Saturday, December 31, 2005

Baby Noor and Overkill

I know I'm going to sound like a grinch again, but Baby Noor was not a good candidate for treatment in the U.S. Iraq is full of children who are going to die for want of ordinary medical treatment. How many millions of dollars will go into the effort to save Noor's life? She may die anyway. How many normal babies will die for want of the attention that the same money could have bought?

It would be worth the effort if it would fool the Iraqis into believing that we really care about them. I can't believe they're buying it. An awful lot of them died for lack of medical supplies during the period of sanctions. Unfortunately, I don't know where to find just what the Arabs think of this ploy, but I've checked three mideast news sites and can't find a word about this exciting event. I assume this means they aren't impressed with our benevolence.

We aren't going to win their hearts and minds this or any other way. Let's get out.

Except for the French Quarter, New Orleans isn't coming back.

After all the emotional response, it's time to think this out. New Orleans was where it was because the French thought this was a good spot. It was the shortest distance upstream that could support a major town. Remember that the site was chosen before steam, when going upstream was much more of an undertaking than it is now.

Once a major metropolis is formed, it tends to stay put. Part of what it has is a large stock of lousy but low-rent housing. In New Orleans, most of that is gone. Anything that we replace it with will be at least newer and mostly built to higher standards. The poor people who were there won't be able to afford it at market prices.

Furthermore, it's below sea level and sinking. It's worse than a flood plain. If it weren't New Orleans, people wouldn't even be allowed to build there. It makes no sense to relocate lots of poor people someplace where they probably can't get jobs at a cost far above what it would take to settle them on really dry land.

The French Quarter should be protected by levees and the rest of it turned into a theme park. Lagoonland. I like the sound of that.

Making Commitments We Haven't Paid For

Oregon is all a twitter over the state welfare agency being off $172 million in its budget estimates for the biennium. Editorialists are calling for a special session.

Although $172 million is not chump change, it pales in comparison with the annual fluctuations in the Unfunded Actuarial Liability (UAL) of Oregon's Public Employeement Retirement System (PERS). Oregon has created exceptionally expensive retirement programs for all public employees, local and county as well as state. It hasn't been paying enough into the program to cover liabilities, hence the huge UAL. This year, with assets of around $40 billion (last time I looked), the plan needed an 8% return to avoid falling behind. Based on the stock market indices, it probably earned about 2%. Being short 6% on $40 billion is $2.4 billion.

For PERS, 2005 was a lackluster year. The previous two had been good. The two that preceded those had been disastrous. Looking at NASDAQ, S&P 500 and Dow Industrial averages, the equity earnings over five years have been negative, so even including some bond revenue (30% of PERS assets), it's been about a wash. The actuarially assumed return of 8%, compounded for 5 years, would have been 47%.

Taxpayers have picked up the tab so far, but if the 8% can't be regularly achieved, this is a nightmare that will never end. It's the same all over the country, in both private and public sectors. Executives promise employees fixed payouts that are only possible if the modest funds paid in earn good returns, consistently, forever.

There's a very tidy logic behind the 401(K) strategy of pensions. People today, whether they are paying an autoworker to build a Chevy or a teacher to instruct first graders, include something for that person's pension. What it yields as retirement income depends on whether America prospers. We're all in the same boat.

Thursday, December 29, 2005

First Kirkuk, then Baghdad

John Maynard Keynes once said something to the effect that any reasonably intelligent man could make a fortune in the stock market by reading the newspaper every morning. The premise of this blog is similar; that an ordinarily intelligent person can perceive trends in public affairs which may confound well paid commentators.

It doesn't work 100% of the time, just as Keynes didn't predict the stock market precisely, but the Occam's Razor of analysis with respect to the Middle East is that things will not work out well in the end. Deep-seated pessimism has so far given me a better batting average than Thomas Friedman or Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan developed reservations about Iraq long after the invasion that he supported, blaming his misjudgment on the "surprise" that politicians lie and the military wasn't efficient. Friedman is withholding judgment for six more months for reasons that are unclear.

