How much Bang is stopped for your Bucks?

Back to Slate again, but not to excoriate this time. It's pretty 'Progressive" but balanced enough or I wouldn't read it, and today's link ties into whatever it is that I've been on about here lately. The trend seems to be "efficiently fighting bad people" and here is the authors' explanation of "cost effectiveness":

A conventional approach to cost-effectiveness compares the costs of security measures with the benefits as tallied in lives saved and damages averted. The benefit of a security measure is a multiplicative composite of three considerations: the probability of a successful attack, the losses sustained in a successful attack, and the reduction in risk furnished by security measures. This product, the benefit, is then compared to the cost of the security measure instituted to attain the benefit. A security measure is cost-effective when the benefit of the measure outweighs the costs of providing the security measures.

Hearken back to my problems with the methods of the TSA in the last post, and we're all on the same page here. The enemy of cost effectiveness is bureaucratic empire building, and we come to where that begins in the context of American Homeland Security:

To evaluate the reduction in risk provided by security measures, we need to consider their effectiveness in foiling, deterring, disrupting, or protecting against a terrorist attack. In assessing risk reduction, it is important first to look at the effectiveness of homeland security measures that were in place before 9/11. The 9/11 Commission's report points to a number of failures, but it acknowledges as well that terrorism was already a high priority of the government before 9/11. More pointed is an observation of Michael Sheehan, former New York City deputy commissioner for counterterrorism: "The most important work in protecting our country since 9/11 has been accomplished with the capacity that was in place when the event happened, not with any of the new capability bought since 9/11. I firmly believe that those huge budget increases have not significantly contributed to our post-9/11 security."

There is another consideration. The tragic events of 9/11 massively heightened the awareness of the public to the threat of terrorism, resulting in extra vigilance that has often resulted in the arrest of terrorists or the foiling of terrorist attempts.

As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, we come back to the fact (visited a couple of posts back) that history and terrorism didn't pop out of nowhere ten years ago. I will make the argument that 9/11 was Team bin Laden's peak (safe bet at this point) and only worked because they had element of strategic surprise about the suicide bombing thing. No one will ever again allow terrorists to take over an airplane, and you'll notice they have stopped trying and merely try to destroy them in air. A cost effective solution to hijacking: lock the cockpit door and give flight attendants tasers.

With that in mind, into the meat of Mueller and Stewart's excerpt:

Putting this all together, we find that, in order for the $75 billion in enhanced expenditures on homeland security to be deemed cost-effective under our approach—which substantially biases the consideration toward finding them effective—they would have to deter, prevent, foil, or protect each year against 1,667 otherwise successful attacks of something like the one attempted in Times Square in 2010. In other words, we'd have to foil more than four major attacks every day to justify the spending.

I don't crunch numbers too much here, so I'll use theirs and take this at face value. Assuming there was this much terrorist activity in the USA (it's a big place, but seriously?) how much of it is there that wouldn't be picked off by routine law enforcement? Standard police work with some elementary triggers (chemical purchases, reports from concerned citizens, etc.) will sort most of this out, and indeed there were warnings about the 9/11 hijackers which could have been acted on.

Now the age-old question: how much is your life worth?

It is possible, of course, that any relaxation in these measures will increase the terrorism hazard, that the counterterrorism effort is the reason for the low-hazard terrorism currently present. However, in order for the terrorism risk to border on becoming "unacceptable" by established risk conventions, the number of fatalities from all forms of terrorism in the United States would have to increase 35-fold, equivalent to experiencing attacks as devastating as those on 9/11 at least once a year or 18 Oklahoma City bombings every year. Even if all the (mostly embryonic and in many cases moronic) terrorist plots exposed since 9/11 in the United States had been successfully carried out, their likely consequences would have been much lower. Indeed, as noted earlier, the number of people killed by terrorists throughout the world outside (and sometimes within) war zones both before and after 2001 generally registers at far below that number.

At the end of the day it again comes down to leadership or the lack thereof. If rational decisions are made and explained by calm, rational people to the rest of us, we will (mostly) follow that example. secure in the knowledge that our concerns are taken seriously and are being acted on. However, the Zero-Defect mentality is enforced by the media, and it takes a very strong personality to stand their ground in face of the shit-storm should something slip through, as it inevitably will.

