In Coherence

Blood And Treasure

2006-12-08T01:27:00.000-05:00

Joe Stiglitz, a nobel prize winning economist (he wrote Globalization And Its Discontents- excellent book), revises his estimate of the total cost of the Iraq war as being over $2 Trillion. That's right over $2 Trillion.

Chan Akya: A Feral Garfield With Guns

2006-12-08T00:45:00.000-05:00

A couple of interesting articles from Chan Akya, a columnist for Asia Times Online. Is the US on the brink of a precipitous decline? Akya makes the case for a major geopolitical power shift with the US having.. I disagree with some of what he says, I suspect he exaggerates his pessimistic outlook for affect, but a fair bit of it is on the mark.

Garfield with guns.

America's backward leap
A wealthy family that got rich on oil co-opts religious extremists to maintain its stranglehold on power. Western readers of that statement would immediately assume that I am referring to the Saudi royal family, while at least some non-Western readers would surmise that my reference is to the Bush White House.
For neutral observers, the comparison is quite compelling. Much as the Saudi royal family signed away its role in society to Wahhabi leaders in return for political patronage, US Republicans have coasted to electoral victory on a combination of support for the rich that is balanced with concern for society's morals, as defined by the religious right. In other words, it is the politics of fear that is used to put harried middle-class voters into submission. This is very similar to the politics of fear that Muslim countries use to keep their populations in line, often engaging in lectures on threats to the religion.

Middle Eastern dictators need Israel as an available excuse so that they can themselves stay in power. Being portrayed as an opponent of Israel in Arab media carries with it a decided advantage, as any political opponent would immediately be labeled as pro-Israeli. In much the same way, US President George W Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney probably need the Middle East to remain the sorry mess that it is for their own selfish reasons. This week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld indulged in name-calling of Americans opposed to the Iraq war, likening them to Nazi-era sympathizers. In doing this, he has pulled a page straight out of the "Arab Despot Book of Governance".

As I wrote earlier, demographic calculations vary wildly once you remove immigration from the calculations. The question that Americans need to ask is whether ongoing trends allow their country to remain a magnet for immigrants. Assuming that the rightward shift in policies and practices is fully executed, will anyone from Asia want to live in America?

The Cold War kept the United States honest, by providing a tangible enemy. The resulting focus on innovation and technological leadership, combined with a free market for entrepreneurs...The end of the Cold War removed a key element in this balance, namely the omnipresent external threat. True to form, that provided lopsided behavior as Americans focused more on guaranteeing their standards of living, while resisting the influx of new ideas.

the United States is aging at the same rate as Old Europe. The relatively free system I talked about above did not include payments for retirement or medical insurance, leaving an ever-increasing hole in the ability of the nation to sustain its living standards. Initially, this was handled by increasing welfare payments that were offset by rising tax revenues - but once the latter fell, America's structural deficit became visible to everyone.

Americans recognize that the main attraction for foreigners to own their financial assets is their country's status as a solitary superpower. Any threat to that status would logically cause investors to diversify their holdings, at an obvious financial cost. This is what the financial implication of a multipolar world is. A terrorist attack produces an overreaction from the US precisely because the country cannot economically handle these consequences. It needs to be the solitary superpower to keep its girth intact, in other words. Hence "Garfield, with guns".

For their part, Islamic tyrants have long used external threats to justify their continuity, which is why they will relish and prolong the current standoff with the US.

This situation explains why neither the US-led West nor Islamic tyrants have any reason to control an escalation of the current situation. The result will be tragic, leading to World War III, although it will benefit any country that stays out. China and India should keep that in mind.

Feral cats, beware

With the US government firmly on the back foot in Iraq and President George W Bush rendered a lame duck by a Democratic Congress, the end of the American century is approaching rather faster than previously expected. [1] My characterization of the United States as Garfield may have been too gentle in the context of what is likely to happen going forward, when the cat becomes feral. The death of any superpower usually carries with it a combination of military and economic defeats and, as with the Soviet Union's demise in the 1990s, America's decline will prove equally cruel.

Iraq has descended into a civil war in recent weeks, as a feckless US military attempts to recover lost ground with the same failed tactics of the past few years. Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result...As with the end of the Vietnam conflict, it might take 10 years or more for any resurgence in national optimism in the US. The difference is that this time around, putative successors are much better positioned to inherit the mantle of superpowers.

The US has lost its competitive edge in manufacturing ... The simple fact is that after the Cold War ended, US innovation stopped dead in its tracks. Evaluate the engineering aspects of any American car, and you are likely to walk away completely unimpressed. A six-liter engine used by US car companies produces the same power as an engine half that size from the Germans, and one-third of the size by the Japanese (tuned, admittedly). Leave out engineering, and simple design dynamics don't work either - Detroit has not produced a single desirable car in the past decade.

The United States came to the forefront of righting human-rights wrongs such as racism, but only when its economic prosperity was threatened by the status quo. Now, America's lost competitiveness in manufacturing comes alongside its declining demographics (when keeping immigrants out of calculations), and rising threats from the likes of India and China in all areas of the global economy that it currently dominates. In this high-pressure economic environment, rising geopolitical risks argue for an unwelcome acceleration of the country's transition. Much like a worker who becomes a wife-beater when threatened with losing his job, the US lashes out, with its anger directed toward garnering any resource advantage that it can to lengthen its reign at the top.

the US is unlikely to go quietly into the night. It will attempt to lash out at the rest of the world, particularly at its potential successors - the Eurozone, Russia and China.[3]...I have already written about the latter in the aforementioned article, concluding that China would make necessary accommodations to its currency and economic policy to avoid confrontation with the US.

Nir Rosen: "What you're going to see in Iraq is a virtual genocide of the Sunnis"

2006-11-28T20:39:00.000-05:00

Here's a revealing interview of the American journalist Nir Rosen on Democracy Now. He's the author of the book In the Belly of the Green Bird, an excellent account life outside the Green Zone, he's arguably the most informed American journalist in regards to the reality on the ground in Iraq (he even managed to spend some time in Fallujah...after the US army withdrew):

Some of the more interesting statements he makes in this interview:

"Shias own Iraq now and Sunnis can never get it back...what you're going to see in Iraq is a virtual genocide of the Sunnis, and the Americans are going to be able to stop that."

"Bush and Maliki are absolutely irrelevant."

"Virtually every young Shia male in Iraq supports Muqtada Al-Sadr today."

Describing a surprise appearance of Muqtada at a Shia mosque: "it was like being at a Michael Jackson concert...the crowd just went crazy"

- The Americans are powerless at this point. They can't really distinguish between factions or make any sense of the situation, the US troops mostly kill and harass innocent people.

- Anbar province (Western Iraq) may eventually join Jordan, and Jordan is a safe haven for many of the Sunni insurgents. Jordan may become destabilized in the process.

"There's no solution, we've (US) destroyed Iraq"

Here's a long but fascinating account of the civil war in Iraq by Nir Rosen:

Anatomy of a civil war.

You can find links to more of his articles in this previous post.

American 'Conservative Intellectual' an Oxymoron?

2006-11-26T17:36:00.000-05:00

Austin Bramwell, former National Review director and trustee, lays the smackdown on contemporary American 'conservatism'. A lot of juicy tidbits in this article...I've probably cut and paste too much, the article is chock-full of goodness. Overall it's an excellent analysis, but Bramwell could have emphasized the fact that an intellectually vapid ideology serves US hegemonic/imperialist interests quite nicely in most circumstances- this is something that has arguably been cultivated by various conservative elites to serve their own interests. He does actually touch upon it in the article but he could have fleshed it out a bit more. Still a great article considering its coming from a former 'conservative' imperial lap dog.

Apologies for sounding a little too much like a Politburo member, but it sure is fitting rhetoric in our day and age. ;-)

In sum, NR [National Review] declared that we were "at war" when we were not, for reasons that it did not specify, against enemies that it could not define, and to achieve goals that war does not advance. "Defining Victory" dresses up as policy but inchoate thirst for vengeance against someone, anyone who hates us. How nations sink, by darling schemes oppressed / when vengeance listens to the fool's request! On Oct. 15, 2001, National Review had no position on post-9/11 foreign policy.

I once heard an NR senior editor, a man revered for his high-mindedness, begin his defense of the Iraq occupation by reminding the audience that on 9/11 "they" attacked "us". In his mind as in others', the invasion of Iraq has so inescapable a connection to 9/11 that only a traitor or fool would deny it.

