The Santa Instantiation Hypothesis

Today, Kathy and I spent the afternoon at the mall marketing our veterinary business next to the Pictures with Santa fantasyland. At one point, I explained to Kathy that in the moment that the picture is taken, the real Santa momentarily exchanges places with the fake Santa. In this way, the picture with Santa is always with the real article, and the real Santa can spend his time preparing for Christmas.

She didn't believe me.

Seen on a T-Shirt

"I've just kidnapped myself. Give me $100 or you'll never see me again."

Politically Powerful Dinner Guests

Let's say that you are into the health care reform debate in a big way. Let's also say that a Democrat leader from the Senate is your Thanksgiving dinner guest this year. (Let's also pretend momentarily that your fellow hosts have not forbidden political discourse--which they actually have for the sake of peace and harmony.) What questions would you have to ask your guest? Here are mine:

1. The U.S. spends considerably more per capita on health care. Leaving aside the assertion of disparate outcomes, how much is the spending influenced by demand factors such as demographics (particularly age and other factors), lifestyle choices, wealth and income effects, geography and population density (see also the demographics link); by supply factors such as pharmaceutical (PDF) and capital equipment expenses (and associated research and development expense), labor expense (and associated regulatory costs, such as licensing, the Fair Labor Standards Act, etc.), and facilities expense (and associated regulatory code compliance expense); and by price factors such as state insurance mandates (PDF), Federal regulations, insurance market structure, foreign price controls on pharmaceuticals, and financial market performance (both for access to credit and for investment income purposes)? Is the comparison influenced by currency exchange rates, or is a more stable method of exchange utilized?
2. Where does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to compel a private citizen to purchase health insurance? Does this conceptually abrogate the freedom of the private citizen to contract with providers of goods and services? What is the limit to what Congress may compel the private citizen to purchase? Can Congress compel a private citizen to associate with any group, regardless of whether the mission and values of the group are antithetical to the beliefs of the private citizen? If we pierce the veil, isn't the "tax" upon the private citizen for failing to purchase health insurance really a penalty or fine? What does the concept of "liberty" mean, and does it include the freedom to not act just as much as it includes the freedom to act.
3. What is the contribution to the rate of growth of private sector health care costs that is attributable to price caps enforced for public sector health costs? (Mathematically, if the growth rate of the public sector half of the health care spending is artificially lowered, then the growth rate of the remaining private sector half must be artifically higher in order to balance to the average growth rate of the entire amount spent--which I assume is presently based on demand, not on government decree. In equation form, P1 * Q1 + P2 * Q2 = Pavg * Qavg. where P is price, Q is quantity, 1 is the public sector, and 2 is the private sector.)
4. What is the contribution to the expense of health care costs in general and on insurance premiums in particular due to government regulation, such as state mandates (PDF), prohibition on interstate commerce in insurance policies, and Medicare and other Federal rules for providers and insurers?
5. What are the desired effects of health insurance reform on Medicare, and what is the intended and estimated impact on the $36.4 trillion unfunded liability (pg. 69, infinite time horizon)?
6. With Medicare fraud in the billions of dollars, can the Federal government contain fraud in a Federally sponsored/managed insurer?
7. Why refuse to extend the Hyde Amendment to insurance subsidies contemplated in congressional health reform bills?
8. Why refuse to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlement (SAVE) Program to prevent illegal aliens from utilizing Federal spending contemplated in congressional health reform bills?
9. How do ten years of revenues and six (House bill) or seven (Senate bill) years of expenditure produce a stable, long-term program?

I doubt that I could get many Federal politicians (of any party) to answer these questions without prevarication. If you watch enough of the BBC series "Yes, Minister", the reasons become evident rather quickly.

I think I'll stick to eating and drinking this Thanksgiving.

I'm a Tenther.... How about you?

