Striking the Match

I know I’m overanalyzing with my interpretation of this because I come into the story with a (not really) unrelated bias. I also know that the author’s point is worth considering, that the foundation is a device to discuss a separate issue. But I can’t get past the obvious flawed assumption in promoting the photojournalist’s use of that device.

A photo of a young boy lying expressionless in a hospital bed hung behind Thorne Anderson.

“This is a boy who had a circumcision,” Anderson said. “It was discovered in that circumcision that he had a condition that would not allow his blood to clot.”

“Now, ordinarily this is very easy to treat. You can take regular dosages of a simple blood coagulant and then he can lead a relatively normal life. However, in Iraq, these blood coagulants, which are available everywhere in the third world, all over the planet, were banned from import under (the United Nation’s economic sanctions on Iraq). Because it was conceivably possible that they might be used as a precursor to a chemical weapon.” Anderson said.

“As a result, this 5-year-old kid died right in front me while I was making these photographs,” he said. “It was at that moment that I really became committed to covering the story in Iraq. Seeing this fraud, political conflict reduced to a human level created a frustration that made me want to tell this story.”

Before I step into any additional assumptions, I’m assuming the boy’s circumcision was not medically necessary. The article does not say, so I should not discount the possibility that it was medically necessary. But I will assume it was not; I’m probably correct. And it makes a useful device. (I’ve already addressed the more foundational assumption of ritual circumcision, which is glossed over to the point that it’s accepted by most as required by faith.)

The boy died because of circumcision, not because of economic sanctions that blocked the importation of blood coagulants. I don’t mean to sound cold, but if no one had cut him, the boy would not have bled. If he hadn’t bled that day, he wouldn’t have died that day. Bleeding and economic sanctions were the manner and the catalyst, respectively, of death, but they were not the cause. Circumcision killed that boy. Ignoring this is how statistics misrepresent the true complication rate of circumcision.

Dude, Where’s My Gas Tax?

Charles Krauthammer starts off with a great premise from his Friday column:

Is there anything more depressing than yet another promise of energy independence in yet another State of the Union address? By my count, 24 of the 34 State of the Union addresses since the oil embargo of 1973 have proposed solutions to our energy problem.

The result? In 1973 we imported 34.8 percent of our oil. Today we import 60.3 percent.

Most everything else in his essay is worth reading. The bit about ethanol, in particular, is useful because we’re not getting the full picture. There are unintended consequences, as the cost to feed livestock increases (not necessarily a bad unintended consequence for vegans). More farmland must go to grow corn. And few in power will acknowledge how government protections irrationally impact decisions regarding ethanol since sugarcane can be used to make ethanol at a significantly more efficient, effective cost in dollars and energy expended. But we must prop up our sugar industry from foreign trade. As Mr. Krauthammer says, we’re not really serious about tackling the issue of oil dependence as much as we’re interested in making the politically correct choices that appear responsible.

As good as it is, I’m still left with questions from Mr. Krauthammer’s essay. Particularly, from this:

First, tax gas. The president ostentatiously rolled out his 20-in-10 plan: reducing gasoline consumption by 20 percent in 10 years. This with Rube Goldberg regulation — fuel-efficiency standards, artificially mandated levels of “renewable and alternative fuels in 2017” and various bribes (er, incentives) for government-favored technologies — of the kind we have been trying for three decades.

Good grief. I can give you 20-in-2: Tax gas to $4 a gallon. With oil prices having fallen to $55 a barrel, now is the time. The effect of a gas-tax hike will be seen in less than two years, and you don’t even have to go back to the 1970s and the subsequent radical reduction in consumption to see how. Just look at last summer. Gas prices spike to $3 — with the premium going to Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chávez and assorted sheiks rather than the U.S. Treasury — and, presto, SUV sales plunge, the Prius is cool and car ads once again begin featuring miles-per-gallon ratings.

No regulator, no fuel-efficiency standards, no presidential exhortations, no grand experiments with switch grass. Raise the price, and people change their habits. It’s the essence of capitalism.

