WhirledView

Linky Sunday

by CKR

As my yummy-smelling Bulgarian chicken stew finishes cooking and a bunch of birds flit around outside in the rain, I'll write up some followups and otherwise fascinating links.

Followups
The Los Angeles Transit Authority is mulling what to do about that mercury spill that went unnoticed by their personnel, despite the perpetrator's calling it in. More people, more security, more inconvenience. Might as well go the way of the airlines.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad's speech at the Munich security conference didn't trumpet any great enrichment breakthroughs, not the 3000 spinning centrifuges, or even the 328 that were predicted. Ali Larijani decided that Vladimir Putin was too hard an act to follow (particularly with no new enrichment news) and called his speech off. (Earlier WV post, Putin's speech, and his interview with Al-Jazeera, WaPo, Guardian. H/t to Russian Patriot for the transcripts.)

The six-party talks with North Korea were extended one day. That wouldn't happen if the participants didn't think progress was being made, even if the Washington Post spins things negatively.

More Iran
The annotated NIE

Iran's reformists: please, US, tone it down.

Cernig at NewsHog is trying to find out where those IEDs with explosively-formed-projectile shells really come from. Several good posts developing. I'll note that there is nothing extraordinary about the technology in these shells, which has been around for at least twenty years.

Other Stuff
A road map out of Iraq. More Zbig Brzezinski.

Glenn Greenwald on the New York Times's latest foray into administration stenography, and, more generally, on why the media do this kind of thing. Did you know that Terry Moran looks at Instapundit first when checking the blogs?

Link roundup from Andrew Foland including many more that I haven't included here and a comment from me. BTW, Andrew, good comment on the physicists. There's a lot more that can be said about that...more posts...oh dear

There. Now to go eat my Sunday dinner. And maybe later to write all those posts perking in my head.

Can the US trade imbalance be righted?

By PHK

I hadn’t thought much about world trade for some time. I know the balance of trade between the US and China is, well, heavily imbalanced in China’s favor and that the balance between US exports and imports worldwide annually is heavier in the second category by about an estimated $.84 trillion.*

Before I moved to New Mexico in 1998, I was surprised to learn that many of the state’s exports were destined for Asia. Of these, a large percentage were computer chips being shipped from a major Intel plant just north of Albuquerque to computer assembly plants on the Pacific Ocean’s west rim. Many of the chips were then and still are imported back into the US as parts of finished or partially finished products.

When I was cultural affairs officer at the US Embassy in Manila between 1992 and 1994 international trade, not national security, was the name of our foreign policy game. So I learned a lot about ASEAN and APEC and various other pieces of the complex US-Asian trade relationship –one that very much included the Philippines.

At the time, the US Embassy’s Commercial Office’s library and resource center was located in Makati - Manila’s major business district – in the same building as the much larger and now defunct USIS Thomas Jefferson Cultural Center and Library which, as Cultural Affairs Officer, I oversaw. We worked with our US and Foreign Commercial Service colleagues whenever possible. This included pooling – and not duplicating - library resources. USIS also backstopped the US Foreign Agricultural Service and its trade shows that promoted the sales of American agricultural products to Filipino companies.

As a result, I discovered a fair amount about how our Commercial and Agricultural Attaches and their Filipino staffs operated. I also learned the basics of US trade policy – although I confess I never was – and never will come close to being expert.

New Mexico’s Trade with Asia and more

When I had the opportunity to attend an Albuquerque International Club lunch last week which featured a speech on New Mexico’s trade with Asia by Mathew D. Woodlee, New Mexico’s International Trade Office Director, I went – in part because Asia fascinates me - but also as a respite from the deadening drumbeat of depressing news from the Middle East and the Bush administration’s failed foreign policies there.

What did I learn? A lot: some of it upbeat, some of it not - and it didn’t only pertain to New Mexico.

95 percent of the world’s consumers live outside the US and this – for those who care in Washington and elsewhere throughout our fifty states – should mean tremendous global export and trade opportunities for American firms. Further the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has a combined population equivalent to that of the US (about 300 million) and these countries have large – and growing per capita purchasing power (ppp). And ASEAN doesn’t include Japan, South Korea, or China.

Red Team

by CKR

Just adding my two cents to the latest about cooked intelligence from "the f***ing dumbest guy on the face of the earth." (NYT, WaPo)

The concern in the Vice President's Office and the Defense Department, the accounts say, was that CIA's intelligence had been wrong about Iraq's nuclear program before the first Gulf war. They don't mention that Feith and his mentors had been part of the "Red Team" that identified the Soviet Union as an increasing military threat just before it dissolved.

Speaking of faulty intelligence.

