April 7 2014: HOW MANY U.S. ADULTS FACE NEAR POVERTY, ACTUAL POVERTY, JOBLESSNESS FOR AT LEAST PART OF THEIR LIVES? THE ANSWER IS A STARTLING 80 PERCENT

Most bad behavior comes from insecurity.

Debra Winger

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SOCIAL DEMOCRACIES

Most developed nations throughout the world practice a form of social democracy modified capitalism in which the inevitable hazards of life are cushioned to a substantial extent through risk-sharing,  government action, and general agreement over such concepts as social justice and the public good.  In short, there is a consensus that if a free market economy is to work for all, it must be underpinned by a moral code based upon fairness, minimizing risk, maximizing human potential, decency, equality of opportunity, and sustainability.

Major cost factors such as housing, healthcare, third level education, and retirement are catered for—and infrastructure, energy efficiency, public transport, and other matters (such as the environment and the creative arts) which contribute to the public good,  are invested in and maintained to a high standard.

In addition, worker rights are extensive, unions are widely accepted, codeterminism (cooperation between management and labor) is practiced in business, corporate power is kept (somewhat) in check, and vacations are lengthy—and taken.

As a consequence of such actions:

• Stress is minimized.
• Healthcare of a high standard is available to all.
• Health is much improved.
• People live longer and healthier.
• Creativity is enhanced.
• The creative arts thrive.
• Work is made more enjoyable.
• People live more balanced lives
• Productivity increases.
• Social mobility is increased.
• Poverty is minimized.
• The prison population is dramatically lower.
• Populations are better informed, more highly educated, and speak several languages.
• The overall quality of life for most people is enhanced.

WHAT THE RIGHT WING WOULD HAVE US BELIEVE

The Right Wing in the U.S. would have you believe that such commonsense approaches to the business of living will result in:

• Inferior healthcare.
• Lower economic growth.
• Less creativity.
• Less innovation.
• Lower earning power.
• Lower productivity.
• A lack of international competitiveness.
• Higher—and growing—unemployment.
• A lack of incentive to work which will result in a steady increase in the number of dependent citizens.
• A lack of social mobility.
• A declining quality of life.

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SUPPORTS

There is now abundant evidence from a score or more of developed nations that the Right Wing is wrong on almost all counts—and dramatically wrong in many cases. The following are just some examples from developed social democracies such as those of Germany, Austria, France, Holland, Belgium, and Northern Europe generally.

• Generally speaking economic growth matches or exceeds that of the U.S.—and is of a higher quality (less investment in defense and more in the public good). The quality of investment is a crucial factor to consider.
• Innovation is increasing—especially in matters to do with the quality of life. Cities are better maintained; public transport is superior; more emphasis is put on energy efficiency; sustainable energy; and the environment. Water is less polluted; food and diet are superior; and toxic chemicals less pervasive.
• The earning power of many Europeans now exceeds that of many Americans.
• Calculated on an hourly basis, the productivity of many other nations is higher than that of American workers.
• The U.S. has experienced a trade deficit for decades despite being rich in natural resources. Albeit being more highly paid, the Germans, for instance, out export us at every turn.
• Unemployment is now lower than that of the U.S. in many European countries.
• There is no evidence to support the ideal that an adequate social safety net encourages the majority of people not to work. However, there is increasing evidence that disillusionment with the U.S. work environment is causing many Americans to drop out of the labor market.
• Generally speaking, social mobility is higher in Europe than in the U.S.
• Income equality is significantly lower in Europe than in the U.S. It would be vastly lower if relative prison populations were factored in.
• The excesses of corporate power, monopolies, and consumerism are reined in—while retaining the advantages of a free market environment.
• There is abundant evidence that the quality of life in many developed countries (whether in Europe or as far afield as Australia) is higher there than it is currently in the U.S.—as far as most people are concerned.
• Europeans are better educated, better informed, less politically partisan, eat better, are healthier, are culturally richer, and live longer—by some three to four years—than Americans.

