This shouldn't be a surprise. Just follow the organizational and budgetary incentives:

- there's pressure to be seen to reduce military spending and headcount

- outsourcing infrastructure and supply chain management for field operations *looks* like a reduction in headcount

- there's no coordinated effort to stop the Pentagon from focusing their budget on high-end weapons systems rather than personnel

- every Representative with military or defense contractor presence in their district fights cuts

- the Bush administration used multiple funding sources / legislation to pay for the two wars underway, making it harder to track the money

- the military personnel affected by shoddy contractor support are far away from the US press, and so have a hard time making their complaints known

- the cuts in administrative staff prevent line level enforcement by COTRs and contracting officers.

Basically, it couldn't be any more likely that this would happen. The Pentagon has every reason to outsource this tedious logistical work, simplifies their lives by dealing principally with one entity that manages the work, doesn't have to worry about whether it will be baying the bills under the rules, and doesn't bother assigning enough people to discover otherwise.

People were underwhelmed by President Obama's goal of putting more contract officers in place, but given the sheer scale of contract support for the US military, that kinds of day-to-day oversight is critical.

Which clause of the Constitution forbids federal health insurance schemes?

At the risk of echoing others...

Over the medium to long term, I have a hard time seeing that Reich's plan would work for anyone except corporations. My employers spend a large amount of time trying to steer us into health savings accounts and getting spouses onto their employer's plans; as a rule of thumb any time they mention "improved flexibility" or "employee control" what they really mean is "reducing the $12,000 a year that it costs us to subsidize employee health insurance."

If Wal-Mart can build a business plan around part-time employees getting welfare and Medicare benefits, then a federal health insurance plan would mean it was just a question of time before one corporation decided to take the risk that they would lose employees by ditching subsidized health insurance, and the rest would immediately follow the "industry standard."

In other words, I wouldn't get paid that $12,000 a year, the company would cut the base insurance and only offer supplemental - not subsidized, but with some reflection of a discount from their buying power as an organization. I can't see that building much revenue for the government.

I'm already clear that I'm in the mix for higher taxes at some point in the near future, and so be it, but if that's the case, I'd like to see there be universal pay-in. I don't see that it's necessary to fund all health-care with a value-added tax, but as a matter of principle it seems to me that some of it should be funded that way. There are times when regressive taxation serves a purpose.

To be honest, I think that Ayelet Waldman - whose columns I read in Salon back in the day - is not entirely mentally healthy. To the extent that she has limitations as a mother, it's not because she has the temerity to have interests other than slavish devotion to her children, but because she's apparently unable to conceive of others and their needs except as they relate to her self and needs. (She's hardly alone in that regard.)

In the broader question of culture, it seems to me that we're so hung up on the "what we do" of life that we forget the "how we do it" part.

To elaborate: I have two daughters, and they are fairly girly. I don't feel like I have to stop them from liking pink clothes or playing with dolls. I do feel that I have to steer them away from hyper-sexualized dolls and emotionally vacant pop culture. I do feel that I need to make sure that they stand up for themselves, and for what's right, without completely over-riding others.

To put it in context of domestic political economy... my wife worked part time after the girls were born but wasn't interested in having a corporate job when the part-time job went away. I don't mind doing that. So right now, we make it clear to the girls that it requires *both* of us to make the household work. And when the girls are both in primary school full time, and my wife sets out to use the time to do whatever she wants that she enjoys, work-wise, then the example will be fulfilled, self-employed worker versus beaten-down corporate drone - both of whom cook, clean, and do laundry.

To reduce it to stereotypes, I'm no more interested in raising children who are trained to be Second Wave Feminist cogs in the economic machine than I am in raising the next June Cleavers. I want to raise women of integrity, of compassion, who value their own role in life and who aren't pushovers, and who are comfortable in and with their bodies. I can't *make* that happen, but together my wife and I can at least steer them in that direction.

I just dipped in to the end of the thread - when you went into a thicket of personal pronouns towards the end of your most recent letter, concerning someone or someones having or promoting disease that needed to be eradicated, I have to confess I got a bit lost.

Could you be a bit clearer about who's got the disease, what effects you think it has, and how you would propose this would be identified and treated?

I read on a public health blog (reached via Andrew Sullivan's blog) that Tamiflu is effective against this strain: http://bit.ly/rF9qr

That takes it from the fear of "there is no cure" to "there might not be enough for a cure." Which is a horse - or a pig - of a different color.