with a "corrective action plan."

The conclusion: SAIC had so badly bungled the project that it should be abandoned.

In a 318-page report, completed in January 2005 and obtained by The Post under the Freedom of Information Act, Aerospace said the SAIC software was incomplete, inadequate and so poorly designed that it would be essentially unusable under real-world conditions. Even in rudimentary tests, the system did not comply with basic requirements, the report said. It did not include network-management or archiving systems -- a failing that would put crucial law enforcement and national security data at risk, according to the report.

"From the documents that define the system at the highest level, down through the software design and into the source code itself, Aerospace discovered evidence of incompleteness, lack of follow-through, failure to optimize and missing documentation," the report said.

The solution appears to have been to hire, not Google, but the well-known software and database geniuses at Lockheed Martin for a redo. (What! You thought Lockheed Martin was an aircraft, er, environmental, er, munitions company?)

In a follow-up to its reviews, Fine's office warned in March that the FBI is at risk of repeating its mistakes with Sentinel because of management turnover and weak financial controls. But Azmi and other FBI officials say Sentinel is designed to be everything VCF was not, with specific requirements, regular milestones and aggressive oversight.

The article doesn't tell us what the delivery date is. Meanwhile, FBI agents keep their notes on loose paper and send hard-copy or cd versions of suspect photos from one office to another by express delivery.

What’s wrong with English language summer camp?

By PHK

Come to think of it, what’s wrong with English language summer camp – Karen Hughes’ most recent brainchild that she talked about with G. Dallas Hillman, a reporter from the Dallas Morning News earlier this month?

I tend to agree with Heather Hulburt’s reaction in Democracy Arsenal to Hughes’ latest off-the-top-of-her-head proposal that "it would actually be a cheap shot to contrast that proposal with the depth of disaster that is our Middle East policy. But I can't resist it.”

It seems to me, however, there’s nothing wrong with helping foreigners learn English and I don’t think Heather would disagree. So why not at summer camp? I was a summer camp junkie: music and drama camps when I was in grade and high school and an intensive six-week French summer program where I learned more French than I had in a year at college. Sure beat staying home. Not all that long ago my son went to Russian language summer camp before he went to Russia’s “Red Belt” for a college semester abroad. The summer camp money was well spent because immersion in another language and culture is known to be the most effective and efficient way to learn a foreign language. Certainly helped him get into graduate school, a paid internship and land his first real job.

Summer camps are not cheap

But believe me, summer camp is usually not cheap – and camps that specialize in teaching academic and performance skills are particularly costly. There are ways around the expense problem – unless, of course, it’s not a problem to begin with because money’s no object. This would be the case only if Karen could persuade W, Cheney and the rest of the cabal to stop embarking upon or supporting exorbitant military adventures abroad and to put a fraction of the money saved into foreign language training – whether summer camps or not - at home and abroad. If this administration too would just ask our own English language teaching specialists – some of whom have retired or morphed into something else – for practical advice, it might be fruitful.

So What Are These Liquid Explosives?

by CKR

My curiosity is piqued. I hadn’t paid much attention to this business of liquid explosives until last week. Nitroglycerin, yes, is an explosive liquid. But which are the exciting compounds are that are odorless and inert by themselves and detonate when mixed?

After googling a few pages of links to uninformative news stories, QandO reminds me of GlobalSecurity.org, who list some liquid and sort-of-liquid explosives, although the article lapses back into a discussion of cartridged explosives, which are solid or at least pasty or gels. None of these liquids or mixtures, however, fit the sensational news descriptions of inert compounds that magically detonate when mixed.
Nitroglycerin. Very sensitive. Already said that.
Astrolite, a mixture of ammonium nitrate and anhydrous hydrazine
Nitromethane with a sensitizer
Kinepak, a mixture of ammonium nitrate and nitromethane
Binex, a mixture of a sodium perchlorate solution and aluminum powder.

Night Birds and Planets

by CKR

I commented a while back that I’m hearing robins and towhees at night. The Summer 2006 Birdscope from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology told me why. Mark Miller, a biologist in Florida, noticed this behavior too, and checked it out.

He found that robins are singing more at night, in response to streetlights and other bright lights that are on all night and published his findings in The Condor. There's a bright streetlight just down the hill from me.

It’s nice to have a question answered that way. Science asks questions and comes up with provisional answers, the questions sometimes going unanswered and the answers sometimes incomplete or even wrong. That’s why I am irritated by “what we learned in school was wrong” in stories like this one about the International Astronomical Union’s current deliberations about the definition of a planet.

Tuesday Yard Blogging

by CKR

I went to the farmers' market this morning and then checked out a garden store I've been wondering about. On the way to the store is a place where guys park with bales of hay, big rocks for your yard, sticks for coyote fences, and...agaves.

I have wanted an agave in my yard forever, but my previous house had no warm sunny but winter-protected corner for one. This one does, I realized just this summer. So I have had my eyes open for an agave. The local native plant store was the best candidate, but the ground is wet with the two inches of rain we've had this week, and there they were, waiting for me. The one I selected had lots of roots that the guy selling it told me to prune, which I did. It also had three woody plants mixed in at the roots. I planted them nearby. They looked pretty exhausted, but what the heck. The photo above is of the agave in its new home.