I’d quibble that the essence of price increases mandated by the government is not capitalism, but that’s not really my point. I haven’t refueled my car in several weeks¹, so I can’t really say what the current average is. Also, I’m too lazy to look it up on The Internets. I’m just going to assume $2.50, since it’s an easy number to work with. My assumption means that, to reach Mr. Krauthammer’s suggestion, the government must increase the current gas tax by $1.50 per gallon. Done. And then?

Where does the money go? When the actual, untaxed price of oil fluctuates higher the next time some crisis arises, will the government adjust the extra tax down to keep the price stable at $4? The goal is to reduce consumption, not bankrupt the economy, I assume. So what do we do when capitalism interferes with the essence of capitalism? I don’t trust politicians to be noble with that extra $1.50 per gallon, if nothing else. (Don’t tell me that $1.50 per gallon would go to “energy independence” programs or whatever. Two words: Social Security.)

I agree that this would have at least the effect that Mr. Krauthammer and other supporters suggest. But I’m skeptical. There will be unintended economic consequences, as well as waste by politicians. I don’t like artificially unleashing these demons to make us do what we “should” do.

¹ Public transit is great, except when it leaves me stranded in the cold for an hour, as it did Friday morning.

Forgive me if I can’t find my outrage.

I will not be upset by this story:

Citing the controversy surrounding the Dakota Fanning film Hounddog, the leader of the state Senate Republicans says he wants the government to review scripts before cameras start rolling in North Carolina.

I’m serious when I say I will not be upset. The headline – “Republican Scripts need reviewing” – is designed to outrage. Look at the First Amendment violation! I can buy into that. Except, I can’t.

That system, said state Sen. Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, would apply only to films seeking the state’s lucrative filmmaker incentive, which refunds as much as 15 percent of what productions spend in North Carolina from the state treasury.

“Why should North Carolina taxpayers pay for something they find objectionable?” said Berger, who is having proposed legislation drafted.

State Sen. Berger is correct. Why should North Carolina taxpayers pay for something they (might) find objectionable? I’d take him a step further, though, and ask why should North Carolina, or any taxpayer, pay for film production?

Berger pointed to South Carolina, which requires up-front applications from producers, who must attach a copy of their script.

Even so, said Jeff Monks, South Carolina’s film commissioner, the state does not assess the content of a proposed movie.

“Censorship is not part of our activity,” he said. The purpose of asking for the script is to see whether it conforms to the budget and schedule information producers are required to provide.

“We want to see if this film is doable and a good investment for the people of the state,” he said.

It’s not a legitimate government expense. Film producers will find cheap, quality locations without government help through competition. Movies are their investment. Taxpayer money spent to benefit producers is not an investment to the taxpayers. I’m sure North Carolina residents will not be sharing in the profits of Hounddog. This should be obvious.

With this story, the familiar refrain is always that he who pays gets to decide. This is true whether it’s customers buying vegan cookies instead of non-vegan cookies or a government buying film production instead of commissioning paintings. If you don’t want censorship, don’t take someone else’s money. The First Amendment protection against censorship only applies to your own dime.

(Source: Fark)

The rare positive bears the stain of the negative.

More on Major League Baseball’s decision to give its most faithful fans the shaft sell exclusive rights to the Extra Innings package to DirecTV, this time courtesy of Buster Olney’s Insider blog at ESPN (subscription required). Olney has received a multitude of e-mails since writing about this deal several days ago, most of them negative. He has seen the occasional positive spin, even if it’s flawed:

Count me among the minority of baseball fans that’s actually in favor of the DirecTV deal. No one talks about the monopolistic control Comcast has in the cable industry and, as anyone with even a passing familiarity with economics can tell you, the winner goes to the highest bid. Comcast likely gambled on the fact that MLB wouldn’t want to deprive some subset of its fans, but MLB never blinked. Now, I not only finally get the Comcast monkey off my back, but I’m also saving a lot of money every month with the same access to more channels and premium content. What’s not to like?

— Jon Phillips, Seattle, Wash.

