The Lunacy of our Times

Who donates so much money to Mitt Romney, and why?

2012-09-18T19:05:00.002-07:00

After the release of a secret video of Mitt Romney during a fundraiser several months ago; during which he expressed his gratitude and undying affection for American voters, or would have if he had any idea that his words were being recorded, I got to thinking about the people listening to him at the $50,000 per plate fundraiser. What motivated them to donate so much money?

Mitt Romney Supported By A Third Of Low-Income Voters: Poll

-The Huffington Post

Mitt Romney's campaign still has a shot at winning the Presidency in November, even though he has been stuck in either a statistical dead heat, or a few points behind in the race. This map at the New York Times hasn't really changed in months. It's predicting an Obama win of course, as some of you have no doubt drily noted.

But despite the fact that he constantly makes missteps, has an image problem even with other Republicans, including the folks at Politico, and can’t seem to make up his mind up about where he stands on any issue, he is still riding high just behind the President in opinion polls.

So the contender is feckless, undisciplined with his mouth while appearing to also be physically cut from a sheet of starch, and he casually dismisses almost half the American electorate as dependent victims. His disdain for voters could have been guessed from all of the above, but it was cathartic to hear it from his own mouth, unvarnished by the need to pander to the group sitting in front of him.

It might have seemed risky, dismissing tens of millions of potential votes out of hand, but Mitt knew that none of those in front of him would say anything. They are elite enough to buy a $50,000 plate. If people who can afford to spend that much for dinner and some live entertainment think about social issues or society at all, they only do it in an abstract way related to how much slower the money pile will grow if the government appears to replace economic growth with concerns not directly related to making money.

I know there are many wealthy philanthropists. Those people are almost universally NOT in the business of making money with money. The group Mitt spoke to was primarily made up of men from the financial industry. People at the C-level in the financial world don’t suffer fools lightly, unless he happens to be running for an important political office.

And yes, I just called Mitt Romney a fool. You can stop reading here if you like, but this isn’t actually about him. It’s about the motivation of wealthy financiers to inject as much money as fast as possible into Mitt Romney’s campaign, even though he appears to be a lame horse in this race because of his many proven failings.

Mitt Romney brought his little dog and pony show (the live entertainment) to this group of men, and talked about voters, his beliefs, how dependency on government was a bad thing, yadda yadda yadda. He trotted out all his talking points and played the part of social conservative.

I submit that the listeners didn’t care. They saw his mouth move and sound come out of it. But that wasn’t what they were evaluating.

The real test for them was, given the money they had just spent, was whether or not Mitt Romney was their man. Picture if you will a couple of C-levels at the Country Club discussing the upcoming election.

“But can we trust him?”

“Of course we can trust him.”

“There was that thing in Massachusetts. How do we know he won’t try the same thing in the Big Chair?”

“Oh, that. It’s nothing. State politics is different. Besides, we own him. He’s our man. He can do whatever he likes, as long as he leaves our interests alone.”

“Did we have any luck choosing his running mate for him?”

“We’re working on getting the name to float to the top, but there’s still time.”

“It worked pretty well last time didn’t it?”

“Yes, Cheney kept our boy in line for 6 years. We started to lose him near the end, but it didn’t matter by then.”

“Those folks down at Bear and Lehman got hit hard though.”

“I told them, but they didn’t get out in time. We took care of the ones that mattered.”

Fiction? Of course. There is no way a group of financiers would conspire to put someone in the White House. It would be almost impossible even for them to hide machinations involving thousands of people in hundreds of locations. They are happy to support efforts that chip away at the edges, such as voter ID laws, voting times, voting methods,

But they don’t have to buy the election. They just have to buy the fiction that there is a battle between two opposing points of view, and keep Mitt Romney front and centre as long as possible. It's icing on the cake that the dialogue that started 20 years ago with the Neocons has progressed to the point where without any convincing whatsoever, millions of poor Americans will continue to vote against their own interests.

The Romney campaign has been raising incredible amounts of money, beating President Obama four months in a row, although August numbers put the President on top.

