Earth Hour is Bullshit

This will be quick but topical, with Dirt Hour tomorrow. Turning off your lights for an hour is completely pointless from an environmental standpoint, and anything you could do that would make a significant contribution to lessening electricity demand would drastically reduce your standard of living.

The rising cost of everything is doing a good job of that already, and energy costs are the biggest part of it. Turn off all of your lights for the hour if you want, but I challenge anyone to convince me that it will make any difference to anything. The link shows base load and peak power output, and Earth Day is more likely to put a strain on the system when everyone turns their lights back on at the same time than anything else.

Catch-22 and the League of Western Oriental Gentlemen

I promised something more about our interests in Libya, so I guess the time is now. It's a good time, actually, as Canadian CF-18s have now gone "live" on targets in Libya so we're in it in our own small-but-stretching-us-thin way. Our fighter jocks have been shut out in A-Stan, so at least they get a bit of action now, so good for them.

In the bigger picture, why the fuck are we there at all? Yes, yes; UN "whatever means necessary" declaration, NATO partners are involved sure, but the only national interest I can detect here is getting some action for our fighter pilots. Qaddafi is a clown who oppresses his people, but there are a long list of those the world over and he hasn't (recently) attacked any of our NATO partners, so the necessity for our military action is, well, non-existent.

The Arab League wanted a no-fly zone and then squawked when the Tomahawks started taking out Libyan AD assets. There is literally no pleasing that bunch, and by "that bunch" I mean Arab countries as a group. They say one thing in English for media consumption, and something entirely different in Arabic for their own people. They wanted armed intervention, they have lots of planes, let them do it.

Two Arab countries committed to the forces covering the no-fly but have not put up * so they should shut up. As you will know from reading this for years (ha!) I have no qualms about dropping the hammer on people who threaten us, and I have a fairly loose definition of "threaten" and "us". This however is a European and African problem, and mostly related to immigration. Not our fight, and that's assuming that we're actually fighting, which requires an opponent and a goal.

Obama has come out and said that killing Qaddafi is not a "goal". OK, so overt assassination and regime change is out, but then why the bombs and missiles? Protecting the "population" is apparently it, which is fine, but if you're not going to remove that which threatens them how do you protect them?

That's the first problem with what's being done. The next, and closely related, is what do we want to see come from this. In Mil-speak, that's "End State", and if the guys dropping the bombs have one in mind they aren't sharing. There is so much upheaval in the Arab world right now that it's hard to concentrate on just one country, and we don't know much about what will come from all of these revolutions.

Hamas? Taliban west? Hezbollah? Turkey (before they moved Islamic)? No one knows, and it scares a lot of people. I'm sure the results from Tunisia will be different from Yemen, but there is a good chance that most of the resulting governments (whatever their democratic roots) will not be friendly to us.

So what are we fighting for? We have no idea, and that's a problem; hopefully not a big one.

*Update 25 March: Qatari jets engaged. This may be the beginning of something constructive, we'll see.

Earthquakes and Tyrants and Leaks, oh my!

I was on vacation last week which you'd think would have been a great chance for me to lay into all of the juicy world events of late (for the record: the 9.0 earthquake in northern Japan with ensuing tsunami on 11 March, and the UN actually approving force against Qaddafi in Libya on 18 March). You'd be correct, but several factors caused me to hold off:

• I was on vacation, after all;


• events were in a state of flux and analysis would be better served waiting for facts, and;


• I got Strategic Command WW1 and had to run that through its' paces.

So where are we on 21 March 2011? The main title link to the Register link talks about the overblown panic about the nuclear accident at the Fukushima reactors. The short version is that even after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake which moved the Japanese islands several feet and the ensuing tsunami which killed an estimated 18,000 Japanese, these 40-year-old reactors have not melted down.

Yes, there have been some hydrogen explosions and a bit more than background radiation has been detected, but it's not and cannot become another Chernobyl. The reactors are compromised by the seawater they had to pump in to cool them and will never operate again, but they have exceeded their design specs and prevented a nuclear catastrophe on top of a natural one. My takeaway is that with what we have learned from this, any new plants can be designed to survive anything which is likely to happen. Let's face it; anything much worse than what happened that day would likely swallow or vaporize a nuclear plant (or anything else for that matter).

