A Hunger For Data

I've posted before on socialized health care, but this post by the Captain over at his new ship HotAir.com has awakened a hunger to crunch some more numbers on this.

More to come if I can find some numbers....

Oh dear....

A friend of mine emailed me this link here.

I have to admit that the music in the background has the appropriate melodrama.

But the thought of George Soros and McCain conspiring together....

Lol!

Pride, meet stumble...

From The Corner:

"For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is making a comeback." — Michelle Obama

I've had a feeling that the Democrats concluded a year or so ago that they would win the next election. I even thought that it might result in a bruising primary season. Not that I thought there would be disagreements over ideology, but instead a fight for a spot on the ticket that would be guaranteed to win.

Statements like this tend to reinforce my initial thoughts.

Update:
Re-reading this post in the morning reminds me why nobody reads this blog (other then I post once in a blue moon)

Anyway, after looking at the scribblings of the night before I felt I should clarify myself to a degree. After all the quote seems tangential at best with the thought afterwards. I will attempt to explain with a chain of rather loosely linked and probably incoherent reflections.

In that statement I hear a fierce exultation. Something, I think, of a Roman general in his triumph. Yet it is missing the element of mortality, Memento Mori, remember that you are mortal. She has forgotten that she stands upon an edifice that has been built by previous generations sweat, toil, and blood. The hope that she points to is divorced from what has come before it. It can mean everything and yet nothing at all.

These words were only spoken, I think, because she has persuaded herself that they will win. They will march through the primaries, and then through the campaign and take what is rightfully theirs. In a sense this is the opposite side of the coin to BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome). Where on one side if the opponent has power darkness reigns triumphant, the other is all light merely because they espouse the true doctrine.

Ah well, just some thoughts.

I never seem to have the time.....

Hard to find time to post...

I ran across this story a couple days ago on another blog, but I can't remember which (sorry!). Anyway, it would seem that BAE, the British defense industry, was giving the government of Saudi Arabia bribes or kick-backs. When an investigation was launched the Saudi's threatened to cut off intelligence information. As the article puts it, "Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted."

The government folded.

Evidently the intelligence trumped any possible repercussions to not investigating BAE.

It also calls to mind the Churchill quip to a society lady:

"Madam, We've already established what you are, now we're just haggling over the price."

Institutions

This is an observation in broad brush strokes:

It seems that many institutions in this country have been corrupted by a kind of Leninism. That is not to say that they are marxist or even communist, but a reflection of the political methods employed by the Soviet Union. The example I would point to is Socialist Realism (wikipedia). Even art, arguably one of the highest achievements of man, was subordinated to ideology in the Soviet state.

To be fair, the use of art to further politics is not a new idea. One just has to look at the Pyramids , or read Plato's Republic. However, the soviet example echoes to me because of the dearth of art it left behind. What great artist of the twentieth century existed in the Soviet Union? If you run a google search no name pops up, though you do see an entry for propaganda posters. A few entries later you see a traveling exhibition, which prominently features a Faberge egg, definitely not a Soviet production. So to do our modern institutions seem barren. Take your pick of any political issue and you can find a depressing solidarity between press, academia, the arts, and the left in this country. Everyone is pulling together to further their ideology.

I would bid any reader to reflect, is this good or bad? You could argue that solidarity is merely a side effect of the wisdom contained within these institutions. Yet, to me, Socrates had a great point about those who proclaim their wisdom, as they have often mistaken opinion for truth and thus lead others into error.

Follow up thoughts

Thinking back on my back-of-the-envelope calculation:

An obvious argument against what I posted below would be that the increase in taxation would be offset by business and individuals no longer having to pay an insurance company for health care. That is true, but overnight you would have essentially eliminated every health insurance corporation, and thrown all those people out of work. This is an even worse deal for those who went the HSA route, as now all the money they had been saving (and would be theirs at retirement iirc) would now be appropriated by a federal agency going forward. Now as far as I know, no major candidate of either party is currently advocating this. Instead we have a proposal to force everyone to carry health insurance. The downside of this is discussed at Pajamas Media here.

Back of the envelope calculations

Note: Just some scattered thoughts on universal health insurance. This is not particularly organized, or even expressed well, but I wonder if anybody has thought five minutes about it.

At any rate I thought five minutes about it... you could probably argue that I should have thought ten.