In the face of the totality of such evidence, it strikes me that it is about time Americans started shunning the propaganda of the Right Wing—and moving towards social democracy. It is not a perfect system—there are endless variations and it’s constantly in flux (as is healthy)—but it demonstrably delivers a better quality of life for more people than the alternatives. It also does this while encouraging innovation, creativity in general, the creative arts, the evolution of highly educated populations—and while minimizing poverty and the seemingly inexorable growth of a vast and struggling underclass (which so characterize the U.S. economy).

Right now, both the American Business Model and the American Political Model, are serving most Americans badly. Do the media—largely owned by the super-rich—cover this situation adequately?

Largely—and not surprisingly—the answer is in the negative. Profit dictates catering to our prejudices.

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April 6 2014: U.S. MOBILE CONSUMERS HAVE THE SECOND SLOWEST DOWNLOAD INTERNET SPEEDS IN THE WORLD

The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.

Eric Schmidt

The Web as I envisaged it, we have not seen it yet. The future is still so much bigger than the past.

Tim Berners-Lee

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I would like to believe that the ABM (American Business Model) worked—and was the envy of the world (as its propagandists like to claim)—but again and again I find myself running across evidence that says we are losing ground; and that, not infrequently, we are way down the list.

So is there anywhere where we are #1? Yes, indeed:

• We spend more on healthcare by a wide margin than anywhere else—with lamentable results. We age sicker and die a full 3-4 years before the citizens of most other developed nations.
• We use more energy per capita that anywhere else—much of it wasted.
• Militarily, we are the most powerful nation in the world—but seem unable to put that power to effective use. What is more the price we are paying for such military strength is more than we can afford—and is causing us to neglect many other facets of life which sorely need attention. These range from infrastructure to education.

Given the prominent role of the internet in the American Way of Life today, you might think that the U.S. would be up there at the top of the tree when it comes to internet download speeds. After all, we invented it—with a little help from Tim Berners-Lee—and isn’t the ABM the most efficient free market system in the world?

Apparently not. In fact, when it comes to download speeds, Australia is the fastest and we are down there second from the bottom—only just ahead of the Philippines.

Since I have had to shrink the graphic to squeeze it in, let me quote some of the figures to show just how far behind we are—when it comes to download speeds.

We are talking Mbps (Megabytes per second). The source is www.opensignal.com

• AUSTRALIA 24.5
• SWEDEN 19.2
• FRANCE 17.3
• MEXICO 12.9
• USA 6.5
• PHILIPPINES 5.3

These days the ABM is becoming increasingly divorced from the real economy and is failing to delivery what the typical American needs. Unfortunately, most of us don’t seem to have woken up to that fact—let alone determined what to do about it.

We had better wake up very soon. We are at or near the bottom of way too many lists (or at the top of the wrong ones) for this situation to be sustainable.

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April 5 2014: THE CREATIVITY PARADOX—DISORDER CAN MAKE YOU MORE CREATIVE

Anxiety is part of creativity, the need to get something out, the need to be rid of something or to get in touch with something within.

David Duchovny

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I have never consciously tried to evolve a particular writing style—or copied anyone else’s, for that matter (I have always had the feeling that a writer’s style should just evolve—and, frankly, was never quite sure how to write like Hemingway or Jane Austin). Nonetheless, I have always made an effort to be as clear as possible—and have long been of the belief that clarity of mind is fundamental to clear writing. After all, it would seem to be self-evident that if you cannot think clearly—what you write will tend to reflect that fact.

Be suspicious of anything that is self-evident or conventional wisdom. Life has a tendency to be squirrelly.

In truth, I’m far from sure that I do naturally think clearly—but I certainly make a great effort to do so despite the endless distractions that litter and invade our multi-tasking oriented lives. In fact, the reality may well be that my mind is a jumble which only writing can convert into the semblance of lucid thought.

Hmm. That notion doesn’t do much for my ego—but I have the distinct feeling that it may reflect what is, indeed, the situation. But could it be that having a mind with the neatness of an unmade bed after a nightmare is actually helpful—and that an orderly mind should not be confused with a creative one?

Let me quote briefly from an interesting article in Inc. magazine by Ilan Mochari.

Yet it's possible--and even demonstrable--that you'll be more creative if your work space is disorganized and messy.

