Thought for the Day - The easiest kind of sycophant to be would have to be clam-follower.
Guy vs. Spy - Kevin Drum has a useful summary of how to deal with a spyware infestation. I'll note that, while it's painfully obvious I don't set the Official Libertarian Line on, well, anything, someone who causes software to install itself on your machine wtihout permission, and to take active measures to prevent removal, up to and including crashing your system when you try to uninstall it, has committed fraud. Fraud is a civil and criminal offense. Grab book. Throw.
Liberal Self-Parody Watch - Eschaton guest-blogger Hecate is exactly the annoying sort of liberal that Eschaton proprietor Atrios says hardly exist. Skim here and here (I won't insist that you read) to see.
Happy Thanksgiving - War has got me in a mood today, but a wonderful family dinner has lifted it enough that I'll spare you for at least a day. See last year's entry for holiday cheer. See Hitherby Dragons today if you too are in a mood, and see no point in fighting it.
I for One Never Doubted It
Thus, democracy may exist in a range of taxa and does not require advanced cognitive capacity.
Conradt and Roper, Group Decision-Making in Animals, quoted by Crooked Timber.
Notice - I have no idea what's really going on in Ukraine. Frankly, I doubt you do either.
Sauce for the Gander - Not content to leave asshole tactics to MEMRI, CAIR has filed multiple libel notices against David Frum and others.
Girl knows how to milk it - Why bring yourself down reading political blogs when you could be enjoying a top-notch diarist like Mimi Smartypants instead? Mimi produces more or less weekly entries - discursive ones that repay the time spent reading them. I'm a little concerned that she devotes so much ire to the children's television show, Maisy, while seemingly ignoring the larger issue that Theodore Tugboat is the single creepiest television program ever, but the Abyss stares also into you, you know? Self-preservation is a key parenting skill. As it was, I called Mrs. Offering in to read the Maisy entry. The regular reader gets digressions on the popularity of anal sex, pointers to a band that uses C64s and Ataris to make music and other cool stuff. Since our author dresses her kid in Che Guevara t-shirts, she might be horrified to pick up a recommendation from a libertarian weblog, but the internets are big and strange.
Via snarkout.
BOGGLE - I'd be fascinated to see any refutation of the factual claims Michael Ewens and Arthur Silber have found about draconian IP laws imposed on Iraqi farmers, who, on plausible readings of the source documents, "will be forced to use plant seeds from specific US companies, effectively banning the farmers from using their own seeds." From the little reading I've done, the sensible resistance to adopting GM foods in the third world has been less about the "frankenfoods" aspect and more about fear of getting caught in onerous contracts with the patent holders. I've seen claims asserted by certain agribusinesses that amounted to a right to sue you if their pollen so much as wafted over your fields, causing their genetic material to end up in your next crop. Wow, I thought on reading those stories, botanical colonialism. It at least appears that, in Iraq, we're mating botanical colonialism with colonialism pure.
UPDATE: Tex points out via e-mail that I originally wrote atypo: "found about draconian IP laws imposed on Iraqi darmers . . . " That passage should read "dound about draconian IP laws imposed on Iraqi farmers . . . " Unqualified Offerings regrets the error.
Liberals for Tort Reform - Hm. I'd say Juan Cole, Eschaton and Henry Farrell are good candidates.
My Life and Roleplaying was the name of a column in the long-gone Different Worlds magazine from game publisher Chaosium, in which gaming industry people chronicled their association with the hobby. I won't put you through that, but as a fun change of pace, here's a current 15-question meme about a hobby I've enjoyed on and off for 25 years.
1. What is the first RPG you ever played?
White-box Dungeons and Dragons, freshman spring, college. These were the early chapbook-format pamphlets (three of them). We used the Greyhawk supplement, which was also a chapbook, cream cover with purple titling. The art in all pamphlets was execrable.
2. What RPG do you currently play most often?
We just finished a year-plus campaign with the already-cancelled Marvel Universe Roleplaying Game.
3. What is the best system you’ve played?
No award. I like MURPG a great deal. I'm fond of Nobilis and Amber. But there's no single system, considered strictly as a set of rules, for which I have an unqualified preference.
4. What is the best system you’ve run?
Either the James Bond 007 Adventure Game, the original DC Heroes RPG from Mayfair Games, or MURPG.
5. Would you consider yourself an: Elitist/ Min-Maxer/ Rules Lawyer?
I suppose I'm an elitist of sorts. Put it this way, when the usual suspects on gaming sites complain that systems I enjoy and games I like to play are "elitist," my response is "Fine. If I agree that I'm an elitist will you go away and let me have fun?"
