Productively Used Stimulus Money?

First there was DARPA ... then HSARPA ... then IARPA ... and now ARPA-E.

If this is confusing, what I mean is that the very successful DARPA model has been cloned by the Department of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence, and now the Department of Energy.

ARPA-E currently has an open RFQ for tranformational ideas that help them realize their mission of energy independence for the USA and a reduction in carbon emissions. Total funding amount is $150 million, and the funds are actually part of the stimulus package passed by the Congress in February.

What's even more amazing is that ARPA-E doesn't even have a director yet! Maybe this will be the most productive use of stimilus money that is focused purely on technology.

North Korea -- Dangerous or Just Looking for Attention?

North Korea has undertaken what the world calls two provocative acts during the past 60 days. The first was their launch of a short-range ballistic missile during early April; the second was their successful underground test of a nuclear bomb, with an estimated yield of 20 kilotons, larger than the bomb that exploded over Hiroshima.

Why the inscrutable North Koreans have undertaken these acts at this time is know today only to Kim Jong-Il and, in the future, to historians. Suffice it to say that the sequence of negotiation, acceptance of treaty terms, violation of treaty terms, and belligerent acts is a pattern that began twenty years ago and continues today. Republicans and Democrats both blame each other; with Democrats in control, Republicans claim that the North Koreans are exploiting American political weakness. When Republicans were in control, Democrats claimed that American belligerence was provoking the North Koreans. Both are right, and wrong.

The North Koreans march to their own drummer. They want respect on the world stage but, because they are the last Stalinist dictatorship on earth, their leader can make dangerous decisions without consequence.

That these acts were tests of the new Obama Administration there can be no doubt. The United States has the wherewithall to stop them. Will we negotiate or will we act?

Memorial Day 2009 -- Honoring the Brave

"If we really care about peace, we must stay strong. If we really care about peace, we must, through our strength, demonstrate our unwillingness to accept an ending of the peace. We must be strong enough to create peace where it does not exist and strong enough to protect it where it does."
- Ronald Reagan, Memorial Day, May 26, 1986

"Freedom is not free."
- General Tommy Franks (and many others)

"Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. "
- John 15:13