Friday, 31 October 2008 by bbbeard.

I’m really not sure how to comment on this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6ikOxi9yYk

Is it possible that some folks will actually be disappointed by an Obama presidency?

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Wednesday, 29 October 2008 by aurora_guy.

Alaskan politics is in a sad state.  Our ethics-violating governor has gone maverick on Maverick.  Our sole representative in the House, Don Young, has spent a TON of money on legal fees, supposedly as a result of recent criminal investigations, including connections to VECO, the key to Ted Stevens’ downfall.  And…well, we all know about Ted.

Folks advocating Uncle Ted’s retirement on account of his octogenarian status simply have not seen him in person.  I run into him now and then in various airports, and he is still quick on his feet.  He is nearly 35 years my senior, and he wins any foot race at Sea-Tac hands down.  Despite the convictions in federal court, he retains a substantial number of supporters, and he still has a chance to hang on to his Senate seat.  Even dead people have been elected.  I have to wonder why his supporters won’t face the obvious.  As a felon, Ted Stevens cannot have a firearm, yet the NRA endorses him (and Don Young).  As a felon he loses his right to the Permanent Fund Dividend, which is tantamount to losing citizenship.  As a felon he likely can’t even vote for himself, yet he has the right to make laws affecting each and everyone of 300 million Americans.  He can never keep his powerful status in the Senate.  His utility to Alaskans, well-proven over the decades, has ended.  Neither Ted nor Don can do the state any good with so many questions about their integrity.

I remember some years back walking into the office of State Senator Con Bunde, then fairly new to the seat having come from the State House.   I was on a glad-handing tour representing a substantial portion of university employees.  I wanted the legislators to put a human face to my constituents.  Back then former Senator Murkowski ran the governor’s mansion with an iron fist, and the Alaska Republicans ran roughshod over the local Dems.  Without so much as waiting for a proper introduction, Con blasted me with, “I don’t know why you’re here, but it’s our way or the highway.  You’re not getting any funding or consideration if you disagree with us.”  At no point did I get a sense the senator had the slightest concern for his constituents.  He would only serve The Party, and The Party was corrupt top to bottom.  I realized the rest of the voters and I were just along for the ride as far as the Alaska Republicans were concerned.

Murkowski was quick to alienate his base supporters with his hubris.  Appointing his daughter to fill his seat in DC was a minor slap in the face in comparison to his later transgressions and eventual alienation of the entire legislature.  Then came Sarah, who had little experience but a fair reputation as a small-town mayor.  (The step up from a mayor of 30,000 versus governor of 600,000 is an easy one.)  She had enough distance from the old coalition to seem like a breath of fresh air.  But then, in winter up here nothing has an aroma, not even rotten garbage.

I recall the old saying about people getting the government they deserve.

Alaskans have made the political headlines of late, but please don’t think we’re all that way.  We just happen to vote for those who are.

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Tuesday, 21 October 2008 by bbbeard.

The worlds in question being politics, economics, and science: Bjørn Lomborg’s think tank is busy setting global priorities.

CVM examined the partisan correlates of scientific skepticism in his post “The Politics of Science“. He wrote

Obviously Republicans are much more likely to question the scientific consensus about global warming and its causes than are Democrats…. My guess is that Republicans have a sense that academics, including scientists, are generally Democratic and have liberal leanings. This is actually correct.

Bjørn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, is something of a bête noire in environmental extremist circles, so despite the occasional Congressional hearing you won’t likely see many Democrat congressmen listening. But because his worldview is rational and economic, he has been embraced by partisans on the right. I suppose this is one of the ironies of our time, since Lomborg is unabashedly leftist in orientation, supporting “a strong welfare state”, “strong redistribution from taxes” and so forth. In the ReasonOnline interview, he says

I’m trying to recapture much of what the left stood for-when we believed in progress, when we believed that scientific understanding could lead us ahead and not just rely on tradition. I think that’s the original sort of background for the left. Unfortunately, I find that a fair amount of the left has turned towards a romanticized view of the world.

But the mere fact that Lomborg has been unwilling to endorse the hysteria about global warming means that conservatives give his views a fair hearing. I wonder how CVM might explain this phenomenon in terms of the “left=smart=AGW-is-gospel” theory.