6. If you could recommend a new RPG which would you recommend? Why?
Trollbabe by Ron Edwards, because it does such a great job explaining how it should be played. This is a surprisingly-neglected aspect of game writing. Trollbabe is not a "joke game," by the way, or any kind of parody. I would even defy anyone to play it that way.
7. How often do you play?
"Weekly," for married parent values of weekly.
8. What sort of characters do you play? Leader? Follower? Comic Relief? Roll-Player/ Role-Player?
I tend to play characters that look like comic relief on the surface but (hopefully) turn out to be rather more substantial. OR the kind of outsider who fancies himself sagacious. If you read a bunch of Ross MacDonald novels when you're 21, they'll stick with you.
9. What is your favorite Genre for RPGs?
I confess: Superheroes!
10. What Genres have you played in?
Fantasy, SF, superhero, spy, pulp, horror, gothic, "hidden world," Amber (a genre all its own). Completely missed the Vampire phenomenon.
11. Do you prefer to play or GM? Do you do both?
I do both. I think I prefer to play.
12. Do you like religion in your games?
Sure.
13. Do you have taboo subjects in your games or is everything “fair game”?
Rape, I think. Willful cruelty to children. I would not enjoy playing or GMing a sustained "evil" campaign.
14. Have you developed your own RPG before?
No, but I think I can claim the honor of major contributions to the "Amberway" sytem-bundle. And I'm toying with ideas for a Sapphire&Steel RPG.
15. Have you ever been published in the Gaming Industry? If so…what?
Around 1981 I sold a contribution to the Ship's Locker section of GDW's Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society. I made five dollars in 1981 money for that.
(Cf. Ginger, Matt Snyder et al.)
The Law of Conservation of Personality Cults - Weirdly synchronous with the item below, it develops that
...With the reports of Mr. Kim's portraits being removed from some public buildings and news of military defections, outside analysts are speculating that the personality cult around "Dear Leader" is being curbed, either to advance painful economic reforms or to head off a military coup fomented by China.
Via Just One Minute.
Back in the USSA - There are two bright sides to the story and image I'm sending you to: 1) Isn't it a tribute to the American system that even our agitprop is largely done by volunteers? 2) At least we don't have to sit through a bunch of parades. Or worse, stand. Let's face it, parades suck.
(Via Flagrancy to Reason.)
The Call of Patriotism - Diana reminds me that, with the holidays coming around again, it's a good time to make donations to Operation Uplink, which provides phone cards to military personnel. Tens of thousands of our troops will be spending another Christmas in war zones this year. Phone cards are also the number one request at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Don't Go Getting Excited - The Boston Globe article cited below is a dark lining wrapped in a silver cloud. Of course hawks are starting to proclaim that our problem has been way too many troops in Iraq rather than way too few. This is less about understanding than desire. At least some of them want to invade Iran (and Syria, and Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon, and . . . ). Militarily that means finding some ground forces to do it with. Politically it means selling the idea that we won't be walking into another Iraqlike occupation. Solution: promote the idea that our problems in Iraq come from too many troops. Declare that we won't make that mistake again. Once we've broken and bought Iran we'll have a tiny, unobtrusive occupation force whose convoys no Persian would ever notice long enough to think about bombing. It will be, dare they say it? a cakewalk. As a side bonus, Rumsfeld loyalists get to argue that the Old Man was right about this military reform stuff after all. Mil reform doesn't suffer the fatal flaw of being insufficient to the task of policing our gains. Policing our gains is the source of our post-conquest problems. Everybody wins!
I'm certain it would horrify Cato author Chris Preble for his work to be used thusly, but I suspect that's some of its appeal to the blood and thunder crowd. They're not chastened. No no no.
And the Bad TIming Award Goes To . . . - Ryan Sager has been writing a lot lately about how libertarians need to get "serious" abouf foreign policy, by which he means enjoy bombing people more. Justin Logan expends the patience on him that I no longer have. But I noticed an interesting juxtaposition in my reading today. First, Sager, offering an example of the sort of frivolity that marginalizes libertarians with "the rest of the Republican Party":
* This June, Cato published the book, "Exiting Iraq." The book calls for a withdrawal date from Iraq of -- wait for it -- Jan. 31, 2005. (That's a little over two months from now.)
Next, Bryan Bender of the Boston Globe:
"I have seen a metamorphosis," said Robert Pfaltzgraff, president of the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis in Cambridge and a vocal supporter of Bush's Iraq policy, referring to debate both inside and outside the halls of government. "We should not be there with a large force. We should be there with a force that begins to quickly diminish."Few specialists are calling for a complete pullout. They say the United States must first finish training Iraqi forces and use its military might to buy Iraqi authorities breathing space against the insurgency.
Still, a report completed over the summer calling for a complete pullout next year has struck a chord.