Welcome to Nature, people. Terrestrial processes, to say nothing of those of the Universe as a whole, operate on scales we can scarcely comprehend let alone engineer against. People on the other hand are quite manageable, but some effort is still required. That brings us to Libya. Qaddafi has been marshaling his forces and taking towns back from the rebels, and it was the French, of all people to drop the first bombs to slow his progress.

It of course makes sense that the Europeans have much more of an interest in the stability of Libya, if for no other reason than millions of Africans could come drifting to their shores. And oh yes, the oil too, but the immigration problem is much larger; there are other sources of oil. American leadership on this is still lacking, but that will persist until Obama is replaced.

I still don't know what we want to see in Libya, at least of the available options. That I will think about some more and come back to in the next post.

Si vis pacem, para bellum, non quoqou

Although predicting the future is a fraught pastime, being generally prepared for probable eventualities is merely sensible. A lot of hedging in that sentence, but that's life when dealing with uncertainty. Hedging may be necessary when dealing with the nebulous future, but a hedge, unlike a fence, is not something to sit on, it is for slowing down or mitigating the bad things which may arrive. A common example of this word usage is buying gold as a hedge against inflation.

In the realm of Defence, buying gold will do you no good; you need to be able to anticipate technology, at least as far as what will be available to you and potential adversaries. Technology being what it is it doesn't stand still, and like your electronic devices pretty much anything you buy will be at least obsolescent by the time you take delivery. Not so much of a problem with fairly mature weapon systems like tanks and planes, so I'll talk a bit about the latter and what Canada should be doing to replace our 30-year-old CF-18s.

The front runner is of course the F-35 Lightning II. F-22s were never for sale and are now out of production anyway, and if the F-35 ever works as advertised only the F-22 (of what is available and reasonably projected to become available) would be a more capable fighter.

A lack of definites and certainties there however. The F-35 has been in development for over 15 years and still has a lot of bugs with attendant indefinite completion dates and cost overruns. Since someone (me as a taxpayer, in point of fact) has to pay for whatever we buy, the sort of numbers and per unit costs that are being bandied about are giving me the willies. I'm not into conniption range yet, but I'm still waiting to get some solid numbers so the possibility is there.

The most important question is of course "What do we need?". This question should be arrived at after "What is our mission?", the answer to which should be "To defend our continental airspace and support ground and naval operations." This means anything from waving at Russian bomber pilots over the North Pole to CAS missions in support of JTF2 and CSOR teams in whatever shitholes we get sent to in the near future.


Nothing I can imagine would have our Air Force in a Gotterdammerung against Chinese J-20s over Korea or anything. We'll be asserting our airspace or dropping JDAMs on people we've decided need bombing. The latter mission incidentally is receding in likelihood as the major instigator of us tagging along for some fighting (the USA) is realizing that it is broke and overstretched, not coincidentally because of doing too much of it. A change of government in Washington may produce more resolution than Obama's crew, but the fundamental conditions will persist.


So, what does Canada need? I say we need something good enough that people will be forced to take us seriously, preferably in numbers where we could afford to lose a few over the years (as we inevitably will). I will state categorically here that we do not NEED the F-35 to have a creditable Air Force. Generation 4.5 fighters with drones for the really dangerous missions will give us all the capability a minor power like us can expect to wield, and some attack helicopters would help too.


For my money, I'd get F/A-18F Super Hornets as our multi-role fighter. Stealthy, capable and easy to train our Hornet drivers on, it's also HALF the price of an F-35 ($55M vs. $110M). By my old-style math, that gets us twice as many, and quantity has a quality all it's own. Looking for known quality at a known price (c.$100M) we have the F-15 Silent Eagle. These options keep the Americans from having a hissy fit and we'd get good planes. Having said that, a bit of research suggests that if politics were not an issue (ha!) we could buy Russian planes and helicopters.