Sticking "-er" to the end of the topic du jour seems to be in vogue: "birthers", "tea baggers", "truthers", etc. Tonight I decided that I am a "Tenther". That is, I am a believer in the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. (That's the one that reserves to the states and the people all powers not granted to the Federal Government and all those powers not prohibited to the states.)

Wikipedia has an article about the Tenther Movement. I didn't know this name was already in use, so I feel smart for having coined it myself. (If Leibniz can get credit for developing calculus along with Isaac Newton, I can also get credit for coining the term.)

Note: Being a "tenther" doesn't make me a secessionist. There are good reasons to have a federal government. Too bad so many of those reasons are obscured by present practices.

Quote of the Day

"Congress is becoming increasingly corrupt. Pretty soon, they could put a fence around the Capitol and turn it into a minimum-security federal prison."

--Tommy Butler, WSJ Commenter

Article: Senate Alters Taxes for Big Companies

The GM Takeover by the Government

I don't agree with the takeover of GM (or Chrysler), but it is instructive to learn why and how it was done from the person who was at the pointy end of the spear.

Quote of the Day

To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place[d] under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.

(P.-J. Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, translated by John Beverly Robinson (London: Freedom Press, 1923), pp. 293-294.)

Health Insurance Facts, Part 2: Why is Medical Insurance Different?

Link: Health Insurance Facts, Part 1

I have been brooding over the question of "Why Medical Insurance is Different" for many days now, trying to get succinct evidence to share. I have found it, and will present it shortly.

Medical insurance seems to have been first considered in 1694 [1], and first introduced into the United States in 1850 [2]. It was intended to cover injuries due to accidents, and seems to have been related to modern disability insurance. Sickness insurance followed in 1890, and employer-sponsored group disability insurance was first issued in 1911. [1]

Hospital and medical expense policies were introduced during the first half of the 20th century. During the 1920s, individual hospitals began offering services to individuals on a pre-paid basis, eventually leading to the development of Blue Cross organizations. The predecessors of today's Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) originated beginning in 1929, through the 1930s and on during World War II. [1]

The wage controls imposed during World War II are often cited as the leading cause of the importance of employer-sponsored medical insurance. With companies unable to offer greater wages to their workers by law, they turned to fattened benefits in order to compete for talented workers. Medical insurance policies covered more things as a result. This was fine for those individuals and families whose employers provided such benefits, but did no good for those employed elsewhere, such as by small businesses unable to afford such benefits, or unemployed (whether voluntarily or not).

Enter the states. Before I describe insurance mandates, let me take a moment to address the question of federal regulation of interstate commerce of health insurance.

The Health Care Choice Act, a bill introduced unsuccessfully into the House of Representatives in 2005 and 2007 has attempted to allow medical insurance to be sold across state lines, amending the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg et seq.). I need more time to determine whether sections 300gg et seq. prevents interstate commerce with respect to medical insurance policies, but I think it is safe to say that if a bill in Congress is attempting to achieve the opposite, then it is safe to assume (for this article) that Congress has in fact prevented it.

Therefore, states have a monopoly on the chartering and regulation of medical insurance companies. Large insurers compete in states by creating (or acquiring) a subsidiary in the state in which they wish to do business, but all policies therein are unique to that state, even though the subsidiary is financially backed up by a multi-state parent insurance company. This type of organization raises the costs of entering the market in another state, and is therefore a barrier of entry to competition, and is one factor in the oft-cited fact that a few large insurers dominate the market in many states.

Add to this barrier of entry the manifold regulations by the states of what must be in policies. The Center for Affordable Health Insurance has catalogued 2,133 policy benefits mandated by the states in a 2009 report (pdf). (These 2133 mandates overlap considerably.) The report shows the mandates by state, and estimates the contribution of each mandate to the cost of the state's required policy. This means that medical insurance has evolved, under employers' hands and the state governments' hands, into something more comprehensive. What was once known simply as Accident Insurance, then (over time and as coverage increased) Hospital Insurance, Major Medical Insurance, and just plain Medical Insurance, now is known as Health Insurance, covering arcane things such as contraception and AIDS testing.