I should explain that I have long held an “economic view” of the environment. That is, a clean environment is not a political right like freedom of speech, but rather an economic good that is procured in greater extent as affluence increases. (This makes it a “normal good” in the jargon of economists.) I should also explain that I have long held the view that “conservation is conservative” – that is, “Waste not, want not” is a Puritan credo that political conservatives embrace and is entirely consistent with stewardship of resources. These statements strike me as obvious and unexceptional beliefs, but I have noticed that some folks on the left have more absolutist, not to mention megalomaniacal, beliefs about the environment.

Lomborg’s main contribution, I think, has been to focus attention where it belongs, which is: what is the best way to expend limited resources to ameliorate global problems? This is an economic question, which naturally infuriates those who take a quasi-religious view of environmental issues.

Lomborg is director of Denmark’s national Environmental Assessment Institute. In 2004, and again in 2008, the EAI convened meetings of prominent economists dubbed the “Copenhagen Consensus Conference” (not to be confused with the Copenhagen interpretation). The question the cognoscenti ponder is how best to allocate a hypothetical multi-billion-dollar budget to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems.

In 2004, the CCC put the mitigation of AIDS and malaria high on its priority list. The Bush administration had already begun a massive increase in AIDS funding to the third world, but it is rumored that the CCC report was influential in getting the administration to push for malaria funding as well. These recommendations are reflected in Bush administration priorities. (However, politics being what it is, NPR has criticized the initiative.) The fact that  CCC economists, among others, estimate that Al-Gore-style carbon-reduction projects, and in particular the Kyoto Protocol, have poor benefit-cost ratios, may also help explain why CO2 mitigation is not a higher priority with the current administration.

In an ideal world, I suppose, there would be some political benefit to making such important life-saving investments as malaria and AIDS mitigation. But unfortunately, we live in a world where the political class is obsessed with tanning beds and plumbing licensure requirements. The Left (even leftist scientists, apparently) is also obsessed with the idea that Bush is the Worst President Ever™, and saving African kids doesn’t fit their narrative.

So I despair that politics will ever allow us to set priorities rationally. And this despair is of a piece with my belief that there is little value in mixing politics and science.

One of the conclusions the CCC appears to have reached this year is that supplying micronutrient supplements to children in the developing world is probably one of the best investments that can be made. I can map out contradictory scenarios about the political battle over such funding. The more likely one, I think, is that the Democrats will see little advantage to helping reduce Third World disease, and will once again engage in class warfare, portraying any such initiative as corporate welfare for Big Pharma. But I could be wrong.

An interesting aspect of the CCC report is their treatment of terrorism, which they considered in a separate category from “Conflicts“. [Small-world note: Daniel Arce, co-author of the CCC challenge paper on terrorism, was my next-door neighbor from 2002-2007 – indeed, his son and mine were in the same Boy Scout Troop.] The authors acknowledge that terrorism is distinct from the other CCC challenges, in large part because the cost-benefit ratios are “adverse”, in the sense that terrorist attacks to date have taken relatively few lives, and suppression or opposition measures are extremely expensive. But one has to wonder whether any economic analysis is worth a bucket of warm spit when it aims to address an existential threat like the one posed by the followers of Hitler, Marx, or Sayyid Qutb. Consider what the world would look like had Franklin Roosevelt decided the invasion of Europe or Japan was too costly, and that surrender to Hitler and Tojo had a better benefit-cost ratio. Of course, Al Gore thinks the internal combustion engine is an existential threat, too, so the debate continues.

UPDATE: As usual, ahead of the curve. Sir Bob Geldof is lavishing praise on the Bush administration for its aid to Africa:

“It’s no small legacy,” he added, and Bush has “set the bar quite high” for Barack Obama or John McCain.

Instapundit commented:

The press will tell the story eventually. But not until after the election.

UPDATE2:

While we’re on the subject of partisanship and science, I thought I’d point out Bill Maher’s peculiar feelings about vaccines. Larry King interviewed him back in 2005 and explored his worldview, which resulted in this exchange:

KING: You wouldn’t say the Salk vaccine was a bad idea.

MAHER: That’s somewhat of a different case, yes.

KING: Polio was eliminated.

MAHER: Yes but, you know, there are many books out that will — that will — and I’m not well enough versed on it to talk about it that will indicate that there are other reasons why it was. And a lot of diseases that have been they say, whoa, this was eliminated because of a vaccine, they find out well no actually the country got toilets and that’s what happened.

You can also read his opinion that flu vaccines are just another way for Big Pharma to con us out of our paychecks. So it seems like Bill Maher doesn’t think vaccines had much to do with eliminating polio.  Funny, I thought he was a liberal.