I don’t care if some people like the deal, but at least like it for the correct reasons. From Mr. Phillips’ e-mail, every benefit he projects onto this deal is a benefit he could’ve gotten before the deal, while still enjoying Extra Innings. I contend that getting “the Comcast monkey” off his back wasn’t that important to him. The savings from DirecTV didn’t suddenly improve with this deal. I suspect they’ll dissipate, since DirecTV will now have monopoly power over Extra Innings. The access to channels with DirecTV didn’t change. DirecTV had the package every year leading up to this deal. Yet, Mr. Phillips never switched. His hatred of Comcast, however justified, is clearly irrelevant based on his own behavior. The only thing that changed is cable lost the last content it had that Mr. Phillips valued. That is what will send Mr. Phillips to DirecTV. The rest is just feel-good beliefs.

But is that enough to make this a good deal for Major League Baseball? After doing some research into adding DirecTV – I can be outraged and still cave to my addiction – to my house, there are very real costs involved to me. Also, the goodwill that baseball possesses as our national pastime and that it rebuilt after the labor shenanigans in ’94 can’t have a definitive dollar value, but it exists. That extra $30 million DirecTV reportedly offered is not “found money”. Major League Baseball may value it more, but it has a price.

While important, this is where you start?

This article is incoherent for the last two-thirds, but it raises a wonderful opportunity to restore Constitutional principles. I’m sure Democrats will screw it up based on the provided quote, but I can dream for a moment about America:

The Republican-controlled FCC — which makes far-reaching decisions on telephone, television, radio, Internet and other services that people use daily — has sparred infrequently with Republican-controlled congresses. But the Democratic-run 110th Congress is about to heat up the grill, starting with a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing on Thursday.

Senators vow to press the chairman and four commissioners on matters such as media-ownership diversity, Internet access, broadcast decency standards and delays in resolving various issues. The hearing may cover the waterfront, Democratic staff members say, but there’s little doubt that the agency will face a tone of questioning unseen in recent years.

“They’ve effectively emasculated any public-interest standards that existed” for radio and TV stations, said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), a committee member who plans sharp questions on decency, media consolidation and other topics. “The entire Congress for years now has been devoid of any kind of oversight,” he said, and the new Democratic majority is launching a process that will force the FCC to “beat a path to Capitol Hill to respond.”

If Sen. Dorgan intends his sharp questions on broadcast decency to imply that the FCC isn’t doing enough to protect the public (the children!), we might as well repeal the First Amendment because the politics of family values has clearly kicked the principles of liberty in the nuts male anatomical part and declared victory. The “public-interest standards” isn’t promising, either.

I don’t see any servants for the public.

I’ve been slammed at work this week with preparing for a software demo next week, so my ability to gather news worth discussing has been limited. That makes today as good a day as any to discuss something that I’ve thought about occasionally: term limits for Congress. I’ve always been against them because a method of term limits (regular elections) already exists. If you don’t like your elected representatives, vote against them. If your opinion is the minority, work to convince others. Term limits seems like the lazy way out.

I’m not immune to reconsidering my position, though. Career politicians are not generally helpful to the nation. That’s an imperfect generalization, but one that suffices close enough to accuracy most of the time. There should be relatively regular turnover. Since it’s not happening through the established, more effective method, perhaps I should reconsider.

The most common theme I’ve heard suggesting that we revisit term limits revolves around some variation of “it’ll limit the damage they can do.” This is flawed for two reasons, I believe. First, and most obvious, if we’re trying to limit the damage, the system is flawed, not the lack of term limits. Whatever it is that lets Congress flout the rules and reward itself at the public’s expense should be remedied. This is where elections should come in, but voters show a great propensity to believe that their representative is the good one. (To be fair, there are other, incumbent favoring factors.) Let Congress know that it can’t spend with abandon. Let it know that violating the Constitution will not be tolerated. These are the heart of the real issue.

Second, and more important, if we’re trying to limit corruption and influence-peddling, we must remember that unintended consequences can and will occur. Some of these might be positives, but if politicians are moral defectives, as Kip states, is it unreasonable to believe that term limits will only serve to condense their negative behavior into a shorter period of time?

