Benefits of HC Reform

The Democrats could have been this clear earlier:


As soon as health care passes, the American people will see immediate benefits. The legislation will:

• Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;
• Spew take: Amazing this didn't happen earlier.  Could have been achieved without this reform but this loophole's existence suggests that might not have been easy.
• Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;
• Spew: Huge.  Previous efforts to address this seem to have failed.
• Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;
• Spew:  This gets to the heart of the problem with the current system.  This reform by itself is worth all of the trouble.
• Lower seniors prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;
•  Spew: The prescription drug law of a few years ago remains a disaster.
• Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;
• Spew: Sure.  Anything to get more folks covered.
• Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;
•  Spew:  This might, just might, mean that sickness does not become bankruptcy.
• Require plans to cover an enrollee's dependent children until age 26;
• Spew: With this job market?
• Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;
• Spew: About time.  We really need to do more on prevention.  Spending here is very cost-efficient.
• Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;
•  Spew: Some accountability is way overdue.
• Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.
• Spew:  Now if they could only apply that to administrative costs in other fields, like academic?

Anticipating Pac 2

Watched the tape of the first episode of Pacific this morning, and enjoyed it.  Thus far, though Band of Brothers has a better start.  But then that may not be fair.  BoB starts with an extended episode that focuses on the intra-company dynamics between Sobel and everyone else. 

For more on episode one, check below:

Flashback to the 80's

Yes, I am looking forward to Hottub Time Machine.  Who isn't?

Fun Q&A with the four protagonists in today's NYT.  Strange that they did not list Say Anything as that was one of the most definitive movies of the 1980's. 

Anyhow, for those who grew up in the 80's, a fun piece to read.

Chicken and Egg

Good discussion, despite the crappy headline, on the opium challenge in Afghanistan.  The US is no longer eradicating opium, which will make the US popular not just among the opium farmers, but also among the allies, as eradication is deeply unpopular amongst the farmers.

The article addresses the central question--does insecurity lead to more opium or opium lead to more insecurity.  Hard to tease out the direction, but the correlation is clear enough.  Contested provinces have far more opium problems than ones that are much more secure.  But eradicating the crop is likely to lose hearts and minds.  The idea now is that increasing security will ultimately lead to less of an opium problem.

The article addresses many of the dilemmas that come up, as the opium problem, like the related problem of corruption, raises all kinds of difficult trades and challenges of sequencing--what to do first.

There is some good news--the overproduction of poppies means that the crop now is only a few times more profitable than the alternative crops, which might make switching a possibility. 

Catching Up on Lost

Videotape still does the trick in the second decade of the 21st century, so I am caught up on Lost.  For my thoughts on the two episodes broadcast since I went to Australia, see below.

Speaking of US politics

I should read www.fivethirtyeight.com more often.  Here is a post that focuses on turnover and a small argument against term limits.  Just smart, clear stuff.  See, getting up at 5 am on a Sunday can be educational!

Equilibria, People, Equilibria

I am cranky because my body clock has not re-set yet so I woke up way early on my first morning back home.  So, when I see articles that indicate that the Health Care vote would be close, I am reminded of one of the few lessons of American politics I gained in grad school (having successfully avoided all courses in that subfield):

Vote outcomes in the House and other legislative bodies are the results of strategic action.  The final result is an equilibrium that was produced by actors that essentially knew the final outcome--a win for the Dems.  Once the party's leaders knows that it is going to win, then they can allow folks to defect, especially those with fragile districts.  So, the vote on bill such as this or the famous tax hike in 1994 are going to be very, very close.  As long as the party can be sure that it will go over the top, the margin itself is really not important.  This does not mean that the Dems cannot lose, as folks may change their mind and as the party leadership may screw up the count.  But a close vote by itself should not be surprising.  Indeed, it should be expected.

Original Movie. Ok, Not Original, but Potentially Amusing

New Gilligan's Island?  I must have missed this in my trip prep, but we have multiple outlets recommending a cast.  Too bad they did not consult an expert like myself, given the hours I put in a long time ago.

