Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 12:24AM ARTICLE: In Face of Sanctions, China Premier Warms to Iran, By MARK LANDLER and EDWARD WONG, New York Times, October 15, 2009
No surprise here. China's not interested in putting a major oil source at risk to satisfy the West's fears over a nuclear Iran.
Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 12:21AM ARTICLE: In Hawaii's Health System, Lessons for Lawmakers, By GARDINER HARRIS, New York Times, October 16, 2009
The joy of having 50 simultaneous experiments going on: Hawaii has required all employers to make health care available to any 20-hours-or-more employee, and it's done it for 35 years.
The outcomes are impressive:
But perhaps the most intriguing lesson from Hawaii has to do with costs. This is a state where regular milk sells for $8 a gallon, gasoline costs $3.60 a gallon and the median price of a home in 2008 was $624,000 -- the second-highest in the nation. Despite this, Hawaii's health insurance premiums are nearly tied with North Dakota for the lowest in the country, and Medicare costs per beneficiary are the nation's lowest.
Hawaii residents live longer than people in the rest of the country, recent surveys have shown, and the state's health care system may be one reason. In one example, Hawaii has the nation's highest incidence of breast cancer but the lowest death rate from the disease.
Why is Hawaiian care so efficient? No one really knows.
Worth finding out, yes?
The encouraging part:
But the Hawaii experience suggests that overhauling health insurance before changing the way care is provided could work, eventually. With more people given access to care, hospital and insurance executives in Hawaii say they have been able to innovate efficiencies. For instance, the state's top three medical providers are adopting electronic medical records -- years ahead of most mainland counterparts.
The Hawaii Medical Service Association, the state's largest insurer and a Blue Cross Blue Shield member, recently offered the nation's only statewide system whereby anyone for a nominal fee can talk by phone or e-mail, day or night, to doctors of their choosing.
Kaiser Permanente Hawaii, which covers about 20 percent of the state's population, screens 85 percent of its female members ages 42 to 69 for breast cancer, among the highest screening rates in the country.
Most impressive: ERs are not overburdened as a result.
Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 12:19AM OP-ED: The Vietnam War We Ignore, By LEWIS SORLEY, New York Times, October 17, 2009
Sorley making a point that anybody familiar with the CORDS (Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support) program's history knows well: We were figuring out quite nicely how to do nation-building at the end in Vietnam. The learning just came too slowly, because the military and the political leadership fought the logic too hard for too long. Bush-Cheney did the same in Iraq, until the 2006 election loss cleared their thinking.
So how Obama decides on Afghanistan is important: some bathwater to toss, perhaps, but careful with that baby--cause we spent plenty to grow it.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 2:35PM This is the master index for all of Tom's discussions with Hugh Hewitt of The Pentagon's New Map and Great Powers
The Pentagon's New Map - 2007
+ Introduction, January 5th: Audio
+ Chapter 1, January 9th: Audio | Transcript
+ Chapter 2, January 16th: Audio | Transcript
+ Chapter 3, January 23rd: Audio | Transcript
+ Chapter 4, January 30th: Audio | Transcript
+ Chapter 5, February 6th: Audio | Transcript
+ Chapter 6, February 13th: Audio | Transcript
+ Chapter 7, February 20th: Audio | Transcript
+ Chapter 8, February 27th: Audio | Transcript
Great Powers - 2009
+ Introduction, Chapters 1 and 2, February 4th: Transcript
+ Chapter 3, February 11th: Audio | Transcript
+ Chapter 4, February 19th: Audio | Transcript
+ Chapter 5, February 24th: Audio | Transcript
+ Chapter 6, March 6th: Audio | Transcript
+ Chapter 7, March 30th: Audio | Transcript
+ Chapter 8, April 1st: Audio | Transcript
+ Coda and Acknowledgments, April 1st: Audio | Transcript
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 1:41AM ARTICLE: Afghan Leader Said to Accept Runoff After Election Audit, By SABRINA TAVERNISE and HELENE COOPER, New York Times, October 19, 2009
I believe in the notion of a coalition government in lieu of a runoff election. Karzai is all but a figurehead as it is, so make Abdullah the working leader and move forward. Recalling my Esquire column on the election, prior to the vote the U.S. was floating the idea of having the third candidate, Ghani, step in afterward as a sort of COO to Karzai's president. This strikes me as a similar compromise with the candidate (Abdullah) who scored the substantial second-place vote.
And that beats some election that doesn't yield a gov until after the new year.