Apparently the Sukhoi Su-30/35 Flanker almost completely outclasses the Super Hornet and gives other Gen 4.5 fighters a run for their money, for about the same unit cost as the new F-18s. I present this mostly in the role of Devil's Advocate, as Russian planes don't have a great reputation for build quality. As for helicopters, we need some to fill holes in our tactical capability, the Russians know how to make them and you'd get good bang for your buck. The Ka-50 "Black Shark" even has an ejector seat! Lots of options in the attack helicopter world, but we have no plans to get any so it's moot.

I bring this all up just to underline that deciding on the F-35 "cost be damned" is far from the only option. There are a number of Western designs (Eurofighter, Gripen, Rafale) to provide competition to a plane experiencing what look to be out-of-control cost and time overruns. If we could lock in a deal for say $100M/copy it would be competitive with off-the-shelf packages, otherwise perhaps a less stealthy fighter with some stealthed attack drones for Wild Weasel missions would be a better option. If you're really hung up about creating jobs though, the Russians will do complete technology transfers as part of a deal...

The Futurist is Now

I will start by saying that I don't hold much faith in those who predict the future. That disclaimer out of the way, there are some things in Gerard Celente's interview (link) worthy of discussion.

Soaring unemployment, cuts to pensions and benefits, rising fees for diminishing services, across-the-board value-added tax increases and declining minimum wages are all common factors to some degree, he says. Combine those with the numbers of young people who are still living with their parents, struggling to find work and not seeing much hope for the future, and Celente says you've got some powerful reasons to not only get angry over the growing gap between rich and poor, but to do something about it.

So far this isn't crystal ball stuff; economies around the world bubbled to unsupportable levels and have now imploded to greater or lesser degrees. A key problem is expectations, and those can be explained by history and human nature, things I have more confidence in figuring out.

The BabyBoomers had the Golden Age that for some reason everyone today thinks is the norm for human existence. There were very specific conditions which led to that suburban Shangri-La:
When the war ended in 1945, millions of veterans returned home and were forced to integrate. To help the integration process, Congress passed the G.I. Bill of Rights. This bill encouraged home ownership and investment in higher education through the distribution of loans at low or no interest rates to veterans.

Returning G.I.’s were getting married, starting families, pursuing higher education and buying their first homes. With veteran’s benefits, the twenty-somethings found new homes in planned communities on the outskirts of American cities. This group, whose formative years covered the Great Depression, were a generation hardened by poverty and deprived of the security of a home or job. Now thriving on the American Dream, life was simple, jobs were plentiful and babies were booming. Many Americans believed that lack of post-war government spending would send the United States back into depression. However, consumer demand fueled economic growth. The baby boom triggered a housing boom, consumption boom and a boom in the labor force. Between 1940 and 1960, the nation’s GDP jumped more than $300,000 million. The middle class grew and the majority of America’s labor force held white-collar jobs. This increase led to urbanization and increased the demand for ownership in cars and other '50s and '60s inventions.

"The middle class grew" is the giveaway snippet in that excerpt; if it grew, it was previously smaller. Unrest in developing countries is due to educated people being denied that opportunity, and in the declining developed ones people see their chances to belong to the comfortable middle class being eroded away.

Enter democracy. If you already have it and the middle class (backbone of good government) declines, you have what we see in the USA where access to entitlements "buys" votes (ACORN, other "community organizations") from the poor, and as there are more people in that group the power of the party that controls those votes becomes entrenched. See demagogy on where that leads.

The middle class is what allows a stable democracy to exist and flourish; the more people have a stake in the country, the more they will care how it is governed. This of course is well known, but even the soundest principles can be horribly subverted by those with Good Intentions. The housing boom and collapse in the US was due to government policy which forced banks to make loans to people who couldn't afford them with the laudable goal of encouraging home ownership. We see today how well that worked.

Owning a house is very expensive, and generally requires a good and steady income. There are those who argue that it's not a good investment and that you're better off renting, and this can certainly be true. An effective democracy needs a population which has a stake in how the country is run, not merely a mob which bays for bread and circuses. These days I guess that would be union jobs, welfare, and a "right" to high-speed Internet. Politicians are largely self-interested and short sighted, so a responsible electorate is the only way to have them look past the next election.