Never mind the conflation of "Arab radicalism" presumably a reference to Bathism with bin Laden's Muslim jihadism (how would discrediting Saddam's ideology discourage bin Laden's?), the allusion to Hussein rewarding the families of Palestinian suicide bombers (how does terrorism in Israel threaten the United States?), or the assumption that foreign terrorists are driving the insurgency in Iraq (if Iraqis hate the relatively benign Americans, why would they turn over their country to a bunch of foreign wackos?). Let us observe only that the conservative movement's best argument for staying in Iraq is that jihadists "will be perceived" differently, for "it will be clear" that they are harming Muslims at large. In short, if all goes well, the occupation of Iraq might just produce a useful propaganda victory. War as propaganda: surely this is the thinking of clownish dictators rather than mature analysts.

Yet even if fully informed, Muslims may still not perceive Iraq as a "democracy". Scholars can't even agree on the meaning the word. Joseph Schumpeter, the most penetrating modern theorist of democracy, argued in essence that "democracy" is a misnomer, while economist Kenneth Arrow won a Nobel Prize for proving (on one interpretation) that it is literally impossible for a democratic process to satisfy all relevant normative criteria of legitimacy. Meanwhile, the vast majority of people (what George Orwell in 1984 called the "proles", or the 85 percent of the world so uninterested in politics as to have no ideology whatsoever) have not even the most basic grasp of the concepts of democracy or legitimacy. Even if everything in Mesopotamia came up roses, therefore, Muslims may never see the Iraqi government as legitimate. To do so, they would need the minds of angels, not men.

In short, the steps in the causal logic whereby Iraqi democracy defeats anti-American terrorism are so numerous and doubtful that it becomes impossible to believe that Bush's supporters have ever actually thought them through. Those who wonder what error befell the conservative movement since Bush took office are asking the wrong question. Since 9/11, the conservative movement has not made unsound or fallacious arguments for supporting Bush's policies. Rather, it has made no arguments at all.

Some, for example, carry on the Cold War obsession with the so-called "crisis of the West." Convinced that history at some point took a wrong turn, they pore over ancient texts in search of some Hermetic insight into the fatal error. (Not surprisingly, this approach has little popular appeal, although it still commands respect among professional conservatives.) The notion of a crisis of the West, however, grossly overestimates the importance of ideas; indeed, it requires an unphilosophical and almost paranoid ability to treat ideologies (most conspicuously, liberalism) as living, breathing omnipresences to which intentions, tactics, strategies, feelings, disappointments, and conflicts can all be attributed. Believers in the crisis of the West rest almost their entire worldview on an elusive notion "modernity" borrowed from a half-formed science: sociology. Crisis-of-the-West conservatism, at one time a fruitful response to the calamities of the 20th century, has become more a posture than a genuine school of thought.

Another group pleads for the conservative movement to return to its alleged first principles. "If only people would still read Russell Kirk," one hears. But the movement never had any first principles to begin with. Although it boasts a carefully husbanded canon of supposedly foundational texts, the men who wrote them: Kirk, Strauss, Voegelin, Weaver, Chambers, Meyer were notorious eccentrics given to extravagant claims whose policy implications remain largely obscure. Russell Kirk, for example, even as he shrewdly positioned himself as the intellectual godfather of the conservative movement, had almost no political opinions whatsoever.

But "conservatism" has no mystical essence. Rather than a magisterium handed down from apostolic times, it is an ideology whose contours are largely arbitrary and accidental. By ideology, I mean precisely what Orwell depicted in 1984. I do not mean, of course, that conservatism is totalitarian. Taken as prophecy, 1984 has little merit. Taken as a description of the world we actually live in, however, it is indispensable. 1984 reveals not the horrors of the future but the quotidian realities of ideology in mass democracy. Conservatism exemplifies them all....First, like Ingsoc, conservatism has a hierarchical structure. Like Orwell's "Inner Party," those at the top of the movement have almost perfect freedom to decide what opinions count as official conservatism. The Iraq War furnishes a telling example...Second, conservatism is concerned less with truth than with distinguishing insiders from outsiders. Conservatives identify themselves in part by repeating slogans ("we are at war!") that, like "ignorance is strength," are less important for what (if anything) they say than for what saying them says about the speaker...Third, and closely related to doublethinking, the conservative movement engages in selective editing of history. When events have a tendency to disconfirm ideology, down the memory hole they go. Thus, conservatives do not recall their dire warnings about the Soviet Union during the Cold War or about the economy after the Bush I or Clinton tax increases....Fourth, conservatism is entertaining. Understanding the world, though rewarding, provides nothing like the pleasures of a "Two Minute Hate", a focused, ritualized denunciation of enemies.

Whatever its past accomplishments, the conservative movement no longer kindles any "ironic points of light." It has produced fewer outstanding books even as it has taken over more of the intellectual and political landscape. This trend will only continue. Worse, no reckoning will be made: they hope in vain who expect conservatives to take responsibility for the actual consequences of their actions. Conservatives have no use for the ethic of responsibility; they seek only to "see to it that the flame of pure intention is not quelched." The movement remains a fine place to make a career, but for wisdom one must look elsewhere.

Bramwell has previously described the vacuity of 'conservative thought' in somewhat more detail in this article from August 2005:
Defining Conservatism Down.

I suppose one could very make the argument that the lack of intellectual rigour in contemporary American 'conservatism' goes a long way in explaining the rise of authoritarian tendencies in US politics.

The Death Squads (Documentary)

2006-11-26T15:53:00.000-05:00

Here's a revealing Channel 4 documentary showing one of the horrific realities of life in present day Iraq- the death and torture squads run by Shia militia groups, many of them run originating from groups actually inside the Iraqi government itself.

The Shia death squads are a side of the day to day violence in Iraq that seems to get a lot less attention from the Western media than the violence being perpetrated by the mostly Sunni 'insurgency'. Not too surprising considering that some of it appears to be orchestrated by certain figures within the Iraqi government- obviously something the White House wouldn't want the world to hear about. I suppose that death squads don't quite qualify as terrorism as long as they're being run from the green zone.

Why 'Imperial Fantasies' Rather Than 'Imperial Reality'?

2006-09-03T20:40:00.000-04:00

Just thought I'd add some commentary to a previous post about a suggested redrawing of the Mideast map by Col. Ralph Peters. The purported aim of the redrawn borders was to bring 'stability' to the region by giving the various ethnic/sectarian groups their own nation-state.

First of all, it's just not feasible. An outside power, particularly the baggage-ridden US, blatantly attempting to completely re-engineer the regions politics will be met with furious resistance from most parties, even if the new nation-states are more ethnically homogeneous. Not to mention that Col. Ralph Peters seems pretty clueless about actual US national interests and foreign policy strategy. Why the heck would the US support a massive Arab Shia state that would potentially strengthen already rising Iranian influence over the region? Who actually thinks they'll dismember Turkey for the sake of the Kurds, when the Turks have been such obedient allies? Why would the US take out Pakistan's 'tribal' areas when their military is strongly allied with the US, and the resulting Baloch and Pashtun states would be much more prone to adopt Islamic radicalism and anti-US policy? His plan is quite simply incredibly naive, both in terms of implementation and in terms of the foreign policy objectives of the US. When it comes down to it, 'divide and conquer' is an invaluable strategy facilitating regional dominance, therefore expanding enormous amounts of energy to resolve all ethnic/sectarian conflicts in the region is simply not in America's interests. Here's some 'wisdom' from Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security advisor to President Jimmy Carter, quotes from The Grand Chessboard. Last quote suggests a reason for why the US would have an interest in encouraging multi-ethnic states throughout the Middle East.

"It is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus also of challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book."

"In brief, for the United States, Eurasian geostrategy involves the purposeful management of geostrategically dynamic states and the careful handling of geopolitically catalytic states, in keeping with the twin interests of America in the short-term preservation of its unique global power and in the long-run transformation of it into increasingly institutionalized global cooperation. To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial [that is, AMERICAN] geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together."

"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat. Such a consensus generally existed during World War II and even during the Cold War...In the absence of a comparable external challenge, American society may find it much more difficult to reach agreement regarding foreign policies that cannot be directly related to central beliefs and widely shared cultural-ethnic sympathies and that still require an enduring and sometimes costly imperial engagement."

What Does An Iraqi Public Service Announcement Look Like Nowadays?

2006-09-03T03:40:00.000-04:00

Well here's one...

Brought to you by No Terror...couldn't find out who was behind the campaign on their website...they seem a little secretive about their identity.

I have to admit, I'm a tad skeptical that a television ad like this is going to dissuade a committed fanatic from carrying out a suicide attack. I actually found the action movie style of it all kind of makes the suicide bomber and the ensuing mayhem look sorta badasss cool. I'm thinking they probably should have focused a bit more on the heart-wrenching aftermath and toned down the terrorist action flick drama and suspense.

