Monthly Archive for December, 2006

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Iraq Study Group: imagining a Middle East that doesn’t exist

Published on 12/10/2006 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: .

…to embrace the group’s proposed “New Diplomatic Offensive” would be to suppose a Middle East very different from what’s on the ground.

I’ve been traveling — more to come on the ISG report. Certainly not the best analysis I’ve read, but surprising to me is the Washington Post editorial that goes against the MSM tidal wave of “Will Bush finally listen???” headlines:

…By contrast, the group’s diplomatic strategy is sweeping — and untethered to reality. The Bush administration could and should adopt some version of the military plan, though it would be right to ignore the unrealistic timetable attached to it. But to embrace the group’s proposed “New Diplomatic Offensive” would be to suppose a Middle East very different from what’s on the ground.

Will Syrian assassinations stop the Hariri tribunal?

Published on 12/10/2006 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: .

Michael Totten has an update — the Syrian/Hezbollah axis is running out of time…

The Assad regime is in a hurry. Nasrallah hasn’t been able to deliver quickly enough. The Grand Serail is a fortress, and the Lebanese street is slowly turning against the protestors, who don’t even have safe passage back to their homes now. The orders from the Dark Lord’s council are to pack more people in downtown Beirut, and as soon as possible. The plan to occupy or lay siege to the Rafik Hariri International airport seems to be in full swing, although the Lebanese army will reportedly not allow it.

What’s the hurry for?

This sunday, the 15-day time limit for Lahoud to sign the Hariri tribunal plan expires. As of Monday, the cabinet can constitutionally send it to parliament for endorsement…

Pretty soon, there will be no one left to remind Nasrallah’s worshippers of all these crimes. Not when Assad is allowed to complete the plan to assassinate anyone who speaks, let alone protests, against Hizbullah’s second favorite regime.

Google & health care information

Published on 12/6/2006 in Healthcare and Technology . 1 Comment

A very interesting Google Blog post by VP Adam Bosworth, who learned how difficult it is to quickly access health care information when his mother was stricken with cancer. For quick access, here is the Health topic page for Google Co-op.

If you are a health-care professional you may wish to become a contributor [it is very easy to sign up].

At Google, we often get questions about what we’re doing in the area of health. I have been interested in the issues of health care and health information for a while. It is now one of my main focuses here, and I’ve decided to start posting about it. I’ve been motivated in this field in part by my personal experiences helping to care for my mother, who recently died from cancer after a four-year battle. While the quality of the medical care my mother received was extraordinary, I saw firsthand how challenged the health care system was in supporting caregivers and communicating between different medical organizations. The system didn’t fail completely, but struggled with these phases:

• What was wrong — it took her doctors nine months to correctly identify an illness which had classic symptoms

• Who should treat her — there was no easy way to figure out who were the best local physicians and caregivers, which ones were covered by her insurance, and how we could get them to agree to treat her

• Once she was treated, she had a chronic illness, and needed ongoing care and coordinated nursing and monitoring, particularly once her illness recurred.

Once she had a correct diagnosis and we’d found the right doctor, her treatment was excellent. But before and after treatment, most people with serious illnesses have to live through these other phases and suffer similar problems. She was trying to get help from her caregivers in the family and it was incredibly challenging to get the right information and help her make the right decisions. Often the health care system isn’t well set up to address these issues. I believe our industry can help resolve some of these problems and ameliorate others.

In the end, one key part of the solution to these problems is a better educated patient. If patients understand their diseases better — the symptoms, the treatments, the drugs, and the side effects, they are likely to get better and quicker care — before, during, and after treatment. We have already launched some improvements to web search that help patients more easily find the health information they are looking for. Using the Google Co-op platform, Google and the health community have labeled sites and pages across the web making it easier for users to refine their health queries and locate the medical information they need. Do a search on Google about a medical issue or treatment like diabetes or Lipitor and you’ll see some choices for refining your query, such as “symptoms,” “treatments,” and so on. If you click on “treatment,” your search results are refined and reordered so that sites that have been labeled as being about treatment by trusted health community contributors are boosted in the rankings. Note that how trusted a contributor is -– and thus how much they affect your search results -– is dependent both on Google’s algorithms and on who the user decides they trust. For example, if my doctor is a Google Co-op contributor and I indicate to Google that I trust her, then when I search, the sites she has labeled as relevant will show up higher in my search results.

This is just the beginning of what our industry can do. People need the medical information that is out there and available to be organized and made accessible to all. Which happens to be our mission. Health information should be easier to access and organize, especially in ways that make it as simple as possible to find the information that is most relevant to a specific patient’s needs.