I’ve seen nothing from most politicians to believe that they won’t sell out America to the highest bidder when they want to get re-elected. When they can’t get re-elected because of term limits, I suspect they’ll properly plan ahead to make sure they set themselves individually by rewarding whoever can most help them when they return to the private sector. We could debate whether or not this shift in behavioral time frame would cause more or less harm, and that would be interesting. I tend to accept Kip’s thesis, so I don’t think it’s debatable that a shift would occur.

Self-interest will still drive too many politicians if we implement term limits. Politicians won’t be better at dark art, just quicker. I remain unconvinced that term limits will solve the real problem. We’d be better suited going after the root than the symptom.

Study the behavioral disinhibition of parents.

One thing is not like the others:

Concurrent multiple sexual partners, low condom use, and low circumcision have fuelled HIV/AIDS transmission, a University of Zambia (UNZA) senior lecturer has said.
…

Giving Botswana, which reportedly has a high condom use and a high prevalence rate as an example, Dr Bowa explained that the problem was due to inconsistent condom use.

An individual’s irresponsible behavior will catch up with him, circumcised or intact, which is a nice way of introducing this study:

Background: Evidence for efficacy of male circumcision as an HIV prevention measure is increasing, but there is serious concern that men who are circumcised may subsequently adopt more risky sexual behaviors.

Before continuing, remember that the most recent trials investigating whether or not circumcision reduces HIV transmission ended prematurely because, having analyzed the initial results, the researchers deemed it unethical to continue the study without offering¹ circumcision to the intact participants. Okay, then. With that out of the way, the question is worthy. Will men engage in more risky sexual behaviors after circumcision?

Methods: Using a prospective cohort study, we compared sexual behaviors of 324 recently circumcised and 324 uncircumcised men at 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months after circumcision/study enrollment. The main outcome indicators were incidence of sexual behaviors known to place men at increased risk of acquiring HIV, namely, having sex with partners other than their wife/wives for married men or other than “regular” girlfriends for unmarried men.

And the glowing conclusion?

Results: During the first month following circumcision, men were 63% and 61% less likely to report having 0 to 0.5 and >0.5 risky sex acts/week, respectively, than men who remained uncircumcised. This difference disappeared during the remainder of follow-up, with no excess of reported risky sex acts among circumcised men. Similar results were observed for risky unprotected sex acts, number of risky sex partners, and condom use.

Supporters of circumcision – I’m only concerned about those who would force circumcision on infants – as an HIV prevention technique may draw the conclusion that circumcision does not encourage men to engage in riskier behavior. That conclusion is fine, and it gives a positive spin to this study, but it misses the point. The issue is not whether or not men refrain from risky behavior shortly after the procedure. Of course they’ll engage in less risky sex. The nature of an open, healing surgical wound immediately following circumcision almost guarantees that. I don’t need data to know that.

The issue is the long-term effect, especially considering how many now tout HIV prevention as an excuse to circumcise infants. Infants will not engage in sex for years, so the convergence of long-term behavior matters exclusively. If men continue to engage in unprotected sex with HIV-positive women after circumcision, those men will become infected. Regardless of the 50% reduction, the question becomes when, not if.

In our society, in the context of infants, circumcision alters nothing. It offers no change in the need for intelligent sex education. Personal responsibility and behavior will still matter most. However legitimate the protection is, and I have no reason to doubt it, the impact of circumcision on HIV prevention is miniscule, at least in the United States. We must require more than miniscule benefits to justify the risks and rights violation involved in infant circumcision. Every justification short of immediate medical necessity with no less invasive alternatives fails reason and should be discarded.

¹ Not offering the choice to adults is unethical, but taking the liberty to recommend forced circumcision for infants is not. Interesting lack of logic.

Fix it where it’s broken.

I doubt I’ll watch tonight’s State of the Union speech. The posturing and applause and general pomp is unappealing. I’m content to read the speech and grab the important bits out of it. I can add some Xbox 360 into the time I’d spend watching nothing happening. That’s always a winner.

One important indication in the pre-speech buildup is this story about President Bush’s proposed approach to the alleged health care insurance crisis in America. He’s correct to address this situation because there is a flaw. And although he’s not proposing the optimal solution, what he’s suggesting beats any other idea going. (Massachusetts and California) Consider:

President Bush will propose a deep tax break for Americans who purchase their own medical insurance and would finance it with an unprecedented tax on a portion of high-priced health-care plans that workers receive from their employers, according to the White House.