India Goes to Iran

by CKR

The Indian Foreign Minister has been in Iran to talk about nuclear and other issues. Pranab Mukherjee spoke with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Expediency Council Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Foreign Minister Manaouchehr Mottaki, and Ali Larijani, who has been Iran’s primary international nuclear negotiator. The visit was partly in preparation for an upcoming visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Iran.

Mottaki publicly said nothing new with respect to his country’s nuclear energy program. He was noncommittal about the progress, or lack thereof, on installing centrifuges. The requirement for Iran to stop enrichment before talks with the United States can begin is still unacceptable. Mukherjee said “We believe that the Iranian nuclear problem should be resolved peacefully and through negotiations,” as he said before the trip. He also encouraged Iran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. Iran has recently barred 38 of those inspectors from its nuclear facilities.

American international travelers beware: Don’t buy that ticket until your passport’s in hand - Updated 3/14/07, 3/30/07 and 4/12/07

By PHK

Note: Please see WV's "The Erratic State of US Passport Issuance: What works and what doesn't," May 16, 2007 for a summary of the actions available to American citizens needing US passports for overseas travel. Please note: we will accept no additional comments on this post as of May 16, 2007 - but comments on the more recent "The Erratic State of US Passport Issuance" are welcome.

On January 23, 2007 the U.S. started requiring passports for air travel to and from Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean as a result of a 2004 law passed by Congress upon the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission. By January 1, 2008, passports will also be required for travel to and from the US by land or sea. The number of American passport applications is likely to rise between four and six million just during 2007 as a result of the new law.

Since I have a valid passport, I never thought about the problems of having to jump over this latest bureaucratic foreign travel hurdle – that is until I received an e-mail from someone who had applied for an expedited US passport over three weeks ago and discovered this week that it had not been issued. Only after calling the Department’s help-line (1-877-487-2778) did he learn that it now “takes three weeks for the (passport) application to arrive in the mail – and be logged in.” And then what? State already charges an additional $60 for expedited service which is supposed to reduce the applicant’s wait time to two weeks from the normal six.

So when does expedited service kick in? And how long does it really take from start to finish? And what about the applicant who did not fork over the additional $60 for what should be normal service and thought that State’s leisurely six weeks processing time from start to finish would work for him – or her? How many months does that now take?

Meanwhile, my friend reported that he had checked the State Department’s website – but he found no warning to expect passport issuance delay. I just double checked it myself before this posting and found nothing either that even hints at the possibity.

In fact, State’s November 2006 press release announcing the program's January start date suggests the contrary.

Here is the relevant text: “The Department has dedicated additional resources and personnel to meet the increased demand for passports generated by these requirements. In Fiscal Year 2006, the Department issued a record 12.1 million passports to American citizens, and anticipates issuing 16 million passports in Fiscal Year 2007. U.S. citizens can find information about how to apply for a passport at travel.state.gov or by calling 1-877-487-2778."

It’s quite clear, however, that something is wrong with this announcement.

Two recent New York Times articles – contrary to State’s claims that it was ready to handle the expected surge in applications and is “meeting the unprecedented demand for American passports” – suggest that the State announcement is just wrong. The January 22 article "Tighter Passport Rules for U.S. Citizens Start Tuesday" is in its restricted section.

But this one by Jane Levere is not. In it she reported major snafus with the Department’s handling of the American citizen pay-for-fee passport service in a January 23, 2007 article. This was the day the new law took effect. American business travelers, she wrote, after interviewing the executive director of the National Business Travel Association and an executive with CIBT, one of the largest US passport and foreign visa expediters, are particularly hard hit.

Since the State Department had over two years to prepare for the expected onslaught in volume, you would think that it would have geared up sufficiently to meet the increased demand and that it also would have announced the start date far earlier.

In the same NYT article, Levere quotes Deputy Assistant Secretary for Passport Services Frank Moss. He told her that in 2005, State added 250 more “adjudicators who approve and process the applications and more contract workers – and that it has expanded hours at some of the regional passport processing centers.”

Guess that was an underestimate of what is needed.

But that’s been a problem with the State Department for years: too many requirements and too little staff to do the job well and on time. Or maybe I’ve got it wrong and State’s passport issuance system is working as efficiently as its website promises. Readers’ experiences – pro and con – are welcome.

Wednesday Cold Weather Blogging

by CKR

I spent most of the last week under that bubble of Arctic air that’s keeping things cold from the northern plains to the northeast. Minus fourteen it was when I got in the rental car Sunday morning to leave. I had been worried, but the car started. Then I realized that driving two hours on Sunday morning before the sun came up in that kind of cold could be life-threatening. There was more traffic than I expected, so someone would have come to my rescue if necessary, but I was glad to turn the rental car in at the warm airport.

