Competing With Low Cost Competition

The current war budget show down brought this to mind: when big corporations compete with smaller competitors with lower fixed and lower variable costs... they'll lose (Or at least they need huge subsidies and protections like the old integrated steel mills... and then lose).

So consider this paragraph:

The bill approved by the House would provide $42.8 billion total, with about $30 billion directed to the war effort for the next two months. It requires the president to report by July 13 on how the Iraqi government is performing in building its military and moving toward achieving political unity. Congress would then vote a second time on whether to give the administration the remainder of the money — about $50 billion — to maintain operations in Iraq through Sept. 30 or to restrict that money to deployment.

$30 + 50 equals $80 billion for war operations through September. What are the insurgents spending for their share of the conflict?

Banana Republic an

I snapped this in DUMBO on Sunday. For a long time I've refused to shop at Banana Republic because I find the name so offensive. Doubly so since it has an upscale aspiration. But its application here is uncanny...

Weapons of Mass Amusement

Another Google bomb has detonated. My good pal Dave H. sent me a push to google "Failure." Hilarity ensues. I think this has been around, along with "weapons of mass destruction" a couple years ago.

And Kanye West Hates George W. Bush [Updated]

During Book Swap on Sunday, we played the clip of Mike Meyers and Kanye West, where, visibly shaken, West blurts, "George Bush doesn’t care about black people." God bless those who speak their minds, and God bless live television. NBC later deleated the clip... so God bless the interweb.

I'll admit it, I really missed the Kanye boat, but after this weekend, I've been checking out his jams, and I'm hooked. Yeah, there's some misogyny, but there's Mos Def, Talib Kweli, a huge Gil Scott-Heron sample and more. I got the new album off of iTunes, I'm glad to toss him some support, and I'm amped that the cuts are sharp.

[Update: Here's Soundcheck's podcast on Kanye]

Thinking about security

This thought came at Friends Meeting today... so called conservative politicos really push a doctrine based on rugged individualism.

Part of that doctrine is people can only acheive their potential if things like regulations got out of the way. Free market is preferable to controlled economy, taxes slow economic growth, and having to worry about externalities (pollution, migrant labor etc) threatens growth. If they're not with us, they're against us; thus we proceed with the coalition of the willing.

The other side of that coin is that factors that threaten our prosperity are being dragged down by people who don't make the quality of choices we make... so they tell us that social security will collapse if we don't have individual retirement accounts; universal health care doesn't control for moral hazzard; the bankrupt or unplanned pregnant, got themselves into their situation, don't look to the goverment for hand out, they need to learn personal responcibility... and so on. This the government the US voted for in November.

But Hobbes had a phrase to describe this life of rugged individualism: nasty, brutish and short. It happens all the time, in the form of chronic disease, poverty, bankruptcy. It was sadly magnified in New Orleans when the most vulnerable were abandoned to the city.

We're witnessing the outcome of the kind of government elected in November... and even back to the GOP revolution in '94. We're starving the beast of government programs... like FEMA, by spending gross amounts for a trumped up war, we're cutting domestic programs... like FEMA, and we're cutting taxes in the face of exploding deficits.

So if a philosophy of individualism has left us exposed, what's the alternative? The alternative is philosphy of mutual need... of social security, universal health care, real international coalitions for conflicts that don't involve oil. We need each other to deal successfully with personal and natural disaster. We can't fear free riders and moral hazzard from providing our communities with real aid, and real protection.

As much as we're going to hear about the swelling of contributions, what New Orleans needed to avoid catastrophe was government aid, the aid the Bush administration has been ignoring since 2001 at least. This goes for our health care, this goes for our social security, and this has to do with homeland security. Charity cannot fully do what government can, and in this case, ought to have done.

This means Democrats have a greater responsibility to expose the Orwellian joke of GOP politics... terrorism is not about Iraq, it is not about about the patriot act; individual health accounts will not save health care, private accounts will not save social security. Voters needs to get real and get skeptical of what they're told. I'm not voting for GOP individualism, I'm voting for liberal communities, and acknowledge that the smartest thing we can do to prevent disaster is spread risk: the tool for that is government. we have every right to expect that from our government and they failed.

A great reminder of the peculiarities of the Senate

Back when we were all counting electoral votes, I got very interested the topic of how the Senate a) skews the electoral college to favor small states; and b) skew business in that chamber to further benefit small states as cleverly laid out in Harper's by Richard Rosenfeld. There is a well timed reminder in today's NYTimes letters section by William Kenney.

