Public vs Private - MILITARY

It is surprising that in all my years, I haven't seen an Economist article debating whether defence forces should be privatised and to what extent. Klaus Rohde touches an aspect in Private wars. In my own experience the first time I really thought about was after reading "Green Mars" (Kim Stanley Robertson) a future history novel in which the security arms of multinational companies became huge private armies. Two questions I ask myself are
- What examples of private armies in the world have been shown to be more effective than the standard sort? and
- Should we presume that privatised armies will allocate resources more efficiently, and therefore be more cost effective, or even decisive in situations where resources are subject to extensive competition?

The standard analogical analysis by the Economist leads one to believe that it is more efficient to list those things which shouldn't be privatised because it is a very short list.

As an answer to my first question, a small army of terrorists (these are almost exclusively privately run but funded by sponsoring Governments) can often "defeat" (ie. send packing to go home) a much larger, modern conventional army. I would expect that private "security" companies may have greater success at sticking out a long protracted conflict, and at a much smaller cost in say Iraq.

As an answer to my second question, there is extensive competition for human resources in a conflict situation. These are allocated much more efficiently in a terrorist organisation than in conventional armies. Western world organisations don't seem to be in the market for humans who will readily give up their life to kill for political reasons, but perhaps private security organisations from those countries are recruiting from the same pool of "brave fanatics".

Vote Labor???

We need a higher unemployment rate. It's not just that I like Kevin Rudd somewhat, and that the economic action is concentrated in water trading (and carbon trading). I am being selfish in this instance because a higher unemployment rate is good for small business owners. Ok, so it's not so good for the country as a whole, nor for the newly unemployed, but quite frankly, that's their problem. Kevin Rudd's IR policies are not laid down in stone, but the noises are in the direction of winding back selected workchoice legislation. What would be typical in Australian election campaigns is that the wind back is "minimalised" by the policy wonks. This is a strategy to maximise votes. Why advertise a complete windback when any windback more than the Liberals are promising will achieve the vote of the interested individual.
The "Labour supply shortfall" is an illusion based on the "lump of labour" fallacy. Low unemployment rates have the tendency to give that illusion. The difficulty in finding employees is real, and scaring (all the other) employers away from hiring is the only realistic avenue to making it easier. The unfair dismissal legislation is the obvious choice for a minimalist windback. This will scare the bejeepers out of most small businesses from employing (or even to dismissing while it is still legal) while my own analysis shows these fears to be somewhat overplayed or irrational. This is why on balance it would play in my individual favour.

Blah Blah Game Theory Blah Blah

I am probably not saying anything original by feeling that "Stable democracies" are an artifact of the "political game" establishing a "Nash equilibrium", ie. one where the "players" are each following optimal strategies. (I am asserting that) The resulting policies, economic growth, employment etc. that arise are a result of where that equilibrium is for that particular country. (I am asserting that) The "rules of the game" that determines where the country reaches equilibrium are the governing constitutions of the countries. Therefore, things like voting rules (first past the post, electoral college etc.), enshrined laws (right to bear arms, religious freedom), legal structure (relationship between law making, law enforcement and judgements) all affect where the equilibrium ends up. This is in contrast to the laws that are actually changed under that legal structure. Stuff like taxation law, immigration law etc. will tend not to be able to affect the equilibrium. War and constitutional challenges will potentially affect the equilibrium.
This is the reason voters become increasingly cynical in stable democracies. Voting seems increasingly to be an empty affair, devoid of real options.

Basic assumptions, Geopolitics

How do we sensibly (or even semi-scientifically) discuss the geopolitical issues amongst varying opinions? In Klaus Rhode's entry:Iraq war casualties and Iran, he takes a court-case type of paradigm for analysis. There is an apportionment of blame for, say deaths in Iraq since the war, proven crimes formerly by Iraq, current suspected and proven crimes by Iran and Iranians. This is then taken as a basis for what actions various countries should take, including the US, and whether these actions would be legal, and the likely consequences of taking action or not. My greatest objection to this paradigm is that it doesn't come close to reflecting reality. There is no world court to speak of, laws of nations are still competing with the law of the gun, misdeeds related to war-like actions cannot be brought to justice 999 times out of 1000. Apportionment of blame is realistic in situations (within borders of countries) that have good separation of powers, lots of resources for justice compared to the number of crimes, and little motivation for state-sponsored crime. These three things are not anywhere near happening in the middle east or geopolitically in general, making the paradigm nearly useless as a tool for discussion and analysis.
An example in point I can make for clarity is the use of human shields in Serbia during the war in Kosovo. If civilians are placed in strategic locations that are known to be bomb targets; is the country that dropped the bombs or the country that put them in harms way to blame if they die? Discussions quickly turn from who is to blame to how successful the strategy is. I am the kind of person that can think at the same time that an action is wrong and immoral, and also that if I was placed in that position, that it would be the best move to make. When leaders make decisions based solely on strategy rather than because international laws tell them to, a court case analogy loses all its predictive power and therefore its relevance. When strategy is the main motivating factor for discretionary decisions, game theory gives the best predictive qualities. This is why I can seem to be a game theory ideologue. To take the Iran (potential for the US to make bomb strikes on them) issue: To say that it would cause mass deaths, and would be illegal under international law misses the point entirely. Whether the powers that be decide to go down that path also depends on what Iran does (or "their move"). That Iran would continue toward a nuclear threshold even though they realise that there is an invisible line over which if they cross, the risk of war continues to rise, even if they don't quite know where that line lies, means that they are not afraid of war. The future of their citizens (and in the long term themselves), is also partly in their hands and the provocations they make. The Iraq example should demonstrate that the US is not that afraid of casualties, nor of a protracted conflict. Even if it doesn't deter Iran, it would probably deter others.