$548,112,577,632.36

Thats my back of the envelope calculation of what universal, single payer, health insurance might have roughly cost in the year 2000. How did I calculate it? I took the cost of an HSA plan with a $3000 deductible and $183.01 per month premium over a year. I then multiplied that by the number of households according to the year 2000 census (105,480,101).

I'm assuming (a pretty big assumption) that the HSA plan is rationally priced to cover the risk of a large pool of the insured. I also assume that each household is pretty much an equal unit (in reality they are not and quite disparate).

Thus this number is probably not very accurate, but it gives you a handle on what it could cost. If anything the cost will be higher because most of your economic incentives to economize on health care (except for time) will be gone. In a single payer system there isn't insurance, instead its a cost distributing function. Insurance implies that you might not have to pay 100%. Not to mention you pay a penalty in administrative costs. You will never get a dollar in output for every dollar of input.

Also, while people will also call this 'free' health care, it isn't. Somebody has to pay for it, and you will in the form of taxes. If Congress was acting in a rational matter when it instituted socialized health care, it would raise a special tax that would only go to fund health care, and draw no revenues from the general fund. Congress would also not run any sort of deficit, except in maybe a twelve to twenty four month time frame to smooth out variations in tax receipts quarter to quarter (adding yet a higher administrative cost in the sense of having to pay interest and maintain bond issues).

Anyway, lets assume that each household will have a $434 additional tax liability per month. Thats roughly $5200 a year in additional taxes. Roughly 10% of income, for a household with an income of $50,000 a year, and it only gets more regressive with the less a household makes. At $25,000 its roughly %20 of your income for instance. In the interests of fairness, of course, the less wealthy will not be required to pay as much. This will shift the burden upward.

Of course in my scenario you still pay income tax to the federal government...

Assume that if you earn $50k, you have $40k of taxable income at a %20 rate..

Thats $8,000 in federal taxes owed + $5,200 for universal health care...

$13,200, (%26.4 of income) in total taxes to federal government (haven't even factored in state, local etc) Over $1000+ a month.

Federal spending would also rise from 2,656 Billion dollars (2006 outlays) to 3,116 Billion dollars (my estimate). With a GDP of 12,907 billion dollars you are looking at the federal government equal to 1/4 of the economy.



Ouch.

This doesn't even get into the philosophical issues surrounding universal health care, issues such as rationing, central control, and modifying the compact between the people and their government.

A quick dark thought

Ahmadinejad visited Columbia today, a reflection:

There is a cult of sentiment in this country that proclaims that we should extend to our enemies all the rights and privileges that we enjoy, in order to prove that we deserve them. It demands a radical equality of principles, and a poverty of discernment. No longer do our higher institutions require a student to perceive a hierarchy of ideas; indeed to measure is to judge, and the guardians of higher education will have no judgment in their house.

It seems to me that we find ourselves in an intellectual climate similar to that Plato existed in ancient Athens. Who will win this time, philosophy or the sophist?

Vegetarian Cooking

As my wife is a vegetarian, and I a unabashed omnivore, there is a bit of tension when it comes to dinner. No, she doesn't mind me eating meat, well not so much mind as tolerate. Anyway, the point is that I end up doing most of the cooking. However, I am too lazy to cook two different dinners every night and I usually just do something that we both can eat.

The problem is that there isn't anything out there that matches the texture and flavor of meat. Yeah I know about tofu and all that but, its just not the same to my palate. I'd love to do something like a chicken parmagian, but what to replace the chicken with?

Anyway, something to think about.

So much for good intentions

Yeah I'm still alive (not that I think anybody thought otherwise)

Lots of changes in my personal life, etc.

Problem is that I tend to be more of a blog reader instead of a contributer. Probably should go for more small thoughts, more of a instapundit kind of style.

Hrm, since I have lots of time on my hands at the moment, might try to do this.

Intelligence Turf Wars

Well this is what I was originally going to post on today, before I went to google news and saw the Chavez article.

Anyway....

[begin rant]

I was drinking some coffee and paging through a copy of the Wall Street Journal. On page A4 there is an article titled: Pentagon's Covert Activities Come Under Senate Scrutiny. The gist of the article is that Senator Jay Rockefeller (D - WV) is convening senate hearings on intelligence operations that came out of the Department of Defense post 9/11 that weren't run by the CIA.

