Westmoreland's IDF

An eerie echo of Vietnam is heard in the pronouncements by the IDF propaganda machine. The absolute surety of victory without any actual definition of what victory is or what the end game is. The infinite evil (sometimes even justified) of the foe.
There are even analogies to be found in the complex political balance between the different players in different states. Egypt has its agenda. Hamas is different than Hezbollah. Lebanon and Syria have their own issues.

This bunny was very busy at the battle of Khe Sanh when the Tet Offensive started and he had to take a nap.

Israel tends to behave like an older child on the playground, feeling self-righteous when the adults scold it for beating up on other, smaller, kids. "But I had to! They started it!"
But the worst part of the entire situation is how the IDF plays to a crowing public of its holy, and un-critisizable genius when really they are sort of spectacularly incompetent.
As far as I can tell the IDF is the only military in the world where essentially every soldier starts as an E-1. This makes every officer a mustang in the IDF (there are exceptions like physicians who join after they get their degrees, etc.)
And you would think that having an officer corps of all mustangs would be a good thing. The class distinction between the enlisted and officers would be eliminated. No snobby silver-spoon officers born into their commands over proles fighting for the State but rather everyone being equal. Yeah. Good idea. But the IDF found a way to make it not work.
As far as I can tell the IDF holds its commissions over their enlisted. "If you join up for four more years we'll give you some training and make you an officer!" So great, you take some computer courses, somebody pins a gold bar on your lapel and all of a sudden you're an officer. They get a watered-down bit of officer training and off they go.
As far as I can tell the front-line officers essentially do an NCO's job. I'm talking like Captains -- they're the ones yelling at everyone to clean their weapons and organizing patrols. This means that their Majors and Colonels are basically idiots who just came off the front lines doing the jobs of sergeants.

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I refer to General Westmoreland when I want a touch-stone of military incompetence. This unsourced bit from Wikipedia pretty much sums it up:

Westmoreland was convinced that the Vietnamese communists could be destroyed by fighting a war of attrition that, theoretically, would render the Vietnam People's Army unable to fight. His war strategy was marked by heavy use of artillery and airpower and repeated attempts to engage the communists in large-unit battles, and thereby exploit the US's vastly superior firepower and technology. However, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF) were able to dictate the pace of attrition to fit their own goals: by continuing to fight a guerrilla war and avoiding large-unit battles, they denied the Americans the chance to fight the kind of war they were best at, and they ensured that attrition would wear down the American public's support for the war faster than they.

Sound familiar?

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Two very countervailing aspects of the present IDF war are the fact that unlike (say) the US Marine Corps which likes to think they're the best friend or worst enemy of everyone they meet, the IDF does not care about being anyone's friends. They won't even pay lip-service to the notion that when they invade somewhere that by giving them lots of stuff and showing them how awesome the Israel way of life is that they, in turn, should do stuff the democratic and non-violent way.
The other big difference is that all these organizations like Hamas are concerned solely with their own systematic maintenance. And making the IDF commit war crimes is the number one way to ensure support. They've learned the best, cheapest, ways to create terror among the populace with the fewest numbers of casualties. Rockets and tunnels kill far fewer Israelis in 10 years than the IDF can do in 2 weeks of fighting. But they can guarantee an incompetent and horrific response which will surely kill some children sleeping in some UN school (while Israelis cheer and then can't understand why anyone would be horrified at that.)
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Speaking of Israeli incompetence, is it "Intern Day" in the Israeli diplomatic corps? Is the A-team on vacation? Do they take the Summer off and leave it to a bunch of 6th - graders?
Isn't it time to grow up?

Operation Protective Edge vs Operation Linebacker II

Operation Linebacker II resulted in 1,624 civilians killed in North Vietnam. This was the "Christmas bombing" campaign of the Vietnam War.

Right now just over a thousand are claimed (by the Palestinian Health Ministry) killed by Operation Protective Edge. Other sources cite higher numbers. So somewhere around 800 civilians, putting Operation Protective Edge just about at the halfway point of Operation Linebacker II's on the 21st day of operations.
Operation Linebacker II was only 11 days. 

Operation Linebacker II was an enormous air campaign. So big, in fact, that there was some argument against taking was was upwards of half the US Air Force's manned bomber fleet against North Vietnam.
Linebacker did a spectacular job of destroying a lot of stuff, including a hospital. And, you know, at least 1600 people.
It did not, however, alter the outcome of the war. Well, except arguably to make the South lose because the US passed the Case-Church Amendment which might not have happened if it weren't for Operation Linebacker II.

Socialist Hellscape

So yesterday I went through the socialist hellscape that is Obamacare. That is, I had my first doctors appointment with my new HMO under the expanded Medicaid portion of the Affordable Care Act.
The appointment was set up a week earlier. It took three hours door-to-door.
My Obamacare doctor's offices are nicer than the offices at my private insurer's. They're newer. Inside the Princeton University Medical Center it is the Bristol Meyers Clinic. I probably have a younger doctor than I would have got under my old private plan.
At first my blood oxygen tested strangely low at 92%. But a re-measurement showed it at 98%. I have no idea why.
I had to wait for the doctor. This seems to me to be largely in line with what I have to do when I've gone to a non-Obamacare-doctor.
I suppose the biggest deal is that Fox News wasn't blaring in the waiting room.

Well, I guess Obama was right again

Krugman admits he was wrong. It's okay. I was wrong too. Because I agreed with Krugman.

Reddit Wins Economics

Reddit user DWWO makes the following point about corporate tax and what is essentially "job creation". I'm gonna just reprint the whole thing right here.