Queensland Brass Band Championships 2007

Townsville Brass made pretty much a clean sweep of the B grade events winning the Hymn, Test Piece, Stage March and light music concert divisions as well as the aggregate trophy. We came a close second in the own choice and in the middle of the pack in the street march.

Some reflections: The Townsville bands broke new ground a few years ago by wearing polo shirt uniforms for some events, rather than full suits with jackets. This year for instance we wore them for the street march and the concert. Our D grade band, called Brolga Brass wore them for all their events. I just believe that the suits that just about all other bands were wearing made them look stuffy and overly formal, as well as being completely inappropriate for warm weather.

Playing good music is incredibly therapeutic. Winning competitons even more so.

Bundaberg, Easter

I am going Down to Bundaberg for easter for the Qld Brass band Championships. Is anybody reading this going to be in Bundaberg at that time? Townsville is going to win the B-Grade championships, I am sure. There'll be a good march past as well.

Larry one year on

I still can't get over the fact that *Not one person lost their life* with such a severe storm. Banana prices suddenly increased again in commemoration, however:)

Thought Experiment - Geopolitics vs acting locally

I'd like to contrast Nuclear proliferation (NP) and Anthropogenic global warming(AGW). For the sake of argument, I am going to assume that AGW (and NP) are bad and they are problems in which one has to think globally. How far can we really get by relying on individual good-will and diplomacy. Like with property crime within a country, it certainly helps if strong religious values exist which reduces theft and that people are well educated on the negative results of crime. However, where moral hazard exists, a system of deterrence is also required to prevent cheating. With both NP and AGW, surely it is not education that is the weakness. The NP Treaty is an excellent tool for reducing NP, but surely the weakness is a lack of a Global system to deter the cheaters. Pretty much any treaty done under the UN has this weakness. Talking about global emmissions targets is like talking about nuclear weapons targets. Without a robust global system of deterrence, we are putting the cart before the horse. Honest countries will be held hostage by cheating ones with nuclear weapons, and selfless carbon misers will mean more resources to exploit for the cheaters. What is happening in Iran is way more urgent than Global Warming :- If we can't keep countries to their promises with Nuclear weapons, what hope do we have for carbon emmission targets.

South East Qld level 5 hah..

I just couldn't help snickering to myself as the level 5 water restrictions were announced recently. Move to North East Qld, I thought. I hope there's such a huge exodus of businesses and people, that their land valuations go down....
It was always a little bit hurtful during Townsville's droughts that we were nicknamed "Brownsville". Maybe Brisbane should be nicknamed Brisbrown?

Environmentally friendly power cable fault??!!

It took three months for me to discover a serious intermittent fault on a cable supplying power to our Linux mail server. The really strange thing was that it never once was off when we opened on a weekday morning, never turned off during a work day, but turned off (without exception again) every single night, and most sundays during the day! The first inkling was when somebody noted that emails weren't working when they came in on a Sunday. When I checked the log graphs of the server it became clear that it was turning off most nights and during the weekend. The "inexact" nature of the timing, and the "it turning off when nobody was expected to need it" factors seemed to point to human interference. Not so. Power fluctuations seemed to trigger on/off switching of the cable supplying the UPS. During the day, there was more on than off and the UPS remained charged. At low activity times it was more off than on, and when the UPS ran out of charge it turned off the server. Every morning (6:30) some kind of activity triggered the power back on and the server would reboot and stay on.