Posted in Politics & Society, Science | Print | 1 Comment »

Wednesday, 8 October 2008 by bbbeard.

I was musing about the current state of panic in the financial markets. Now that the initial shock and surprise has worn off, a rough consensus in conservative circles has begun to form: “It’s the Democrats’ fault”.

The narrative starts with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, enacted during the Carter administration. The CRA was intended to address the difficulty of obtaining credit, in particular mortgage credit, in decrepit and declining inner cities. It did so by creating incentives for banks and mortgage companies to lend money to people who didn’t meet traditional credit requirements. The narrative continues through the idle years of Clintonian trisection and on to the contemporary, successful efforts of Frank and Dodd to stonewall reform of FNMA and FHLMC (despite the heroic efforts of Bush & McCain).

The conservative critique is outlined in fair detail by Roger Kimball at Pajamas Media. It’s a vaguely interesting story, although I suspect the truth is somewhat more nuanced.

But what I want to explore is whether this narrative fits a familiar template.

One of the most cherished beliefs of the Marxist Left is that capitalism is merely a transitional form between feudalism and universal socialism. In the Marxist view of history, capitalism will eventually collapse because of its “internal contradictions”.

Now, I am about as virulent an anti-communist as one will find these days. But what would a Marxist make of the current panic? On the one hand, the Western financial system is undergirded by the rule of law, a detailed practical understanding of how wealth is generated, and a detailed economic understanding of supply, demand, and the time value of investment. On the other hand, Western democracies have not been “laissez-faire” for more than a century – that went out the window when Teddy Roosevelt started busting trusts, if not before. The consistent trend has been towards a mixed economy, incorporating a “safety net” – Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, WIC, etc. – to mitigate the economic hazards of the capitalist system. Nowadays, something like 1/3 of the GDP of the U.S. is due to government at various levels.

But about a generation ago, we moved beyond the “safety net” to active intervention to promote socialist ideals. CRA is one instance where government has mandated economic behavior which has turned out to be not just hazardous, but deadly, to the financial entities burdened with these requirements.

So, on the one hand, the efficient functioning of the capitalist system requires adherence to a set of principles governing risk and reward. But on the other hand, well-meaning democratic governance has led to policies that directly and direly undermine these principles. From the conservative perspective, leftists simply do not understand how their social programs are economically untenable. From the leftist perspective, conservatives simply do not understand how capitalism is inherently incapable of meeting the minimum requirements for social justice. How’s that for an internal contradiction?

Ironically, the sweetest aspect of this to a dedicated Marxist is extent to which the media in our ostensibly free country are so committed to the candidate with Communist ties. They are so committed that dissent from the storyline — that the crisis is due to lack of regulation on the part of a Republican administration — is not tolerated. Representative Frank has stated that even suggesting that loans to underqualified recipients were a bad idea is – racist!

Once upon a time – maybe three weeks ago – it seemed that we had achieved a pretty good compromise between freedom and economic security in this country. Now it appears that the folks who brought this crisis to a head by stoking our internal contradictions are about to be rewarded with more power. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Posted in Politics & Society | Print | 4 Comments »

Wednesday, 1 October 2008 by bbbeard.

You will not be surprised to learn that the Associated Press is trying to paint the McCain-Palin campaign in a negative light. It brings to mind Heinlein’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity… but don’t rule out malice.”

In an article yesterday (”Campaign tries to explain Palin’s Putin comment“), AP reporter Martha Mendoza reports on her investigations into Sarah Palin’s comment about Russian penetrations of U.S. airspace. The article has some serious defects.

Palin made this comment in her interview with Katie Couric:

Couric: Have you ever been involved in any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

Palin: We have trade missions back and forth, we do. It’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state.

Mendoza decided to put on her investigatrix hat and sniff this out. Her article packs confusion and innuendo shoulder-to-shoulder like sardines in a… sorry, I went off into Chandler-land for a moment.

The article says “The air defense identification zone, almost completely over water, extends 12-mile [sic] past the perimeter of the United States. Most nations have similar areas.” This is wrong. The ADIZ (not the “outer ADIZ”) extends hundreds of miles over international waters, outside the 12-nautical-mile territorial waters. The ADIZ boundaries are documented in the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 14, Part 99.

You may have to go to http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov and search manually.

