Obama Wants To Attack The Middle Class? Take Congress Hostage!

By now you have heard that President Obama has chosen to throw Social Security and the Medicare and Medicaid Programs over the side of his proverbial fishing boat as bait to see if he can get Republicans to give him another really lousy compromise, much as he did last December when he gave up billions upon billions of deficit reduction in order to help Republicans preserve tax cuts for billionaires.

And it looks like the President doesn’t really lose if you or I get hurt here: in fact, it seems that, in his eyes, it’s to his advantage to fight against his own base as he seeks to be “the adult in the room” in the runup to the ’12 election.

So we’re going to have to find a way to put The Fear on this guy – and I think I’ve got a plan to force this President to listen.

And it works like this: if this President ain’t gonna be moved by our message…we do it by holding the rest of his Party hostage.

"You've got to put the points on the board. Good effort and style aren't enough. Everyone loves the Chicago Cubs, but no one expects them to win. Be more like the New York Yankees."

--Greg Swienton, COO of Ryder Systems, advising Army NCOs at a leadership seminar, July 2009.

First things first: let me tell you how the hustle is potentially going to go down.

Republicans are going to try to force Obama to offer up 100% cuts in spending, with no new money coming in to Government at all, or they’ll let the whole “debt default” thing come crashing down, which looks like The Best Thing To The Tea Party Ever – and based on past history, this is a deal that Obama, around 11:56 PM on August 1st, will be willing to take.

The two most likely ways to cut spending and get results in the trillions of dollars are to change the connection between increases in your future Social Security benefits and the cost of living (which guarantees that you and I will forever be behind the inflation eight-ball), or to cut the payments coming out of Medicare or Medicaid, which is going to stick it, immediately, to medical service providers, the poorest of the poor, your Grandma and Grandpa (or, maybe, you), and the disabled.

It is rumored that both of these approaches have been put out as options by the President. It is also rumored that, in return, he wants some amount of revenue increases – but it’s also rumored that he went from seeking a dollar in cuts for each dollar in new revenue to something that looks more like $6 in cuts for every $1 in new revenues – with lots more time available for Republicans to play chicken and get even more.

So if the President is not going to put a stop to all this, I think we, ourselves, are going to have to step up and get it done.

What I’m going to propose is brutal, unfair to many of our friends, and vindictive to the point of risking an even worse situation than we have now…but these are desperate times, and I suspect it’s now time for desperate measures.

So here’s what I think we have to do:

Now, today, before this gets any farther, we have to call every single Democratic Member of Congress, House and Senate, friend and foe, and deliver this message:

“I don’t care what you ever did for us before, we are not going to let you do this to us now. We cannot stop Barack Obama directly – but we can do this.

We can target Congressional Democrats.

Each and every one of you, as a group.

And with that in mind, you are now on notice: if you allow this President to make a deal that includes any cuts, adjustments, alterations, or anything else, to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security, and you don’t get at least a dollar of new revenue for every dollar of cuts…then you are done.

We will immediately stop giving any Democratic incumbent even one dollar of donations, we will not help you win elections by volunteering – and we will vote for any candidate that’s running against you in the next primary.

Even if it’s not your fault.

That’s how serious we are, and that means you better figure out, right now, how to stop Obama from caving…because now, it’s all on you.

If Obama slips on the stairs and his pen accidentally signs the bill…it’s now your fault.

If Obama puts his pen back in the desk set upside down, and there’s an open window in the Oval Office, and an errant breeze drags the bill across the upside-down pen… it’s now your fault.

So what you better do is you better go make sure there aren’t any roller skates on the stairs at the White House, and go close the windows, and do whatever you have to do, because now, you, and every other Congressional Democrat…all of you, together…are going to be held responsible for what happens.”

And then we gotta stick to it – even if it costs us Jim McDermott and Raul Grijalva and Barney Frank, all on the same day.

We have to show that we will bring even more wrath and destruction than the Tea Party – and we have to be ready to support new Democrats who rise up to oppose the current ones.

And consider this: Labor is already making the effort to recruit and train Progressive candidates, and there are lots of opportunities to partner with unions who would presumably love to have some new partners of their own.

The next negotiating session between the President and Congressional leadership is Sunday, and that means we need to move fast if we want this to work – but Sunday is unlikely to be the last day of negotiations, and after that is when we can really crank up the pressure on Democrats.

Is this unfair to our friends?

Yup.

But that’s too bad, because we have been unfairly taking hits from our friends and Republican bullies alike for three years now - and the only thing that’s going to make it stop is if our friends fear us more a whole lot more than they fear Republicans.

And if you don’t think this can work…well, guess what? The LBGT community got “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal passed when Republicans said they would never let it get through Congress – and then the LBGT community told Democrats that if repeal didn’t pass…the gAyTM was gonna be forever closed.

And then, mirabile dictu, repeal passed, in a lame-duck Congress, even when virtually all observers had said it had no chance.

That is the power of The Fear, and if we want to win this fight, we need to be the ones putting The Fear on our Democratic friends, not the other way around.

So get up, grab the phone, and start reminding the nearest Democrat that unemployment, in this economy, really, really, sucks – and there’s no reason in the world why they can’t be just as unemployed as anyone else.

It’s time for hardball, folks – and in this fight, we need to be the ones with the hardest balls.

Because if we’re not…the terrorists win.

Social Security: If You Can’t Kill The Program, Screw The People

There’s a lot of ways to be petty and cheap and stupid, and a lot of ways to stick it to a program you don’t like, and by extension, the clients of that program…and this week the House Republicans have embarked on an effort to combine the two into one petty, cheap, and stupid way to stick it to the clients of Social Security and the workers who administer the program.

They’re going to sell it to you, if they can, as a way to “lower the deficit”, or words similar…but what this is really about is making the actual Social Security program work less well—because, after all, if a program is popular today, the best way to make it less so is to apply a bit of “treat ‘em like their cars were impounded” to every interaction customers have with the system.

And what better way to make sure that happens…then to aggressively demoralize everyone who works down at the ol’ Social Security office?

The foot less prompt to seek the morning dew,
The heart less bounding at emotion new,
And hope, once crushed, less quick to spring again.

--From “Thyrsis”, by Matthew Arnold

So here’s the deal, short and sweet: Social Security is amazingly efficient at running an annuity and income support program, both at the same time; in fact, in 2009 the Social Security Administration Old-Age and Survivors’ Benefit Program took in not quite $700 billion and disbursed $564 billion, writing checks to and serving millions of customers at the same time…and they did this with administrative expenses of about $3.4 billion—and that’s just about .6% of the distributions, all of this according to the Report of the Social Security Trustees for 2009.

In the private sector, companies who provide annuities have administrative costs that range from 50% to 500% higher. (Of course, Social Security doesn’t have to pay sales commissions.)

The Social Security folks are similarly frugal with the Disability Insurance Program (expenses run 2.3% of distributions), and if you combine the two the total is .9%.

Nonetheless, the plan from the House Republicans, who want to return to balanced budgets right now, if they are to be believed, is to cut $1.7 billion of those administrative costs from a budget of just under $12 billion in the remaining 7 months of the fiscal year, and, according to the involved union, that means in those next 7 months workers will have to take three weeks worth of furlough days to make that work.

If my quick math is correct it means they hope to close the office about 10% of the time while expecting the same amount of work to be done, which is probably not going to happen.

The likely end result will be callers who can’t get through without more of a struggle, checks that may or may not get out on time, an angry workforce, and a general result that equals more and more people saying “Social Security sucks”—and if you ask me, that’s the real goal of this effort: to make Social Security unpopular, thus setting the stage for more cuts to come later.

And just to put all this in perspective, we today give subsidies totaling about $4 billion a year to oil companies, apparently because gold-plated caviar is really, really, expensive, and the same budget-conscious House Republicans…every single one of ‘em…voted to protect that subsidy just a couple of days ago.

Social Security workers were out yesterday handing out leaflets to describe what’s going on, although as far as I know the leaflets didn’t say that this is just one more part of a giant plan that’s already raising its ugly head in places like Wisconsin and Indiana and Ohio and New Jersey: start a war against one group of American workers by claiming they’re not “real” workers or that they’re “special, extra-privileged” workers…and try to drag down all workers in the process.

A cut like this is a shot at these workers, and, by extension, all workers who might, you know, like a raise some day—and it’s also a shot at you, or your parents, or your grandparents, who will eventually have to deal with the results of all the cutting.

But in the end, it’s important to look at the bright side: the gold-plated caviar market will still be protected, thanks to that $4 billion a year in cash we’re donating to oil companies—and if I had to guess, BP’s senior management will not be looking at longer wait times the next time they call Louie Gohmert or Joe Barton or any one of a few dozen other Members who evidently represent Big Oil first…and Americans last.

FULL DISCLOSURE: This post was written with the support of the CAF State Blogger's Network Project.

On The Costs Of Care, Or, You Don’t Want Every Item On This Menu

I don’t know if you’ve been thinking about it, but the costs of long-term care have been on the mind of some friends of mine lately.

