Intelligence Sharing, Not.

From today's Wall St Journal, we have "Group Finds Intelligence Gap Persists". The bipartisan Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age says "Today we are still vulnerable to attack because- as on 9/11- we are still not able to connect the dots."
Not surprising. Intelligence agencies fear that intelligence sharing leads to leaks to the press which can reveal the names of agents, getting them killed, or let the enemy know his codes have been cracked, leading him to change the codes. You'd have to be really stupid to share anything with CIA, since everything CIA knows goes right to the New York Times. Any rational intelligence agency is going to resist exposing its secrets to other agencies for fear the other agency will blow the secret. There is a saying "Three people can keep a secret only if two of them are dead."
It's unrealistic to expect professional intelligence agencies to share anything with anyone. They have learned you keep secrets by not telling them, to anyone.
For more intelligence sharing, you have to do what the Russians did, put all intelligence gathering into the same organization, KGB. That works, but it's scary. We divvy up intelligence work between CIA, FBI, NSA, Defense Dept, State Dept, and God knows who else, to keep the intelligence agencies small and weak, so they can't take over the country.
Best we can hope for, given the fragmentation of US intelligence system, is to get them to share lists of bad guys. Failure to do this was a big part of 9/11. State dept passport and visa people will let most applicants into the country unless the other intelligence agencies give them lists of bad guys to keep out.

Who will watch the Watchman?

Well, I did last night. The film opened at the Jax Jr over the weekend, so the real fans had already seen it. For Monday night, there was still a good crowd, mostly teenagers. As a registered member of the old fogy club, I haven't read the comic book upon which the flick was directly based. It's a superhero comic set in an alternate United States in the year 1986. The Cold War is still on. Nixon won a third term. The twin towers are still standing. The characters are all superheros, some active, some retired. For reasons of copyright none of them bear names like Batman or Superman, but you kinda catch on. I mean who else could a guy who wears a black costume and a hood with ears be? The settings are all gritty, rainy, New York urban, bad side of town. Frank Miller's "Sin City" sets the tone. Grimy interiors with old fashioned appliances. Neato old cars, gadgets, guns, and hairstyles, something of a nostalgia trip for us old fogies, I wondered how the teenagers were relating to all the old fashioned stuff.
For characters we have Dr. Manhatten, tall, glows blue, disdains clothing, full frontal nudity with anatomic correctness. Can teleport, swell up to become 50 feet tall, levitate heavy machinery, most powerful. Rorschach, a tough as nails city detective type, snap brim hat, leather trench coat, and a curious white mask covering eyes, nose, mouth and all with black rorschach patterns that crawl across it. Rorschach doesn't do Miranda warnings, and his interrogation methods would make Osama bin Laden sing like a canary. There is the Batman stand in, and a really cute lady superhero with a slick costume. And Comedian, wears body armor, carries a pump action 12 gauge, mustache, and really crude manners.
The movie is all confrontations, verbal, or violent, or sexual. Nobody likes anybody else much, even after intense sexual relations. All characters have character flaws on display, front and center. The overall plot is indescribable.
While the superheroes are confronting each other, there are period piece clips, Kennedy's fatal motorcade in Dallas, Richard Nixon, complete with ski jump nose, setting up nuclear war with the Soviets in a warroom right out of Dr. Strangelove. Another amusing shot of "The McLaughlin Group". I'll never be able to take them seriously again.
It runs forever, 160 minutes. The scenes are so intense you keep watching, but when the movie finally ends, it's not clear what has happened or who has won or lost. It is unclear which superhero is the protagonist and which is the bad guy. It's like the first Indiana Jones movie, non stop action, even if it doesn't make much sense. Only the action is faster and more violent.
According to my internet review sources, it raked in $50 million over the weekend.

