Watching last year’s Frontline documentary “Rules of Engagement“, about the killing of 15 civilians in Haditha. A few random thoughts; glad to hear contradictory opinions in comments.

1. At one point, a military lawyer states that the rules of engagement allow for presumption of hostility of “men of military age” fleeing an explosion, such as the IED that killed a Marine and set off the Haditha incident. From the military’s perspective, I can see why this makes sense.

But speaking as a man of military age: if I’m standing near the site of a recent explosion, my instinct is to get the hell out of there in case it’s the first of several. It seems to me that the rule sets a standard whereby an Iraqi has to first check the area to see if there are any US military around; if not, he’s allowed to run like hell. If there are? Well, apparently that’s too damn bad — as the documentary makes clear, it doesn’t appear that there’s any way of remaining still and staying safe from either insurgent or military attack.

(Note: I’m not presuming that US troops would mistakenly fire on civilians, although the later Haditha conviction does indicate that it isn’t a matter of opinion whether it sometimes occurs. However, I assume that the average Iraqi “man of military age” may have drawn his own conclusions about whether it’s safe to stay put when facing US troops under attack, and it seems this particular rule puts him in a fatal catch-22.)

2. The unsworn testimony of two Marines struck me as extremely eloquent, more like submissions to Reader’s Digest than court testimony. On the presumption that most sergeants and corporals can’t write with that skill, I assume they had help drafting the statements. Nothing wrong with that, but it does make me wonder about a military court system that values such written contrition and makes resources available to provide it.

3. The conclusion of the documentary states that the new policy of automatic investigation of civilian casualties is causing troops in the field to hesitate out of fear of what the subsequent investigation will turn up. A lieutenant is quoted saying that this does increase battlefield risk — and notably adds that it’s worth it.

The possibility is raised that it’s not, but I think that contradicts military policy. If we want to reduce troop risk above all other considerations, we could replace ground troops with much more indiscriminate ranged and air weaponry. We don’t do this, because we don’t wage war that way (and neither does anyone else who is a signatory to war crimes treaties). So we already allow for increased risk to our troops in return for both military and moral goals. I have trouble understanding why a combat pause to assess the targets — which may indeed increase the risk of giving your enemy a chance to return fire — doesn’t fall into this category.

That said, I’ve never been in combat nor expect to be, so I’m interested in hearing why I’ve got this entirely wrong.

This is a calculation I’ve been meaning to do for a while.

According to a Google search, there are 21 million mortgages in the US. Another search says that the average mortgage payment is $1660 per month. (I’m sure these are somewhat inaccurate, but let’s presume they’re good enough for a Fermi calculation.)

Reuters reported yesterday that 7% of these mortgages are past due by one month or more.

So, let’s say we lived in an alternate universe which propped up the banking sector, not by pouring in trillions of dollars at the top and expecting it to trickle down, but by shoring up the assets which turned toxic. How much would that cost?

(21,000,000) * ($1,660) * 0.07 = $2,440,200,000 per month.

That’s billion with a “b”. That’s what it would cost to provide a guarantee to pay off all mortgages for one month; presuming of course that it was an outright government grant. If it were simply a loan, it would cost much less.

Annualized, that’s under $30 billion a year. The TARP funding from September 2008 would have paid for this program for 23 years, 4 months — again assuming that not a single dime of it was ever repaid. I’ve honestly lost track of how many trillions have been committed in total to various bailouts, but if we combine Congressional bills, Treasury programs, and Fed guarantees, but it seems like what we’re spending amounts to a century or so of paying off mortgages.

I’m not proposing this as a solution; my understanding is that this might have worked last September, but once the house of cards was in mid-collapse this wouldn’t have helped. Perhaps not. But this is the first number I’ve come up with that puts the Fed/Treasury/Congressional/Obama plans in perspective — and the numbers being poured into the banks seem, well, awfully high.

Second question — it’s been eight months since September. Wondering why I’m blogging this, instead of pointing to a link that someone in the financial media actually researched and reported in all that time?