For reasons that we won’t go into here, they are in the process of pricing long-term care at care facilities…and yesterday afternoon, we had a chance to have a look at the “menu” of services (the facility's term) that can be purchased at this particular location.

If you are facing this issue in your own family, if you are a taxpayer thinking about how we plan to fund long-term care in the future…or if, one day, you expect to be old yourself…this conversation will surely matter.

To protect the innocent, I won’t be mentioning names today, but here’s what you need to know:

The location in question is an “assisted living facility” located near Seattle, it is somewhat upscale, but by no means ”posh”, and it is a residence of substantial size, with dozens of clients living there. It is not a “mom and pop” business run out of a house, but instead a more corporate operation.

The first thing you are charged for is the “apartment” in which you reside and some basic services to go with it. Those services include “finishing the place” with blinds and appliances, weekly housekeeping and linen, and the power and the water and the cable (“Basic Extended”).

You’re also paying for the 24-hour staff presence, “recreation” services, and scheduled transportation.

Also included: two meals daily, but not breakfast.

Telephone charges are not included.

The cost, for a single person: $1900 per month for a studio, $2300 for a one bedroom, and $2800 for a two-bedroom. There are nicer “views” available, which add about $400 to each price. Adding a second person costs $600 extra every month.

You will note that this price does not include medical and “personal” services…and for that, we will turn to the actual “menu”.

"Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust! Old authors to read!"

--Francis Bacon, Apothegms. No. 97.

Start with the basics: a daily wake-up call is $50/month; having a load of personal laundry washed every week or having a staff member make the bed daily adds $70 monthly. Housekeeping is $30/hour…so hopefully the resident can clean their own apartment.

Breakfast is $95 each month.

To determine what additional needs you might have, a nursing assessment is conducted at the time of admission.

If it’s determined that the resident needs bathing assistance, costs work like this:

If the resident can wash themselves, but need to be watched during the shower, that service, once a week, is $165 monthly. If the resident needs a staff member to help them shower, add $60 (If two staff members are required, that’s an extra $140 monthly).

Can the resident dress themselves?

A daily reminder to change clothes costs $100/month. If a staff member needs to spend under 10 minutes a day to help the resident dress, that’s $175/month, if 15 – 20 minutes of assistance is required, that’s $250 monthly.

Can the resident take care of their own personal grooming? If they can’t, that adds $150 to the monthly charges.

There are also “toileting programs”.

Having the staff remind you to go to the bathroom costs $200/month (this also covers the occasional incontinence event), and having a staff member monitor you in the bathroom raises the rate to $275 (this also covers the occasional “bowel accident”).

A “structured toileting program” runs $350…and if you need to be checked for bowel accidents regularly, or need someone to wipe for you, or have regular accidents requiring changes of clothing, that’s $425 a month added to the bill.

Some people have had surgical procedures that require them to use a bag attached to their colon for waste removal. The site where the bag is attached is called a “stoma site”, and the service associated with stoma care is at least $250 monthly at this facility. Supplies (such as colostomy bags) are not included in this price.

Can the resident walk to meals on his or her own?

If yes, but they need a verbal reminder to go to meals, that’s $175/month. If the resident requires assistance to get to the dining room, that’s $225 monthly…and if it takes longer than 5 minutes on average to assist the resident, that adds $275 to the bill each month.

Special diets, prescribed by a physician, add $500 to the monthly bill.

Can the resident take their own medications?

If not, the minimum charge is $230 monthly, which covers up to 5 medications daily, “served” two times a day.

If the client takes more than five meds daily (or takes meds more than twice daily) that cost could potentially increase by another $165/ month.

Oxygen service: add another $150 monthly.

While all that seems expensive…we haven’t come to the big-ticket item yet.

There will be residents who will require “memory support”.

The simplest form of this service provides “redirecting, reassurance, orientation to surroundings, responding to questions/concerns that arise from diminished short term memory” and several checks daily to ensure the resident is on the property. Those who receive this level of service are also physically escorted to meals. The service costs $300 per month.

For $400 the resident is walked back from meals, and a staff member provides verbal cues to get the resident dressed. The resident will also be “convinced” to bathe, if need be.

If the resident requires physical cues to perform the same tasks, the cost jumps to $550 (and at this stage the resident might require two staff members to get them to perform personal hygiene).

The highest level of care also provides someone to check on the resident every two hours, and costs $800 monthly.

This is hardly a complete list: for example, there are charges for making appointments and other “clerical” services, for “concierge” service, and for other incidentals.

However, there’s one other significant charge about which you should be aware, and that’s the cost for nursing services.

Wound care that involves changing a dressing, and takes less than 5 minutes, is $15 for each occurrence. This service must be provided by a licensed nurse…and if you add it up, it works out to $180/hour that the facility is charging you for the services of an LPN/LVN (depends on where you live) who is not likely to be making above $25/hour. (Each dressing change that lasts from 5 – 10 minutes costs $20; meaning at least $120/hour.)

Add it all up, and the chances that you’ll be paying at least $3000 a month are (in the words of Johnny Mathis) awfully good.

"If Mr. Selwyn calls again, shew him up; if I am alive I shall be delighted to see him; and if I am dead he would like to see me."

--Henry Fox, the First Baron Holland

So how is all this relevant to politics, you might ask?

How about this: we are about to enter an age where millions of Americans will require this sort of long-term care…and many of us do not have $3000 per month available to pay for this kind of care.

How many? It is estimated that 70 million Americans will be 65 or over by 2030, and if the numbers from 1999 continue to be valid, roughly 30% of those people will be living in an institutional setting.

20 million people, at $3000 a month, equals $60 billion that will be required to cover the cost of long-term care for this group—each and every month. That’s $720 billion a year.

So how do we deal with the problem when it hits us?

I don’t know…but consider this: it is going to be tough to reduce these costs, if only because these are tasks that are not well suited for automation. These are services, for the most part, that require one-on-one care (or even two-on-one care)…and those who provide the care will want pay raises…which we will want to provide, in order to help keep the quality of care at a high level.

You should also know that there are substantial costs associated with “fixing broken workers”. The fact that workers are often required to assist clients that are physically large or physically awkward puts a lot of these workers out on injury leave…and the unhappy fact is that understaffing is a common way to try to control labor costs in nursing facilities, adding to the injury problem these workers face.

How bad is the healthcare injury problem? Ironically, the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us health care facilities are the most dangerous work environment in the United States.

“General medical and surgical hospitals (NAICS 6221) reported more injuries and illnesses than any other industry in 2007—more than 253,500 cases.”

To put it another way, there are basically two kinds of healthcare workers: the ones with back injuries…and the ones who don’t yet have back injuries.

As we wrap this thing up, let’s ask that question we ask almost every time: what have we learned today?

If you hadn’t already been thinking about it, it is fantastically expensive to have to receive care at an assisted-living facility, and soon there may be as many as 20 million Americans who will be in that situation…or something even more expensive, such as “skilled nursing facilities” (more commonly referred to as “nursing homes”).

We could be looking at having to find $720 billion (in today’s dollars) to cover the annual cost of that care.

It is going to be very tough to reduce those costs, unless you can develop ways to deliver the same care in a less-expensive environment…or you can find a way to reduce the number of people who will require such care.

Considering the cost of “memory care”, money invested in Alzheimer’s mitigation today might pay huge dividends later.

So that’s the deal: there is a giant bill that’s coming due, we better be thinking about it now…and one way or another, this will become one of the biggest fights in American politics as we move into the middle third of this century—so we can either get ready for it now, or we can all act surprised later.

Of course, if enough of us require “memory care”…then I guess that surprised look on our faces won’t be an act, eh?

On Dressing For Success, Part Two, Or, We Costume Palin...For 2/3 Off!

When last we met, Gentle Reader, we were talking about more or less $150,000 in clothing and beauty services that had been purchased mostly for Sarah Palin’s use by the Republican National Committee.

Since then, we have learned that John McCain himself once tried to outlaw the very type of contribution that led to this situation, we’ve heard McCain’s campaign offer a very non-maverick-y denial...and we’ve learned that the highest paid member of the McCain campaign staff—the person who presumably has the magic touch needed to turn this thing around—will be working her magic with a makeup brush.

As we discussed yesterday, I think I could have dressed Palin for 1/3 of what the RNC paid. Yesterday we “purchased” five of the outfits I think she needs...and with half the shopping done, we’re $670 over budget.

Can she be dressed for a mere $43,000?
Let’s see if we can pull it off...

Just so you know...the McCain campaign claims most of the clothing in question has never left the campaign plane...and they want us to know the expensive clothes they just bought but never used will be eventually donated to charity... and they still claim they are the ones who can best manage the Federal budget.

If you missed Part One...here are the rules: we are trying to find for Sarah a total of ten outfits. Seven of these outfits will be for “business” use and three are intended for evening wear.

