… or, haven’t I been to this rodeo before? Why, yes I have, and not all that long ago, either. First I called to mind was poor artless Paula Deen, celebrity cook-book author, metaphorically burned at stake in the marketplace of public opinion. But the Great Duck Dynasty Imbroglio of 2013 reminds me very much more of the Great Chick-Fil-A Ruckus of 2012, wherein some fairly mild published remarks by the CEO of the company sent the usual right-thinking suspects into a frenzy of shrieking like demented howler monkeys. Boycott, shun, divest and/or fire was the general ukase for they are hateful hating bigots who shouldn’t be tolerated by truly tolerant people … and then the funniest thing happened. People went out and deliberately bought lunch, dinner and breakfast at their local Chick-fil-A outlet, to the utter chagrin of the usual right-thinking suspects. Chick-Fil-A nationwide had the best darned week they ever had, as far as sales went, and lines of hungry customers stretching for blocks.
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History Friday: MacArthur’s Human Porter Logistics
When I started writing my “History Friday” columns, one of my objectives was to explore the “military historical narratives” around General Douglas MacArthur, so I could write with a better understanding about the “cancelled by atomic bomb” November 1945 invasion of Japan. One of the least explored aspects of MacArthur’s fighting style was his highly flexible approach to logistics, which he described as “We are doing what we can with what we have.” Logistics being the ability to transport and supply military forces. In describing MacArthur’s flexibility, and poor documentation of same, I wrote previously:
“One of the maddening things about researching General Douglas MacArthur’s fighting style in WW2 was the way he created, used and discarded military institutions, both logistical and intelligence, in the course of his South West Pacific Area (SWPA) operations. Institutions that had little wartime publicity and have no direct organizational descendent to tell their stories in the modern American military.”
The importance of logistics is the reason for the adage, “Amateurs talk tactics while professionals talk logistics.”
Today’s column is the story of one of those many “throw away” logistical institutions. In this case, it was MacArthur’s “human porter logistics” — native workers provided by the Australian and Dutch East Indies colonial authorities — married to the 5th Air Force’s primitive bootleg radio beacon navigation. A mid-20th century great-great-grandfather of today’s Global Positioning System radio beacon satellites.
The Obamacare’s 0.7% New Policy Payment Problem
Allahpundit over on the HotAir blog has a post up titled “Uh oh: Only 5-15% of enrollees have paid their first month of premiums in some ObamaCare plans” that has some hugely interesting numbers regards the payment rate for those who have signed up for Obamacare to date.
There are 365,000 enrollees in Obamacare thus far. Only 15% of them have paid for their 1st month of healthcare insurance. This means _AT BEST_ less than 55,000 of the 365,000 who have enrolled will have insurance come January 2014.
The individual healthcare market prior to Obamacare was over 7 million people holding policies.
That works out to 0.7% of the individual policy holders that had old pre-Obamacare private health insurance policies, who have renewed their policies under Obamacare, given a 15% payment compliance rate. Remember, that is the _BEST CASE_ It may be as little as 1/3 that compliance number and percentage.
There are less than 30 days for the other 99.3% of the individual healthcare market to get an Obamacare policy.
I wonder what odds Las Vegas bookies would give for an Obamacare paid policy rate 10% of the old individual healthcare market, AKA Obamacare policies for 700,000?
Backroads in the Eagle Ford Shale Country
This last Saturday was the second day of Christmas on the Square in Goliad, Texas. I had a table there, as a local author, but the cold was so pronounced that the whole event was rather a bust … but it did mean that folding up and coming home early allowed some time for taking pictures on the way back. This is a part of Texas which overlies the Eagle Ford Shale formation, and over the last five years I have noted a good many changes along the route, and in the small towns that we pass through on a semi-regular basis.