The method of payment for claims has also changed considerably over time. Insurance policies were once "indemnity" policies, meaning that we submitted our own claims and were reimbursed afterwards for whatever was covered. Later, insurance companies formed Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs). In HMOs, the insurance companies own and operate the means of providing care, and employ the doctors and nurses. In PPOs, the insurance companies negotiate fees with the providers, and do not necessarily own the means of providing care. In HMOs, we pay whatever is not covered by our policy, and there is no extra paperwork between the provider and the insurer. In PPOs, the provider generally bills our insurer on our behalf, and collects the difference between what is covered and what is not directly from us. Preferred providers go a step further by waiving any part of their usual fee not allowed by the insurer (due to fee negotations). In short, we have become separated from the costs of care, because we no longer bear the full cost, no matter how temporarily, because the providers and insurers float the costs through their accounts payable/receivable. We once did the paperwork with the insurer for free; now we (or rather, our insurer) pay the provider to do it on our behalf.

I am forced to conclude that medical insurance is different from auto insurance and home insurance because we the people, ostensibly through our employers and elected representatives, have chosen it to be this way, for better or worse.

Ronald Reagan discusses Socialized Medicine

This is an audio link from YouTube. The recording dates from 1961.

Listen Here.

Quote of the Day: Health Care

"Health insurance companies refuse to cover pre-existing conditions for the same reason that you can't insure your automobile after you crash it." --Robert Tracinski, Real Debate Is Individualism vs Collectivism

The article is excellent throughout and pre-figures my Part 2 for understanding Health Insurance.

Quote of the Day

"The founding of this country was the result of a tax revolt."

--Breck Collingsworth, a Wall Street Journal subscriber, commenting on an article about Town Hall revolts in Maryland.

Perhaps those in the White House and in Congress who wish to tax us more (and more "progressively") should better remember our nation's history.

Health Insurance Facts, Part 1: What is Insurance?

On July 24, protesters picketed the Richmond headquaters of Anthem, a subsidiary of WellPoint, a national health insurance group. One of my relatives was among the picketers.

Before dinner the next evening, I had the opportunity to speak with my relative concerning the protest, and I discovered that certain facts had been asserted, and certain negative opinions had been formed. I recommended that she examine Anthem's financial statements, freely available online from the Securities and Exchange Commission, and to especially read the Management's Discussion and Analysis section. Not only does this check the asserted facts, but it puts the protester into the shareholder's and manager's perspective, inviting them to see the real constraints encountered in the health insurance industry, but also challeging them to think of what they would do better, and if that is the real substance of their protest.

I want to provide first a general discussion about insurance and learn what I can without deifying or demonizing any particular company. Second, I want to understand better why medical insurance (AKA health insurance) is different from other types of insurance. Third, I want to examine the real financial statements of a large health insurer and understand what events are occurring and what choices management is making.

Let us begin by answering the questions, Why do we have insurance, and what is it? In the simplest approach to insurance, one person who is going to perform a risky activity (the insured) contracts with another person (the insurer) who is willing to accept the cost if an adverse outcome occurs. The liklihood of the adverse outcome is usually low, and the cost is usually very high. The insurer charges an amount (proportional to the risk) for the insurance (the premium) and sets it aside until the insurance contract expires. If the adverse outcome occurs, then the insurer covers the cost, usually more than the value of the premium. If the adverse outcome does not occur, then the insurer profits from the premium, and the insured endures an additional, unneccessary in hindsight, cost of doing business.

One early use of insurance was to protect the owners of shipping vessels. Then, as now, shipping goods over the sea was a risky enterprise. The loss of a vessel was a real and substantial threat to the solvency of a shipping company. Those with money to invest would insure the shipping companies. If an insured ship was lost at sea, the insurer would compensate the owner for the goods and the vessel. Since the amounts at stake were so large, syndicates of investors would be formed for the duration of the insurance contract, and these syndicates would provide the necessary financial backing. By syndicating the risk, the value insured could be much larger than any single investor might be willing to lose.

