How Not To Be Good

There was history in the air in Detroit yesterday as the Lions met the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field, where they were defeated 31-21 to complete the NFL's first winless season since the extension to 16 games. Hampered by completely avoidable penalties, the Lions certainly gave the game their all, but in some way that just made the spectacle worse. It was obvious that they were overmatched out there. Indeed, the season has made clear that there are more than a few players in Lions uniforms who wouldn't make the cut on any other team in the NFL.

I watched the game in one of Detroit's best sports bars, Coach's Corner on 7 Mile, which deserves the free publicity. It was packed with local fans, faithfully decked in Honolulu Blue, most of it showing obvious years of wear. You could feel the resignation mingling with the cigarette smoke- even when the Lions made decent plays, few seemed to believe that they could possibly add up to victory.

Truly, the Lions have earned their place as the worst football team ever to take the field. Yes, they have gone 0-16 this year, but they have only won 10 games in the last three years, and it has been 372 days sine their last tally in the W column. The only silver lining to this cumulonimbus cloud is the schadenfreude merchandising: see rebuilding since '57 (yes, that's 1957, but only because there was no football in the 19th century), or Detroit Lions: Pre-Season Champs. Also see the Detroit News' retrospective, "A Season To Forget."

Incredibly, there was serious debate yesterday as to whether or not Coach Rod Marinelli would keep his job after three years of consistent failure. In point of fact they did fire Marinelli this morning, but team owner William Clay Ford (yes, that Ford) comports himself like a hermit, and the Detroit faithful have no idea who he will hire, when, why, for how long, or according to what logic.

I want to end this piece on an upbeat note. There is only one way to go from here, or they can't get any worse. But truly, there is little to suggest that optimism is warranted. I had a serious debate with a fan a few days before the game, regarding the ambivalence of the Lions actually losing em all. In a way, it would be more Detroit-esque to win that last game, to snatch notoriety from the jaws of just another horrible season. While no team has ever managed to concentrate their failure into a single year so effectively, the Lions have been stumbling through professional sports for as long as I've been alive. Well, enjoy this one, Detroit. No such thing as bad press, right? Right? Hello?

Oh, and seriously, Mr. Ford, you need to think this over. Your ticket buying public isn't kidding anymore.

Price of Oil Drops 74% From July Peak

Amid the general wreckage of what we are pleased to call the economy, one of the most welcome trends of recent weeks continues in this Associated Press story announcing that light sweet crude fell below 37usd per barrel this morning.

I know I'm not the only one who's been enjoying filling up the gas tank for half of what I'm now used to paying, but I'm also not the only one who bought into the general trend of arguments from two or three years ago, suggesting that the increasing consumption of oil by emerging Asian economies combined with price speculation in deregulated markets were producing a sort of market synergy and generating an unprecedented, permanent new price floor for oil.

Clearly, reality has proven more complicated than such sweeping models allow, and I've lost a long-running argument with my adviser. I guess the questions that need to be answered to better understand this phenomenon are:

1. Was Asian oil consumption actually responsible for driving up market prices, or were increased prices a function of regular market fluctuations?
2. Are we actually consuming less oil now than we were a year ago? Because suddenly OPEC is talking about reducing output, rather than claiming they don't have any additional production capacity to meet our endless demand. Knowing the answer to this would go a long way toward answering question one.
3. What should we see as the fundamental price driver for oil costs at this point?

We'll be watching over upcoming weeks to provide new answers to these old questions. In the meantime, enjoy driving like it's 2001.

The music grew a little quieter this year.

I love Pretty Mighty Mighty.

For those of you who don't know, and I assume that that is everyone that will initially read this, Pretty Mighty Mighty were an indie-flavored band formed in the early 1990's in Athens, Ohio, eventually moving to Columbus after everyone graduated from Ohio University. They have steadfastly remained one of my favorite bands for the last 15 years. As the current "music guy" on this blog, I would be remiss not to mention the passing of Noel Sayre, PMM's (and more recently, the Black Swans) violinist.

I would be lying to you if I told you Noel and I were friends. More the type to nod at each other the two or three times a year our paths crossed. Not because Noel was unfriendly or unapproachable. No, Noel was about as nice as they come. Unbeknownst to him, some of my very first memories of live music, the truly visceral power of instruments and amplifiers right there in front of you, are tied directly to Pretty Mighty Mighty. We weren't friends or acquaintances because he was Noel fucking Sayre!!!! Yep, a bit starstruck. Pretty Mighty Might shows were some of the first live shows in Athens to absolutely melt my face and show me that dissonance and beauty can be one and the same. Their songs are the soundtrack to me growing into my twenties, to first loves and tragic losses, to discovering myself as a person and to the repeated times I've lost myself as a person. I have listened to them for comfort in 4 different countries. I repeat, I love Pretty Mighty Mighty.

Oh, I know that Noel (and Jon, Neal and John-the rest of PMM) wouldn't have liked me thinking this way, as he was a very down to earth guy. I also realize how silly it is of me to put Noel on such a pedestal. But the truth of the matter is, he is a fundamental part of my growing up, and will undeniably remain intertwined with my life from here on out. My heart goes out to anyone who was ever blessed by Noel's friendship or touched by his music.

I wish I could find a current link for the band (this is the best I could do), and I recommend this for a much better explanation of who Noel was and how he passed away. I highly recommend Ugly, their debut. Hell, I highly recommend all of their music. Check out the Black Swans, as well (not everybody's pint of ale, but very cool, nonetheless). If for some reason you can't seem to find anything, and I'm looking at you Nick, drop me a line here, I'll see what I can do.

Rest in peace, Noel. You will be missed.

More Like This Please

So the President-Elect has made the first selections for his science team, leaders in their fields with absurdly sterling academic credentials, and charged them with addressing global warming in the course of attacking years of Bush administration "inactivity."

Link to story here.

I heard someone the other day describe the climate crisis as the human population of the planet driving a car with faulty brakes toward a cliff in a dense fog with the vague idea that they'll be able to stop before something unpleasant happens. Indeed. The policy shift these picks suggest is long, long overdue.

O-ba-ma.

(Rhetorical) Question of the Day

Is there anything funnier than the type of guys that drive late model Porches?

The Human Rights Campaign is a Feckless Organization

Leave it to the Human Rights Campaign to focus on what's important. This is what they had to say about Obama's decision to have bigot Rick Warren perform the invocation at Obama's inauguration:

“Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans,” the president of Human Rights Campaign, Joe Solomonese, wrote Obama Wednesday. “[W]e feel a deep level of disrespect when one of architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination.”

A "genuine blow" you say? What a "deep level of disrespect" indeed. While we're at it, let's make a list of other genuine blows and deep levels of disrespect facing the LGBT community in the United States:

1) Don't ask don't tell.
2) An inability to get married in 48 states.
3) Presence of DOMA.
4) An inability to adopt children in Florida and Arkansas.
5) No employment protection in multiple states.

Rick Warren still seem like a big deal? Maybe the HRC, for decades the biggest and wealthiest LGBT lobbying organization in the US, should get an honest to god policy success under their belt before getting hot under the collar over which pastor reads a biblical verse or two at a ceremonial event. If they want to direct anger at Obama over something consequential, maybe they should hold his feat to the fire over his reported shelving of repealing DADT (a stance he's long advocated and campaigned on...in the primaries of course, not the general).

Note number 1: I think Rick Warren is a terrible pick as well, for all the reasons everyone else has put forward. I simply think the HRC has much bigger fish to fry.