Patients also need to be able to better coordinate and manage their own health information. We believe that patients should control and own their own health information, and should be able to do so easily. Today it is much too difficult to get access to one’s health records, for example, because of the substantial administrative obstacles people have to go through and the many places they have to go to collect it all. Compare this to financial information, which is much more available from the various institutions that help manage your financial “health.” We believe our industry should help solve this problem.

As the Internet increasingly helps link communities of people, we also think there is an opportunity to connect people with similar health interests, concerns and problems. Today, people too often don’t know that others like them even exist, let alone how to find them. The industry should help there, too.

These are some of the health-related problems we’re thinking through at Google. We don’t have any products or services to announce yet and may not for quite some time, but we thought we’d share a bit about the problems we’re interested in helping out on even before we introduce solutions. As we explore these problems and continue to work on them, we hope to share more about our efforts along the way. Your help is welcome and, of course, if you’re an extraordinary engineer with a passion in this field, we’d love to hear from you. Write to us at health@google.com.

Bill Roggio reports from Fallujah

Published on 12/5/2006 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: .

Bill’s first report from his latest embed trip to Iraq — he recounts enroute conversations with soldiers and contractors.

The travel is long, and it can be boring if you let it get to you. But you’re surrounded by a bunch of soldiers, Marines and contractors that are also traveling, many of them alone. They are either coming back from or going on leave, or moving into or out of the region. Most of them are quite friendly and happy to strike up a conversation. This is an interesting time to speak to them, because they are not as engrossed in the daily grind of Iraq as they are when I see them while I’m embedded. Here is a brief overview of some of the discussions I had with those I met while shuttling around Kuwait and Iraq.

What Comes After Web 2.0?

Published on 12/5/2006 in Technology . Closed

Here’s a brief survey of some examples of the struggle to create a more intelligent Internet.

Many researchers and entrepreneurs are working on Internet-based knowledge-organizing technologies that stretch traditional definitions of the Web. Lately, some have been calling the technologies “Web 3.0.” But really, they’re closer to “Web 2.1.”

Typically, the name Web 2.0 is used by computer programmers to refer to a combination of a) improved communication between people via social-networking technologies, b) improved communication between separate software applications–read “mashups”–via open Web standards for describing and accessing data, and c) improved Web interfaces that mimic the real-time responsiveness of desktop applications within a browser window.

e.g., Piggy Bank,

Another project attempting to extract more meaning from the Web is Piggy Bank, a joint effort by MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT Libraries, and the World Wide Web Consortium. Piggy Bank’s goal is to lift chunks of important information in data-heavy websites from their surroundings, so that Web surfers can make use of these info chunks in new ways. For example, office address information extracted from LinkedIn, a professional networking site, could be fed into Google Maps, creating a map of my colleagues’ places of business.

In this way, the Piggy Bank researchers hope, Web users can begin to get a taste of the Semantic Web in action, without having to wait for the authors of the billions of documents on the Web to create metadata. The curious can download a Piggy Bank extension for the Firefox Web browser; once the extension is installed, users can choose from a number of “screenscrapers” that extract information from specific sites like LinkedIn and Flickr (a popular photo-sharing site). Piggy Bank stores this “pure information,” such as photos or contact names, inside the Web browser in RDF format, theoretically allowing users to mix data from independent sources to create their own “instant mashups” similar to the LinkedIn-Google Maps example.

Cheap, Superefficient Solar?

Published on 12/4/2006 in Energy Policy and Global Warming . Closed

This is interesting – though I have no idea how commercially viable the technology is likely to be:

Technologies collectively known as concentrating photovoltaics are starting to enjoy their day in the sun, thanks to advances in solar cells, which absorb light and convert it into electricity, and the mirror- or lens-based concentrator systems that focus light on them. The technology could soon make solar power as cheap as electricity from the grid.

The idea of concentrating sunlight to reduce the size of solar cells–and therefore to cut costs–has been around for decades. But interest in the technology has picked up in the past year. Last month, Japanese electronics giant Sharp Corporation showed off its new system for focusing sunlight with a fresnel lens (like the one used in lighthouses) onto superefficient solar cells, which are about twice as efficient as conventional silicon cells. Other companies, such as SolFocus, based in Palo Alto, CA, and Energy Innovations, based in Pasadena, CA, are rolling out new concentrators. And the company that supplied the long-lived photovoltaic cells for the Mars rovers, Boeing subsidiary Spectrolab, based in Sylmar, CA, is supplying more than a million cells for concentrator projects, including one in Australia that will generate enough power for 3,500 homes.

…”There’s a lot of uncertainty in this area, where historically there’s been a lot of hype that just hasn’t been delivered,” Rogol says. “The biggest news for me is that serious solar people, over the course of the last year, have made notable commitments to concentrators.”

Note that Michael Rogol is the principle in a consulting firm that seems to make its living promoting solar investments — Photon Consulting.