Maybe they should have hired David Lynch to direct it. Here's a NY City public service announcement he made. Only Lynch could make littering seem far more disturbing than a devastating suicide attack on a bunch of civilians. o.O

Imperial Fantasies: Redrawing the Mideast Map as a Weekend Project

2006-09-01T03:35:00.000-04:00

Wannabe American satrap brings peace to the Middle East after spending a few hours with Adobe Illustrator.

A gigantic new Kurdish state...a huge Arab Shia state composed of chunks of Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia..a massively expanded Greater Jordan...a Greater Lebanon eating up all of Syria's coast...Pakistan cut in half...

The only spot he seems to show any reticence whatsoever about carving up is Israel/Palestine...notice the status of the Occupied Territories is still 'undetermined'. ;-)

Hmmm...maybe that evil aspartame stuff really is an incredibly dangerous neurotoxin...say comparable to Roman lead plumbing... ;-)

Edit: More comments on Col. Peter's proposal for a new Middle East map.

Devestating Critique of Rumsfeld and the Bush Administration

2006-08-31T23:02:00.000-04:00

So there is actually still a real journalist left in mainstream US television news. Kudos to Olbermann for pointing out the real threat to American democracy. What a rant!

You can find the transcript of the editorial here.

Is Bush Drinking Again??

2006-08-29T20:14:00.000-04:00

Sell Your McMansion!!

2006-08-29T19:38:00.000-04:00

This is a looong term graph of the value of existing homes in the US housing market. A similar bubble, to varying degrees, has occurred in housing markets across the world. I believe that some Euro countries like the UK and Spain have even larger bubbles, while Canada has seen a somewhat smaller one. Regardless, they are economic 'bubbles' nonetheless, i.e. price and supply rising too rapidly causing a subsequent collapse in demand.

Well it looks like the US housing market is really starting to take a turn for the worse, could be the biggest housing bust in 4 or 5 decades. Housing prices are sticky for the obvious reason that it isn't easy to move, so you still have time to respond to this. If you're thinking about selling a house do it now. If you're thinking about buying one, if it's at all possible try to hold off for a year or two, you'll likely get the property at a cheaper price, at least in real if not nominal terms. And don't listen to the majority of useless economic pundits out there, this will likely lead to a recession in the US, and a possible corresponding downturn across the globe, in the next few months.

P.S. that cover on the top of the post is about a year old now. It's when you start seeing stuff like that in the most mainstream publications that you should think about selling rather than buying...it's way past due now.

New and Improved!?

2006-08-22T11:26:00.000-04:00

Any commnents on the new name and look for the blog?

Where's the Terror?

2006-08-22T01:32:00.000-04:00

Some recent events which would have literally garnered 100x as much media attention if the perpetrators were Muslims:

Tamil Tigers kill hundreds of Muslim refugees.

Bombing of Russian market.

Canadian Tamil Tigers arrested buying surface-to-air missiles.

Actually the middle one could involve Muslims, the attackers aren't known yet. Seems like the 'War on Terror' is increasingly becoming one on 'Islamofascism'. A shift towards conceptualizing the conflict as a 'clash of civilizations'. I fully expect Shrub and friends to be using that latter term a lot more often.

Norman Finkelstein Lecture

2006-08-20T23:20:00.000-04:00

A very highly recommended lecture on the Israel/Palestine conflict given by Professor Norman Finkelstein at Yale University. Don't have time at the moment, but I plan on posting some comments on Dr. Finkelstein's excellent and controversial work when I get the opportunity. The lecture is almost three hours long but well worth it if you have an interest in the subject.

A Deliberate Lack of Perspective on Terrorism?

2006-08-16T19:08:00.000-04:00

A nice piece written by John Mueller a political science professor from Ohio State University. In this article he gives a realistic assessment the dangers terrorism poses to individuals, and contrasts that with the completely out of proportion public hysteria.

A False Sense of Insecurity?

Some interesting bits:

terrorism actually causes rather little damage, and the likelihood that any individual will become a victim in most places is microscopic. Those adept at hyperbole like to proclaim that we live in the age of terror. However, while, obviously, deeply tragic for those directly involved, the number of people worldwide who die as a result of international terrorism is generally only a few hundred a year, tiny compared to the numbers who die in most civil wars or from automobile accidents.

It should be kept in mind that Sept. 11 continues to stand out as an extreme event. Until then, and since then, no more than 329 people have ever been killed in a single terrorist attack (in a 1985 Air India explosion). And extreme events often remain exactly that -- aberrations, rather than harbingers.

A central issue, however, is whether such spectacularly destructive terrorist acts will become commonplace. Although there have been many deadly terrorist incidents in the world since 2001, all (thus far, at least) have relied on conventional methods and have not remotely challenged Sept. 11 quantitatively. If, as some purported experts repeatedly claim, chemical and biological attacks are so easy and attractive to terrorists, it is impressive that none have so far been used in Israel (where four times as many people die from automobile accidents as from terrorism). Actually, it is somewhat strange that so much emphasis has been put on the dangers of high-tech weapons in the first place.

Frantz Fanon, the 20th-century revolutionary, contended that the aim of terrorism is to terrify. If that is so, terrorists can be defeated simply by not becoming terrified -- that is, anything that enhances fear effectively gives in to them.

Accordingly, it would seem to be reasonable for those in charge of our safety to inform the public about how many airliners would have to crash before flying becomes as dangerous as driving the same distance in an automobile. It turns out that someone has made that calculation: University of Michigan transportation researchers Michael Sivak and Michael Flannagan, in an article last year in American Scientist , wrote that they determined there would have to be one set of Sept. 11 crashes a month for the risks to balance out. More generally, they calculate that an American's chance of being killed in one nonstop airline flight is about one in 13 million (even taking the Sept. 11 crashes into account). To reach that same level of risk when driving on America's safest roads -- rural interstate highways -- one would have to travel a mere 11.2 miles.

Or there ought to be at least some discussion of the almost completely unaddressed but patently obvious observation that, in the words of risk analyst David Banks, "It seems impossible that the United States will ever again experience takeovers of commercial flights that are then turned into weapons -- no pilot will relinquish control, and passengers will fight."

For their part, biological and chemical weapons have not proven to be great killers. Although the basic science about them has been well known for a century at least, both kinds of weapons are notoriously difficult to create, control, and focus (and even more so for nuclear weapons).
To this point in history, biological weapons have killed almost no one. And the notion that large numbers of people would perish if a small number of chemical weapons were to be set off is highly questionable.

What we need is more pronouncements like the one in a recent book by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.): "Get on the damn elevator! Fly on the damn plane! Calculate the odds of being harmed by a terrorist! ItÂs still about as likely as being swept out to sea by a tidal wave. Suck it up, for crying out loud. You're almost certainly going to be OK. And in the unlikely event youÂre not, do you really want to spend your last days cowering behind plastic sheets and duct tape? That's not a life worth living, is it?"

Moreover, there is more reputational danger in underplaying risks than in exaggerating them. People routinely ridicule futurist H.G. Wells' prediction that the conflict beginning in 1914 would be "the war that will end war," but not his equally confident declaration at the end of World War II that "the end of everything we call life is close at hand." Disproved doomsayers can always claim that caution induced by their warnings prevented the predicted calamity from occurring. (Call this the Y2K effect.) Disproved Pollyannas have no such convenient refuge.

The communication of risk, then, is no easy task. Risk analyst Paul Slovic points out that people tend greatly to overestimate the chances of dramatic or sensational causes of death, that realistically informing people about risks sometimes only makes them more frightened, that strong beliefs in this area are very difficult to modify, that a new sort of calamity tends to be taken as harbinger of future mishaps, that a disaster tends to increase fears not only about that kind of danger, but of all kinds, and that people, even professionals, are susceptible to the way risks are expressed -- far less likely, for example, to choose radiation therapy if told the chances of death are 32% rather than that the chances of survival are 68%.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that virtually all central governments have an interest in exaggerating foreign threats. Why? Quite simply it gives people in office power and glory. All 'war-time' leaders on the victors side are 'great', it's a lot harder to achieve that status during peaceful periods. On top of that the media and various corporate interests have an interest in encouraging, rather than discouraging, hysteria- more viewers and consumers.

Dramatic violent acts, naturally grip the minds and hearts of most people. The ability of these events to grab and hold the attention of the public doesn't just work to the advantage of the 'terrorist', but also government and a variety of other powerful well-placed folk. Savvy, selfish people love conflict because they realize the chaos and lack of rationality brings great opportunity for profit.