The business outfits are budgeted at $4000 each; the evening wear’s budgeted at $5000 per ensemble. The total cost for all of this: $43,000.

We have identified four of the business choices, and a gorgeous blue metallic evening dress so far; leaving three more business and two more evening costumes to assemble.

And with all that said...may I direct your attention to the runway, for today’s first selection...

This is a truly understated, but nonetheless truly elegant silver wool and cashmere design, the “Wrap Bust Chevron Dress” by Alexander McQueen ($1670, Saks). The banded Empire waist is virtually the only ornamentation on the dress...but that allows us to be a bit flashy with the accessories.

We can be flashy and still save a ton of money by “recycling” the black Jimmy Choo “Patent Pumps” and the silver “Python Original Clutch” by Jalda from yesterday...and with the money we save we can afford to finish the look by picking up the “Punjab Waist Belt”, also by Alexander McQueen, thereby trickling an additional $625 down to the coffers of Saks Fifth Avenue.

Total cost: $2295—and that’s $1705 under budget for this item, $1035 under budget for the entire exercise to this point.

Mr. Blackwell died at the age of 86 this week.
It turns out he really was caught dead in that outfit...

--Seth Meyers, on “Weekend Update”, October 26, 2008

This next selection is entirely taken from a single page at the Saks website...which is kind of cheating, but the combination could not be better.

From Akris Punto, we present the “Wool Jacket” (which, for my money, could use a less utilitarian name), the “Silk Jersey Boatneck Top”, and the “New Carla Wool Pants” ($1290, $295, and $395 each). The pumpkin colored three button cropped jacket and toffee pants (both made of Swiss wool) are comfortably accented by the chestnut colored boatneck top, which mixes silk and wool.

This is another relatively inexpensive set, so let’s splurge a bit on accoutrement.

Something we can’t afford for this story, but the RNC could: the Dior “Beaded Jacket & Duchess Satin Skirt”, an $8095 vision in peacock green satin.

We need a brown bag...and what could be nicer than Fendi’s “Vintage Leather Baguette” in chocolate brown with lots of detail stitching and interchangeable long and short shoulder straps. From Saks, once again...and considering what we saved on the Akris Punto set and the Alexander McQueen dress, the $1950 price is easily justified.

Shoes? How about these dark brown “Patent Leather Mary Janes” from Manolo Blahnik, courtesy of Neiman’s. Simple, elegant, and at $625, surprisingly affordable.

The total: $4555. We ran a bit over on this one...but for the entire project we are still $480 under budget.

Since we already have the brown accessories, let’s really put them to use: check out this spectacular “Brocade Jacket” by Piazza Sempione ($1400, Neiman’s) in cotton, linen, silk, and...polyester. It’s a cropped length, but it has a traditional blazer style with a notched collar and three button front—and it is the perfect match for the “Belted Pant” from Pringle of Scotland (cotton/linen blend, $595, Neiman’s) and Eskandar’s cotton “Revere Blouse” (Bergdorf-Goodman, $370).

The total: $2365...which is $1635 under for the outfit, and $2115 total under budget.

Another item we can’t afford: the amazing silk and viscose “Stained Glass Gown” by Christian Lacroix...$6760, at Neiman’s.

It is entirely possible that Sarah The Vice Presidential Candidate might find herself giving a speech on a warm and rainy day in New Orleans—so to protect that lovely brocade jacket, we need Proenza Schouler’s “Trench Dress”.

Try to picture a lightweight viscose and linen trench coat, cut just above the knee, and you have the idea exactly. We had $2115 available, the jacket is $1975, leaving us still $140 under budget.

"That whole thing is just, bad!
Oh, if people only knew how frugal we are."

--Sarah Palin


The most courageous act is still to think for yourself.
Aloud.

--Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel

We are almost there, with only the final two evening ensembles remaining to select...and we will finish in fine style, I promise.

One of the most complicated mechanical processes I’m aware of is the weaving of jacquard fabrics; and we can observe the amazing results of that process in Caroline Herrera’s wool, silk, and polyester “Floral-Jacquard Jacket & Sheath Dress”. It is a simple bit of construction that uses its long, flat blue surfaces to perfectly show off the elaborate silver weaving.

As with the other outfits, the elegant design and rich fabrics of this jacket and dress make their own statements, which is actually allowing us to save money on jewelry—although, to be fair, that lack of external “bling” requires even more attention to hair styling than most of us often provide.

It is a bit pricey, ($4880, Neiman’s) but this set perfectly mates to the Python clutch from above...and the black Jimmy Choo Patent Pumps also work perfectly for this look...so we are still under budget, the total now being $260 below target.

Ombré is the process of weaving graduated color changes into a fabric, and this effect is presented spectacularly by Herve Leger’s “Allover Sequin Dress”: the navy bodice fades through purple and cranberry and fuscia and pastels, finally finishing in a silver band at the hem. The “allover sequins” make this the perfect dinner dress for a formal State dinner, a fundraising reception at the Washington Hilton...or any time Our Dear Sarah wants to remind Ann Coulter that she’s probably been...replaced...in the hearts of the Conservative community.

It’s $2800 at Saks...but if it gives her a chance to have a cocktail dress smackdown with Coulter, it might be well-spent money...especially if, somehow, they could be convinced to appear on ”The Jerry Springer Show” to fight it out, in evening wear, for our amusement.

Obviously the sparkling silver Python clutch is again going to be the perfect choice...and I even found the perfect shoes: from Miu Miu, the “Sequin Pump”. They’re purple, the shimmer like the afternoon sky at “Burning Man”...and at $650, they allow us to finish this project $1810 under budget—which we can use to bolster Palin’s “foreign policy experience” by picking up the tab at the Russian Tea Room.

And with all that said, we come to the end.

And what have we learned?

We have been reminded, once again, that fashion is indeed an art...we have seen the intersection of highly specialized manufacturing techniques and the products they create...but most importantly of all, we were reminded that it is possible to present a candidate in the finest of clothes and accoutrement for roughly $100,000 less than what McCain’s putative minions at the RNC spent—and we were also reminded that you and I are not the ones running around the countryside claiming we know how to balance a budget in our first term while simultaneously claiming most of the clothes were never used and will be donated at a loss.

Which means the biggest lesson we learned today might be this: if you can’t be counted on to handle the purchase of $150,000 worth of clothing, how are we supposed to trust you to manage the purchase of $150 billion worth of currently dead mortgage securities...or military equipment...or prescription drugs for Medicare?

If this big ol’ pile of fashion foolishness is any indication, I’d say we can’t.

On Cutting The Largest Earmark, Or, McCain = War$, War$, And More War$

It’s time, Gentle Reader, that we address some of the disconnected thinking coming from the Republican side of the Presidential campaign...particularly the idea that we’re facing the “transcendent challenge of our time” from “radical Islamic extremism”.

To defeat this enemy, the presumptive Republican nominee tells us, he will do whatever it takes...even maintaining an expensive military presence in at least two distant counties for many years to come—“why not a hundred?”, he has asked.

Yet at the same time, he speaks of the $35 billion in earmarks he would eliminate from a $2 trillion budget hugely in deficit—and at the moment that appears to be the only spending cuts to which he will commit.

Is it possible this whole obsession with earmarks is really what he thinks is the problem...and why won’t he address the largest earmark of all—the multi-trillion dollar cost of this war, the eventual “re-upping” of the worn out equipment, and the costs of the ensuing “eternal” occupation he supports?

Oh, and did I mention the cost of the eventual wars with North Korea, Pakistan, Iran...and presumably China and Russia?

Just to make it interesting structurally, I’m going to work backwards through the introductory questions today...so here we go:

Who saw McCain with Chris Matthews at Villanova?

For a moment near the end the conversation centered on what would be the “tipping point” for a President McCain to order an attack on Iran; eventually Matthews was able to get him to commit that the attack would likely occur when Iran became a “strategic danger” to the US.

If that’s the standard for attack...well, who else meets the standard?

Obviously North Korea would have to be on the list—they have nuclear weapons and a delivery system capable of reaching US targets today, they have participated in the dissemination of weapons of mass destruction through involvement with the A.Q. Khan network, and they clearly bear us ill will.

Not to mention that other standard often cited: they participate in efforts to bully and destabilize both their southern neighbor and Japan, in an effort to garner greater influence in the region.

Pakistan? The spread of Islamist influence through the country’s “CIA”, the ISS, is rampant. The A.Q. Khan network’s efforts to “sell” nuclear technology were likely facilitated by elements within the larger national government. They also have delivery systems, although they are unlikely to today reach the US.

The influence of Islamist politicians is also growing daily. Waziristan, the North-West Frontier Province, and the Autonomous Tribal Areas are already becoming Taliban controlled states within Pakistan...and we see the inability of the Pakistani Army to establish control or authority in those areas.

