I'm Back

I'm back after spending the Christmas holiday with family in Canada. I'll post more about the food and festivities once I get around to taking a look at the pictures I took, but in the meantime I'll share a few thoughts about airport security in light of the failed attempt to take down the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit by the Nigerian crotch-bomber.

First off, I'm surprised that the flight originated from Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. I've flown through that airport many times and I've always been impressed by the security procedures. Rather than having huge security lineups at the terminal entrances, the main security checks are done at the gates. Before going through the metal detectors and carry-on baggage scanners, passengers are treated to a short interview with a professional and polite passenger screener. They ask basic questions about where you've been and where you're going and why. I've never been asked more than the basics, but I assume that if the answers don't make sense or you appear nervous or distracted, more questions are asked. It's always seemed to me to be a good system that I wish would be instituted in the US.

I also wonder what it takes to be deemed to be a terrorist threat. If you make a dumb joke about bombs at an airline checkpoint you won't get on the plane, but if you're own father suspects you're a terrorist and warns the authorities; you buy a one-way ticket with cash and don't check any bags for a trans-Atlantic flight; and you spend time in al Qaeda-infested Yemen, you're good to go. Apparently this guy's name was added to the terrorist watch list, but there are already 500,000 names on that list and the airlines don't have access to it anyway. So go figure.

So what should we do? Invade Yemen? That would help about as much as our ongoing war in Afghanistan.

In any case, I braved the new and makeshift international flight security procedures yesterday at the Edmonton International airport so I could fly back home to Seattle. Normally international passengers are supposed to be at the airport at least two hours before flight time, but I couldn't find any information on the new procedures, so we arrived about 2-1/2 hours before flight time. We were greeted by a packed terminal with indeterminate lines. After standing in two of the wrong lines for a while, we were directed to the proper line by a sweet older woman who an airport hospitality volunteer. (Why anyone would volunteer to be yelled at by irate and harried passengers at an airport is beyond me!) Once in the proper line, we discovered that it wasn't moving at all because no one was at the Alaska/Horizon desk. So much for arriving early!

But arriving early did have its benefits. We were fairly close to the front of the line, so when it did start moving, we got through fairly quickly. I would normally have carried on my bag, but no carry-ons were allowed at all, so I had to check it. At least I didn't get hit with the $15 checked bag fee, but I found out later that I should have been charged. (Now it's all making sense. This is an al Qaeda plot to increase airline revenues!) Once past the ticket counter, it was on to security. Every pocket was emptied, every shoe was examined, and everyone was frisked. Oddly enough, my crotch wasn't frisked even though I've read that the Nigerian wannabe bomber had the explosives sewn into his underwear. Then it was on to immigration pre-clearance. (For all you American potatoes who've never left your couches, on flights from Canada to the USA, American agents pre-clear passengers in Canada so they don't have to clear customs at the US airport) There was nothing special there at all there. No additional questions, no piercing looks in the eye. The US immigration agents were as bored and disengaged as ever.

And then we were in the departure lounge, and the plane was more or less on time! I had been mentally prepared to stifle a crappy mood for hours, but in the end, those mental gymnastics weren't necessary. All things considered, the return trip home wasn't really too bad at all.

It's painful

It's excruciating to watch the healthcare bill make its way through the Senate. The Republicans are throwing up every roadblock possible but the Democrats, so far at least, are sticking together. But even assuming that the Senate does pass the bill on Christmas Eve, it still has to get through the conference committee process to merge the bill with the very different House bill. If anything gets changed, you can bet that those pompous popinjays Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson will wield their self-aggrandizing power again. If there's a way for the Senate bill to be passed without amendment by the House, I think the Democrats should choose that route. If this bill passes the Senate and comes back to the Senate from the conference committee, I'd bet that it fails.

As crapulent as this bill is, I'm hoping it will pass. This bill is probably marginally better than nothing, and it would be a real shame to give the lunatic fringe (is there any other kind?) Republicans a victory.