So I ask you, in the end, who exactly benefits from dispelling the hysteria over terrorism...aside from the public and society as a whole? ;-)

Bush is an Idiot?? Really?!

2006-08-16T18:39:00.000-04:00

Conservative media figure, Joe Scarborough, has an amusing segment of Bush's 'lack of gravitas'. Finally it seems like some of the footlicking Conservative crowd (as opposed to Conservatives who actually are capable of having an original thought) in the US are finally catching on to the fact that Bush isn't all that bright. Not bad, only took them what? 6 years or so? Hmm, seems like Shrub isn't the only slow learner here.

Production Versus Price

2006-08-09T20:02:00.000-04:00

You notice anything developing here?

I can see two divergent conclusions arising from this:

1. Limited Supply
2. Price gouging

Believe me, it's more than likely #1. This of course raises the question of whether it's the start of 'peak oil' or merely a medium term blip which will be offset by future mega-projects. I'll leave it to you to decide.

A Bunch of Interesting Links on the War in Lebanon

2006-08-07T22:46:00.000-04:00

A few of the articles I've found illuminating from the last couple of weeks about the war being waged in Lebanon. In my opinion, it's hard to find relatively unbiased information about what's really going on there given the deep pro-Israel slant of most mainstream Western media outlets. I think the following articles do a good job of addressing some of the systematic bias and outright propaganda that traditionally favours Israel.

Hizbullah's attacks stem from Israeli incursions into Lebanon.

Chris Hedges: Mutually Assured Destruction in the Middle East.

It's about annexation, stupid!

Israel backed by army of cyber-soldiers.

Israel, Not Hizbullah, is Putting Civilians in Danger on Both Sides of the Border.

Our moral culpability for Qana.

No, this is not 'our war'.

The "hiding among civilians" myth.

IDF prepared for attack by Syria.

Noam Chomsky: U.S.-Backed Israeli Policies Pursuing "End of Palestine".

Brzezinski: Israel's Actions in Lebanon Essentially Amount to "the Killing of Hostages"

Noam Chomsky on Israel, Lebanon and Palestine.

Brzezinski: The Beginning of the End for Israel.

The neocons' next war

Now, I'm not claiming that these articles cover the whole reality of the situation, nor do they represent the 'one and only definitive truth', rather I bring them to your attention because most of them present perspectives that are rarely discussed in 'Western', particularly US, mainstream media outlets.
And yes, I know there is a couple of Pat Buchanan's editorials in the links- so what? He expresses his view on the subject eloquently, and convincingly, this happens to be one of the few areas of agreement between me and that 'paleocon' Buchanan. And of course, this point should be obvious to anyone who isn't a halfwit or a foaming ideologue, criticizing Israel does not make one an 'anti-semite'.

John Dean: Neocon Fearmongering and its Consequences

2006-07-29T21:39:00.000-04:00

The following was posted on one of my favorite internet forums. It's a great excerpt from John Dean's latest critique (that's probably far too gentle, 'skewering' is probably more appropriate), of the Bush administration, Conservatives Without Conscience. It describes how the Bushies constantly provoke mass fear to further their political agenda, a hallmark of all authoritarian regimes. Can't wait to read more of this book.

"Any who act as if freedom's defenses are to be found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America."
--President Dwight Eisenhower

The following is an excerpt from John Dean's latest book Conservatives Without Conscience and is one of the best summations of this particular political phenomenon as it applies to the current administration that I have seen.

Among the most troubling of the authoritarian and radical tactics being employed by Bush and Cheney are their politics of fear. A favorite gambit of Latin American dictators who run sham democracies, fearmongering has generally been frowned upon in American politics.* Think of the modern presidents who have governed our nation--Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton--and the various crises they confronted--the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean war, the cold war, the Cuban missile crisis, the war in Vietnam, Iran's taking of American hostages, the danger to American students in Grenada, Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, the terrorist bombings at the World Trade Center in 1993, and Timothy McVeigh's 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma. None of these presidents resorted to fear in dealing with these situations. None of these presidents made the use of fear a standard procedure or a means of governing (or pursuing office or political goals). To the contrary, all of these presidents sought to avoid preying on the fears of Americans. (It will be noted that Nixon is not included in this list because he did use fear in both his 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns, and he continued to use this tactic once in office.)

Frightening Americans, nonetheless, has become a standard ploy for Bush, Cheney, and their surrogates. They add a fear factor to every course of action they pursue, whether it is their radical foreign policy of preemptive war, their call for tax cuts, their desire to privatize social security, or their implementation of a radical new health care scheme. This fearmongering began with the administration's political exploitation of the 9/11 tragedy, when it made the fight against terrorists the centerpiece of its presidency. Bush and Cheney launched America's first preemptive war by claiming it necessary to the fight against terrorism. Yet it is almost universally agreed that the war has actually created an incubator in Iraq for a new generation of terrorists who will seek to harm the United States far into the future. Even well-informed friends of the Bush administration have adopted this view. Senator John McCain, in a 2004 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, expressed his concern that we had "energized the extremists and created a breeding ground for terrorists, dooming the Arab world" in Iraq,84 and former National Security Adviser (to Bush I) Brent Scowcroft bluntly said of the war in Iraq, "This was said to be part of the war on terror, but Iraq feeds terrorism."85

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*For example, President Alberto Fujimori manipulated the people of Peru for electoral gains and to justify authoritarian practices in 2000 by using the threat of terror. "Elitists and dictators have used fear tactics to control their constituencies since the beginning of time," noted scholar R. D. Davis in "Debunking the Big Lie," in National Minority Politics (November 30, 1995), 37. Chris Ney and Kelly Creedon, authors with expertise on Latin American politics, wrote that "fear won the election" in El Salvador in 2004, noting, "The rhetoric and tactics mirror those employed by other Latin American right-wing parties, including that of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet." They conclude with an observation remarkably applicable to American democracy: "The targeted use of fear is a powerful motivator, especially for people who have been traumatized by war, state terrorism, or economic insecurity. The implications for democratic government whether newly formed or well-established--are deeply disturbing." Chris Ney and Kelly Creedon, "Preemptive Intervention in El Salvador,'' Peacework (May 2004), 15.

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Among the few who have spoken out against the politics of fear, no one has done so more forcefully, and with less notice in the mainstream news media, than former vice president Al Gore, who was the keynote speaker at a conference in February 2004 titled "Fear: Its Political Uses and Abuses." Gore analyzed the administration's continuous use of fear since 9/11 and expressed grave concern that no one was correcting the misinformation being fed to Americans by Bush and Cheney. "Fear drives out reason. Fear suppresses the politics of discourse and opens the door to the politics of destruction," Gore observed. "President Dwight Eisenhower said this: 'Any who act as if freedoms defenses are to be found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America.' But only fifteen years later," Gore continued, "when Eisenhower's vice president, Richard Nixon, became president, we saw the beginning of a major change in America's politics. Nixon, in a sense, embodied that spirit of suppression and suspicion and fear that Eisenhower had denounced." Getting right to the point, Gore continued, "In many ways, George W. Bush reminds me of Nixon more than any other president....Like Bush, Nixon understood the political uses and misuses of fear." While much of the press has ignored Bush's and Cheney's fearmongering, letters to the editor occasionally surface to address it, like the letter from Steve Mavros to the New York Times saying he was "sick and tired of living in fear," yet "President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney want us to fear everything. Fear the terrorists, fear Muslims, fear gays."86

By and large Bush, Cheney, and their White House media operation have churned out fear with very few challenges from the media. Cheney regularly tells Americans that we are "up against an adversary who, with a relatively small number of people, could come together and mount a devastating attack against the United States," adding, "The ultimate threat now would be a group of al Qaeda in the middle of one of our cities with a nuclear weapon."87 Did the interviewer ask how likely that might be? Or what the government was doing to prevent it or to minimize its impact? No such questions were raised. The Bush White House understands that the media will treat their fearmongering as news, because fear sells news; it keeps people reading, watching, and waiting for updates. There is more fear to come, for the Bush White House is relying on it in their campaign for the 2006 midterm congressional elections. This, in turn, will set the stage for the 2008 presidential election, where authoritarians will make certain fear is a prominent part of the platform.

