TCS Daily : April 2001 Archives
'Ballistic Missile Defense Week' to Define Bush National Security Goals
This is BMD Week -- destined to become a defining week in Bush national security policy. For on Tuesday, the President addresses ballistic missile defense at the National Defense University. My commentary last week concluded that the Bush national security...
Read More
|
NASA Gets (Planned?) Lift from Tito's Launch, Too
Is it possible that Dennis Tito and NASA are secret allies? Tito, of course, is the California millionaire who has been trying for years to buy a ticket aboard a space ship - any space ship. And NASA has...
Read More
|
A Tale of Two Earth Days
Earth Day is a time to challenge what is wrong and to celebrate what could be right with the planet we call home. Most of all, it is a time to learn -- a time to share a bounty of...
Read More
|
The Science and Politics of Climate
Another highly successful program of local measurements is called Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate (ATOC). It is the brainchild of Walter Munk at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. ATOC uses low-frequency underwater sound to measure ocean temperatures. A
Read More
|
Diversify with Tech's Leaders
Jack Welch, the retiring CEO of General Electric, may be the greatest corporate manager of all time. I'm not comparing him to inventors or entrepreneurs who created great things out of nothing, but as a manager who can run...
Read More
|
The Science and Politics of Climate
In the nineteen-sixties the fluid dynamicist Syukuro Manabe was running global climate models on the supercomputer at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton. Manabe began very early (before it became fashionable) to run models of climate with variab
Read More
|
A Well-Deserved Earth Day Toast
Raise a glass for the Earth! Festivities hailing the 31st Earth Day will fade too soon from our memories. But the Pacific Research Institute gives everyone something important to remember about our environment. Its annual Index of Leading Environmental...
Read More
|
Congress Plays Jeopardy with the Net's Next Tax Battle
Although most Americans don't realize it, the war over Internet taxation is nearly over and it's the taxpayers who are losing. As Congress rushes to address this contentious issue before the existing Internet tax moratorium expires in October, a...
Read More
|
Here Comes the Sun to Further Cloud Global Warming Theory
Here Comes the Sun to Further Cloud Global Warming Theory Debate on the causes of predicted global warming usually revolves around climate models scientists construct. But can those models account for all the variables the universe has to offer? Not...
Read More
|
Will X-33 Decision Boost U.S. From Air Superiority To Space Hegemony?
Maybe President Bush really meant what he said about changing the Pentagon. During the 2000 presidential campaign, he promised to "skip a generation" of military acquisition. Today, Washington is abuzz with rumors about old programs about to be skipped over,...
Read More
|
Now's the Time for Action on Defense
Consider this "A Call for Action," after a pause for preparation. Dramatic, hi-tech, and far-reaching reforms in national security must begin soon -- before the Bush Administration loses its momentum. Its First 100 Days pushed a startling - though...
Read More
|
Who's To Blame For Broadband Crisis? Wired Article Points To Bells
More and more Americans are starting to realize that the Internet revolution is being stopped dead in its tracks. The reason: a lack of fast broadband connections. According to Frank Rose, writing in the new issue of Wired, "Barely 5...
Read More
|
Illinois Firm Finds It Can 'Save the Bay' and Factories, Farmers and Towns, Too
In 1987, the governors of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania joined the Mayor of Washington, D.C., and the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to sign the Chesapeake Bay Agreement with the goal of reducing nutrient runoff in the Chesapeake waters
Read More
|
Tech Investing for College
How can you finance a college education for your rugrats? Doing the math for just one child can be fairly intimidating. And for those of you raising a whole tribe of young'uns, it gets downright scary. Tuition and fees...