Energy costs are driving up the price of everything, which when coupled with the unemployment caused by "outsourcing"everything to the cheap-labour developing world you disgruntle a lot of people. The rampant credentialism of the modern workplace forces anyone who wants a job into debt bondage via their student loans, resulting in a latter-day feudalism which eviscerates the middle class. This is where we are right now.

My prediction? It's going to get worse, and by worse I mean decreased prosperity for the bulk of the population. We're already there, and it gets worse every week. Gas prices go up (for no good reason, I'll add) and the demand for that being non-elastic means less disposable income. This in turns means either less consumption (the prudent course) or increased debt, with knock-on effects throughout our interconnected world.

As for "hanging the rich", the big problem is the politicians who rig the rules for them. Governments need to regulate capitalism effectively to prevent unhealthy monopolies while maintaining the profit motive to foster innovation. The dystopian future of soulless Multinationals and co-opted or irrelevant governments can be avoided. I'm fairly certain that a day of reckoning with public sector unions is coming, and will hit in waves throughout the First World (started already). The quarter-century of Boomer prosperity (roughly 1945-1970) can be looked back at as a gilded age of employment and home ownership, but current and upcoming generations will have to modify their expectations. That however isn't much of a prediction, because it's already here.

Charlie Sheen as mental health spokesman

While civil war continues to unfold in Libya, I'll spend a little time talking about the only thing that's getting more coverage than the various Arab revolts; Charlie Sheen.

Not a whole lot to say, but I couldn't let the recent madness pass without comment. Short version: Charlie's loopy. More specifically, if he's not manic-depressive (most recently REALLY manic) I'll eat my hat. Well-balanced people don't say things like this:

"I am on a drug. It’s called Charlie Sheen. It’s not available. If you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body."

I suffer from a milder version of it myself and I've known people with more extreme cases, so it's easy to spot even without psychological training. I enjoy my "up" periods because I have energy and want to do things, and don't care too much about the consequences. That said, on my zaniest days I've never even been close to where he's at right now.

The problem here of course is that he will come crashing down at some point, as has probably happened repeatedly in the past. If his manic phase is worse than it was earlier there is a good chance that his depressive phase will be too. As I'm learning the hard way, as you get older this condition doesn't go away, it gets worse.

If you were to parse my blog posts you could probably tell how I felt when I wrote them. The sample would be skewed however; when I'm really depressed I don't tend to write much, which is a pattern in itself. This is the way it is for a lot of people, but sometimes hard to notice unless you're actively looking. I go contrary to the conventional wisdom on these things, but I'll take the opening that Charlie has made to say this about periodically depressed people: if you know they'll bounce back, don't try too hard to cheer them up when they're down. Some alone time to wallow in the Slough of Despond is occasionally necessary, just don't let them drown in it. Vague I know, but people are highly variable so you should try to understand your friends and family and not worry about generalities.

The brain is very complex, and a bit too much or too little of something can have all sorts of repercussions on one's behaviour. Pharmaceuticals are getting more specific and therefore more helpful, but people still need to reach that point when they realize that they're not handling it well on their own before things will change. Pretty similar to a substance abuse problem, except that you'll need substances (hopefully not self-prescribed) to deal with it.

This is my gut reaction, but to me the difference between crazy and insane is whether or not you realize that you're behaving oddly, or at least that people will perceive your actions that way. If Charlie is just venting all the noise in his head because he needs to get it out but knows that he's not being entirely reasonable (to be charitable) then he's crazy for a while. If he believes it, he's insane, temporarily or otherwise.

To conclude my opportunistic quasi public service spot, you need to be aware (as much as possible, anyway) when people you know are having problems, and if they're saying stupid shit (see above) you need to call them on it. If they acknowledge the ridiculousness of what they're doing or not doing (even if they can't stop it for the time being), they'll probably be OK sooner or later. In Charlie's case, he needs to be confronted in plain language and give his head a shake. I don't care what he says now, I'll be very surprised if he isn't at least privately embarrassed in the future by some of the stuff he's saying today.