The initiative, which the president briefly previewed in his radio address yesterday [Saturday], has a dual purpose: It would create a financial incentive for the estimated 46 million to 48 million Americans who lack health insurance to buy it. And it would rein in the soaring cost of health insurance by encouraging workers in high-priced plans to seek more modest coverage.

“Today, the tax code unfairly penalizes people who do not get health insurance through their job,” Bush said. “It unwisely encourages workers to choose overly expensive, gold-plated plans. The result is that insurance premiums rise and many Americans cannot afford the coverage they need.”

That grasps the true problem. People want “everything under the sun” coverage, which is not surprising because perverse tax incentives have taught Americans to expect that. Like much in our society, we’ve hidden the costs and focused solely on the benefits. This should go away. We must understand that there are consequences to our choices that can’t be wished away through government involvement or incentive.

There are details to be worked out if Congress (Democrats) agree, but I don’t know that we’ll have quick agreement since the president’s plan isn’t socialistic enough. As such, I won’t comment until there are firmer reactions. But it might be useful to look at an editorial in today’s Washington Post about President Bush’s plan.

There are weaknesses in the president’s proposal. Rather than embracing tax deductions, which are most valuable to people in high tax brackets, Mr. Bush could have made his proposal even more progressive by recommending a refundable tax credit that would be worth the same to everyone. Moreover, there’s a danger that ending the tax privilege for employer-provided insurance will cause companies to discontinue coverage, driving more buyers into the individual market, where it’s hard to buy insurance at a reasonable price, especially if you already have a medical problem. The administration promises to support state efforts to redeploy federal Medicaid dollars in ways that would make the individual insurance market work better. But success here will depend on the states, and the details are sketchy.

The problem with the current system is not that it’s regressive, although it is. The problem is that our current system of tax incentives disrupts the normal private market that individuals could participate in by pushing efforts to group plans. Groups require many different things, and most corporations offering group plans are not in the health insurance administration business, so we ended up with a few plans offering everything. This is ineffective and expensive. (I don’t need pregnancy coverage or mammograms, for example, yet I had it in my corporate-sponsored plan before I went independent.)

The solution, though, is not to make the tax incentives progressive. Punishing a new group instead of the old group is still punishment. That is not the government’s job. The market will do that reasonably well. If “the rich” want super-extra coverage, they’ll pay for it. Most people, when seeing the cost in the individual market, will demand more specific coverage. In this regard, driving more buyers into the individual market is exactly what we want. We’ll get better, cheaper solutions that way because needs and cost will remain in view. They’ll tend to balance to meet customer demands, rather than the current system of hiding everything but the coverage.

The answer is to get government out of the insurance/health business altogether, not to encourage government to create the “correct” incentives. It can’t know the perfect mix, so it will screw it up. President Bush is not there, but he’s found the map.

MLB to fans: Go Eff Yourselves!

I could write a profanity-laden entry about this story, which is what I want to do. Even that wouldn’t begin to convey how angry I am at this move.

Major League Baseball is close to announcing a deal that will place its Extra Innings package of out-of-market games exclusively on DirecTV, which will also become the only carrier of a long-planned 24-hour baseball channel.

Extra Innings has been available to 75 million cable households and the two satellite services, DirecTV and the Dish Network. But the new agreement will take it off cable and Dish because DirecTV has agreed to pay $700 million over seven years, according to three executives briefed on the details of the contract but not authorized to speak about them publicly.

Where do I begin? I’ve been a baseball fan since I first started little league in the late 1970s. Through nearly three decades, I’ve followed the sport with a passion reserved exclusively to this one game. I ‘ve watched games when my choice was the Game of the Week on Saturday. Then we got TBS and the Braves. Then we got the Orioles. Then the Cubs and White Sox. With ESPN, we got a few games a week. Then Extra Innings came along, and instead of the Braves, Orioles, Cubs, and whatever random game involving the Yankees ESPN showed, we got the Braves, Orioles, Cubs, White Sox, Yankees, Phillies, Cardinals, Pirates, Giants, Mets, Angels, Tigers, and so on. I could watch (almost) any game every night of the week for six glorious months of the year.