It might seem that the insurer's profit can be quite large when the adverse outcome does not occur, but if you repeat the insurance contract over and over again, the insurer will pay according to the likelihood of the adverse outcome, and profit the rest of the time. A smart insurer will therefore set the premium large enough to break even over the long run, plus a bit more for the remaining uncertainty. The lesson here is that large insurance profits in one time period are no guide to the morality of these profits over the long run.

An extension of the single-event insurer is the cooperative insurer. The non-profit version of these insurers, often called mutuals, exist for the benefit of their members, and are often owned by their members. For-profit versions are also common, and transfer the risk of loss away from the policyholders and onto the owners of the insurer. The latter type is most familiar to us, having names like Allstate, Geico, Wellpoint, and Aetna.

The idea behind the cooperative insurer is that adverse outcomes do in fact occur over the long run, and that it is prudent to save over the long run in order to offset the eventual cost of these adverse outcomes. Ideally, all of our adverse outcomes would occur after we have had a chance to save for their costs. The reality is that it usually happens before we have saved enough. By joining together into a cooperative, we increase the likelihood that we will have enough resources to cover every individual adverse outcome, because the likelihood of them happening in large enough clusters in short periods of time in a way that exceeds our collective savings is very low. We benefit most when we are all long run members of these cooperatives.

The modern financial markets provide the insurer with an opportunity to turn these collective savings into investments that earn income. This income can then be combined with premiums to cover the costs of adverse outcomes (or claims). The greater the savings cushion, the greater the investment income, the lower that premiums need to be. The basic equation for an insurer is quite simple:

Investment Income + Premiums = Claims + Fraud, Waste, & Abuse + Overhead + Profit (or Loss).

(Reality adds more variables to each side, but the concept is unaffected.)

Profit is used in two ways: to reward the owner of the insurer for bearing the risk of loss, and to increase the amount of savings earning investment income. Loss reduces the amount of savings, and hence the investment income. (In a mutual, there is only the increase in savings when the insurer profits.)

Now there are some general points to draw from this model of an insurance company.

1) If claims exceed premiums and savings, then the company is insolvent.

2) If investment income falls, then premiums must rise.

3) Fraud, waste, and abuse, and overhead must be controlled if the insurer is to profit, and therefore leave its savings intact.

4) In a for-profit insurer, the owners provide the initial capital that funds overhead and claims until premiums and investment income are sufficient over the long run, and own the increases in the insurers savings.

Next: Health Insurance Facts, Part 2: Why is Medical Insurance Different?


EDIT: Added link to Wellpoint's financial statements at Edgar.

EDIT: Clarified for-profit cooperatives by providing named examples.

NOTE: About my use of the word "cooperative" in this article, I use it in a conceptual way, rather than in the manner of a legal organization. The article's concept of a cooperative is as a long-run, multi-participant insurance construct, as opposed to a single insurance contract between an insurer and an insured. I'll cover the legal organization in a later article. I suggest this article and this organization as starters.

TARP Inspector General Reports

This article summarizes the outlays and insurance-like guarantees made by the Federal Government to prop up the economy. The total? $23.7 TRILLION.

TARP has come to include 12 separate programs that include a total of as much as $3 trillion

The special inspector general counted approximately 50 initiatives or programs launched since 2007 to fight the economic collapse.

The Federal Reserve, he found, has increased its balance sheet from $900 billion to more than $2 trillion, and Barofsky estimated that the total amount of support to the economy by the fed is at least $6.8 trillion, because it is exposed to significant losses if many of the assets guaranteed by the Fed deteriorate in value.

The FDIC, Barofsky writes, has contributed $2 trillion in “new gross potential support.”