The FAA provides a picture of the Alaska ADIZ, consistent with 14 CFR 99:

Look at this carefully and savor the stupidity (and malice?) of the AP.

FYI the FAA also describes procedures for flying through the ADIZ in

http://www.faa.gov/airports_airtraffic/air_traffic/publications/ATpubs/AIM/Chap5/aim0506.html

If you scroll to the end of that page, you will see the CONUS ADIZ figure:

There are also ADIZ zones set up over land, e.g. the Washington, D.C. ADIZ, which may be the source of Mendoza’s confusion.

The point of all this is that Russian bombers flying over international waters within the Alaskan ADIZ will most certainly cause U.S. interceptor aircraft to be scrambled. The interception is generally limited to identification (the “I” in ADIZ). However, in times of crisis (”increased states of readiness”), if the Russian aircraft refuses to identify or to cooperate with instructions over posted frequencies, they are subject to interdiction before they reach U.S. territory. I will leave it to the lawyers to figure out if that means the U.S. claims the ADIZ is part of U.S. airspace. Chapter 3 of the FAA AIM makes clear that “airspace” is a diverse and complicated concept. I would say the ADIZ is certainly covered by FAA regulations, so I have no problem if someone wants to call it “our airspace”. OTOH if someone wants to dispute our control over the ADIZ, I have two words: “Fox One“.

So: when Palin spokeman Maria Comella stated “Russian incursions near Alaskan airspace and inside the air defense identification zone have occurred … U.S. Air Force fighters have been scrambled repeatedly”, she is certainly correct. When Major Herritage said that the 12-nm zone has not been penetrated, he is also correct.

And when the incompetent AP author, Martha Mendoza, disputed the truth of Comella’s statement, based on the incorrect assumption that the ADIZ was the 12-nm zone, she mangled the simple facts of what was being clarified by both Comella and Herritage. And, in her incompetence, cast doubt on the competence of the McCain-Palin campaign. What Palin and Comella were referring to is the ADIZ, not the “buffer zone…. sometimes called the outer air defense identification zone by the military”. (Note Mendoza used the phrase “might have been referring to“, as if Palin were talking in some obscure dialect that smart people like journalists have to struggle to interpret.) And again, “ADIZ” is not an invention of the military, it is dictated in the CFR.

Mendoza follows with a quote from Maj. Herritage: “To be very clear, there has not been any incursion in U.S. airspace in recent years,” as though this were a flat contradiction of Palin’s comment. But Herritage is referring to the 12-nm zone, not the ADIZ. Once one understands the difference, it becomes clear how the stupidity of a journalist gets turned into the innuendo of “conservative lie”.

Mendoza then quotes Palin’s foreign policy adviser, Steve Biegun: “‘Governor Palin told me that when Russian aircraft buzz American airspace and U.S. aircraft are mobilized at Elmendorf Air Force Base, she is informed by her National Guard commander,’ said Biegun, who did not offer any additional explanation for the contradiction.” That might be because he didn’t feel obligated to penetrate this particular journalist’s RDZ (reality distortion zone). There is no contradiction, only confusion in the mind of Martha Mendoza.

And one has to laugh at the wrap: “Major General Craig E. Campbell, the adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, did not immediately return calls and e-mails,” as though this were an ominous sign. Gee, ya think the General might be… busy?

[h/t Powerline]

UPDATE:

Some idiot bloggers — I won’t dignify them with a link — have questioned whether there is even an Air National Guard unit at Elmendorf. Yes, there is. The 176th Wing of the ANG is one of the largest and most active in the Guard. It is based out of Kulis ANGB near Anchorage, with units assigned to Elmendorf AFB, Eielson AFB, and Fort Richardson. The 176th Air Control Squadron, part of the 176th Wing, controls the airspace in the Alaskan Air Defense Sector, which includes the Alaskan ADIZ. And yes, this is a unique responsibility for a Guard unit. From the wiki article:

The 176th Air Control Squadron is unique amongst the other American sectors in that it controls the only sector within its region, while both the Northeast Air Defense Sector and Western Air Defense Sector both comprise the Continental NORAD Region (CONR). In addition to this distinction, it is the only sector that has regular reported intercepts of foreign military aircraft, with multiple intercepts of Russian Tu-95 “Bear” aircraft through its lifetime.

UPDATE 2:

Visit the Paul’s Thing blog for an exciting account of an F-15 intercept with a Bear-H over the skies of the Alaska Air Defense Zone, ca. Reagan era.

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