The death of Bhutto has removed the last important non-military opponent of Islamism from the national political stage, future elections will likely increase Islamist influence at every level of national government; and it’s entirely reasonable to foresee an election—or coup, or civil war--that makes Pakistan into a nation ruled by a Taliban-like government that possesses the “nuclear codes” required to trigger a massively destructive attack on the US. There is also a very real possibility that this will be the quickest route by which nuclear weapons will be exported to “terrorist” groups.

The “transcendent challenge” theory suggests Pakistan could overnight become a strategic threat to the US, which begs the question: is McCain suggesting that in the case of Pakistan we should move to a “launch on election” posture?

China? They currently possess hundreds of nuclear weapons and have the delivery systems to launch right into the US heartland. That’s pretty much the definition of a strategic threat, suggesting they would also have to be taken out.

Of course, some might point out that the final element of a strategic threat is antipathy—the ill will another nation possesses toward yours.

Which brings us to Russia. For more than 40 years it’s been well-known that they intend to “bury” us, thanks to Khrushchev’s United Nations “shoe pounding” incident. They possess not hundreds, but thousands of nuclear weapons—strategic and non-strategic—along with air-, sea-, and land-based delivery platforms, many of which are forward-based and capable of being put into action on orders from lower-echelon commanders...as opposed to the US practice that a National Command Authority equivalent (an older term referring to what is essentially a Head of State, such as the US President) should be the only controlling authority.

We have noted the recent “freezing” of US/Russian relations during the Putin Presidency years, and it now appears Putin intends to remain in charge as the new Russian Prime Minister--perhaps running again for President in four years. With no other political opposition and a huge desire on the part of the nation to return to its days of power and influence, it may be just a matter of time before they, too, return to the status of “strategic threat”...if they’re not there already.

Shall we bomb them all together, Senator, or do you support a “war du jour” kind of approach?

Moving on: is there any bigger earmark than a few good wars?

The costs so far for Iraq and Afghanistan are estimated at more or less $2 trillion (or beyond, depending on whom you ask), with the better part of a trillion required in the future to replace the aircraft, ships, and rolling stock that are quickly wearing out from the current wars. An example is found in the B-52 bomber, which will have to be replaced at least 10 years sooner than we might have had to had we not fought this war.

Other examples? The B-1 needs “life extension” (and if the A-10 isn’t quickly replaced it will, too), the F-22 and F-35 programs will need to be fully funded despite the fact that we don’t have the money, we are probably looking at having to replace an aircraft carrier or two...with their associated “battle groups” of support ships (also expect a move to expand the Navy to 330 or more ships, including a 14th or 15th aircraft carrier)...the KC-135 aircraft refueling tankers are being replaced...and of course, there’s the rolling stock. (Not yet in the budget conversation: the eventual replacement of two ancient but highly effective workhorses, the C-130 and A-10.)

I won’t even discuss the state of the military helicopter fleet or the additional $100 billion or more (double that amount is reasonably possible) we’ll need for military space operations.

Since we tend to “leapfrog”, rather than replace, costs for equipment go up even more quickly then they might otherwise.

The Humvee is a perfect example...we’ll be replacing unarmored rigs with (more costly) armored vehicles, and many of the vehicles will be replaced by the far more protected (and far more expensive) MRAP. This happens over and over again—BDUs (Battle Dress Uniforms—what the Army calls the “camouflage” clothing worn in combat) are improved and more costly as Gore-Tex has replaced cotton and helmets with cool cameras and night vision enhance a steel pot’s Kevlar cousin.

As elements of the Future Force Warrior system come on-line the cost of outfitting a trooper will again jump upward—and as with all of this, the more war, the more you need to buy.

One other huge, huge, huge expense I don’t hear McCain “straight talking” about: the medical care for those we sent to do our fighting...many of whom will need services for life.

I never would have thought that a product called the ”Magic Jack” would be used in the field of telecommunications (such a waste of a great porn name)...and every time I think about what all these “military earmarks” are going to do to my wallet I feel like it’s McCain that’s hoping to pull the “Magic Jack” on us for the benefit of a military-industrial complex that a General he admires warned us about half a century ago.

With that out of the way, a few words on today’s legislative earmarks:

McCain tells us he would ban earmarks, which are budget items added to a bill in a manner that bypasses the normal Congressional committee and floor vote process. He cites money spent on a study of cattle DNA as the classic example of what’s wrong with the practice.

He reports that this could lead to a savings of $35 billion or so, presumably impacting the current sad state of the Federal budget next year and going forward.

Those who support earmarks point out that the monies are often used for appropriate government purposes, including restoring cuts in Homeland Security spending made by the current Administration’s budget proposals.

Just a couple thoughts, Senator...and I’ll make it quick:

--If you ban all earmarks through the current process by vetoing the bills in which they’re contained, won’t lawmakers just agree to pass each other’s “former earmarks” through a normal process that forces you to either convince someone to pass a “line item veto Amendment”—quickly...or renders your pledge moot?

--Isn’t $35 billion just spit in a bucket compared to the absurd amount of deficit we are running today...and will be forever, if the “Bush tax cuts” are made permanent, as you propose?

As Peggy Lee might say about your ideas: “Is That All There Is?”

Think about it, sir: the biggest bite in this budget is either the Bush tax cuts of which you’re so...recently ... proud, or the crazy desire to pursue war to no good purpose...no matter what the cost.

So when you tell me the “transcendent challenge of our time” is war, war, and more war, I have to ask: wouldn’t the real “transcendent challenge “ for a McCain Administration that’s raising spending while cutting taxes be finding the money?

Or will your Administration, just like the current one, seek to pass the “Magic Jack” on to the generations that are still here long after you’re not?

My guess: we won’t be hearing a “straight talk” answer to that one anytime soon.

On The Cost of War, Or, Do You Know What We Could Have Bought?

There will be a great debate as November approaches over who is a “fiscal conservative” and who is a “tax and spend liberal”.

It is highly likely someone will throw the words “transcendent challenge” into the conversation, and that got me to thinking…what if there were other “transcendent challenges” besides “islamo-facism-scary-monster-gonna-get-us”?

Then my thoughts went further (always a dangerous step), and I found myself asking: if we hadn’t of spent that $2.4 trillion on one transcendent challenge, what else could we have done with the money?

Some of today’s answers are serious, some are maddening, some are silly…and all of it is our tax dollars in action. (Well, to be fair, it’s not all ours. Our kids and grandkids will be chipping in, too.)

Before we start, a warning: don’t believe that $2.4 trillion will be the end of it.

Remember, we still need to replace or “trade up” virtually all our now worn out military rolling stock (maybe $300 billion or so), and there are aircraft to replace as well (adding about $500 billion more to the cost); making my “back of the envelope” guess an additional $800 billion for the two…meaning we’re really looking at some total number in the $3.2 trillion range--even if we came home right this very minute.

So, what else could the money have bought?

Well…who thinks education is important?

For the same $2.4 trillion we’ve spent so far on the war we could have given a $25,000 educational grant to 96 million Americans.

Who among us has entered the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes?

The Prize Patrol would need to hire some help, but you could afford it—because even if you gave 2 million people $1 million each, you’d still have $400 billion left over for payroll.

Ever been to Vegas?

You could not lose this much money if you tried. I figured it out—if you lost $10 million every day for the rest of your life…well, to lose this much you’re going to have to figure out how to live 657 years. Of course, with $2.4 trillion, you might.

Speaking of which…they tell me if you buy in bulk you get big discounts. Well, if you decided to buy everyone’s health insurance, you could pay a $500 monthly premium for 300 million Americans for a year—and still have $600 billion in your pants pocket to go back to Vegas with. (This, by the way, is about enough to buy the entire place…lock, stock, and “gentleman’s clubs”. And you might as well. After all, you’ll be there 657 years.)

Wanna buy something else in bulk? With that kind of money, you can shop at the “corporate Costco”…so let’s really think “supersize”:

Let’s grab something from the Halliburton aisle…and maybe an Exxon/Mobil, too…and a GM, and why not a Starbucks while we’re at it? Toss in a Nike, and how about we grab Costco, too.

The total market capitalization of all of them put together?

Not even $500 billion.

Fort Knox? You could buy 18 of them, based on the current estimate of US gold holdings at the site and a $900 per ounce price of gold.

Or you could buy 4.8 trillion Jack-in-the-Box tacos. (By the way, if you ate two of those daily it would take about half the estimated history of the universe to finish them all-more than 6.5 billion years.)

That $350 iPod? You could give one to just about every human on the planet…and some download cards to go with them. Think of it as hooking up 6 billion of your closest friends. You, for all intents and purposes, would be Santa for a year.

Just for the sake of argument, let’s say that 100,000 Americans will be sleeping in their cars tonight. You could buy those 100,000 people 365 Cadillac Escalades (at $50,000 each…again, bulk discount), so they could sleep in a different one every night--and it would still leave you with more than $500 billion to play with.

You could take everyone in the US to the Old Country Buffet—a thousand times.

Spring training is starting. You’ll want good seats…why not buy 30 teams a $500 million Arizona or Florida training facility? And why not do it again every year for 160 years? After all, you can afford it.