It’s been a while since I did one of these, so this is the 2008 edition of “How People Find Me”, a.k.a. a whirlwind trip through the minds and bizarre interests of people who use Google search phrases to get here.

When I say Google, I mean it. 27 different search engines sent traffic my way last year. 91.6% of that traffic came from Google. In second place: Yahoo, with 3.1%.

For at least the fourth year running, the most common search phrase that landed people here was… “Jeff Porten”. Okay, so maybe you’re not surprised by that. I am, just a little; it comprises people who had the interest to look me up by name, but who didn’t already know me well enough to just go straight to jeffporten.com.

In second place: “annual gun deaths”. Similar phrases come in 9th, 11th, and 14th places. The culprit appears to be something I wrote in 2007, but as it’s not in the top 500 Google results right now, I have no idea how it got so much traction.

In third, fifth, and seventh place, an object lesson to be very, very careful when naming your blog. “The Vast Jeff Wing Conspiracy” is supposed to be an obvious pun on “left wing conspiracy”, but I forgot that Google indexes actual words. So “conspiracy” and “powerball conspiracy” gets people here in 7th and 5th place respectively. It amuses me no end that my posts about PowerBall odds are much more popular than my writings about poker.

In third place, “jeff wing”, a search phrase for which I’m currently the feeling lucky result — thereby beating out a few dozen people who are actually named Jeff Wing. To all Jeff Wings out there: I’m really really sorry.

Leaving the top ten, I’ll cherry pick the rest of the list for things that amuse me:

A four-way tie in the top twenty between “jeffporten”, “porten”, “powerball rigged”, and “Hiromi Oshima“. Nice to see my name so closely related with gambling, cheating, and pornography.

Several people came here looking specifically for iraq site:jeffporten.com, which tickles me pink. Of course, most of those searches were probably my own….

I am inexplicably still in the top ten results for “jewish redheads” thanks to this post, which must come as a crushing disappointment to anyone who thought pictures of Hiromi Oshima were more indicative of what I do here.

I’m the feeling lucky result for “flaming laballa”, which makes it pretty damn clear that I’m the only guy in Kappa Alpha to ever blog about it. Jeez, I hope it’s not one of our secrets.

Laugh-out-loud query: “why do powerball numbers always get drawn in assending order?” Hint: they don’t. Hint #2: if you think they do, you should not be gambling.

Query I’ll be thinking about myself: “maximum mathematical edge in blackjack”. Presumably this would be a deck which had all deuces through sixes dealt out immediately, and a deep cut before reshuffle. This would give you a running count of +20 (let’s assume that we’re not doing ace side counts), and a true count of 20/(32/52), or 32.5. That’s about double the highest true count I ever remember seeing.

“World of warcraft tcp fiber”: an excellent snack to feed your Horde when they’re experiencing high latency constipation.

“Time delayed chemical fuse”: dude, I’m quite glad that you landed at my site for this one, as none of my advice is likely to blow you up.

“Porten washington crossing”: unfortunately, anyone named Porten who was crossing the Delaware with George wasn’t one of my ancestors. But most likely the guy was looking for Port Washington? Or perhaps this place, which still fills me with juvenile glee.

“P o r t e n   d i e t”: your guess is as good as mine, folks.

“Att roaming coverage in guatanamo bay”: Because when you’re visiting Gitmo, your iPhone damn well better be the least of your problems.

“What do you mean by a trillion teraflops”: Really. Frakking. Fast.

“Stolen ibook login password”: Um. Depends. Are you the thief?

“Porno sadish factions\”: I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I am that this search was used only once.

“What would happen if you shot superman in the head with a kryptonite bullet”: probably depends on which Superman you have in mind. Various amounts of kryptonite have been shown to be lethal to Superman since the rock was first introduced in the 1940s. These days, an amount about the size of a class ring will knock him down for a good long while. But a kryptonite bullet is unlikely to kill him immediately; it’s been shown to pierce his skin and cause internal injury, but the radiation effect probably isn’t fast enough to allow a headshot to do more than fracture his skull. That said, a shoulder wound will kill him if he doesn’t get the bullet out fast enough.