Lightbulbs - It's a scam

(re Australia's phase-out of incandescent lightbulbs) Ok, So there are no apparent victims, but it is the principle that matters the most. Intelligent citizens of democracies should always regard popular policies with very high degrees of suspicion. After all things like import quotas, tarriffs etc. are popular, but intelligent people know that they are basically scams. This scam is similar to our "Water-Wise" advertising scam. In this scam, local governments advertise how everyone should be saving water through the summer. Then, about a week after a severe downpour they advertise how little water everyone's been using and claim their water-wise campaign a huge success. Similarly, the government could have said they are phasing out film-type cameras (perhaps citing the energy intensive nature of producing the silver required in them or something) in favour of less polluting digital cameras. They could then advertise how little film is being used in Australia and claim their phase-out a raging success. Similarly with CRT TV's and LCD type ones. I guess the nature of this scam will be demonstrated by the comparison of incandescent lightbulb usage in Australia compared to a country that didn't advertise a phase-out. News items that feature a popular law change should be given the same regard as emails that tell you that you have won a prize. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is just good politics/marketing.

If we were serious about cooling the globe(1)

Putting myself in a position of someone who really cared if we could reverse global warming as soon as possible(2), I would note that because there are a lot of positive feedbacks in the system, and that the momentum is what is important for positive feedbacks (3), actions that have good short term results are more urgent than those with long term results. Residence times for CH4 are approximated to 10 years, while those for CO2 are 100 years. CO2 captured or gathered from the atmosphere is valueless, is complicated to sequester and per volume has much less carbon credit. CH4 is a useful and valuable fuel, is easy to dispose of and is much more potent warmer per volume. Branson's prize might be very easily won by capturing ambient CH4 equivalent to the required CO2 capture.

The conclusion is obvious - It would be very effective if CH4 was treated like CFC's. ie completely separate target than CO2. Tight emmission standards and it being treated like a serious pollutant could dramatically reduce it, in a relatively short timeframe. Targets, as well as reflecting what kind of world we want in the future, should reflect what is reasonably possible. Our addiction to CO2 emmissions will take excruciatingly high Carbon taxes to reduce substantially (even though the net cost to society will be negligible - see Tobacco taxes). Even though best estimates by the latest climate models show that anthropogenic CH4 has only contributed a fraction to the net warming power, it is conceivable that we could reduce emmissions form both anthropogenic and natural sources, so the cooling power of capture may be much greater than the warming fraction these climate scientists are promoting.

(1) It would pay to reiterate that I believe that if the consequences of global warming are very severe, this is a fair punishment for our collective sins and we should take it on the chin.

(2) An alternative theory is that climatologists would prefer a "perfect storm" of warming first - to prove their point and to convert the masses from the fear factor.

(3) One point that climatologists fail to make is that a same positive feedback causing accelerated warming on a warming trend, will actually help cool quicker on a cooling trend.

My Children

Teenager
Water Rating : *
Energy Rating: *

Long, Hot showers + obsessive with having clothes cleaned, ironed (by others). Uses more water and energy than the average adult.

Pre-Teens
Water Rating : * * * * *
Energy Rating: *

Water: They never flush the toilet, wash their hands, they have a bath once a month at the most, they care little whether they play on green grass or bare dirt, they even get most of their fluids from fruit.

Energy: They like computers but don't like shutting them down (takes too long to restart their games), they watch DVD's and videos but never turn them or the TV off (Not much point those devices having low standby power usage if they don't switch to standby). They love airconditioning, especially for when they get home. They either have a light, fan, air conditioner, cd player, computer (or combination) on in their room all night.

Dream time for water trading enthusiast

First they wanted to build pipes to Brisbane, now they are resurrecting the NQ to Darling-Murray system diversion scheme. The latter scheme kind of Bypasses Brisbane a bit but on paper seems to be slightly cheaper. There is also talk of a network of pipes between Queensland's dams. All of this is enough to make the mouth of a water-trading enthusiast.. well... WATER. It is hard to trade water allocations between places that don't have a cheap transference of actual water (ie. a pipe) between them. After years that recycled water has been free, it now is seen as valuable, and therefore worth spending money on. With a water allocation trading structure, infrastructure ideas suddenly find a way to fund themselves. Why would North Queenslanders be happy for their excess water to go to greedy southern areas? For the money of course!

Freakonomics analysis of Swimming sportsmen

The book analysed extensively the level of corruption in Sumo-wrestling, a high profile Japanese sport. So why not a high profile Australian sport. I shall resist naming names, but there are times when I am suspicious given the incentives.

1) Selection trials often get in the way of "tapering" the training regime. ie, faster times would be more likely at big meets, if one could avoid having to swim hard to qualify, rather than sticking to a training regime.

2) This is more of a problem in longer races eg. 550m or 1320 meter races, for instance, and not so much for the 90m and 180m type distances.

3) The general public doesn't really know the qualifying rules, while top swimmers would know if there was a way to get into an event without swimming in the qualifying final.

4) A casual, pre-race gentleman's agreement between swimmers is unlikely if they are coached by different coaches.

5) In certain races, it is very easy to predict the places each swimmer will get, in advance, if there is considerable difference between them.

6) It is quite easy to fake a false start.