Why not go really nuts?
Take the team out for a movie after practice.

For $2.4 trillion, you could have bought 9 movie tickets, 9 large tubs of movie popcorn and 9 large drinks—and you’d still have had $1.63 in change left over.

I once proposed in these pages that we convert surplus aircraft carriers into “Peace Ships” with hospital and other emergency supplies for use during disasters worldwide. At $3.5 billion each we could buy a fleet of 685.

If you split the $2.4 trillion evenly, you could be as rich as Bill Gates ($50 billion, more or less)—and so could 47 of your friends.

In the wake of Katrina, the Army Corps of Engineers is spending about $25 million to build a mile of levee. Instead of flooding Iraq with US troops, we could have bought 96,000 miles of flood control. (If we built just a bit less we could afford the $50 billion it would cost to build each of 250,000 Louisiana residents a $150,000 house…and $50,000 worth of stuff to go in it.)

Who in this group is a golfer? How about $150 green fees, $100 cart rental, $100 for lunch and cocktails…every day for 18 million years. (If you pay the same for your other 3 deadbeat friends you can only go every day for 4.6 million years; but that’s the price of friendship, I suppose.)

Does art grab your fancy? Maybe a nice $150 million Van Gogh to spruce up each of the empty looking walls around the old mansion? You better have 16,000 empty walls…you’ll need ‘em.

Would you like to buy the world a Coke? At $1.00 each, you could—every day for a year, with money left over.

Or instead, shoes?
There’s money in the budget for 24 billion pair at $100 each-that’s roughly 3 pair and a left foot for every person alive today.

So what’s the bigger point here?

It’s simple.

As we mentioned at the top of this story, someone is going to tell us all about what a fiscal conservative he is…at the same time he’s telling us about a “hundred years’ war”.

Well, if you listened to me and spent the money in some of the ways I’ve illustrated here you’d be a damn fool—but you’d have more to show for the $2.4 trillion than what we have today…and we’d probably all feel a lot safer, too.

So when the fiscal conservative is peddling his rhetorical wares, let’s be sure to remind him of this conversation…and let’s watch him squirm.

On Space Radar, Or, Real Life Ain’t Like “24”

Those of you who are regular readers will know that I like to bring you stories that are not part of the conversation you might generally see at this site (or anywhere else, for that matter); and I have a good one for you today.

We will discuss a military “spy satellite” program that has great potential for use by other customers-including law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

A program, frankly, that has a huge “Big Brother” potential.

A program that may end up costing $150 billion of today’s dollars-or more-over the next 25 years.

And with that introduction complete, let’s talk about “Space Radar”.

This will be a fairly long, but not very technical, description of a development and procurement program that has the twin goals of allowing the US military to obtain an image of any location on Earth, and then employing that information to support a variety of missions; and secondly, to track individual vehicles from space so that they might be attacked, if needed.

At the end of the discussion you should have an understanding of what the system can-and can’t-do, and you should be able to do your own thinking regarding a rough cost-benefit analysis of the program.

''I'm really trying to help keep this revised assault on schedule!''
--CTU Analyst Chloe, on the television show “24”

The television show “24” is but one of many places where you can see the image of the Secret Government Intelligence Agency specialists hunched over computer screens, following the image of some vehicle that is driving in a distant desert in real time, and then-with the appropriate giant explosion-the Evil Terrorist and his Truck are destroyed by a pinpoint strike from a perfectly guided missile.

Another success for Our Side.

But as you might suspect, in real life it doesn’t always work out that way.

For a variety of reasons that we will flesh out as we go along, several parts of that scenario are very difficult to make happen, and especially exactly when you need them all to happen.

For example, you can’t just “steer” satellites to where you want them to go as you might a car-the nature of how this type of satellite orbits the Earth determines where it will be at a particular time of day. Therefore just because you located the Evil Terrorist Truck doesn’t mean you can just call up an image, right this instant, from the closest satellite.

It’s also very difficult to maintain contact with the Evil Terrorist Truck for more than a few minutes as it’s driving along, and one factor causing this difficulty is related to the orbital parameters of the satellite. Other factors relate to the design characteristics of the radar itself, in what direction and over what terrain the target vehicle travels, potential confusion caused by any other vehicles located nearby, and the computational and computer processing difficulties inherent in this type of work.

The number of satellites you have, and their angle relative to what they are trying to observe will also affect the ability to get the image.

If all that wasn’t enough, all the data generated has to be processed into a useable image, downloaded, and analyzed. Unfortunately, space today is essentially wired for DSL, and to make this program work we will also have to install a much bigger “pipe” for getting data down from space. As a result of today’s slower speed connections, the current reality often means waiting for data from a satellite before it can be acted upon-and that delay can be not just seconds or minutes, but sometimes even hours.

Is there any good news here?
Well, maybe.

Depending on how we design, we might be able to use Moore’s Law to leverage today’s investment by upgrading some components later.

There is a manufacturing development on the horizon that might substantially reduce the cost of producing the radar arrays themselves, and electronics do tend to get cheaper every year-but those are not the most expensive part of the satellite’s design. More on this later.

Before we get too far, a quick word about sourcing.

I will link liberally in the course of this discussion, but I owe a giant thanks to the Congressional Budget Office. In January of 2007 they released “Alternatives for Military Space Radar”, and the great majority of the information found here can be found, in greater detail, there.

So now, let’s talk generically about what these satellites do.

As we discussed above, these satellites are intended to perform two basic missions. In the first, they travel around the Earth taking pictures of strips of land as they pass overhead. This is what you might think of as a typical “spy satellite” mission-the comparison of images from some location to images of the same place, taken in a previous time. This is the raw material of how most folks might traditionally imagine the process of photographic analysis works. You can analyze, for example, if construction has occurred (are they building the reactor?) at a particular place, or the movement and composition of military forces (where is the enemy?) on a battlefield. There are other uses for this data as well, including military mapping.

Military mapping has two purposes: the production of maps for use by troops, sailors, or pilots, and the creation of the “maps” that are fed into the navigational systems of certain missiles. Once the map (actually a digital three-dimensional representation of a series of “waypoints”) is loaded, the missile can find its own way to the target.

The second mission is not so traditional: the goal of tracking the movements of individual vehicles from space as they move about on the Earth, in “near-real” time, so as to create the “actionable intelligence” we so often hear about. No acknowledged satellite performs this mission today for any country. Earth based systems such as the Predator, Global Hawk, and JSTARS have handled this mission since the 1990’s.

The biggest challenge for a designer tasked with making these two things happen…is that the “taking pictures” mission and the “actionable intelligence” missions fundamentally conflict with each other.

Here’s what I mean:

After going to the time, trouble, and expense of launching a satellite and putting the infrastructure in place to both keep it going and to use the data it creates, you need to ensure you collect the most data possible 24 hours a day. A satellite performing this type of mission travels around the Earth in an orbit that creates “strips” of image, one alongside the other as each orbit goes by, until a complete image of the Earth’s surface is created. If a satellite can complete one strip in 105 minutes (the orbit time for a satellite passing 1,000 kilometers above the Earth), 14 strips would cover the entire Earth’s surface in 24 hours.

To get a better idea of the “strip” concept, look at the cardboard roll in the center of your paper towels or toilet paper. That overlapping pattern, if applied to a more spherical shape (the Earth), is an excellent way to visualize what I’m talking about.

On the other hand, the longer you can stay over a target, the longer you can observe a particular object (the Evil Terrorist Truck, for example). The level of detail you can create from that image goes up as well. There are satellites that, if you were able to look up and see them, would always appear to be over the same spot on Earth. These are called “geosynchronous” satellites, and if you have DirecTV you benefit from such a satellite. This would theoretically create the most detail and longest time over target possible.

This is not a good design for a spy satellite, however, because you can only look at one place for that satellite’s entire lifetime.

This, as with much of life, is not 100% accurate-it is possible to move satellites to different orbits to some extent, but doing so will reduce the time they can be maintained in orbit, and a satellite that cannot maintain its orbit will eventually fall back to Earth. Since these satellites will likely be costing us more or less $1.5 billion each, keeping them up as long as possible matters.

One way this problem is resolved is by increasing the number of satellites, but this can still leave gaps in coverage. For example, 14 satellites that take 105 minutes to orbit would mean a satellite would be over any particular spot every 105 minutes…but that also means the Evil Terrorist Truck could have up to a 105 minute head start before we can get a camera on it, if a satellite had just passed by.

There are issues related to the satellite’s distance from the Earth’s surface as well. High altitude orbits (20,000 kilometers or higher) have advantages, especially in the amount of coverage at any given time, but they require exponentially larger amounts of power to operate, because the returning signal is so weak. (The CBO reports that doubling the range a signal travels makes it 16 times weaker.)

Medium Earth Orbit (5,000 to 15,000km) satellites have similar characteristics: large amounts of power and large radar antenna and solar arrays make design and construction technically challenging, but they offer large “footprints” of coverage.