This made me bawl like a baby

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.

It reminded me of Angus.

This is pretty cool

Here's a song written in gibberish that sounds like English. And it's got a catchy tune too! Enjoy.

Tip of the hat to Andrew Sullivan's blog.

Health Care Mess

Well, it looks like the Democrats may get some sort of healthcare bill through the Senate. The debate and "negotiations" in the Senate were truly American democracy at its worst. Even though the Democrats won clear and overwhelming wins in both 2006 and 2008 and now "control" 60% of the seats in the Senate, they've allowed themselves to be held hostage at first by Republican "moderates" and then by conservative "Democrats." If this were a parliamentary system as found in Canada or Great Britain, there would have been no need for compromise with the opposition and a bill would have been passed months ago.

First, without even a debate, they gave up on the single best chance at cost control and universal coverage, a single-payer system, in exchange for a strong public option. Then they gave up the strong public option in exchange for a weak public option. Then they gave up the weak public option for an early Medicare buy-in. Then they gave up the early Medicare buy-in to get the support of Joe Lieberman, even though he had campaigned on that option as a vice-presidential candidate in 2000 and championed the idea as recently as three months ago. Then they had to strengthen the anti-abortion language to get the support of Ben Nelson. (Why, alone in the Western world, are Americans still debating abortion?) Opponents of the bill gave up nothing and got lots in return.

What are we left with? A mandate to buy insurance from private companies in return for not denying coverage to those compelled to buy from them. In spite of industry opposition to the bill, I think they are thrilled with the prospect of 30-40M new customers. They can still charge more for older and already sick people. And if those new customers can't afford the rates, the government will subsidize the payments. Sounds like a good deal except for those who will have to pay up to 17% of their income to pay for insurance.

The Democrats blew it big time. Starting at the top with Obama himself. He's been largely invisible in the whole process. If he devoted as much time to the healthcare debate as he did to Afghanistan, we'd be ahead in the game. If he were willing to spend as much on universal healthcare as he will spend in Afghanistan, none of us would ever have to worry about medical bills ever again. But no, he gave some fuzzy guidelines to Congress and let them hash it out. And hash is exactly what we are left with.

The Democrats picked the wrong enemy. They demonized the insurance companies rather than the rest of the medical-industrial establishment. There's nothing inherently outrageous about the way the insurance companies ran their businesses. It was like car or house or life insurance. Using actuarial tables and statistics, they try to pick the winners and try not to insure the losers. I'm not saying that body shops and parts suppliers are corrupt and monopolistic, but if car insurance rates were as crazy as medical insurance rates, it would be like singling out the insurers for the outrageous rates they charge rather than going after the corrupt and monopolistic body shops and parts suppliers. Medicine as practiced in the USA costs more than twice as much as every other industrial nation because every procedure, be it a CT scan or a blood test, and every drug costs twice as much as it does anywhere else, and American doctors order more of those procedures and prescribe more drugs. The 25-30% that US insurers take off the top only accounts for a small fraction of the difference in costs. (I think Canadian administrative costs are something like 8-10% of the healthcare bill.)

As far as I can tell, cost controls in the Senate bill are mostly non-existent. So the end result will be continuing high medical care costs and continuing high profits for the medical-industrial establishment, no improvement in medical outcomes, and a huge black eye for the Democrats. We won't get any real medical care reform until the system we now have collapses from its own weight.

Whackos are everywhere

I stopped by a Les Schwab Tire Center today to get a quote for new tires for my Audi Allroad. I was greeted by a fat and greasy, but otherwise friendly slob who quickly enough gave me a couple of quotes for four new tires. I had never heard of the brands he quoted, Zexius and Tourevo, so I asked if they were made in China or what. He replied derisively that they used to be, but "Obama took care of that!" I wasn't sure what his point was, but there was no doubt he was not an Obama fan.

