The second issue is just plain numeric. Yes, forty-something countries have people there. But that means counting Ukraine’s 10, Iceland’s 8, Luxemburg’s 8, Ireland’s 7, Jordan’s 7, Austria’s 4, Singapore’s 2, and last,and least, Georgia’s 1.

After the increase that Obama just announced, the US will have over 60,000 troops there. The UK will have 9,000, Germany will have 4,200 Canada 2,800, France around 3,000, and so on down the list. If you only count countries with 1,000 or more troops, there are less than 10 in Afghanistan. After the increase, we will have 62,000 of 100,000 and the vast majority of the combat responsibilities. The only real forces there are those sent by our NATO partners that felt that they had a moral obligation to provide some level of support, but they’re doing their best to keep it minimal.

The third issue is that these numbers break down into a war of Christians against Muslims, European tourists against the locals, light-skins against the dark-skins. Compare these numbers to those of the first Iraq war and there is a huge difference. Saudi Arabia, Egypt , Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Niger, Syria, Sierra Leone, and Singapore put troops and/or money in that war. Yes, we were still the largest force, but there was clearly much more diversity in continents, ethnicities, and religions. Perhaps, most importantly, there were countries FROM THAT REGION involved. There were troops that knew the local culture and customs. There were troops that looked like the locals and worshiped in similar ways. How exactly are a bunch of touristy, white-skinned Christians from Europe and North America supposed to convince the locals that they are more trustworthy that the local Taliban fighters that have lived there for their entire lives?

The bottom line is that this is a war of Christians against Muslims. It is also a war of hearts and minds. We have to look more trustworthy, more committed, more compassionate, more intelligent, and more resourceful than the locals. I’m sure we can look like the nice guys compared to the Taliban, but cultural barriers and distance are a real problem on the rest. It sure would help if we really did have a lot of multinational help from nations in the region. But all we got is Anglo-Europeans and not enough of that beyond ourselves.

No, what really, really bugs me about Palin is the complete lack of loyalty and respect to McCain and his staff. This woman was virtually unknown to most of the country when McCain picked her. Now, she’s famous, making money, and a national power in her party. She owes all of that to McCain taking a huge gamble on her. He could have played it safe, he could have picked someone more well known, but instead he picked her.

Even if she really does think his staff treated her badly and blew the election, the classy thing to do would still be to be publicly grateful for the incredible opportunity they gave her. I think that is one trait of Bush’s she would do well to emulate at least a little. He was loyal to a fault to those around him. In contrast, Palin seems ready to trashy anybody and everybody in order to make herself look good.

There are limits to how far anybody should go out of loyalty, but Palin’s disloyalty is really unbecoming. It is just tacky. Considering where she was two years ago and where she is today, just about every sentence out of her mouth should start with a thank you to Senator McCain. She’s just so negative about McCain, his staff, the media, Obama, and everyone around her. She’s now on top of the world. And she talks like she earned it in spite of all the people that helped her get there.

It has zero chance of getting the two-thirds vote needed for a constitutional amendment but it the single best idea for fixing the US political system. Their proposals calls for a limit of 3 congressional terms and 2 senatorial terms. It was proposed by Senators DeMint, Hutchinson, Coburn, and Brownback.

Career politicians are a horrible cancer on democracy. It is absolutely impossible for anyone to live at that intersection of special interests, money, and power without becoming biased and indebted to all kinds of groups. And once a politician has name recognition and milks his committee memberships for special interest money, he is almost invincible because of the money needed to overcome those advantages. Twelve years is plenty of time for a person to serve honorably and then get the hell out before they become slaves to the system. And from the special interest perspective, buying a politician might not be nearly so attractive if the investment would only have so many years worth of return on investment. People like Dodd who have been on the insurance and financial lobby payrolls for years might not be worth millions of dollars in campaign contributions any more. We don’t need limits on the money in campaigns, we need limits on the people in them.

