Tying the Hands of the Cyber Command

The new established Cyber Command at Fort Meade is being asked to defend the nations computer networks with the equivalent of one hand tied behind its back. According to this story by Ellen Nakashima in The Washington Post “senior policymakers and administration lawyers want to limit the military's offensive computer operations to war zones such as Afghanistan, in part because the CIA argues that covert operations outside the battle zone are its responsibility and the State Department is concerned about diplomatic backlash.”

General Keith Alexander, the chief of the Cyber Command wants “maneuvering room” to protect the countries interests globally. In fact, the so called war zone countries are the least of our worries when it comes to cyber attacks. The greatest number of these attacks are currently coming from China and Russia.

According to this artcle by Jay Bavisi and Joseph M. Grimm in The Federal Circle  “The greatest cyber advantage of Russia and China is its wealth of human capital. Both nations have a very high education rate that, when combined with the legacy of emphasizing math and science education, has created a large labor pool of well-educated technology specialists, capable of sophisticated cyber attacks.”

“…it is also important to note that Russia and China also consider us to be their primary cyber foe.”

It doesn't seem to make much sense to go through all the effort of creating a robust cyber command to defend the country and then holding it back from doing its job.

It’s Snow Time!

As the days grow shorter and the mercury drops, I find myself paying a good deal more attention to the loco weather prognosticators. Though I do enjoy a good blizzard every once in awhile, I prefer it when they only come once every five years or so.

According to this story by the Capital Weather Gang in The Washington Post, this year should see significantly less snow.

“First things first: we almost certainly aren't getting as much snow as last winter.  Probably not even close. That was in a once-in-a-generation kind of winter. “

I’m okay with that.

Get a Little Nookie at the Library

Beginning December 1^st the HoCo Public Libraries will offer Nooks to its patrons. According to an email I received today, “the Nooks will come preloaded with a variety of titles including New York Times bestsellers as well as titles selected from Barnes and Noble's Classics Series.”

Check out the promotional video here.

Fun With Books

Soil Conservation District Saga Continues

It all started back in early 2009 when Ken Ulman tried to shift development plan reviews from the independent HoCo Soil Conservation District, a state agency, to the county. This was seen as a cost saving move since the county already reviews these plans and the county funds the Soil Conservation District. Many in the development business see the Soil Conservation District reviews as unnecessarily redundant. 

Predictably a turf war erupted. The HoCo Soil Conservation District is its own little fiefdom and it didn’t take kindly to Ken’s budget cutting move. They reacted by first shutting down development plan reviews and then by increasing their fees from $80.00 per acre to $290.00 per acre. The timing of this increase couldn’t have been worse for the developers already reeling from the economic recession.

The little HoCo Soil Conservation District has bipartisan support too. In another example that politics makes for strange bedfellows, their cause is backed by both Senator Alan Kittleman and Delegate Liz Bobo.

A compromise may finally be in the works. According to the most recent issue of the Howard/Arundel Report, the development community and the district have agreed to “try and hammer out a memorandum of understanding to finally put the cost of SCD’s grading and sediment control reviews at a place both can agree.”

50,000 Trees in Four Years

We received an email from Ken Ulman last week thanking us for participating in the county’s tree giveaway program. The four thousand or so trees that the county distributed were funded by contributions developers made to the Forest Conservation Fund.

What we didn’t realize was that this program was only one part of a larger effort to reforest the county.

“We have worked through several programs including Stream Releaf, Schools and Streams, reforestation, our street tree program, private forest conservation, volunteer tree plantings, our homeowners association partnerships, and 2,010 Trees in 2010.  Through these programs collectively, we have planted over 50,000 trees in the last four years.  These 50,000 trees will store over 650,000 pounds of carbon every year.”

Considering the relatively small size of HoCo, fifty thousand new trees is fairly significant.

I am also happy to report that our little Dogwood sapling seems to have taken well to it’s new environs. Mama Wordbones already has a place picked out for another one if the program comes back in 2011.

Overkill for the Unaffiliated

I found out yesterday why I was the recipient of such an extraordinary volume of campaign mail. It was largely due to the fact that I’m an “unaffiliated” voter.

Unaffiliated households were considered fertile fields for both parties.