• Gilligan:
• EW:  Andy Samberg.  Samberg would be fine if it was pure silly over-the-top, perhaps too old.
• NYT: Michael Cera.  Not bad, but I prefer bumbling to awkward.
• People: Justin Long
• SPEW: Jesse Eisenberg of Zombieland or Justin Long.
•  Skipper:
• EW/People: Philip Seymour Hoffman.  Inspired choice.
• NYT: Nick Offerman of Parks and Rec.  He might be good, but I don't know his stuff that well.
• SPEW: Hoffman.  Inspired, as Hoffman has all the pitches, and throw inside and outside.  John Goodman can also rock here.  A potentially odd but interesting choice would be Jeff Bridges.
• Mr. Howell
• EW: Stanley Tucci.  Again, inspired
• NYT: Michael Duncan Clarke?  
• People: George Clooney.  Sorry, the lead is Gilligan. Clooney would distract too much.
• SPEW: Tucci.  He, like Hoffman, can do it all.  Pathos, humor, etc.
• Mrs. Howell
• EW: Christine Baranski
• NYT: Jennifer Lopez
• People: Susan Sarandon.
• SPEW: Any of these would be good.
• The Professor
• EW: Greg Kinnear
• NYT: Robert Downey, Jr.  
• People: John Krasinski.  Not bad.
• SPEW: Either Kinnear or RD, Jr. are good choices.  Having just watched Tropic Thunder on NZ TV again, I would have to go with Downey.  He just owns it.
• Ginger:
• EW/NYT vote for Christina Hendricks.  Cannot argue with that, but Debra Messing would also work--strong comic chops.  Still Christina has more oomph.
• People: Beyonce.  Oh my.  Done and done.
• Mary Ann (and, of course, I was a Mary Ann guy):
• EW: Anna Kendrick.  Not a bad choice.
• NYT: Zooey Deschanel.  
• People: Ginnifer Goodwin.  Sorry, she could not carry "He's Not that Into You".
• SPEW:  I was thinking Rachel Bilson to bring the kids in despite being a big Zooey fan.  If they want to go younger still, then Miley Cyrus.  

Lots of options in each position.  It really depends on what mix of over-the-top spoof/clever parody they are going for.

Last Travel Notes Down Under

The trip back was not interrupted by magnetic anomalies or mysterious characters named Jacob.  Or even less mysterious colleagues named Jacob.

Leaving is, though, the hardest part:

• Suddenly, my credit cards didn't seem to work in Wellington--luckily after I checked out of the hotel.  They worked fine in Sydney on the way back today.
• NZ has a departure tax, so one must line up or queue up again after getting past the airline's front desk.  Luckily, my debit card still worked, and cash seemed to be ok.  The irony here is that NZ was very cautious about admitting me--making me show a return ticket, but the tax would seem to constrain departures.  They need to make up their mind.
• The challenge in Sydney was finding working wifi.  And none free.  Plenty of time there to try to figure out--do I eat breakfast or lunch?  Since it was dinner time back home but breakfast time in NZ and Aus, I, of course, chose both.   But this does raise the question--is breakfast a very good or very bad meal to have in an airport.  The choices are usually pretty bad (unless there is a TGI Fridays) as the various outlets are not designed to serve breakfast. But I managed to put together a veritable cornucopia of pastries.
• Air Canada has really lousy entertainment options.  Sure, the trans-Pacific flights had screens in the headrests (not all intra-Canada flights have those yet), but the choices did not change from the beginning to end of the month, and the choices were both slim and weak.  I ended up watching Ninja Assassin, which shows how desperate I was.
• I try to avoid making connections in Canada as part of flying internationally (mostly to the US), but I didn't have much of a choice this time.  The problem is the game of having to get through customs, collect bags, and then get through the second customs step and then put the bags back on a conveyor belt and then getting to the plane.  
• Since my Sydney to Vancouver flight was delayed (the "engineering problem" was blocked toilets--too much info, thanks), I barely made my connection after the obstacle course that included: my bags coming off late, a line for the second set of customs including a guy who had to fill out extra forms since he lost a bag, folks in front of me in security having set off the detectors (I did get patted down in Sydney), and then a long run back to the gate (which was close to my previous gate but both far from customs/baggage).  
• I made it just in time, but one of my bags did not, even though I dropped off both at exactly the same time.  The second bag was just delivered to my house moments ago.