The political argument for not having term limits is that the politicians supposedly become better informed on the issues and gain valuable experience performing the political work needed to pass legislation. That’s right. They say that what we’re seeing right now in the health care legislative process is a bright shining example of highly skilled and knowledgeable professional politicians doing their thing. Just think about how much worse it could be if they didn’t know what they are doing. HA! Amateur politicians might actually write some lines of legislation without angling for a special interest contribution, committee memberships, partisan advantages, or worrying about their next re-election. They might actually write some legislation because they think it would be good for the country. That would kind of make the US like, oh, what’s the word? Oh yes, a DEMOCRACY!

· http://www.slate.com/id/2234342/ - This article summarizes a lot of h1n1 information.

· http://www.slate.com/id/2228700/ -This article summarizes the US decision not to use adjuvants (boosters) to cut in half the amount of vaccine we would need.

· http://abcnews.go.com/Health/SwineFluNews/story?id=8296948&page=1&cid=yahoo_pitchlist – ABC News article about the US not using adjuvants because of fear of vaccines.

· http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2009/09/07/revere-swine-flu-adjuvant-essential-for-global-equity/ - Health blog that includes good adjuvant discussion and quotes from officials.

The way this plays out is more about World Health Organization decisions than by the US but the choices made by both fit together badly.

The World Health Organization recommended that production of season flu vaccines be completed in all major production facilities before shifting to H1N1 production, due to the set-up time that would be lost and have to be duplicated to switch back. That decision was made with awareness that H1N1 would peak sooner than seasonal flu, but they thought the timeline would still allow enough H1N1 vaccine to be in the world prior to peak. That decision is open to a lot of second guessing for several reasons.

The first reason was technological, in that it took longer to successfully implant and grow the virus in eggs than expected, eating into the available time window. It was a misjudgment to assume that the timeline of production of a brand new strain of flu vaccine would be exactly the same as previous strains. to The second reason was political. The WHO also recommended using booster agents, which would substantially reduce the amount of active ingredient needed for each dose. If the US had followed that piece of advice, there would now be more than double as many doses available right now. However, fear of vaccines in general and boosted flu vaccines in particular, led to the US choosing the path of least resistance and utilizing only unboosted vaccines. A third consideration is that most people have never been exposed to this H1N1 variant, meaning there is zero native resistance. However, many people have previously had the seasonal variant in circulation this year. Therefore, it would have been better to be late or have shortages on the seasonal flu vaccine, peaking probably in January, rather than the H1N1 flu, which is peaking now.

The anti-vaccine community thinks that any complications or deaths from vaccines are unacceptable. But they aren’t willing to accept the consequences of thousands, possibly millions of deaths from a planet that isn’t properly immunized. The Gates Foundation is one group has been very vocal in saying the US decision to not use boosted H1N1 flu vaccine will result in many people dying in the rest of the world that could have been saved with the use of boosted vaccines to reach a lot more people a lot faster. The other side effect is that because of delays in getting a substantial percentage of people immunized, the risk of the virus mutating into something worse will be increased.

Most likely, everyone will come out of the H1N1 scare thinking the response was good enough because H1N1 is not significantly more fatal than the regular seasonal flu. But if the disease had turned out to be as deadly as it first appeared in Mexico, this response would not have been good enough by a long shot. The next time a potentially deadly pandemic is discovered, the US (and the rest of the world) need to be able to move a lot faster and be willing to take more political risks or we could be looking at millions of fatalities.

In retrospect, it would have been better to shift some portion of the main five production facilities in the world immediately into H1N1 so that the obstacles to incubation could have been identified right away and some doses of both types would have been available to vulnerable populations and health care personnel before either peak hit. We also could have encouraged people to get H1N1 first, which makes much more sense. The US also needs to start some public awareness initiatives to explain that boosted vaccines are critical to being able to respond quickly to pandemics and start making boosted vaccines available at least as an option, possibly even a cheaper option to encourage it. If even just 10% of the population willingly chose boosted vaccines, it would still be a major benefit for everyone in the US and the rest of the world in stretching out limited supplies and reducing costs. Fear and ignorance are terrible reasons to condemn a lot of people in other countries to an avoidable death.

