Warning given to North Korean cyberwarriors?

A week ago, it was reported that two South Korean companies had their computers hijacked.

Korean police and their U.S counterpart began a joint investigation as several computers of an army unit under the U.S Air Force Space Command (SPACECOM) were hacked by an individual in a third country via a Korean firms’ computers in mid-February.

Today, I came across the news that North Korea's cyberwarfare unit has been stepping up its activities recently.

The Defense Security Command, the military unit responsible for overseeing the army's internal affairs and for counter-espionage, has been operating a specialized unit designed to combat potential cyber attacks from North Korea. According to Lieutenant-general Song Young-keun, who commands the Defense Security Command, North Korea operates a special cyber warfare unit. The special unit is said to have been established under the direct orders of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. It is responsible for collecting intelligence on South Korea's governmental and research organizations, and for building a capability to launch cyber attacks against the South.

While the report stops short of an open accusation, apparently for diplomatic reasons, the public reporting of such details serves as a warning.

Though, it is possible that the apparently failed probe of SPACECOM was launched by other countries known to be developing cyberwar capabilities (e.g. China), the timing is suggestive.

The real reason for the rise of American conservative churches?

I ran across this article in Christianity Today which had a thought-provoking examination of the underpinnings of this growth. The dominant view is that ideological strictness has been the reason. However, dissenting sociologists point to a different underlying basis: demographics.

Earlier I also ran across a paper in PDF format titled "Growth and Decline of Religious Subgroups" by John Hayward presenting systemic models for growth via conversion, starting off with a simple model of unlimited enthusiasm, then elaborating by accounting for births and deaths, reversions, then finally the impact of lessening zeal over time. The simulations and the resulting diagrams are illuminating, and in my view provide additional plausibility to the demographic hypothesis. Show and tell, right?

The logical consequence of this model is that social conservatives looking at the big picture should consider supporting gay marriage or civil union. If the liberal reproduction rate is diminished, then conservatives gain a demographic advantage and will rise in relative influence in a few generations.

Iran's military-industrial complex?

I saw this EurasiaNet report on Iran's Revolutionary Guard getting more politically active. This sentence raised a red flag for me:

Prior to taking on a higher political profile, the Revolutionary Guards established itself as an economic force in the country, launching a vast array of financial and economic enterprises.

The report's conclusions seem too conservative to me. With economic clout, political clout soon follows. Combined with the prestige from their nuclear program, the Revolutionary Guard has evolved into a military-industrial complex. This would not be unprecedented. China's People's Liberation Army followed a similar route of branching into business and emerging as a military-industrial complex in the 1980s and onward.

Napoleon is said to have stated that an army marches on its stomach. Today, that logistical stomach in peacetime is the capacity to fund its operations. The military-industrial complex is one solution to this funding problem; when successful, it's less of a drain of government coffers. This model is likely being replicated in other countries as well.