Racial profiling of terrorists now futile

The recent attempted in-flight bomb attack by a Nigerian national means that racial profiling of terrorists based on previous cases cannot merely be restricted to Arab Muslims, but also African Muslims. At this rate, it's only a matter of time before Asian and Caucasian militants are employed to get past airport screening. Back in September, Pakistan reported encountering a village of white expat German radical Muslims near the Afghan border.

Update: In 2007, two members of a bomb plot in Germany were white German nationals who had converted to Islam. Combined with the potential from Indonesian Islamic militants, no race can be ruled out as a potential threat.

Countering the body cavity bomb

It turns out that recently a suicide bomber attacked a Saudi prince by hiding the bomb in an undignified body cavity. One potential technological countermeasure that could be adapted to airport security requirements: ultrasound scans to search for detonators.

Settling old scores

It's adding up to quite a month. In Somalia, US special forces killed a militant leader alleged to have been behind the 1998 embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania. Now, Indonesian police claim to have killed the alleged mastermind of the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings. Drone attacks on militant leaders continue in Pakistan. Are we seeing an escalation in targeted killing as a tactic?

Fiscal conservatism is off the US roadmap for now

Future epic tax increases are hardly a new concern. I expect little to be done regardless of which political party wins the election in 2012. I note that the current House minority leader made excuses for growing, record budget deficits in 2003.

...judging by a bill that Congress is taking up Monday, the lasting fiscal legacy of the Bush administration will also include a historic rise in domestic spending that could affect everything from consumer interest rates to a fiscal landscape that could force epic tax increases in future.

The piece Boehner wrote has been taken down from his web site, but remains archived.

... Republicans also are far from being purely conservative. A conservative would like to see the government shrink; a Republican does too, but - in acknowledging political realities (a new defensive posture after September 11th for one) and the multitude of stakeholders in government after years of liberal control - has often had to settle for simply slowing its rate of growth. Republicans have accepted such realities as the burdens of majority governance.
The Republican Party has in recent years, contrary to conservative means - but still consistent with its fundamental tenets - sought to use the power of government for conservative ends.

The end result of this compromise? The Tax Cut and Spend Party.

High altitude ice particles may have affected Air France 447

Here's a scenario that may account in part for the recent loss of Air France 447: high altitude ice crystals inducing engine shutdown. The shutdown of both engines happened to a Qatar Airways A330 in 2006.

At high altitude near intense storms, moisture turns into tiny ice crystals that can be sucked inside an engine. At first, the crystals melt. But sometimes the water freezes again on metal surfaces. Eventually, accumulating ice can either break into chunks that damage turbine blades, or melt and douse the ignition system...
By examining the dual-engine flameouts in relation to storm patterns, Mr. Hookey and other investigators began unraveling the icing mystery. Powerful thunderstorms, particularly over the Pacific Ocean in the spring and summer, can spawn smaller-than-normal ice particles...

High altitude? 35,000 feet. Near intense storms? The aircraft flew right into a thunderstorm zone. Wrong ocean, but the right seasonality for high altitude ice particles.

Chinese stimulus, not global recovery

When the US administration announced massive spending in response to the ongoing economic downturn, China was left with the dilemma of what to do with US trade surplus dollars now that Treasuries would be a bad bet going forward thanks to inflation. Gold and precious metals are not an option, though China has stockpiled gold reserves in the past several years.

A recent Bloomberg piece points to what is going on with China's apparent stockpiling of resources.

China, the world’s second-biggest energy consumer, will provide the [$10 billion] loan to the [Brazilian] oil company known as Petrobras, which will supply 150,000 barrels of crude a day to the Asian nation this year and 200,000 barrels in 2010...
Lula, 63, is seeking to attract investment and open China’s markets to Brazilian exports ... to help blunt his country’s sharpest economic contraction on record. China is securing energy resources to power its economy, the world’s third-largest, by offering loans to oil-producing countries including Russia, Venezuela and Kazakhstan.
China also agreed on Feb. 17 to provide Russia with $25 billion of loans in return for 300,000 barrels a day of oil for 20 years. Venezuela’s Petroleos de Venezuela, known as PDVSA, will provide 200,000 barrels a day to the Asian country to pay down a $4 billion loan from China Development Bank Corp.

With this, the pieces begin fall in place. What we are seeing is a hybrid strategy which resembles both global economic stimulus and resource colonialism.

Wall Street analysts who view Chinese stockpiling as indicating recovery are mistaken. Stockpiling is more properly viewed a strategic move as well as a stimulus measure.