Despite the hassles of flying more than 20 hours each way, the trip was very much worth it.  I learned a great deal for my research, in addition to learning alot about a part of the world I had never visited before.  I bought a hunk of Aussie books, so I plan to learn more and hope to return some day soon.

Last Day Blues [Updated]

Today is the last day of my trip, excluding tomorrow's time-traveling, globe-spanning, plane-changing, headache-inducing odyssey back home.  I can only hope to avoid the magnetic force about mysterious islands in the South Pacific.


I have been extremely lucky with the weather, as it is warm and not so windy today.  Yesterday was nice as well.  So, I have done some tourism this morning before meeting an academic to talk about NZ and A-stan.  Yesterday was a very productive day with a morning roundtable with NZ foreign affairs and aid folks and an afternoon roundtable with NZ defense folks.  The latter was especially useful for my research.  It turns out that the NZ special forces (their Special Air Services) actually can and do fire their weapons!  Well, I learned that their PM might have indicated some surprise there, but I learned a great deal.  My goal, when I get home, is to immediately write a chapter that compares the Aussies and the Kiwis while also transcribing my notes.  Then, I have to go back and write up the chapters from last summer's escapades.

So, what else have I learned about Wellington and New Zealand?

• What is the plural of Phoenix?  One of their key teams is the Wellington Phoenix, which makes it hard to refer to them/it.
• They seem to smoke more here, but that might just be more in evidence since they seem to run outside and enjoy the sun and relative windless-ness.
• Kiwis are less polite drivers to pedestrians than Aussies.  But that might just be that the Kiwis are average in that regard and Aussies are exceptional.
• Their museum was very interesting, but I had to hustle through it.
• Their immigration history is quite distinct from their more criminal neighbors, as this pic indicates--waves up and down, varying along with war and prosperity.

Regrets on this trip?  Not many, other than not being able to take the family.

• I wish I had one more day in Wellington so that I could take a ferry or bus or both to see more of the surroundings.
• Of course, if I had significantly more time, I would have liked to have gone to the Great Barrier Reef and other places in Australia (you can pet Koalas in Queensland but not in the state in which Sydney is located--New South Wales).   And I would have liked to see more of NZ as well.
• They had terrific cattleman's coats--they look like what the cowboys wear in Spaghetti westerns--and i would have loved to buy one.  But I am cheap, and it would have been difficult to lug around.  My baggage, due to books, is already overweight.

Pics to be added once my camera battery is charged.  Cheers, mate!  [updated]

PS  and to be clear, it is Friday here, and I get to live through Saturday, March 20th, twice.

The 80's Are Under-rated

ht to Kyle S.

Kiwi is a Bird?

First lesson in New Zealand is not that a Kiwi is a bird, it is that they are very serious about their "border."

• I got sniffed multiple times by a contraband-seeking lab while waiting to get to the customs desk.  And then another dog that was hanging out at the baggage claim. 
• The customs declaration card asked, as usual, if I had been at a farm, but also asked if I had been at an abattoir.  Um, what kinds of folks is New Zealand usually receiving?  Slaughterhouse workers? Tourists who like to visit abattoir? 

Second, the flight here was a bit different:

• They handed out DVD players to the folks in the first several rows, including a few rows of coach.  Strange way to entertain a select few folks.  
• Dessert on the plane--a fruit pop!  

Third, Wellington is mighty, mighty windy.  The cab driver laughed at me when I mentioned I had an umbrella.  Now I know why.  I should have packed another layer of clothing just for a few days in Wellington.

Today was hanging out with parliamentarians at the Beehive.  Really.  Tomorrow, foreign affairs and defense folks.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie

Ten days or so is and was obviously going to be not nearly enough.  The waves were great, the people were tremendous, and the research was extremely productive.