Lawmakers plan to study whether the Pentagon obtained the proper authorization for covert operations and notified Congress as required under the law. The inquiry will also explore whether the Pentagon engaged in activities that legally are the responsibility of the Central Intelligence Agency.

This reminded me of a Powerline post from a couple years back: The CIA's War Against President Bush. This article would seem to indicate that the war continues, and now with the Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, making hay for the majority.

Important points from the article:

• Democrats are claiming that Rumsfeld setup a "parallel intelligence network"
• Republican lawmakers prevented "previous efforts" by the then minority from holding hearings
• Democrats will focus on both foreign & domestic operations
  
• Democrats are going to use laws passed during the Iran-Contra affair to attack these activities
• Democrats think that the scope of these laws apply to intelligence operations in Iraq & Afghanistan

I'm afraid I'm going to be quite harsh in my analysis.

The CIA doesn't like the fact that the current administration took steps to ensure that they could perform covert operations that didn't involve the CIA. Thus the CIA has found friends within the ruling Democrats to hold hearings to protect their turf (ah bureaucracy!). I imagine that the quid pro quo was something like, if you protect our turf, we can help you with a few choice tidbits of information to embarrass the President. Nobody, naturally, thinks there is anything wrong with this. This is the great game, right? So now the CIA has invited the vampi.. politicians in to settle the matter. The problem is that the democrats also have an agenda beyond just the pure accumulation of power. They want to end our involvement in Iraq, and it would seem that any methods in the pursuit of this goal are to be utilized. Even if it means hamstringing legitimate operations in pursuit of our common enemy. After all, we want this to be all aboveboard and legal.

So, if we find Osama Bin Laden (or equivalent) somewhere around the world and want to launch an operation against him, the President must file a specific finding against the target beforehand "attesting that it supports specific foreign-policy goals and is important to national security" as well as notifying congressional intelligence committees when a covert action is to be carried out. While on the surface this seems a reasonable process for handling covert operations, I'm afraid that the Democrats are going to claim that all special operations in Iraq and Afghanistan fall under this process. At least that's what they will say from their soapbox, and then point at the administration and say that they are breaking the law (while doing nothing about it) to score more political points.

(sigh)

The only reasons I can fathom for what I perceive to be the Democrat's behavior is that:
a) The Democrats truly believe there is no threat from terrorism abroad
b) The Democrats have made a calculation that our defenses can hold whatever they and the enemy throw at them until they gain control of both the executive and the legislature. At that point they will make the battle against terrorism their war and forever silence their conservative critics that they are weak on defense.

[End Rant;]

Well there goes the neighborhood.....

In a move used by dictators since the days of Julius Caesar, Hugo Chavez was:

granted free rein Wednesday to accelerate changes in broad areas of society by presidential decree — a move critics said propels Venezuela toward dictatorship. (source: the AP in the Houston Chronicle)

The article, written by Fabiola Sanchez, proceeds to describe the scene in a "downtown square." There she quotes National Assembly President Cilia Flores: "Fatherland, socialism or death! We will prevail!"

Where to begin?

I understand that there is some standard of objectivity that all journalists are supposed to aspire to. I also understand that after a legislature grants a president "free rein" in a "downtown square" to legislate by proclamation, that a killjoy article about the inevitable glorious society that is about to be realized may have fatal consequences. Somehow I wish that other words were written. Words that reflect the world's last one hundred years of experience dealing with men granted such power by such means.

Here are a few predictions that I fear are certainties, or even realities:

Expect that the political opposition will be quickly eliminated by various means. Some may have already seen the writing on the wall long before today and have already gone into exile. Some brave men and women, will attempt to stand up and speak out. They will go to prison or to the firing line. Chavez seems to idolize Fidel Castro, I'm sure he's already tapped the expertise available there in learning how to control a population. Lenin's bloody hand will reach out from the past century and once again trouble this one.

The enemies of the United States will be granted sanctuary and support in Venezuela. In fact enemies of any free nation in the hemisphere will gain it

Don't expect to hear much out of the press. Every dictator in the past 100 years has seized control of the media in his country. Many also seek to co-opt or coerce foreign media to control their tone, or feed wholesale propaganda back to their home countries. Can anyone name any dictator in the past 100 years who hasn't?

The left will hail the brave new experiment in Venezuela, but it will end in the same bloody shambles that all before it has.