Unfortunately, this record may hold up with Juan Cole as well. In Cole's blog today (12/29/2005), he reports that the fix may be in in Kirkuk. The Kurd's are putting the Peshmerga in place to assert military control when Iraq dissolves and civil war breaks out. The religious Shiite leaders seem to have largely ceded the region to them in exchange for enough votes to give them control of everything else of importance.

Of course. So why is Cole quibbling about whether civil war has already begun? I'm guessing he is reserving the phrase for a later stage of the conflict, because he wants something identifiable that our continued, albeit reduced, presence can prevent. He believes it is within our capacity, and our moral duty, to forestall the worst.

Not gonna happen. The Sunnis are now participating in every election and it is certainly not because they expect to win. They must have a reason, and it is most likely world opinion, or at least the Arab street. They know there will be fraud in any Iraq election, so by participating and losing, they can wrap themselves in the flag of democracy (considerable irony there). The Iraqi winners aren't going to buy it, but that doesn't matter. As the insurgency escalates, the Sunnis will want a patina of legitimacy.

The US will not be able to intervene against the insurgency with its air power. While the Sunni Arabs may be a 20% minority in Iraq, they are the dominant group in the region and their coreligionists are not going to stand idly by while they are crushed in Iraq.

Making actual predictions is dangerous. Fox picked Michigan by three touchdowns over Nebraska and now they're stuck with it. However, I'm not a public figure and I don't need to worry about the next election, so I'll just observe that all parties have been going through the motions that the US has dictated -- interim government, first unelected and then elected, constitution, national vote -- and they're running out of reasons not to take what they think they deserve. I predict that after a few months to form the government and a few more to go through false motions of renegotiating the constitution, things will get ugly. Six months, tops.

Not quite Afghanistan, which won't happen until after the US pulls its ground forces and that depends on when GW Bush gives up. As Senator Lieberman accurately says, he's our commander-in-chief for three more years and he's a stubborn man.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

The Pope does the Limbo

My interest in theological discussions is one step removed. To actually care about the outcome, you need to at least give some level of credence to the premises. I'm simply intrigued that the debate goes on at all.

Take Limbo, that nifty solution to some of the hard edges of Christian theology. Nothing in the Bible suggests its existence, but the logic of original sin and redemption through Jesus brought the Catholic Church to a difficulty that it resolved by inventing a place that's not as nice as heaven but not as nasty as hell. Now, they are rethinking it.

All of this takes place within an institution that has declared the Pope's views on theology to be infallible. Change within an infallible structure entails certain contradictions, but Catholics have been adept over the centuries at reconciling them. It isn't easy to tap dance your way around the fact that the church arrested Galileo for saying that the earth wasn't flat.

So the current Pope, having inherited the position that the Pope is infallible, needs to work his way around the fact that, according to the IHT article,

It remained strong in 1905, when Pope Pius X stated plainly: "Children who die without baptism go into limbo, where they do not enjoy God, but they do not suffer either."

The current Pope thinks Limbo was just an unofficial hypothesis. Pius X seemed to think it was pretty clear, but maybe it didn't come through the Latin that well. All in all, Catholics are in a difficult position compared with Protestants, who can start a fresh church for the cost of renting a large tent and who can select from among the Biblical phrases they like to produce a marketable product. Being Number One has its disadvantages as well as its advantages.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Why Col. Muhammed Wasif Taha matters

This morning's newspaper had the report that Col. Muhammed Wasif Taha, a well regarded military officer, had failed to win agreement from the Iraqi government to become the commander of a brigade responsible for some of the most sensitive security situations in Baghdad. The colonel is Sunni. The government is Shiite.

Colonel Taha is the choice of the Americans. From this, we can assume that his Baathist record is mild and his actions since the fall of Saddam impeccable. If this man cannot continue in his chosen profession because he is Sunni, then the message cannot possibly be lost on his coreligionists that there is no future for them in an Iraq governed democratically under the constitution that has been adopted. Their peaceful options are limited to deciding what to do with their time as they rot in futile impotence in the middle of a million acres of stinking desert. They will more likely opt for continued violence.