Mitt Romney doesn't need to win for the financiers to be successful, because they have paid for people on both sides of the aisle. All they need to do is convince enough people that there is a solid division in American politics.

Ten Years Of The Bush Tax Cuts

2012-09-07T22:40:00.001-07:00

So who has had worse job performance? I think the answer is really starting to become clear.

Ten Years Of The Bush Tax Cuts: p10 years ago tomorrow, the first of the Bush tax cuts was enacted. That 2001 tax cut was followed up by a second tax cut in 2003, passed after Vice-President Dick Cheney reportedly asserted that “deficits don’t matter.” The tax cuts were sold as necessary economic stimulus that would boost job creation and a moribund [...]/p

The Never Ending Policy Retread

2012-09-04T22:17:00.002-07:00

From Mike Konczal comes this little gem of an article: http://www.nationalmemo.com/romney-will-solve-the-crisis-with-the-exact-same-gop-plan-of-2008-2006-2004/

Basically, through good times and bad, Republicans have promoted the same policies over and over and over, over the last decade. The answers to the ever-impending end of the world - the apocalypse that is the impending doom of the United States, or rather, it`s loss of status as the pre-eminent power of our time - are always the same.

Talk about cutting spending, talk about reigning in `broken` `entitlements programs`, talk about making teachers more accountable. Blah blah blah. A never ending farce of political showmanship in the center ring, including enough glittering accoutrements such as military adventurism, (foreign) nation-building, marriage rights, reproductive rights, the Christian Nation only under which perfection can be achieved.

Over in the shadows is the House of Horrors, the Freak show, the dabblers in witchcraft, those who know with certainty so whatever they believe must be true.

Contrast this with the single issue retread that is the (if you can read French) Parti Quebecois in Quebec, Canada. English readers can go here instead. Initially and, objectively speaking not without merit, Quebec felt it was losing its identity as a French-speaking corner of North America. Top business leaders tended to be anglophones, in the parlance of Quebec communications, and more often than not unilingual English speakers in a Canadian Province where the majority spoke French.

Quebec culture had since the colonial days and subjugation by English Canada (notwithstanding its accession to the Dominion of Canada, the first four Provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick) been reliant on a strong Catholic tradition. Even today, the church is the most obvious landmark in most Quebec towns. For more information on the development of Canada go here.

But two referendums on independence, and talk of a potential third, have left Quebec the needy child of Confederation. Political uncertainty in Quebec caused many job losses in the 1970`s as businesses moved to Ontario. On visiting Quebec City or Montreal today, one will be struck by the huge gap in growth between there and in the rest of the country. While there are now pockets of growth, it is almost as if building stopped for a long time between the mid 1970`s and 2000.

Check out this interactive map of Canada and click on each province or territory to see how much money it receives from Ottawa. Two numbers are important: Transfer Payments, and Equalization Payments. Equalization payments are meant to mitigate budget shortfalls a regional government might experience, to ensure that a reasonably comparable level of government health and social services are available across the country.

Quebec receives almost 40% of the money available for equalization payments, despite comprising 25% of the population, and there is no sign that this is ever going to change.

Many in English Canada feel that it is nothing more than extortion, to keep Quebec happy and in Canada. But it will never be enough. While Quebecers get subsidized child care, the rest of Canada gets higher pension and employment insurance premiums. The 80% of English Canada that lives in British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario have been net contributors to national wealth for a long time.

Tonight the Parti Quebecois will form a government in Quebec, and the battlecry `Quebec Libre` may rear its head again.

I say let them go this time, but remind them that there was a feeling amongst the Cree of Northern Quebec, that should the province separate, they would remain part of Canada, and would force the province to return to its pre-1912 boundaries, and re-establish the Ungava district of the Northwest Territories, or a new territory or province created in its place.

If Canada in not indivsible, then neither is Quebec.

Labor Day 1956: Young Republicans Salute Labor - Cornell University Political Americana Collection

2012-09-03T21:56:00.001-07:00

It's almost like living in bizarro world, seeing this.

