Showing posts with label Risk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Risk. Show all posts

April 18, 2022

Space Boy Is Dead Meat

Debate in the Wall Street Journal about sending radio communications billions of light years away to communicate with aliens. 

Given man's destructive nature to man, why would we want to entice aliens to come here and do to the world what Russia is currently doing to Ukraine. 

Moreover, why would we court disaster and give them a celestial roadmap to get to earth?

Our scientists may know science, but they are nuts to want to bring ET destruction to us.  ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)


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April 19, 2021

How Many Is Too Many?

Interesting sign:

Take Risks Make Mistakes.

And the "i" is missing in Mistakes!

I didn't even take the risks, but I still made the mistakes.  ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)


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July 5, 2020

Targeting Israel: A Distraction From Real Threats

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, "Targeting Israel: A Distraction From Real Threats."
While the world unfortunately focuses again on Israel (a state the size of New Jersey), they continue to unfortunately be asleep at the wheel when Russia invaded Crimea and annexed it from a sovereign country of Ukraine in 2014, and again now in 2020 as China is taking critical steps that restrict freedom and human rights in Hong Kong.

The question is why we are constantly being diverted to blame and attack Israel and to not look at the real threats to world peace? Yet again, it’s another modern-day blood libel! While the superpowers play Risk with the world order, we should not be fooled by others trying to tell Israel what to do. Nothing should stop Israel from annexing the 30% of the West Bank under the Middle East Peace Plan that is vital to their lasting peace and security. Today is July 4th and the U.S. and Israel stand united in their commitment to that future.


(Credit Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)
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March 8, 2020

Peace Or War

I like this saying by Shimon Peres, you can choose:
Either peace and pay the price or war and take the risk.

It's very smart.

Peace isn't free...there is a price (maybe a large one) to pay for it. 

War is also not free...there is a risk of what you will win or lose. 

These are very serious life calculations with consequences that are far reaching. 

Peace or war and if you are wrong what will it cost and how will you achieve security? ;-)

(Credit photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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October 2, 2018

The Heart of The Matter

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, "Heartfelt Challenges."  

It's about some of my reflection on having a heart condition. 
Over time, what I’ve learned is that what is really important in life is not money, honor, power, or pleasure, but the simple things of family, community, faith, caring, giving, and generally trying your best in all circumstances. Every day is a chance to keep learning. 

Praying and hoping that please G-d everything goes well with the upcoming procedure. 

(Source Photo: Andy  Blumenthal)
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June 16, 2018

Shabbat Risk

I haven't played Risk in years. 

But my daughter and her husband came for Shabbat, and we sat down and had a great game. 

We distributed the countries. 

Placed our enemies. 

And went to battle, army to army. 

By the time it was over, my daughter had conquered Europe, Africa, and North and South Americas.

It was so good to see her taking country after country from my son-in-law and me. 

My son-in-law joked that he had underestimated her. 

We had a good laugh and nice time just sitting down at the kitchen table and playing a board game. 

Afterward, we went down to the pool and relaxed in the deck chairs and then my wife and I took off our shoes and walked in the grass in the garden. 

I laid down on the beautiful green lawn and looked up watching some planes jet over in the clear blue sky. 

It was absolutely beautiful weather and a marvelous day today with my family. 

In the morning we went to Synagogue and the sit-down kiddush with our friends.

I am grateful to G-d for all this and for the peace of the wonderful Shabbat! 

Also, what more can a man ask for Father's Day. ;-)
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February 25, 2017

The Trouble With Our Security

So the problem with our security is that we value our openness more than we do our security.

And perhaps, we fear war more than we desire true peace. 

This was a photo from Summer 2015 when the Pope was in DC.

And despite a "massive" security apparatus set up to protect the Pope, the "largest security operation in U.S. history"...


Check out this photo of a colleague who was able to literally run up to the Fiat car where you can see the Pope waving from. 

Our security is full of holes--if this guy had a gun, molotov cocktail, or bomb then the top Christian leader in the world could've been taken out, just across the street from the U.S. State Department. 

As a democracy, we value openness and freedom to say what we want, do what we want, protest what we want, carry guns as we want, but when is open too open?

Again, whether it comes to cybersecurity or physical security, unless we start to get serious about what massive and large security really means, it is just a matter of time before something really terrible happens, G-d forbid. 

We've got to do a better job balancing security and openness. 

No one should be getting right up to the Pope's car like this!

No one should be smashing windows, burning cars, and attacking police and pedestrians in Washington, DC or anywhere.  

No one should be buzzing our battleships and jets!

No one should be hacking into our sensitive cyber systems, taking down and crippling them and stealing our secrets!

No one should be recruiting, plotting, and carrying out increasing and devastating terrorist attacks right under our noses in this country or elsewhere. 