I guess my first point is that there is are large numbers of people, i.e., teabaggers, birthers, and Palin-lovers, who believe anything bad about Obama even if it makes no sense. My second point is that I'll go elsewhere for tires. If Les Schwab is stupid enough to give such a vocally ignorant guy a job, I'd hate to see what they do to my car, which is right up there with Volvos and Subarus as the vehicle of choice for tree-hugging, Obama-loving commies.

Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

I listened to parts of Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech today and then later downloaded the transcript to see what he actually said rather than relying on the color commentary of the talking heads of cable TV. My first impressions were that it was a somber and thoughtful speech skillfully delivered, but he used a couple of words and phrased that made my ears perk up. Fairly early in the speech, he used the phrase “just war” and listed preconditions for a “just war.” The three conditions he listed were: it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; the force used is proportional, and whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.

Those words reminded me of one of the favorite classes given by one of my favorite professors at UW during my ill-fated midlife return to academia six years ago. Anyone who studied history at UW over the last fifty years will remember Professor Jon Bridgman. His explosive barking laugh, his nervous pacing around the podium, and the witty stories he told made him and his lectures memorable. In any case, the class in question was called War and Society, focused on Just War theory using WWI as the case history. We studied Jus ad Bellum, the causes for a just war, and Jus in Bello, morality within war. Jus ad Bellum usually contains a few more preconditions for a just war than Obama listed. A couple of additional preconditions are comparative justice (the grievances leading to war on one side are greater than the grievances of the other) and probability of success (wars should be winnable, not just a vengeful slaughter or a hopeless cause).

A good case can be made that the initial war against Afghanistan in 2003 was a “just” war. America was attacked by forces trained and supported by al Qaeda in Afghanistan; sending in 1000 US forces and airpower to help rebel Afghan forces defeat the Taliban seemed about right proportionally; the USA did nothing to directly provoke the 9/11 attacks, and the probability of success was high. (Sparing civilians from violence is usually considered part of Jus in Bello.) So George W. Bush was probably morally right to go to war in Afghanistan. At the very least, Western world opinion was on the side of America.

What happened afterward is anything but just. Thousands of combatants and non-combatants were rounded up, tortured and held without trial or charges or hope for release, all in clear violation of international law. Including those held in Afghanistan, thousands are still imprisoned nine years later. So much for Jus in Bello.

But now we have a new president who offers change and hope that we and the world, as evidenced by the award of the Nobel Peace Prize, can believe in. He is sending in 30,000 additional troops to augment the 100,000 already there. What conditions exist today in Afghanistan that can possibly justify the war? The Taliban is long gone from government, and according to American intelligence estimates, less than one hundred Al Qaeda members are in the country. Are our troops fighting there in self-defense? Is this a war of last resort? Are the grievances against Afghanistan so great as to require the occupation of the country? What are the chances of success, and how is success defined? By any of the conventional just war arguments, Obama doesn’t have a moral leg to stand on.

Obama’s a brilliant guy, and maybe he is using some of that brilliance to rationalize to himself that he’s doing the right thing. But what’s with the line, “For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world.”? That’s a line right of W’s Manichean playbook. America is good. Our enemies are evil. I often wondered how you can fight evil, a supernatural force, with conventional means. Don’t you need God, or at least a superhero of some description, on your side to do that? Are we fighting a holy war? Is this Armageddon and no one told me?

This was a speech that Bush’s speechwriters may as well have written. The biggest problem is that Barack Obama, the man who was supposed to be everything George W. Bush wasn’t, delivered it.

Update 12/11

At least Obama didn't try to describe the Iraq war as a just war. He mentioned Iraq only obliquely by saying, "One of these wars is winding down." Even Obama, with his formidable intellect, realized there's no way to rationalize the morality of that war.

