So, how's the new look? Personally, I'm wondering why I didn't think of it sooner. I like how it combines cool colors with a simplified layout design. It's� still a table, only now I only use on image. Mach gave my design, and my new banner ad, his seal of approval. And to think that I ginned all this up in the span of about four hours. Sometimes I have to wonder when my own creative streaks occur, like how I get to that point.

Last night, or rather, this morning, our high-speed friend and I got into a debate over a scene in the movie Resident Evil. It was when the Umbrella Para-military troops were making their way through a corridor to the Red Queen's computer room. The hallway has a self-defense system that incorporates lasers. The team didn't have information that a security was there, or that one might exist, so they all went in at one time. One teammate was killed when a laser beam decapitated one member, and cut off the fingers of another. The laser stuck again, killing one man, but the fourth, and final one, dodged the beam, even though it changed it's height to try to strike him. On the next pass, though, it turned into an unavoidable cross-hatch beam, and, needless to say, the guy was cut into tiny bits.

That's the background. Now to the debate. Mach was saying that that scene was stupid because "if they could do it, why didn't it do it the first time around." I took this question and basically explained it to him this way. First off, computers, even with high-grade A.I. programming, are not omnipotent. That's your first clue. The next, and best, clue is to look at it from a military standpoint. Your team arrives at a corridor that leads to a room that, if the wrong people were let loose in, could cause catastrophic damage to the network and the compound. Furthermore, your intelligence doesn't say that there's a defense system there, but at the same time it doesn't say that there's not one. What do you do? Standard military technique is to send in a scout to act as bait. If the scout gets eviscerated by that cross-hatch attack, as opposed to a single laser beam come up from behind him, then the rest of the team is going to look for another way around. Basically, it comes down to a game of bait and switch. You dangle that carrot out in the form of a weak, yet dangerous and seemingly exploitable, security system. When they come to bite, that's when you spring the trap.

Mach, of course, saw the logic of my thesis. It really boils down to bad Intel killing soldiers needlessly, which happens all the time. Bad intelligence got 3,000 of our own people killed on 9/11/01, and bad intelligence will get us again in the future. To be fair to the CIA., they were largely handcuffed due to a little rule called the Toricelli Principle, which was enacted by Clinton shortly into his first term in office. The Toricelli Principle states that the CIA can't pay informants for information they may provide if said informer has ANY human-rights violation. Now, let's think about this here. Where do you think police agencies get all the info about a huge drug warehouse? Sometimes it's from good detective work, but they mainly get their information from...are you ready?....Informants! Snitches who are criminals themselves, looking to clean their records or cut a plea-bargain with the D.A. People who are drug dealers, murderers, hit men, thugs, hoods, what ever you call them. People who are not saints. Of course, the Toricelli Principle does have a cheap bypass. They can still pay the informant if they have the approval of the CIA director. This wouldn't be so bad....if the Director of Central Intelligence wasn't a political appointee: Someone who owes more to the current President than the office. someone who, more than likely, has absolutely no idea how the Great Game is played.� In the end, you have Station Chiefs who don't want to tell Washington "Hey, we have a guy here who can pinpoint Osama. He's killed one person in his lifetime, though. Can we pay him?"�

And why is that? Because politicians leak worse than a 70-year-old wooden dam. They leak stuff to the press so that people will think that they're important. Then, when Osama's spies read the Washington Times, which runs a front-page story on it, sees this article, notices how detailed the report is, and tells Osama to bolt. Or worse, knows who the agent is, and haves him executed. Remember, over there there is no such thing as 'Innocent until proven guilty'. If they suspect, just have a hint of suspicion, that you're behind such a betrayal, you, your family, and your extended family become ground fertilizer. There is no such things as an appeal, except maybe to Allah in hopes that he won't send you to hell. The point is this: When you cripple your intelligence-gathering apparatus, you won't see it coming. In fact, to a degree, I really wasn't surprised about what happened to us on Sept. 11th. I'm not saying that we deserved it, but I've been following military affairs and intelligence affairs for a bit, long before the year 2001. Sun-Tsu, an ancient Chinese general, wrote a book called The Art of Warfare, which is an amazing piece when you consider that it was written over 1,000 years ago and still has a wide range of valuable lessons that can readily be applied to the army of today. I can't remember the exact quote, but he wrote something like 'Intelligence is the eyes and ear of an army; without it, an army cannot fight.' which is very true. Want a good example? All along the East Coast, there's a flight of military fighter planes that are supposed to be on a fifteen-minute's notice to respond to ANY airborne threat. Didn't really help us much now, did it?

Every time I hear a story about a U.S. solider being ambushed, all I can think to myself is now is this quote from Resident Evil:

"Don't worry. Those lights are automated and activate to your presence. The computer room is straight ahead."

"Stop raping me with your words." - Harland Williams on the Conan O'Brien Show aired 3/29/02

"It's the only way it'd happen." - Conan's resposne.