“What were the winning numbers for powerball when the jackpots were 200 million or higher for the last four years”: What a brilliant idea! Why didn’t I think of this?

“Clark superman shot with kryptonite”: Man, some people really want that man dead.

“Can you bring in a camera into the cryptologic museum?”: Sure. So long as it’s embedded in your molar.

“Making money on amazon selling for a penny”: Amused that the first Google response is: “it’s very easy to lose money selling books for a penny.” Really. I’d never have guessed. In any case, I got tired enough of people selling my book for a penny, so now I’m giving it away for free. That’ll show those bastards.

“Superman diet”: 1) Be born on a planet with extremely high density, circling a red sun. 2) Move to a planet with a yellow sun. 3) Eat whatever you damn well please. 4) Live forever until some yutz shoots you in the head with a kryptonite bullet.

“Sept 11 conspiracy powerball”: I have a new entry on my list of people I never ever wish to meet in person.

“What time does shopping open at charles de gaulle airport”: You’re in Paris and this is the best you can do? No wonder your family doesn’t get excited when you go home.

“Joe the plumber borgata poker”: Not when I was there. Paris Hilton, yes. Sam Wurzelbacher, no.

“Next fibonacci number”: Depends on which one you’re on now. It’s not a global thing.

“Daily dose of blasphemy”: I have a new entry on my list of possible new names for my blog.

“Can isp tell if you bit torrent”: Usually, the guys who are downloading 85 gigs a day have a way of standing out.

“Porten down conspiracy”: That’s Porton Down you’re looking for, if you want the top secret MI-5 site. Yes, the similarity in naming causes frequent confusion when I attend British lefty conferences. Unfortunately, it’s never rated me a day pass.

“Disinfectant used borgata smell”: Wait, are you looking for the disinfectant that’s used at the Borgata? Or a disinfectant that smells like a used Borgata?

“Crash 2004 no jews”: Note to self: write CGI landing script which parses for certain incoming search phrases, and upon a successful hit replaces the home page with the text “GO FUCK YOURSELF.”

“Blew his head off -jfk -game -clinton -shotgun -rpg”: I have another new entry on my list of people I never ever wish to meet in person.

“Porten family foundation”: Holy shit. This actually exists. Note to self….

“For better or for worse incest comic strip”: Eyes… burning….

“Conspiracy video jewish download”: The problem with a Jewish download is that it always cuts off at the last three percent.

“Safe to fly while on nitroglycerin”: For you, maybe.

“How to waste a half hour”: Um… Googling for the best way to waste a half hour is likely to do nicely.

“Why are penny in porten”: Self-treating a zinc deficiency. (I’m the #2 hit for this one….)

“Women make men stupid belgum”: Would love to know how many women this man had to meet before he forgot how to spell Belgium.

“Metrobus wagers”: Congratulations, you have thought of a way to gamble that has eluded even me.

And a sneak peek from the 2009 edition:

“boy 10 gets porn text on birthday phone”: It doesn’t bother me that five people hit my site looking for this. It concerns me somewhat that all five IP addresses traced back to .mil sites, or military contractors.

Back in 1996, I wrote The Twentysomething Guide to Creative Self-Employment, which gave young (and the not-so-young) entrepreneurs all of the advice I had to offer from my own experience and my many, many mistakes. It received rave, if rather sporadic, reviews from those who managed to discover it—and then, like so many books, it disappeared from bookstore shelves and the public eye.

Until now. I’m publishing the complete book, in various formats, for anyone to download at http://www.stilltwenty.com.

Why? Because I think it’s a damn good book. Because in the recession of 2009, there are plenty of people who could benefit from learning how to start sideline ventures with as little risk as possible. And because—frankly—I haven’t seen a dime from this work in 13 years, and it would be peachy keen if anyone who thinks my book is worthwhile kicks something into the tip jar.

What’s on offer over there: free download of the entire book as a scanned PDF. A daily Creative Self-Employment tip in the form of an RSS feed. And the full text of the book, in a newly typeset and proofread version, sold as a Creative Commons work for any price you choose.

Let me know what you think, either here or there.