Labor Day 1956: Young Republicans Salute Labor - Cornell University Political Americana Collection

Mitt Romney tells 533 lies in 30 weeks, Steve Benen documents them

2012-09-03T15:58:00.001-07:00

Mitt Romney tells 533 lies in 30 weeks, Steve Benen documents them

World's richest woman says poor should have less fun, work harder

2012-09-01T18:08:00.001-07:00

World's richest woman says poor should have less fun, work harder

And she is the picture of a virtuous life?

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/a-bit-rich-ginas-call-a-hard-act-to-swallow-20120831-256cb.html

A person with inherited wealth who, according to the article above, has done little to contribute to her national wealth, who is so far removed from any sense of fair play that she forgets that the resources her mining company extracts are owned by the state as a representative of all the people in her country.

It's sickening and sad.

She looks like a lonely person, friendless, to whom only kind words flow because of the favours she is able to dispense in the form of jobs, or (which seems more likely because of her attitude) because of the fear she instills in those close enough to actually communicate with her directly.

She also looks extremely unhealthy, and I think she could do with a little hard work herself. She looks like an abomination, gout-ridden, her granular, fatty exterior mirroring what must assuredly be a disease-ridden interior.

I have to admit I'm not a big fan of double-chins, even though I know some people come by them honestly. The filth that she spews from her slimy, corpulent, wasted mouth merely fits the exterior too well. She is a woman of no class, no learning, understanding, or empathy.

We can't all be rich, but she seems to think those who aren't are hardly worth her contempt.

I've decided on sadness. I feel very sorry for her, bitter, ugly old hag that she is.

Government-sponsored health care works.

2010-04-17T14:29:00.000-07:00

It took a while, but a few discussions, and proof in the pudding, convinced my American sweetheart that Canadian-style health care can actually work. She thought it was something like everything is covered. In Canada, it's not. Only the basics are covered.

Let's do the math.

A country of 330 million people can't 'afford' a single payer system. A country of 35 million people that is larger in size, can somehow afford it. Hmm. My bullshit detector just went off.

Is it easy, or cheap? Is it perfect? Is everyone absolutely happy? NO, no, and no.

But let's look at the alternative.

A profit-based system that wants government to pay for the indigent (those who don't have private health plans) but that will happily take $4,000 per year just for insurance, and then deny it if you forgot to dot an 'i', or admit to a bout with Chlamydia 14 years ago, is not health insurance. It is a health mafia, that only gives you the paper stamped with a logo if you are a good risk. How much does it cost to stamp that paper so the logo is embossed anyway?

Develop an irritating tick, a weird rash, and you move up into the realm of higher risk. Talk about irritating. If you move up in the risk rank and are paying for the coverage, your family is riskier too.

I can without a private health plan still visit a doctor, get tests, and with a little gentle arm-twisting, be provided with what I need drug-wise. Most doctors get sample packs of various medications that they have no use for, and they will ALL provide them to patients who absolutely need them. All for NO out of pocket expenses.

ZERO dollars. What part of ZERO is hard to understand? That week I am not getting paid, after all the bills are paid and I have no money, I can still see the doctor. I can still go to the hospital without getting a bill in the mail.

Americans call it socialized medicine, but have very little idea of what it actually entails.

Christina and I have had the TAX discussion. Yes, up front taxes are lower in the U.S. Yes, so are a lot of other taxes.

Add in the toll roads (I know we have the 407 Highway, the stench of which will live on for another 90 years), the local taxes, local sales taxes....and the cost of privately paying for health insurance though, and the amount is remarkably similar.

http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/taxes.htm

The kicker about health insurance in Canada though, is that when you need it, it is ALWAYS THERE!

Nobody, by virtue of job, economic status, colour, immigration status, is ever treated less than someone who has full, comprehensive medical coverage. In Canada, everyone is provided basic medical care on as needed basis.