Healthcare Hope

Just when I thought any meaningful healthcare reform was dying in the Senate, the Gang of Ten (as opposed to the Gang of Six, the Gang of Fourteen, and the original Gang of Four, but not to be confused with the energy Gang of Ten) appears to have come up with a plan that might just work. The bad news is that the public option is gone. But that's not really so bad because any teeth the public plan may have had have been negotiated out of it. In return for dropping the plan, it appears that people over 55 (like me) could buy into Medicare, the eligibility for Medicaid might go up to 150% of the poverty line, and the insurance exchanges would offer a version of a healthcare plan offered to members of Congress.

Expanding Medicare coverage would offer some real hope of cost control, and apparently people could buy in as early as next June. That provision alone would make more of a difference to more people than anything I've seen so far.

Maybe there is some hope after all.

Just a few thoughts...

Wouldn't it be something if Barack Obama went to Oslo and didn't accept the Peace Prize? He could give a great speech about how he doesn't deserve it yet, but hopes to one day. Then he could go on to Copenhagen and put the weight of the United States behind a comprehensive global warming accord.

After he got back home, he could reverse course in Afghanistan and bring the troops home. To help Afghanistan stabilize, he would offer to buy all the opium that Afghani farmers could produce at "fair trade" prices. The opium could be used for pharmaceuticals, and if there's some left over, it could be destroyed. That would be a lot cheaper than having 100,000 troops over there, and the warlords would lose a lot of their power and financing.

Then he could accelerate the pullout of troops from Iraq. There would certainly be a mess in the vacuum that's left, but would it really be all that much worse than what's happening there now? Whatever came out of the vacuum would be more stable and viable than anything an American occupation can produce.

He'd still have lots left on his plate, what with Iran, Israel, US healthcare, saving the world economy, etc., etc., but he could go back to Oslo next year and get that Peace Prize that he would so richly deserve.

I can dream, can't I?

Morning Mental Health Break

Afghanistan Costs

Here are some interesting stats on the cost of the adventures in Afghanistan. Particularly interesting is the highlighted fact that in 2010 the US will spend more in Afghanistan than any other country in the world (except China) spends on their total individual defense budgets! As in healthcare, the US doesn't seem to get much bang for its buck. Or maybe that's all they get in this case - a bunch of big bangs as the money goes up in smoke.

Putting Afghanistan Troop Increase Costs in Perspective

Travis | Dec 02, 2009 | 0

Here's a little number crunching on the Afghanistan troop increase. For additional budgetary analysis, see Chris Hellman at NPP and Todd Harrison at CSBA.

Cost of Increase (Updated 1PM)

Adding 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan will cost $30 billion during Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 (12/1 speech).

This $30 billion comes in addition to the previously requested FY 2010 defense budget of $68 billion for Afghanistan, $62 billion for Iraq, $534 billion for DOD’s “base” budget, and $22 billion for nuclear weapons and miscellaneous defense needs.

Altogether, the troop increase in Afghanistan will push total U.S. defense spending in FY 2010 to approximately $716 billion.

Fiscal Year 2010 Funding Levels

Estimated DOD war funding now required for FY 2010:
Iraq = $62 billion
Afghanistan = $98 billion
Total = $160 billion (CRS)

Putting Costs in Perspective
References are to fiscal years

In 2010 alone, U.S. military spending on Afghanistan will equal nearly one-half of total spending on the war since 2001.

The United States will spend 92 percent more on military operations in Afghanistan during 2010 than it did during 2009.

In 2010, the troop increase in Afghanistan will cost each individual American taxpayer $195 dollars. (IRS)

In 2010, the troop increase in Afghanistan will cost $2.5 billion per month, $82 million per day, $3.4 million per hour, $57,000 per minute, and $951 per second.

In the time it takes you to read this post, the troop increase in Afghanistan will have cost $85,500.

In 2010, the United States will spend more on Afghanistan than every other country in the world spends on defense individually, with the exception of China. Of course, total U.S. defense spending in 2010, at over $700 billion, will be roughly five times greater than China’s total military budget.