As I was driving, I could see snow coming down while the stars were visible. I saw something similar during snow-shoveling bouts here: perfectly clear blue skies with tiny flakes emerging. Here’s an explanation from a meterologist.

As I drove, it didn’t seem to be blowing snow; it was definitely coming down rather than across. The clouds above were very thin. I’ve seen snow from a blue sky here in New Mexico many times. I’ve also seen tiny clouds turn themselves inside out in a small snow shower. I’ve wondered if sometimes, too, the snow doesn’t condense just from moist but not cloudy air.

Roadrunner Report: My neighbor fed the roadrunner while I was away. (Thank you, Jim!) There was a little suet left in the plate, which I take to mean that the roadrunner was still coming for food. I got a glimpse of her the day before I left.

The temperature has been in the fifties the past couple of days (apologies to those under that Arctic bubble!), and higher temperatures seem to mean fewer roadrunner sightings. But before I left and since I’ve been home, I hear a continuing series of coos throughout the day. This may mean that the roadrunner is a male and is trying to coax females into his territory. He may be singing the praises of that suet.

It’s not too early for pairing-up to start around here. I’ve been told that the aerobatics I see crows flying is part of their negotiations.

Warning: Congress Likes Old-Fashioned Squiggles of Authenticity

By PLS

Nearly 75% of Americans have internet access, according to the latest surveys, and demand for rapid broadband service is increasing faster than demand for dial up access. Americans use thier computer-based connection to the world wide web for entertainment, information, communications and commercial transactions. Yet Congress prefers constituent snail mail to email.

But wait! The retrograde factor gets worse.

Are you planning to get in touch with your Congressperson or Senator? Read on, after taking a look at the scribble to the left. How long did the deciphering take? I’m the one who dashed it off and I can hardly read it. But ghastly calligraphy isn’t the only problem. I wrote this “letter” as quickly as I could, without thinking—or trying not to, since not thinking isn’t my default mode. I was trying to write from the gut or the heart or whatever the inner organ of authenticity is. You see, I've discovered that our representatives in Washington take notice mostly when you give them guts gushing out on paper. The cruder the letter the more it's presumed to come from the heart—and the heartland. And should you take your education seriously, get a job, buy a computer, hook up to the net and try to think straight as you present your concerns, don't bother to write. Your thoughts won't impress the Congressional mind.

I learned alll this at a seminar held last month by the World Affairs Forum in Santa Fe. The guest speakers were a veteran lobbyist and a veteran Congressional staffer, whose identities I think I'd better protect. These two informants know how Washington works and how our representatives like their offices run. Our reps have their idiosyncracies, naturally, but both speakers reported a convergence in some areas, like how to treat mail flowing in from constituents.

So here’s the word from the experts: if you want staffers to read what you have to say and pass your message on to the boss, write in longhand and forget logic or reason. Be passionate. Spill your guts. Be warned that emailed messages won’t get much attention, even when you’ve composed every word yourself. And if you’re signing on to a mass lobbying effort from a favorite organization, however it’s sent, you might as well not bother.

I sympathize with a staffer’s impulse to delete thousands of identical messages from his/her Congressperson’s email in-box. (Though noting the number of such incoming items might be worthwhile.) However, considering the effort scrawl-reading requires, how can anyone justify a preference for scribbled letters sent by an ever decreasing minority of the population? Those figures I referred to earlier, the ones indicating that nearly 3/4 of us are wired, are already three years out of date. By now an even larger percentage of Americans are using the internet to transmit and receive information.

Thinking about a Terrorist Manhattan Project

by CKR

I've expressed doubts before about the ability of terrorists to produce a nuclear bomb, but this weekend, as I read the second issue that Foreign Policy has continued to send me after my subscription lapsed, I realized the basis for believing that it's much harder than it seems in a thought experiment.

Specifically, I was reading the letters responding to Peter Zimmerman and Jeffrey Lewis's article, "The Bomb in the Backyard," and something clicked in my mind. My earlier criticism of that article almost touched on the issue that I think is central to developing these scenarios, but it wasn't entirely clear.

As the Manhattan Project constructed the gaseous diffusion plant at Oak Ridge and the plutonium-producing reactors at Hanford, it became clear that a place would be needed to bring everything together for the bomb. J. Robert Oppenheimer, a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, was chosen to lead the effort. He chose Los Alamos, on the Pajarito Plateau of northern New Mexico. He had been leading a calculational effort to determine critical masses and other requirements for the bomb, the dozen or two participants scattered around the country. Now they would take the materials from Oak Ridge and Hanford and form them into those calculated geometries to make their final product. It would take a few more experts, Oppenheimer figured, in metallurgy and electronics, just as Zimmerman and Lewis figure. When the Army asked how many to plan for, Oppenheimer estimated several dozens of men (most scientists were men back then) and their families. The final total was in the thousands.