It could have worse though. People who live in Anne Arundel were subjected to mass mailings from proponents and opponents of the slots at the mall battle. The picture above was given to me last night by Mickey Gomez. This represents just weeks worth of mail to one household in AA county.

Snail mail volume may be trending down in normal times but during the silly season it is as popular as ever.

The Longest Day

Yesterday was a long day. For me, it started at the break of dawn when I got up to work the early morning shift at a polling place and ended near midnight with a gathering of HoCo loco bloggers at Clyde’s.

It was an even longer day for the candidates. On my way over to Clyde’s, just a little before 8 PM, I stopped by Ellicott Mills Middle School to see if any of the candidates were still hanging around. The first person I ran into was Courtney Watson. She had also been up at the crack of dawn after working late the night before sending last minute instructions to her volunteers. As it turned out Courtney had the toughest reelection race of any of the council incumbents. Her victory over Repub challenger Bob Flanagan can be largely attributed to a well organized campaign and tireless campaigning on her behalf. Her 950 vote margin (with 89% of the precincts reporting) kept her from declaring victory until around eleven o’clock.

I also ran into three school board candidates at Ellicott Mills. Frank Aquino was mobilizing his folks to begin removing signs. He was pretty upbeat about his day and it turns out that his optimism was well warranted. Frank led the crowded school board field with 17.73% of the vote, followed by his fellow incumbent Sandra French with 17.27%.

As I was getting ready to go over and say hello to David Proudfoot and his wife April, Brian Meshkin came up to me and introduced himself.

“We’ve already met,” I reminded him.

“We have?”

“At least twice,” I told him.

Obviously I didn’t make much of an impression.

Brian, David, and Cindy Vaillancourt are locked in a three way battle for the two remaining seats on the board. At the end of the day Brian seems poised to claim at least one of the two remaining seats with a 804 vote lead over Cindy and a 1,046 vote lead over David. This race will be decided by the five thousand or so absentee and provisional ballots that remain to be counted.

For these three, the longest day continues.

The Big Lie

In an interview on 60 Minutes on Sunday David Stockman, Ronald Reagans former budget director, called the current debate about tax cuts “delusional.”

"We have now got both parties essentially telling a big lie, with a capital "B" and a capital "L", to the public and that is that we can have all this government and yet we've don't have to tax ourselves to pay our bills. That's delusional."

Considering that both the Dems and Repubs have been falling all over each other lately with promises to not only not raise taxes but to cut them, David Stockman would appear to be preaching heresy. You can see the complete interview here.

Morning Chill

I worked my neighborhood poll for Courtney Watson this morning. This basically entailed standing along a curb and holding a sign and having my feet frozen. I drank a lot of coffee.

I also got to meet a few fellow poll workers. Though there were disagreements amongst us all of our discussions were cordial until Warren Miller showed up in an RV.

I should start out by saying that Warren was fine. He offered a friendly greeting and donuts to all of the poll workers, regardless of their party hat. It was his driver that changed the tone.

As is my custom, I reached out and introduced myself to his entourage including the RV driver, Chic Chickanis. I have never met Mr. Chickanis before and I assumed he didn’t know me. I attempted to keep things light but Chic was not in a light mood. Perhaps it was my obvious support of a Dem candidate that raised his ire. Very quickly the conversation turned to recently enacted national healthcare legislation. Chic wanted to know if I supported it.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Honestly I haven’t read the complete bill yet.”

“It’s socialism,” he informed me.

“Did you read it?” I asked.

“No, I don’t have to,” he replied, “its socialism.”

“How can you say that if you haven’t read it?” I wondered.

He began getting a bit more agitated. To his credit, Warren recognized that this discussion was escalating into ugliness and quickly attempted to diffuse the situation by interjecting himself and changing the subject. He pointed out that someone had placed a Calvin Ball sign at this polling station.

That bought out some smiles from everyone but Chic. I think he got Warrens message though and our little issue discussion was henceforth concluded.

The shame is that there was also a young man in Warren’s entourage, most likely a middle schooler. I thought about what type of message he received when he heard an adult say that you don’t need to read about an issue to form an opinion about it.

Keep Those Cards and Letter’s Coming

When I picked up my mail tonight there was the predictable collection of last minute pitches to procure my vote. As we head towards the finish line both parties are sounding increasingly desperate with visions of impending doom if either side prevails.