This analysis should not be mistaken for sympathy. The Sunnis are getting nothing worse, and generally much better, than the deal they parcelled out to the Shiites and Kurds when they held the whip hand. They have no moral basis for expecting anything better.

But this is an issue of realpolitik and morality has nothing to do with it. The United States has gotten itself into a situation where civil war is inevitable and nothing we can do (Juan Cole respectfully to the contrary notwithstanding) will prevent it or even materially retard it. Let's get out.

Sunday, December 25, 2005

Support for Intelligent Design from Dubai

It will doubtless comfort the ID enthusiasts that, despite their defeat in federal court and the near universal rejection of ID by real scientists, their views resonate in the archaic minds of the muslim world. Khaleej Times, the largest English language newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, asked editorial, "What's wrong with Intelligent Design?" They were unable to find anything.

I also found a letter to the editor, criticizing the paper for its extensive coverage of Elton John getting hitched to a man. The writer pointed out that this was a muslim family newspaper and it would be hard for parents to explain this stuff to their kids. Gee, Intelligent Design, homophobia. Maybe between Pat Robertson and the islamists there are only distinctions without differences.

Round and round we go again.

The Shiites in Iraq are unhappy about those who deny the validity of the election they just won. This shouldn't surprise anyone, but evidently some are easily shocked. The article includes the following:

But the Shiite religious bloc also deepened the post-election turmoil by claiming that Islamic extremists and Saddam Hussein loyalists were at the forefront of those questioning the results.

This seems odd. Those questioning the results are, with a few interesting additions, the political front men for the insurgency, which as Donald Rumsfeld has been assuring us consists of Islamic extremists and Saddam Hussein loyalists. Why does it add turmoil if the Shiites say the same?

The interesting additions are the "secular Shiites," who got their heads handed to them in the election. Somehow "secular Shiites" seems akin to "liberal Southern Baptists." There doubtless are some, but you aren't going to win elections appealing to them.

The United States keeps hoping that something good and democratic will emerge from the muslim countries of the Middle East. Our theory is that everyone yearns for democracy and that we can succeed if we simply "enable" these aspirations. In fact, you could gather all the truly pro-democratic Arab leaders in a phone booth. In both Iraq and Egypt, the struggle is between secular dictatorship and theocratic dictatorship. The remnants are mostly corrupt pro-Western CIA flacks.

Let's get out. The money we're spending militarily could be spent on technology to replace oil and we'd be way ahead of the game.

Saturday, December 24, 2005

The US Constitution Applies to Florence, Oregon

This may not seem like news to people from outside our area, but it has been the basis for a lawsuit that has just received a ruling in federal court. As background, a local Indian tribe has constructed a casino on the outskirts of Florence. The center of local opposition has been People Against a Casino Town (PACT).

PACT has tried various legal avenues to block the casino. The governing federal legislation is IGRA (Indian Gaming Regulation Act) and it requires the tribes to attempt to negotiate a compact with the state in which they will operate, which will determine certain intergovernmental protocols. Note that they are required to try, not to succeed. Oregon's governor negotiated such an agreement some years back.

The Oregon Constitution says that the legislature (and by extension the governor) must not permit a casino to operate in Oregon. PACT's remarkable position is that this means that the governor acted illegally by signing the compact.

Relations with Indians were ruled by the Supreme Court to belong exclusively to the federal government almost two centuries ago, so the position of the Oregon Constitution on casino gambling is moot. PACT, nevertheless, took it first to the Oregon Supreme Court, bypassing the ordinary lower court procedures, and were tossed out. When they started over at the appropriate level, they were told to take it to federal court instead.f

People with more sensitive minds would have seen a fatal problem at this moment. If the state courts, where issues of the Oregon Constitution are ordinarily resolved, didn't even see this as coming under their jurisdiction, that is just one step short of calling it frivolous. Undeterred, PACT took their case into the federal system and have just been told, unsurprisingly, that it is meritless.

A PACT spokesman said that they now have two options. One is to appeal again to the Oregon Supreme Court, another is to head to the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. A third option leaps to mind. How about giving it up?