I hear the date of 7 Nov for the new vote, but it's likely to yield a muddled result, with Karzai coming down and Abdullah coming up, but with no clear winner and no vote count that anyone trusts.
So better to share power, especially since U.S. senators say a settled government is a prerequisite for their support to any Obama decision to increase troop numbers.
(Via WPR Media Roundup)
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 1:37AM WORLD NEWS: "Volatile Sistan-Baluchistan Region Is Base for Insurgents," by Chip Cummins, Wall Street Journal, 19 October 2009.
A murky Sunni insurgency based on the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan is tagged for the recent suicide bomb. The group, Jundallah, claims Tehran has repressed the Sunni minority there. No doubt.
Tehran is fearful of cracking down too hard, worrying that any such attempt will only draw more radical Sunni players from Af-Pak. Recently, the Revolutionary Guards have taken over the security of this southeastern region, thus the target of the recent attack.
To date, Jundallah has never posed a serious threat to the regime.
The temptation, of course, is to view this group as another way to attack the regime from within, but the incident also reminds us that Iran has a lot of similar concerns when it comes to radical Sunni groups. Massage the nuclear issue and there's plenty of room for regional cooperation. Plus, the more you draw Iran out on its Sunni fears, the more you discredit the regime's attempts to portray itself as the great Islamic leader.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 1:31AM FRONT PAGE: "Swine-Flu Wave Poses Threat To Hospital ICUs, Studies Warn," by Betsy McKay, Wall Street Journal, 13 October 2009.
Per my recent Esquire column calculations. The driver is kids and teenagers with underlying conditions that trigger a need for ventilation.
We held our breath with daughter Em's swine-flu, because of her cancer past (radiation to lungs) and asthma present (fear of pneumonia trigger), but she came through swimmingly, singing a solo last Saturday at her HS's fall morning show (an Evanescence standard for you Amy Lee fans out there).
So far H1N1 is widespread in 37 states and will build to a second wave across the winter.
As mentioned before, four of my six family members have already processed it (me and three of four kids).
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 12:58AM FRONT PAGE: "In China, Rx for Ailing Health System," by Gordon Fairclough, Wall Street Journal, 15 October 2009.
An interesting observation to make: healthcare reform seems to lie at the center of the rebalancing effort in the global economy. China needs it to prevent too much saving by its population, and America needs it to stop out-of-control costs.
So healthcare reform helps China consume more and America owe less--the essence of the rebalancing effort.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 12:56AM CREDIT MARKETS: "Emerging-Market Debt Boom Signals End of Crisis," by Riva Froymovich, Wall Street Journal, 13 October 2009.
The trigger? A strong sense of the market-expansion potential in emerging markets, as globalization continues to rumble on with little resistance.
"Clearly, the problem has gone from, 'What do I sell in order to raise the cash I need? ... to, 'Oh my gosh, where do I put the cash that's being thrown at me?'" said Michal Gavin, head of emerging-markets strategy at Barclays Capital. "The focus turns from fears of downside risk to upside potential."
So much for the end of globalization, or "deglobalization."
Last year there was an outflow of $40b from emerging markets. This year has seen a $40b inflow, erasing the now-temporary panic.
Still waiting on my 1930s global depression. Where are all my fear-mongers and freak-out artists now?
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 12:53AM Tom got this message:
Tom,
Just read your article about China's economic rise imitating America's -- and the differences. I'm a foreign professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, where I teach an MBA course on American business history (as well as other courses on U.S. politics and business in the present day). The whole thrust of that course is identifying the parallels between developments in the U.S. then and China today. I particularly liked the quote from "Theodore Rex" and will have to share it with my class.
You might be interested in checking out my blog on China-related issues -- and similar topics, including my recent trip to North Korea -- at http://chovanec.wordpress.com.
Patrick Chovanec
Associate Professor
Tsinghua University
School of Economics and Management
Beijing, China
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 12:50AM U.S. NEWS: "Official to Press China on Drywall Costs," by Melanie Trottman, Wall Street Journal, 16 October 2009.
The chair of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission is asking China to pay up on the billions of dollars of damage to US homes from defective drywall.
The chair will also start a dialogue with industry on having official standards for drywall composition. Amazing to think we have none now.
The Chinese drywall in question is emitting sulfide fumes.
Again, this sounds right out of Midler's book, which I quasi-reviewed in the WPR column recently--cutting corners.