It does not include dental, prescription drugs, eye care, chiropractic care, prosthesis, crutches, and many other things that broadly fall into the category of 'elective' procedures. It seems cruel that the Chiropractic procedure I received to align my spine (successful) would be considered elective, as in I chose it for no good reason other than personal, non-medical, not absolutely necessary reasons, but there it is.

In Canada, I have no fear of visiting a doctor due to monetary reasons.

It is true that initially in the U.S. there will be a huge take up of any pseudo-socialized health services. This will be a function of the demand that hasn't been met. Millions of Americans have been living with easily treatable ailments, and with coverage will seek treatment.

Health-wise, don't you think someone living in pain would be less likely to be interested in working, being nice on the freeway (road rage), or being a good citizen, when from every side they hear about how good the U.S. system of government is, how everything is peaches and cream. If only you could get your hands on some peaches. Or cream.

It is completely social, in a society kind of way, acceptable for me to not want my fellow citizens to live in unnecessary pain and suffering, to be able to get their burst appendix fixed, to be able to walk after knee surgery, to be able to work alongside me.

DO I think everything about the healthcare system here is fair? No. Do I like it. Yes. Are we constantly trying to make it better. Yes.

Your turn, naysayers.

Small food from China.

2010-03-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

Small food. Small quality food. That is my beef.

Does everything have to come from China, a place where they had to shut down 30,000 factories so the air would be clear enough to host an Olympic event, a place where people were tasked with clearing the green slime from the waterways by hand, so the rowers could compete?

I do not want my food to come from China. 80% of store bought fish is processed in China. China is a place where fish farms can exist in a seemingly endless chain, where the excess feed, antibiotics, and poop from the fish farm upstream are injested, then expelled downstream to the next farm.

I buy things at the 'Dollar Store'. A place in which I know just about everything is made in China, and what isn't, is made in India.

Still, that doesn't mean I am without taste. I like Oysters, Mussels, Clams...lots of stuff from the sea. The stuff I am used to, produced in Canada or the US, tastes good and comes in whole morsels of seafood.

One day, I noticed the Dollar Store had some for sale. A can of mussels, a can of oysters....

The seafood was broken, miscellaneous pieces that could have been from any sea animal. A lot of it consisted of parts of the oyster some people leave out, like the intestines. They are small animals, so eating those parts by accident won't kill you, but they are not the tastiest or meatiest parts.

Several months ago I noticed the disappearance of Snow Peas from the grocery shelves. What took the place of one of my favourite raw foods was labelled Snap Peas. They look the same, but these ones, only from China, are smaller, a grey-green (think tired), and are bitter, even after cooking.

Wasn't China until the last few years a recipient of food aid? Someone could help me here. What are they doing exporting food to us? I thought we had an abundance of food to sell to others.

Look, I will buy a crappy ladle that will break after 100 uses, or a frying pan that will fry itself after 50 uses. I will buy the cheap batteries, the pack of pens that will each spontaneously explode or stop working after a week.

I will NOT buy my food from China, a polluted wasteland where expertise in government supersedes expertise in any form of engineering.

Is THIS the country we want free trade with?

Making private debt public.

2010-03-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

Iceland, tiny Iceland, did what all other countries should have done. They denied the economic raptors their unjust rewards. And they can and will do it for several reasons.

A vote to deny repayment to Britain and The Netherlands the monies they gave to jilted depositors of Iceland's failed internet bank, Icesave, so that they could recoup 100% of their losses. No responsible government guarantees 100% of losses for the simple reason that personal and corporate wealth is in any country larger by almost an order of magnitude.

Let's go back here for a second though. People in Britain and The Netherland's deposited money in an INTERNET bank that, by virtue of its not having physical branches, was able to offer higher interest rates than the average stodgy brick-and-mortar bank one can visit simply by walking down the street. I will venture a guess that as long as those higher off-shore interest rates were being earned, year after year, nobody complained.

I know, the idea is too stupid to even contemplate. Of course nobody complained.

