Paul Krugman deconstructs health care in the current issue of The New York Review of Books.
Bottom line up front:
So what will really happen to American health care? Many people in this field believe that in the end America will end up with national health insurance, and perhaps with a lot of direct government provision of health care, simply because nothing else works. But things may have to get much worse before reality can break through the combination of powerful interest groups and free-market ideology.
Asia has too many boys. They can’t find wives, but they just might find extreme nationalism instead. It’s a dangerous imbalance for a region already on edge.
To mark the 30th anniversary of Richard Dawkins’s book, OUP is to issue a collection of essays about his work. Here, professor of psychology at Harvard University, wonders if Dawkins’s big idea has not gone far enough.
Wow, it's really been 30 years since the publication of The Selfish Gene.
A new book on cunning hails the attribute as our greatest means of self-preservation, a starting point for human ingenuity and a very useful tool for selling plastic food containers.
Edmund Wilson’s books were never widely read. But for upwards of half a century they had an incalculable impact on readers.
Wilson’s intellectual ambitions went far beyond book reviewing. He looked to "general ideas" to place each book in a larger context -- social, biographical, comparative.
Joint Paths to the Future Force: A Report on Unified Quest 2004
Topic: Military
7:06 am EST, Mar 7, 2006
The central study question for the Unified Quest 2004 wargame (UQ 04), cosponsored by Joint Forces Command and the United States Army, focused on identifying the concepts and capabilities required to counteract an adversary who, having lost most of his conventional capability, seeks victory through a combination of protracted, unconventional operations and use of WMD. The overarching purpose of UQ 04 was to explore concepts and capabilities that have come together to form joint operational concepts and — continuing a process begun in Unified Quest 2003 — to improve the definition of these joint and future force concepts and capabilities; to identify key issues, insights, and implications raised by them; and to address specific Unified Quest issues. This report provides both a description and an analysis of UQ 04. It identifies that wargame’s scenario, assumptions, central questions and objectives, study issues, and essential elements of analysis. It includes observations by RAND analysts who attended UQ 04 and their assessments of how well the wargame addressed the five study issue areas featured in the game: battlespace awareness; joint command and control; force application; force protection, and focused logistics. The report also includes recommendations and suggestions by the RAND analysts on ways to improve the JFCOM-TRADOC future warfare studies program.
Chapter 5 of the McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Handbook details various models of al-Qaida may be using to attract new members; approaches to recruitment; characteristics of potential recruits; and nodes-centers of activity, such as mosques, universities, and charities-where al-Qaida’s recruiters seek new members and where potential recruits are likely to become acquainted with the radical jihadist world view.
Chapter 8 of the McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Handbook offers a perspective on significant trends in terrorism over the past four decades. Terrorism has become bloodier, is less dependent on state sponsors, has evolved new models of organization, has become adept at exploiting new communications technologies, involves global campaigns, and has had a strategic impact. None of these trends will allow prediction or extrapolation. Also, terrorists have yet to achieve their stated long-range goals, and terrorists’ use of weapons of mass destruction have not materialized.
Chapter 72 of the McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Handbook addresses the important issue of the ideological differences between the United States and al-Qaida and the necessity to win the war of ideas. This chapter outlines the ideology promulgated by al-Qaida and associated terrorist groups. It examines recent attempts by the United States to combat al-Qaida’s worldview and compares this effort with America’s global propaganda campaign against the Soviet Union. The chapter concludes with some preliminary ideas about waging an effective counterpropaganda campaign against al-Qaida, including potential themes and approaches.