Even with the extra multi-billions spent on all of this, things still slip through to be stopped only by alert and motivated members of the public. All that money and a Dutch tourist sitting next to the would-be bomber had to do the job; your organization was not very cost effective, was it, Ms Napolitano? Good leadership is also shown by subordinates who know when to act, but huge expensive bureaucracies don't generate many of those, and promote even fewer. Good thing the Americans can afford all of this...

After 10 years, what have we GWOT?

Today's post is my attempt to digest Abe Greenwald's article in Commentary this month. He has a very different view of Bush II than the subject of my last post, but that doesn't mean that I agree with everything he has to say either. I encourage you to read it, lengthy as it is, and form your own opinions, but as a primer, here are a few things I liked/took issue with:

1. Over the course of the 10 years, American authorities foiled more than two dozen al-Qaeda plots. Those averted tragedies were not foremost on the minds of revelers who gathered to celebrate Bin Laden’s demise on May 1 at Ground Zero, Times Square, and in front of the White House. But if a mere few of the plots had materialized, those spaces might not even have been open to public assembly. 9/11 was the result of systematic intelligence failures in the US, and intelligence agencies are more reliably evaluated on how much they can prevent or influence. On that basis the lack of post-9/11 al Qaeda attacks in the USA can be taken as a "win".



2. It was the Freedom Agenda of the George W. Bush administration—delineated and formulated as a conscious alternative to jihadism—that showed the way. Indeed, the costly American nation-building in Iraq has now led to the creation of the world’s first and only functioning democratic Arab state. One popular indictment of Bush maintains that he settled on the Freedom Agenda as justification for war after U.S. forces and inspectors found no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The record shows otherwise. “A free Iraq can be a source of hope for all the Middle East,” he said before the invasion, in February 2003. “Iraq can be an example of progress and prosperity in a region that needs both.” I'm a bit ambivalent about the end result, but I have maintained for years that Bush invaded Iraq because he believed that Democracy conquers all, and most emphatically NOT for oil. The (democratically elected) Iraqi government freezing American oil companies out in favour of Chinese ones seems to vindicate much of my view of cause and effect in "Iraqi/Enduring Freedom".



3. Incensed civil libertarians on the right, for their part, also fail to acknowledge some extraordinary facts. The TSA pat-downs, no-fly lists, travel restrictions, and legislation aimed at stopping would-be terrorist attacks have in fact worked. Ok, I take this a bit out of context, but I don't agree 100%. Even if it has worked as well as claimed, what sort of price should we pay for our freedom? I suspect it could be dialed back a bit and be just as effective while being more efficient, but the ways to make that happen will make the left froth at the mouth (e.g. Profiling).

It's long, but worth your time. I've seen things before which suggest that G.W. Bush will be looked back on more kindly by Posterity for "The Bush Doctrine", and this piece is a brick on that path. Obama has inherited any successes he's had in foreign policy from the system (mostly intact) built back then, because a lot of it works. I still hold that Iraq could have been done a lot better if it needed to be done at all, and that too will be laid at the Bush Administration's door by Posterity, rather like the dead animals your cat barfs up on your step.

As Winston Churchill said, “War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.” Indeed, and things are rarely as simple as people would like them to be. I retain the right to change my mind to fit the facts, but I'll fight any inversion of that. Go read this and tell me what YOU think of it.

OBL's Bleed to Bankruptcy vs. FDR and The Giant Sucking Sound

This is from Slate (link) and is so blatantly half-assed and short-hindsighted that it begs me to challenge it, so I will in my own half-assed way which at least remembers things that happened more than 10 years ago.

The Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks by al-Qaida were meant to harm the United States, and they did, but in ways that Osama Bin Laden probably never imagined. President George W. Bush's response to the attacks compromised America's basic principles, undermined its economy, and weakened its security.

Boilerplate, but I take exception with "in ways that OBL probably never imagined". This indicates that the opposition had a pretty good idea of the economics involved in sucking the Americans into wars to ruin their economy. The rest of it is blatantly partisan (vs. Bush and the GOP) and mind-bogglingly simplistic and superficial in attribution of the USA's current economic malaise.

