Safire's Star Dims

We note the passing of longtime New York Times columnist William Safire.

He was a conservative in the best sense: concerned about the conservation of liberty, non-dogmatic in many areas.

His columns which were most enjoyable were those "On Language" in the Magazine, focusing on words and phrases, the history of their use, and pointing out unusual and erroneous usage.

He is also remembered for his job, prior to the Times, working as a speechwriter for the Nixon Administration. He invented potent Agnew speech phrases like "effete corps of impudent snobs" (referring to antiwar protestors) and "nattering nabobs of negatism" (about critics of the Administration).

Yes, he was a battler, and on the wrong side, but he showed a sense of honor. And he left that dishonored administration before it was publicly exposed through Agnew's corruption, Nixon's foul-mouthed tapes, and the Watergate break-in and cover-up.

He could also be extremely clueless. He never seemed to get over the end of the Cold War--you could rely on him to take the view that was most suspicious of Russia afterwards, no matter the identity of its leadership or the circumstance.

I was one of many who called him out for an egregious and inexplicable error in a reference in December '05:

I was somewhat appalled to decode the following sentence from your Sunday Magazine piece called "Whitelist":
Worm first appeared in the context of evilware in a 1975 sci-fi novel by John Dunner.
What shocked me was not that you would have offered up the reference, which I think is a fine one, but that your fact-checkers would miss the obvious error in the name of the author, John Brunner.

You owe the author a specific mention of the book in which "worm"is introduced, Shockwave Rider, one of the classic novels of sci-fi. Personally, I'm a fan of The Sheep Look Up, which comes pretty close to describing this year's natural disasters and the public reaction to them.

I would have liked to see some more in-depth discussion of the various biological analogues used in computer lingo about "malware". Besides the "Virus" and "tapeworm" (the full name of Brunner's concept), and the ubiquitous "bug", there are also references to sexual intercourse. And, to the nonliving world of personnel mines. Could be quite a colorful follow-up.

P. O.'d,, but Not Dead Yet

Two amendments to add a public option to the Baucus version of the health care reform bill failed in the Finance Committee (which Baucus chairs) yesterday. A "robust" p.o. (I use small letters, as opposed to "P.O.'d") amendment from Sen. Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.), which would give the new offering the level of discounts Medicare has for two years, fell by a 15-8 vote (all 10 Republicans, and 5 Democrats voting against), after a five-hour debate. Soon after, an amendment proposed by Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) which did not have that aggressive provision, fell by a 13-10 vote.

The three Democratic Senators who voted against the Schumer proposal were Baucus, Kent Conrad (N.D.), and Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) There will be a movement to demonize those three, and possibly to a lesser extent Sens. Carper (Del.) and Nelson (Fla.), who voted against the Rockefeller amendment but for the Schumer proposal. I don't like their votes, but I'm not quite ready to condemn them just yet.

Yesterday's votes mean that the bill which will be reported out of the Finance Committee will not have a p.o. in it (it will have money to support Conrad's pet co-ops, though), but that does not mean the end of the story. Strong p.o. supporters, like Rockefeller, Schumer, and Tom Harkin (Iowa) came out of the session encouraged by the vote and by the debate.

Unfortunately, the debate was not televised live, but from the snippets I saw of the debate, I would be encouraged, too. The arguments against the proposal sounded lame and unconvincing--for example, Orrin Hatch (Utah) complained that we'd be turning health care over to "the folks who destroyed the banks and the auto companies". I hate to give you the news, Orrin, but the private banking and auto companies who were destroyed did that all by themselves--the government is just coming around to pick up the pieces and try to put them back together. The proponents had all the good arguments on their side: more competition, challenging the health insurers' harmful practices, and the fact tha the p.o. is no entitlement program--it would be a self-sustaining, optional offering. If it's a weak one, it would be no threat to the private insurers, and thus insignificant.

The debate will go to the Senate floor, and the search will continue for a formula that can get enough Democratic votes to make it a winner--51 might well be enough, but they will try to get to 60 first. It was clear from the p.o. supporters that they will bring an amendment to the floor, and they claim to expect it to succeed. My condemnation will be for any Democrats who go against the p.o. in the floor vote, if it fails there; it will be fierce, and it will be backed up with my wallet. With regard to 2010, I've become a single-issue voter.

Clearly, a trigger approach will not do at this point; the p.o. will take time to gear up, and it is unclear how widely it will be available. A trigger approach means private insurers will be able to gouge the public more time--it implies they will not improve their methods.

On a discussion later that day on Jim Lehrer's Report on PBS, a freshman Democrat from Colorado made an interesting point: the Republicans could kill the public option if they got on board. If they continue with their unyielding opposition to the proposed legislation, the resulting bill--and there will be a bill--will be more unfavorable to them.

Obama Scores Against Stiff Defense

Pres. Obama announced yesterday that he is scrapping the Bushite plan for Missile Defense systems based in the Czech Republic and Poland designed to repel the threat of missile attack from "Iran".

This is the kind of good decision-making that we expected from Obama, and we want to be among the first to hail it. I have been going on about this one for about two years now. Obama's decision extracts an unnecessary thumb from the eye of the Russians, who never really believed that it was anything other than a clumsy effort toward encirclement of them. It may well pay off in some assistance from them with regard to reducing the threat of Iran's developing nuclear weapons.

But that is not, and should not, be the main point. This is elimination of an unnecessary defense system that does not promise to defend anyone from anything anytime soon, if ever. Instead, Obama continues to play the missile defense game, but in a smarter way, with mobile systems, which might be able to defend Israel from Iranian attacks (a much more plausible concern than Iran's attacking Central Europe).

Officially, the Czech and Polish governments will be upset. Their notification of the change may not have been handled in the most diplomatic way. I'll bet that majorities of their citizens (unlike their governments' leadership, which currently tends toward the extreme right) understand and approve of the decision, though.

Health Care Update

Paul Krugman had it about right: the Baucus bill is inadequate as it stands, but it can be improved enough to make it worthwhile.

To paraphrase him, three improvements are needed:
1) The employer mandate section is hopeless, penalizing employers for the number of employees getting subsidies to help pay for their insurance. This needs to be replaced with a simple "pay or play" provision--either employers pay in for group insurance, or pay into a pool to help their employees get it.

2) There is not enough money in the bill for subsidies for the poor to get insurance--the result would leave the society far short of universal coverage.