7) If you are going to false start, better it be in the first heat, rather than the final, so that you didn't waste that energy qualifying for the final for nothing.

8) How does a swimmer get a jaw injury that requires surgery, and how come his mouth can open so wide afterwards.

No more mr. pigeonhole on climate change

Browsing through Realclimate I have found a pigeon-holeing term for people like me and dr. clam. "Action-denialist" being someone who believes there is GW and it is anthropogenic but need take no remedial action (with our own marginal differences{*} ). Also there is plenty of blogs which are following up on the jumps the GW conformists are asking us to take such as: ten questions. I would like to nuance my stance lest I be pigeon-holed as an action denier or be accused of attacking the fringes; by putting aside that I believe no remedial action is necessary, take it as given that people and countries are going to take some sort of action, and convincing people that some actions are worse than useless and expensive, while other actions are virtually free (and with the proviso that any change has winners and losers) that there will be more winners than losers given certain actions. There is a vaccuum out there being filled by GW ideologues, and my ideologies should be sucked into it in its place!

* - The difference being that Dr.Clam will not talk as if he believes action should be taken, while I don't care if casual observers get that impression.

Tail wagging the dog?

John Howard's comments on US policy (policey?) in Iraq has really stirred things up. This is how Australia will become the world's best police - by policing the world's police with the most effective firepower (USA).

Different sort of bathtub curve - Bananas from NQ 2006

Banana shipments from NQ 2006

Dissecting articles from Realclimate.org

WSJ Editorial Board: Head Still Buried in the Sand
Filed under: Climate Science RC Forum— group @ 8:38 am
While the rest of the world has basically accepted the conclusion of the latest IPCC report, one small village still holds out against the tide - the Wall Street Journal editorial board. This contrasts sharply with the news section of the paper which is actually pretty good. They had a front-page piece on business responses to global warming issues which not only pointed out that business was taking an interest in carbon reduction, but the article more or less took as a given that the problem was real. However, as we have pointed out before, the editorial pages operate in a universe all their own.

I will start with their latest headline piece - It is very typical anyhow. As far as the title goes, using a metaphor is a form of "proof by ridicule". What exactly they are trying to prove is not obvious to start with, but the means they are using is attacking an opinion piece. To falsify a scientific statement you must use science, to falsify an opinion you must use ridicule. Fairly obvious, but they are not really showing their hand.

The first sentence uses the terms "village" and "Tide". I am not sure if this is subliminally pushing the "sea is rising" fear triggers, but is the tide public opinion? Public opinion of what? The tide is of pro-environmentalism and the village is of dissenting opinions published in news & magazines. Almost all magazines (including "the Economist") have stopped publishing dissenting views (whether they be scientists or whatever). I am not really sure why that is, but for instance, the Economist has not recently written anything at all from Bjorn Lomborg, while a couple of years ago, they backed him up in almost everything he said.

The third sentence mentions business responses and interest, and the taking as a given that the PROBLEM is REAL (by the front page article). The science demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that there is global warming and that humans are the predominant factor. That it is a "problem" is a much less scientifically tested assertion. Proving that there is global warming and that it is caused by humans does not prove that there is a problem in itself. Also, there is the assertion that it is the most significant environmental problem. This assumes a prioritised list, but prioritised lists have been rejected as presumptious.

The fourth sentence is again criticising the opinion piece, and again ridiculing it. I have found this type of tactic in operation with groups of evangelical christians. It was exceedingly effective when used in groups of majority christians and a minority of uncommitted youths. They would ridicule (say) evolution, and attack the inconsistencies of darwinism and any proven errors any Darwinist has ever made. It is difficult for an uncommitted person to resist this kind of peer pressure. I think this is what is happening in Realclimate. There are a majority of readers which are "converted" and a minority of uncommitted and recalcitrant, which is a perfect environment for winning over the uncommitted.

If you're not a "skeptic" you're not a scientist

The hijacking of the word "Skeptic" by the environmental community to mean someone who doesn't believe the scientists was unthoughtful and will backfire. Scientific skepticism is an extremely important concept and cannot be discredited ad hoc like it is. If an experiment gives reproducible results then it is considered science. Essentially, skepticism is an important distinction between science and religion. Any Climate scientist labelling others "climate skeptics" are showing their hand that they are "believers" in the way one believes in God - ie. without further need for "experiment". The Earth is running the experiment for us, so arguing the toss is less important than patiently analysing which predictions become reality and which ones don't. Importantly, some classes of prediction like whether an El Nino will form, are being more accurately predicted outside of the mainstream climate science bodies. This leads me to believe that most climate scientists are putting "faith" in models which accurately predict the past and glossing over discrepancies, and concentrating on subliminal pushing of their ideologies. I will combat this label hijacking by referring to any "scientist" using the label "Skeptic" in vain as "Believers" or "preachers" or some such religious label fitting the dogma.