Bush's top political strategist, Karl Rove, gave the word to the political troops at a meeting of the Republican National Committee in early 2006. "America is at war--and so our national security is at the forefront of the minds of Americans," Rove said, as he rattled the White House saber. "The United States faces a ruthless enemy--and we need a commander-in-chief and a Congress who understand the nature of the threat and the gravity of this moment. President Bush and the Republican Party do. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many Democrats."88 I have said little about Rove, principally because this is not a book about the Bush White House. But Karl Rove has all the credentials of a right-wing authoritarian, and if he has a conscience, it has hardly been in evidence during the five years in which he has been in the public eye. He is conspicuously submissive to authority, exceedingly aggressive in pursuing and defending the policies and practices he embraces (namely, whatever George W. Bush believes, or that which is politically expedient), and he is highly conventional. As a political strategist, Rove appreciates the value of fear, so it is not surprising that he proclaimed that the 2006 midterm elections would be won or lost based on how frightened Americans are about terrorism.

A writer for HarperÂs magazine recently collected facts that illustrate the 9/11 terror attack from a "detached perspective," leaving out hot hyperbole by making a cold comparison of hard numbers regarding causes of death in the United States:

In 2001, terrorists killed 2,978 people in the United States, including the five killed by anthrax. In that same year, according to the Centers for Disease Control, heart disease killed 700,142 Americans and cancer 553,768; various accidents claimed 101,537 lives, suicide 30,622, and homicide, not including the [terror] attacks, another 17,330. As President Bush pointed out in January [2004], no one has been killed by terrorists on American soil since then. Neither, according to the FBI, was anyone killed here by terrorists in 2000. In 1999, the number was one. In 1998, it was three. In 1997, zero.* Even using 2001 as a baseline, the actuarial tables would suggest that our concern about terror mortality ought to be on the order of our concern about fatal workplace injuries (5,431 deaths) or drowning (3,247). To recognize this is not to dishonor the loss to the families of those people killed by terrorists, but neither should their anguish eclipse that of the families of children who died in their infancy that year (27,801). Every death has its horrors.89

On a broad base, Jim Harper, the director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, has observed, "We can compare the risk of terrorist attack to other dangers our country has historically faced: During the height of the Cold War, we drew within a few figurative minutes of midnight--the moment that the Soviet Union and United States would hurl their world-ending arsenals at one another." Harper further noted that "we didn't throw out the rulebook during the Cold War. The executive branch did not make extravagant claims to power," as are Bush and Cheney.90

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*The total number of fatalities resulting from the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was 168.

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Despite such realities, the Bush administration continually presents the public with a worst-case scenario. Clearly, the most serious threat from terrorists is that they obtain a weapon of mass destruction (WMD). But we face another very serious threat: namely, that our own government terrorizes us so much that we are willing to give up the ideals of democracy in exchange for reducing our fear. This threat to democracy seems well understood by Osama bin Laden and his troops. I have noted in the past, and I believe even more strongly today, that "the real danger posed by terrorism for our democracy is not that they can defeat us with physical or military force," rather "terrorism presents its real threat in provoking democratic regimes to embrace and employ authoritarian measures that (1) weaken the fabric of democracy; (2) discredit the government domestically as well as internationally; (3) alienate segments of the population from their government, thereby pushing more people to support (passively, if not outright actively) the terrorist organizations and their causes; and (4) undermine the government's claim to the moral high ground in the battle against the terrorists, while gaining legitimacy for the latter."91 This is precisely what is happening in America today, as Bush and Cheney are being sucker punched by Osama bin Laden. Authoritarianism is everywhere in the federal government, not because Bush and Cheney do not realize what they are doing, but because they are authoritarians, and they are doing what authoritarians do. In the process they have weakened the fabric of democracy, discredited the American government as never before in the eyes of the world, caused people to wonder if terrorists have a legitimate complaint, and taken the United States far from the moral high ground in refusing to abide by basic international law.

In citing the worst-case potential of the next terror attack in the United States--a nuclear weapon, a "dirty bomb," or a chemical or biological weapon that could kill or injure millions of Americans--the Bush administration is not making a baseless argument. Such things could happen. But there is much that can be done to reduce the potential, as well as the impact, of a WMD terror attack. It would, therefore, seem logical--if the Bush administration is truly concerned about such a catastrophic terror strike in the United States--for it to focus its efforts on such measures, rather than simply frightening people.

How serious is the Bush administration about addressing the possibility of another major terror attack in the United States? Remarkably, not very. Notwithstanding the level of importance the administration purportedly places on fighting terrorism, according to the 9/11 Commission's 2005 year-end "report card" Bush and Company were given five Fs, twelve Ds, and two incompletes in categories that included airline passenger screening and improvement of first responders' communication systems. The bipartisan members of the 9/11 Commission found that "there has been little progress in forcing federal agencies to share intelligence and terrorism information and sharply criticized government efforts to secure weapons of mass destruction," according to the Washington Post.* "We believe that the terrorists will strike again," 9/11 Commission chairman Thomas H. Kean told reporters. "If they do, and these reforms that might have prevented such an attack have not been implemented, what will our excuses be?"92 When the president and his cohort continue to raise the threat of terrorism but refuse to implement even the minimum measures recommended by the commission, it is clear they are playing the politics of fear. No one knows when, if ever, terrorists will use a weapon of mass destruction in the United States, but using the issue to frighten people while not addressing the 9/11 Commission's concerns is worse than irresponsible; it is cruel.

It appears that most Republicans are content to allow the Bush White House to engage in fearmongering if that is what is needed to win elections. Many contend that terrorism, after all, is a real threat, and they feel safer with Republicans in charge, because they believe Republicans will deal with the issue more effectively than Democrats. Of course, demagoguery is not new; there have always been and always will be politicians who appeal to emotions rather than reason, because it works.

There are, in fact, relatively few people who are truly intimidated by the possibility of terrorist attacks.** Those few who are genuinely frightened, however, help Bush and Cheney. Dr. Jost and his collaborators, in the study reported in Chapter 1, found that fear of terrorism is a useful recruiting tool for Republicans. When the Bush administration reminds people of terrorism, it clearly works to their political benefit. Jamie Arndt, a psychology professor at the University of Missouri, reported,
"Reminders of death create anxiety that causes people to cling to cultural and societal touchstones." Because the president is such a touchstone, "he may benefit from keeping [terrorism] in people's mind," Arndt said.93 This finding is corroborated by public opinion polls. While political exploitation of terror does not make a tremendous difference in voting behavior, it has been sufficient to keep Bush in the White House. At the outset of the 2004 presidential campaign, President Bush was more trusted than Senator Kerry to do a good job protecting the country from terrorists by a substantial margin of 53 percent to 37 percent.94 A CNN exit poll taken at the end of the race, after Bush had repeatedly raised the issue of terrorism, showed that people voted for Bush over Kerry on this issue by a similar--but better for Bush--58 percent to 40 percent margin.95

Fearmongering has serious political consequences. Timothy Naftali, a diplomatic historian at the University of Virginia who worked as a consultant to the 9/11 Commission, is troubled by the ramifications of Bush, Cheney, et al.'s use of fear and their politicizing of policies needed to deal with terrorism. A reviewer for Foreign Affairs noted that in Naftali's view, "the Bush administration's reliance on a 'politics of fear' has stymied a mature national conversation about counterterrorism. He urges the government to keep terrorism at the forefront of its concerns and pursue a pragmatic foreign policy while helping the public put the threat in perspective and evaluate the difficult tradeoffs between national security and civil liberties."96 Al Gore, in his keynote address at the 2004 conference on fear, also noted the consequences of Bush's preying on American fears. "Fear was activated on September 11 in all of us to a greater or lesser degree," Gore observed. "And because it was difficult to modulate or to change in particular specifics, it was exploitable for a variety of purposes unrelated to the initial cause of the fear. When the president of the United States stood before the people of this nation--in the same speech in which he used the forged document--he asked the nation to 'imagine' how fearful it would feel if Saddam Hussein gave a nuclear weapon to terrorists who then exploded it in our country. Because our nation had been subjected to the fearful, tragic, cruel attack of 9/11, when our president asked us to imagine with him a new fear, it was easy enough to bypass the reasoning process, and short-circuit the normal discourse that takes place in a healthy democracy with a give-and-take among people who could say, Wait a minute, Mr. President. Where's your evidence? There is no connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.' At one point, President Bush actually said, 'You can't distinguish between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.' He actually said that," Gore added, and with disappointment explained how even he had trusted Bush to do the right thing, but that Bush had abused the trust people had in him.97

In short, fear takes reasoning out of the decision-making process, which our history has shown us often enough can have dangerous and long-lasting consequences. If Americans cannot engage in analytical thinking as a result of Republicans' using fear for their own political purposes, we are all in serious trouble. I am sure I am not alone in worrying about the road that we are now on, and where the current authoritarianism is taking the country. I only wish more people would talk about it.