Perspective on BMW hydrogen-gasoline sedan

Published on 12/4/2006 in Energy Policy . Closed

Hydrogen is a storage medium, not a fuel. Even so, BMW is making a green-marketing push around their very limited run of 100 feel-good luxury duel-fuel 7 Series sedans. Fortunately, MIT Technology Review doesn’t just fawn over the demo, but offers a fairly honest appraisal of the limitations of hydrogen-fueled vehicles:

Last week, I was part of a group of journalists who were the first to drive the production-ready BMW Hydrogen 7 car in Berlin. The dual-fuel car, which can switch between gasoline and hydrogen combustion at the press of a button, is indisputably a remarkable engineering achievement. And yes, it mainly emits water vapor. If only things were that simple; if only hydrogen were actually practical as a fuel.

…the infrastructure isn’t the largest issue. Hydrogen is the largest issue. You can’t just dig it out of the ground and burn it. You have to either extract it from hydrocarbon fuels, which defeats the clean-energy purpose, or extract it from water molecules by applying electricity–which means you are either burning the fossil fuel back at the power plant or taking away much-needed renewable electricity from the power grid.

When you extract hydrogen from fossil fuels, you actually end up emitting more carbon dioxide. In fact, driving a car whose hydrogen was extracted from natural gas results in roughly double the carbon-dioxide emissions produced by driving a car that simply burns the natural gas directly. For fossil-fuel extraction of hydrogen to ever make sense from an environmental perspective, the separated carbon dioxide would have to be sequestered underground.

And if you use electricity to split water, you’ll need to make sure the electricity doesn’t itself come from fossil fuels. The electricity would have to come from a renewable source, like wind or the sun. It’s not clear that hydrogen production is the wisest use for renewable energy, except marginally: it can absorb electricity on very windy or very sunny days, when renewable power plants are producing excess supply.

BMW maintains that once we have breakthroughs in renewable supply and hydrogen storage, cars based on Hydrogen 7 technology can fill every driveway–and perhaps even every garage. I want the company to be right. The idea of a high-performance car that essentially emits only water vapor is very alluring. But for now, the Hydrogen 7 appears to be a remarkable engineering achievement for a future that may never arrive.

If you want to reduce atmospheric carbon-loading over the next century, look into diesel-electric hybrids.

Mesopotamian on the Baker commission…

Published on 12/3/2006 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: .

The title is an Iraqi proverb which may be roughly translated as follows: Entrust the cat to guard a piece of mutton fat; meaning what do you expect if you put a tomcat in charge of guarding a piece of fat?



Alaa has just a few problems with the Baker proposals [yes, I know we are only seeing a blizzard of leaks].

There seems to be some real geniuses in Washington. I must say, the brilliance of these gentlemen really makes me speechless. It seems that the commission charged with preparing a report dealing with the Iraqi question has come up with the inspired solution that the matter should be entrusted to Iran and Syria of all other, after the U.S. washes her hands clean and go home to live in tranquility never to meddle in world affairs again. Of course it is not stated in these terms but rather couched in reasonable sounding phraseology: gradual reduction of troops; involvement of neighboring states such as Iran and Syria to help resolve the problems etc. etc. Well! Well! Well! Iran and Syria above all and by name, too!! I congratulate these astute gentlemen on this amazing discovery. The world hold its breath in waiting for the official issue of this great report, that President Bush is awaiting impatiently to enlighten him as to the proper direction of the Iraq policy.

But really, it is not right to burden these poor elderly gentlemen with such hard work; it is rather inhuman; what with the problems of old age, Alzheimer’s disease and all that. One fully understands their inclination towards rest and quiet retreat. No wonder we hear of reports that the President is not very enthusiastic about the recommendations of this report, although politely the white houses announces respectfully that they are awaited and will be considered carefully. Of course, if the United States does withdraw altogether and leave the Iraqi government out in the cold to manage on its own, the latter would have no option but to acquiesce into an alliance with these two regional powers, as the least evil of all available courses. At least neither of these two regimes is going to be as bent on genocide against the Shiites and the Kurds as others might be. Neither could be very interested in seeing the Saddamists , Al Qaeda or any such groups, take over. Indeed the outcome of the American project would be the creation of an Iranian-Iraqi-Syrian axis, an axis in which Iraq would be the junior and powerless partner, forced to follow all the dictates of its seniors. Deprived of all western support it would be desperate for any help from anybody who can help it fend off the savage sectarian and genocidal assault that would undoubtedly be raging in the country. Apart from Turkey, there are no serious military powers in the region to rival these two. Turkey would have to be satisfied or it might well intervene militarily and complicate matters. God only knows what might happen, but whatever that might be it cannot be good.