Note number 2: I've given him an extremely rough time of it recently (witness here and here), but Andrew Sullivan has done by far the best job of anyone I've read in trying to hold the HRC accountable for being such an ineffective organization. I really urge anyone interested in LGBT issues to do a search for HRC on his blog for tons of great perspective and analysis on the organization.

(Rhetorical) Question of the Day

When was the last time you saw a national media frenzy about a murdered black child?

UN Moves Against Pirates

So, firstly, I'd like to point out the most recent development with our African pirate friends. The UN has finally approved air and land operations in Somalia to suppress them with military force. Read the disappointingly brief story here.

In an earlier post, I received some criticism for the suggestion that the appropriate response to Somali piracy was to mount machine guns on gunwales of freighters as they moved through the threatened sea lanes, on the grounds that the idea was impractical. Here is an AP photograph of a member of the Dutch special forces, manning his gun on the freighter De Ruyter as it moves through the Gulf of Aden. I have no idea what the scale of this program is, but I would bet the pictured ship made it through ok.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this resolution. Presumably, current deterrent operations will be dwarfed.

Anyone considering the purchase of an eyepatch and parrot may want to pick up a different line of work. Or get them via overnight mail. We may be nearing the end of our series on African pirates.

Question of the Day

Is it really necessary that we go out of our way to provide a leg up to a member of the Kennedy family?

Sullivan Descends Into Mindless Drivel

Today Andrew Sullivan posted the 2nd part of his series entitled, “Why Libertarianism Taken to its Logical Extreme is Awful” (see my response to Part One here).

For someone that’s usually so willing to intellectually engage with ideas, his dogmatic adherence to the perfection of market capitalism is almost childlike. In his latest salvo he writes:

The point of capitalism is that actions have consequences. Once that market discipline is removed for a few of the worst, ill-managed, union-crippled companies in America, the stage is set for endless mediocrity, government-run industry (i.e. even more endless mediocrity), and a free-for-all at the government trough. A clear majority of Americans agree, in the new WaPo poll. If this intensifies the recession, so be it. Recessions are sometimes necessary for long-term economic health. And the bigger and sharper it is now the more time Obama has to recover from it. Let them die.

Again, I’ll highlight only the most ridiculous points, as going sentence by sentence would require too large a chunk of my workday. As an aside, if you don’t get a chuckle out of that 2nd sentence then you just don’t have a soul. Limbaugh should sue for copyright infringement.

Let’s start with our “clear majority of Americans” argument. A clear majority of Americans think all kinds of crazy things. I realize they’re picking up the tab, and that is important, but it’s the inconsistency of his argument that feels disingenuous. Neither in his last post on the subject nor this one, has he given any indication whatsoever that he’s inclined to put stock in public opinion. Remember, the public was far more overwhelmingly against a bailout of financial institutions, but Sullivan never mustered anywhere close to this level of opposition.

“If this intensifies the recession, so be it.” Yeah, so be it. Right on. Omelets and eggs, right? The callousness of this statement is really staggering. If you’re not going to attempt to explain why letting the auto industry fail is going to result in a net lowering of economic and personal misery (and again, I think a case could be made), then saying that just makes you sound like an insensitive asshole.

Next comes the whopper, “Recessions are sometimes necessary for long-term economic health”. Why? Because you say so? Are you even going to bother citing anyone? That may well be true, but it sure sounds counterintuitive (replace the word recessions with 'influenza' and eliminate the word 'economic'…still make sense?).

Now we get to: “And the bigger and sharper it is now the more time Obama has to recover from it.” Huh? I have no idea what this even means. Anybody want to hazard a guess? Is he saying that if it’s a really deep recession than it will take longer to recover from it? Well, right…but…

Then, finally, it’s “let them die”. Classy. Does he have some pent up anger against the auto-industry? It’s hard for me not to go back to the Chuck Todd corollary here. I won’t throw out the insinuation without asking the question: Andrew: Do you personally know a single blue-collar worker whose job would be threatened by the failure of the Big Three? Any families? Correspondingly, how many people do you know that work for financial institutions?

I wouldn’t have asked if he’d been 1/10th this hard on the rescuing of financial institutions, at the cost of 40X as much money, but the zeal with which he’s making this argument makes me wonder.

Update: One of you pointed out that after saying I wasn't going to analyze Sullivan's post sentence by sentence, I proceeded to do just that. They have a point. I guess I couldn't help myself.

Extinct Blog of the Day

Today's blog, Meet Vernon, belongs to Vernon Lee Evans (via Virginia Simmons). Vernon was a death row inmate in Maryland. He received a stay of execution in 2006, but I was unable to find out how long that had been for and if he was still alive. Given that the blog was last updated nearly 30 months ago, I am assuming that he was eventually executed.

There aren't tons of posts, but the ones that exist, combined with comments and questions from people that wrote him, make for interesting reading.

Update: Commenter Chuck D stated that Vernon was still alive and on Maryland's death row. I'll post a link if I can find one.

Later Update: In the comments Chuck D said:
The organization "Maryland Citizens Against State Executions" has a good, regularly updated website. Check the details of Vernon's captivity here.

Thanks for the info Chuck. I wonder why he stopped posting?

The Dumbest Post I've Ever Read from Andrew Sullivan

I've read him for years. I don't agree with him on much, but he's intermittently interesting, and it's good to get a variety of ideological perspectives.

But then I come across this post today. He writes:

Every time the government protects someone or some company from the consequences of their own economic profligacy, the chances of future profligacy increase. It's vital that the government let the Big Three automakers go down, and vital that only minimal help be given for those so greedy or so stupid that they took on loans they had no way to pay off.

We're in the middle of the greatest economic downturn in 75 years and Sullivan's version of keeping his eye on the ball is to point out a moral hazard? This is dogmatic allegiance to principle at its most reckless and stupid. It's hard to even know where to start.

The first sentence is nonsense. You could use this rationale to attack the merits of TANF funds, unemployment, or bankruptcy for that matter. Why not bring back debtors prison? That'll teach those damned bankrupt individuals and companies "the consequences of their own economic profligacy".

Secondly, it's "vital" that we let the Big Three fail? Why? Presumably (and we must presume because Sullivan provides zero rationale or analysis) so that we can teach companies what happens when they're run poorly. A fine lesson in the abstract to be sure. But this is no abstract situation. There are millions of jobs at stake. Millions of families and foreclosed homes.

His argument boils down to this: We need to increase unemployment and foreclosure rates by 50%, further depress housing prices, and drastically decrease domestic spending (we'll ignore the increased crime and host of other peripheral externalities) so that future companies and individuals can learn from all this misery and be less inclined to do it in the future. What noble adherence to principle.

Every time new medical advances are made to treat STI's (such as anti-retrovirals or HPV vaccine) I hear religious fundamentalists make a similar argument. If we treat the consequences of risky sex, oh how shall I put it....the chances of future profligacy increase. High risk sex is something to be discouraged right (just like risky borrowing)? So, if no effective treatments for HIV exist then people will be less likely to engage in behavior that makes contracting it possible. So, why doesn't Sullivan's argument hold here? Cause it's all about principle, right?.

Well, no actually. That would be silly, shortsighted, and cruel. If Sullivan wants to object to the auto-bailout, by all means make a case. Hell, I'm not totally sure I'm sold on the idea. But don't offer up some bullshit quote from an Economics 101 textbook and make it a substitute for an educated opinion, particularly when it concerns a complex issue that viscerally effects tens of millions of people.