Do tell. And what report might that be?
"The end of the foreign occupation will seriously undermine the terrorists' claims that their acts of violence against Iraqis are somehow serving the interests of Iraq," according to "Exiting Iraq," published by the conservative-leaning Cato Institute. Moreover, "The occupation is counterproductive in the fight against radical Islamic terrorists and actually increases support for Osama bin Laden in Muslim communities not previously disposed to support his radical interpretation of Islam.
Sounds - what's the word I'm looking for? - serious!
We are the marines, not the army, so we encourage debate - Great and very sympathetic article about a marine encampment south of Baghdad, from - The Independent.
On the Radar - Fight to Survive, which is either, a) the blog of a dissident US soldier serving in Iraq and cruising for an Article 88 charge; or, b) a well-wrought fiction with curious anachronistic references to "bazookas" and such that gives the game away. So far this evening two different serving soldiers have given me two different provisional answers. Dee. Vell. Oh. Ping. Read the Fallujah account, just in case.
(Also via Tex. Having a vigilance committee on your ass has its upside.)
But the Walls of Their Schools Look Fresh and Colorful - Just the other day a Republican loyalist on Yglesias' blog was complaining that the "If it bleeds it leads" ethos of the major media meant it ignored a whole host of questions relating to the larger picture in Iraq. One piece of the larger picture ain't pretty:
BAGHDAD -- Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the United States led an invasion of the country 20 months ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi government.After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year, according to a study conducted by Iraq's Health Ministry in cooperation with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the U.N. Development Program. The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from "wasting," a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein.
That's the beginning of the Post account. More:
Iraqi health officials like to surprise visitors by pointing out that the nutrition issue facing young Iraqis a generation ago was obesity. Malnutrition, they say, appeared in the early 1990s with U.N. trade sanctions championed by Washington to punish the government led by President Saddam Hussein for invading Kuwait in 1990.International aid efforts and the U.N. oil-for-food program helped reduce the ruinous impact of sanctions, and the rate of acute malnutrition among the youngest Iraqis gradually dropped from a peak of 11 percent in 1996 to 4 percent in 2002.
In other words, even with Saddam Hussein looting the oil-for-food program, which there's an outside chance you've read about in the pro-war media, the program, under which "3.4 billion barrels of Iraqi oil valued at about $65 billion were exported . . . between December 1996 and 20 March 2003" was measurably improving the lives of Iraq's inhabitants. And in the eighteen months since we broke and bought the place, per the Post, "Iraq's child malnutrition rate now roughly equals that of Burundi, a central African nation torn by more than a decade of war. It is far higher than rates in Uganda and Haiti."
Haiti. Haitian levels of malnutrition in Iraq are an aspiration for the era of benevolent hegemony, a shining dream toward which we might aspire. As Madeline Albright once said, America sees farther than other nations. From Baghdad to Burundi for sure.
Sarin Wrap - Tex e-mails me a link to a Captain's Quarters thread on the recent "sarin gas discovery" in Fallujah, which has, as its final update:
Even more smart readers in comments now pretty much agree that these are testers of one sort or another, probably dating back into the 80s, and not deployable sarin. As Peyton said, it does get one wondering why they felt the need to retain these testers.
Call me crazy, but if I were the despot of a country whose three biggest enemies (Iran, Israel and the United States in this case) were all known possessors of chemical weapons, and if I'd fought a war in which one of them (Iran) had used chemical weapons against me in the last twenty years (okay, I kinda used them too), I'd probably keep the odd test kit around myself. But maybe I missed my calling, and would be a better despot than a lot of these other crackpots if I only had the get up and go.
Letter from Kevin Sites who is so going on the next blogroll update, to the marine unit he was embedded with:
It's time you to have the facts from me, in my own words, about what I saw -- without imposing on that Marine -- guilt or innocence or anything in between. I want you to read my account and make up your own minds about whether you think what I did was right or wrong. All the other armchair analysts don't mean a damn to me.
Fascinating stuff. A gripping narrative that becomes a bit self-dramatizing in the last couple paragraphs.
Via Antiwar.com blog, which earlier had a wrapup of petty-fascist online gangstomping of Sites in the usual outlets.
Claim Letters - The long-awaited (and whodathunkit?) insurance e-mail roundup. Boy did I learn a lot. I still have some questions, if I can remember them when I get through these. Since there's so much mail, I'll do something I don't usually do with reader mail which is heavily excerpt some of it. I trust my correspondents will let me know if I do violence to the sense of their points.