3) The provisions to increase competition on insurance--the co-ops--are inadequate. I believe they would help in some rural areas, but for the typical urban dweller, a public option is needed.

If these don't come up, or if it goes in the demagogic other direction, focusing on political culture wars about abortion, illegal immigrants, and malpractice insurance, the bill will die. And should. There will be another, though...

Updates from the Peanut Gallery

The new figures from the Lewin Group, an independent study group (though sponsored by United Healthcare) are that about 20 million Americans would take up a public option--as it came out of the House committees, i.e., after the provisions which would give it the same mandated discounts medicare enjoys. This down from 100 million; it's a good balance between truly providing competition and crowding out the private insurers (which most people don't want).

Finally, I just finished reading a long, incisive piece in The Atlantic by David Goldhill (called "What Washington Doesn't Get About Health Care--Here's How to Fix It" on the cover, but titled "How American Health Care Killed My Father" at the head of the article). Basically, he calls for the elimination of "comprehensive" health insurance (including for Medicare!) and scares the beejesus out of the reader. Not even single-payer could save us, and none of what's on the table would do much. Don't read it, even though it's packed with accurate information--his subtitle should be something like "Save America $1.6 million and Kill Yourself--Today!" It's that depressing.

Don't Blame Sen. Bingaman
Our Senator Jeff Bingaman should not be tarred with the Baucus brush (Bauchanalia?), though he was one of the infamous Gang of Six (along with "Coops" Conrad, "Frosty" Snowe. "Crass" Grassley, and Enzi "Face"). Bingaman was the well-meaning orthodox liberal in the group, trying to uphold progressive values, though not always succeeding. He has not endorsed the Baucus formulation as it stands, though commending the effort, and has announced he will support the public option in an amendment to be proposed before the full Committee (where it may well pass).

Here is his statement on the release of the Baucus draft.

Obama and the U.N.: Pt. 2

Pres. Obama visits the United Nations next week. In addition to a speech to the General Assembly (see this post for what I think he should say), he will chair a session of the Security Council devoted to the topic of nuclear weapons.

What goes on behind the scenes at the U.N. is always much more significant than what happens in the public appearances, though. Obama's visit will be an opportunity for diplomacy-by-proxy with China, Russia, and India on such topics as countering North Korea's aggressive moves, keeping Iran's nuclear developments under control (under threat of additional sanctions), and coming ujp with something positive in the conference on climate change in Copenhagen later this year.

Worst Notion of 2009: Nomination
In its September 7 issue ("Understanding Teddy"), Newsweek gave voice to one of the worst intellectual ideas of this era--"nuclear optimism". An article titled "Why Obama Should Learn to Love the Bomb" should be satire, or comedy, and, to honor the memory of Stanley Kubrick and my favorite movie, "Dr. Strangelove", should not argue with a straight face for the value of keeping nuclear weapons around. But that's what the article's author, Jonathan Tepperman, does--at great length.

Tepperman promises that a "growing and compelling body of research suggests...the bomb may actually make us safer." Not just the US safer, given the other nations which have it--everybody. The closest thing to any research in the article are suggestions that the participants in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and in the India-Pakistan skirmish over Kashmir in 1999 (when both countries had the bomb) were rational enough to realize that both sides would lose in a nuclear exchange. Well, duh!

The suggestion is not just that Obama can not succeed in eliminating nuclear weapons from the world during his administration--OK, we can all agree that's probably true--but that he should not even suggest their elimination as an objective. The suggestion instead is that we should trade--permanently--a small chance of nuclear war for a larger chance of preventing conventional wars among major powers. In support of this thesis, he points out that nuclear weapons haven't been used on inhabited territory in 64 years, and that there have been no major wars between nuclear-armed nations during that time, either.

Intellectually, he would have an argument if he could prove that there are no circumstances under which a nuclear-armed nation would use them. However, if that were true, they wouldn't be such a good deterrent, would they? And, there is the fact that they WERE used 64 years ago. If you told me there was only a 10% chance they would be used in the next 64 years, I'd still say we can't afford the risk--if we can figure out how to get rid of them.

That's actually the sticking point in total elimination of nukes; the last part, when the few remaining weapons would be permanently disarmed. At that time, there might be a temptation for some nation to cross back over the threshold in order to obtain a decisive, if temporary, advantage. There probably would have to be some international agency, with the highest level of security and protection from the world's great powers, that would have to maintain a deterrent against cheating, because it's simply not that hard for an advanced country to bring them back at any time.

There's one or two good suggestions Tettenbaum makes, things we should do regardless of the long-term objectives (which are and should remain: nonproliferation, progressive reduction, and removal of the hair-trigger). The notion of "nuclear forensics", which would make the origin of any nuclear materials transparent, is a good one that would help ensure against a nuclear power surreptitiously acting through others, like a terrorist group, or improperly disseminating nuclear materials to other countries (as Pakistan did in the '90's). Second, there is benefit in all major nations knowing everyone's capabilities, or lack thereof, which would prevent blackmail, unpleasant surprises, or unknown dangers. (Apparently South Africa had the bomb and gave it up?)

The bottom line for me remains this: those nations which have nukes should have obligations, and they should be substantial and continuing ones. Those that don't agree to them should be punished harshly. When the downside is sufficient, the upside won't look so attractive to nations like iran or North Korea. Just ask the Japanese--they understand the downside very well.

Like a Rug

In our confessional society, there are few transgressions that are not fixed by a sufficiently-sincere-looking admission of guilt and regret. That assumes that a lawsuit or criminal case is not involved, of course. This may be changing, though...

The movement to penalize Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina for his boorish "You lie!" exclamation during Pres. Obama's health care speech seems to have some legs. Maureen Dowd basically accused him of racist motivation, and his fellow S.C. Rep. Jim Clymer, a leader in the Democratic caucus, wants to introduce a motion in the House to censure him for his misconduct. This after Wilson made direct, personal apologies to Obama and V.P. Biden and after both publicly forgave his behavior.

If there was a hint of a racist lash in Wilson's "refusal to accept the legitimacy of an African-American President", the backlash was a huge inflow of money for his campaign chest. So, this is the re-backlash. Clymer takes Wilson to task for intentional confrontational behavior in the past, like having a rowdy town hall meeting in Clymer's district.