Low Earth Orbit (500 to 1,000km) is risky because of the risk of orbital decay-the dragging of the satellite back to Earth because of the planet’s gravity. This orbital altitude offers the smallest viewing area, but the strongest signal return potential. It is the likely choice of any future Space Radar system.

You might expect that implementing power solutions would be the easiest for these Low earth Orbit satellites, but nothing’s ever that simple. And thus we need to take a moment to address the role of earthly eclipses on satellite batteries.

Because of the time spent in the Earth’s shadow every orbit it is not possible to get enough power from the sun to operate any single satellite’s radar at full power at all times. This requires the satellites to store solar power in onboard batteries for when it’s needed-but the more often you charge and discharge batteries, the faster you wear them out. Changing batteries is not an option, which is why the proposed satellites have a reported lifespan of about 10 years. (A Low Earth Orbit satellite spends about 25% of it’s time in shadow.)

The satellites we are talking about gather images through the use of radar. The common image of a radar installation is an exotic looking antenna of some sort rotating around at the top of a radar mast. The radar sends signals out from the antenna (the “aperture”), the system receives the signals as they return after bouncing off an object, and the time it takes for that to occur can be used as one input for a math problem (an algorithm) that is processed by a computer to create the “radar image” that the operator sees on a modern radar.

This is not, however, the only way a radar device can operate. The larger the aperture, the more detail the image can have. That’s because more signal sent out allows more signal to return, and that’s where detail and clarity comes from. It’s also true that a larger aperture allows you to see more area at any one time.

It’s possible to electronically manipulate radar “transmit/receive modules” laid out on a giant flat non-moving panel (an “array”) to create a giant “synthetic” aperture-and “Synthetic Aperture Radar” (or SAR) will be used on the Space Radar satellites. This electronic manipulation capability allows for fancy tricks never imagined by the “old school” radar designers-for example, part of the radar can scan a large area with lower detail, while part of the radar scans a small area with very fine detail.

Two other handy characteristics of the design are the ability to “re-aim” any part of the array at any other area it’s pointed at instantaneously, and the ability to “re-view” several spots that the array is facing in a repeating pattern over and over (10 seconds on six locations every minute, as an example).

The Defense Support System uses giant SAR installations, and they are also used on US Navy ships (note the large flat panel just below the mast).

This brings us to nomenclature.
I promise I’ll be gentle, but there are a few more terms you need to know for all of this to make better sense.

To help simplify what might otherwise seem a bit obtuse, I’m going to ask you to play a mental game with me. Imagine you’re sitting in the driver’s seat of a car.

In this example, the car will represent the satellite, and you, sitting in the driver’s seat, will represent the radar.

Now imagine that you are driving that car on the freeway (or motorway for my UK friends.)

The view out the front window would represent the “Satellite Ground Track”.
This can also be called the “Along-Track” or “Azumith” direction.

The radar is pointing out the passenger window, and the window represents the aperture that we discussed above. (That direction is known as the “Cross-Track”,”Range”, or “Elevation” direction.)

As you might imagine, the size and shape of the window affects what can be seen. Picture a window two feet tall by four feet wide in size, with you looking out the window down at the ground. Now consider how that view would change if the window was four feet tall by two feet wide

Here’s what else might affect your view:

--How much does your head have to turn to look out the side window?
That angle is called the “Azumith Angle”.

--How much do you have to tilt your head down to see the spot you want to see on the ground? That angle is called the “Elevation Angle”.

--The reverse of that (the angle someone on the ground would have to look up to see you) is called the “Grazing Angle”.

--The area of ground that you can see looking out the side window would be the area of the “Range-Swath Width”

--You can’t look straight down through the car’s floor to see the road-and a satellite can’t either. This zone that can’t be seen immediately below the satellite is called the “Nadir”.

We’ve covered a lot so far, and I think with just a couple exceptions the terms we need to learn are now out of the way, so how about we take a short break?

Go walk away, let your head clear a bit, pour yourself a refreshing beverage, and come on back. We’ll pick up the discussion by looking at the factors that limit what this sort of system can accomplish.

Our break over, let‘s continue our discussion of what keeps radar designers up late at night.

For starters, consider the challenges of tracking the Evil Terrorist Truck (or mobile SCUD transport erector launcher [TEL], for that matter). A satellite, traveling more or less 17,000 miles an hour, is trying to find a vehicle traveling maybe 30 miles an hour on a planet passing hundreds of kilometers underneath at 15,000 miles an hour on its voyage around the Sun. This vehicle might be on a road surrounded by other vehicles at varying speeds, or it might be in the mountains, where valleys can block your view. Patterns of vegetation are also confusing.

Designers resolve some of these problems by attempting to “teach” the computers that interpret the data how to filter out the “clutter”. Unfortunately, this is an exercise in guessing (if the vehicle is traveling on a road, the computer might attempt to extrapolate the location of the vehicle from the surrounding “clutter” based on information it has already received about the target’s previous activities, for example), and guessing leads to guessing and...

To make a long story short, the CBO estimates current “state of the art” technology could only maintain any single vehicle’s tracking for less than 10 minutes before the clutter overwhelms the system’s ability to correctly guess what’s what. The best results are achieved in a grid environment (a plowed farmer’s field, for example), where the vehicle moves in the Cross-Track direction. The more rapidly a target is traveling, the easier it is to locate. A vehicle moving exactly in the Along-Track direction cannot be detected.

Another means of resolving some of these problems is to employ many satellites. As we mentioned above sending one satellite, in the same orbit, over a location over and over throughout the day can require many satellites in order to constantly observe any particular spot on Earth. In fact, if you have 14 strips that take 105 minutes to orbit, viewing one location every 9 minutes requires roughly 150 satellites. This would provide you the ability to have near real-time images of any location on Earth nearly 90% of the time, as one of the 150 satellites is always somewhere nearby overhead, and with a large range-swath width you could theoretically achieve nearly overlapping coverage. (Because of the nadir below every satellite, it is nearly impossible to achieve 100% coverage.)

Of course, who can afford 150 satellites?

But there is another way: remember the paper towel roll example we discussed before? Imagine if the “seams” on that roll went in two directions-the seam you see running to the right, and a second seam, crossing over the first, going to the left. That would be an example of satellites on two “Orbital Planes”, and the constellations of satellites that are envisioned for Space Radar operate on one, two, or three orbital planes, depending on the alternative you’re talking about. (Picture two seams, not overlapping, going to the left, and one to the right on our cardboard roll, and you have three orbital planes.) If you picture satellites paralleling or crossing each other’s paths on these orbital planes, you can see new opportunities to cover ground more quickly with fewer “birds” in space.

In the end, however, the limitations of real world budgets will require compromises, and the first of those is to accept that you can’t be everywhere at every second. Instead, the goal of a constellation designer is to create a pattern of orbiting satellites that offers the most:

--Access (what percentage of the time can any particular location be observed)

--Response Time (how soon can you get images from any particular location)

--Coverage (how large an area can you view every hour)

--Mean Track Life (how long, on average, can you track a particular target)

Another challenge in providing coverage is to design a satellite that can view the largest area possible with the greatest detail required. This is a bit like looking through a pair of binoculars: the greater the enlargement, the smaller the area you can see through the lens. To do this a terrestrial SAR uses enormous arrays, but that is not possible in a space-based system because of the weight and size limits imposed by launch vehicles.

As a result, the systems being considered would have arrays covering 40 square meters (more or less 9 feet high by 50 feet long) or 100 square meters (about 75 feet long by 12 feet high). Essentially, you have to decide if you want a smaller number of very large radars, or a larger number of smaller radars.

Each has its tradeoffs: as we said earlier, larger satellites are extremely expensive to design, build, and launch (that giant-and therefore heavy-array has to be folded up for launch, which requires lots of extra engineering; it’s also more likely to flex in space, and thus must be designed with a heavier, more rigid structure, and the greater demands for power require heavier equipment than smaller designs), but a larger number of satellites means more expenses down the road for maintenance, data collection and processing, and required spare satellites (about 10% of satellites experience “catastrophic failure”).

Most of the Earth’s interesting “targets”, the CBO reports, are located between 20 and 60 degrees north latitude, and this is where grazing angle comes into play.

Let’s try another mental game: imagine you are a satellite, and you are standing near a model car on the floor. The top-down view you would have of the car is much more informative than the one you would have if you were laying on the floor looking at the car. In reality, it is impossible to “look across the floor” using a satellite (known as a “zero grazing angle”) because of ground clutter (trees, buildings, hills…) creating obstructions and other such issues. (Eight degrees of grazing angle is considered the absolute minimum for any currently proposed design.)

Placing the satellite’s orbits so that targets in the 20 to 60 degree latitude range are well covered, therefore, is of paramount importance.

Now it’s time to more fully address data transfer.
Everyone who has switched from dialup to broadband understands what better connections can mean, and this system generates huge outputs of data.