Read More
|
Enviros' Search for Greens Will Take Them Somewhere Else
It's springtime in America, but for some safety, health, and environmental advocates, Washington looks anything but green. White House-ordered setbacks on allowable arsenic levels in drinking water, eased mining regulations on public lands, and abandoned CO2 emissi
Read More
|
Bells Block Broadband's Roll Out
"It's a common sense behavioral analysis principle that you don't reward somebody for bad behavior," EPIK Communications President John McClellan tells TechCentralStation host James Glassman. The CompTel board member says that proposals to let regional Bell operati
Read More
|
The Good and (Mostly) Bad News on EPA's Toxics Report
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's recently released 1999 Toxics Release Inventory report contains a lot of good news for those concerned about safety, health, and environmental quality, but some political pressure groups are already spinning the data to s
Read More
|
The Bush Budget
President Bush's first budget is impressive, reasonable, and utterly unsurprising - in other words, exactly what you would expect from listening to the compassionate-conservative themes of his campaign. If he were the right-wing ideologue many critics claim, he wou
Read More
|
China Loses, Taiwan Wins
Former CIA Director James Woolsey tells Defense Central that China "alienated a rather substantial share of the American Congress and the American people." U.S. should respond with "a very generous Taiwan arms-sale package." Defense Central: Did China leverage its
Read More
|
At 40th Anniversary Of Man In Space, Mankind Steps Back Rather Than Leaps Ahead
The 40th anniversary of man in space -- on April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, aboard Vostok I, made a single orbit around the earth -- reminds us of the many paradoxes of the space age. The dream...
Read More
|
What Now, After the Air Crew's Release?
Four key steps to reinforce the right tone of the whole Bush Administration toward the Chinese government: Appoint someone between George Patton and Ross Perot to the joint U.S.-China commission to investigate the incident. Don't appoint a State Department...
Read More
|
Warning, Congress! Look Before You Leap Into Internet Privacy Thicket
House Majority Leader Richard Armey this week provided some sound advice to his colleagues intent on passing privacy restrictions for the Internet - Let's look at government privacy practices first. Armey noted a litany of abuses by federal agencies, from...
Read More
|
To Revive The New Economy, Release A Chokehold - Break Up The Bells
When is being half right all wrong? When you correctly diagnose the condition but then provide a remedy that could kill the patient. Rep. Billy Tauzin, R La., is making exactly that fatal mistake regarding the nation's telecommunications. In a...
Read More
|
Out In The Bush: Landowners Save The Black Rhino
The black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) prefers roaming the thickets and savannahs of Africa to its high-canopy forests. A browser, the rhino feeds mostly on young twigs, leaves, and shoots. But this 1,400 kilo herbivore can, as the World Wildlife...
Read More
|
Global Warnings: Salt, Fat And The Abuse Of Science
Fatty foods are bad for your heart. Salty foods raise your blood pressure. For decades now, Americans have swallowed these axioms of dietary wisdom, and paid a pretty penny for fat-free and low-salt foods. But recent articles in Science...
Read More
|
Bush`s Welcome 180 on Kyoto Road
In his book, "Earth in the Balance," Al Gore, when discussing possible opposition to a global environmental body, wrote: "Opposition to change is therefore strong, but this transition can and must occur -- both in the developed and the developing...
Read More
|
China Clears Way for 20-20 Foresight in Foreign Policy
The China standoff tells us a lot we already knew about Chinese decisionmakers, and a lot we didn't yet know about American decisionmakers. That the Chinese are arrogant, stubborn, xenophobic, and let emotional reactions override cool self-interest has been...
Read More
|
China Lesson: Bush Needs A Bigger Stick - In Space
What would Teddy Roosevelt do if he were confronted with the Hainan Island situation? TR is often thought of today as an imperialist, even a warmonger, but in fact, he was a subtle and nuanced strategic thinker who presided over...
Read More
|
No Excuses Medicine
Dr. David Charles is the Director of the Movement Disorders Clinic at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Chairman of the National Alliance of Medical Researchers and Teaching Physicians When the members of the insurance lobby gathered in Washington last month
Read More
|
Learning from the money masters
Last week I noted in this space that while many Internet companies have crashed and burned, the Internet itself is soaring to new heights. Some 100 million new users worldwide are coming online each year, e-mail traffic continues to explode,...
Read More
|
The U.S. Owes No Apology to the Chinese
If a risk-taking Chinese pilot caused the collision that began the current face-off, and the U.S. has evidence that is the case, then the Chinese make a real mistake if they insist that America accept blame and apologize. Indeed, the...