There was a run on the banks influenced by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and typical of governments who should know better, The Iceland Government quickly offered guarantees on private banking debt to try to stabilize their currency.

I'm not one to brag about my knowledge in such matters, but look, if you grew up with very little, and you end up with very little, what have you lost?

Iceland used to be a poor place, occupied by whalers and fisherman, and little else. And no, whales are not fish for anyone who asks. It is a small country blessed by natural sources of energy that are the envy of the world. I can't remember the exact number, but 40-60% of Iceland's heating needs are met by geothermal sources.

So what happened?

Little Iceland was poor once, and saw itself as poor. With few exportable commodities, and looking at what their neighbours across the sea were doing in Ireland, the idea of making money by dealing in money must have seemed appealing. And it worked for several years.

When my current bank is offering 2% on a savings account, and another bank comes along offering 5%, I might be tempted to be honest with you. But in my world, a solid 2% matters, whereas 5% seems very speculative.

Basically, the story I am seeing over and over, from all around the world, is one of people who should have known better, betting the farm on something that always smelled wrong. I swear that I saw the housing bubble in 2004, when home prices seemed to magically go up 10-20% per year, while wages went up 1-2%, and inflation was pretty much at 0%. I didn't need a degree in economics to see the problem.

But maybe an understanding of basic arithmetic was better to have, than a blind faith in any financial advisor. How many people who claim to now have nothing profited from Madoff? Hundreds of people who should have known better, who should have questioned the unfailingly strong returns.

I'm not a Cassandra. My RSP was tanking in a good year (-5% average) so I dumped the company. They were a little snippy when I told them I wanted to close my account because of performance issues, but noted that management costs never seemed to change. It really is karma that I have no money invested with them, but I can still log in to my account to see how their various funds are doing...same as ever, -5% of market.

But back to the point.

Iceland allowed several business entities to be set up, as any sovereign country can do, to offer their services for sale.

One of these businesses, Icesave, a high-interest bearing savings vehicle, was so popular that in 5 months it attracted 125,000 depositors from The Netherlands. It's really a guess, but probably accurate, that most of those 125,000 put most or all of their money into one bank - Icesave.

Then they lost all their money. I'm sorry, but I have a hard time believing in the sophistication of anyone when they do something so utterly stupid. And even less faith in a system that bails out their loss, merely because they ran like lemmings to the same cliff.

I am no financial wizard, but I found something that explains things nicely, and why people who should have known better got themselves into trouble:

PART 1:

PART 2:

Contacting me made easy.

2010-03-14T12:51:00.000-07:00

It was recently noted that I should make it easier for people to contact me.

r_pratt@ fastmail (dot) fm
rpratt039@ gmail (dot) com

I look forward to your responses.

Drive by Wire, and nasty computers.

2010-02-23T17:24:00.000-08:00

Drive by wire (cars), or fly by wire (airplanes), is a system in which there are no direct mechanical or hydraulic links between the controls and the hardware. In many newer vehicles, when a person steps on the accelerator or the brake pedal, or turns the steering wheel, or shifts gears, all that happens is that a signal describing the desired input is sent to a computer, which then sends a command to activate the brakes, open or close the throttle, or turn the wheels according to the degree of input from the driver.

Until quite recently it was easy to find the throttle cable, see the steering column poke through the dashboard, etc., and actually see where those things were attached to the rest of the car. It was simple, tried and true direct mechanical linkage from the user to the hardware.

Now, let me ask you something. Why would anyone want to mess around with a system that was a brilliantly simple, proven to work for long periods of time, and would even often work when there was no sound reason for it to do so. A few old friends’ cars come to mind....

Have you seen how tightly everything is packed under the hood of the average car these days? There simply isn't the room to have a straight 3 foot steering column jutting out at an angle from the driver to the steering linkage. But it isn't only that.

Making vehicles with better fuel efficiency often means looking for ways to make them lighter. All the old-fashioned parts that used to manually link driver inputs to the mechanisms that would accomplish what the driver wanted to do could be removed if the controls were routed through a computer, which could then send a signal to a gear box or other apparatus right above the mechanical part.