Oh, and to get back to an earlier point, should all of American jurisprudence since Independence be stood on its head and PACT prevail, it would mean that the local Indians would be under no obligation to deal with local governments at all, except under a compact which they would write and submit to the Secretary of the Interior for approval. IGRA is very clear that the failure of negotiations for a compact does not stop the casino. But people who are battling in court for a new Constitution would probably be hopeful about a new IGRA in the bargain. Who knows what they have in mind.

Greatest Mideast Election Fraud? Get real!

The Sunnis and secular Shiites in Iraq are now claiming that the December 15 election was the greatest election fraud in the history of the Mideast. Really? What about the final election under Saddam, in which he got nearly 100% of the vote, in a process run by the same people who are now protesting.

Or Egypt? Where people were gunned down for trying to get to polling places. And where the main opposition leader has been jailed.

The story notes that:

Nur spent most of time in court instead of campaigning and lost his seat in his Bab Al-Shaaria stronghold in the first round.

"They announced my defeat on public television half an hour before the counting had even started," he said in an earlier interview.


Worst fraud in the history of the mideast? That's a rather high standard. This wouldn't even qualify as the worst election fraud in Patterson, New Jersey.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Why Thomas Friedman and Juan Cole are both wrong.

Juan Cole seems to be pretty accurate in his analysis of the situation, past and present. I think his prescription for future action is wrong philosophically, although I can't argue with his critique of our options. Friedman is just wrong.

Friedman first. I can't seem to find his column online, but in this morning's newspaper, he argued that the jury is still out as we wait to see what sort of country the Iraqis voted for, united and compromising or splintered and confrontational. As Aaron Brown put it during Katrina, doesn't he watch television? Or read newspapers?

The vote divided on sectarian lines and tended to go strongly for religious lists. The secular candidates that the neocons hoped would do well were crushed. The hope was that Allawi and Chalabi would get 20% and 5%, respectively. Allawi is under 10% and Chalabi has dropped out of sight.

The Sunnis only have a negotiating position if they can obtain something by violence. Otherwise, they get a million acres of stinking desert as their patrimony. Civil war will continue and grow.

Cole sees this outcome, but thinks we have a moral obligation to keep it below the level of conflicts that were seen in the Balkans and Lebanon. I lack his deep knowledge of the region, so I won't contest the notion that if we leave, there will be a bloodbath. I am a little queasy about the minimal interference option, which Cole and Rep. Murtha seems to like, since it sounds a lot like Vietnamization.

Rather than trying to negotiate with the winners, the non-Kurd losers are complaining about fraud. Their concerns will be considered by an electoral commission controlled by the winners. Good luck!

I can't fathom why Friedman thinks another 6 months will be needed to sort out the results. The Kurds and Shiites won again. They have been winning consistently and they have no reason to give anything up. The promise to renegotiate was always a farce. They held and still hold all the cards.

Monday, December 19, 2005

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments about Israel and the Holocaust

President Ahmadinejad has attempted to clarify his remarks about the Holocaust, but nobody seems to be listening. It's unfortunate that we have devoted to much attention to the word "myth" and not to his message. Since he spoke in Farsi, it's certain that he didn't use that word, and whatever he used could probably have been as easily translated as "legend." With that phrase, his position would have been easier to understand.

Those paying attention to both the original statement and the clarifications will note that Ahmadinejad is not saying that the Holocaust didn't happen. He used a word which was translated as "myth," but he is simply saying that it's been given a holy status above discussion. That's true. It may not be a bad thing, but it's true.

However, what he is strongly objecting to is the conclusion drawn from the Holocaust that the Jewish people deserved a homeland that would be carved out of Muslim lands, as a result of something inflicted on them by Europeans. That is the unexamined premise behind American, and to a lesser extent European, support for Israel.

Suppose for a minute that the Aztecs had lived a little farther north before being overwhelmed by the Spanish, and that after centuries of wandering, they had ended up in China. And that the Chinese, to compensate them for all their mistreatment in China, had decided that they should get Texas as a homeland. Would the Texans have been empathetic and understanding to the repatriated Aztecs? Have Muslims been empatetic and understanding to Israel? Are we surprised?