The purpose of the re-backlash is to hound him from public life, and here I'd have to say that the ends would justify some extraordinary means. A censure motion does not have to pass in order to do vast harm, but it can also backfire. I would suggest that a pattern of behavior needs to be justified, or that Wilson is in fact a sociopathic liar, to prevent him being able to make a PR campaign as a victim of some misguided PC notions and come out of this thing stronger than before.

I'm with O

I didn't get to see President Obama's speech on health care reform last night until the replays. My comments about it in a moment. One thing I noticed when I got back and logged on (through CNN) was that there was a short, three-page document that outlined "the President's plan". Today's reports feature the text of his speech, and all the buzz around it, but nowhere today can I find a reference to this document, which I consider absolutely essential.

In it, President Obama makes very clear the key points he wants in the bill--they are presented unambiguously (even if the financial targets may be a big stretch). I was wrong, and Obama has come around to a mandate for all individuals to take insurance--but in the context of choice that includes a public option, subsidies for individuals, and, apparently, a waiver for those who can still not afford it.

I am still seeing editorials that say: which plan? where is the plan? Yes, it is a three-pager of talking points, not fully-drafted legislation, but this is a plan I endorse in its entirety--unlike the draft Baucus plan, which has many unacceptable proposals. I want to see this plan endorsed immediately by the full Democratic delegation, which will force the Republicans to play ball, to get their pet peeves (like malpractice reform, or a specific--but unworthy and unlikely--denial of coverage to illegal immigrants) included.

I believe his speech was a game-changer, in this sense: nobody who says they want to "scrap it all and start over" will be a participant in the discussion anymore. There will be a bill, it will start with the 80% of the policy that is agreed upon, and the rest, as Barney Frank says, will be "a negotiation". The public option may be given up, but only when other conditions which require it--like the individual mandate, the Exchange, and the limits on rates for pre-existing conditions or age-based rates--are properly controlled. Again, I can accept that, as long as there is a recorded floor vote on a public option.

The bill will contain some of these negotiated elements if they can get enough Republican support to make sure 60 votes will back it in the Senate (they'll need at least one, with Kennedy's seat vacant). Otherwise, a version that is closer to the House version with less of these negotiated elements will pass--as much as can get by the Senate parliamentarian for being germane to budget reconciliation--with 51 votes or more.

Again, keep this document of Obama's plan for future reference as the bill emerges onto the Senate floor.

Program for the Big Night

President Obama's speech to Congress is coming up tomorrow night (Wednesday). There are many ways he could play this critical public appearance, but I think the following is what he will say, and then what I think he should add:

Obama can not threaten to veto a bill that does not have a public option in it. That will reinforce the stalemate that has already developed. Instead, he will praise the concept of the public option, but emphasize all the other worthy aspects of a potential bill, many of which are essentially agreed upon.

He will not ask for much from Republicans, except to contribute any ideas to achieve the goals he will describe. The bipartisan effort of the Gang of Six Finance Committee Senators is fizzling out, without any real agreement, and with a draft bill that's a non-starter: a mandate to buy, no mandate for employers to provide insurance, and no public option. That draft does have money for health co-ops, which I see as another useful alternative, but no substitute for a properly-constructed public option. He will implicitly endorse the legislative strategy of using the budget reconciliation waiver to the 60 vote requirement in the Senate, which at this point looks like the only way anything real can be accomplished. And, it seems, a lot can be accomplished that way.

I would add one note: Candidate Obama was not in favor of requiring all--by law--to take insurance. I don't think he will support the concept now, either, opting for cleverly-designed incentives (such as reduced prices for pharmaceuticals, tax credits conditioned on taking, and keeping, catastrophic care insurance) rather than coercion. People tend to forget his stance--which was quite distinct from Candidate Hillary Clinton's--in their analysis of the issue and what Obama will require in the health care legislation.

What he should do is insist that such a public option--I would suggest one that is designed to be mildly profitable (the profits going toward Mediare/Medicaid), one that is allowed to negotiate better rates with hospitals, doctors, and pharmaceuticals (just as private insurers can do), one that is available to all Americans, one that does not penalize for pre-existing conditions but rewards individuals for specific healthful behaviors, one that scales premiums for the size of deductible, so that it can be a catastrophic-illness only policy or something much more expensive and providing fuller coverage, and finally I recommend that the captive insurer AIG be enlisted to provide distribution support for it--such an option needs to be brought to the Senate floor for an up-or-down vote at some stage in the legislative process.

Nothing less would be a change to business as usual; a floor vote for a public option is a requirement for us to believe in this change--even if it loses. Then we'll know which Senators deserve our support--and which deserve to get their support from the insurance lobby.

Illegal Sports Betting Notes

Why can Americans bet on sports results in Las Vegas, but nowhere else? (OK, there's the rest of Nevada, if you call that somewhere...)

I read somewhere that the Federal law permits an exception for four states. Nevada is one, Delaware another, and I don't know the other two. Delaware recently decided to allow sports betting, but their law was thrown out by the U.S. Courts for some reason.

I would suspect the heavy hand of Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid protecting his state, except for one thing: though his hand is heavy, his reach is short--it doesn't even extend very far among the Senators of his own party, much less the courts.

I support the idea of allowing all states to permit sports betting within their states, excluding amateur sports (that would not exclude men's college football or basketball, which are pro in all but name). States could derive much-needed revenue from taxing the profits of the legalized bookie operations. Yes, this is a "stupidity tax", but if it were applied to education (like the lottos and Powerballs) or health care, it would be utilizing stupidity for a good cause.

I think the general Federal aversion to sports betting (excluding Nevada and maybe, if they can get the rules right, three other states) goes back to some betting scandals in the '50's and '60's which took some players down. The laws don't prevent the temptation, or the occasional slip-ups, they just enrich the illegal bookies.

Meanwhile, the online bookies are required to be offshore, and to make good-faith efforts to prevent US persons from participating. These provisions are easily evaded (I won't say how), but I don't do so. Somehow, though, Intrade (which allows legalized betting on non-sports results, which I'm signed up to watch but not play) invited me to work with them. I decided it was some sort of scam and declined.

Event-Specific Notes

I wanted to check the lines on the U.S. Open tennis tournament now in its third day. Ladbroke's (the #1 UK operation; blocked for Americans) had odds on matches that day, even by set, and other nonsense, but didn't have the tournament-championship odds for the men when I checked--I don't know why, but I went to William Hill (#2 in the UK) and they had them. Scaling down the win percentages calculated from the odds to make them add to 100%, you get these: Federer 39, Murray 22, Nadal 11, Djokovic and DelPotro 7.5 each, Roddick 7, Tsonga 2, Soderling 1, Others 4.