The Federal Housing Finance Agency – “under whose auspices fall the Government Sponsored Enterprises such as Fannie Mae [and] Freddie Mac,” – has effectively provided more than $6 trillion in gross potential support.

Treasury itself, Barofsky concludes, has contributed nearly $4 trillion of potential support to the economy beyond the TARP program itself.

There are a lot of people who saw the misuse of these funds before they were approved. Elections have consequences, all right, and the Tyranny of the Majority (and the endless mistrust in government) is alive and well.

The Congressional Budget Office Speaks Out

The Director of the Congressional Budget Office felt it necessary to cut through the lies and misinformation in order to educate us citizens. Here is the post.

He discusses the long-term debt problem (as a percent of GDP) and the deficit problem (AKA excess costs).

People like me who read the Annual Report of the United States have known this for a long time, have written to elected officials for a long time, have supported candidates who have the right ideas for dealing with this problem correctly, and have been disappointed (for a long time) in the inability of the elected leaders to a) understand the problem or b) do something about it.

Just like state and local governments in today's economic crisis, the federal government needs to do some soul-searching on what the Constitution requires it to do and what additional that we can actually afford. It also needs to come to grips with what the Constitution says it should not do, which would unburden the budget a lot in short order. But that's a rant for another day.

Fixing Health Care

First, wrap your head around actual facts here, here, and here.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) provides a laundry list of ways in which the Federal Government interferes with the market for healthcare and insurance.

Here is an example of how the Commonwealth of Virginia is getting out of the way of small businesses, by reducing health insurance policy requirements so that basic plans can be affordable and at least effective in a catastrophe.

The bottom line is that when we hear that the Federal Government needs to take over health care financing (and who pays calls the shots!) that it is a crock of you-know-what and it stinketh mightily. Fedzilla and state governments need to remove impediments, not insert themselves as a monumentally larger impediment.

And it wouldn't hurt if the Federal Government would take border security and the economic problems of illegal immigration seriously. Please, it's been nearly eight years since 9/11, and we are only now getting this report from the Department of Justice?

It seems that conservatives know these things intuitively. Kathy says we must all be too busy working to make a show of force. She may be right.

The Second Amendment

I find it ridiculous that the Second Amendment is under attack still following the remarkable majority decision (penned by Justice Scalia) in Heller v. D.C. upholding our individual rights to own and use ordinary weapons. (If you have the time and wit to do so, I recommend reading at least the first half of Scalia's opinion. I have not had so much fun reading the gradual but inexorable takedown of stupidity in all my life. It's like watching Julia Sugarbaker take someone down with superior intelligence, but longer and better.)

This article in Reason Magazine is an interview with the attorney who won the Heller v. D.C. case and highlights the ongoing stupdity in D.C. and other jurisdictions. That we have to fight these cases in all their absurdity is a result of poor choices by the electorate and successful power-hungry politicians who install similarly power-hungry judges.

This is the long range effect of elections--the shifting of the judiciary between originalist interpretation and "living document" interpretation of the Constitution. Something we take for granted, like the Bill of Rights, is in jeopardy every time a constitutional case comes before a divided court.

Remember that next time you vote (or think not to).

Apologetics for Dummies

I am studying apologetics in Bible Study. This very interesting subject covers one-third of Aristotle's three different types of rhetorical proof--logos.

Logos is the use of logic and reason to persuade one of the truth of a premise. With the lost, it is difficult to start with "The Bible says....", and apologetics demonstrates that there are preliminary steps we can take to help persuade that the Bible is a source of truth. To me, that seems to be the biggest hurdle, and one in which the Holy Spirit plays the fundamental part.

The study is a book written by Norman Geisler entitled When Critics Ask: A Handbook on Christian Evidences. In the first chapter, he reminds us that God commanded us to be ready to give answer to all men for what we believe. The study of apologetics is part of the foundation for winning the lost to Christ.