The Argument for Messiness

Last week, at the Yale School of Management's Art, Mind + Markets conference, Kathleen Vohs, a marketing professor at the University of Minnesota with an extensive psychology background, gave a talk called "Effect of Visual Order on Creativity." Her main point--which she and her colleagues have demonstrated in experiment after experiment--is that you get a creativity boost when you work in a messy space.

Last year, she described her work in the New York Times. In one experiment, she assigned 48 individuals to messy or neat rooms, and asked them "to imagine that a Ping-Pong ball factory needed to think of new uses for Ping-Pong balls, and to write down as many ideas as they could." Independent judges rated the answers for creativity. Here's what happened:

When we analyzed the responses, we found that the subjects in both types of rooms came up with about the same number of ideas, which meant they put about the same effort into the task. Nonetheless, the messy room subjects were more creative, as we expected. Not only were their ideas 28 percent more creative on average, but when we analyzed the ideas that judges scored as "highly creative," we found a remarkable boost from being in the messy room--these subjects came up with almost five times the number of highly creative responses as did their tidy-room counterparts.

(These results have been confirmed by independent researchers at Northwestern University, who found that subjects in a messy room drew more creative pictures and were quicker to solve a challenging brainteaser puzzle than subjects in a tidy room.)

Comparable results--wherein individuals in messy room were more creative than those in neat rooms--have occurred again and again in Vohs' research.

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April 4 2014: IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED AS A WRITER—RUN FOR THE PRESIDENCY

Survival can be summed up in three words - never give up. That's the heart of it really. Just keep trying.

Bear Grylls

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If you are a writer, rejection goes with the territory—so the above is highly appropriate. Unfortunately, the infographic is too big to fit—so I have had to shrink it this making it near unreadable. Accordingly, let me list what is said in the bubbles—and bear in mind they are talking about Abraham Lincoln.

• Age 22—He failed in business.
• Age 23—He was defeated for state legislator.
• Age 26—His fiancée died.
• Age 27—He had a nervous breakdown.
• Age 34—He ran for congress and was defeated.
• Age 39—He ran again and was defeated again.
• Age 47—He ran for Vice President and failed again.
• Age 51—He was elected President of The United States of America.

“What matters most is not how many times you fail, but that you never stop trying.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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April 3 2014: SUPPOSING A SNIPER HAD A FIBER-OPTIC LASER-BASED RIFLE SIGHTING SYSTEM, HOW MUCH BETTER WOULD IT BE?

There are two types of courage involved with what I did. When it comes to picking up a rifle, millions of people are capable of doing that, as we see in Iraq or Vietnam. But when it comes to risking their careers, or risking being invited to lunch by the establishment, it turns out that's remarkably rare.

Daniel Ellsberg

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At long ranges, snipers must compensate not only for crosswinds and the fact that bullets travel in a curved trajectory, but also allow for even very small barrel disruptions that can cause a shooter to miss their intended target by a wide margin. Contending with such difficulties makes feats such as the 1.53 mile (2.47 km) sniper kills by British Corporal Craig Harrison even more impressive, but a new type of rifle sighting system developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) could take one of these variables out of the equation. The fiber-optic laser-based sensor system precisely measures the deflection of the barrel relative to the sight and automatically adjusts the crosshairs to match the true position of the barrel.

The ORNL technology places glass optical fibers into the exterior grooves, known as flutes, found on the barrels of modern high-powered rifles. These reduce weight and create added surface area to enable the barrel to cool faster. Such flutes are either produced by the manufacturer or can be retrofit to existing barrels. A laser diode sends a signal beam into the optical fibers which split the beam twice, sending one light beam along the top of the rifle barrel and another along the side. This allows the system to measure both the vertical and horizontal barrel deflection.

Traditional reticles are normally manually adjusted by one-fourth minutes of angle, but through the use of a combination of algorithms, optics and additional sensor inputs, the ORNL's Reticle Compensating Rifle Barrel Reference Sensor can also take into account distance and other factors affecting bullet trajectory to automatically adjust the crosshairs by 1/1,000th of a minute in real time. According to the leader of the development team, Slobodan Rajic, this makes the ONRL system 250 times better than traditional reticles.