Electoral College: Boo

The AP reports that Barack Obama has been elected the 44th President of the United States by the people actually empowered to select the president- the College of Electors.

I remember trying to explain the elegance of the American electoral system to confused Britons back in 2004, and the existence of the CoE was often central to their confusion. At the time, I would go out of my way to point out the perceived dangers of handing political power to regular people in the late 18th century, argue that the existence of this odd institution was just part of the colorful pageant of American politics, and anyway, before you go criticizing us, what's up with your "monarchy?"

Well...here it comes...flip! The whole system of voting to elect people who can then vote on your behalf is an absurd affront to democratic principles when used like this, and distorts the conduct of national campaigns in ways detrimental to public discourse. We saw a "50 State Strategy" this year, and it was a controversial and bizarre departure from the normal fighting over just a few states deemed "in play." More importantly, it undermines the main remaining reason to preserve the current system, which is that it tends to limit campaign costs. Direct election would mean that every vote really did count, and would ensure that presidential politics wasn't so easily hijacked by minorities in swing states. I'm looking at you, Florida. We've had years of argument about campaign reform in recent years generally focused on how we pay for them. We should spend some time looking at what we say about ourselves when we organize them.

The Shoe Heard 'Round The World

I almost couldn't believe my eyes when the story of an Iraqi journalist throwing his shoes at our president hit the wires yesterday.

Perhaps inevitably, TPM reports that Muntadhar al-Zeidi is now so popular in Iraq that crowds are demonstrating for his release from custody, as presumably they too would like to throw things at George Bush. While I struggle to think of a context in which throwing your shoe at someone isn't rude, it is a mark of particular disrespect in Arab societies. Presumably, also, this raises questions about Presidential security, and musing on the potential convergence between the experience of boarding an airplane and interviewing the President is diverting.

There is a certain irony to the fact that, in his final weeks in office, President Bush has finally managed to find a way to unite much of the Middle East around a common cause.

*UPDATE* 17 December 2008
The NYT Opinion Page has stolen my headline! Durr!

More music...

Hello again. I apologize for the one day delay. Christmas parties have a way of derailing even the best of intentions. The Tony's party could derail the U.N. (whether the U.N. have good intentions or not is debatable). I shall try to work through the Monday haze to help you, dear reader(s), make sense of this music thing. So, what's going to happen with music this coming year? Can we continue to survive on sugar fixes? Do we really need any more anemic mediocrity from this guy (oh, how the mighty have fallen!!!!)? Can I stand any more tepid aping of David Crosby's back catalog? No, on all accounts, but I do enjoy the following...

Russian Circles- Station (Suicide Sqeeze)
Russian Circles are a three piece from Chicago that deal in sweeping, majestic post-rock instrumentals. I know, the term post-rock means nothing these days but it fits these guys. I was a bit dissappointed with this album when it was initially released. I felt it lacked the immediate crunch and effectiveness of their first cd, but man, is this one a creeper. The hooks are buried much deeper, making for far greater appreciation when they finally sink in. Mike Sullivan's notey guitar falls in the math-rock category. However, this does him a great injustice as he never gives in to the notes-for-notes-sake trap that so often accompanies this style. The crunch of their debut is still present, but it's the epic sweep and emotional range of highlight Verses that really resonate. A very rewarding listen for those willing to stick with it.

Love Is All- A Hundred Things Keep Me Up All Night (What's your Rupture)
Speaking of sugar fixes...While not as strong as their debut, I still can't stop myself from listening to this. Imagine insanely catchy pop songs filtered through a steady diet of late 70's British punk rock smothered in layers of reverb and your mostly there. Sure, Josephine Olausson doesn't always sing in key. Hell, sometimes she doesn't even sing near a key. Spunky exuberance, spikey guitars and wailing saxophone make singing in key irrelevant. Olausson and her band somehow manage to make urban disillusionment and lonliness sound like one hell of a good time.

Torche- Meanderthal (hydra head)
So, I know this might be a stretch, trying to pimp out what would appear to be a cross between a metal record and a third grader's art project, but hear me out. I won't go so far as to say Torche are reinventing the wheel. I will say that this release will be felt for years to come as a very bright signpost of what can be done to make pop music (that's right, I said pop music!!!)...well...sweeter!!! Much, much sweeter. These guys manage to make a marriage of Melvins-like heavy sludge and impossible to deny pop hooks work like a dream. Listen to Healer or Across the Shields and try, just try, to stop humming them!!! Metal has never sounded this damn catchy. The future is now, and if this is any indication of what can be done to spruce up a stale genre, count me in.

Whew. Font disaster averted!!! Thanks DP. So, that's about all I have for highlights this year, unless I dive headlong into telling everyone that will listen about the many joys to be had in the remastered Creedence Clearwater Revival catalog or discussing the merits of a few extreme metal releases that no one wants to hear about. We'll see what happens next week. Thanks to TPBP for letting me do this. Hopefully I won't soil their sterling reputation. Support your local record store. Oh, and (maybe) welcome back to the states, Aaron!!!

It's Official

The New York Times has obtained a draft copy of a portion of the official history of the Iraq War. As it is 508 pages long, you may prefer to read their highlights here.

I will admit, I have only skimmed the original document thus far, although those immobilized by back injuries may enjoy a more thorough exploration :). Compiled from over 500 interviews and 600 other documents and reports, the history is a sweeping indictment of government planning from the moment the invasion ended and the reconstruction began. It further concludes that the White House was essentially fabricating numbers such as the size of the Iraqi force which had been trained. If you want to read more about the train wreck everyone outside the official mind has largely been aware of for the last few years, you have the links above.

This document should also serve as another nail in the coffin for the Bush legacy. As much as historians enjoy slaughtering sacred cows in the name of revisionism, it speaks volumes (pardon the pun)that Bush-appointed writers can find nothing but fiasco. As I've suggested previously, it's quite possible that President Bush's only hope for historical spin rides on the shoulders of his successor.

TPBP Week in Review

It's been far too long. Whether it was the job, my peerless status as a DC socialite, or just my disposition, I have neglected to provide my faithful reader(s) with an update on the community that is TPBP.

Fitting we should resurrect this weekly posting with a combination of hellos and a good-bye. First off, a hearty hello to our newest addition to TPBP, poster 'manfish'. Hopefully you caught his first post, and if not you should keep your eye out for subsequent ones, which I believe will always be on Sunday, and will explore all things musical.

Also in the hello category, Aaron reportedly re-entered U.S. airspace yesterday, and should begin posting again soon.

As far as good-byes, I'd like to wish my friend Dave a hearty one. Dave's own (and much more professional looking) blog resides here, and can be visited anytime through a link on the right side bar of this blog. I met Dave while in grad school, and got to hang out with him in DC quite a bit the last few months, while we were both working in DC. Alas, it's back to school for Dave now that his internship's over. He'll be missed, as I don't yet have enough friends in DC not to observe the departure of a good one. On a strictly professional note, you should keep your eye on this kid. He's ridiculously young, but he's got the magic touch.

The numbers are these: Traffic is down folks. I won't lie to you. But, posting's down too, so we won't be casting blame. Only 16 posts this week which isn't awful, but far from great. The bright side is that this coming week will be my last week at my current job. After that I'll have a couple of weeks off during which I'm hoping to write 10K words/week, and be posting far more frequently. I'll be doing a longer piece on my hometown as well. All this, with the return of Aaron, and I think we're in good shape moving forward.