China is claiming some bad gypsum supplies that were isolated in the system. Still, we're talking billions here and people being forced to abandon properties for health reasons.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 12:49AM CURRENTS: "In Digital Era, Marketers Still Prefer a Paper Trail: Glossy Printed Catalogs, Low on Recycled Content and Often Discarded by Consumers, Continue to Deliver for Retailers," by Jeffrey Ball, Wall Street Journal, 16 October 2009.
All our catalogs go straight in the recycling bag for delivering to our kids' school. We order stuff from these very same vendors, but exclusively over the Web.
And yet they keep sending us this huge flow, which almost always constitutes about 90% of our mail.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 12:28AM WORLD NEWS: "Palestinian Support Wanes For American-Trained Forces," by Charles Levinson, Wall Street Journal, 14 October 2009.
We've trained something like 25k forces, with the EU helping out significantly. They've done a world of good in the West Bank, to include battling Hamas.
Problem: the police were supposed to be the anchor of a future Palestinian state, and since that's not forthcoming, local public support for their good efforts is waning. They are seen as yet another unfulfilled Western promise.
Key quote from EU training leader: "They won the battle for public order, but I am concerned they may not have won the battle of public opinion, and were seen as protecting the Israeli army."
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 12:00AM FRONT PAGE: "A U.K. Court Without the Wigs: New Supreme Bench, Patterned on America's, Stirs Debate," by Cassell Bryan-Low and Jess Bravin, Wall Street Journal, 17-18 October 2009.
The big innovation for the Brits is the independence of the court, meaning full separation from Parliament--the King Kong of British politics.
But a key difference remains: our Court derives its authority from our Constitution (the ultimate in rule sets), while Britain's remains a creature of its legislature, even as it now distances itself from Parliament.
The fear across the Pond? Brit judges will get uppity, just like ours have long been.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 2:01AM After we adopted Vonne Mei from China, we wanted to provide her with 1 or more siblings who are also non-Caucasian. When the rules changed in China (which we saw coming even back in 2004 on our adoption trip), we explored Taiwan (getting nowhere), then switching to Kyrgyzstan for a while (also nowhere), and then going through the whole application for a third time in Kazakhstan. When the last one finally started moving, we found ourselves facing the high probability of getting a Russian child, which wasn't our goal.
So over the summer we pulled the plug on Kazakhstan and went with the Option B we had long nurtured as the child-after-next approach--Ethiopia. We will hardly be the first to do China and then Ethiopia. In fact, there's a growing subculture of families in the U.S. who have made this choice for all the same reasons (wanted to adopt internationally again, and found themselves ruled out on China).
We spent August and September doing the whole laborious and invasive application effort for a fifth time (if you count the original effort on China). I'm talking criminal background checks for everybody teenage and above, the whole fingerprinting drill, the financials, etc. Frankly, you get checked out a whole lot more for international adoptions than you do for a security clearance--and arguably you should.
Well, the dossier is finally complete and we're in the queue as of 10/5. We went, after much investigation, with a very solid secular agency that performs a full range of humanitarian work throughout the country, to include things like helping unwed mothers keep their kids with job-training, etc. The normal case is an extended family putting children in Ethiopian orphanages after one or both parents perish (HIV is a big cause, creating as many as 50m orphans in sub-Saharan Africa today and upwards of 100m in coming years). Our agency only works with local orphanages approved by the state and only with kids who've been thoroughly cleared in terms of abandonment via the court system, which is obviously biased toward trying to keep kids with families wherever possible.
Vonne and I will make two trips to Ethiopia: one to meet any proposed child(ren) and accept the match, then, following the final court procedures in Ethiopia (where familial relinquishment is confirmed and our adoption is made legal), a second, longer trip to spend plenty of time with the child(ren) and hopefully meet the first family (a crucial bond if you can get it). Our little immigrant(s) would then become Americans upon hitting ground here. We'd then re-do the adoption in U.S. courts in order to get U.S. birth certificates (seems a small matter, but it ain't).
We put in for any female child up to 6 years old, as we can't break birth order (a rule of our local agency that will supervise us for years following the adoption, as we are required to maintain written contact with the Ethiopian government--and hopefully the first family) until the child reaches 18. That's a solid rule, as breaking birth order can be very destabilizing to the family structure.
We've also said we'd take a second younger sibling if that possibility existed.
Along those lines, our agency has two families in line before us. Odds are each will take 2-3 months to happen, so our far window is May-July 2010.
But it could happen much earlier.