I actually found them to be quite funny.

It appears that the Dems have zeroed in on Warren Miller as the weaker link in the Bates / Miller slate while the Repubs went after both Weinstein and Maher in these lovely examples of hyperbole

We have three registered voters in our house and as a result we received multiple copies each mailer even though Mama Wordbones and CG have already voted.

It occurred to me I’d love to see what people in other districts are getting in their mailboxes. That gave me an idea. We could have a little fun picking the best of the worst of these mailings. If you are planning on joining us at Clyde's tomorrow night, please bring your favorite candidate mailer to share. We’ll pick the best of the lot to highlight on this Friday’s podcast.

More HoCo by the Numbers

Columbia is the only jurisdiction in HoCo that is actually projected to lose population by 2025. According to demographic statistics in the 2010 HoCo EDA CoRE Tour book the fastest growing part of the county will be the Laurel area of HoCo where the population is expected to increase by 25.3% by 2035. During the same period of time Columbia’s population is expected to decrease by 1.3%.

Columbia will still remain the most populous of the seven regional planning districts in HoCo with a projected population in 2015 of 100,864, followed by Ellicott City with a projected population of 62,290. Elkridge comes in third with a projected population of 44,876.

The school system had better get cracking on those school sites in Elkridge.

The wealthiest planning district in HoCo is Clarksville with an estimated median household income of $148,430. The overall median household income for HoCo is $101,940 with over 50% of the households earning over $100,000.

Over 80% of HoCo commuters drive alone to work while only 7.9% carpool and 4.9% take public transportation. According to 2009 American Community Survey from the U.S. Census, an estimated 0.7% of the population walks to work in HoCo.

I’m surprised it is that high.

Neutral Territory

Tuesday is the Super Bowl of the loco HoCo politics. The loco Repubs will gather at Ten Oaks Ballroom in Clarksville and the loco Dems will assemble at Kahler Hall in the Village of Harpers Choice to either celebrate or cry in their beer. That creates a bit of quandary for the loco moderates and independents. It can be a little uncomfortable to be at party with candidates you openly opposed, especially if they happen to come up short on Election Day.

HoCo Rising and I will be gathering at Clyde's beginning at 8:30 PM. We have reserved a table on the bar level and will have laptops set up to monitor the returns. I’m calling it the Isle of Sanity (with apologies to Jon Stewart). If HoCo loco politics is your thing but partisan politico posturing makes you nauseous, please drop by and join us. I can guarantee the beer will be cold and the punditry politely non partisan.

A Dam Loss

It has been over a year since the Simkins dam removal was announced and now the work has finally commenced. According to this story by Jennifer Broadwater in The Howard County Times, the project “has begun and workers are expected to begin tearing down the concrete dam Nov. 10, according to Serena McClain, director of American Rivers’ River Restoration Program.”

Earlier this year another old dam on the river was removed.

“The work, funded by $4 million in federal stimulus funds, began last year with the removal of the Union Dam, which was finished in September. Studies are under way for the removal of a third dam in the area, Bloede Dam, according to American Rivers.”

Bloede Dam is a taller order than the Union and Simkins dams, it’s much bigger.

Still, with Simkins Dam out of the way, kayakers and other river enthusiasts will be able to traverse the entire length of the river along HoCo’s northern border without having to maneuver around a dam.

The fish will be happier too.

“The dams lost their purpose years ago and instead became obstacles to the migration and spawning habits of fish and eel. They also harm water quality, environmentalists say.”

Dam!

Rallying the Troops

At the end of the HoCo Chamber political forum earlier this month, Courtney Watson enlisted me to work a poll on election day for her. I had hoped she’d forgotten but I should know better. Courtney doesn’t forget things like that.

Yesterday, a bag showed up on my doorstep with my poll working marching orders and supplies. The number one instruction was “Wear your Watson T-Shirt.” My time slot is 7:30 AM to 9:00 AM at Worthington Elementary School. Right now the forecast calls for a high of 53 degrees on Tuesday which means that at 7:30 AM it likely to be in the upper 30’s. No way I’m wearing a t-shirt.

