New NSA phone is ultra-chic

Forget about the I-Phone or the Crackberry; I want a SecteraEdge. Of course, you have to be on the NSA speed dial to even be considered for one at this point, but talk about a cool phone. General Dynamics, as part of its Secure Communications Interoperable Protocol (SCIP) family of devices, is ready to launch a "mobile phone for spies." For more information, see the company site.

McCain-Huckabee, McCain-Thompson

Monday David Broder, the unofficial Dean of the Washington press corps, wrote a piece encouraging Republicans to consider a McCain-Huckabee ticket for 2008. While I have talked privately to many about this exact ticket, and believe McCain-Huckabee could go a long way to securing a GOP hold on the Whitehouse for the next 16 years, I think it is probably not as a likely as a McCain-Thompson ticket.

Let me explain my logic and unfurl a scenario for McCain to bring back the sometimes misinformed and misled Republican base. First, Iowa and New Hampshire will likely split the vote and possibly give Huckabee and McCain the first two primaries. Huckabee is currently leading in Iowa polls and McCain just received the endorsement of the largest paper in New Hampshire with committed press every week from here on in. Next up is Michigan and Nevada, which could result in a Romney and Giuliani split before we head to the southern states and the conservative base.

It will be at this point, prior to the South Carolina and Nevada primary on January 19th, that I believe Fred Thompson will officially close his “lazy” campaign and call for his supporters to back John McCain, thus creating a 4-way race with only one conservative candidate.

For all the critics who say McCain is not conservative, you might need to check his record. McCain may be a maverick against the establishment and the neo-cons, but his 24-year voting record has always been consistently conservative on taxes, spending, and the role of government both domestically and abroad. In fact, the only reason he did not back Bush’s initial tax plan was because of its lack of spending controls which ended up costing the GOP the congressional majority in 2006.

As a matter of fact, if you go back and look at the record of when McCain broke from the ranks and criticized the Republican leadership, it was over the handling of the Iraq war in 2003 and the lack of spending restraints in the Bush tax bill (a view also shared by Alan Greenspan). His contentious Campaign Finance bill (McCain-Feingold-Thompson, as in Fred) was, in the end, supported by the Bush administration.

Back to the race at hand, the first thing going in McCain’s favor is the lack of an “establishment candidate.” The money players in the GOP don’t really have a strong option, so Giuliani and Romney have tried to vie for this spot. Both, however, have glaring weaknesses and problems fitting in on a myriad of high-profile issues such as abortion, limited government, and taxes. Not to mention, neither has the experience necessary to be considered a strong candidate to lead on foreign policy. Now, you might say as to that last point, neither did George W. in 1999 and 2000, but you have to remember that his candidacy was as much about his “team” as it was about him. Think back to the rumors circulated early that veteran statesman Dick Cheney and former President George H.W. Bush were calling in old allies to bring together a resurgence of the Ford administration from the late 70s. That’s just not the case with Giuliani or Romney.

Also consider that Thompson is a McCain supporter and always has been. He was heavily involved in McCain ’00 and agrees with the Arizona Senator on most issues including the most contentious issues of Campaign Finance Reform and Comprehensive Immigration. Although Thompson has spoken the rhetoric against so-called amnesty, he too was for the bill's provisions for a border security plan coupled with an identification program for the existing 12 million illegal aliens.

Second, Thompson does not have the desire to be President, or at least does not desire putting in the effort to run a national campaign. That was illustrated clearly in a recent NY Times article which states that the former Senator held only one retail campaign event last week. At this event he had supporters standing in a crowded BBQ restaurant for several hours only to give a 30-minute speech before leaving early.

Thompson is a nice guy and is liked by many Washington insiders, but his lack of (or perceived lack of) the drive and determination to fight for votes puts in play many questions about his ability to work 24/7 for our country while in office. However, a cushy Vice-President role is just the spot for Thompson and his supporters, which would turn the tide for McCain in the south and give conservatives a reason to vote against Rudy or Mitt.

GOP debate good, but where is the conservative outcry?

The Grand Ole Party debated on CNN and YouTube Wednesday night (full downloads are available on both sites). While the Republicans barbed with one another, I personally thought the debate was missing some much needed conservative rhetoric. Even ultra-libertarian Ron Paul was too focused (again) on foreign policy isolationism, obfuscating his message of reduced federal impingement on society.

As an example, one question Wednesday night dealt with the issue of NASA funding and a possible trip to Mars in 2020. Responses given by Governor Huckabee and Congressman Tancredo were too focused on Federal spending for my taste (Huckabee for it and Tancredo against it). Rather, as a conservative, I would have liked the answer to be restricted privatization of the entire federal program. We all know that NASA has been hemorrhaging dollars and I argue that it suffers from a lack of “creative destruction.” I say that NASA as a whole is too much of a state program and needs to be put into the hands of society and the marketplace itself.