Onto the reader awards:
Comment of the week: Mine, from this post. You don't like it? It's self serving you say? Tough. Make a kick ass comment and maybe I won't have to give this award (and the glorious prizes that accompany it) to myself.
Commenter of the week: The dreaded 'anonymous', I guess. We only had 12 total comments, 6 of which were on 'manfish's music post, and most of them were anonymous. Don't be scared! Insults, thoughtful additions, commentary, they all work.

On behalf of myself, Aaron, and PW, thanks to all of you that stopped by to make TPBP part of your lives this past week. Hope you stop by in the week to come.

Meet the Press Review

David Gregory is an uninformed goof-ball. Why didn't they pick Chuck Todd? That's all I got. Join us next week for our new weekly Sunday post, "This Week with George Stephanopoulos Review".

My Injured Back and the Domestic Policy Agenda

So, I injured my back. Just one of those things where I woke up yesterday morning in a bit of pain. It's happened to everyone. I was hoping it would marginally improve during the day, and just slowly mend itself. Unfortunately, it started spasming, got a lot worse, and has left me in a borderline unbearable amount of pain. Couldn't really sleep, can't really lay down without being in pain (which I know doesn't make a ton of sense, but there you have it), etc. The pain's pretty localized, so I've probably just done a number on one of my back muscles. But, it's really painful, and increasingly incapacitating.

All "my injured back" and no "domestic policy agenda", huh? All right, let me see if I can square the circle and fulfill the promise of the post's title.

You see, regardless of my street-corner medical diagnosis, the wider issue here is that it also happens to be a bit scary. I've thought about scheduling an appointment with my doctor, but I don't have one. I could go to the emergency room, but that's likely an even more expensive option, not to mention a fairly inefficient use of emergency resources, as I probably don't fit the bill of having a truly emergent health situation.

Like nearly 1 in 5 adults in the United States I don't have medical insurance. I'm not highlighting my situation as an impetus for anyone to feel bad for me. Really. I'd just like to raise my hand in voting for how stupidly inefficient this situation is, and how many undesirable social consequences exist because my situation is not in any way unusual.

The point I'd like to highlight here is the cost-benefit analysis the uninsured engage in when deciding whether or not to seek medical treatment. The idiocy of trying to decide if your injury/medical condition, etc. is serious enough to seek medical treatment that you can't afford, when you have no actual medical expertise should be apparent to everyone, and yet (to quote Chuck Klosterman) this shit happens all the time.

Quick note: For those of you thinking, "This is stupid. Your health is too important to ever engage in some dumbass 'cost-benefit analysis'. Just go to the damned hospital/doctor." I admire your inability to empathize and the fact that you've never been uninsured. I really do. But, this post has nothing to offer you. Go read PW's post linking to that article about China. It's really good.

Sorry about that. Anyway...where was I? Oh, this shit happens all the time. Right. See, this shit happens all the time. And, I'm not highlighting it out of some, kum-ba-ya, we should all feel sorry for the great uninsured masses. I'm only illustrating that the social costs of such a stupid health care policy are legion. Continuing on with my own example. Assuming it is no big deal, and things get better, we're probably all better off. I didn't waste a doctor or emergency room's time, I didn't waste the pharmacist's time filling a script, or use any gas to get said prescription. But, if it really was a non-serious injury these costs were pretty small, the doctor wasn't going to spend more than his 15 scheduled minutes with me, nor was a hospital going to admit me. If I went during non-peak hours, the only ancillary detriment was me interrupting the on-call nurse's viewing of Letterman or Days of Our Lives.

Now, what if the injury's really serious? In this case my delaying or deciding against treatment could create a significantly larger social expenditure. I'd be out of work longer, I'd waste more taxpayer dollars (somebody's got to pay for it), I'd require more medical resources and medicine. I don't have kids, which is lucky, but I wouldn't be doing my girlfriend or her employer any favors as I peripherally sucked up their time and resources. Remember that small cost from the above paragraph? How many of those do you need to offset the negative social consequences from this one?

Perhaps I'm whining, but I have an enormously difficult time seeing who benefits from me sitting here in pain, hoping that my injury's not a serious one...from the standpoint of the wider domestic policy agenda of the United States, of course.

Update: I believe this was our 400th post. Yay for us. For those of you that have been around from the beginning, you may remember a wager I made with my friend Dome about whether the blog would survive for more than a single week. Well, it has. And that bastard still hasn't settled the bet.

You Sorta Have To See It Yourself

I quite like this article on China by Tom Grimmer, it's a decent summary and a better tone than is common in US press coverage.

My only issue is with his characterization of the China Investment Corporation, the government owned strategic investment fund, as, "This is a passive equity investor just looking for a place to park cash; it's not Dr. Evil. (So far, CIC has taken a bath on the likes of Morgan Stanley and Blackstone stock; they are not seers.)"

Well, sort of. It's a government directed investment company that strategically selects targets...er, companies...based on their ability to provide useful things to China. That's why people are so touchy about it acquiring significant holdings in computer companies or airlines, industries with strategic military applications. In fact, it's hard to think of any commodity that a state government could invest in using the amounts of capital China has available that wouldn't tend to raise questions about alternative agendas.

Still, on the whole, a good read.

Dead for Now

Down goes the bailout. My guess is that the White House comes through with cash, probably at the direct urging of Obama. Though my opinion on the auto-bailout is complicated (I was probably a bit more skeptical than the average progressive Dem), one has to wonder what things look like in the event of a GM collapse.

A Post-Cold War Military

So the NYT has the latest story in a debate stretching back to the Clinton administration about the desirability of continuing to fund the F-22. In brief, the argument goes something like this: the US armed forces are tasked with being able to fight anyone, anytime, anywhere, and they need constantly improving weapons systems to do that. No one disputes the that the F-22 is an engineering marvel, easily the most capable combat aircraft on the planet. It's also the most expensive, which segues nicely into the counterargument: the Soviet Union, the entity this aircraft was designed to defeat, no longer exists, and no force worthy of this sort of performance has emerged to take its place. In fact, setting aside the possibilities of future wars, the two existing ones we have require low-cost people skills and redevelopment work more than they require supersonic, radar-invisible fighter aircraft.

The Bush administration inherited this debate, and through a combination of deficit spending and policy neglect, never bothered to resolve it. The Bush Doctrine was entirely about foreign policy, not how we expect the military to implement it. While our troops in Iraq called out for armored vehicles and more personnel, we continued to spend billions on air superiority fighters, missile defense systems, and a new generation of nuclear weapons. I don't mean to suggest that these programs have no use. Our existing aircraft are three decades old and in need of replacement. New nuclear weapons tend to be smaller, which is at least something. But they do little to address the immediate needs of the troops actually fighting right now. Even if we do decide that, somehow, we can afford to build a military machine simultaneously geared toward to anti-insurgency work, and fighting a major land war in Europe, let's hope the Obama administration at least has the ability to articulate that vision. Or some other vision- anything. It is well past time to address the sense, creeping since 1991, that we are getting a military geared as much toward keeping production contracts in all the right congressional districts as it is toward implementing national security policy.

The Stupidest Story No One Will Quit Talking About

I'm tired of everyone freaking out over whether Rod Blagojevich will appoint someone to the U.S. Senate while he's out on bail. Sorry to ruin it for you, but he won't. There are so many reasons this won't happen that I won't waste the time it would take to go through all of them, but the most important one is:
1) No one he would appoint would serve if they were even semi-legitimate, they'd quickly decline the appointment. Anyone that accepted the seat would have no future in electoral politics (which is kind of a deterrent).