Industrial Policy

I just heard a clueless newsie on Fox calling for "an industrial policy from Washington" to create a US based renewable energy industry. Arrgh.
Industries are not created by "industrial policy" Industries spring up to serve customer needs when ever the customer has money to pay for it. We will get a renewable energy industry as soon as anyone can make money selling renewable energy. Right now electricity from renewable sources costs 10 times what electricity from conventional sources does. Plus wind and solar electricity goes off when the wind stops blowing or the sun sets. Which makes such electricity both expensive and undependable. Who will buy that?
No amount of industrial policy can create an industry to loose money.

Breakup on the Gale River

Yesterday the ice broke up on the Gale River. You can see open water, flowing and foaming thru town. It warmed up and rained the night before which lowered the snow level a bunch. Yesterday got up to 46 F and sunny. Roads dried off and it got warm enough to sit on the porch. Plus the sun didn't set til 7 PM. Almost seemed like spring.
Didn't last. It's snowing right now with two inches down.

Cap & Trade equals carbon tax

The fair and straight forward way to encourage fuel conservation (aka reduced carbon emissions) is a fuel tax. Why the mysterious "cap & trade" in place of something straight forward? Simple. Cap & trade lays the fuel tax on industry, where as a fuel tax (a carbon tax) hits everyone, and the voters have made it clear they are dead set against fuel taxes. Cap & Trade is a concealed tax, only industry had to pay it, and industry doesn't have the vote. So industry cannot squawk, it has to shut up and pay up.
Cap & Trade, has industries purchase emission permits for so much per ton of carbon dioxide emitted. Oh by the way, carbon emitted cannot be measured, it has to be estimated. Needless to say the guys doing the estimates have quite a bit of leeway and for suitable encouragement (campaign contributions or bribes) can reduce the estimate (and the need for expensive emission permits) by 50% or more. Or these same guys can punish the industry by raising the estimates by a lot, should they feel mean that day. Failure to receive a payout will bring out the blue meanies in most guys.
Then there is the "trade" part. Markets and brokers and futures for emission permits will spring up, giving employment to laid off wall streeters. Should an industry stupidly buy more emissions permits than it needs, it can sell them to others. Or perhaps worthy third world planters of trees and reforestation projects can print and sell emissions permits. Plant a thousand trees and print an emission permit for 1000 tons of CO2 per year. Sell it for what ever the market will bear. And maybe they can get away with just printing the certificates, and hope no one comes out and actually counts the trees. Coal smoke emitted in the first world is compensated by new trees planted in the third world. I can't wait. Extra air pollution in the first world (where I happen to live) is all OK just so long trees get planted in the third world.
Obama is budgeting for a couple hundred billion extra federal income from "Cap & Trade". I need to budget for more expensive electricity, gasoline and furnace oil.
Global warming is such a threat that more snow is forecast tonight.

Health Care Pt II

According to several sources, 20% of the nation's health care costs are incurred in the last year of the patient's life. Clearly this is ineffective medical treatment ‘cause the patient dies. Sometime or other, we are all going to die. If we are lucky, we die peacefully and suddenly in bed, at home. Most people aren't so lucky. They get sick before they die. Naturally friends and family take the sick loved one to the hospital. Since the elderly patient has medicare, the doctors do every sort of expensive test and procedure, because they can bill for it. It doesn't really matter whether all this care cures the patient or not, because it's all paid for.

To curb this waste, doctors should not be paid if the patient dies during treatment or before release from the hospital. In fact, if the patient dies within 30 days following treatment, the doctor shouldn't get paid, because the treatment was obviously ineffective. This scheme won't solve all problems, but it's better than what we have now. It also gives doctors an incentive to keep patients alive so that their bills do get paid.

Where are the GM suits?

The AP reports that GM's AUDITORS are expressing doubts about GM's survival. Auditors? Plain old bean counters? Where is senior management on this? They are supposed to be running the company which requires them to understand how much money they are making or losing, and where sales are going. Sounds like GM's suits are so clueless that the bean counters have a better idea of where the company is going than the suits do.
Bailout money is wasted unless every single clueless suit is fired.