All your lists are belonging to me!

Posted by Schmedlap at: 9:48 PM on 01 DEC 09 | Comments (4) | Reply to this post

Lists really help to simplify our lives and clarify complex topics. More importantly, they inform us of who we should regard as authorities on various topics, what books to buy, how to order our lives, and so forth. As a service to my readers, here is a compilation of the lists that are, in my opinion, the top lists. Apparently lists also spur worthwhile discussion, so have at it.

1. Santa’s Naughty List
These people learned their lesson. ‘Nuff said.

2. Peter’s Evil Overlord List
This is to the modern statesman what The Prince was to rulers in Machiavelli’s day.

3. Schindler’s List
This was the impetus for a Steven Spielberg movie that grossed many millions of dollars. A bunch of people were spared from Nazi concentration camps, too. The Blockbuster in Tehran accidentally placed this movie in the fiction section, misleading the Iranian President into thinking that the holocaust is a fiction. That is just one more reason why I rely on Netflix.

4. Shopping Lists
I don’t know about you, but without a shopping list I would buy a bunch of stuff that catches my eye and forget to buy the stuff that I actually need.

5. Craig’s List
Looking for a used car? Need to replace your TV? Hoping to find a place to live where you can pay your rent with sexual favors? Got a worn out microwave to sell? This list is handier than having a dumpster beneath your living room window.

6. Reading lists
If you are like most people, then you have lots of time to indulge yourself in about 3 years worth of reading on a particular topic and you have the extra cash lying around to drop a small fortune on Amazon. Sometimes reading lists are great because they invite lots of people to recommend books that they heard someone else recommend, but often haven’t actually read, but can somehow distill into a one-sentence recommendation of why the book is essential reading if you ever want to have any hope of doing your job in a halfway competent manner. Alternatively, a lot of enthusiasts can put their heads together and recommend a bunch of very long books that they read while working on their advanced degrees. Obviously you have just as much time for casual reading in between patrols. This should be required reading for every individual in a given vocation.

7. The White House Guest List
Everybody is talking about it.

8. U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges List
This list is your roadmap to the future. If you do not get into a highly ranked university on this list, then you are probably getting a mediocre education. This list points you to the good schools; the ones with bank-breaking tuition, massive grade inflation, and a guarantee of lots of courses taught primarily by adjuncts with thick accents and/or graduate assistants. Most importantly, this list ensures that you have the right institution printed on your diploma and transcript and gain access to the right alumni network. And if you happen to learn something during your period of study, then good for you.

9. Pre-combat checklists
Otherwise, you might forget to issue your Soldiers ammunition. Seriously, it’s on the list.

10. Top Ten COINdinista’s
I have already written a review of this.

Posted by Schmedlap at: 9:48 PM on 01 DEC 09 | Permalink | Comments (4) | Reply to this post

As simple as it gets

Posted by Schmedlap at: 07:08 AM on 01 DEC 09 | Comments (0) | Reply to this post

As I noted in an earlier thread, I support the administration when it makes a decision regarding national security. I anticipate a lot of nonsensical (read: political) push-back on the decision that the President will announce tonight. I realize that the bulk of it has been leaked almost in its entirety, leaving only the official public announcement to be handled, but I suppose there is always a chance that the official pronouncement could differ slightly from what the apparent leaks have told us.

My understanding is that General McChrystal put forth a plan and all that he needed was for the President to authorize the resources - namely the troop request. The request, if I understand it correctly, was around 40,000. Apparently the President will authorize 34,000. There are other competing variables outside the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan that need to go into the decision, so I am not overly troubled that the administration concluded that less than the number requested will suffice. I have only one reservation.

Some deceptively simple math has been thrown about. Tom Barnett writes in World Politics Review that...

"It costs the United States $1 million a year to keep a soldier inside a theater of operations such as Afghanistan. The math is easy enough: For every thousand troops, the price comes out to $1 billion a year."

Easy enough? Or oversimplified? That reasoning would have earned Mr. Barnett a failing grade in the managerial accounting class that I took in business school. Fixed costs will almost surely rise due to expansion of facilities built to accommodate more units, but the difference between 30K troops and 40K troops (or any other differences within that vicinity) is almost surely not equal to 10K troops x $1M/troop. The reason is that there are fixed costs and variable costs. The cost of one additional Soldier is not $1 million. It cannot be. That is absurd on its face. The fixed costs will also vary according to how troops are dispersed (ex. expand FOBs, pack FOBs tighter, build new FOBs and/or COPs, etc). I hope there is more driving this decision than an accounting estimate.

Posted by Schmedlap at: 07:08 AM on 01 DEC 09 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Reply to this post