If this guy understands anything, it's how to act in his own best interest (ignoring the stupidity of doing it in such a blatantly illegal manner of course). He's got to be acutely aware that there is no possible benefit he could accrue by flippantly appointing someone. This guy might be an idiot, but he's pretty likely looking a lengthy prison term in the face, and something tells me he's not in a hurry to do the one thing most likely to make people think he's even more of a despicable criminal.

Not just some pretty lines

Considering the heavy lifting this blog has been undertaking in recent days, it almost seems out of place to post something so irreverent. Obviously, not enough to stop me.

The renowned Max Planck institute just released the latest edition of its academic journal, and focusing on China, wanted to adorn the cover with some dramatic, three-kingdoms type poetry. Instead, they printed an advertisement for a Macau brothel.

Could you make this up? Original story on Huffpo.

Apologies and International Flights

I’ve been rather infrequently checking TPBP this week, as I’ve had some entirely exciting and annoying problems develop in my real world life. I’ve been slowly (very, very slowly) working with the Peace Corps on a medical condition: I’ve got a nerve in my foot that’s under pressure and is causing my foot to hurt all the time. It makes walking and standing up all day difficult, which is awkward, since I do a lot of both. The upshot of that is, Thursday, the Peace Corps Medical Office in Washington, DC, has decided I will receive better treatment in the United States (and, apparently, taking care of it myself). Thursday they told me I was being medically separated. This being the Peace Corps, decisions like that proceed with a great rapidity (unlike, say, the treatment of my foot problem, which took over six months of slow useless and pointless treatments and four and a half hour bus rides). I’ll be flying home to Ohio on Saturday, my Bulgarian adventure finally at an end. I’ve always wanted to visit Washington, and I finally will: for about three hours, as I have a layover there. Not quite what I wanted, but what can you do?

It’s unbelievable how much stuff you can accumulate in a year and a half. I have mixed emotions about the whole situation. I wanted to finish my full service. My students were all upset that I was leaving (and you would be too, if you were losing the only teacher in town who let them play games). However, I know that I have completed my service (a medical separation is still a closing), and the more I think about getting back to my family, my friends and my special lady friend, I can’t help but be excited. You should see the teddy bear my eight graders got me as a going-away present.

What I’m not so excited back is moving to the US in the current economy. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of opportunity to see what it’s like when I get home, and perhaps it will provide some fodder for the blog – which I notice is going well, with strong posts from everybody but me, and even a brand new poster, although he sounds pretty suspicious. Posting will continue to be light since I still have to move. In the meantime, enjoy your holidays and I hope your foot feels better than mine.

Too Small to Save: Update

After getting some extremely positive feedback on this post (most of it private, save for an anonymous comment) I've decided to spend what's turned out to be a totally inordinate amount of time reworking it, and will probably be submitting it as an Op-Ed piece. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Extinct Blog of the Day

Today's blog belongs to Farah Anwarullah, who writes The Muslim Housewife blog, and likes "...working out, trying out new recipes, reading and of course Apple computers!". She started her blog to be a "place where limiting beliefs are lifted and the true definition of a Muslim housewife is brought to life and crowned!".

Though she used to be a semi-frequent poster, she appears to have trailed off a bit in the last couple of months. Her posts are interspersed with all kinds of Arabic sayings that make following it annoying and cool at the same time.

Though an infrequent poster, she's got at least a moderate following, as damn near every post has quite a few comments. This seems to be an emerging theme here with the Extinct Blog of the Day. I highlight all these abandoned blogs that still manage to have more traffic than mine. I'm sure it doesn't mean anything.

Being an agnostic, Farah and I probably don't have much in common (though we both apparently enjoy cooking...and reading, so perhaps I shouldn't be so quick to judge). Regardless, I salute you Farah -- owner of our Extinct Blog of the Day.

A Lengthening Chain

The recent attacks in Mumbai are already fading into the collective memory here in the United States, joining the list of organized terror attacks in places like Madrid and Bali. Much has become clear in the days since my first post on this matter: the attackers effected a seaborne insertion, seized locally available vehicles, and proceeded to conduct themselves with a professionalism approximating a special operations force. Maintaining radio silence, they split in to teams and executed a series of diversionary attacks to confuse first responders, and then moved into their target hotels and office buildings. They carried secure communications gear, were familiar with the floor plans, directed their movements with hand signals.

As Newsweek points out, at this point it is a fairly open secret that the Pakistani military had something to do with training these individuals. The article also does an excellent job of detailing the limitations of Pakistan's civilian government's efforts to confront a military establishment which has traditionally kept its own council with regard to suppressing Islamic extremists. Oh, and efforts to protest innocence by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Pakistani "charity" which seems to have been somehow involved, are undermined by this Times article, written by a reporter who interviewed one of their members the week before the attacks. I don't personally know anything about the organization, but the guy in this interview appears to have an agenda rather beyond clothing the poor and helping the needy.

None of this will strike any student of contemporary Southeast Asia as particularly surprising. India has shown admirable restraint with regard to Pakistan after the attacks, which is reassuring considering the weapons technology available to both parties. The solution, which would be for Pakistan to actually work to suppress violent extremist groups, may well prove beyond the reach of many of those in Pakistan who would like to see it happen. Which is truly unfortunate, in part because it means that Mumbai really is just another link in what will prove to be a lengthening chain of tragedies perpetrated by extremists, and in part because India is a democracy, and it's only a matter of time before people there start to demand a more aggressive foreign policy with regard to Pakistan. If they do, it will be hard to blame them. No doubt, this was in part precisely what those gunmen wanted when they came ashore in Mumbai, and I hate to see brutality rewarded.

How about that 2008?

Hi everybody. I've been asked to contribute some music reviews here and would very much like to thank DP for the invitation. 2008 may have been one of the most disappointing years in music I can remember. Hopefully, I can point out the handful of bright spots I managed to find this year among the rubble.

the Everybodyfields-Nothing is Okay (Ramseur 2007)
Okay, okay, so it came out in 2007. Since discovering this gem in early 2008, it hasn't left my cd player for more than a week at a time. You could lump this in the alt-country pile but it is so much more than that. A loosely based concept record chronicling singers Jill Andrews and Sam Quinn's breakup, this is all melancholy emotions and gorgeous harmonies. Quinn has an attentive eye and a deft hand at description, particularly in highlights Be Miner and opener Aeroplane. Definitely my album of the year.

Deerhunter-Microcastles/Weird Era Continued (Kranky 2008)
Deerhunter's previous album, Cryptograms, had such promise on paper- damaged, noise soaked art rock- and honestly, I tried repeatedly. It sounded like two separate bands playing at the same time without listening to each other. Microcastles rectifies this mistake, joining 60's Motown pop songs as played by punks raised on a diet of Sonic Youth with delicious squalls of noise to deliver another contender for album of the year. There is a undercurrent of warmth in these hazy, narcotic lullabies that is missing from virtually all of their peer's music. Pop music for a new generation, this album exceeded my expectations regardless of the massive hype leading up to its release. Highlights for me include Agoraphobia, Never Stops and Nothing Ever Happens.

James Blackshaw-Celeste/Sunshrine reissues (Tompkins Square 2008)
Blackshaw is hands down the winner amongst the current crop of Fahey disciples, winning me over long ago with his debut, O True Believers. Unlike his peers, Blackshaw is not content to merely ape the Fahey style. Blackshaw creates his own 12 string worlds, creating contemplative, spiraling ragas that turn inward on themselves and transcend the label of folk guitar. These reissues show his mastery of form and technique were present very early on, stunning in their scope and beauty. However, you can't go wrong with anything he's done so far.