It was only on my way to the airport that I realized a connection that I had long ignored.  In Star Trek: Wrath of Khan, Chekhov realizes that the ship is the one that the original Enterprise left stranded--the Botany Bay.  Named after the original spot of potential colonization in Australia by who?  By criminals.  Of course, in the ST universe, Khan ended up a vengeance-seeking lunatic because the planet was not stable.  Would he have ended up producing an uber-friendly, and quite successful country/continent if not for an accident of seismic or spacial fate (I forget which)?  That is, I find it wonderfully ironic that the source of some (although, of course, not all) of Australia's inhabits were folks sentenced to "transportation" to Australia (once Georgia and other North American locales were no longer possible after the American revolution)--crims as my interview companion put it.  And we now have a country that is pretty terrific.  Definitely worth the endless flight.

A few last random thoughts:

• What is it with hot cross buns?  Didn't end up having one, but they were everywhere.  THE baked good of Australia?
• The fun part was that the big news item during my visit was the relationship of the captain of the national cricket team--they ended up breaking up.  But the coverage was almost Tiger-esque.  For cricket.  I spent a fair amount of time watching Aussie sports networks, and I can now see the appeal of their version of football and of rugby, but cricket is still just, well, boring.  But the wife/girlfriend story was entertaining.  She may have thrown her engagement ring down the drain.  Good times!
• The Sydney suburban rail system is just amazing--comfortable trains, well designed signage, frequent trains, etc.  Makes me wonder why Montreal's is so lame.  Then I remember that public service is not the priority of parties, politicians and governments in Quebec.
•  Dog's breakfast--I heard this phrase a few times.  Not quite sure how to make sense of it.

Pentultimately Speaking

I have less than a day left in Sydney and in Australia.  I head off to Wellington, New Zealand for the last part of my research trip--asking the Kiwis about their work.  Before I go, I get to meet a retired military officer to get some additional perspective.

So, what did I learn today?

• I suddenly realized why I like Sydney so much--it combines the best of London with the best of San Diego, my favorite non-North American and North American cities respectively.  Lots of great food choices, even if I was not always wise.  Great beer.  Beautiful locale, terrific beaches, friendly people.
• The surfers at Bondi seem better than those I remember near La Jolla, but that might just be time and distance playing tricks.
• People yelling over! or under! when waves approach is apparently global.  
• The water here, even with the waves (and some were mighty big), was amazingly clear.  
• I had been turned off of body-surfing after getting repeatedly pounded into the beach last summer in Delaware, but a great beach makes a huge difference.  Here at Bondi, the slope is so gradual that one can body surf for quite a distance without eating sand.
• And the southern peninsula that sticks up northwards to help create the large Sydney bay is much bigger, so walking from one side to another took much longer than expected.  
• Strange street sign du jour--"Refugee Island" refers to concrete in the middle of the street to ease pedestrians crossing the street, but has other potential implications.
• My feet are going to like Wellington, I think.  All of my appointments are near my hotel, and I don't plan on walking all over the place. 

Finally, something I forgot to mention after the Ghost Tour the other night.  One of the group apparently had a Ghost App for his iphone to measure ghostly emanations.  So, there really is an app for everything.

Israel Punking the US

I don't like to write much on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because it is the one ethnic conflict that I have avoided since a very bad job talk in 1993.  It brings out people's emotions and is also so over-written that too much reading would be required to keep up  This is why I don't write on Quebec in academic journals--too much work to get up to speed.

Anyway, I shared a piece on Petraeus, Biden and the recent Israeli snubs on my fb account, and it led to comments on comments.  Not a great venue for such a discussion.  So, here is my take in a nutshell.

I did mention Walt and Mearsheimer, not because they are right (I find their arguments to be really bad social science), but they do raise an important issue.  They argue that US policy is driven by a coherent and all powerful Israeli lobby, which then led the US into the Iraq war.  Because, as we know, Chalabi is an Israeli agent.  Or not. 