It is a big step to add one-to-two African kids to a family with 3 European "biologicals" and 1 adopted Chinese, and we've already gone through a lot of sensitivity training and counseling from professionals on the subject, but we couldn't be more excited at the prospect of globalizing our family further.
No,it is not a noble endeavor, but the same sort of selfish desire that any parents have for additional children. Not everybody is cut out for the "rainbow" route, but it feels very much our family's destiny for reasons completely orthogonal to my professional work--and yet wonderfully in synch with it (e.g., an Old Core-New Core-Gap bond).
Me? I just see the opportunity to help one or two little immigrants make their way. Plus, I greatly prefer obsessing over my kids versus myself or my career. It just feels healthier for my thinking, and I wouldn't be me if I couldn't pursue the thinking.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 1:57AM ARTICLE: U.S. Hopes to Strengthen Ties With China's Expanding Military, By John Pomfret, Washington Post, October 15, 2009
The simple truth:
During his first visit to China next month, President Obama hopes to strengthen ties with Beijing on efforts to combat climate change, address the global financial crisis and contain nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran. Perhaps most important, he also aims to improve the U.S. relationship with China's military.
The once-insular nation is broadening its international interests and investing around the globe, and its military is rapidly modernizing. So there is concern that U.S. and Chinese forces may find themselves bumping into each other without formal mechanisms in place for the two militaries to iron out disagreements.
The article points out that, during the Cold War, the US had a lot more comprehensive and robust mil-mil interaction effort with the Sovs than it currently has with the PLA!
The duh! bit:
In the past, some U.S. officials said forging ties with the Chinese military wasn't that important. Even though its defense spending had risen dramatically, outpaced only by the United States', China's intentions were limited to defending its sovereignty.
But two developments have changed American thinking, analysts say. The first was the realization that every crisis between the United States and China -- including the Chinese army crackdown on Tiananmen Square demonstrators in 1989 and the accidental bombing of China's embassy in Yugoslavia in 1999 by U.S. planes -- has involved the nations' militaries.
The second was the conclusion that the People's Liberation Army wants to expand its activities around the world as China expands its international investments. Last year, China dispatched three navy ships outside of Asia for the first time in its modern history, sending them to fight piracy off Somalia alongside an international task force. (italics mine).
Somebody sent me an email recently about a question I said should be asked of the prez candidates (18 months ago) regarding my sense that significant priority should be given to developing mil-mil ties with the Chinese because virtually every hotspot in the world was becoming a place where we're constantly bumping into the Chinese. I think the reader was trying to get me to criticize the Obama admin on this issue.
Well, I guess we have our answer here, and it's a good one.
Yes, the Chinese have a list of things ("obstacles" to better relations) they want massaged before wider mil-mil ties are possible. Fortunately, it's a lot of small stuff--plus no more arms sales to Taiwan. All doable, in my mind.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 1:54AM ARTICLE: Pakistan Launches Full-Scale Offensive, By Karin Brulliard, Washington Post, October 18, 2009
Looks like we already got our 30k surge in Pakistan, courtesy of the operational boldness (read, brutality) of the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Obama's decision takes on a lot more meaning against this backdrop of sacrifice and effort by Pakistan.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 1:51AM ARTICLE: Iran bombing kills 5 Revolutionary Guard leaders, By ALI AKBAR DAREINI and BRIAN MURPHY, The Associated Press, October 19, 2009
It'll be interesting to see if suicide bombing becomes a frequent issue in Iran.
Naturally, we and the Brits are already being blamed.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 1:21AM ARTICLE: Clinton and Gates Join Forces in Debate on Afghanistan Buildup, By MARK LANDLER and THOM SHANKER, New York Times, October 12, 2009
Why I believe that Option B (more troops but not 40k) will be the outcome.
Hard to deny this bloc of two, if you're Obama.
I am very pleased to see this personal alliance develop. Common-sense squared.
Would I like McChrystal's number to be hit? Sure. But we live in a world of constraints.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 1:18AM ARTICLE: Guinea Boasts of Deal With Chinese Company, By ADAM NOSSITER, New York Times, October 13, 2009
Great example of China going anywhere to get the energy they need, with little consideration of the source.
Guinea's military government, facing international sanctions and heavy strictures over a mass killing of unarmed demonstrators, is highlighting a recent agreement with a Chinese company that could provide it with billions of dollars.
But since I've never been a believer in punitive sanctions, such connectivity beats the alternative: China denied access to resources does what?