Lots of things are beginning to sprout since the monsoon started. This is probably a sunflower, and it's probably too late for it to do much, but we'll see. Because I planted native flower and grass seeds a while back, it's hard to tell if some of these flowers are natural or my doing. Whatever, they're welcome. I suspect the next one came from the seed packet; hardly ever see them around here, a coneflower of some sort.

From Indian Nuclear Scientists

by CKR

Well, Jeffrey beat me to it. He's published the Appeal to Parliamentarians on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, signed by a number of high-ranking Indian nuclear scientists. Obviously we're on some of the same e-mailing lists.

The appeal was published in The Hindu and The Deccan Chronicle.

As I've said before, I am not good at judging Indian politics. I do recommend reading this appeal, though, because it is quite typical of commentary coming from one part of the Indian establishment. I've read it before. I'll remind you that The Hindu is India's major newspaper.

Even though the amendments to the agreement in the House version are minor and very likely meaningless, this group finds them an affront to Indian sovereignty and an impediment to India's nuclear research.

They stop short of asking the Indian Parliament to reject the deal, however. The US Senate still must approve its bill, and a conference committee will have to be convened. What can happen in the meanwhile is that lobbyists for the Indo-administration point of view will be trying to change minds. India must be unfettered in its quest for a larger nuclear arsenal!

More on Liquid Explosives

by CKR

We’re getting lots of hits from The Next Hurrah and from Google searches on various aspects of liquid explosives. Welcome to the newcomers—check out WhirledView! Backtracking those searches, I find that there is relatively little useful discussion on the Web about what might have been used in that foiled plot.

So I’ll summarize my somewhat cranky previous post and add some things, along with tentative conclusions.

It appears that no materials have been found that the plotters might have used in attacks on airplanes. Over the weekend, Brian Ross reported this, and Secretary Michael Chertoff evaded questions in a way that was consistent with this. However, it might be prudent at this time not to be forthcoming about what has been found. I don’t understand British law well, but I know that they require that much less be said about pending court cases than we do in the US, so that alone could be a reason for not saying much on this subject.

As to the explosives that might be used, I have to admit that I hadn’t paid much attention to TATP (triacetone triperoxide) until a year or so ago, so most of what I know is from the internet. I can make some guesses about its preparation and properties, though, because chemistry does work the same in the United States and Britain, and in in jetliners over the Atlantic.

The news reports are not at all consistent. So let’s start with Wikipedia. Nothing in the article looks obviously incorrect to me.

Why should the MSM fork over thousands for a one day trip with W?

By PHK

Peter Baker’s article in the WaPo on the MSM’s reluctance to send reporters along on W’s trips speaks volumes. It may well simply mean that times have changed – and that as Tony Snow, W’s new spokesman, has pointed out “it’s all about money” and the news agencies are no longer willing to foot the bill.

Since Baker reports that the WaPo was charged $3,317 to send a reporter along with W on a one day trip to St. Louis and $3,795 to Yuma, Arizona can you blame the MSM for thinking twice before forking over the cash for any more travels with W? Oh, yes, a two day trip to Europe cost the WaPo $8,283 excluding hotel.

Whether the administration’s goal of charging these inflated prices is to reduce W’s media exposure given his continued low poll ratings (33% approval in the latest AP/IPSOS poll) and propensity to put his foot in his mouth whenever he opens it or whether it simply reflects the costs of putting on an extra plane when fewer and fewer media outlets are willing to share the bill to cover the every word of our erstwhile commander-in-chief remains to be seen.

Did W have anything new to say this week except for usurping the neocon phrase “Islamofascist” in his never ending quest for adulation from the Christian Evangelicals salivating for the second coming?

So why should the MSM devote resources to covering his every word? They’re not worth it. Far cheaper to assign a stringer on site and otherwise rely on the White House website for the statements the administration intends for public consumption anyway.

Is this a dereliction of duty on the part of the MSM? Another example of W’s lapdog press? Or is the MSM getting wise and figuring that in the waning days of this administration, covering W’s every utterance is just not worth the cost.

The lack of panting reporters at W’s heels, of course, plays into this country’s most secretive administration on record. Pepper Cheney, W’s second in command has –according to Baker – left Washington for weeks at a time with no public notice. Witness his quail-shooting episode last February in Texas. The Washington media had no idea where he was.

Interesting that Pepper’s about to come our way for a fundraiser this coming week: sure wouldn’t know it from the coverage – or lack of – in the local press. Tells you something about the mood in this state – except among the high rollers – that Cheney’s fundraising trip – presumably to help finance the reelection of our righter-than-Attila Congresswoman Heather Wilson in her battle against New Mexico Attorney General Patsy Madrid - is being kept under close raps.

Oh, but I did hear on our local PBS station on Thursday that UN Secretary General Kofi Anan will soon be here for a dinner with Governor Bill Richardson and other New Mexico notables at the governor’s mansion in Santa Fe. I’ll bet Anan can’t wait for a much deserved respite from the UN these past few weeks.

Since he knew Richardson when the latter was US Ambassador to the UN, New Mexican hospitality including the choice between ‘red or green’ (this relates to the color of the chili peppers not anyone’s political persuasion) – should come as a welcome relief after dealing with Bolton and the inanity of a neocon driven US foreign policy that held up passage of a realistic UN resolution for weeks that otherwise might have brought the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to a far earlier, far less devastating and costly close.