Comments on those: Murray's is probably too high because of Brit money, but there is some smart opinion backing him (Agassi and Brad Gilbert, from the TV broadcasters, if I'm not mistaken); Nadal is believed to be unable to run and thus play his game, so that's also probably too high; Federer looks great, but the chances seem about right, as there are several real challengers this year. So, from those odds, I only like the odds on Roddick (he may have been off his Wimbledon form lately, but should rally with the crowd behind him--as it was, he was only a few millimeters behind Federer at Wimbledon) and Soderling (who's proved he can beat anyone if he's hot, and that he has no nerves).

Women's odds (from Ladbrokes, again scaled to 100%--these were taken down after Venus' near-death experience and before Safina's, but they don't seem to have changed anyway): Serena 24, Venus 14, Dementieva 9, Azarenka 8, Clijsters 8, Sharapova 7, Safina 7, Jankovic 5, Kuznetzova 4, Ivanovic (already out), Zvonareva, and Wozniacki 3 each; Stosur 2, Pennetta 1, Bartoli 1, Others 3.

From those quotes, I like bets on Clijsters, Sharapova, Jankovic, and Stosur. And a big one on Serena, of course: I'd say she's more like 50-50 to win it.

English Premier League (also from Ladbrokes, again scaled to 100%): Chelsea 38, Man U. 28, Arsenal 14, Liverpool 10, Manchester City 5, Tottenham 3, Aston Villa 1, All other 1.

None of those quote are crazy. There's a decent chance Man City could organize all their new mercenaries and make a late run for it, but otherwise the only realistic conideration is the usual top 4, and I wouldn't quibble with the relative likelihood of those.

Man U., as three-time defending champs, should deserve the favorite spot, but the loss of Ronaldo is, in fact, a huge blow to their chemistry (as was the shellacking they got from Barca in the Champions League final). Chelsea was threatened by outsiders with big bucks (like Man City, which went after John Terry very hard), but remained largely unscathed, and they look pretty good so far this year. I'd put some money on Chelsea, but really only because they're my team, and I'd put a small flyer on Man City--if they were to pull it off, I'd want some of that action, and I've gotten over my allergy to backing "the best teams money can buy" since Roman Abramovic came to Chelsea.

I draw the line before the Yanks and BoTox, though, of course.

For the record, let's bet an imaginary $2500 as follows: $500 on Roddick @12:1, $100 on Soderling @50:1, $200 each on Sharapova (10:1), Clijsters (8:1), and Jankovic (12:1), $800 on Serena @15:8; $400 on Chelsea @5:4, and $100 on Man City at 14 to 1. The odds quoted here are the ones on the websites, and thus not "fair", but I like their taste just the same.

Khartoum to Kabul

I just watched the classic 1966 film, "Khartoum", starring Charlton Heston as British freelance General Charles "Chinese" Gordon (and no less than Laurence Olivier as his nemesis, the Mahdi). The movie is a semi-historical epic on the sack of Khartoum in 1895, Gordon's martyrdom, and the difficulties of maintaining a far-flung, overstretched empire in that period. It's got me thinking...

How Afghanistan Can Win
I'm getting a little tired of our military geniuses telling us how we can win in Afghanistan. That kind of myopia is probably the only real similarity between the Afghan conflict and our war in Vietnam.

We can't win in Afghanistan, though we can hope to avoid getting massacred there, like the British in the 1850's, or being chased out at gunpoint, like the Soviets in 1990 (it was their Vietnam, and it was bad enough to help put the kibosh on the Soviet state).

There is really no way that the Taliban can be defeated militarily, and the sooner we realize that, the better. We can "clear and hold" more ground than we have, if we put in more troops, but the more we put in, the less likely we are to get the outcome we want. There isn't going to be a triumphant march through a flower-strewn Kabul bearing Osama Bin Laden's charred corpse, much as it might thrill us.

First of all, he's long gone from Afghanistan, and there's no reason to think he'll come back. That would appear to be Pakistan's problem now (another day's discourse). Second, while we have the best forces in the world, the Afghans are easily good enough to fight us indefinitely, if they choose to. And they will do so, if it becomes a matter of us trying to impose rule on them. Just like when the Soviets tried it.

Third, the Taliban are not the central locus of international terrorism, though they seem to be learning the modern insurgency game very well, the longer we hang around. They committed a major error when they allowed Al Qaeda to operate out of their Afghanistan--their traditional hospitality, gone wrong--and I'm quite sure they know it; it caused them to lose the 90% or so of the country they had painstakingly gained control of. They're not even nationalists, really; they are traditional tribal people with pan-Islamic dreams (like the Mahdi).

We should look at them the way Lincoln looked at the slavers in the South, prior to the secessionist wave leading to the Civil War. We should help the Karzai regime (or its successor) contain them, prevent their expansion, and they will eventually die out as the anachronism they are. Let them come back, and give them a good chunk of the country--one far from Pakistani mischief-makers, away from the strategic Kandahar-Kabul highway--and put a fence around it. Nothing comes in or goes out (especially the poppies!), unless it's people leaving their antique thraldom. Inside the Taliban Autonomous Zone, though, they can teach what they want, imprison their daughters (for their own good, of course), chop off hands, whatever.

It's the only way to get peace, and that's what the Afghans want. Otherwise, this thing could drag on for decades (more). After the election gets settled, Holbrooke needs to sit down with Karzai, tell him the limits of American involvement (hint: by 2012, we've got to be below the 47,000 or so Americans we had there when Obama's administration started; this will line up very well with what Karzai wants, too), and figure out how we can make this thing work for the Afghan people.

It's Practically a Slander
The current Newsweek* has on its back page the rhetorical question,"Did Britain Wreck the World?" I call it rhetorical, though they do answer it: "By Jove, it certainly seems that way." That's sarcasm, mockery, but they go on to blame--with a seemingly straight face--the British Empire for "most of today's festering conflicts". They give seven cases: Sri Lanka, India/Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan, Israel/Palestine, Somalia, and Nigeria. In some, those bloody Brits split up countries and caused their problems, in others they combined different ethnic groups and made them.