This is one of those public policy issues that won’t get much attention in this country and most people won’t ever really think about it. But it has major consequences on the rest of the world. In some ways, we are still the same country that handed Native Americans blankets infected with smallpox and thought we were doing them a favor. Part of what is frustrating is that this wasn’t even an intelligent public debate. The Health Department and CDC simply decided Americans are too ignorant, fearful, and uncaring about other people to even bother having a discussion. They may have been right, but that sure doesn’t sound like a policy decision based on hope, change, or better international relations, like those advocated by a certain candidate not so long ago.

Oddly enough, there is a scene in a movie that really captures this idea for me. The movie is a very mediocre B-move horror and most people haven’t seen it but it is about some shark researchers creating some smarter sharks and then, of course, everyone gets eaten. Samuel Jackson plays a strong leader who survived a major disaster in the past and everyone defers to his judgment because of his past experiences. In one scene, he is giving a moving speech about how he survived the that disaster and everyone is starting to feel good about their chances for survival because they have this great leader. Then a shark jumps out of the water and eats Samuel Jackson in the middle of his “if we stick together, we can survive this” speech.

Aside from being funny as hell, it’s a turning point in the movie because everyone shifts into thinking for themselves rather than following Jackson. Individuals are trying things that sometimes work and sometimes don’t, but they are not just blindly trusting and following the experiences of another.

The idea I am suggesting is that “past performance is no guarantee of future results” when it comes to leadership and disaster recovery, just like it is in financial affairs. An organization that doesn’t have a strong leader or prior disaster experience may actually have an advantage in terms of surviving and recovering from a disaster. I’m sure that’s not always true because some lessons learned from one disaster surely can be applied to another. But not all. And if organization’s don’t have enough critical thinking and learning skills, there may be deference that there shouldn’t be.

I’ve been thinking about this more lately because of an interesting little study by Christopher Kayes from 2004 in the Human Relations journal. He looked at climbing deaths on Mt. Everest and how they can be attributed to breakdowns in organizational learning. Among two commonly recurring themes, leadership is a problem and goal oriented management is a problem, because they both get in the way of organizational learning. Following the leader and focusing on a narrow goal negatively affects a team’s environmental awareness and its ability to adjust. It’s easy to see how a strong, “we can do this” type of leader or a “climb this mountain” type of mission statement can end in disaster in mountain climbing. But the exact same lessons apply to organizations of all types.

A mission that works in one environment may be a horrible disaster in another. That’s why organizations need to be able to learn and adjust quickly and it is silly to assume that success is either due to a good mission statement or the lack of the same. Long term success takes a strategic plan that fits with current environment and the ability to adjust that plan when it is necessary. Anybody can get lucky in the short-term. Any leader can look like a genius for a few years. But organizations that blindly follow such a leader are just like mountain climbing teams heading to the peak. Just because a leader has scaled it a dozen times doesn’t mean he won’t get you killed this time. The inexperienced, low-ranking guy who notices that it is a lot colder at base camp than everyone expected is the guy who might save your life. If the team is willing to listen to him and willing to adjust its mission.

Of course, I’m talking about Joe the “I like Republican wars and Democratic unions” Lieberman. The only things that schmuck can be trusted to do are find an angle to stay in office and milk his office. It now looks like he’s jumping into the opening vacated by Senator Dodd to be the insurance company’s lapdog. Dodd is such a huge corporate sellout to the financial industry (as his election opponent keeps pointing out) that he is now willing to take on the insurance companies that have given him millions over the years just to show he’s not on their payroll (Despite a well established reputation as the Senator from Aetna …) Of course, he might not vote for the bill either; he’s just willing to let it go to the floor.

But anyway, this gives Lieberman the perfect opening to milk a new corporate constituency. The insurance companies come out against the current bills under consideration and the next day, Lieberman comes out against them also. He claims it is for budget reasons but the CBO is still saying that the public option (any variant under discussion) will save money. Of course, he’s also in the perfect position to get Obama’s attention as the new Olympia Snowe to be bought. See articles here and here.