No one should be using chemical weapons around our red lines in population centers or in airports!

No one (Iran, North Korea, Russia) should be developing, testing, and aiming nuclear ballistic missiles at the West!

War is a last resort, but this is not peace.

It is time to rethink our security posture...it is past time. ;-)

(Source Photo: A Colleague)
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October 25, 2016

Countdown To Nukesville

So I keep reading and hearing about Russia preparations for nuclear confrontation with the West and the overall risk rising greatly:

- Investing in new advanced nuclear weapons, such as stealth nukes that can destroy an area the size of Texas or France

- Adding hundreds of new warheads

- Moving nukes to the European doorstep of Poland and Lithuania

- Flying Russian bombers within 40 miles of California coast

- Pulling out of non-proliferation agreements, including producing new intermediate range nuclear cruise missiles 

- Violating security pacts to destroy plutonium stockpiles

- Skipping the nuclear security summit

- Conducting massive civil defense drills

- Threatening asymmetrical and painful actions against the West, including first strike

- Building new bases in Ukraine, Syria, and now eyeing Cuba and Vietnam

- Building dozens of new underground bunkers

- Entering a new arms race with the U.S. 

Well perhaps this is all just saber-rattling bluster and party-rallying political rhetoric.

The real question is if this is all talk, then why all the costly actions being made?

Self defense experts always say never pull out a weapon unless you seriously intend to use it, so are Russia's intentions to simply counter the West or is it going to go way beyond that. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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February 14, 2014

She's Got Bling

My daughter, Rebecca is usually very earthy. 

However, I convinced her to get these "bling" sneakers from Guess. 

It was out of her usual comfort zone, but it took her about 3 minutes to admit it--she loves 'em!

Good job Daddy. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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September 27, 2013

Is This The Way It's Supposed To Work?

As talk and warnings escalate about a potential government shutdown next week (not that long since the last time this happened a couple of years ago), one cannot help wonder is this the way government is supposed to work?

The partisanship and fighting has gotten so that either nothing significant gets done or get's done by just one party leaving the other fuming.

The fight over healthcare reform pushed through for better or for worse has come back to haunt the Hill. Aside from a lot of talk about exchanges, I haven't found many people that even really understand the changes or whether it actually benefits them or not. 

The continuing Fed stimulus that many anticipated was going to start tapering off, but hasn't, has left many concerned whether there is another huge economic bubble building and what will happen to stocks, housing, and jobs when the Fed finally does pull back. 

The Sequestration which was never supposed to actually take effect, but was to replaced with more surgical budget cuts, continues to leave the nation vulnerable in terms of potential budget shortfalls for areas of national priority (e.g. defense and so on) and still leaves a mounting national debt (albeit growing at a slower pace). 

The seesaw between the threat of military intervention and the potential for diplomatic solutions with Syria and Iran on no less than weapons of mass destruction have us asking whether these countries are serious, stalling, and really willing to give them all up or just buy time in their efforts to get over the finish line of proliferation, hiding, and burying the stockpiles.

Somehow we seem to be fighting each other more than we are tackling the issues. 

Are we really talking with each other, listening with intent to understand, and seeing what is at stake?

We are playing brinkmanship on critical issues of national security that may leave us holding the toilet paper and plunger as we swirl around the bowl ready for the royal flush. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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July 31, 2013

Yes, I Mean No


This is a hilarious video of a social experiment.

This girl--a complete stranger--goes up to random guys and asks "Would you have sex with me?"

On the top there is a running counter--thumbs up or down--for how many of these guys say yes or no.

The final count for this girl and the complete strangers is 50-50!

The reactions of the guys who stumble all over themselves ranges from "Are you crazy?" and someone who actually calls the police on her to "Why not?" and "I will definitely have sex with you!" or how about this guy who offered up a middle of the road approach of "Would you like to hang out with us first?"

In a companion video, they reverse the social experiment, and a guy propositions random girls with the same cavalier question.

In 100 cases, he was rejected!

So are women more discriminating?  Are they looking for intimacy while men are looking for a physical hookup? Or are men just driven by their chemistry, evolution, and species preservation to procreate far and wide? 

While the girl chosen for this experiment is undeniably attractive, given the risk of STDs and AIDS and also broken relationships and even families, you still have to ask yourself are men's brains fully wired on right? ;-)
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December 8, 2012

Go Safe or Go For It?


In_it_to_win_it
I came away with some thoughts on risk taking watching this scene from the movie "Lies and Alibis."

The girl says: "Simple is boring."
The guy answers: "Boring is safe."
The girl responds: "Safe is for old people."

(Note: nothing personal here to the elderly. Also, hope I didn't get the who said which thing wrong, but the point is the same.)

