Why don't they just let the government pay for it?

One of the more amusing aspects of ObamaCare has always been the pretense that somehow government intervention could increase coverage at no cost, meanwhile lowering the deficit. Yesterday the NYT dropped the first shoe:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Letting young adults stay on their parents' health insurance until they turn 26 will nudge premiums nearly 1 percent higher for employer plans, the government said in an estimate released Monday.

Well, do’h, as the children say. Of course mandating that 25-year-old “children” can remain on their parents’ policies was always going to raise the cost of those policies. So will extending insurance to 32 million more people. So will mandating coverage for pre-existing conditions. So will. . . . As for the 1 percent increase, that’s for people who get their insurance from, say, the New York Times. “The new benefit,” notes the Gray Lady blithely, “will cost $3,380 for each dependent.... Parents [who pay for their own insurance] would face an estimated additional premium of $2,360.” Blue skies! – Dan Ford

Not war in the modern world

Oh wow, this is really a great book: The Trojan War: A New History. I gave it to Sally Wife for her birthday, but after presenting it happened to read a few lines. I was hooked. I finished it in three days--well, maybe four. I was so fascinated that I forgot to affix the usual Post-It notes on the places that particularly fascinated me, so I have no quotes to show how well Mr. Strauss relives the days when the Greeks "burnt the topless towers of Ilium." A lot of it is speculation, of course, but it is convincing speculation, based on forensic and even anecdotal evidence. (Though the Greeks hadn't yet hit upon their rather odd alphabet, their enemies to the southeast were literate, so there actually are some records--if indirect--about events on the Dardanelles 3200 years ago.)

It helps of course if you have read Robert Fagles's great translation of The Iliad, or anyhow George Guidall's recording of it.

On stifling innovation

David Brooks, a comparatively sensible opinionator for the New York Times, wrote a rather good column the other day about the U.S. Army’s evolution from smash-and-enter to “Good morning, ma’m, may I help you milk that goat?” Since he works for the Gray Lady, Mr. Brooks of course thinks this is a splendid thing. An Army made up of Good Guys (and Good Girls—I mustn't forget the girls!). Who could be against that?

The catch, though Mr. Brooks doesn’t seems to notice that it’s a catch, comes in the second-last paragraph: “Now some say that the approach codified at Fort Leavenworth has become so dominant that it is actually stifling innovation. This is a complete intellectual sea change.” Actually, it’s not. Stifling innovation is what the U.S. Army does best, and what it has always done. It wouldn’t be so bad if the new dogma were working in Afghanistan, but it doesn’t seem to be. It’s as John Boyd liked to say: “It’s doctrine on day one, and it’s dogma the day after that.” Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

This is how the demos ends ...

Democracy began in Greece, and may well end there. This rather good video comes from AlJazeera, of all places in the world. It shows what happens when politicians buy votes by promising more than they can deliver: the voters burn the ... banks? (To be fair, they probably would have burned parliament if it had been easier to reach.)

Easy to feel superior to the Greeks, but aren't we doing the very same? Where Athens stands today, Sacramento could stand tomorrow, Albany the day after, and the District of Columbia the day after that. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

A Vision So Noble

This small book is the result of three years' work at King's College London (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say Kings' College Online, since I never actually went to London). It combines my MA thesis with two earlier papers that I wrote for the program, and it went on sale on Amazon.com this morning: A Vision So Noble: John Boyd, the OODA Loop, and America's War on Terror.

I've blogged from time to time about John Boyd, but the short version is that he was a colonel who maddened the Air Force and attracted acolytes among its civilian employees for his outside-the-box thinking about aerial combat, maneuver warfare, and the ways in which wars, basketball games, and chess tournaments are won. Arguably he was the greatest American military thinker since Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan. My task was to see how Boyd would have approached the War on Terror. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Lapses? Oh, say it ain't so!

The Gray Lady has a rather ungracious headline this morning: Lapses Allowed Suspect to Board Plane. Good grief. My own reaction was: For once, the U.S. government has done something right! The folks at the New York Times must really live in a world of privilege and ease, if they think that catching a would-be mass murderer in two days is anything less than a splendid bit of copperdom. Good on the New York police, good on the FBI, good on the computer system that allowed the Feds to see that their man was sitting (in coach, I hope) on an airplane still at the gate.

Personally, I would feel somewhat reassured if the Congress took up legislation requiring individuals paying cash for their seats to wait seven days before flying. Heck, I don't even pay cash at McDonald's! Anyone peeling off hundred-dollar bills for an airplane ticket is surely worth a second glance. But I doubt it will happen. More likely, the Congressional reaction will be to hale some hapless cops and airline officials before a public hearing and berate them for their lapses. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Master Sun on long wars

Patrick Moran has published a new translation of one of strategy's great books, which he titles Master Sun's Art of War. It's available as a ten-dollar paperback or a three-dollar PDF download at Lulu.com. I particularly liked this little riff:

When engaging in warfare, make victory the highest priority. If warfare goes on for a long time the troops will lose their edge.

If city walls are besieged, then one's energies will be entangled.

If one exposes one's army to danger for a long period of time, then the resources of the nation will eventually fall short....

Truly, I have heard of cases when armies suffered due to their inelegant haste,but not of armies long enduring through serendipity.

To which Mr. Moran adds a pungent note: "Things eventually go wrong." Blue skies! -- Dan Ford