Apologetics by itself is insufficient. Citing Aristotle again, we learn that pathos and ethos are the other two types of rhetorical proof, both of which are important to our witness.

Pathos is the use of emotion to persuade. The best example of this to me is sharing one's testimony. I have never failed to be moved by the Spirit when hearing the testimony of one who has been saved from a life of sin, whether that life was similar to or different from my own. Having been saved since age 4, I can only guess what the lost experience on hearing a testimony.

Ethos is the use of authority to persuade. As Christians, we should be perceived as authorities on Christianity. The world will readily point to the divorce rate among Christians (equal to that of non-Christians) or the corruption of clergy (Catholic and Protestant alike) or the hypocrisy of churchgoers (not necessarily Christians) as a way of judging all Christians. However, this is the fallacy of the false generalization. Just because a few Christians are hypocrites or corrupt does not mean that all Christians are the same, or that Christianity is empty or antithetical to its stated values. Only by demonstrating in our own lives the struggle for holiness and the miracle of salvation do we make clear our authority as Christians to share the Gospel.

Combining these three modes of persuasion in the service of the Gospel was recognized by St. Augustine in the 4th Century. It lives on in the sermons of pastors around the world. Learn to recognize the use of these persuasive elements and to integrate them appropriately into your own witness. You may find yourself a better prepared tool for Christ in ministry.

Star Trek Movie Review (Caution: Spoilers)

It is fitting that I watched the latest Star Trek movie on Mother's Day. With only slight exception, I have watched every Star Trek movie with my mother. (For some reason I cannot remember, we missed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in the theater, and she passed away before Nemesis was made.) She was an original trekkie and fueled my innate desire to become one as well. We did not have cable when I grew up, but somehow I managed to watch most of the episodes of the original series.

When I turned in straight A's in First Grade, she took me (just the two of us) to Fort Walton Beach (a thirty minute drive) to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I remember very little of that evening, except an image of the part of town at night and my emotional excitement at seeing this movie. When the movie was released much later on VHS, I it became one of my favorites. (In fact, I can highly recommend the Director's Cut, which improves many of the visual effects without giving the movie an adversely different feel.)

To sum up the new Star Trek simply: I think my mother would have liked it as much as I did, though for perhaps different reasons. After watching Generations, she decided that it was the end of the old and the beginning of the new. She did not watch much of the new, though it did not stop her from seeing the Next Generation movies with me. The new Star Trek would have put her back in familiar territory.

As I write this review, I watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. (My wife is away in D.C. through the evening, so it is my night to watch what I want.) I can tell you that the writers for the new Star Trek integrated many little details that were developed in the shows and in the movies. For instance, in the new Star Trek, Kirk has an allergic reaction after McCoy inoculates him with a particular vaccine in order to sneak Kirk to the Enterprise. Do you remember that the elder Kirk received spectacles as a gift because he was allergic to the available vision-correcting drug? The elder McCoy nodded knowingly and said, "Exactly!"

There are a few things I dislike about the new Star Trek, and some things at which I shook my head at their Hollywood triteness. But that which I liked far outweighed these few things.

That which I shook my head at:
1. They really don't observe black hole physics. To the scientifically informed, this is unconscionable in a good science fiction story. As this movie is more about characters and action, I can understand the choice to jettison known reality.

2. Why do we have to have monsters on the ice planet? Isn't a successful 16km trek across the ice pretty much guaranteed? Kirk could have met the future Spock at the outpost. That's where they ended up anyway. And not to dwell too long, the big bug monster looked a lot like a similar bug monster in Attack of the Clones in the arena scene.

3. Kirk being made captain of the Enterprise before graduating from Starfleet Academy. He may have scored off the charts on the aptitude tests, and may have saved Earth (I suppose this is the first of now three times), but is that really sufficient experience to manage a crew of hundreds and spend the next five years dealing with entirely new and novel situations? This will pose a credibility problem for the writers of future movies, as they must allow Kirk's lack of experience and wealth of bravado to cause problems, or else be accused of creating an unrealistic superhuman character.