Anyway, to be clear, they do have one point that is on target, but is lost a bit in all the hoopla.  American foreign policy should be driven by American national interests.  Too, Israel should be driven by Israeli national interests.  These do not always coincide.  And this divergence becomes clear when General Petraeus notices that Israeli intransigence is doing the US no favors.  Of course, one could argue that Israel must take seriously US concerns, given the reliance on this one outside actor.  Israel does not have a line up of alternate great powers that can assist Israel.  So, either mind the relationship or learn to live on your own. 

I don't think the US will cut off Israel entirely, but it does appear that domestic politics seems to be trumping alliance maintenance.  Perhaps I am seeing this from a certain perspective since Australia is currently engaged in a bit of alliance maintenance itself. 

The key question is not why did Israel announce new building in East Jerusalem while Biden was in town, but what is Israel doing?  It might be comfortable with alienated neighbors, but alienating the US is not in Israel's interests.

And the US?  It has many interests in the area, with Israel being just one of them.  With troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, Somalia roiling again, Yemen yemening, Israel is simply only a priority in terms of how it affects these other things.  The folks in the US that care deeply about Israel might not like it, but the world does not begin or end with Israel.  Obama may get some abuse for putting some distance from Israel, but he is used to that.  And the more Israel embarasses American leaders, and the more American military leaders depict Israeli policies as security threats, the more freedom Obama will have.

There are important and powerful lobbies in America: the NRA, the American Medical Association, the lawyers - and the Israeli lobby. But no lobby is as important, or as powerful, as the U.S. military. While commentators and pundits might reflect that Joe Biden's trip to Israel has forever shifted America's relationship with its erstwhile ally in the region, the real break came in January, when David Petraeus sent a briefing team to the Pentagon with a stark warning: America's relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America's soldiers. Maybe Israel gets the message now.[FP's mideast channel]

 This is where Obama has more power--not on health care, but on foreign policy priorities.  Putting Israeli into CENTCOM, as the cited article indicates that Petraeus is advocating, would send a clear message that Israel belongs to the region of dysfunction and not the region of institutions, cooperation and all that (Europe, even if Greece is in that one).

Mearsheimer and Walt would not disagree that Israel is not the only ME priority, but given their new-found status as scholars of ethnic/domestic politics and foreign policy (yes, I am being snarky), they should not expect any foreign policy change.  I disagree.  The near future shall be interesting, more so because Israeli domestic dynamics are alienating its only real friend in the world. 

A Lovely Weekend in a Lovely City

Just having a great time with the legally required to be friendly Aussies.  Ok, if it is not required by law, then I am really confused.

What is more confusing?  The Aussies think that Americans are polite!  At least, that was the report of two couples I was chatting with whilst waiting for a Ghost Tour to start.   Lots of ugly deaths in the Rocks area of Sydney--the original settlement.  Good times.

But what is it about Aussies that get them asserting that they coined heaps of key phrases?

• Square meal (referring to the plates on a 1700s ship)
• Cat in the bag, referring to a cat of nine tails.
• Saved by the bell--bells connected to bodies buried but not perhaps dead.
• Dead ringer--ditto.

I learned a great deal at the Sydney Wildlife place :

• Kangaroos tend to slap fight.  They are not serious, because there are no females around over which to fight.
• They do indeed hop!  And even in a small area, they get going fast and are quite nimble.  
• They named the dominant male Shredder.  Or perhaps the roo realized he had a tough name and then became dominant.
• Koalas are even stranger than I expected
• They are not dopey due to Eucalyptus leaves intoxicating them.  They are dopey to conserve energy because Eucalyptus leaves have little nutritional value.  But evolutionarily speaking, if one can speak evolutionarily (perhaps not legal in TX, grammatically incorrect everywhere else), it is a decent survival strategy since no one else wants these leaves.
• Because Euc leaves are toxic, the mom can only get the kid to be able to digest the stuff by ... first giving the baby pap--mom poop--to eat.  I would spend the rest of my life stoned or acting that way if I had to eat my mom's poop.
• They have a backward facing pouch, which makes them closer to a wombat.  But I never figured out how a pouch can be backwards facing.

Latest lessons in Aussie<-> North American translation

• Fairy floss is cotton candy.
• Whinging is whining.