The amount of data can be reduced by doing some of the computer processing on the satellite, but this means more power and weight, plus the concern that failure of an onboard computer might render an entire satellite useless. Instead, it is likely that raw data will be sent to ground stations for processing. This model also offers the advantage of allowing for easy upgrades of processing hardware and software, since all the equipment performing these tasks is located on Earth.

Of course, communication between a satellite and a ground station requires a “line of sight” view between the two, and that’s not always possible. This creates delays in getting data to those who need it. NASA has the same problem with their satellites, and they created a “backbone network” of linked communications satellites that orbit the earth today.

The idea is that one of the satellites in the backbone network is always connected to a ground station, and when data needs to be downlinked a satellite connects to the network and passes its data. At that point, much like the cell phone network, the backbone satellites pass the data amongst themselves until the ground station connected satellite is reached, at which point the downlink occurs.

Today the NASA system has six channels that can pass 800 Mb/second, which is equivalent to six DSL connections-not much when you have many satellites trying to pass video and other data all at once. Any future system will require a radically improved “backbone” to support it; and my uneducated guess is that this could represent another 30-50% added to any other cost estimates.

And so, at long last, we come to the heart of the matter: just what should we expect from such a system, and how much should we expect it to cost?

To answer those questions, we need to identify just what sort of a system we are talking about. I will pick out two of the options the CBO discussed and focus on them, as I believe they are the options most likely to be adopted.

System 1 is a constellation of nine satellites on two orbital planes. The radars are the larger 100 square meter aperture design, and they are in Low Earth Orbit.

System 2 has 21 satellites with 40 square meter aperture. The satellites are also in Low Earth Orbit, and are on three orbital planes.

The next thing we need is a scenario. The CBO developed two: the ability of each system to track a single vehicle target in North Korea; and the mission of observing locations on the Korean Peninsula over a period of time.

They also made assumptions about two technologies that are not yet known to actually exist:

It is theoretically possible to send multiple frequencies from a single transmit/receive module simultaneously, and then separate the frequencies again when the return echoes are received. If this is possible, the area that could be imaged in any time period would be multiplied by the number of additional frequencies transmitted (three frequencies, triple the area observed, for example). No system currently is known to have this capability.

It is also hoped that a process called “STAP processing” will improve the performance of the proposed radar systems when tracking vehicle targets through more effective “clutter removing” algorithms. Because the CBO cannot today know how effective this processing will be, they made a conservative and an aggressive assumption, which we will discuss as we go along.

First, let’s discuss the “picture taking” (SAR) mission.

You may recall that the more detail you require, the smaller an area you can image. More detail also lengthens response times, but in the case of our North Korean mission this is not too severe: both Systems 1 and 2 would be able to provide images at .01 meter (3”, sufficient to determine if a crop is growing at an expected pace) resolution in less than 15 minutes; and in the case of System 2, if you could settle for images of .07 meter resolution (not quite two feet, and sufficient to tell the difference between a truck and a tank) you could obtain an image in about seven minutes anywhere in North Korea.

Coverage is the next metric to be examined.
To help give you a bit of perspective, consider these facts:

A Division is a massing of about 10-15,000 troops and they typically operate in an area of about 1,000 square kilometers.

During the Persian Gulf War of 1991, the US Air Force created so-called “kill boxes” of about 2,500 square kilometers for the purposes of locating SCUD TELs.

The Korean Demilitarized Zone and an area extending about 80km into North Korea encompasses about 11, 000 square km; this area equals about 10% of the total area of North Korea, which is in turn about half of the Korean Peninsula.

System 1 could survey the DMZ region, about five kill boxes, or the operating areas of 10 to 11 Divisions daily at .01 meter resolution, and the entire Korean Peninsula at .06 meter resolution. System 1 can survey roughly twice as much land at .01 meter resolution as System 2. The amount of land surveyed at 1 meter resolution is about 10 times that which can be imaged at .01 meter resolution.

System 2 can only cover about 60% of the area of System 1 at .01 meter resolution, but at 1 meter resolution this 21 satellite constellation can cover about 3 times as much as the 9 satellite System 1-over 1,000,000 square km daily. The amount of land surveyed at 1 meter resolution is about 20 times that which can be imaged at .01 meter resolution. System 2 could therefore provide five complete images of the entire Korean Peninsula daily at 1 meter resolution, compared to two images daily with System1.

System 1 could image any target located between 40 and 60 degrees North or South latitude between 15% and 20% of the time at .01 image detail, and roughly 20% at 1 meter resolution.

System 2 could image any target located between 40 and 60 degrees North or South latitude between 10% and 20% of the time at .01 image detail, and above 30% at 1 meter resolution.

Keep in mind that grazing angle counts with all of this-an angle approaching 90 degrees yields no image (the “laying on the floor” example we discussed above), which is why the best results are obtained in the latitude range we’ve discussed above.

The next item to assess is the effectiveness of the two Systems in tracking a target vehicle (officially known as Ground Moving Target Indication, or GMTI).

Before we can examine the numbers, a quick word about steering.

We don’t want to cause our satellites to change their orbits, because we will use fuel that we will need later to maintain the satellite’s orbit. However, we might choose to “spin” our satellite (turn it on its yaw axis, for the aerospace engineers still reading) in order to follow a single vehicle, and the CBO, as they did about STAP processing, made a “fixed” and “variable” yaw angle assumption.

There are disadvantages to varying the yaw angle: the fuel use, of course, but also the risk of flexing the radar array, which will drastically reduce the radar’s effectiveness.

With that said, here’s some numbers…

First, let’s examine access. It is estimated that one of the nine System 1 satellites would be available to track a vehicle traveling about 20 mph 30% of the time with a fixed yaw angle, and making a conservative assumption as to the effectiveness of STAP processing. Because of the aperture size, there is no real improvement if we assume STAP processing is more effective. The variable yaw angle makes the system about 30% more effective.

The 21 satellites of System 2 would fare better, and if STAP processing lived up to the aggressive assumption, System 2 would be roughly twice as effective as System 1. However, the conservative STAP assumption only yields a small improvement over System 1, no matter if we are comparing fixed or variable yaw designs. The lowest predicted assumption was for 40% access, and the most optimistic suggests access could be maintained almost 70% of the time.

In any case, vehicles moving less than 2 meters per second (about 5 mph) are virtually invisible to any of the radars we are examining. If the aggressive STAP assumption is made, vehicles traveling over 4 meters per second are probably going to be tracked about 40% of the time for System 1, above 60% of the time for System 2.

Under the conservative assumption, neither System can be counted on to be able to track a particular target more than 20% of the time if the target is traveling less that 6 meters per second (about 15 mph), and System 2 can’t hit the 20% number unless the vehicle is traveling 8 meters per second (20 mph).

How quickly can our Systems respond once the order is given to track a vehicle?

Assuming either a fixed or variable yaw angle, it would take one of the nine System 1 satellites more or less 15 minutes to respond to a target between 40 and 60 degrees North or South latitude. System 2’s 21 satellites could respond in less than 10 minutes, possibly as quickly as 5 if aggressive STAP assumptions are used.

That response time, however, is not possible for vehicles traveling less that 4 meters per second-System 2 requires up to 60 minutes to locate such a target, although System 1 can do it in about 10 minutes. If you called in a sighting of a high value target driving away, even a 10 minute response time may be too slow.

How long can we maintain tracking on a particular target?

Here’s some bad news. The CBO estimates that System 2 could only maintain a track on a target for a period of 1 to 4 minutes using the conservative STAP assumptions, and only 2 to 8 minutes using the aggressive assumptions. That means even if you were able to respond to the tasking to track a particular high value target, the target would likely be lost before any aircraft or other weapons system could be brought to bear on that target. Even the larger radars of System 1 would be only likely to hold the track, in the most optimistic case, for about 19 minutes, with 5 to 6 minutes being the more conservative estimate.

More bad news: the CBO estimates that if we want a 95% confidence that we can keep response time under 4 minutes for our hypothetical Korean Peninsula targeting we would require somewhere between 35 and 50 satellites (depending on fixed or variable yaw angle).

So what would all this cost?

To deploy these Systems, we would first have to fund a development process to attempt to design the STAP software, then we would also have to fund certain other development work on the satellites themselves.

At that point we would be ready to purchase the actual satellites, the launch vehicles that put them in orbit, the ground equipment to support them, and we would be ready to train and equip the analysts, engineers and technicians we would need.

Our costs would include maintenance, the second set of satellites we would need to launch after 10 years or so, and the processing of the data sent to Earth by the Systems.

With all this in mind, it is estimated that System 1 might cost between $53.4 and $77.1 billion. System 2 will likely cost between $66.2 and $94.4 billion. (50 satellites would likely cost 2.5 times the System 2 estimate, or roughly $150 to $250 billion.)

These estimates do not consider the “space network backbone”, which will add a lot more to any costs we are discussing here.

And now, at last, we have come to the end.

By now you should have a better understanding what Space Radar can and can’t do and what it’s likely to cost. From where I sit, I suspect we have five choices:

--Do nothing.