Okay. I've probably exceeded my Word allowance. Hopefully this was helpful and you'll all go out and buy these from a real record store. Support independant music!!!

A New Addition

The Pseudo Body Politic is happy to announce the newest contributor to our proud community. Starting tomorrow, 'manfish' will be providing our loyal reader(s) with a music review column. A degenerate in most ways, manfish nevertheless manages to be as knowledgeable about music as anyone I've ever met and an intermittently clever chap to boot. A longtime musician and recent music store owner, I have no doubt he'll give our reader(s) an excellent idea of what to check out and what to avoid in the world of music. On behalf of PW and Aaron I'd like to welcome manfish aboard TPBP.

Too Small to Save

I've written about what's happening in my hometown in previous posts here and here. Long story short, after losing 9K jobs in a town that has 14K people, my town has become the milk-carton metaphor for the greatest economic downtown in generations.

Spirit lifting rhetoric has been plentiful, substantive action has not. A while back, governor Ted Strickland drummed up some blatantly ridiculous anti-trust talk. Then, Senator Sherrod Brown boldly "took up the DHL job fight" -- asking the company to "re-think" their proposal to pull out operations. This effort was met with exactly the amount of success you'd have guessed. Of course, the officials rode into town for all the nationally televised press conferences and scored the press hit. I'm not saying they don't care. I'm sure they do.

But, at the end of the day they sit around with their senior staffs and access the situation in a politically candid manner. And the situation is this: Boy, that sucks for them...but, really there's nothing we can do. We can't make DHL keep a business unit that's hemorrhaging money. The majority of laid off workers aren't unionized, and so don't have a national lobby, (due to a long and storied history of anti-unionization tactics), they're not in a swing voting district, and if you're a Democrat, you know you're not getting those votes no matter what happens. If you're a Republican, you are, and you're probably not predisposed toward any kind of government intervention to begin with. It's really important that Strickland/Brown Inc. do something though. Maybe try to secure a couple of million in aid, and work on an earmark or two. Get somebody to start beating the aforementioned anti-trust drum, which is a pipe dream at best, but will get them in all the papers and provide them with the appearance of being proactive.

Sherrod Brown even "devoted" a full-time staffer to the issue, though a review of his web site would suggest that perhaps that's no longer the case. I don't know what this person was supposed to do (working in a Senate office, and being familiar with the office structure, I'd wonder what kind of a staffer they were, and to what extent they were concentrating strictly on this issue). Full disclosure: when I was looking for an internship I wrote an email to Brown's office offering to assist this person in any capacity I could, whether or not the position was paid...an offer that still stands. As is often the case on the Hill, I never heard back. That's the tragedy of the Hill really. Getting a chance to do anything worthwhile is so difficult. There isn't a person in the world that would work harder and be a more effective advocate for Wilmington than I would. I really believe that. But, when no one in your family is a BFD (a Hill abbreviation for "Big F&*#ing Deal"), and you didn't go to Georgetown, getting that chance can be depressingly difficult. Staffs often consist of 25 people with 25 separate agendas, with political and office inertia sometimes precluding aggressive constituent advocacy instead of enabling it. Like a golfer with a lead going into the back nine, the beating pulse of politics far, far too often consists of a two word mantra: avoid mistakes -- not really a recipe for substantive change and bold action.

500 words into this post, and it's turned into a cartoon fire hose; just flinging me around as I futilely try to direct the flow. I'll try to meander into something resembling a point.

I went home for Thanksgiving. It was right after the job cuts were formally announced (they'd been all but certain for months). It would all be over on January 31. During the holiday weekend I spoke to quite a few DHL employees. Some at the bar over drinks, one or two at an annual day-after-Thanksgiving touch football game, one was a friend's parent. There wasn't a lot of complaining, just a bitter acknowledgment of an even more bitter reality. No severance packages to fall back on. Not much talk of where they'd find work when things closed up.

My girlfriend, in Wilmington for the first time, kept asking, "so what will they do", or "what happens after they (DHL) close"? What, indeed.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we both went to see my mother play in a multi-denominational bell choir, at the Quaker church -- my family's church. 60 Minutes had a camera crew at the church for a feature they were doing on Wilmington. They said they were there to cover the "day's biggest community event" which they thought, "captured the essence of the town". I guess. Though, as my girlfriend and I left the church we saw that part of an adjacent street had been blocked off for what must have been a better attended event (only a couple of dozen people, many of them family members, sat in the mostly empty pews of the Quaker church).

You can kind of see the story, right? Soon-to-be-economically-devastated small town, where the "town-folk" sparsely fill the pews on a Saturday, listening to a local bell choir, politely and quietly clapping after each song. Get some footage of the grim-but-determined laid off workers. Find another worker or family member that's so upset about their future prospects that they cry. The former being men, and the latter a woman. Not on purpose of course, that's just the footage they got. After all, small towns reinforce gender roles, they don't defy them. Nobody will be talking about bringing in new green-collar technology jobs. Nobody mentions approaching the federal government for bailout money. Hell, with any luck the weather will be overcast while the camera crew's in town. The last shot of the segment could be a series of late-model sedans and pick-ups pulling out of the DHL lot in the morning after third shift ends. No music or narration, just the sound of car engines and the thick exhaust, rolling out of tailpipes on a cold morning. All very rural and blue collar. Again, not on purpose, it just worked out that way. Can you see the story now? Two full segments I bet. Don't miss next week's exclusive interview with Katie Holmes.

After briefly speaking with the 60 Minutes crew and watching them interact with community members at the church, I couldn't get those pictures out of my mind. I felt pissed off, a feeling that hasn't abated in the intervening week.

I'm the consummate realist. I get it. I get why we don't get bailed out and Wall Street does. I get why we don't get bailed out but Detroit does. I get why 60 Minutes wants to do a feature on Wilmington. I get why we'll have 25% unemployment and become the face of the most difficult economic environment in generations. I get that it has to be somebody.

But, for the last week I just haven't been able to shake just how goddamn unfair it all is.

The citizens of Wilmington didn't make knowingly high risk gambles with other people's money, become obscenely rich in the bargain, and then demand trillions of dollars because they were "too big to fail". They didn't fight tooth and nail against regulations that might have made their products economically feasible or disingenuously and systematically deny mounds of scientific evidence because it was economically lucrative. They didn't send politicians whose job it is to advocate for them to demand 10's of billions of dollars to ensure the continued production of products that no one wants.

They just went to work everyday, with marginal benefits and almost no job protection. They busted their asses, sorting freight, loading planes, and working third shift for 20 years, and watched as that company was sold to a bigger German company. They watched as company executives made fortunes due to the acquisition, and were told that this move would ensure the company's long term survival and prosperity.

Now they've lost everything, they're informed that they get to bail out bankers who are still, unbelievably, unconscionably, receiving their year end bonuses and going on elaborate corporate junkets. They get to bail out Detroit executives that don't believe in global warming. They get to spend $1 trillion on Obama's stimulus program and the 2.5 million jobs he'd like to create (crossing their fingers and hoping that a couple of them make their way back to Clinton County). Flint bails out Malibu. The Spartans bail out the Persians. The hen bails out the fox.