4. The main ensemble characters came together very quickly--too quickly for credibility. It takes time to build good teams and to get them to perform at a high level. This is even more important given the raw brilliance of each main character. They did a good job of rapidly working out the usual team-building dynamics, so my criticism is limited to the low likelihood of the short timing.

5. Why does Scotty need a midget alien sidekick? Haven't we milked the short sidekick thing too long already? And why does he get treated like a dog or child? Didn't Warwick Davis demonstrate long ago that little people can act well?

Now the few things I did not like:
1. Why did the engineering spaces on the Enterprise look like a 20th century factory? In every episode and every movie of every series (including Enterprise), the engineering spaces were spartan and high tech. I hope that this was a funding problem and not a failure of imagination.

2. Why is ejecting the core the magical solution to so many Star Trek plots?

3. I could add "Yet another Time Travel plot" to this list, but it worked in this movie, being narrowly focused. The creation of an alternate timeline is exactly what was needed to make this reincarnation of Star Trek believable. The destruction of Vulcan and the death of Spock's mother will definitely shake things up, as will his meeting with (and continued existence of) his future self.

4. What is Star Fleet doing sending all but nine ships completely out of range of Vulcan (and completely away from the story)? Yes, the galaxy is large, and Vulcan is relatively close to Earth. But what about commercial vessels? They did not expect an attack; they were trying to prepare an emergency evacuation of 6 billion Vulcans and solve the seismic problems. Hundreds of cadets lost their lives in seconds, and nothing was said of this in the end.

To the best of my limited memory, that is all that I had a problem with in this movie. The rest... I liked it! I'm looking forward to the next installment in the new movie series. (Just please don't screw them up! And don't fall prey to the Odd-Even Curse!)

The Things I Really Liked:
1. Admiral Pike: Excellent character, and well-played by Bruce Greenwood. In the alternate universe, he is the reason Kirk joins Star Fleet. In the original universe, it was Kirk's father. I got the impression that Pike had watched out for young Kirk for at least part of his post-adolescent life, providing some fatherly stability. Did you pick up on the fact that he ended up in a wheelchair? He did as well in the original series, though under different circumstances. A small detail, but a familiar one to us original trekkies.

2. The opening scene was well-done. It balanced the anguish of the no-win moment with enough exposition of Kirk's mother and father to make us empathize with Kirk later and to give a foundation to Kirk's intelligence and future loyalty to his friends and crew.

3. Leonard Nimoy's role as the elder Spock: Serving as the bridge between the former future and the new past, he provides perspective to young Kirk and Spock on their need for one another. This was not a cameo, nor was it played tongue-in-cheek. The contrast between the elder Spock and the younger Spock was well drawn, and demonstrated that even Spock was young and wild (in his own way) like Kirk.

4. Uhura never got a big role in the series and movies. I was happy to see that she had special abilities that made her essential to the high-performance of the team we know and love. She is no longer a radio operator and secretary, and I hope that she will continue to play an important part in future installments.

5. Uhura and Spock are lovers? This did not work for some people I know, but I appreciated it for many reasons. First, Spock is a complex blend of Vulcan and Human emotions controlled by a continuing act of will. To see him love another on a regular basis is a refreshing break from Pon Farr every seven years, which is animalistic and hormonal, not loving. It also makes Spock more like his father, who admitted to marrying Amanda for love.

6. Sarek and Spock are loving to one another throughout the movie. The movie does not show whether Sarek was angry with Spock for going to Star Fleet (which is made clear in episodes and movies before this one), but their rapid reconciliation and understanding of one another following the destruction of Vulcan makes likely that we will be able to see this relationship develop in ways that it could not (until Star Trek IV) in the original timeline. Beginning with Star Trek IV, we got to see the fruits of reconciliation between father and son (a situation not unfamiliar to me), and I wished then that we could have seen more. (The Next Generation was able to do some of this before Mark Lenard's death in 1996.) I do hope that the writers will take advantage of this change and develop the father-son dynamic. (And Ben Cross is a good choice for Sarek. I first saw him as Harold Abraham in Chariots of Fire, then as King Arthur's nemesis in First Knight. He has aged well and brings gravitas to a highly-respected character.)