Take-a-way: Very often in life we aren't sure whether to take a risk or not. Is it worth it or is it reckless? And we have to weigh the pros and cons, carefully!

- We have to ask ourselves, where's the risk and where's the reward?

We have to decide whether we want to try something new and accept the potential risk or stay stable and go safe with the status quo that we already know.

At times, staying with a bad status quo can be the more risky proposition and change the safer option--so it all depends on the situation. 

- We also have to look at our capabilities to take chances: 

For example, in terms of age appropriateness--it can be argued that younger people can take more risk, because they have more time to recover in life, should the situation go bad. 

At the same time, older people may have more of a foundation (financial savings, built-up experience and education, and a life-long reputation) to take more chances--they have a cushion to fall back on, if necessary. 

- In the end, we have to know our own level of risk tolerance and have a sense of clarity as to what we are looking for and the value of it, as well as the odds for success and failure.

It's a very personal calculation and the rewards or losses are yours for the taking. Make sure you are ready to accept them!

Finally--always, always, always have a plan B. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

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October 2, 2012

Existential Threats--Real or Imagined?

Should we worry about something that hasn't happened to us yet?

Wired Magazine (Sept. 2012) has an interesting article called Apocalypse Not.

Its thesis is that "people freak out over end-of-the world scenarios" and they should know better because despite all the fear and predictions of catastrophe, nothing ever really happens.

It categorizes the doomsday cataclysms into 4 types:

1) Chemicals--these come form things like pesticides (like DDT), smoking, and CFCs, and result in air pollution, acid rain, ozone depletion, and climate change.

2) Disease--recent fears of pandemics were associated with bird flu, swine flu, SARS, AIDS, ebola, and mad cow disease.

3) People--we can cause our own hell through population explosion and famine and although it didn't mention this, I would assume the brutality and wars that can wipe entire races out.

4) Resources--Peak oil theory, metals and minerals, and other resource constraints have been causes of consternation leading us to look for alternative energy sources and even recently consider mining minerals on asteroids.

The article goes so far as to poke fun at those who are concerned about these things even stating that "The one thing we'll never run out of is imbeciles."

Wired does acknowledge that while "over the past half-century, none of our threatened eco-pocalypses have played out as predicted. Some came partly true; some were averted by action; [and still] some were wholly chimerical."

What the author, Matt Ridley, has missed here in his logic are a few main things:

- Smaller things add to big things--While each individual issue may not have reached the catastrophic tipping point been yet, these issues can certainly progress and even more so, in the aggregate, pose dangerous situations that we may be unable to contain. So you can choose to live with blinders on for today, but the consequences of our choices are inescapable and may only be around the next bend.

-Recognizing the future--just because things like death and final judgement haven't happened to us yet, doesn't mean that they aren't in store for us in the future. This sort of reminds me of this Jewish joke that no one leaves this world alive.

- Destructive powers are multiplying--many destructive forces were traditionally local events, but are now becoming existential threats to whole civilizations. For example, how many people globally can we kill with weaponized pathogens and how many times over now are we able to destroy the world with our thermonuclear stockpile.

- Learn from the past--Apocalypses and terrible events have already befallen humankind, whether the bubonic plague in the middle ages, the destruction of the ice age, the flood in biblical times, and even more recently the Holocaust and the World Wars in the 20th century.

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of bad things that can happen to people--individuals or many people--and if we are not conscious of the things we are doing, their potential impacts, and generally act smart and ethical, then bad things can and will most-definitely happen.

Wired ends by saying that things like policy, technology, and innovation can solve the day. However, while these can surely help and we must always try our best to have a positive impact, some things are also out of our control--they are in G-d hands.

Finally, while not every event is an existential threat, some surely can be--and whether it's the impact of an asteroid, the death toll from the next horrible plague, natural disaster, cyberwar, or weapon of mass destruction, or even possibly when aliens finally come knocking at your door, it would be awfully stupid to think that bad things can't happen.

(Source Photo: here with attribution to tanakawho)

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June 22, 2012

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other

This is a photo I took at Harpers Ferry.

There was a train coming by pretty fast, and on the flatbeds were what seemed like a endless line of Tractors. 

-- Red, red, red, red, blue, and then red again. 

I hurried to get my iPhone out and capture this photo while the train was rushing by at full speed. 

I love this shot, because it teaches an important lesson about diversity

Firstly, it reminds me of the children's song, "One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn't belong."

From early in life, we are taught to conform a certain way--based on norms, culture, values, policies, rules, regulations, laws, religion, and so on. 

There always seems to be a reason that we have to talk, dress, think, and conduct ourselves--properly, politically-correct, and just like everyone else. 