I don’t think though, that as long as George Bush is president, such disastrous ideas can find their way to implementation. There are other courses of action less harmful, and I am sure that the President will try his best to win the race against time before the end of his term. Let us wish him success from the bottom of our hearts.

Economist Politicians?

Published on 12/3/2006 in Economics and Politics . Closed

Greg Mankiw ponders an interesting question — bottom line, economics is excellent training for a politician, but don’t do a graduate degree [law is much easier].

A student wonders why more economists don’t become politicians:

Dear Professor Mankiw,

I am a Freshman at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. I’m currently taking an introductory microeconomics course and reading from your textbook. Above all this course has taught me that economists are extremely skilled at examining real world issues and probably even better at clearly communicating their findings. I’m curious to know why I don’t see more professional economists entering the world of politics as electable candidates.

Thank you,

[name withheld]



My first reaction to reading this letter was a question: Is the premise true? Are economists unlikely to enter politics? I am not so sure. There are some successful politicians who started life as economists–Paul Douglas, Phil Gramm and Dick Armey, for example.

Moreover, economists are relatively rare in the overall population, so you would expect them to be rare in any subpopulation, such as politicians. Let’s put some numbers to this. Only about 1000 econ PhDs are awarded each year, and only about half these are U.S. citizens (source). There are about 4 million Americans born each year. As a rough approximation, therefore, only 1 in 8000 Americans would likely qualify to be called a professional economist by training. There are 535 members of Congress. If economists had only an average rate of entering politics, the probability that Congress at any moment would include an economist would be about 7 percent. I think that we economists do better than that: otherwise, the event of having two in Congress at the same time (Gramm and Armey) would be very unlikely.

My second thought is that if I were a young person planning a political career, I would not start by becoming a professional economist. An undergraduate degree in economics is ideal, as it teaches a lot about the fundamentals of public policy, but an aspiring politician would find it unnecessarily costly to spend the 5 or 6 additional years typically necessary for a PhD. A law degree is much easier. It is also more diversifying as an educational experience once one has studied econ in college for four years. The same is true of an MBA or a master’s in public policy. The specialized technical and research skills taught in econ grad school are not needed, or even particularly helpful, for a successful political career.

President Giuliani?

Published on 12/3/2006 in Politics . 1 Comment

Michael Barone is the best American political analyst that I know of. Which may be a weak recommendation given how little I know of American politics. Whatever — I found this piece intriguing. 2008 is in the far, foggy future. But the numbers that Barone quote indicate a clear lead for Giuliani over Clinton:

…But when you look at how specific candidates do, you see very different results. I am focusing here on the three best-known candidates, w o also lead in 2008 primary polls—Rudolph Giuliani, John McCain, a d Hillary Rodham Clinton. Here ar Rasmussen’s numbers, announced shortly after the 2006 election, and here are the cross-tabs available by subscription. McCain leads Clinton 48 to 43 percent; Giuliani and Clinton are tied at 46 percent each.

You get a slightly different picture from SurveyUSA’s 50-state polls (they even take the trouble to sample the District of Columbia). They give the results by electoral vote, but looking at the state results (available to members only), you can get an idea of the national popular vote percentages. They show Giuliani leading Clinton 354 to 184 and McCain leading Clinton by a nearly identical 351 to 187. But Giuliani’s popular vote advantage (about 49.5 to 44.5 percent) is larger than McCain’s (about 47.5 to 45.2 percent). McCain’s leads are within the margin of error in more states than Giuliani’s are. And Giuliani runs perceptibly stronger in Florida and in the Northeastern states from Rhode Island south to New Jersey and Pennsylvania. States Giuliani carries and McCain doesn’t: Florida and New Jersey. States that McCain carries and Giuliani doesn’t: Minnesota, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. Clinton carries only a handful of states and D.C. by more than 4 percentage points against either candidate.

A Giuliani or, to a lesser extent, a McCain candidacy makes the Republican ticket much more competitive in the Northeast. Giuliani’s percentage margins over Clinton in these polls vastly exceed George W. Bush’s 2004 margins over John Kerry in the row of states with large Italian-American populations (Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey). All but Rhode Island are within the New York City media market. His margins in the South, the Great Plains, and the northern Rocky Mountain states are less than Bush’s, but since Bush carried almost every state in those regions by wide margins, Giuliani still ropes in their electoral votes. He doesn’t run much better than Bush in California and not at all better in Illinois, which after all is Clinton’s native state. His margins are bigger than Bush’s in the three Rocky Mountain states targeted by Democrats in 2004: Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada.

McCain’s margins exceed Bush’s the most in his own Arizona, in the Pacific Northwest, and in and around the Boston media market (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island). He doesn’t run much better than Bush in New York or New Jersey. Like Giuliani’s, his margins are smaller than those of Bush in most of the South and Great Plains—but that doesn’t put any electoral votes in danger.

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