Look, I'm no apologist for the English (really, I'm not), but this is ridiculous. First, their meddling didn't seem to doom the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand so badly--or, if those are too distant, then look at Singapore, Malaysia, or Ireland--all countries where things were certainly mucked up by the Brits in the 20th century (like all the cases they cited), but they've been able to recover. Actually, India's done pretty well for itself since independence, considering. And I think Egypt was a British colony, too--a lot more of the time than Iraq, Sudan, or Somalia--not that it's perfect or anything. And I'm certain that there were some problems between the Jews and their Middle Eastern neighbors when the residents of Great Britain were still painting themselves blue and worshipping trees: ever hear of David and Goliath?

The Last Empire
Thus was entitled a great set of essays by Gore Vidal, postulating a thesis of American imperialism. Now, I'm a huge fan of Mr. Veedal (as Lily Tomlin used to say it, back in the day, on Laugh In!), but I think he's got this one wrong. With all respect to him, we don't have a clue how to run an empire, never did--not nearly as well as even the British!

When you look at it, the Last Empire is actually probably about the same as the First Empire: It's China. OK, maybe today's empire is a bit more extensive, with a different capital city. I think it's pretty clear when you look at Xinjiang, Tibet, or suzerains like Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan (they wish), maybe even North Korea. It's not that hard to co-exist with the Emperor if you're not a subject: kowtow, and provide tribute. There is the thorny question of assimilation, though: what was it the Borg said (besides "resistance is futile", which certainly also applies)?

As for the US, we're too far away to be considered a part of their domain (not so with Russian Siberia, though, which could become a real problem if the current phase of Beijing engineers gives way to a more warlike imperial court). We have served to replenish the imperial treasury, so we can go on our merry way--globalization was a tactic, they played it very well, but they're really much more concerned with keeping the peace at home. No?

*They don't deserve a link for this one; besides, if they're going to be so lazy as to put out an issue dated "August 24 & 31"...

Hail the Fallen Lion

Ted Kennedy's death brings to a close one of the great careers in the Senate, one of the top ten all-time in both longevity and significance.

The Senate is an institution which is very resistant to change and to rapid results of any kind; repeated blows on the anvil are required to make anything of the hot metal piece coming from the forge. Teddy The Hammer was good at that--his legacy in the Senate is marked by consistency, persistence, and the other required element--certain re-election at will.

Kennedy had more than his share of sins to answer for: his penance was staying the course in the Senate and staying true to his causes, on which he represented his family's long-standing, orthodox liberal stances, and his resulting public image is large, gnarly, and sufficiently shiny, like one of those modern-day bronze sculptures with rough features.

Teddy was never quite at the level required for Presidential politics, as his disastrous 1980 campaign to take the nomination from Jimmy Carter showed.

As the untimely death of Mufaza in The Lion King brought danger to his heir and an unworthy immediate successor, there will be someone put into the position in haste, who will not last. The next Kennedy to occupy the seat will emerge sooner or later, we can be sure. Possibly Caroline, who seemed interested in Hillary's seat that was given to another? I think if she took the trouble to run for it, she could win, even if her residency in Massachusetts is questionable or non-existent: sort of a reverse Bobby Kennedy-into-the-Senate-from-NY maneuver.

My prediction just weeks ago that Kennedy and Robert Byrd would rise from their deathbeds to break cloture and secure the public option has, unfortunately, already been proved wrong. I still think their names will memorialize a piece of health-care reform legislation this year. The general thinking is that it will be the whole bill, though with the current thinking that only "reconciliation" bills on health care will get through the Senate this year (budget reconciliation, not at all reconciliations with Republicans), there may not be any single great bill, and it may be done piecemeal. I would still propose that Kennedy's name be featured on the section relating to the public option, which needs his beyond-the-grave support more than any other part.

Letter to "Prius Diary, First Anniversary Edition"

We submitted this honest assessment to the Times this morning.

When we bought our 2003 Prius (aqua blue--bring it back!), the improvement in our gas mileage would in no way pay for the increased cost. We did the math, but wanted to let our wallet speak for our support for the concept.

The hybrid technology is a significant improvement, and the ability to combine various power sources and re-use the kinetic energy from braking is something that will end up changing our world.

In the meantime, we would rate the car as a moderate success: it was not rugged enough for the bad roads here in Taos (particularly the skinny tires), and the gas mileage in town was only 35-40 mpg (the highway mileage was 55 or so, as advertised). We had one major problem in the first year, with the auxiliary battery (which starts the car and its computer systems, and is not rechargeable): after going through a gauntlet of check, re-charge, and re-check, Toyota did come through and gave us a new lithium-ion battery (value reputedly some $3000!) which fixed the problem.

We viewed our oldie hybrid as a collector's item, and one that would actually increase in value. How sad, then, when it was totalled recently in a one-car encounter with a utility pole at about 15 mph.

The federal government should renew for the Prius the credit given for other hybrids: Toyota should not be penalized for the popularity of this model.

A Bountiful Season

This has been the best growing season I've ever seen in Taos. I'd say it's true since I've first visited here fifteen years ago, though I might've missed something, but it's certainly true since we moved here in 2003.

Far and away. The late spring rains and relatively mild spring frosts have produced a bumper year for everything: first the cherries, then the apricots--my God, the apricots!--now, even the apples, pears, and plums. The Indian plums (generally inedible by humans, except boiled with lots of sugar to make jam) are everywhere--on the Pueblo lands, they're brilliantly crimson. Here in town, where there's more shade, so the sun is less than the 12 hours or so solid out in the open, they are not quite ripe yet. Peaches have been great, too, but they take more water and so mostly come from the valleys below, or from Colorado.

Nobody's complaining here--why would they? Instead, the discussion is about the meaning of this great season in the larger context, if there is one. Take, for example, the piece by Linda Kemper Fair in the Horse Fly of August 15, who shifts in mid-article as quickly as the weather changes
(practically daily, this time of year) from sunny praise of "The Divine Season" to thunder and rain and the politics of global warming.

Of course, we don't know whether this year is simply an outlier--there's plenty of reason to think so--or a harbinger of some permanent change. If we are going to get rain, and lots of it, every May/June, well, there are certainly worse fates. It would be a concern if we traded our winter snows for more reliable greening every summer, only because it would gut the ski season, and presumably thus the tourist trade, which might cut down the building of second homes and eliminate our one reliable source of income: building second homes and making real estate deals around that trade.