With the additional $30 billion to be spent in Afghanistan during 2010, the United States could:

• Double the amount spent on nuclear nonproliferation, anti-terrorism, and demining ($1.6 billion)
• Double U.S. support of migrants and refugees throughout the world ($3 billion)
• Quadruple the Civilian Stabilization fund for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq ($1.5 billion)
• Triple federal funding for renewable energy research and development ($7.4 billion)
• Double overall contributions to international institutions like the WHO and IAEA ($2.1 billion)
• Double federal funding for DHS First Responder and CDC Disease Prevention programs ($4.2 billion)
• Strengthen capacity of Coast Guard to close off the far-more-likely route of nuclear weapons coming into the United States – through ports ($6 billion) (USB 2010 report)

Obama's Speech, Reaction Part II

Obama is a really smart guy - certainly the most intelligent president of my lifetime. So what's he up to? He must know that he'll never get the support of the right, and he's losing the support of the middle and the left. He must also know that trying to pacify or civilize Afghanistan is a fool's errand.

He did a masterstroke by putting the war in the budget process. That will put the Republicans in the awkward position of having to vote for his plans, because the Democrats alone won't do it. If nothing else, that will embarrass the Republicans into giving a veneer of bipartisanship to his war policies. He also knows that his supporters have nowhere else to go. What are they going to do, vote for Palin in 2012?

But in the end, he'll still be spending billions and wasting American lives on a hopeless venture that does nothing to make America "safer."

So what's he up to? Maybe he's cut a deal with Pakistan to somehow hunt down Osama bin Laden in the border areas or allow the CIA to hunt him down in return for some favors regarding Kashmir and India. Or maybe it's just plain old-fashioned cash. But wouldn't that be the surprise of the century if Obama bagged Osama? Obama could then pull out all the troops with his head held high. His base would again support him, and the right would be crushed.

Truly a "Mission Accomplished" moment.

Obama's Speech

I watched Obama's speech about Afghanistan tonight with a sinking feeling in my stomach. I don't know what he's trying to achieve and how "victory" will be defined. After a litany of how we got into the mess in the first place, he laid out his plan to defeat the Taliban so that they can't invite Al Quaeda back in and give them a safe haven. Exactly how Afghanistan differs from other terrorist-harboring failed states like Somalia or Yemen or parts of the Philipines or Indonesia, he doesn't say. And we have to keep fighting them so that the Pakistanis, who have their own Taliban/Al Queda problem will keep fighting them in the border areas. He going to do this by providing security and training Afghan soldiers and police so that they can do the job when we leave. The number of 400,000 Afghan security forces has been thrown around before, but I've never heard how the country can possibly support them. Last year Afghanistan had an estimated GDP of about $22B. At $5000 to equip, house, and maintain each soldier or policeman, their entire GDP would soon be gone. So I guess that even if we're successful, we'll be supporting Afghanistan financially forever.

The one bright spot in the speech was his promise of financial transparency. If the war is on the budget, and Congress has to debate and vote on the expenditures necessary to maintain it, it could make the Congress responsible for at least some of the coming debacle.

I don't know who was the intended audience for this speech. If you watched the speech, you could see that the young cadets were polite and more or less engaged, but the military brass looked positively pained by it all. The right will mock and block whatever he does; the left is leaving him in droves (MoveOn.org today announced their opposition to the Afghan surge); and the vast middle is just sick and tired of it all. I can't think of any block of people whose confidence he's gained.

He certainly has lost mine.

Canada, a kinder gentler nation?

If, like me, you thought that Canada is a kinder gentler nation, watch this video. I'm not so sure anymore. Amy Goodman is not a whacko or a terrorist. She is a long-time progressive writer, broadcaster and journalist. She's prominent on the left, but doesn't get much airtime on the MSM. For some reason, the Canadian border guards detained her at the Peace Arch Crossing as she was traveling from Seattle to Vancouver.

I always thought I could run back to Canada when the US becomes a police state, but I'm not so sure anymore.