The High Cost of Winning

I was listening to a story on NPR yesterday; a briefing with Sec. Rumsfield and a top general about the war in Iraq. Since this comes from my memory instead of text, my quotes below will be approximate, not literal.

The general was acknowledging that the level of violence in Iraq is basically the same as it was one year ago. There have been ups and downs, but overall, we—the Americans and the new Iraqi government—have failed to improve the security situation in Iraq.

So the general was taking questions, and one reporter asked if we were "winning" the war against the insurgents. The general responded, with some enthusiasm, "Yes, we are winning. And we’ve been winning for some time."

I burst out laughing.

"Sure, we’re winning," I talked back to the radio. "And I bet we’ll still be ‘winning’ in six months, a year from now, five years from now.’" The point is we’ve been talking about how we’re winning since we began this war, from the time Saddam’s statue came down, to Bush’s "Mission Accomplished" moment, to the battle of Fallujah, to the elections, to the current rash of bombings and attacks. We keep on ‘winning,’ and Americans and Iraqis keep dying, every day.

It’s no surprise that military leadership is going to put the best possible spin on the story. And I’m sure there is an argument to be made that we are seeing progress. There was an election, of sorts, and even though the Iraqis haven’t yet (as of this writing) managed to form a working government, it’s likely that they will … although its effectiveness will be an open question. [Oops, events have overtaken me. NPR is reporting that the Iraqis have finally formed a government, although key posts are still not filled. Close enough for horseshoes, I guess.]

There probably is an acute feeling in the Bush Administration that spin control is necessary, now more than ever. After all, earlier this week, the final in a long line of "No WMDs in Iraq" report was filed by the CIA, this one concluding that the last thin reed of hope for pro-war apologists, the theory that Saddam had somehow sent his WMDs to Syria, was not supported by any evidence. In addition, the report warned that those who had been involved in WMDs program in past years (pre-First Iraq War) are now unemployed and probably looking for work. Boy, doesn’t that make you feel safer?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7634313/

And then the story came out that an annual report on terrorism had been censored to exclude data on terrorist attacks, perhaps due to the fact that it would have reported that terrorism, worldwide, is up. "The number of serious international terrorist incidents more than tripled last year, according to U.S. government figures, a sharp upswing in deadly attacks that the State Department has decided not to make public in its annual report on terrorism due to Congress this week," said a story in the Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content//article/2005/04/26/AR2005042601623.html

So that whole "fight them there so we don’t have to fight them elsewhere" argument seems not to be working out so well…

I can’t pretend to have any answers to what we should do now in Iraq. Even Howard Dean recently said we should stay there and finish the job, because the alternative would be worse than the current mess.

All I know is, if this is winning, I hope to God we never see what losing looks like.

Summer Science Fiction Movies

This is shaping up to be quite a summer for blockbuster science fiction movies.

Here are the movies that I'm aware of:
War of the Worlds
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Star Wars Episode III
Serenity
 

War of the Worlds
This is the new Tom Cruise/Stephen Spielberg collaboration, a reuniting of the team that brought us Minority Report. That was an ok movie, too dependent on special effects and at times hard to follow. Cruise is an actor who rarely connects with this moviegoer anymore, and Spielberg will have to wildly exceed my expectations to make me forget the travesty of A.I.
Still, the trailers have looked kinda cool.
Chances of sucking: 50 percent.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
Based on the beloved Douglas Adams books. The obvious thought comes to mind: how can they possibly not botch this one? It's just too quirky, too unique, too subtle, too brainy to survive a big-budget movie treatment. Right? Plus its British.
But despite my attempts to lower my expectations, I am hoping against hope that this somehow captures the silly, brilliant, and generous spirit of Adams’ whimsical books. I think it's worth noting that Adams himself began the work on this before his death, and that the whole enchilada began as a radio series, then was a book, then a TV series. All were excellent, from what I hear, so maybe they'll pull it off again.
Chances of sucking: 70 percent, but I'm still pulling for this dark horse.

Episode III
"This helmet is chafing my eyebrows. I swear!"
Sorry, now that I've got that out of the way,  I can tell you that I actually believe this to be the best bet for a good science fiction movie this summer. George Lucas is bound to pull out all the stops for this one, which I would think will be the last Star Wars movie he will do. Also, the unending and well-deserved criticism he’s received for the last two movies has, I suspect, lit a fire under him. Well, at least I hope so. If he’s approached this one with a chip on his shoulder and a desire to prove his critics wrong, that can only be good for Star Wars fans.
But if he puts another almost unwatchable mess up on the screen again, well, we’ll always have this:
http://www.sequentialpictures.com/moviestarwarsepisode3.html
Chances of being as appealing as a nebulan nerfherder: 30 percent

Serenity
The science fiction movie by Josh Whedon is probably not going to get the mega-media-blitz that these others will, but it’s a pretty big deal among certain circles. The Buffy/Angel fans are out there and they are eager to see Whedon vindicated after his “Firefly” TV series, which this is based on, was canceled after one season. Wheadon is very good at hip ‘n witty teen dialogue and drama with brooding 20somethings, but I’m still not convinced that Firefly really had the spark of the other two shows. The trailer features a girl with wicked kung fu skills. Oh, that again?
Chances of sucking like hellbeast: 60 percent


 
 

Earth Day Post

I recently had an interesting discussion with a couple of my conservative relatives about environmental issues; from global warming to recycling. And since today is Earth Day, I thought I would write a post about it.