Hamas Wins Free Elections! Be careful what you ask for.

It seems that the Palestinians are leaning towards Hamas in municipal elections, and now the European Union is thinking about removing its financial support. The problem with democracy, which we keep saying we want to see springing up in the Middle East, is that the freely expressed will of such people may not correspond to America's announced interests.

What did we expect? Why are we surprised that Fatah, which exists on international welfare, should be corrupt and unresponsive to the needs of the Palestinians? We should also not be surprised that people welcome anti-corruption with a "law and order" theme.

Think Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein played a democratic role simultaneously with the IRA's violent role in the Troubles. Despite all the posturing, they were at the table and it was better to have them there.

Hamas has killed Israelis and announced its wish to obliterate Israel. The Likud has harbored politicians who wanted to obliterate Palestine and its founder and leader Ariel Sharon is deeply implicated in the Sabra and Chatila massacres. If the Palestinians can negotiate with Israel, nobody has the right to shun their chosen leaders, even if that turns out to be Hamas.

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Southwest Airlines hasn't made me feel safer.

In the defense of the safety of the flying public, Southwest Airlines stopped a flight that was about to depart from Los Angeles because some wiseacre was joking with his friends about having a bomb. Everybody got off, the man was arrested, and the plane was searched. Nothing was found, but the guy is in deep doo-doo and will face serious consequences.

Do you feel safer because our airlines operate this way? If so, please join me in a mental experiment. Imagine a person who has decided to destroy an airplane in flight by bringing a bomb onto a flight which he himself will take. He is going to die along with everyone around him when, according to his intent and expectation, the bomb explodes. Do you have him in mind? Now, can you imagine him telling jokes about bombs after he's boarded the plane?

I can picture him sitting nervously, sweating profusely and not making eye contact. I can imagine, although I've never heard of an instance, of a terrorist changing his mind and confessing to a flight attendant. But joking?

During the last 10 million commercial flights within the United States, nobody has ever brought a bomb onboard and detonated it. A certain number of people have been detained for making remarks. Has any one of them ever been found to actually have brought one along? Not that I've ever heard.

But, you may say, all this security makes us feel safer. Safer than what? People in this country die from earthquakes, tornados and earthquakes. Roughly 80 people die in a typical year from being struck by lightning. These are real dangers, and I for one do not lose sleep over them.

Being on an airplane that has the bad luck to be selected by a dedicated and skillful bomber, one capable of evading security and ready to die to make his point, is a much lower probability than any of the above. I don't worry at all when I get on an airplane. If possible, I would worry even less if the guy in the next seat started joking about bombs.

Iraq Elections - UIA wins or UIA doesn't win. Both bad.

At this point, it's not clear whether the UIA, the united front of the religious Shiite parties, will form the next government, but it's not likely that either option is going to work out for the United States.

Option one is they win. They are distinguishable from the Iranians, but there is a lot more in common between them and the ayatollahs in Tehran than between them and the United States. They will be inclined to tolerate a nuclear weapon program in Iran. They will disregard the rights of religious minorities to sin, i.e. to buy liquor or adopt Western standards of dress. They are going to prosecute the campaign of de-Baathification, which will keep the insurgency alive and well.

Option two is they lose. Remember that the Iraqi constitution has been adopted and for it to be modified, the Iraqi parliament must first approve the changes and then the Iraqi voters. It can be defeated by three provinces. Any effort to reduce the Shiite gains thus far made is going to fail.

I'm sure the UIA would love to run all of Iraq, but they already have what they most need, the right to establish regional control over the provinces with the most oil. As have the Kurds in their region.

So the only way the Sunnis can have a strong voice in the central government is if that government becomes irrelevant to the other two blocs. They have no voice or a voice that doesn't matter. Either way, civil war. You say tomato, ...

Domestic Spying -- George Bush doesn't get it.