7. Dr. McCoy: When I heard that Karl Urban was playing McCoy, I was skeptical. I did not like how he played Eomer in the Lord of the Rings (nor how the character was altered by the writers), but I liked the way he played McCoy. The humor was classically McCoy, re-using the best jokes and one-liners from vintage DeForest Kelley days. He was at once new and familiar. I thoroughly enjoyed watching him run after Kirk (during Kirk's allergic reaction) yelling "I can fix that!" And I enjoyed watching him quote rules and regulations in order to get his way--again, classic McCoy!

8. In the original series (and movies), Kirk, McCoy and Spock make up the triumvirate about which most plots revolve and among which the best interplay occurs. The future of plots highlighting other characters is likely to be much like the past--they will likely be excellent supporting characters again--but the actors chosen for the "main three" will do credit to the roles and give us cause to continue spending our hard-earned money at the theaters to see what they do next.

Summary
Star Trek is going where no Star Trek show or movie has gone before. They have erased what was and must now live in a significantly altered universe thrust suddenly upon them. There are certainties only regarding the inborn nature of each character. The experiences that shaped them to become what we are familiar with are no longer certain. We get to experience this new past with our characters, and that is going to be half the fun!

I hope you enjoy(ed) Star Trek as much as I did. See it again if you can manage. In the meantime, Live long and prosper!

What kind of buyer are you?

I came across this excerpt from Geoffrey Miller's book Spent via Marginal Revolution and couldn't resist passing it on.

Some common themes emerge from these slightly whimsical suggestions. One is that buying new, real, branded premium products at full price from chain-store retailers is the last refuge of the unimaginable consumer, and it should be your last option. It offers low narrative value -- no stories to tell about interesting people, places, and events associated with the product's design, provenance, acquisition, or use. It reveals nothing about you except your spending capacity and your gullibility, conformism, and unconsciousness as a consumer.

Are you "unimaginable", or do you take delight in the "people, places, and events associated with the product's design, provenance, acquisition, or use"?

I'm not generally a big consumer, and I do not think I possess a knack for choosing fine things. Yet as I have traveled around this country and overseas, I think more about the hands that made the objects I buy.

When in Germany I read "Made in China" on many supposedly local items, I realized I was about to be duped and had the sense to leave well enough alone.

In Hungary, I had a different experience: All of the items I bought were handmade by local artisans. They were indeed crafted goods, and I held them in greater value.

I have brought these thoughts back to the United States, and now look for where something is made. I eschew "Made in China" unless I have no ready substitute. I see names of countries that I did not realize made such a product as an export, and I think of what I know of these countries and the people that inhabit them.

Sometimes, it makes me more likely to buy, to bias the circular flow of money in their direction. Economic growth, it has been asserted, is the greatest means of lifting vast numbers of people from poverty.

I can take comfort in a smart buy.

Jeff Sessions to replace Arlen Specter on Senate Judiciary Committee

This is good news (from Reason Magazine). The Republican senators are putting the RINOs on the back burner and putting forward solid conservatives.

In my opinion, the RINOs have split the ability of the Republicans to have a coherent message. Rather than have a nuanced approach in order to have a larger tent, I prefer that each party be somewhat pure. This gives rise to multiple parties (or even better, no parties and just legislative caucuses). The Federalist Papers (No. 10) covers this topic rather cleanly, and is a recommended read. (Wikipedia has an excellent write-up, and here is a link to the text for No. 10.)

It is regrettable that we strayed from this wisdom so near the beginning of our Republic.