Example: Today, America is focused on unemployment and the deficit. Both threats to America's future can, in no small measure, be traced to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Increased defense spending, together with the Bush tax cuts, is a key reason why America went from a fiscal surplus of 2 percent of GDP when Bush was elected to its parlous deficit and debt position today. Direct government spending on those wars so far amounts to roughly $2 trillion—$17,000 for every U.S. household—with bills yet to be received increasing this amount by more than 50 percent.

I won't quibble about the numbers, but the emphasis above is mine as it is evidence of an axe to grind at the expense of the big picture and gutted fundamentals of America's post-industrial society and economy. Perot came up with "giant sucking sound" in 1992 about American jobs moving south, but we can look back on NAFTA as the "good old days" in terms of North American employment. The Rust Belt started to decline in the 1970s and the US has been hemorrhaging jobs ever since. To sum up after Mexico, all those manufacturing jobs moved to Asia and show no signs of coming back.

THAT is NOT Bush's fault, and if I had to blame anyone it'd be FDR with his "New Deal" back in the 1930s. That is not meant to be a comprehensive policy statement, but the culture of Entitlement which that swept in led to the high cost of doing business in the US, and the Environmental and Litigation lobbies which were waiting in the wings and always there (respectively) knocked the US economy to its' knees and put the bullet in the nape of its' neck.

The thing to do when you get into a hole is to stop digging, and American politicians as a group have no concept of actually DOING it, even if they'll mouth words about restraint. Regardless, history didn't start in 2001, and the system which has brought America to the current pass didn't pop up mushroom-like overnight (though it is fertilized much the same way). My message to Mr Stiglitz: if you're going to ascribe causes to profound issues in huge systems, make sure there's some depth to your simplification for the casual reader. Most Slate readers won't question your cant, but we're not all so ignorant that you can slide such sloppy journalism past us.

Non quia aliquid consequendum

The link is to another of the inevitable elitist out-of-touch Hollywood liberals who need a bandwagon to jump on:

"I want to add my body and my voice to the thousands of others who are laying themselves on the line and saying,'No, we do not want to be party to this incredibly destructive path. We're becoming more dependent on fossil fuels and now we're becoming dependent on the most dirty of the fossil fuels, which is the tarsands fuel'," Hannah said.

TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline would run from Alberta through Nebraska to refineries in Houston and Port Arthur, Texas. It would double the capacity of the existing Keystone pipeline.

Proponents say the expansion would create thousands of jobs in both Canada and the U.S. and would help reduce U.S. reliance on Middle Eastern oil. Environmental activists say the pipeline is too risky and that extracting oil from the oilsands creates far too much greenhouse gas emissions.

Last week, the U.S. State Department released a report that said the proposed pipeline would pose no major risks to the environment and would not necessarily spur further oilsands production in Alberta.

There is nothing in life without some risk (title, in classy and hopefully correct Latin thanks to Google Translate), and no, I'm not talking about getting arrested for a sit-in against something you don't like. We are indeed "dependant on fossil fuels", but this will not change by hamstringing our productivity and prosperity. I have gone over the "alternative" energy problem before, but in short Ms Hanna has no idea what is involved in keeping the modern world's lights on if she thinks that all of our energy can be produced by "solar, wind, geothermal, microhydro" and any other pie-in-the-sky "green" options.

Those listed are only good in specific locations and/or on small scale. Solar and wind farms are as much, I'd even say more, of a blight on the landscape as any (decent) pipeline and are not reliable sources of power. Geothermal only works very locally, and you can bet that any large-scale geothermal project (in, say, Yellowstone Park) would have the Green movement's useful idiots chaining themselves to drill rigs. As for microhydro, great if you have your own river, but how many people does that apply to?

Rich people can afford whatever low-efficiency power scheme tickles their fancy; the rest of us need what works, is proven to work, will continue to work or (the future) will work better than what we already have. That last one includes "scary" things like Liquid Fluoride Reactors which will do everything we need it to do, and do it more safely than existing nuclear plants or even hydrocarbon refineries. I would have one in my backyard, or at least where I could see it from there (it's still a powerplant after all) but the Greens would shit themselves at the name of it alone.