And some more info from the same person who posted the first article:

Dean's book draws on an impressive array of historical facts and empirical evidence to show how the conservative movement in America has been hijacked and is now dominated by authoritarianism, both at the leadership as well as the popular level.

While familiar with some of the early pioneers who have helped us better understand the authoritarian social/psychological/political phenomenon such as Hannah Arendt and Stanley Milgram, I was unfamiliar with DeanÂs references to the more recent work in this area by those such as Bob Altemeyer.

The focus of DeanÂs book is on right-wing authoritarianism as it has expressed itself in the United States. While authoritarianism isn't exclusively a right-wing political phenomenon, empirical evidence demonstrates that it is primarily so. Someone who is an authoritarian personality type is much more likely to also be identified with the political right (as well as the religious right in particular) than the political left.

Recent research by those such as Altemeyer and others end up with the division of authoritarianism into three distinct sub-categories: 1) Social DominatorsÂLeaders; 2) Right-Wing Authoritarian Followers; 3) The very scary Double Highs, i.e., those who score highly on both the Social Dominator as well as the Right-Wing Authoritarian scale.

The characteristics of the above authoritarian sub-categories are as follows (an asterisk represents a required characteristic):

Social Dominators- Leaders:

typically men
dominating*
opposes equality*
desirous of personal power*
amoral*
intimidating and bullying
faintly hedonistic
vengeful
pitiless
exploitive
manipulative
dishonest
cheats to win
highly prejudiced (racist, sexist, homophobic)
mean-spirited
militant
nationalistic
tells others what they want to hear
takes advantage of "suckers"
specializes in creating false images to sell self
may or may not be religious
usually politically and economically conservative/Republican

Right-Wing Authoritarian- Followers:

men and women
submissive to authority*
aggressive on behalf of authority*
conventional*
highly religious
moderate to little education
trust untrustworthy authorities
prejudiced (particularly against homosexuals, women, and followers
of religions other than their own)
mean-spirited
narrow-minded
intolerant
bullying
zealous
dogmatic
uncritical toward chosen authority
hypocritical
inconsistent and contradictory
prone to panic easily
highly self-righteous
moralistic
strict disciplinarian
severely punitive
demands loyalty and returns it
little self-awareness
usually politically and economically conservative/Republican

The real danger to society is when authoritarian leaders (current GOP leadership) team up with authoritarian followers (majority of current GOP base). That's when you end up with creeping political authoritarianism, known also as fascism.

I know more than a little over the top, but the pic is hilarious...and disturbing at the same time. Perfect! ;-)

OK Johnny boy. You've more than made up for that sordid episode covering up for tricky dicky...but keep it coming anyway!

Another Ex-Con Cleans Up His Act

2006-07-25T00:13:00.000-04:00

This time its the notorious John Dean. Yes the 'master manipulator' behind Watergate turned Nixon staff turn-coat. Well, like many other former 'Cons', he's become a very vocal critic of the Bush White House. Here's an interesting review of his latest book Conservatives Without Conscience.

He seems to be arguing that the Neocons and Christian fundamentalists, who presently dominate the Republican party, share a dangerous authoritarian streak. Certain types of 'conservatives' tend to show authoritarian personality traits and Dean argues that they are the ones presently controlling American Conservatism. This new school of Cons unquestioningly shows allegiance to their party, with vitriolic contempt for 'liberalism' being the other major unifying factor behind the movement. Interesting stuff...sounds pretty close to the truth to me.

Everyday Brutality and Criminal Incompetence: The US Occupation of Iraq

2006-07-24T22:30:00.000-04:00

A couple of excellent articles courtesy of US-born reporter Nir Rosen in Iraq. Rosen is one of the very few English language reporters in the Iraq that isn't a completely useless shill for the occupation forces. Being part Iranian and fluent in Arabic, Nir Rosen has the 'good fortune' of being able to pass for an Iraqi, enabling him to do more than just regurgitate US army propaganda. The first article vividly conveys the everyday brutality and absurdity of the occupation in Iraq. You rarely get this kind of honesty from mainstream media sources.

'The Occupation of Iraqi Hearts and Minds'

For the sake of highlighting some of the meatier parts (and in case the gentle reader is too lazy to read through the article him/herself ;-)), I've liberally cut and pasted sections of the article below.

Home after home met the same fate. Some homes had only women; these houses too were ransacked, closets broken, mattresses overturned, clothes thrown out of drawers. Men were dragged on the ground by their legs to be handcuffed outside. One bony ancient sheik walked out with docility and was pushed forcefully to the ground, where he was wrestled by soldiers who had trouble cuffing his arms. A commando grabbed him from them, and tightly squeezed the old man’s arms together, lifting him in the air and throwing him down on the ground, nearly breaking his fragile arms.

The soldier guarding them spoke of the importance of intimidating Iraqis and instilling fear in them. “If they got something to tell us I’d rather they be scared,” he explained.

One sergeant was surprised by the high number of prisoners taken by the troop I was with. “Did they just arrest every man they found?” he asked, wondering if “we just made another 300 people hate us.” The following day 57 prisoners were transported to a larger base for further interrogation. Some were not the suspects, just relatives of the suspects or men suspected of being the suspects.

A lieutenant colonel familiar with the process told me that there is no judicial process for the thousands of detainees. If the military were to try them, there would be a court-martial, which would imply that the U.S. was occupying Iraq, and lawyers working for the administration are still debating whether it is an occupation or liberation. Two years later, 50,000 Iraqis had been imprisoned by the Americans and only 2% had ever been found guilty of anything.

The Procrustean application of spurious information gathered by intelligence officers who cannot speak Arabic and are not familiar with Iraqi, Arab or Muslim culture is creating enemies instead of eliminating them. The S2 captain could barely hide his disdain for Iraqis. “Oh he just hates anything Iraqi,” another captain said of him, adding that the intelligence officers do not venture off the base or interact with Iraqis or develop any relations with the people they are expected to understand. A lieutenant colonel from the Army’s civil affairs command explained that these officers do not read about the soldiers engaging with Iraqis, sharing cigarettes, tea, meals and conversations. They read only the reports of “incidents” and they view Iraqis solely as security threat. The intelligence officers in Iraq do not know Iraq.

One morning in Albu Hishma, a village north of Baghdad cordoned off with barbed wire, the local U.S. commander decided to bulldoze any house that had pro-Saddam graffiti on it, and gave half a dozen families a few minutes to remove whatever they cared about the most before their homes were flattened. In Baquba, two 13-year-old girls were killed by a Bradley armored personnel carrier. They were digging through trash and the American rule was that anybody digging on road sides would be shot.

It is common practice for soldiers to arrest the wives and children of suspects as “material witnesses” when the suspects are not captured in raids. In some cases the soldiers leave notes for the suspects, letting them know their families will be released should they turn themselves in. Soldiers claim this is a very effective tactic. Soldiers on military vehicles routinely shoot at Iraqi cars that approach too fast or come too close, and at Iraqis wandering in fields. “They were up to no good,” they explain. Every commander is a law unto himself. He is advised by a judge advocate general who interprets the rules as he wants. A war crime to one is legitimate practice to another. After the Center for Army Lessons Learned sent a team of personnel to Israel to study that country’s counterinsurgency tactics, the Army implemented the lessons it learned, and initiated house demolitions in Samara and Tikrit, blowing up homes of suspected insurgents.

The second article is an honest soldier's first hand account of his time in Iraq.

'Ugly Americans in Iraq'

One of the more amusing bits:

My friend was rare in that he had somehow overcome the necessary brainwashing soldiers undergo and was able to critically assess his role in Iraq. “In hindsight,” he said, “I have often asked myself what my reaction would be like if I were on the opposite end of this equation. After years of living under a harsh dictatorship, 150,000 soldiers of Sharia show up and offload into Georgetown from boats on the Potomac River after shelling the Capitol. They have a simple mission, they say: transplanting Islamic enlightenment in the decadent land of Kafir. They take over the D.C. Mall and throw a wall around the Smithsonian buildings; they call it the ‘Halal Zone.’ The White House becomes the embassy of Iraq. Some asshole like John Walker Lindh (Ahmed Chalabi), who has lived in the Middle East while the U.S. suffered under dictatorship, is Iraq’s favorite child for taking over the peacock throne of the U.S. My house gets raided and my mother patted down by hygiene-deficient Wahhabis, so I go to Georgetown to force the humiliation off my mind. A group of wirey majahedin show up at Haagen Daaz while I’m enjoying a cone of cookies and cream—a rare moment of bliss in a country going to shit—and grab the owners while taking their ice cream. I return to my home, after walking through one foot of raw sewage water, to turn on the radio and hear the Arab ‘viceroy’ declare in a fatwa that all Christian values should be erased from our governing culture. Meanwhile my dad is laid off from his paycheck for the crime of serving in the U.S. Army to provide for his struggling family.” My friend concluded that “without much doubt in my mind, if I were an Iraqi under the U.S. occupation, I’d be an insurgent.”