From an engineering point of view it's a brilliant solution to both lowering the weight of the vehicle and maximizing space usage under the hood. Computers always do what we want them to anyways, right? Uh huh.

If you've never experienced computer hiccup, delay, the occasional inexplicable problem, then you are almost unique. Now link 30 computers together, give each of them its own primary purpose, and have them drive your vehicle. How likely is it that there will never be any problems?

If one of the computers in your car goes haywire, no amount of pressing on the brake pedal is going to help, because the commands are not being delivered by you to the brakes, but rather from you to the computer to....where, nobody knows.

Add to that the fact that in many parts of the world humans live in an invisible sea of (mostly human generated) electromagnetic and radio waves. For the most part their effects are minimal, but if you don't believe they have any effect at all, first see if your vehicle still has AM radio. If it does, find a station and drive around some high tension power lines. The station will disappear in a sea of static.

For almost three years, I didn’t have a case for my computer. My main board, CPU, hard drive….were all exposed. Every time there was a thunderstorm, it would spontaneously shut itself off. Yeah, risky stuff to those who know, but it was my computer, and parts of it still live on in the system I am using now.

I’m all for keeping some things simple, when simple makes sense. Electronic windows always irritated me because there is no manual backup. At the moment, there is no backup plan in many new vehicles if the computer has a hiccup, or can’t decide whether to follow user inputs or follow the computer code written by software engineers in a safe office somewhere.

Some car manufacturers say that preferential treatment is given to the brake pedal if a driver is pressing it, and the throttle is stuck open. Toyota obviously didn’t do this, or it wouldn’t be having such a glorious train wreck in front of the world.

This wasn’t really about Toyota, or taking a cheap shot at them. I’ve never driven a Toyota, but have had Ford and Chrysler products, and have learned to enjoy the quirky personalities the vehicles take on as they age.

Nevertheless, for those who are interested, and despite previous Toyota claims that they haven’t been able to duplicate the runaway car problem, it seemed quite easy for the professor in this video to simulate the event:

Auto Professor Pinpoints Possible Car Flaw
Expert says electronic design flaw is linked to runaway Toyotas.
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/

The Military Policy Circle Jerk

2010-02-21T10:56:00.000-08:00

Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton KCB ADC BSc FRAeS CCMI RAF, Chief of the Air Staff gave a speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies on February 10th. The topic: Dominant air power in the information age.

I don't know what's worse, an Air Marshal arguing for the pre-eminent importance of air power that, however cogently put will always seem a little self-serving, or his point that only those with the years of working with air war assets should make decisions on the composition of such forces. Again self-serving, but that's not really what is problematic.

The sum total of the speech amounts to an argument that things should stay the same. Keep the aircraft carriers, keep all of the abilities that we have now, keep the shiny toys on the battlefield. Glossed over half-truths, anachronistic thinking, and a fair bit of tunnel vision from a man who has spent his adult working life embalmed with the fluids of military preservation.

"I don’t want to talk in too much detail about kit, because air power is about capabilities, not just the platforms that deliver key parts of those capabilities." Fair enough. But then the Air Marshal goes on to talk about the Tornado, a platform he piloted for many years.

No, I don't have a personal problem with the person giving the speech. He is emblematic of a way of thinking that becomes so tightly woven within itself, I'm sure he doesn't even realize that he is a perfect product of the machine that made him. It is likely he is as normal as you are. As to how normal I am, well, I'll leave that for you to decide.

AM Dalton talks briefly about The Green Paper, which is like a pre-policy government paper where interested parties can contribute thoughts before a White Paper is produced that is actually meant to serve as direction for a period of time (as little as 5 but often up to 20 years). It is instructive to note that AM Dalton says, "The Green Paper draws heavily on the excellent work of the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre on the Future Character of Conflict."

The DCDC is a British Ministry of Defense think tank.