The package also included a bottle of water. At 7:30 AM the only beverage I’ll be drinking is a nice warm cup of coffee. In fact, I’ll likely grab a box of Box of Joe from my neighborhood Dunkin Donuts, before reporting for duty. I'll share the warm beverage with the other early morning poll workers, regardless of party affiliation. Anyone who is willing to come out that early on cold fall morning to support the democratic process deserves a hot cup of coffee as far as I’m concerned.

You can tell I’m not real good at this partisan politics stuff.

Not So Non Partisan

The school board is supposed to be non partisan but that never stopped the HoCo loco party politicos getting involved. This summer, at the HoCo County Fair, I was handed a flyer from the Columbia Democratic Club that endorsed school board candidate Larry Walker. Yesterday, in The Sun, the HoCo Republican Party ran a full page ad with their endorsements for Tuesday’s election. The ad included endorsements for school board candidates Bob Ballinger and Brian Meskin.

On the one hand, I applaud any effort that attempts to inform voters on the school board race. The school system commands over 60% of the county budget and is one of the largest employers in HoCo. When people don’t pay attention a guy like Allen Dyer gets elected.

On the other hand, the school system should transcend partisan politics. We should be choosing candidates solely  for their willingness and ability to deliver the best product for our students in the most cost effective manner. It concerns me that the school board is often seen by HoCo politico partisans as the farm team for higher elected office.

Good Forecast for Dems

This morning, as I was running errands in Columbia and listening to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me on WAMU, I heard that rain on election day hurts the Dems more than Repubs.

When I got home I did a little research on the web and came across this story by Bill Adair on tampabay.com. Bill cites a study that “found that 1 inch of rain reduces overall turnout by slightly less than 1 percent and cuts the Democratic vote by 2.5 percentage points.”

“Rain does have a significant effect decreasing the Democratic vote share,” said Brad Gomez, a visiting professor of political science at the University of Georgia who co-authored the study. “That’s a fairly sizeable swing.”

Local Dems can breathe a sigh of relief. The current forecast for Tuesday calls for a sunny day with temps in the fifties. Then again, this is Maryland where weather prognostication is often a fools game.

HoCo By the Numbers

Attendees at yesterdays CoRE Tour received a three ringer binder loaded up with everything you need to know about HoCo commercial real estate. Published every eighteen months, it is often simply referred to as “the book” as in “I didn’t go on the bus tour but I did grab the book.”

It’s a pretty good book.

In the back of the book, there is a wealth of data that provides a snapshot the HoCo economy. For instance, there is 69,996,024 million square feet of commercial space in the county. The overall vacancy rate for that space is 11.6% with the highest vacancy being in industrial space (14.9%) and the lowest being in retail space (4.4%).

More people commute out of HoCo everyday (98,359) than commute in (86,276). 57,304 people are fortunate enough to live and work in the county.

In 1990 there were 80,866 jobs in HoCo paying an average weekly wage of $497.00. Last year there were 143,580 jobs paying an average weekly wage of $1,049.00. 125,744 of those jobs were in the private sector while 17,836 were in the government sector.

While HoCo enjoys one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country (5.2%) we were not immune to recent economic recession. In 2009 HoCo lost 4,738 jobs, the first net job loss in ten years.  

Good for the Linkor, Good for the Linkee

If you want to build an audience for a blog, having other sites link to you is a sure fire way to accomplish that. When The Sun recently started providing links to local blogs, they quickly became the fourth largest referring site for Tales of Two Cities, behind Google, HoCo Rising, and hocoblogs (in that order).

That is significant. The Sun now sends almost three times as many visitors to this blog than HowChow. It wasn’t that long ago that HowChow was my top referring site behind Google. It is now number six.

The interesting thing about links is that they are mutually beneficial. Eight of the blogs that I provide links to are in the top twenty sites that refer visits here. 

Lettering in Cyber

The keynote speaker at today’s CoRE Tour was Larry Cox, Senior Vice President of SAIC and co chair of the newly formed HoCo Cyber Commission. Larry asserts that the United States is “trading nation” and therefore insuring confidence in the integrity of our systems that facilitate trade is a national priority.

In other words cyber security is a big deal.

He talked about the importance of gaming in training cyber warriors and pointed to initiatives like the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition as an example. He'd like to see this type of thing at the secondary school level too. He suggests that a high school letter in cyber gaming would probably be a good idea.

I like that idea too.