--Adopt System1.

--Adopt System 2.

--Go for the 50 satellite option.

--Deploy for the SAR mission, but leave GMTI to the currently deployed Predator, Global Hawk, and JSTARS.

This was an especially long conversation, and I do appreciate that you would take the time to get to this point. I hope I made it worth your time, and I look forward to hearing some ideas about how we should proceed.

On Teaching Debt Collection To Kids, Or, Here’s The Outrage Of The Week

There have been efforts in the past to teach “life skills” to students in the public schools, and of course among those skills is the lesson of financial responsibility.

I can imagine that these classes, especially for a student forced to take them first thing in the morning, can be like a daily session of discussing Hawley/Smoot in Ben Stein’s high school economics class. So, so dull that they make you nod your head in….zzzzzzz…

For some school districts, however, a more direct method of financial education has been employed-a method that will be our outrage of the week.

There is no question that the public schools are, financially speaking, stuck between a rock and a hard place; and just like a person living on a fixed income, every lost dollar hurts.

One form of “lost dollars” has historically been the money owed by parents for school lunches that are essentially provided “on credit”. Basically what happens is a kid might forget his lunch money that day, or a parent might have bounced a check for the prepayment of meals for the next month, and the school covers the money until they can collect the debt.

Now, debt collection is a highly regulated business. Federal law says you can’t just go around threatening violence to collect a debt, for example. State laws are even more restrictive: California says you can’t put a fake name on an envelope containing a collection notice or force a debtor to accept collect calls; New York says collectors are prohibited from:

“…communicating with you in a manner which simulates a judicial process or which gives the appearance of being authorized or issued by a governmental entity…”

With that in mind, it’s no surprise that schools would look for ever-more-creative ways to collect debts; but even considering all that I found myself shocked by this LA Times article entitled: “On school menus: cheese sandwiches, parental debt”.

The article describes the Chula Vista (a suburb of San Diego, California) Elementary School District’s “alternate meals” plan, which works something like this:

If a parent owes the district more than $5 in meal money, the district will send a letter home, put a sticker on the child’s hand, and eventually, hire collection agencies.

If all that fails, the district will basically…repossess lunch.
How is that possible, you ask?

Picture two second-graders in the cafeteria line. As they get to the yummy pizza, the first little girl gets her slice of pepperoni. But not the second girl.

She gets a cheese sandwich.

That’s right-this school district, and numerous others nationwide, have special school lunch “options” for those students who have parents that owe money-and in Calloway County, Kentucky, it only takes $3.00.

Life’s tough enough for a kid in school: the pressure to have the right clothes and shoes, the need to fit in, and above all-making sure you avoid being humiliated in front of everyone. Here’s a piece of the LA Times article:

“…The cheese sandwich, they say, has become a badge of shame for the children, who get teased about it by their classmates. One student cried when her macaroni and cheese was replaced with a sandwich. A little girl hid in a restroom to avoid getting one. Many of the sandwiches end up untouched or tossed whole in the garbage. Sometimes kids pound them to pieces…

…A year ago, he said, a cafeteria worker took away Christopher's pizza and forced him in front of his friends to pick up a sandwich instead. A similar incident occurred when Christopher was in the third grade. "The kid was humiliated," said his father, who added that he did not realize he owed money, $7.50...

…One Chula Vista third-grader, whose mother requested that the girl not be identified, said students sometimes ostracize the cheese sandwich kids, switching tables and talking behind their backs. "Some kids say they're not the kind of kids you want to hang out with," she said.”

There are a bunch of other reasons why this is a bad idea, and an explanation of why the tactic is popular below; but first, a required disclosure.

Those of you who are regular readers will recall two stories that I recently did about The Yes Men, and you may already be suspicious that this is the third.

If this were a missile silo, I’d be telling you: “This is not a drill”.
I have no surprise twist coming.
This is a real story.

Now back to the news…

When we left off, we had discussed the stigma that I contend attaches to a kid when they get the “special” sandwich (or the peanut butter and crackers, or whatever) and everybody else gets the pizza; but maybe I’m just overreacting in my assessment.

To be sure I’m not; let’s examine how others might view the practice.

Washington State’s Department of Social and Health Services offers online information for foster parents, including a discussion of disipline and punishment that offers these comments:

…”Punishment is defined as imposing external controls by force on children to change their behavior. It includes…Imposing suffering, for example by withholding food…Personal or emotional attacks like name-calling, ridicule, and insults…Many forms of punishment are against the law.”… (emphasis in original)

…”It's not hard to understand why parents sometimes want to use punishment. There are many reasons, including…

The misbehavior often stops immediately
Children often show remorse during punishment
The parent gets to blow off steam
The parent feels in control
The parent hasn't let the children "get away with it"
The parent was raised that way”

The Centers for Disease Control offers a score card to help elementary schools measure their “School Health Index”; and items 5 and 6 on the list of score card items are-you guessed it!-lunchroom related:

“N.1. Prohibit using food as reward or punishment
N.2. Fundraising efforts supportive of healthy eating”

The State of Wisconsin has intervened to prevent the practice of withholding food as a form of discipline in school settings, as reported by the Winona Daily News:

“The state has ordered a military-style private school to stop punishing students by serving them smaller lunches and is withholding money for food programs until the problems are corrected…

…The state has halted its share of the money for lunch and breakfast for low-income students until the La Brew Troopers Military University School stops withholding food as punishment, Helen Pesche, child nutrition program consultant for the state, wrote in a letter to the school dated May 21…

… The letter said that inspections at the school found students were sometimes punished by being served lunch without either meat or a substitute and a vegetable and fruit…

… A DPI report said one day when inspectors visited the school, 24 students were served lunches that did not include a sloppy joe on a bun and canned fruit, like their peers ate. Instead, the report said the children were given a slice of white bread, half a cup of mashed potatoes and a half pint of milk…

…Withholding food is unacceptable for schools participating in the National School Lunch Program, a federally assisted program that subsidizes school food, the report said…”

The State of Illinois also frowns on this type of “food punishment”.
Consider this policy goal from kidseatwell.org's “evaluation tool” for Illinois schools:

“School personnel are encouraged to use nonfood incentives or rewards with students…and do not withhold food from students as punishment.”

Is this practice intended as punishment?
Here’s another quote from the LA Times, discussing what happened when peanut-butter-and-jelly was the “special sandwich”:

"It seemed to be one of the children's very favorite meals, so that wasn't productive," said Beth Taylor, nutrition director for the Johnston County School District in North Carolina, where such sandwiches were tried. Taylor said switching to vegetable and fruit trays changed everything. Among last week's menu items for students with lunch balances: crunchy cole slaw, fried squash and steamed cabbage. "The outstanding debt has been reduced to nothing," she said.”

Did everybody catch that admission by Ms. Taylor?
It was serving healthy food that turned the problem around.

Who thinks these kids will grow up to have eating disorders?
Who thinks opening a 24-Hour Fitness in Johnson County, North Carolina will pay off big one day?
Who thinks with policies like this in place buying stock in “Stroke, Inc.” or “Heart Attack & Co.” would be a great investment, if it were available?

With all that in mind, why would a school district pursue such a practice?
Because humiliation works.

The LA Times article reports that Chula Vista reduced its debt in this category by more than $230,000 from 2004 to 2006. Of 18,000 meals served by the District daily, up to 400 are of the “special sandwich” variety.

In its defense, Chula Vista points out that the “unlimited salad bar” is available to all students, but I suspect the salad bar does not reduce the impact of the “cheese sandwich equivalent” on the little kid to whom it is served.

Before closing, I want to offer one more learned opinion regarding the "food as punishment" idea. A learned Opinion that comes to us from the Unitred States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit (the case originated in the eastern District of Wisconsin).

The Court has been called upon to offer an opinion as to whether food substitution is an acceptable form of punishment for prisoners in Wisconsin’s Secure Program Facility at Boscobel (a Maximum Security Facility, previously a Supemax). Food substitution means a “nutri-loaf” will be the only food offered during the period of a prisoner’s punishment, and the court found that the punishment was a violation of the 8th Amendment prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment”.

To put all this in perspective, we have on the one hand a highly effective policy borne out of the school districts’ need to collect money; and on the other hand the opinions of Washington State’s foster parent educators, the Centers for Disease Control, the courts of Wisconsin and the nutrition educators of Illinois who all feel this is a terrible idea.

If all that wasn’t enough, we have a United States Court of Appeals that won’t even allow this type of punishment in a Maximum Security prison.

As we all know, kids have a ton of barriers in their way when they are being educated, and there is no good reason to create another one when the punished child didn’t even commit the “crime”. Just because…

…The misbehavior often stops immediately
Children often show remorse during punishment
The district gets to blow off steam
The district feels in control
The district hasn't let the children "get away with it"
The district was raised that way…

…doesn’t mean it’s OK to abuse kids who have little, if any, control over the “bad” behavior of their parents.