Yes, that's right. The British Ministry of Defense contributed material to a Green Paper that is supposed to help set policy for future military capabilities, acquisitions and philosophy for the next twenty years. What we have here folks is a closed policy loop.

You may not care what the British are doing, but the speech nicely encapsulates the process that all major countries use to determine future force projection capabilities. Essentially, a bunch of (very well educated) generals sit around and imagine what kinds of toys they want in the future. Then they send their ideas to the government, which is gathering information on what kinds of toys they should have in the future.

AM Dalton was educated in the mid 1970's, and joined the RAF in 1976. Is it possible for someone who received the bulk of his education more than 30 years ago to become forward thinking? To imagine what war will be like in the future? The British experience at least is full of examples of small-scale and large scale conflict, counter-insurgency operations, and politics behind the barrel of a gun.

He certainly tries to appear flexible.

"...Strategic Defence Review will shape our future structure and determine the equipment programme, with implications that will resonate for at least the next 2 decades. So for the sake of our future security, as CDS recently observed, Afghanistan must serve as a prism to view the future, not as a prison for our thinking."

"I believe air power provides a comparative advantage in relation to the capabilities of potential adversaries."

..."future battle-space will be congested, with forces drawn into densely populated areas; cluttered, where targets will be difficult to distinguish; contested, where access will be disputed and we’ll have to fight for the freedom to manoeuvre..." (italics original)

The last two quotes are sequential, and contextual. AM Dalton seems to be saying that air power can be used in congested, cluttered areas where targets are hard to distinguish (from civilians). History has shown that this is a bad idea. Ask U.S. Marines who were sent into battle in Iraq after the limits of air power were reached how they occupied congested, densely populated areas.

The speech devolves into acronyms, military platforms, and the uses of military hardware shortly after the last quote above. A general playing with shiny toys. It doesn't seem like original thinking in the least, and crucially ignores one important step that should be undertaken by every nation that produces Green Papers:

What image does a country want to promote now and in the future? I am no peacenik, liberal-libertarian or student of 'let's all play nicely and with trust and honour'. In the real world of politics, the person smiling at you may very well be looking for the place to push the knife in when you aren't expecting it.

All I am saying is that no military should have a hand in setting policy by virtue of an end-run around the democratic process. It must be up to a government alone to set policy, and then allow the military that serves the political arm of government to figure out, within the confines of the budget they have, how to best satisfy the directives given.

It may be that military planners cannot fulfill all objectives within their means and that the government will have to scale down its plans. Or, sticking with their plans, increase the military budget. In the end, the government will be wholly responsible for the outcome.

original article: http://www.iiss.org/recent-key-addresses/air-chief-marshal-sir-stephen-dalton/

First Post

2010-01-17T10:56:00.000-08:00

Discussion, evaluation, irritation, reason, righteous indignation.

I will write about many things, and try to be a dispassionate observer when discussing ideas. From the seemingly mundane to the earth-shatteringly important. I will re-visit a few topics repeatedley because they are personal axes to grind.

My views tend towards the pragmatic. What makes sense for us, for society, our economics, our view of the world.

One of my personal hobby horses is spelling and language. I'm not a grammarian, and would likely not have won a spelling bee either, but certain things irritate me:

The use of their/they're, its/it's types of errors, and writing styles that are more appropriate for casual conversation than for the written word. This blog is new, but I have an idea to reward readers who spot spelling or other obvious contraction errors, some of which will be intentional, while others will not, and make a $1 payment for each error to the person who sees it first.

The payee always has the option of choosing a national literacy group (Canada or the U.S) to give the money to instead. I will find equivalent organizations in Canada and the U.S. and donate funds when they reach $10. A running tab will be kept.

I'm not a grammar Nazi, but have noticed a marked reduction in the quality of printed (paper or electronic) media over the last 20 years or so, and maybe it shouldn't, but glaring errors by professionals who write for a living make me discount the article in question as a reliable source. I'm not talking Wikipedia here. I occasionally clean up Wiki articles because they have awkward sentence structure or other problems that have nothing to do with the veracity of the content.