George Bush has acknowledged spying on US citizens but wants us to think it's OK because it's part of the War on Terror. That's not the point, as even members of his own party in the Senate are pointing out. It's the constitution, stupid.

There's a principle in the constitution that certain things cannot be done by the executive branch without the approval of at least some element of the judicial. Bush wants us to believe that because his tactics may have contributed to frustrating terrorist plans, he's on safe ground. However, there are virtually no restrictions on what he can do if he can convince a judge. I'm going to assume that the secret court established for just this purpose is not stacked with pro-ACLU types.

So if he isn't willing to run his decisions past even such a captive court, it raises serious questions about their merits. But more importantly, it's a precedent that cannot be allowed to stand. If Bush can do it, then a later President can do it, and not refer it to anyone except people in his own administration, appointed by him.

There are short-term dangers, like some fanatic islamist blowing up something or someone near and dear. There are long-term dangers, like subverting the institutions that have protected against governmental excess for over 200 years. Frankly, I'm more concerned about the long term.

Why are Italians so much smarter about medical costs?

John Kitzhaber, the former governor of Oregon, is seriously considering another run for the office. The foundation of his campaign, we are told, would be an effort to resolve Oregon's health care crisis, which is just a microcosm of the one national problem.

One of the points he is making is that we could probably cobble together about $2000 per person in Oregon through existing government expenditures, between actual expenses and tax breaks for medical insurance. That's about the amount Italy spends per capita to provide health care for all its citizens, with better health outcomes than we have in America.

I just saw a doctor about a problem and was given a prescription. I think it's a fairly new drug and it seems to be helping. A few years ago, it would not have been available. If I knew what it was costing and was paying out of pocket, I would consider whether the new drug was enough better than the old ones, or none at all, to be worth the price.

But since I have health insurance that includes prescriptions, I don't face that choice. If I decide to be frugal, the beneficiary will be my insurance company. Next year, my decision will be averaged statistically over everyone, both frugal and indulgent, to calculate the undoubtedly higher premiums that companies will pay.

The American system combines the bad aspects of private enterprise and socialism. The health care industry has little incentive to control costs, since they will be recouped from almost everyone, and in fact a doctor who prescribes less than the best may get sued, even if the increment is not worth the cost. Congress recently exacerbated the situation by denying states the right to insist on cheaper and nearly equivalent mental health drugs.

A single payer system would control some of the waste, but when it went on the ballot in Oregon, it was crushed. We need single payer and also a change in attitude. Everyone deserves a basic level of health care. For things that are optional, consumers should understand the costs and bear them personally. I'm not optimistic that we can achieve that in Oregon or anywhere else.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

How Determines US Policy Towards Cuba?

That's what people want to know when I talk to them in places like Canada and India. They're curious how it's possible for the United States, which talks to North Korea about assistance without regime change while keeping a multi-decade embargo against Cuba, to be so out of step with the rest of the world.

The answer is simple. The most adamant opponents of Castro are Cuban expatriates in Miami. They are so vocal and united that they can influence the outcome of national elections in Florida. Florida has enough importance to swing the nation. With so much in the balance, it's much easier to accommodate them than confront them, so the mild wishes of the majority are subordinated to the vocal demands of a minority.

Nowhere could this be plainer than in the fiasco of the international baseball championships, which the Bush administration now intends to prevent Cuba from participating in. As offensives go, it may not compete with the Bay of Pigs, but it to almost everyone except the Miami Cubans and Rupert Murdoch, it must look pretty silly.

How long are we going to continue this farce? There isn't a country in the world of any consequence that supports our embargo. The universal feeling outside the United States, and the majority feeling outside Miami, is that Castro is a doddering dictator in clearly declining health whose regime will probably not survive his death. This will be good news for Cubans, although they are not likely to open their doors to the exiles and return their lost possessions.

Apart from assassination, there is precious little the US can do to hasten that day. We may even be helping to prop him up. Nothing better for someone with domestic problems than to have a foreign adversary to point to.

Republicans frequently deride the roles that "special interests" play in Democratic Party politics. I guess they have granted a special exemption to Miami Cubans.