But the ONRL team isn't done yet. Rajic and his colleagues are also working on a laser-based bullet tracking system that will provide specific information about the bullet flight path to give shooters even better odds of hitting their target.

Source: ORNL

April 2 2014: SNIPING IS OFTEN NEGLECTED EVEN THOUGH IT IS DISPROPORTIONATELY EFFECTIVE

A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.

Theodore Roosevelt

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It’s a strange thing, but the U.S. Army has regularly neglected sniper training in the past—despite overwhelming evidence that snipers are effective out of all proportion to their numbers.

I have never really understood the Army’s attitude towards sniping but suspect it has to do with the fact that snipers tend to work alone or with a spotter—and the military is oriented towards controlling its soldiers in large groups, and disapproves of the individuality of snipers (indeed it disapproves of individuality period). However, whatever be the reason, it is a fact that sniping rarely gets the attention it deserves except in time of war. Even then, it is normally the enemy that reminds us first that snipers are lethal and decidedly disconcerting.

Cost may be another reason for the Army’s neglect of sniping. A sniper, who wants to remain at his peak, really needs to shoot daily—and the costs of that in an army quickly mount up. That said, if you want to keep your snipers up to the mark, they have to be allowed to shoot live ammunition in quantity—and regularly.

I vividly recall asking a scout sniper in the 82nd Airborne how often he shot and being quite taken aback when I was told: “Once a month—if I’m lucky, sir.” But that was in the early Nineties when the U.S. didn’t have a war or two going.

When I queried this neglect of sniper training, I was told that the 82nd were emphasizing the reconnaissance role of a scout sniper—and not the sniper aspect.

I didn’t buy the answer then—and still don’t.

I have featured sniping in all my novels—and was originally taught what I needed to know by a former Royal Marine, John Napier—a marvelous man—who had seen action all over the place including the Falklands.

I hold snipers in high regard. It’s a difficult skill to master, and involves a great deal more than shooting. You have to get where you are going without being seen and then remain undetected—sometimes for days. It also requires formidable self discipline and patience—and courage. Snipers frequently operate with little or no immediate support.

A British sniper from the Coldstream Guards recently killed 6 Taliban with one bullet from 930 yards away. His round killed the suicide bomber and caused his vest to explode—killing 5 more of his comrades nearby.

The same sniper, with his first shot on his tour of duty, killed a Taliban machine-gunner from 1,465 yards.

He was using the L115A3—made by Accuracy International—which fires an 8.59mm (.338 Lapua Magnum) round.

The deadliest sniper in recorded history is Finland’s Simo Hayha who racked up 505 confirmed kills in three months. As if that wasn’t enough, he killed a further 200 with a Suomi KP/31 submachine gun—to make a grand total of 705.

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If you want to read more about sniping

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April 1 2014: HARD MEN DOING AN EVEN HARDER JOB—AND FEATURING IN MOST OF MY THRILLERS

The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.

Friedrich Nietzsche

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I was asked recently if I wrote ‘military thrillers.’ If the definition of a military thriller is one which is set solely or primarily within the military, no I don’t. A great deal of counterterrorism takes place within the civilian world as well. The police and secret services I write about are not, strictly speaking, military—although when it comes to armed response to terrorism, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference. They tend to use similar weapons and tactics—and dress much the same.

That said, all my thrillers to date—including two new titles which are due out shortly—feature military action and include Ireland’s elite special forces unit, the Rangers. Actually, the unit’s real name is the Army Ranger Wing—but let’s not quibble.

The Irish Rangers train with various international units—everyone from the U.S. Rangers to the French GIGN to the Australian SAS—so their standard is extremely high. As for their experience—given that Ireland is neutral you might think it might be minimal—but in fact, thanks to the IRA at home and Ireland’s extensive involvement with the U.N—it is global. In fact the Rangers have served in the Lebanon, Chad, Somalia, East Timor officially—and God alone knows where unofficially.

As with most units of their caliber, the Rangers comprise a relatively small unit—something over a 100 strong—and are based in the Curragh not far from Dublin. And yes, I have visited with them.

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