Upset special: Chavez will go after the Scouting movement in Venezuela. Nazi Germany suppressed the scouts. Soviet Russia suppressed the scouts. Something I've noticed about totalitarian regimes is that they always do this in favor of some sort of political indoctrination youth movement.

NRSC Pledge

I've been reading about this online, and while stopping by Hugh Hewitt's site I decided to put my name on the list as well.

It's ridiculous that Congress would send such a message to our enemies. They will conclude that time is on their side. All they have to do is wait, use a few car bombs here and there against an unsuspecting and defenseless civilian population, and the US Congress will strike our colors and run.

I can't imagine, during the height of the V-1 and V-2 attacks against London late in WWII, that Congress would prevent further divisions from reinforcing those already engaged. Especially if those divisions would then help us overrun the launching sites. Why deny the commanders on the ground the resources?

Out and about.

Been out and about for work over the past few days. With a flaky wireless connection at the hotel, its hard to get online and read. Plus, I'm always watching TV in my room late at night, hoping beyond hope that there is something decent on. Anyway, I decided to find someplace to eat with free internet and coffee.

Time to relax.....

Open up Pajamas Media....

They say that Khamenei is dead.

No confirmation yet, so it may or may not be true. Some things to keep an eye on though. It could take a couple days for this to actually break, or it could be wild rumor. Will there be a scramble to secure his position? Wikipedia notes that his official title is Leader of the Revolution, and considered the absolute ruler of the nation. He ostensibly serves at the pleasure of the Assembly of Experts, and is chosen by them. It will be interesting to see what is reported about this assembly and if their votes will be made public, or if official propoganda will paint the selection as a unified decision. The choice of replacement will be an important thing to watch.

Reminds me of the days when people watched the Kremlin for signals in Soviet policy by watching those who occupied positions of leadership.

Just some thoughts.

One more quick comment

I did transition this blog over to the new google thingy, but I'm still disappointed in the interface. In Firefox, if you highlight text to be used as a link, click on the link button, and type in your URL, it won't reset the button from its pressed state. Yeah, I know, a minor detail....

Its been awhile

Haven't posted for awhile, as you may have noticed....

(the sound of crickets chirping)

I would like to say because there was such a dearth of response to my posts here, but in reality with the pace of events and a day job, it was hard to keep up with things.

That, and there are other people far more eloquent then I writing out there.

For an example see here.

However, as the new year approaches, I will try to do better and post something. Or, at least, reference someone else who has.

For your consideration

There has been a buzz in the blogosphere and in print that Iran is going to be up to something on August 22nd. While browsing Pajamas Media I did notice that there were a few articles today that individually did not seem like much, but together attracted my attention:

Iran to launch major military maneuvers

Total Information Blackout: Iranian Police Destroying Satellite Dishes in Tehran

N. Korea Appears to Be Preparing for Nuclear Test

Interesting.

Mind Terrain

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." - Frank Herbert, Dune

The IDF airstrike on Qana, and subsequent collapse of a building that killed many civilians, illustrates the impact of ideas and perceptions in war. There is the physical terrain that a conflict takes place upon, and there is a terrain of the mind, complete with its own forbidden places. Not suprisingly many have reacted with disgust at the news of the civilian deaths, because in the west a thousand years of tradition have evolved to protect civilians against wanton acts of violence. Hezbollah, knowing this about the west, and seeking to seperate Israel from any potential ally, has been shaping the terrain since the beginning of the conflict. Despite being the initiator, they have built an impressive fortress in the minds of the western observer, founded on the perception that any Lebanese civilian casualty is a grave injustice. Any larger loss of life makes the hill it sits upon taller, and the shadow it casts trouble him more deeply. This is not a new problem, Plato in The Republic makes the analogy of the cave:

"Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets." -- Plato's Republic, Book VII.

To see the truth, the observer must have the will to turn his eyes from the shadows on the wall, and see exactly what the puppeteer is doing behind his back. Will has always been a crucial factor in the ability to make war. The side that doubts itself lacks the resolve to pursue victory, resulting either in stalemate or defeat.

After the Battle

Haaretz reports that Israel is pulling out of the city of Bint Jbail (ht: Pajamas Media):

Israel Defense Forces troops pulled out of the southern Lebanon town of Bint Jbail on Saturday afternoon ... Armored Corps soldiers were still operating around the town, and were in control of certain areas.