Chuck Todd said the other day, "...And maybe it's because we also don't know anybody that works at GM...We don't know those families. But, we do know somebody at JPMorgan Chase." He's said that, or variations of that, on several occasions as the fools on MSNBC tried to figure out why GM's panhandling effort was less successful than Wall Street's.

The unfortunate truth is that Wilmington isn't even Detroit. Not by a long shot. If Chuck Todd and the gang don't know anybody that works for GM, Wilmington doesn't have a prayer. No bailout money for us. We wouldn't have even known who to shake our cup at. The verdict: Too small to save.

I'm a realist. If I pull back and take a deep breath I might understand why it has to be this way. But, cold rationalization is no substitute for rent or a heating bill. It's no substitute for help either, and even though I want to more than anything, I have no idea how.

Public Works

President-Elect Obama has announced that at least the opening phase of his economic recovery plan will entail a massive public works program, including renovations to government buildings, rebuilding schools, rebuilding road and bridge infrastructure, upgrading broadband internet connections, and digitizing the transmission of medical records. Overall, he hopes to create 2.2 million jobs. See the story at Politico.

This is presumably the first of many announcements on this subject from Obama, as he attempts to integrate his campaign priorities with job creation, this first one feels distinctly like a 21st century reference to the programs FDR tried to fight the great depression with. Taken with the existing bailout package, and the possibility of additional packages to come, Obama is certainly working to energetically address the financial crisis. While these are certainly worthy goals for job creation programs, Obama has the opportunity to take his powerful new cabinet and address far more controversial issues in his first hundred days. With the speed and resolution Obama has demonstrated in recent weeks, it feels like the honeymoon period should be reduced from one hundred to ten days, or extended to his whole first term.

I will insert this one reservation about the announcements today, at the risk of seeming a Luddite: I do not like these programs to digitize medical records and transmit them over the internet. Firstly, at this point there is no standard format for digitized records, meaning that doctors and hospitals can send materials to one another, but not necessarily read them when they get there. Secondly, I am just bracing myself for the leaks. No network can be made entirely secure- a national network with thousands of access points and tens of thousands of users is a security nightmare. Medical records might not have the same sort of profit motive as banking info, but unlike your credit information, they really can't be repaired once leaked. Hospitals stand to save tremendous sums using digital storage, but we are asking for trouble if they start networking that information. It is quite possible that Obama will attempt to address these problems. It is probably likely that I am attempting to turn back the tide on this one.

Epic Fail

I don't know if any of you are football fans, but even if you are not, I feel attention should be paid to a team on the edge of infamy this year.

The Detroit Lions are well on their way toward becoming the first team to lose every single regular season game this year. There are some stories on the current state of the team, here describing how the quarterback is desperate for a single win, here about how local fans have failed to sell out 4 of the last 5 games in a relatively new stadium specifically built to enable sellouts after the absurdity of asking the Lions to regularly fill the Pontiac Silverdome's 83,000 seats.

It has been a bad year for the Lions- at 0-12, they've already fired their quarterback and replaced him, in mid-season, with 31-year old glass-boned Dante Culpepper, who started for the team like 72 hours after being hired and, judging by the size of the play cards on both his wrists, unsurprisingly still doesn't know the offense. He remains, nevertheless, a high point for the team this year. Revel here in the numerical explicitness of the Lion's failure, lingering over their bottom of the league placings in on both offense and defense, and the still shocking .000 win percentage.

The thing is, the Lions aren't just having a bad year- they have actually become an institution for the generation of mediocrity, ruining the careers of the highly talented draft picks their poor showings entitle them to each year. Think about it- who was the last great Lion since Barry Sanders, for whom Detroit can't take developmental credit anyway? He showed up the best running back in the league, and retired the best running back in the league, a year away from the rushing record, his years with the Lions having destroyed his enjoyment of the game. Yes, they've produced a couple of decent receivers over the years, but have not been able to translate them into wins. Or even playoff appearances.

So, Ahab like, I'll be watching the game this Sunday with a friend from Minnesota, who apparently wants someone to laugh at over his buffalo wings. The sports-talk radio station in Detroit, 97.1, hosted a conversation last week focused on who might buy the team for next year, what city they might move it to, and whom they should fire in what order. I'm right there with you, Detroit- this organization has been mediocre for as long as I've been alive, and downright horrible far too many years. Detroit Lions: what is wrong with you? This isn't baseball, where century-long losing streaks are possible- the salary cap and drafting system have tended to ensure a high degree of volatility. At least this year the Lions have managed to excel at something- even if that thing is the opposite of the reason this extremely expensive organization exists.

Lions, enjoy the bitter fruit of 2008. And then please: fire people, shake things up, move to Montana, start taking better steroids, start doing voodoo rituals before games, replace yourselves with cyborgs, disband the freaking team, but don't make me watch you do this again.

A TPBP Milestone

In the comments section of today's Overheard Line of the Day post was a nonsensical remark posted by one "Thankful Paul". Now, the comment being totally unrelated to the post made it in no way impossible that some irreverent friend of TPBP was using the comments section as a graffiti artist uses an alley. But, further investigation revealed that Thankful Paul just started this blog last month.

You really owe it to yourself to check this thing out, and if you do you'll note rather quickly that "Paul" is a two bit scam artist! The first we've had here at TPBP! He's got the hilariously false story along with the donation link so that he can "commit random and not so random acts of love in the name of Jesus".

I can't speak for PW and Aaron, but in my estimation it's a proud moment for the entire TPBP community. Thanks Paul, and good luck!

Update: Don't miss the comments section (of Paul's blog that is). He erased the negative comments right? I can't possibly be the only one that called shenanigans.

Extinct Blog of the Day

Today's foreclosed blog belongs to Bill McCready, whose futures blog we were assured would be filled with:

...articles, trading tips and charts which show how to day trade futures, including futures trading strategies, systems and resources, as well as money management and trading psychology for successful traders.

Alas, Bill's blog, though not quite extinct, seems to only ring in at about one post every other month. Though lacking in posts, Bill's a big fan of labels, which he uses liberally. It's worth checking out, if only to see Bill's kick ass head shot in the upper left-hand part of the page.

Update: I googled Bill's name, and it seems as though he wrote at least one of those silly 10 step "guide-to-making (X) wildly-successful" books, X in this case being running a small business. It's difficult to figure out whether he's semi-legit or a snake oil salesman. Either way, I'd wager his blog receives significantly more traffic than mine.

Hats off to you Bill, our Extinct Blog of the Day.

Overheard Line of the Day

On Capitol Hill at around 10:30AM:
Random Woman: What do you want?
Random Guy: A V8 if they have that.
Random Woman: What if they don't?
Random Guy: A Red Bull...Actually just get me a Red Bull.
Feel the magic.

PW's Pirate Redux

Well, if we’re going to seriously engage in this pirate business, then 1) I have some thoughts, and 2) it’s time to administer a good old-fashioned TPBP smackdown to PW, who while possessing a generally superior intellect, is off the mark on this one.

He starts out on the right track by attempting to point out the economic contexts of the situation. I remember reading recently (I can’t find the source, so take it with the requisite grain of salt) that piracy generated Somalia’s largest influx of hard currency, ringing in at over $100 million in the last year (a shockingly small amount for the largest sector of a 7 million person economy).

But then we get to this:

Certainly, there is something to the observation that much of Africa should be better integrated into the global economy on terms that actually generate wealth for more people who live there. But that doesn't really fly in Somalia.

