Author: Jim

war

Bring back the Northern Alliance

The US is winning in Iraq, in large part by abandoning or indefinitely postponing the goal of a unitary state, and cultivating the militias, such as “the Sons of Iraq” (who are more like the sons of Arab Shia Iraq) Afghanistan, however, is going down the tubes. According to Gideon Rachman Our current strategy isn’t working There are no real alternative strategies We cannot afford to lose. There is of course an obvious alternative strategy: The Northern Alliance took care …

liberty

A better ID card

Digital Identity Forum has a better solution for ID. Instead of an ID card that tells any purported authority everything about you, an ID smart card that verifies what authority the authority actually possesses, and reveals the minimum information that that authority is authorized to know, for example that you are over 18, to be read by cell phone with nfc cardreader.

economics

Roots of the energy crisis

The energy crisis happened because of optimistic projections – that gas to liquid and coal to liquid would not be needed until the technology had been improved and the cost brought down, that the dramatic growth in China and India could be accommodated by rapidly expanding conventional oil production. The political elite, unable to introduce a carbon tax because it would directly and visibly hurt people, proceeded to block coal and oil developments, thus invisibly and directly hurting people. The …

economics

Rational Oil Prices

It seems that Arnold Kling has been in Afghan cave during the past six months. He does not seem to think that there has been any bad news on oil supply over the last six months. The recent run-up in oil prices represents a similar puzzle. I think that it’s difficult to tell a story for the rise in crude prices for the last six months that is based on the rational digestion of news. Either six months ago folks …

war

Winning in Iraq

It is now apparent that the US is winning in Iraq. It is so apparent that even the Washington Post reports it – to the considerable surprise of both myself and others What then is winning? What does victory mean?