And we are warned that "the nail that sticks out, gets hammered down"--so don't do it--it's too risky--you'll be labeled bad or worse yet, crazy. 

So while creativity and innovation is valued if it can bring someone a nice profit, we are still cautioned not to go out too far on a limb or else you risk getting ridiculed and rejected--hey "you may never work again in this town."

But in this picture, the tractors tell a different story--that it's okay to be a blue tractor in a long parade of red ones. 

No, the blue tractor wasn't a mistake, it isn't abnormal or alien or evil, it's just different and it's cool. 

The blue tractor stands out, but it isn't a bad thing to stand out--and the blue tractor won't get hammered down.

It's okay to be a blue tractor in a long procession of red tractors--and it's great to just be who you are--blue, red, yellow, green, or whatever. 

Conformity is not normalcy--it's just look-alike, copycat, and probably even boring. 

Being different can be novel, inventive, out-of-the-box and exciting--and more important it can usher in needed change.

I think we need more blue tractors in a red tractor world.

Will you take a chance and be a blue tractor too? 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)


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April 24, 2012

Cyberwar--Threat Level Severe

!
This video is of an incredible opening statement by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Subcommittee Chairman on Oversight, Investigations, and Management on the topic--Cybersecurity Threats to the United States.

Some of the highlights from his statement:

- America's computers are under attack and every American is at risk.

- The attacks are real, stealthy, persistent, and can devastate our nation.

- Cyber attacks occur at the speed of light, are global, can come from anywhere, and can penetrate our traditional defenses.

- In the event of a major cyber attack, what could we expect? Department off Defense networks collapsing, oil refinery fires, lethal clouds of gas from chemical plants, the financial systems collapsing with no idea of who owns what, pipeliness of natural gas exploding, trains and subways derailed, a nationwide blackout. This is not science fiction scenarios. (Adapted from Richard Clark, former Senior Advisor of Cyber Security)

- It is not a matter of if, but when a Cyber Pearl Harbor will occur.  We have been fortunate [so far]. (Adapted from General Keith Alexander, Director of the NSA).

I believe we must address these threats and our vulnerabilities in at least five main ways:

1) Increase research and development for new tools and techniques--both defensive and offensive--for fighting cyberwar.

2) Establish a regulatory framework with meaningful incentives and disincentives to significantly tighten cybersecurity across our critical infrastructure.

3) Create a cybersecurity corps of highly trained and experienced personnel with expertise in both the strategic and operational aspects of cybersecurity.

4) Prepare nationwide contingency plans for the fallout of a cyberwar, if and when it should occur. 

5) Create a clear policy for preventing cyberattacks by taking preemptive action when their is a known threat as well as for responding with devastating force when attacks do occur. 

With cyberwar, just as in conventional war, there is no way to guarantee we will not be attacked, but we must prepare with the same commitment and zeal--because the consequences can be just, if not more, deadly.

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March 24, 2012

Where Is The Outrage?

This past week a self-professed Al Qaeda jihadist, trained in the militant camps of Pakistan and Afghanistan murdered in cold blood three Jewish children and a teacher (who happened to be the father of the two boys killed, ages 3 and 6).  

The 8-year old girl pictured above was the beautiful daughter of the school's headmaster and was yanked by hair while the killer reloaded his gun and then shot her in the head, point blank. 

A fifth victim, another student, a boy age 17 is critically wounded in the hospital.

The Killer, Mohamed Merah had just the prior week, in two attacks, murdered 3 black French solders as well. 

So why did he do it?  He tells us it was to avenge Palestinian children and for the French foreign interventions, as he said on the video "you kill my brothers, now I kill you."

So now this terrorist with an extensive rap sheet (as many as 18 prior acts of violence) is dead, and yet insanely, the terrorists consider him a martyr.

And while condolences are heard to all victims, is there sufficient outrage at the murder of innocent school children and terrorists' complete disregard for human life and societal norms? 

More than a decade after the tragedy of 9/11 with nearly 3,000 murdered, followed by almost 6,400 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, we still cannot fully come to terms with the enemy we face and the threats they pose.   

The people killed in terrorist attacks around the world--whether in a school yard in Toulouse, a luxury hotel in Mumbai, train attacks in London and Madrid, a nightclub attack in the Philippines, a plane flight over Lockerbie Scotland, a truck bomb at the U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut, a homicide attack at a pizza parlor in Jerusalem, and countless others around the world have stained our consciences with the blood of innocents, so that the girl pictured, killed this week with a bullet to the brain is no longer special to anyone except her family, friends, and people who loved her. 

The blood of the victims of terrorism is not cheap and neither is that of Jewish children--it is high time for outrage at the enemy that takes human life so gleefully. 

(Source Photo: here)

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