You can find more of Nir Rosen's articles on his website.

And finally, in case you haven't had enough of him already, you can listen to an NPR interview with Rosen here.

The Fog of War

2006-07-24T09:26:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to share a very very good documentary that you can watch in its entirety on google video. The documentary is Errol Morris' The Fog of War. It's basically a 2 hour interview with Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy administration, one of the architects of the Vietnam war. A really fascinating and likeable guy, and suprisingly sharp for an 85 year old. Sit back and soak up McNamara's rules of war gained from a lifetime of experience as a strategist. Too bad he's not in charge of the Department of Defense today, I'm pretty sure he'd be a vast improvement.

From Wikipedia, here's a list of McNamara's lessons:

The film's eleven lessons

1. Empathize with your enemy.
2. Rationality will not save us.
3. There's something beyond one's self.
4. Maximize efficiency.
5. Proportionality should be a guideline in war.
6. Get the data.
7. Belief and seeing are both often wrong.
8. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.
9. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.
10.Never say never.
11.You can't change human nature.

McNamara's additional ten lessons
These were written as a companion to the film and were included in the Special Features of the DVD.

1. The human race will not eliminate war in this century but we can reduce war, the level of killing, by adhering to the principles of a just war, in particular of proportionality.

2. The indefinite combinations of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations.

3. We are the most powerful nation in the world - economically, politically, and militarily - and we are likely to remain so for decades ahead. But we are not omniscient.

4. If we cannot persuade other nations with similar interests and similar values of the merits of the proposed use of that power, we should not proceed unilaterally except in the unlikely requirement to defend the continental US, Alaska and Hawaii.

4.Moral principles are often ambiguous guides to foreign policy and defense policy, but surely we can agree that we should establish as a major goal of U.S. foreign policy and, indeed, of foreign policy across the globe : the avoidance in this century of the carnage--160 million dead--caused by conflict in the 20th century.

5. We, the richest nation in the world, have failed in our responsibility to our own poor and to the disadvantaged across the world to help them advance their welfare in the most fundamental terms of nutrition, literacy, health, and employment.

6. Corporate executives must recognize there is no contradiction between a soft heart and a hard head. Of course, they have responsibilities to their employees, their customers and to society as a whole.

7. President Kennedy believed a primary responsibility of a president--indeed "the" primary responsibility of a president--is to keep the nation out of war, if at all possible.

8. War is a blunt instrument by which to settle disputes between or within nations, and economic sanctions are rarely effective. Therefore, we should build a system of jurisprudence based on the International Court--that the U.S. has refused to support--which would hold individuals responsible for crimes against humanity.

9. If we are to deal effectively with terrorists across the globe, we must develop a sense of empathy--I don't mean "sympathy" but rather "understanding" to counter their attacks on us and the Western World.

10. One of the greatest dangers we face today is the risk of mass destruction as a result of the breakdown of the Non-Proliferation Regime. We--the U.S. are contributing to that breakdown.

11 Lessons from Vietnam

The origin of the film's lesson concept, these eleven came from McNamara's book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam:

1. We misjudged then — and we have since — the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries … and we exaggerated the dangers to the United States of their actions.

2. We viewed the people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experience … We totally misjudged the political forces within the country.

3. We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people to fight and die for their beliefs and values.

4. Our judgments of friend and foe alike reflected our profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics of the people in the area, and the personalities and habits of their leaders.

5. We failed then — and have since — to recognize the limitations of modern, high-technology military equipment, forces and doctrine…

6. We failed as well to adapt our military tactics to the task of winning the hearts and minds of people from a totally different culture.

7. We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale military involvement … before we initiated the action.

8. After the action got under way and unanticipated events forced us off our planned course … we did not fully explain what was happening and why we were doing what we did.

9. We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient. Our judgment of what is in another people's or country's best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.

10. We did not hold to the principle that U.S. military action … should be carried out only in conjunction with multinational forces supported fully (and not merely cosmetically) by the international community.

11. We failed to recognize that in international affairs, as in other aspects of life, there may be problems for which there are no immediate solutions … At times, we may have to live with an imperfect, untidy world.

Underlying many of these errors lay our failure to organize the top echelons of the executive branch to deal effectively with the extraordinarily complex range of political and military issues.

wow...doesn't that last list sound familiar? ;-)

Fun With Guns

2006-07-24T05:32:00.000-04:00

What would life be like without firearms? Well for one, a whole lot less entertaining.

Here's a video of a handgun versus a samurai sword...surprising result.

Another google video of a variety of different objects getting blasted in slowmo.

And finally, how not to fire a gun. Or as whoever put the video on google unkindly titled it, Gun versus Idiot.

Hooray for guns!!

The US Hawks are Smelling Blood: Are the warpigs getting ready to bomb the Shiite out of Iran?

2006-07-23T22:13:00.000-04:00

I think most 'informed' people out there would say that a US led attack on Iran is not very likely any time in the near future. The majority seems to believe that America's neoconservative policy makers wouldn't be reckless or dumb enough to open up a new front when military resources are already stretched thin. Arguably even more important, no prudent decision maker would decide to jump into another open conflict in the region when the world's oil supplies are so limited, with world demand due to 'Chindia's' growth increasing everyday, and the essential Middle Eastern supply of oil potentially so easily cut off by war. It sounds perfectly reasonable, but let's not forget the mindset of the leaders who are making the decisions. Never underestimate the irrationality of a committed ideologue.

Ahmadinejad isn't going to back down and compromise on his country's nuclear program; and he probably wouldn't mind a limited conflict to bolster domestic support anyway. He and the theocracy supporting him will end up gaining a great deal of legitimacy if the US, or its regional proxy Israel, decides to attack Iran. I honestly don't think the Bush administration really understands this- once again they're listening too much to an unrepresentative and self-interested 'Iranian' minority telling them the country is ripe for change. More importantly, Bush and his neocon buddies might not even care all that much for changing Iranian regime. Of course, the primary objective of any attack would be to weaken the regional influence of Iran rather than 'liberate' its people. There are actually advantages of having a weakened and isolated radical theocracy still in power in Iran from a cynical 'divide and conquer' perspective. It helps to keep the Sunni Arab majority frightened and distracts them from US domination of the region. In fact, it actually gives America another reason for being there: to prevent the region from descending into sectarian violence. Just look at what a good job the US is doing of it in Iraq ;-)

And how exactly do the people dismissing the possibility of an attack on Iran expect the present 'stand-off' to be resolved? I personally don't see much way out of some sort of military confrontation between the world's hegemon and the intransigent Shia state. It's probably more than a little foolhardy to speculate in the detail on the political future of region as complex as the Middle East. Regardless, I'll stick my neck out and make some predictions. My guess is that Shrub holds off on any strike until after the november midterm elections, perhaps sometime in the winter-spring 2007? I don't think he would want to wait too long for the strike since he only has until the end of 2008 to shape policy in the wake of an attack. The US and/or Israel will conduct a limited airstrike to take out some of Iran's nuke capacity and attempt to 'humble' the leadership. A full scale ground invasion is definitely not a possibility, but airstrikes and covert ops are certainly within the US's and/or Israel's capacity at present. Iranian reprisals would probably be largely symbolic and actual counter-attacks would almost entirely be small scale and primarily conducted by proxy through sympathetic Shia militias in Iraq or Lebanon. They could send more Shia irregulars and weapons into Iraq, but their ability to attack US troops would be limited to pretty much what's going on at present (IED attack, small ambushes, snipers). On top of that the Shia would still be preoccupied with fighting the Sunni and protecting their own people. In the finaly analysis, the primary reason I suspect there will be a limited attack on Iran is the thinking prevalent among political elites in the US, Israel and Iran. In my opinion, they've clearly demonstrated that they are fully prepared for war, and even more troubling is that they all appear to believe they can benefit from it.

