Good news for Pike County?

Sadly, many of the most important things that we could do to benefit our long-term interests are also the things that are the least popular (or boring) in the present. An example is the news that the Department of Energy has invested $85M in promising young scientists in the area of clean energy. This is the kind of foundational, game-changing research that we need for the next generation of technologies to be created here. I think this is a great move which compares favorably to our nation’s proud tradition of investing in the future. Great, boring, news.

The watchout here is that we need to be prepared to put the right manufacturing policies in place to ensure that these technologies can be built here, creating American jobs, rather than almost immediately going offshore. If we don’t get these policies in place we will be minimizing the return on our taxpayer investment and giving much of the benefit to foreign countries. I have my fingers crossed and am prepared to fight that fight.

I didn’t hear about Flight 253 until the day after Christmas. Between the excitement of the kids opening their presents and eating way too much food, no one bothered to turn on a TV all day. When I read the details the next day in the paper I just shook my head. The sad truth is that despite the loud wakeup call of September 11, our domestic security remains incredibly wanting.

It’s clear that the intelligence agencies still are not coordinating enough in sharing information. Further, the information shared is not being turned into action to secure America. While the terrorist had numerous flags (his father reported him as a potential extremist at the US embassy, the UK had previously flagged him, etc) this was still not enough for him to have his US visa revoked. This is pretty bad. From Time, “If you you are on our watch list, then you do not come into this country,” said the British Home Secretary Alan Johnson. That sounds like a sensible policy. The sad truth is that most of our security efforts are half-measures that are in place to create a sense of calm and competence.

Interestingly, I’ve been impressed by the media coverage of the story. It largely seems to focused on the systemic failures and issues that remain in our system. This is a discussion that we need to have. Especially since our vulnerability extends throughout our national infrastructure (bridges, water supplies, energy generating sources, etc) that remains largely unsecured.

This Time article is a good background piece on the attack and what’s still wrong with our security.

This is an excellent article looking at what security should look like (Israel as a model). When it’s time to get serious, something like this will take over here.

If you’re now interested in Yemen, and how it impacts us, Josh Lockman has a good piece published.