And now Bud Selig and the Major League Baseball owners decided that a few million dollars for each team were worth selling out those of us who don’t subscribe to DirecTV.

I subscribe to cable because it suits suited my needs. I dutifully subscribe to the Extra Innings package every spring so that I can watch the Phillies throughout the summer. Living in the D.C. area, this is the only chance I get to see my team on a regular basis. Now, under this greedy, anti-fan move, I can choose between the Nationals, Orioles, Braves, Cubs, and White Sox. Notice that my Phillies are nowhere in that list. I assume Major League Baseball is indifferent.

I have little doubt that Major League Baseball will compare its decision to the NFL’s exclusive deal with DirecTV. The obvious difference was that the NFL was never on another service. Every time I moved, I knew that if I wanted the NFL package, I had to subscribe to DirecTV. Major League Baseball, on the other hand, is yanking a service it offered for years. Making me change technology hardware would be rude. Making me change the services I subscribe to is hostile. This is not progress, no matter how many extra pennies it might put into owner pockets. (Also, the NFL is appointment television because there are only 16 regular season games. Major League Baseball is every night of the summer.)

I’m not sure it will make money for DirecTV. The Extra Innings package had approximately 750,000 subscribers last year. Many of those undoubtedly subscribe via cable. Not all of them are going to switch. The price of the package last year on cable was $169, if I remember correctly. To recover $100 million per year, as well as whatever extra costs it will incur to carry high-def games, DirecTV will likely raise the price. How many of that now reduced subscriber base are so die-hard that they’re indifferent to price?

Looking beyond the basic economics, the nature of satellite versus cable is a bad harbinger for the deal. What if a customer doesn’t subscribe to DirecTV and doesn’t want to switch? Too bad. What if that customer lives in an apartment or a house with an obstructed southern view? Again, too bad. But all is not lost, Major League Baseball will say. That customer can still watch the same games on The Internets, in a small pop-up window on a computer. Watching a clip on YouTube is significantly different than watching a 3-hour game in a window the same size. This will not end well.

Major League Baseball is free to make whatever decisions it wants. I don’t have to like it, and I can certainly call bullshit on its stupidity. In the same way I don’t receive baseball radio broadcasts because I prefer Sirius over XM, I’m now screwed because I prefer cable over DirecTV. Making 162 games a premium purchase is an obscene abuse of common sense. But that’s what we’ve come to expect of Bud Selig, isn’t it? He failed to kill the sport in the ’90s, but he’s finally on the right path.

(Source: Baseball Musings)

Fine-tuning Perspective

In some ways, it’s easy to point at other countries and find proof of how to do things correctly. We’re not perfect, so such analysis can be beneficial. It can also be used as a blunt weapon against the United States. “Anything American is bad”, which could just as easily come from an American as another country’s citizens. Then something comes along to show that, just like brilliance, stupidity knows no bounds. We’re not perfect, but no one is.

Consider:

About one in three healthy baby boys is circumcised on Prince Edward Island, about double the national rate, despite the advice of experts who describe it as unnecessary and potentially risky.

The story offers a little analysis, which is useful (and obvious). That’s not the heart of the story, though. This is:

Dr. Doug Tweel is one of the few Island doctors who perform circumcisions.

“There are many procedures done in the hospital setting that are elective procedures,” said Tweel.

“If you’re coming at it from that perspective, I can give you a lot of procedures that are not medically necessary.”

By virtue of the “Dr.” before his name, I assume Dr. Tweel is an intelligent individual. But, really, can anyone be so mind-numbingly simple? No kidding he can name a lot of procedures that are not medically necessary. Any idiot could do the same. Examples abound all over society in the United States, so I assume the situation is the same in Canada. But how many of these elective, medically unnecessary surgeries do we allow to be performed on infants, at parental request? One, which Dr. Tweel knows. Unless the reporter omitted further comments to the contrary, he seems uninterested in that perspective. As long as we perform it on someone, everyone should be eligible to have it done. Even when it’s forced on them for someone else’s reason.