The conversation started out being about global warming. My argument was that global warming is overwhelmingly thought of as a real phenomenon among scientists, and a majority of them also think the pollution and emissions caused by human beings are playing a role in this. We can argue about how much, but my position was that it clearly was something that the majority of scientists had a consensus on. And based on that, it might be a good idea for counties like the U.S. to put more efforts into pollution control, etc.
(for more on global warming, see:
http://www.realclimate.org/)

My relatives were skeptical of global warming claims, suggesting that it is just an alarmist theory promoted by environmentalists. They seemed to be drawing a lot on a recent book by Michael Crichton. A review of that book’s footnotes can be found here:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/02/06/checking_crichtons_footnotes/
a key sentence from the article:
"Naomi Oreskes, a science studies scholar at the University of California, San Diego, recently analyzed more than 900 scientific articles listed with the keywords ''global climate change,'' and failed to find a single study that explicitly disagreed with the consensus view that humans are contributing to global warming."

My relatives had various arguments on this, in particular taking a position that I find curious, that is, that scientists can’t always be trusted. I suppose this could be so, but it strikes me as odd that they seem to be arguing that we give more credibility to conservative pundits and best-selling fiction writers rather than the consensus view of the scientific community.

We also talked about recycling. At one point, an argument was put forward that most of what we put in our recycling bins ends up, not being recycled, but instead being dumped into landfills, just like any other trash. I think the point was that the environmental movement had sold consumers on the idea of recycling, but the reality was that it simply isn’t practical.

So I was very interested to see a multi-part series on recycling in Minnesota recently in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I’ll briefly note some of the main points below and provide a link. What I really find remarkable is that, although the assertion about recycling was mostly wrong, there is a kernel of truth to what was said. In the area of glass recycling, a significant percentage is now being sent to landfills, for a variety of reasons.

That doesn’t mean that recycling efforts aren’t working in general, or that they aren’t worthwhile. But I suspect this is another case where a single fact, pulled out of a complex issue, has been picked up, spun, distorted, and bounced from one person to another, via the Internet and other mass media. As I said to my relatives at the time, we all seem to have different set of "facts" that we’re sure of, yet they often are in stark contradiction.

To me this underscores the value of the basic concept of journalism, an enterprise where the overriding goal is to get as close to the truth as possible, to investigate the different facts and arguments, and reach some reasonable conclusion as to what is true and what is not.

The reality, I believe, is that recycling is a worthwhile and successful endeavor, and where there are problems, they should be fixed, not taken as a reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Environmentalism has been made a target by some elements of the conservative movement, but the fact is, it is not inherently liberal or conservative. Nor does it have to be anti-business, as some would argue. The recycling series I note below talks about how this industry makes an impressive contribution to Minnesota’s economy, while at the same time making our world a better place to live.
 

From the Star Tribune series:
http://www.startribune.com/static/recycling/main.html

"If you recycle, you'll help save enough electricity to power 321,000 homes for a year. That's more households than Minneapolis and St. Paul combined.

Not worth it? You'll also help keep the equivalent of 203,000 tons of coal from burning. That means fresher air and less toxic mercury in our lakes and streams.

There's more. Start recycling and you will help to support jobs -- paying an average of $16 an hour -- for some 19,000 Minnesotans.

And if nothing else grabs you, here's one final thought: Keep recyclable materials out of the landfill, and you'll be contributing to the state's tax revenue without paying a dime. The recycling industry adds $64 million to Minnesota state tax coffers every year.

Recycling … now adds nearly $3 billion to the state's economy yearly. The material it produces has become a valuable commodity.

Local governments often share in the profits. Minneapolis, for example, received $1.5 million from the sale of its recycling last year and is on track to reap even more this year."
 
 
 
 

Another half-baked idea

How to fix the problem of campaign financing and raise federal poverty level at the same time.
(I'll rely on the more politically astute to shoot this full of holes)

1. Only individuals can donate political money.
2. Individuals can donate a percentage of their annual income. This can be income from a job or from investments or other types of income.
3. Annual limits on donations are set in inverse proportion to income.
a. Anyone at or below FPL can donate up to 100 percent of their annual income.
b. At 125 percent of FPL, an individual can donate 90 percent of annual income
c. At 150 percent of FPL, an individual can donate 80 percent of annual income.
d. At 175 percent of FPL, 70 percent
e. At 200 percent, 60 percent
f. At 250 percent, 50 percent.
g. At 300 percent 40 percent.
h. At 350 percent 35 percent.
i. At 400 percent 30 percent.
j. At 450 percent, 25 percent
k. At 500 percent 20 percent
l. At 550 percent, 15 percent
m. At 600 percent, 10 percent
n. At 650 percent 5 percent.
o. At and above 700 percent of FPL, individuals will be limited to donating 1 percent of their annual income, with a limit of $1million.

All donations must be publicly disclosed.