On the other hand, if the Upper Rio Grande changes and the downstream lands don't (there's no evidence that Santa Fe or Albuquerque is wearing the green like us), then they'll be coming up to visit us en masse in the future, the way the seem to be doing this summer. That means record traffic jams, people getting mightily annoyed with the town's lazy-fare approach to traffic management, and we'll be the new Espanola: A Town to Endure Driving Through! (start making the signs now)

Another sign of change, and not for the good, is the new football field with its shiny bleachers and colorful Astroturf (puky green, except for the Halloween-ish Taos Tigers' black and garish orange in the end zones). Personally, I can't believe the Horse Fly has come out in favor of this one, though it must be refreshing for their moribund sports department this time of year that there's actually some interest in the football team. What's the justification, anyway, besides money to spend and it's too hard to keep the grass green (or at least it used to be, before this year?)

You Cannot Keep If You Cannot Get...

...Them Honest
We are talking about the health insurance companies, of course.

Even the Republicans acknowledge that premiums for health insurance, denial of coverage for those covered, and the expansion of the cherry-picking out of people with pre-existing conditions are all out of control. Young people view health insurance as a simple rip-off, in which no care is purchased: you just pay and they take. That's why universal coverage cannot be attained until this mindset is altered, and it must be through a dramatic demonstration of People Power.

The American people are skeptical of the health care reform initiative because they are not convinced that Congress will tame the insurance companies' application of greed to the detriment of our health. That is why the "public option" is so critical: it is the test we require to see if the legislators are sincere about reform.

It is true that a system in which coverage could not be denied for any pre-existing condition, nor excessive premiums imposed, would be a very different situation than the current one, even without a competing public plan. It is difficult for us to believe, though, that such a condition could arise without there being loopholes, caveats, or fine print that would end up playing us for fools--bankrupted, or worse--once again. Our distrust is that deep.

Last Saturday The New York Times ran a fascinating editorial by Richard Thaler, a professor of economics and behavioral science at the University of Chicago. It was fascinating to me because it captured many of the key points I made in my previous posting on this subject: "Is the Public Option Negotiable?" but it got the conclusions terribly wrong.

Points that he correctly addressed include the following:

o) The public option must be required to break even (I'd go further and say it should be required to make a modest profit, thus helping with our future Medicare funding problems);
o) Subsidies for the poor to get insurance can not be given preferentially to the public option program over the private insurers;
o) The public option program can not use the same mandated discounts that Medicare uses (this was a provision the Blue Dogs in the House insisted upon before allowing the House bill to go forward, and its absence would be a deal-killer in trying to get many doctors to participate in the program); and
o) Given these limitations, many will choose to keep the insurance they have now, the conclusion being that the public option, thus limited, would not destroy the private health insurance industry, contrary to the claims of its opponents.

Thaler asks his readers to perform a thought experiment and try to come up with some area in which the government successfully competes with private industry. He discusses the Post Office vs. the private companies UPS and FedEx (not very originally, as Obama had made a similar argument, for reasons I will never quite understand) and concludes that the government can not compete on level terms.

First, I will admit most companies choose UPS or FedEx "when it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight", as the ads say. That's OK if you have a big enough budget, but most people can stand for the package to take a couple of days, and then the Post Office is much cheaper. (At least around here.) Proving what, exactly?

Or take another example, flood insurance for the home. There are actually two, non-competing types of flood insurance: the one for properties that will never be flooded--you can get private insurance for those--and the one for places that have a history of flooding, or are on barrier islands. That one you'll only get through the Federal program--the private guys won't touch it. I don't want to get into the policy implications, which are absolutely awful, but it just goes to show: private insurance is for those who don't need it, or will pay extra. When you're talking about health insurance, those rules don't apply. The flood is coming for all of us, and it's not just the rich who need protection.

OK, Thaler admits, there is Medicare, a Federal program that competes quite successfully, but that has different rules, and the public option will have marketing and administrative costs that are different. Actually, that's where the captive insurance company AIG should come into play, with its huge distribution resources, but I'm not sure the world is ready for that one--an insurance company so much in hock to the government it would betray its own industry lobbying strategy!?

Thaler draws the conclusion that the public option is "neither necessary nor sufficient" for health care reform. He has that half right: it really isn't sufficient, but it is necessary, even if he's correct that not that many will take it up. (Initially, anyway.) He advises Republicans to go along with it, if it is sufficiently limited, and Democrats to let it go: I'd say neither are going to take that advice, which is something he should know with his professed knowledge of economics and behavioral science.

It's the PUBLIC Option, Stupid
This can only be settled in one way: publicly. The six Finance Committee senators have to develop a "fair" framework for a public option to compete, that title of the bill has to come to a vote in the Senate, and we will take names: who's with us, and who's with the insurance companies? I don't think a single Democrat would dare to vote against it, and the sixty votes would be found: Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd will somehow make it to the floor to vote for that one, and the public option will be renamed the Kennedy-Byrd Plan in honor of their fortitude. It will, eventually, be successful, and the Republicans will be despised, or ignored, for having opposed it so single-mindedly (or nearly so).

I think the Republicans among the Six probably have figured this out, so they have had to dig in their feet to keep anything like a public option coming out of committee. They must not be allowed to succeed.

Like it or not, Obamadmin, this will be the litmus test to see if there is still something that can be called Change We Can Believe In. Or even Change In Which We Can Believe!

The Times in Their Labyrinth

Clearly, we can and will lose many of our local newspapers in coming years. We will regret the loss of jobs, but surely not the reduction of trees so we can read about more car crashes, cops-and-robbers, and human interest/disaster stories. Besides which, all those ugly non-news items will still be out there on YouTube or something.

We can envision a future where there will be five national printed newspapers: some kind of Washington Post/Politico amalgam for the policy wonks; The Wall Street Journal for the wealthy and wannabe-rich Republicans; some kind of L.A.Times/Variety/Billboard amalgam for the entertainment elite and wannabe-famous; the USA Today for ordinary folks, and the Times for the intelligentsia. The Times' problem is that it will remain something of an ivory tower, under frequent attack, isolated...

...But still indispensable. We'd like to review three recent cases in which the Times proved its value once again as the serious paper of record:

Case 1--Barack Obama's op-ed on the health care debate Sunday: It is not that he said anything new or original in it; it was basically the stump speech he has been delivering in recent weeks. He was entirely silent on the key topic of the moment, the "public option" (see my previous post). But there is his argument, undoctored and without commentary, for those too busy to have paid attention previously. Best of all, especially for those folks, there is the cute label at the bottom, in italics: "Barack Obama is the President of the United States." OK for putting that on record!