Here is an interesting tid bit from the Richard Rosenfeld piece:

A majority of the people in our country are represented by just 18 senators, or 18% of the body . . . while the 52 Senators from the 26 least populous states represent just 18% of the U.S. population.Big surprise, he notes, that “the less populous states have extracted benefits from the nation out of proportion to their populations.”

So, to Joseph Pisano of Strong Island who wrote: "We the people elected George W. Bush president. The Democratic Party lost and now wants to rule and change laws through activist judges and liberal nominees. This is not what the majority of the people want, as reflected in the presidential race."

George W got the most votes, and yes, more than half of the votes cast in 04, (though appointed by activist judges in 2000) but that does not mean we should dismantle decades of jurisprudence in a matter of months to much of the country does not interpret Nov 04 as a mandate, only as close election in a sharply divided country. I though most of us want to live under a constitution that provides the longevity and continuity of the Judicial branch, though checked and balanced out by Legistlative and Executive branches. Furthermore, look no further than Antonin Scalia if you're looking for an activist judge.

Anti-Christians for Filibusters?

This weekend was Bill Frist's prime time show to celebrate with Christians everywhere their religious opposition to the judicial filibuster. I don't know why it's such a big news item; everyone knows that Christians hate judicial filibusters.

I believe the first such celebration was 1133 when Cardinal Bertucci Prego gathered his bishops to declare the importance of ramming through ideologues as judges to inflict great miseries against the godless masses who refuse to accept the blessing of God's grace.

Later in the new world, Cotton Mather is said to successfully eliminate filibusters in Salem to help expedited the trial and executions of the huge backlog of witches, who were annoying everyone and lower property values by their independence from men and keeping of cats.

And of course, there was all the talk in the 90's to eliminate judicial filibusters during Clinton's presidency, so much so Senate republicans choose other procedural tactics to block 19% of nominees. And while GWBush has had 95% of his nominees approved, Senate Republicans, with a mandate from God, tirelessly work to abolish this parliamentary evil. I think Deuteronomy 18:20 says it best:

But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.

This is why we are on missions in Iraq and Afganistan to limit extreme religious influence on their new democratic governments. Extreme religious influence: good; Wrong religion: bad.

Bionic Eyes

The CNET/BBC reports on the development of a bionic eye. The New Yorker had an article a year a so ago on the issue. Both pieces tend to concentrate on the techonological aspects, which are pretty interesting, such as, how does the visual cortex code stimuli from our eyes to create the image in our head. But neither delve deep into the psychological or emotional impact of regaining a sense after adapting to life without.

Brian Friel's play Molly Sweeney, which is based on an Oliver Sacks' casestudy, does, and results in less enthusiasm for sight restoration. One element is vast amount of brain power it takes to translate the sight of ring, with the word "ring", and the circular motion touching it creates. In short, it is overwhelming. I know in this case, the images are very crude, but still, the bioethical dillema persists. To see, then becomes the basic, elemental component of vision; it is recognition and incorporation with the other senses that is the real trick.

There's a fair amount of musing and joking about becoming cybernetic, but science fiction is becoming science fact. Thinking of all the consumer goods that are so poorly designed and thoughlessly made, and all the issues that come up with user interface, perhaps technologists should think deeper into how to intergrate these machines into our bodies.

Unrelatedy, there was all the hubbub over the new powerbooks having sudden motion detection, thus allowing for hacks to control video games by tilt. Anyone who grew up with video games can relate to the tilt that psychically helps move your avatar. Moving from a legacy interface (joysticks & control paddles) to an intuitive interface. Likewise the segway, President Bush excepting.

Lee H. Hamilton's take on Iraq

My daddy-o forwarded this article to me yesterday from the Woodrow Wilson International It's pretty good overall, but I think he shorts the following

• Finding Bin Ladin/shoring up homeland security
• Finishing in Afganistan
• missinformation/deceit regarding WMD

In conclusion he muses

"Only time and events will tell whether the Iraq war has been worth the costs, and whether our decision to go to war will make us safer from – or more susceptible to –terrorist attack. "

One can make distinctions between military targets and civilian targets, but 1500 dead and 11,300 wounded doesn't seem so different from 9/11 casualties, nor the methodology seem so different from conventional terrorism. In short, terrorists didn't have to strike here, we sent them our kids instead.

Include those points, and I think it's fair to say, that yes, some positive gains were made, but look at the opportunity cost interms of diplomacy, fiscal health, homeland security, energy policy that were lost. No, it wasn't worth these costs.