Read More
|
Stop China from Getting Olympics; Sell Taiwan Aegis Destroyer, Says Ex-U.S. Spy Chief
Former CIA Director James Woolsey tells Defense Central that China must understand that strong-arm tactics "make things worse for themselves, not better." Defense Central: What is it that the Chinese would be interested in having access to on the...
Read More
|
Some Common Sense For Carnivorous Concerns
"Stalking its prey through the supermarket aisles, the carnivore suddenly scents danger from the prey. Is that a mad cow I'm stalking? And what about this foot-and-mouth disease thing? ... I thought that was only something Dubya had to...
Read More
|
Science Tsar Can't Resolve Environmental Policy Dilemmas
In a hearing on Capitol Hill last week, members of the House Science subcommittee on the environment, technology and standards heard testimony that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ought to have a deputy administrator for science. Science, witnesses at...
Read More
|
Reform Acquisition To Protect Defense's Industrial Base
"We know about the military threat, but there's another threat and that's the [defense] industrial base of America," Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee John Warner said at Donald Rumsfeld's confirmation hearing last January. Sen. Warner -- who gracious
Read More
|
Buy Patagonia: Support World Hunger
When you walk into 1048 Wisconsin Ave., N.W., in Washington's Georgetown, you'll find a store looks about like any other trendy "outdoor wear" boutique, from Banana Republic to Urban Outfitters. Only Patagonia, named after the often-forbidding expanse of southern A
Read More
|
Even as stocks have fallen, the Net keeps booming
It's important not to confuse the fortunes of particular companies with the health of the Internet as a whole. Since March of 2000, investors have trashed Internet-related stocks, tech firms have delivered a series of earnings disappointments and the...
Read More
|
Will Sentiment Catch Up With Reality?
Markets soared last week when the Conference Board reported that their survey of consumer confidence showed a marked up tick. The overall index dropped between September of last year and February of this year from a very healthy level...
Read More
|
Lynn Scarlett of TechCentralStation Is Named To High Interior Post
President George W. Bush announced Tuesday that he intends to nominate Patricia Lynn Scarlett, co-host of the TechCentralStation, where she oversees the New Environmentalism site, to be assistant secretary of the Interior for Policy, Management and Budget - the...
Read More
|
The U.S. Needs a Sound Military Strategy
In the next six months or so, the Bush administration will make decisions on the future of the U.S. military that have the potential for revolutionizing military strategy and the supporting force structure. There are no cheap solutions. But there...
Read More
|
Strategic Defense Review Should Address Industrial Base Concerns
In its 2001 report on Industrial Capabilities, the Defense Department outlines emerging global security and industrial environments, as well as the strategy that is needed to meet the new challenges. The report is required by Congress andincidentallywas precipitate
Read More
|
Threats of Mass Disruption
A cyber Pearl Harbor is not a question of if, but when. After three years of studying the United States' security needs in the coming quarter century, the Commission on National Security/21st Century reached some alarming conclusions -- particularly...
Read More
|
New Weapon for a New World Order
How missile defense makes the entire globe safer The question is not whether a ballistic missile with a nuclear or chemical or biological warhead capable of killing hundreds of thousands of Americans will wind up in the hands of a...
Read More
|
Dump the ABM Treaty
What George Washington called our "blessed location" between two vast oceans can no longer protect America from weapons of mass destruction. Contemporary missile technology is evaporating those oceans. And our failure to develop a defense in response leaves America
Read More
|
Politicians Will Build It
Because the people want protection President Bush campaigned by promising to build a defense against ballistic missiles as soon as possible. He showed he intended to keep that vow when he appointed Don Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. Rumsfeld...
Read More
|
Where Rising Hot Air Hits Cold Hard Facts
From "Where Rising Hot Air Hits Cold Hard Facts," a column by Mark Steyn in London's Sunday Telegraph, April 1: The Express declared "Polluter Bush An Oil Industry Stooge" and The Independent dismissed the President as a "pig-headed and...
Read More
|