Case 2--Also in Sunday's paper, a long study--entitled "Can Game Theory Predict When Iran Will Get the Bomb?"--of a brilliant man and his method of predicting future outcomes of complex human coalitions with dynamic, quantitative game-theory methods.

Although clearly he would dismiss me as a practitioner of rank speculation and whimsy (see our post), even worse as an insignificant, non-commercial practitioner, I claim Bueno de Mesquita as a kindred spirit. He has immaculately dressed up what I often try to do on this blog--carefully examining the key players, their desired outcomes, and their ability to effect the same, and then coming up with a most likely scenario--and he has sold it for big money to the CIA and other big-time clients, and he claims the track record to back it up. At the least, he's a role model.

By the way, his prediction is that Iran will move all the way to be fully ready to explode a bomb--then stop. I would endorse that prediction: the best result for Iran is not having the bomb--which will backfire against them, which violates everything its leaders have repeatedly stated--but showing they can do it, on brief notice, if they decide they do need it.

Case 3--In the next 48 hours (as we write on August 19), Afghanistan is having a Presidential election. The outcome, at one level, seems fairly certain--the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, should win, either with 50%+ of the votes in the first round, or in a runoff against his top opponent, Abdullah Abdullah. The Times has used this event, though--which we can only hope will come off with a minimum of violence, and with a maximum of integrity as compared with the similar, recent event in Iran--as the occasion to educate us all about this complex, hopeless country in which we are investing so much while knowing so little.

A lengthy article in last Sunday's Times Magazine, "President Karzai in his Labyrinth", is an indictment of Karzai's administration as being ineffective, hopelessly compromised with its tolerance of warlordism, corrupted by the opium trade, and Karzai personally as being oblivious, complacent, and far too isolated.

I went on record a long time ago about President Karzai: I felt that we (the US, and the anti-Taliban world in general) were extremely fortunate in finding Karzai and arranging for him to be put into his position. I still feel that way. Karzai is personally uncorrupted, incredibly courageous, sincerely concerned for his people, and determined to see his government victorious and surviving this long battle against the Taliban in order to preserve its legitimacy and as much of his people's freedoms as possible. He will win because he is clearly the symbol of the Pashtun majority's desire for a unified Afghan state, and the Afghanis will be unhappy with him because their state is such a mess.

Of course, Karzai is trapped in a difficult security situation: how many assassination attempts has he survived? (answer: plenty) When he leaves his capital, his life depends on these warlords he has to tolerate, first because he doesn't have the power to supplant them (the current ferocious battle for Helmand Province seems clearly the result of trying to do so there) and secondly because he's been told to tolerate them by his American military/economic backers.

A second Times article published more recently featured the third-most prominent of the many candidates in the election, Ashraf Ghani, former finance minister in Karzai's government but now a severe critic. It just showed that there are other prominent, educated Pashtun candidates, ones we might prefer except for the fact that they have even less of a power base or popular support, and just how difficult it would be for anyone else to do Karzai's job. Ghani's support is estimated at about 5%, so he's unlikely even to be close to making it into a runoff election if there were to be one.

The bottom line is that Karzai will win but, in the best case, it will not help much. Afghanistan clearly shows the limitations of what one person--even with sterling qualities, unlimited energy, and the best intentions--can do without adequate support (Barack Obama may end up also showing that, but that will be for another day's argument). Karzai will be empowered to stay in office for a couple more years (assuming he can dodge the future assassination attempts), then he can start negotiating, a la al-Maliki in Iraq, for the foreigners to go under the best terms possible.

Do I need to spell out the similarities between Hamid Karzai and the New York Times?

Obama and the U.N. General Assembly

Credo asked me to vote among five choices on the question, "What message should President Obama deliver to the world at the UN General Assembly?"
Choices were: Security; Climate Change; Millennium Development Goals; Treaties; Multilateralism.
Then, they provided a forum for me to comment on Facebook.
Here's my comment:

I think that Obama will and should mention the climate change goals--the U.S. legislation, weak as it may be, and leadership at the Copenhagen conference in developing new worldwide objectives and policies. More important, though, and more likely to be underplayed in his speech is that he feature the Millennium Development objectives, so that's what I voted for.

I'd like to suggest something else of enduring importance, one that specifically concerns the U.N. as an organization and does not get much attention here in the U.S.: the need for general reform of the U.N. Charter, and specifically to expand the Security Council. The U.S. should go on record as favoring the expansion of the Security Council by four seats: permanent ones for Brazil, India, and Japan, as well as one to be shared in alternate years by Germany and Turkey. Most ambitiously, he should suggest the notion that the Security Council move to Jerusalem (!) and pledge a battalion of U.S. Marines to defend its security. That would be a Wow! moment the world would never forget.

Finally, if he believes in it, Obama should declare his personal support for a new, democratically-elected assembly to replace the UNESCO organization. Constituencies for this new body should be set up to cross national boundaries, consider ethnic group representation, and the quality of electoral participation should be monitored by a new Electoral Supervision Agency;the U.N. should, for the first time, assist the world in moving toward participatory democracy.

I'm sure that's more than Credo asked for; more than Obama would want to hear; and more than my compatriots would sign up for. But, there it is: what I think he should say.

Sen. Bingaman's Secret Mission

Our state's veteran Senator Jeff Bingaman is in a privileged position in key committees. Right now, he's one of the six Finance Committee members who have been meeting daily to try to work out a bipartisan version of the health bill.

So, why is it that in his most recent update to his constituents he only talks about the health pork he's obtained for us, and not his vital role in bringing health care reform to all of us?

The suspicion rises that it's because he's busy selling us out, and the liberal mobilization groups have been agitating for me to call and put pressure on him.

Following up, I checked his website for his position on health care It turns out that he has a fairly orthodox liberal position on the health care reform bill, and is strongly in favor of the public option (unlike the other two Dems in the secret panel, Committee Chairman Baucus--reputedly the Senator receiving the most contributions from the insurance industry--and "give us co-ops or give us death" Kent Conrad).

What is he up to, and why doesn't he come clean to us about it? If I were him, I'd be seriously thinking about walking out and denouncing the effort as a fraud being perpetrated on the American people.