By allowing NASA (or multiple derivatives thereof) to operate privately with obvious restrictions and allotments for national security (much like the current port systems or critical infrastructure base in this country), we will be able to allow market forces to drive technological advances in space exploration and discovery. Living in an Internet age, all of us should be able to identify the power of such forces. Can you image if the Internet were truly invented by life-long liberal politician Al Gore? We would all be on dial-up, chatting to one another and paying a tax to the National Organization for Telecommunications and Media Emissions (NOTME).

Seriously, we need to be focusing on more ways to pull power back from the state, which has been creating net after net of social programs aimed to pull power and responsibility away from society. Another direct example brought up Wednesday from a viewer in Pittsburgh was our government’s response to lead in toys.

I would love to hear Albert J. Nock’s response to this. Clearly, Nock would point to the involvement of the state in federal oversight commissions over the last 75 years as taking away from the responsibility of resellers and distributors to be held accountable for the safety of toys on their shelves. Ask yourself, living in a world of a thousand federal commissions and the FDA, whom do you blame? Not Wal-Mart, not Tyco. No, it’s the government’s fault. Well my friends, as Nock would say, if we were not so reliant in 2007 on our government to protect us, maybe we would have already protected ourselves by creating an environment where resellers of goods that were unsafe would be facing the very real possibility of going out of business and thus would have instituted measures and safeguards long ago to privately account for the safety of their products.

To conclude, I will offer this final point for thought. In today’s “flat” world, we (society) need to learn to take back responsibility. I say this because our federal government cannot control the whole of the world (no matter how much we try). Therefore, as consumers, as explorers, as a civilization, we need to regain control of our societal power and bear the responsibilities of such a society. That was the essence of the conservative movement when Nock penned “Our Enemy the State” in 1934, and I argue it is as important, if not more so, in 2007.

Understanding your web presence's presence…

In today’s Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 migration, companies should become cognizant not only of their web presence, but also of the users who find their site relevant. I’m not actually talking about expensive web-monitoring software or Google’s ad-click data, but rather free information available to anyone at anytime.....del.icio.us.

Del.icio.us offers a unique marketing analysis and reflection tool to ensure that your site is getting the right information to the right type of viewers. Although Delicious users are a subset of the entire market, they are an active subset. If your page is saved to Delicious, you know you have an active browser (someone who has taken the time to view your site and save it as RELEVANT). Add to that, users will place tags to categorize web-pages which in and of themselves serve as mini-reviews of their interpretation of your site, content, and most importantly, products.

I recommend taking a look at who’s looking at you and what they are saying. From this, delve a litter deeper and find what sites (companies) they are comparing to you. What tags do they use for your organization and who else is receiving similar marks?

By the way, this is also a good way to read into your competition and discover new trends in the marketplace. But you already knew that…

Winsted WELS software is top-notch

I may be a little late to the party on this one, but Winsted's WELS software is tremendous. Winsted, a manufacturer of modular furniture primarily used in Security Operations Centers, has a free software package available to consultants and designers. The software package, known as WELS, is an easy to use interface that allows the user to generate designs for custom configurations in a style similar to Microsoft's Visio.

The differentiating component of this software, is the ability to generate design specs and parts lists (complete with part numbers and commercial-level pricing invoices) for easy to deliver submital packages.

Kudos to Winsted, for delivering a package that is easy to use, creative, and highly functional.

Schneider Electric to buy Pelco...

Pelco was up for grabs and the speculation is over now that the French tech firm, Schneider Electric, has negotiated a deal with the video security giant for $1.54 Billion. Schneider will pair the profitable Pelco video line with their recent acquisitions of TAC, Andover Controls and Invensys Building Systems.

Schneider has been engineering high profits globally with specific focus on growth sectors within the Middle East market. Although the acquisition is viewed as a wash to investors (see Forbes article), the addition of Pelco's brand recognition should be a nice fit for the group. (Press release).

AOL amending cancellation policy?

As part of a $3 million settlement, AOL has agreed to change their cancellation policy. See today's Wall Street Journal for the details.

This is like déjà-vu, all over again.

AOL, who pioneered aggressive cancellation “sales,” has been lambasted for this process for years. For those unaware (I envy you), this process is one where AOL trains their customer service reps to sell you on not cancelling. This customer-retention practice is unscrupulous and involves all kinds of tricks and techniques. This practice includes putting the callers on hold for over 10 minutes (hoping they will hang up without cancelling); restating the question of why do you want to cancel five different ways until you are so frustrated you shout obscenities and then they can justifiably hang up (before you can cancel, of course); and my favorite, the False Acknowledgement, "Okay, Mr. Kellick, we will discontinue your service," only to bill you again next month and the next and so on.

This was supposed to be stopped in 2000. AOL had a ton of bad press after failing to cancel the subscription of a federal judge in DC (nice one), but alas the practice continued and was copied by other companies (see Vonage posts).

We shall see, hopefully AOL gets the message this time, but I'll believe it when I see it.