It is absolutely clear that congress is run by professional politicians that don’t give a damn about good policy. They care about sticking around long enough to get power and money, so they can get more power and money. There are two huge obstacles to democracy in this country right now. Gerrymandering in the house and a lack of term limits in both houses. Those two things create the Lieberman’s, Dodd’s, and Hatches’ of the world. Most of these guys aren’t even partisan because they believe the crap coming out of their mouths. They do it because the road to the sweet committee positions lies in being the majority party and being a good footsoldier in that party. So, if policy A is good for their party today, great. If the same policy is good for the other party, forget it. The entire health care debate comes down to individual politicians trying to get good deals for their own self-interests and trying to make the other party look bad. That’s it. Sure, there are a few actually trying to have constructive dialogue and enact sound policy. But they are so few, that they might as well not be there at all.

If the Tea Party movement ever actually decides to throw all the bums out and promote term limits, sign me up. I don’t care who is in congress as long as they are not allowed to stay more than 12 years. No more being bought and sold by special interests, no more years of wheeling and deeling for committee positions, no more congressional pensions. Our founding fathers would be confused by a lot of things in the modern world, but more than anything, they would probably be flabbergasted at professional politicians. Politics was supposed to be a low-paying, serve your country, miserable job, from which you would soon go home in a few years. You weren’t supposed to get rich doing it or spend years there. You weren’t supposed to want to be there. Now it is filled with power-mad egomaniancs who can’t imagine being anywhere else, just like Joe.

In general, I do support some regulatory changes. But there are some major questions that need to be answered first. Elliot Spitzer has pointed out a couple of times that there were plenty of regulations already on the books that could have been used prior to the financial crisis but they were not. The reason they were not used appears to be the conflicts of interests between our nation’s financial leadership (Federal Reserve Bankers, SECC senior officials, Secretary of the Treasurer, etc.) Tighter regulations may help, but there is a good chance they won’t unless the inherent conflicts of interest between high level financial minds chosen from Wall Street and their buddies still on Wall Street. Those guys are getting picked because they were really good at gaming the system while on Wall Street, which doesn’t necessarily mean they are committed to fixing the system.

There’s also the issue of whether it is wise to invest more power in the Federal Reserve, which has almost zero transparency to the public. Hardly anyone in the country knows what it does, how it does it, or how to measure its effectiveness. Most Americans that can articulate anything about the Federal Reserve generally think that their job is to reduce inflation and as a long as we don’t have inflation, they must be doing everything right. But the Reserve’s role and responsibilities in our monetary policies are much greater than just controlling inflation.

In 1983, a holy relic was stolen was stolen from a Roman Catholic church in Calcata, just north of Rome. The case was never solved and conspiracy theories about Vatican involvement remain to this day. (Doesn’t this scream Da Vinci Code?)

What was this holy relic? Why, it was Jesus’ foreskin, of course. Detailed story here.

This story also reminds me of hearing Will Ferrell’s declarations of “By Odin’s Beard!” in one of his movies. Can’t you just see him changing it up to “By Jesus’ Foreskin!”?

Summary finding: “Normally cycling participants earned about US$335 per 5-h shift during estrus, US$260 per shift during the luteal phase, and US$185 per shift during menstruation. By contrast, participants using contraceptive pills showed no estrous earnings peak.” That’s crazy. That comes out to a low of $17 per hour and a high of $67 per hour. We’re talking about an increase of $50 per hour!

The actually cool research piece of this study is that it is the first time that this solid of a link between women’s cycles and men’s behavior. It could be pheromones, it could be the women actually feeling and behaving differently, it could be from a lot of possible causes. But something actually makes men give bigger tips. The theoretical possibilities and implications for more research are big. Are women more likely to get raises from male bosses if they ask while ovulating? Or get hired at all? Win a big sales account? Should women actually schedule most of their important events accordingly? How do women respond to the cycles of other women? And on the male side, is higher tipping an easy thing to trigger or is it actually indicative of a major psychological reaction by the man. And where is the closest conference that has doctors Miller, Tybur and Jordan presenting, because that conference is probably awesome!

It also goes to show that for all the civilized veneer, we’re probably still a lot closer to instinctive animals that we like to believe.