I'm sure he's just trying to get the best, most probable, favorable outcome, but I don't think that crew is going to allow it to come out.





http://bingaman.senate.gov/policy/20090619-01.cfm

Why I Love Ricola

This was posted on the I Love Ricola Facebook site, accessed through ilovericola.com:

Live Longer & Happier with Ricola Pearls!

Cigarette smoking cessation programs give lots of attention to nicotine addiction, and how to break or supplant that. My experience with them, however, is that they overlook other key aspects of smoking and its effects, and that omission makes it harder to quit successfully.

I have to give my consumption of Ricola Pearls much of the credit for successfully quitting smoking some 15 years ago--ever since, I gratefully buy them whenever and wherever I can.

First, there's what the shrinks call the "oral fixation". The smoking quitter needs--wants--something to take its place. Ricola Pearls gave me that satisfaction--without sugar, without messy substitutes like chewing gum.

There is an even more important benefit that I got from the Pearls, one many fear to mention. Smoking is a powerful laxative, and the quitter often suffers from severe constipation. Pearls' gentle laxative properties helped immeasurably.

P.S. Also with airlandings!

The site severely limited the number of characters in my post. I would add: 1) Ricola Pearls are now very hard to find in the US, outside of the NYC area, but are plentiful in the bodegas of East Asia; and 2) the bit about landings is that chewing the Pearls (also known as "Breath Mints", but crucially, the ones without sugar that are semi-soft) helps equalize pressure in the ears as one rides in a plane landing, and then afterwards to recover full hearing in the airport and thereafter.

Finally, the post did have a commercial motive--there's some sort of prize offered--but it is entirely true, and there's no financial reward here on the blog, of course.

What We Are Not, and What We Are

This is the piece I need to do, about once a year, in which I take a close look at what we're trying to do here, and why. We need to set ground rules for ourselves--which we'll try not to break unless we give notice--and keep ourselves motivated and our dear readers' expectations managed..

We Are Not the News
The main problem with trying to do news here is that we don't have the time to provide immediate, fact-checked reporting. We will take our time, think once or twice, research as much as we need to do to feel right about what we're writing, and do exactly as much editing as we want. So don't expect me to be all over the latest event.

Much less are we going to be a local news reporter; we have too little appreciation for the trade, and much too much respect for the local powers of retribution. Crime and punishment, real estate development, and the tourism trade are three subjects we cannot abide, and that will eliminate 90% of any local stories, anyway. As for the others, they're probably in litigation, or else, in the case of the scandal called our public schools, I have no information beyond what's in the local newspaper.

We Are Not In Anyone's PocketWe aren't offered, nor are we taking, any ads, any sponsorship of any kind. We can endorse people, policies, artistic endeavors, articles, or sports teams for that matter, but we'll do it because that's what we want, not because of any binding agreements or requirements. We aren't getting paid.

We Ain't the Elements of Style
I always hated Strunk and White, and this is part of my revenge. Yes, there are typos here and there, and passive voice, and sentence fragments. We're trying to write like people talk (not "as people talk")--OK, how educated people talk. The typos have increased, no doubt, as we moved from desktop with large monitor to the Dell Inspiron Mini (see if you can guess when!) It's a small price to pay, though, as I see it, which is with the laptop perched on my lap, feet up, in the easy chair, in front of the TV: I'll spend a lot more time with the blog, so hopefully a net benefit to all.

These Are Our Politics
I remember shooting the breeze late one work evening (would've been about 1994) with Hamid Biglari (physicist of Afghan background, turned finance guru)*--for some reason he asked me to characterize my politics, and I said "Utopian Progressive". He thought that was pretty amusing--first, that a guy in banking could be so far from the mainstream, second that I would admit it.

I supported the re-branding of liberals as "progressives" in later years: they needed to get rid of that late-19th-century ball-and-chain. That doesn't mean that I'm comfortable with them in my camp, though. What we share, hopefully, is an understanding that the arc of human destiny is away from the struggle-then-die mode which has characterized most peoples' lives for most of our history (and prehistory), toward something presumably better for more of us, more of the time.

Our politics are, and intend always to be in this blog, guided by three principles: internationalist, futurist, and humanist. With regard to the first, it's not about globalization of trade--which may be a useful tool for development, but is not the objective in itself. We aim to take the broad view, the long view, and to put the course of the collective project of humanity above all else. Feel free to hold me to this.

Yes, we're one of those big, nasty "secular humanists" your pastor may have warned you about. Hey now baby, get into my big black car/ I wanna just show you/ What my politics are.
"Politician", from Cream: Goodbye

We Are a Monthly of Informed Speculation and Whimsy
That mission statement should be pretty much self-explanatory. The blog contents are ordered by month; what's posted intra-month is provisional. After the month is over (plus a couple of days), I generally won't go back and change what's out there (if I do, I'll put it in a comment).

We Have a Record, but We're Not Breaking Any
Our goals are fairly modest: express ourselves on the subjects we choose, clarify our thinking, hopefully persuade a few people around the margins. We welcome dialogue, though few have chosen to sully the pristine contents of our pages with their inputs. In particular, we'd love for readers to point out our past errors--and correct analysis and predictions, if any--and any inconsistencies. We may try a bit more self-promotion in other forums to try to bring in more readers, but just doing this blog is pretty heavy promotion of self, as it is.


*Shameless namedropping, yes: Last I heard, Biglari was the head of McKinsey's financial practice, but this was his first consultancy project. I praise his success, and hope he hasn't gotten himself into too much trouble these days.

Make It So: Oh-Ten

The other day I spotted a Talking Head referring to both "Oh-nine and oh-ten". A minute or two later, he had another opportunity to say it, but caught himself and said, paraphrasing here, "oh-nine and two-thousand-ten", awkwardly. Clearly, he had become aware in the intervening moments of his error and wanted to say it the right way.

I think he had it right the first time. All that debate we used to have about whether this decade would be referred to as the "oughts" or "zeroes" or whatever has subsided in favor of the "O's"--this is the "O Decade", as last year's election should have made abundantly clear.

So, "o-eight", "o-nine", "o-ten"--I like it, but why stop there?--"o-eleven", and so on until we get to twenty. I dig it.

After all, it's not a mistake: if you take the initial 2 for granted, it's a legitimate way of looking at the date--a long term view that goes beyond a mere century as the frame of reference. After all, we are going to need to refer to the carbon dioxide level of "oh-seventy" for quite a while (after we have to put back our net global reduction targets from "ofifty" (my preferred spelling).