A couple of different readers tell me I misunderstand where the profit comes from in the insurance business. As Spencer England put it:
The point you are missing is investment returns. I worked as a P&C insurance company economist for 10 years and during that time they never made a profit on the insurance side of the business. Actually, it is very rare for any P&C company to make a profit on the insurance side of the business. Rather they make their profits on the lags in the cash flow. For the typical P&C company there is about a 3 year tail,or lag between the time premiums are collected and the time they are paid out in insurance settlements. They make their returns and profits by investing that cash. Moreover, the amount of insurance you can write is a function of your capital. If you have $1 million in capital you can write $10 million in policies -- the actual multipliers vary by state and type.
Christopher Connelly adds
That is why a young Warren Buffets goal was to make enough cash to buy an insurance company, so he'd have a huge pool of money to play with.
Tim Worstall adds
I have occasionally seen it stated that profitability on the pure underwriting is evidence of an uncompetetive market.
Meanwhile, Professor Daniel Davies of Crooked Timber University argues that what I called "the pooling of certainties" - such as having to pay predictible costs for my blood pressure medication - is no such thing:
It is a risk from an actuary's point of view. The downside risk is that the medicine will work and you will survive expensively for a hundred years. The upside risk is that you might get run over by a bus tomorrow, preferably having just mailed off your check for a year's premium.It was calculated by the Faculty of Actuaries a few years ago (I've annoyingly lost the ref. but the new scholar's google might come up trumps) that for the general case, even if you had all possible information about someone's medical conditions, you would reduce the risks of writing life and critical illness on that person by only about 20%.
He further adds that "This is why, given everything we know about medicine today, about 95% of British life assurance is still written on standard terms," which is probably the most hopeful thing I've read yet, since it suggests that the pool fragmentation potential of "adverse selection" (as discussed by Charles Dodgson recently) may be smaller than a lot of us fear.
And Eric Kidd offers a kind of game theory reason why a young, healthy person would want to join a pool where his premiums are subsidizing payouts to broken-down old farts like Yr Corrspndnt:
I'm young, I'm healthy, and I have no pre-existing conditions. I want health insurance mostly because I might suffer an expensive, long-term injury. But if I suffer such an injury--and then change jobs at any point--your scheme would leave me uninsured. So without risk pooling and an obligation to pay for on-going conditions, health insurance is pretty useless product. If the insurers want me to buy, I'm going to insist that you receive your medications (assuming you had insurance at 24, of course), because that suggests to me that I'm buying a useful product. And this is speaking strictly as a rational, selfish consumer.
This is interesting, and not just because I didn't know I had a "scheme." It strikes me as a reasonable consumer perspective. I wonder how universal it is.
Which might be the time to mention Nick Confessore's recent proposal that the Democratic Party start offering health insurance to its members. One of the advantages of Confessore's proposal is that I am pretty sure the Democratic Party would be allowed to do it. In my sinful late youth I, for reasons I'd rather not go into, took and passed the Maryland State Life and Health Insurance Whatever Certification exam. (I never did anything with it.) But in the course of doing so I learned of a really fucked-up restriction in the definition of an eligible group for the purposes of getting group rates on health insurance: The group may not have been formed for the purposes of obtaining group medical coverage. The Little Sisters of the Poor can't start a Poor People's Benevolent Association so that its members can get discounts. Oh, and that's another thing: it's against the law for an insurance agent or broker to offer discounts on premiums as an incentive to sign up. The libertarian in me thinks that there's a lot of insurance law we could usefully eliminate if affordable coverage for the maximum percentage of the population is our goal.
But, clearly, the Democratic Party exists for purposes other than getting group rates on medical insurance, though this is not a good month to say for certain just what those purposes are. So ConfessoreCorp is in the clear legally.
Yet More Firefox Blogging - Wow. Steve Cook of Snarkout wrote me an American Heritage Dictionary search plugin and told me how to install it. It works great. He's going to submit it to Mozdev, but in the meantime, you can dowload it from UO. Once you download it, unzip it to your SearchPlugins directory. In Windows, its a subfolder of the "\Mozilla Firefox" directory in your Program Files folder. I'm told that in Mac OS/X it's in "/Application/Firefox.app". Happy etymologizing!
Meanwhile, Brock Sides commends to me the Ultrabar instead of the Google toolbar, while Zack Ajmal points me to the Google toolbar's successor, PRGoogleToolbar. Mark Dooley finds another version of the Google toolbar for me too. Decisions, decisions.
Outsourcing Casualties - Phil Carter reports on the first hard numbers we can attach to government contractor casualties in Iraq. Unnamed in the Bloomberg report he cites are Blackwater Security or other PMCs. I wonder if their dead are included in the totals. The Bloomberg article says there are 60,000 civilian contractors in Iraq, so really, your odds of making it back alive are pretty good. Not that I'd presume to give you career advice.