China is stockpiling commodities such as copper and iron ore as part of a reallocation of its sovereign wealth amid concern that the value of its dollar assets may decline, according to the Royal Bank of Canada.

Stockpiling props up current resource prices, reducing the need for companies to shutter mining capacity due to cash flow and profitability concerns. At the same time, loans provide much needed capital to developing economies, and secure longer-term access to needed resources at favorable prices, thanks to the impact of the ongoing economic crisis upon emerging markets. This combined investment boosting resource extraction infrastructure will moderate the impact of any resource supply squeeze when economies eventually ramp up, at least for the Chinese economy. It can even be argued that China is also countering peak oil concerns by investing in efforts to bring new supply to market.

Explaining the H1N1 influenza death rate in Mexico

In a highly unscientific "study", I heard reports question why the suspected death toll for H1N1 is higher in Mexico, but no subsequent answers followed. Naturally, I turned to Google for insight.

In 2006, researchers found that a country's income was the biggest predictor of its death toll in an influenza pandemic. The lack of income per capita in Mexico is evident in the large number of uninsured citizens who accordingly receive minimal federal health care in what amounts to a three-tier health system. This figure of 50 million uninsured out of an estimated population of 110 million amounts to approximately 45%.

According to a 2007 news release from the New Mexico Department of Health, influenza was not systematically monitored in Mexico. While this lack of monitoring may be in part due to lack of resources, it was likely aggravated by the World Bank-led neo-liberal health reform, which failed to prevent a shortage of adequately skilled staff and likely increased the bureaucratic barriers to inter-state cooperation in communicable disease monitoring.

My tentative conclusion is that poverty, insufficient resources, organizational dysfunction, and a lack of political will for influenza surveillance left Mexico in a condition vulnerable to an influenza pandemic.

As a consequence, it's entirely possible that H1N1 has gone undetected for some time and that the apparently high death toll to date (based on suspected rather than confirmed cases) could be more a function of total population infected rather than elevated lethality.

Undermining Karzai

Recently, it was reported that Mohammad Asif Mohseni refused change for controversial Afghan legislation mandating that Shiite women must submit to sex from their husbands.

"It is not possible for all women to pay the same amount of money as men are paying. For all these expenses, can't we at least give the right to a husband to demand sex from his wife after four nights?" [Mohammad Asif Mohseni] said.

I've not seen a report that mentions his historical ties to Iran. Until 2005, he had previously been the leader of Harakat-e Islami-yi.

During the 1980s, the movement was part of the 'Tehran Eight', an alliance of Shiite mujahedin factions supported by Iran that fought against the PDPA government and Soviet troops.

This could be a calculated move to alienate Karzai from the West. From the standpoint of near-border security, Iran would gain from seeing all US presence driven from both Afghanistan.

Prisoner shell game

It was widely reported in January that President Obama signed an order to close Guantanamo by the end of the year.

Where will the prisoners go? It was reported in 2008 that a contract was awarded to build a prison complex in Afghanistan, due for completion before the end of the year.

For example, on Aug. 1, the Army Corps of Engineers announced that Prime Projects International, a firm based in Dubai, [UAE], had won a $50 million contract to design and build a prison complex at Bagram to hold 1,000 high- and low-risk detainees. The complex is not expected to be completed before October 2009.

In addition, the Pentagon plans to expand intelligence operations at Bagram, the main prison in Afghanistan.

According to NPR, the number of Guantanamo detainees peaked at 775, a figure well within the capacity of the new prison complex.

Stiglitz makes a modest proposal

Joseph Stiglitz' proposals got my attention. First, let the banks go bust, then step in:

Mr Stiglitz's radical proposal is a "Chapter 11" scheme for households to allow them to bring their debts under control without having to go into bankruptcy. "Families matter just as much as firms. The US government can borrow at 1% so why can't it lend directly to poor people for mortgages at 4%," he said.

TARP is a bust. Buying preferred shares from banks and expecting them to suddenly start lending again can't work. My reading of the situation is that the credit crunch isn't a dysfunction of the market, but a reflection of markets operating efficiently. Why would a bank rationally risk losing funds on the interbank lending market when there are other banks still yet to collapse? The uncertainty and reluctance to loan is a reflection of real risk. The market is functioning according to the rules of the system, but isn't functioning the way we want it to. Credit is not flowing through the network. Nor is it reasonable to expect that banks can be "bribed" into taking more risk, not after so many were burned by the sub-prime mortgage meltdown.

Stiglitz' proposal to bypass the banks and lend directly to mortgage holders effectively routes around "damage" in the network. It's a novel approach to getting credit where it's needed. If the banks can't do it, create a new mechanism that can.