This seems to indicate that the IDF is withdrawing from the urban terrain of the city, but remaining perched on the hills to the east, west, and south. The Jerusalem Post reports that the bulk of the forces are redeploying to hit other villages and cities close to the border. Israel has talked about creating a shallow zone in Lebanon for security purposes, but the IDF hasn't had a substantial presence anywhere else in Lebanon. The call up of three more divisions could be to provide enough manpower to accomplish that objective.

The movements of the IDF at first glance would imply that Israel does not plan to use ground troops to deny Hezbollah missile launching sites south of the Litani river. It could also be that this was some sort of probing attack, trying to take measure of just what they were up against in terms of Hezbollah's capabilities and they are planning to go the Litani through a different route.

Any observer, however, must note that Israel has not achieved any of her objectives that she has gone to war for. The IDF has not prevented Hezbollah from launching rockets into northern Israel, nor have they recovered their captured soldiers. Israel's strategy still seems to be to engage the enemy at arms length and avoid any kind of attrition on the ground. Air power still seems to be the tool of choice in suppressing rocket fire, but it is limited in that it can only react most of the time after a launch has revealed its target. Hezbollah, never discounting the efficacy of propaganda, is crowing that, in inflicting eight casualties in a single battle, that they have hit the Achilles heel of the IDF, casualties. From MEMRI via Pajamas Media:

"In the ground war, we will have the upper hand. In the ground war, the criterion is our attrition of the enemy, rather than what territory does or does not remain in our hands, because we are not fighting with the method of a regular army. We will definitely regain any land occupied by the enemy, after inflicting great losses upon it."

Where then, are things going to go from here?

With Secretary Rice returning to the region, it would appear that a negotiated ceasefire and settlement could be in the works. It could also be that the IDF is merely planning for a much deeper penetration of Lebanese territory and has temporarily pulled back to prepare. More information should be forthcoming over the next few days.

Continued Fighting in the Bint Jubayl - Maround al-Ras Region

Haaretz gives an after action report on the fighting in Bint Jubayl from dawn to dusk today.

Looking over my post last night I notice that I had implicitly assumed that the IDF had complete control of the town, excepting a group of 100 fighters that were supposedly surrounded in one part of the city. As Bill Roggio notes at the Counter Terrorism blog:

The Israelis have confirmed that Hezbollah is fighting like a professional military. Their units are fighting at the company level at the least (Unit size of approximately 100 men), and perhaps in larger formations. Intelligence also confirms there is specialization within the Hezbollah units, including trained infantry, mortar teams, missile squads, and logistical personal. Iran has trained and organized Hezbollah's army into something far more deadly than a militia force. Hezbollah's core 'active' army is estimated at 3,000 - 5,000, with as many as 50,000 part time militia and support personnel that can be called upon to fight (20,000 is the average estimate).

An IDF infantry platoon was sent in from the hill and ridge north east of Bint Jebayl, and ran into an organized ambush that had on call supporting elements. From the Haaretz article:

The initial battle raged for about an hour. During the next three hours, other platoons entered the area in an attempt to extricate the force that was pinned down. Hezbollah forces fired antitank missiles and threw grenades at the force it had caught in its ambush, and it also used mortars to attack the supporting IDF units.

What was once assessed as a surrounded, soon to be defeated enemy, turns around and shows that it has quite a bit of fight in it yet. From the Jerusalem Post:

Dozens of Hizbullah gunmen armed with antitank missiles and machine guns and geared up in night-vision goggles and bulletproof vests set a trap for a force of Golani infantrymen led by Lt.-Col. Yaniv Asor, commander of Battalion 51.

Eight Israelis were killed, while the IDF claimed that "at least 40" Hezbollah were killed as well.


Reading the accounts of the battle almost seem to be a mixture of "Blackhawk Down" and Stalingrad. A unit gets ambushed and draws in larger and larger forces in the attempts to rescue it. Meanwhile, Bint Jubayl is viewed by one side as a trophy to be captured, and by the other as terrain that must not be yielded. It will be interesting to see if Hezbollah tries to move in more troops and try to hold the Israeli's in position, or if they will instead attempt to fight a battle of posts up the roads leading north to the Litani river. I still think the latter strategy is more likely, but then again I wouldn't have guessed that nine casualties in a single day would take the luster off the IDF in the media.

Just some thoughts.