In the meantime, the USA needs to get back on its' feet economically and politically, and affordable secure energy is one brick on that path. Celebrities making responsible, informed announcements/actions would help in a small way too but fat chance of that; the sensible ones seem to just keep their opinions to themselves. Cutting the size of their government by about 50% would help that immensely, but that is another post.

Dead Celebrities and Sentiment

I have no unusual compunctions about speaking ill of the dead, but it is generally considered rude. At the very least, if you have unpleasant things to say they should at least be unimpeachably accurate, since the dead guy is in no position to defend himself.

I do however object to the mawkish outpouring of sentiment which is de rigeur for so many people today. Even more than that, I object to being told that I'm out of line by not caring too much about the death of people I don't know.

With that up front, I will come out and back up Christie Blatchford (link) for saying what a lot of us are thinking. Not all of us, maybe not even most of us any more, but still a lot. Jonathan Kay, one of her co-workers at the NPost says it as well as I could hope to:

Eleven years later [after Trudeau's death], it is Jack Layton who has died. And the same climate of enforced sentimentality is in effect: The entire Canadian media has given a free pass to Jack Layton’s widely published deathbed political manifesto, which promiscuously mingled laudable paeans to love and optimism with not so laudable snipes at the Harper government (such as Layton’s encouragement to NDP followers to “restore [Canada's] good name in the world,” as if Canada had somehow become a rogue state under the Conservatives).

There is more, but the freedom of speech here, imperfect as it is, does cover not being sucked in by posthumous propaganda, so those who dare to rail against it should do so and know that they are not alone. As for the late Jack Layton, I never agreed with much he had to say, and I shudder at the thought of his party running Canada, but I wished no ill on the man. The good side? The odds are that the socialist tide is going out with Jack, so I'll wait for the afterglow to fade and hope that we continue to have a solid economy and good governance.

Good on yer, Kate.

This is definitely NOT a celeb-blog, but I must extend some kudos to Kate Winslet for being a fine actress, a babe, and a real person (as I suspected) after all.

The Associated Press

Date: Tuesday Aug. 23, 2011 9:46 AM ET

LONDON — Academy Award-winning actress Kate Winslet helped rescue Richard Branson's elderly mother from a fire that destroyed his Caribbean home.

The Virgin Group boss said in his blog that he wanted to offer "many thanks to Kate Winslet for helping to carry my 90 year (old) mum out of the main house to safety." He joked that Winslet "was wondering when a director was going to shout 'CUT!'

In a separate statement Tuesday, Branson praised Winslet's two children, 10-year-old Mia and 7-year-old Joe, who were also staying in the house when it caught fire. He called them "two of the bravest kids I've ever come across."

Good children are most often the result of good parents, so more evidence (if it were needed) that she's no vacuous starlet. As for Sir Richard's house, he can afford to build another one, and I'm certain Ms Winslet and her family will have a standing invitation to stay over.

The End of The Beginning in Libya

OK, I'm back, and there seems to be some movement on the Libyan front so I'll start there.

The rebels are fighting out in the streets of Tripoli as I write this, and Gaddaffi is nowhere to be seen. Between his own stupidity over the years and the now-standard announcements about sending Col. Gadfly to the International Criminal Court, he has nowhere to run, rumours of him being in Algeria notwithstanding. Nobody really reads Sun Tzu, so of course these guys will fight to the end.

I still hold that NATO has no business involved in any of this, but there we are. We can hope that some good comes of this, as the Gaddaffi clan will not be missed, unless the place pulls a post-Saddam Iraq and degenerates into chaos of course.

Assad in Syria is still misbehaving (arguably much worse than anything Gaddaffi has ever done), so we'll see in the near future how important this "humanitarian" intervention stuff is to our side. Leaving for the moment the whole Axis of Evil business with Iran and Hezbollah, best current public estimates of the civilian death toll in Syria is 2200 since the populace decided it has had enough. Turkey is the only power, regional or otherwise to be making any moves in relation to this, the rest of NATO nowhere to be seen.

Oh well, plus ca change and all. These situations have room to change significantly so I will ease into it. If you're still here, thanks, and I'll be back with more soon.