Travel notes:

• Restaurants tend to be really slow getting bills to folks eating alone.  Sure, because we liked to loiter by ourselves.
• I am faster than a ferry.  I wanted to get from point a to point b, and, as it turned out, waiting for a ferry to get around Miller's Point made less sense than walking up the hill to my hotel, changing and then walking down to the harbor on the other side.  Flash!
• Why was I outracing a ferry?  To get some Brazilian BBQ.  My first time ever.  And I think I will be digesting this meal fo the rest of my life.  Five kinds of meat, oh my!

And the night concludes with some travel-related TV by happenstance:

• Border Security.  A reality TV program where they show the TSA types catching folks who are taking contraband back into the country.  Strange outcome--woman stuffs food into every possible spot in her bags, quite forbidden, and only gets the stuff destroyed and a $220 fine.  Very much a slap on the wrist.   The woman bringing back heroin inside her body gets six years.
• Air Wars.  Shows passengers and airline employees fight.  Why did the airline agree to televise this?  The stories tend to make the passengers look bad, which is bad.  But when the airline looks bad, which happens a few times, that is bad, too.  I am very confused.

Academy Award Formula, Perfected

HT to who else but the uber-tweeter Roger Ebert.

Anecdotes vs Statistics

Walking in Canberra this past week and one day in Sydney led to some observations and conclusions that are probably a bit off:  that is, the rabbits that beat the rabbit-proof fence are not the only overly fertile invaders on this continent/island. 

Where ever I have gone, I have seen heaps of kids and many, many pregnant women.  And then today, I went for a reasonably quick walk from my hotel down to the park under the Sydney Harbor Bridge and then around and back to my hotel, and I saw something like seven or eight wedding parties.  Most were having their photographers take pictures along a scenic vista (and this area is mighty, mighty scenic) where the major concern was probably to make sure there was not another wedding party in the background of the shots.  The others had taken over a pub or two, including my own hotel.  There, several men in kilts and women also with legs showing were tossing back some excellent beer.

Anyhow, this led me to think that Australia's fertility rate might be higher than the European countries I visited last summer where pregnant women and small kids are not nearly as abundant.  As it turns out, I was half right.  Australia's 1.78 (children per woman) is much higher than Germany's 1.48, but a bit lower than France's 1.98.  And Australia does exceed Canada's 1.58, but all are below the US's 2.05, which leads all of the advanced democracies except New Zealand's 2.1 [source is here].

Anyhow, it may just be a regional or seasonal surge.  Or perhaps just I am generalizing way too much from a few noticeable belly buttons.

Sydney Day 1

Just a beautiful city.

• It seems that it is against the law for Aussies not to be sincerely friendly.  In just one day, I have met several folks, including along cliffside paths, who have been most friendly.  And this is the same as I experienced in Canberra.  
• I am staying at hotel that is also a microbrew pub.  Yes, I am not as dumb as I look.
• I had their beer called "Three Sheets."  Indeed.
• Turns out Syndey is akin to LA or NYC in that the waitresses all seem to be aspiring actresses.
• Nice to see Hogan's Heroes on Aussie TV.
• In Manly, a beautiful penisula that sticks out from the north side of the harbor into the Pacific was asked by an incredible drunk guy about where he might find his keys.  And it was 9:30am.  Brilliant.
• Turns out cinnamon rolls are called cinnamon rolls in Australia.  The research paid off.
• Tonight, I go on a ghost tour.  Should be entertaining.

Last Day in Canberra

I had a great week in Canberra.  It ended with three last conversations, including one that addressed a lot of questions I had.  So, just a few last thoughts from Canberra.

• First, when I went to the chemist (pharmacy), I had to buy some ibuprofen, but I had to be briefed since it was a behind the counter kind of medicine. 
• Second, it was interesting to see that Aussie PM John Curtin during World War II defied Churchill and FDR who wanted Aussie troops coming back from the Med to go to Burma.  Curtin wantd them back home for defense against a feared Japanese invasion (that was never planned).
• Third, first PM was nicknamed Toby Tosspot!