I think that it would fly. It would take a large investment, but not impossibly large. Move in 10K troops for peacekeeping purposes, and dump $1 billion a month for infrastructure spending. I should point out that I have no idea what I’m talking about in terms of aid expenditure, distribution, etc. -- which is an admittedly poor start, but I have a hard time believing that some small fraction of our Iraqi expenditure, used even semi-productively, wouldn't make a real difference in economic terms.

Minus some kind of real government/economic security improvement you can count on these attacks continuing, if not escalating. But, when PW posits --

What kind of weapon systems could you fit to a tanker for half the cost of the 20mil USD you'd have to pay for a ransom?

--he's sidestepping a problem of scale.

Arming any one ship would be quite expensive, arming an entire fleet even more so, and arming all cumulative fleets that travel in Somali territorial waters would be impossibly expensive. There’s a reason this option hasn’t really been discussed, and all of these companies are instead clamoring for government military escorts. It’s deceptively intuitive to see a scenario that morphs into an acquadic version of the last half hour of Fast and the Furious (a la truckers with shotguns), but it’s not going to happen. PW is making an economic argument: raise the cost of piracy to the point that the pirates will no longer wish to engage in it. Though it’s not inconceivable that the costs of piracy become high enough to prevent it, that evolution is somewhat at odds with Somalia’s overall economic and political reality.

I’m not advocating the following tactic so much as opening the floor for discussion, but perhaps these pirate groups (or at least the most powerful among them) should be engaged in negotiations to open Somalia’s costal shipping lanes. This would neutralize the threat, prevent PW’s (ultimately inefficient and expensive) armed conflict and allow us to open up lines of communication with a group (the pirates) with whom we probably have more in common than the Islamic Courts Union folks that are ostensibly in charge of the country.

This piracy business is a pain in everyone’s ass, but more importantly it’s an increasingly costly pain in everyone’s ass. The only way PW’s solution works for any meaningful length of time is the permanent and significant arming of all commercial shipping operations (lest they get lax and the piracy resumes). If you could just pay the pirates some percentage less than the total cost of said arming (hopefully a tiny fraction of the total cost) everyone would be better off. It’s probably not the solution, but worth thinking about at any rate.

Enough With The Yarrrr!

So here is yet another post on pirates.

These were novel when we started making them some months ago, because pirates, really, shouldn't exist in the 21st century, save in MMORPG's and Disney movies.

As the novelty has faded with each new instance of piracy off the African coast, so has the amusement. Huffpo reports that they went after a cruise ship yesterday, a disturbing escalation. It's one thing to hold tanks or oil for ransom, another entirely to hold people who have to be fed and cared for.

Following the seizure of the Saudi oil tanker last week, news coverage has rather exploded, and has shifted to focus on the people doing the pirating. This Reuters article talks about the new beachfront hotels going up in Somalia to cater to pirate-patrons. Much of this coverage has turned to the idea that the ultimate cause of the piracy is a lack of economic development in Africa.

Certainly, there is something to the observation that much of Africa should be better integrated into the global economy on terms that actually generate wealth for more people who live there. But that doesn't really fly in Somalia. Somalia remains effectively lawless - if you still had money to invest, how much of it would you invest in Somali port development, roads, factories? There are places where international aid could be the answer, but Somalia, right now, isn't one of them.

Which sorta reduces the possible solutions, and I guess I don't really understand all the hand-wringing. I hate to be so crude, but the solution to this problem is probably about 600 years old- you put guns on your ship, and when pirates try to board it, you sink them. What kind of weapon systems could you fit to a tanker for half the cost of the 20mil USD you'd have to pay for a ransom? The whole business model of seizing incredibly valuable, defenseless assets evaporates once the assets are no longer defenseless. Certainly, there is no way to sink a tanker with small arms. Yes, there might be some escalation from the pirates, but as the Indian Navy recently demonstrated, once you force the pirates into bigger ships, the professionals can deal with them in the time-honored fashion. Open sea lanes have been the foundation of the world's economic order since the British put themselves in charge of patrolling them, and people who threaten the great global commons should be playing for the highest of stakes.

Eh

I don’t follow Canadian politics much, but it seems like I ought to start. Canada’s two more left wing parties and Quebecois separatists are planning on putting together a coalition government, despite the fact that it hasn’t been done before. It just emphasizes how much more flexible (or unstable, depending on your point of view) a parliamentary system is than our system. I think both have positives and negatives, although after eight years of George W. Bush, the negatives are certainly uppermost in my mind.

Thought of the Day

If you are over the age of 15 and say "like" in five or more consecutive sentences while recounting a conversation, odds are that you are a fool.

Sullivan Links to a Stupid Equivalency

Sullivan, via someones book review, includes the following excerpt:

If you're like me, you grew up worrying about people starving in other countries. Your mom would tell you things like, "Eat your food. There are kids going hungry tonight." But hunger, as a global threat, is now dwarfed by overweight. According to Popkin, the population of obese and overweight people worldwide—1.6 billion—is now twice as large as the population of malnourished people.

Well that might be true in a literal sense, but it's ridiculous in a practical one. Comparing obese populations to malnourished ones overlooks the fact that malnourishment is comparatively much more problematic and detrimental. I'm not a nutritionist, but I'd wager that indicators such as life expectancy would be much shorter in malnourished verses obese populations. Not to mention that obesity often (though I realize not exclusively) stems from lifestyle choices. I don't think malnourished folks in rural Appalachia or Sub-Sahara Africa are sitting around, watching TV, deciding to forgo sustenance.

Clinton at State, Gates to Stay Put

I haven’t really had a whole lot to say about politics in the last couple of weeks. I’ve never heard of the vast majority of the people the Obama administration will be made up of. It seemed kind of silly to pretend like I had much of an opinion on exactly what’s going into the new government. I voted for Obama, he got elected: it only seems fair that he should get a chance to actually start governing before I begin complaining too much.

Of course, the big news of the last couple weeks is the slow motion dance that Obama and Hillary Clinton have been engaged in. I’m glad that particular story has finally come to its conclusion. I don’t have any real strong feelings about this, either, although it puzzles me on Clinton’s part: giving up a Senate seat she could have held for life to take up a cabinet post that will last only a presidential term, if that, seems like an odd decision. But I don’t make her choices for her. While Clinton and Obama had their disagreements about foreign policy during the campaign, there really wasn’t a whole lot of difference between the two – and I doubt that Clinton is going to be running her own show. Obama is still going to call the shots. Still: eh. I can’t really summon much enthusiasm for the pick, one way or the other.

Keeping on Gates, though, is I think a thornier issue. I’ve heard the argument that the military is comfortable with Gates, that it’s a tiny bit of compromise towards Republicans and might allow some of the more realistically-minded Republicans to reach across the aisle and work with Obama instead of just obstructing until they get another chance to reduce the Democratic majorities in the Congress.

Fair enough, I suppose, and I won’t say the argument doesn’t have a certain internal logic to it. What bothers me is the idea this reinforces, that the military is more comfortable with Republican figures than Democrats. That meme, whether it’s real or exists purely in the media imagination, is a dangerous one. Obama, and progressives more broadly, need to make sure that we move the country away from that idea. If Gates can act as a transitional figure to a progressive voice that’s acceptable with the military establishment, that’s great. We need to see an end to the idea of conservatives as the big, tough warriors who will keep us pony-tailed, Volvo-driving, NPR-listening liberals safe while we go on and on about domestic issues.

Meanwhile, speaking of NPR, where’s my canvas tote? I need to get down to the farmer’s market to grab some arugula.