As a business creator / owner (I've started or been a partner in 6 start-ups and been an exec in 3 medium-large companies, some I know you've heard of), here are some points in response:

• I never base wages on my corporate tax bracket. In fact, taxes are taken into account in primarily two ways (see below), and never influence hiring, operations, legal decisions, or growth (which is almost everything from expanding office space to staff, except for capital expenses, see below again). The only time taxes have ever, and I mean ever, been in any conversation is at the end of the year. Never has anyone in any company ever said, let's do or don't do X because of taxes, except at the end of the year when we have a bunch of money left over, and that's a good conversation to have.
• Wages are based on market cost, i.e. what I have to pay to employ people vs. other companies that would pay to employ those same exact people, not my tax bracket. It's a market, pure and simple and if I hire someone it's because there are more customers willing to pay our company for our business today or tomorrow than were yesterday, not because the tax rate is low or high.
• Institutional investors (e.g. venture capitalist organizations), don't invest in companies that sell to the rich. Yacht builders don't need investors, they need bank loans, and they are going to employ 8 or 10 people, then that's it. Investors, who want to invest in a company that's going to grow to hundreds if not thousands of employees, then make a big exit, invest in companies that sell to the middle class. So a high marginal tax rate on businesses is of no concern. However a lower income tax rate on the middle class, the customers, is of great concern. You want to start a business and grow to be the next X? You need capital and a middle class that has disposable income. The taxes you pay is not a factor in your or your investor's equation, ever. Simplified example: Buffet or Lynch's rule, 'if there's a line out the door of a place, invest in it.' No successful investor thought, "I bet they pay high taxes, so, never mind."
• A new business pays almost no taxes. There is no barrier to entry because of taxes. It's actually the opposite, in that established businesses pay more taxes than start-ups, except for those in the news that offshore their huge cash profits, but that's not a majority of companies in the U.S. That's our 'free enterprise' system and it works. There are huge barriers to entry, however, due to capital investment and market establishment. Try writing an operating system today and selling it; it's not taxes that keeps you from succeeding, it's that it's a big investment in time and money and there are others who have invested a ton of money and time that keeps you from succeeding. The tax structure, if it makes any difference at all, helps the start-up.
• The idea that a high marginal tax rate causes expenditures to avoid paying taxes is true. Some of that money goes to lawyers, lobbyists, and accountants. So you are correct. That will always be true when it's cheaper to hire those people than pay taxes. As a result Reagan lowered the personal income rates and shifted the tax burden to businesses, and that resulted in growth and prosperity. Note that small to medium, growing companies don't hire lobbyists.
• The U.S. corporate tax rate used to be very low compared to other countries. Then other countries lowered their rates and the U.S. didn't follow. In other words, the U.S. didn't raise the corporate tax rates significantly, everyone else lowered theirs.
• I, as a business owner, like the business tax. I hate paying taxes at the end of the year, it sucks thinking I earned all these profits and will get a distribution (i.e. dividend) and first have to pay a huge tax check. It pisses me and my accountant off every December. But what a lot of people don't know is that the company only pays taxes on profits, not revenue. If I had spent more money on hiring, rent, equipment, etc. then I'd pay less taxes. And that's the idea. The company is incented to hire people, buy equipment, and otherwise spend money to grow the business. Because the company doesn't pay taxes on those expenses, only what's not spent.
• So, per the previous point, taxes influence expenses, especially capital expenses at the end of the year. If we are going to buy a server and router in February, and we know for sure we're going to do that, let's buy it now in December and take the tax break this year, when we have profits (or a higher tax bracket) rather than next year when we may not. Capital expenses and dividends are the two areas that the tax code influence business financial decisions. And the capital expenses are just shifting up expenses that would be paid anyway. Or would they? In fact it's often best to defer those expenses until they are matched by income, so a high tax rate causes companies to spend more money, at some risk, than they would otherwise.

Dogecoin

There are few things I find as hysterical as Dogecoin.

Yes you can even print them. Which is ridiculous. And I love it.

Dogecoin is a crypto-currency much like Bitcoin but with... well let's say a different attitude about it.
The easiest way to make Dogecoins for yourself is to go to IDigDoge. Yeah, there are other ways to "mine" the money but that's the easiest.
You'll need a "wallet" to receive your Dogecoins. I'm using Doge Vault. Feel free to send me your Dogecoins.
DGLUhEro3camtSBxAymkdBJxq3tN6d2o55
I've been mining for a few days now, and between that and "tips" I've gotten from Twitter I've made almost two cents!
Like I said, it's awesome. Dogecoin. The currency of the future. 

Riots

Okay. So this editorial/article, claiming to know what's wrong with the American left is, in fact, everything that's wrong with the American left all by itself.

Nadya and Masha are what Occupy needed: charismatic personalities with identifiable faces. 

OMG that is so not true. Are you just not paying attention? The whole point of modern American activism is that there are no "leaders". The irony is that Pussy Riot are ideologically more "anarchist" than many American activists yet (actually, this is even addressed by the actual collective Pussy Riot) having personality cults of pretty girls is exactly not the point.

Charismatic personalities with identifiable faces is a great way to get a mass of people to mindlessly do some stupid stuff. It's the very definition of Fascism. We do not need more personalities to slavishly follow. We need to do some thinking instead.

Madonna was wearing what New York rapper and fashion plate A$AP Rocky wore two years ago; Masha was wearing the sort of outfit you might see him in tomorrow night.

Seriously? We're talking about what they're wearing? And then saying this is what's missing from American activism?

No.

Just no.