The recent clash between Hezbollah and Israel can be viewed as one of the prepatory phases in a war between the US-Israel and Iran. Hezbollah has stated they jumped into the fray between Israel and Hamas to take pressure off the Palestinian resistance movements. But it seems likely that their actions were also engineered to bolster Shia influence in Lebanonese politics, and to demonstrate the ability of their organization to attack Israel in the event of a strike against Iran. As well, the recent massively disproportional response by Israel has larger strategic objectives. There are trying to destroy the military capacity of Hezbollah, and possibly embroil them in domestic strife, in order to weaken the a potential Iranian proxy group.

The one counterargument that has me questioning the possibility of an attack is the ability of the Iranians to conduct reprisal attacks on oil transported by tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. This is a very narrow body of water in which something on the order of 1/4 of the world's oil production passes through. Iranian territory makes up the northern shore of the strait and they likely have the potential to disrupt the transport of this vital supply of oil. The Iranian's appear to have some capacity to carry out naval attacks on tankers and US warships, but I think it's safe to assume that the US has the naval and air capabilty to eventually force the Iranian's to stop any such attacks. My guess would be that the Iranian's wouldn't be able to block the flow of oil for long, and/or wouldn't be willing to deal with the consequences of cutting off the transport of oil which is vital for most of the world. If the rest of the world's oil supply is threatened because of Iranian attacks, it will likely push many more countries closer to the US side, since they would want to get their oil fix back ASAP. If what I've outlined is correct and the oil supply can only briefly be interrrupted then you would expect crude prices to spike for a few weeks, or even shorter, and then quickly settle at a much lower level. The new 'floor' on the oil price might be $10-20 higher for some time but that wouldn't be a disaster. I might be underestimating how easy it would be for the Iranians to disrupt this supply of oil for a significant period of time, but I very much doubt they will have the political will to do it.

One thing I don't doubt however is that an attack on Iran will greatly increase tensions all over the region and decrease the stability of a number of Arab governments closely allied with the US. However, while recognizing the reality of this in the short term, this is probably viewed as manageable by the majority of Bush's Neocon crew. After all, I'm sure they're pointing at the Iraq war naysayers who were talking about the 'Arab street' exploding in outrage because of the invasion, which essentially never happened. At the end of the day, all the major US allies are still safely ensconced on their thrones. The neocon policy makers probably think this provides enough evidence to dismiss the 'regime instability' argument.

Personally, I'm quite convinced that a US led attack on Iran will most likely end up harming US interests in the long run. It will almost certainly further damage their standing and influence in the Middle East, further bankrupt the nation, and will probably decrease their own security. Such a provocative escalation will probably end up pulling the US deeper into a 'unwinnable' fight with guerilla forces it won't be able to restrain. You can't wage a 'conventional' war against a people's mistrust and contempt, and it will always be too easy for irregulars to attack US troops and civilian 'allies' in the region.

Having said that, the chances of the conflict spreading uncontrollably throughout the entire region are slim. The governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, etc. likely won't collapse. Iraq will become more violent, but it already appears to be in a low-level civil war anyway. Bush and his cronies aren't good with 'nuance' and will only see the improbability of total failure, the rest of it to use Rumsfeld's terminology is 'known unknowns' and 'unknown unknowns'. The Bush Neocons haven't altered their basic policy and are still committed to completely reshaping the politics of the region. In the final analysis, what's going to stop them from attacking Iran?

Some excellent corroborating analysis from Jim Lobe below. These articles illustrate the growing calls for war from many of the most influential Neocons.

US Hawks Smell Blood.

The Drums of War Sound for Iran.

A possible roadmap to war with Iran?

Step 1: Start actively propagandizing in mainstream media outlets about the Iranian threat. Plant false accusations and notch up the fearmongering against Iran...has been well underway for some time.

Step 2: Isolate Iran. Destroy Hezbollah, and frighten Syria into submission. From the NYTimes:

US Plan Seeks to Wedge Syria Away From Iran.

So where are we heading?? Looks like a one-way ticket...

Paul Craig Roberts: "America Is Being Set-Up For Wider War In The Middle East"

2006-07-23T22:00:00.000-04:00

Another great article from a former Reaganite turned fierce critic of the Neoconservatives Paul Craig Roberts. America is being set-up for wider war in the Middle East. In a handful of paragraphs he manages to pick apart of the pro-Israel PR smokescreen that surrounds recent events in the Middle East.

American Petrocracy

2006-07-21T19:09:00.000-04:00

Yet another insightful piece from former Reaganite turned vehement critic of the Neoconservative agenda, Kevin Phillips, entitled American Petrocracy. It lays the case for the least discussed possible motivating factor behind the Iraq invasion- continued control over the world's supply of oil.

Phillips is the author of American Theocracy. In this book he gives an inside account of the alliance between the Neocon faction of the Republican party and Christian Fundamentalists, the possibility of a coming oil crunch, and America's looming fiscal nightmare. Trying to get my grubby hands on a copy of this, seen him in interviews and found his comments to be right on the mark. He's one of the astute few- few but definitely growing larger everyday- who are fighting to pull American conservatism out of the madhouse.

The Banana Proof

2006-07-18T20:58:00.000-04:00

Centuries of theological debate have come to an end. Here's the definitive proof of God's existence. The Banana Proof.

Marc Faber Explains All

2006-07-11T15:40:00.000-04:00

More excellent analysis on the state of the global economy from Dr. Gloom and Doom. Two longish articles here. One gives his macro long-term perspective, and the other outlines his short-medium term prognostication on the financial markets.

Very few market commentators seems to have his clarity and prescience, and even fewer have his depth when it comes to understanding economics. And if anyone out there knows of a better macro market analyst I'd love to hear about it.

Worldclass Header

2006-07-11T03:14:00.000-04:00

A nice article in praise of the best shot and most memorable moment in the 2006 worldcup...the Zidane headbutt.

Democracy in the Herd and Hive

2006-06-30T01:46:00.000-04:00

Couple of uplifting 'democractic' articles on group behaviour in the animal kingdom ;-) The first shows how everyman has the potential to move the herd and the second praises the efficiency of decentralized bee decision making.

Derivative Risk and Market Manipulation

2006-06-29T11:47:00.000-04:00

Here's a couple of somewhat goofy but nonetheless interesting articles on capital market manipulation and the ever expanding growth of derivatives by Douglas Gnazzo.

The first is flamboyantly titled Market Intervention: Laying Off Risk- Derivatives of Hell. It essentially argues that all forms of lending are futile and immoral at their core- by definition unproductive activity and in the final analysis a means of profiting from the misfortune of others. He then goes on to argue that the 200+ TRILLION in derivative bets (something he implies is another form of money lending) scattered throughout the world's capital markets are primarily a means of market manipulation and actually increase financial risk rather than hedging against it. He's rather vague on details with the last point and presents a totally one-sided argument, but I suspect there is a kernel of truth there. His message about 'usury' and the perils of the accelerating growth of credit (again probably too extreme) is an important and refreshing one we almost never hear in our day and age. It's true that most banking and financial activity isn't a 'zero-sum game', but it's probably much closer to that then we currently believe it to be.

Here's another article by the same author called Gold Wars, which catalogues the history of government and private manipulation of the gold market. Definitely shows that the 'free' market in the real world can at times be anything but fair.

Good Tunes Courtesy of Sean Cullen, Corky and the Juice Pigs

2006-06-28T23:29:00.000-04:00

The Dark Side

2006-06-25T12:11:00.000-04:00

Another fine documentary from Frontline, called The Dark Side. If you haven't seen it already you can follow that link and watch the whole thing online. Wondering where the title comes from?

"A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies," Cheney told Americans just after 9/11

Oooh, scary stuff. If there ever was an argument for minimal government this documentary is definitely it. Once again Frontline shows it's one of the finest investigative programs in the 'mainstream' US media. Maybe another decade from now we'll have some nice Frontline documentaries on the 'how the US dollar turned to toilet paper' or the shenanigans behind the US-Israeli airstrike on Iran ;-)

Moonman Meets Moon Landing Hoax Boy

2006-06-21T15:28:00.000-04:00

Buzz Aldrin says hello to a tin-foil hat wearing moon landing hoax conspiracist.

Georgia's anti-peach

2006-06-20T07:48:00.000-04:00

Here's a hilarious Colbert interview with Georgia Republican Congressman Lynn Westmoreland. Gives you some insight as to why the nation is so friggin' f#$%ed up.

'Thank Heaven For 7-11'

2006-06-18T13:48:00.000-04:00

Here's an entertaining hard left rant from Joe Bageant about the state of the US today. Thank heaven for 7-11. Good stuff.

Crazy

2006-06-10T18:46:00.000-04:00

Damn good song...

Salad Days

2006-06-08T11:33:00.000-04:00

On the origins of the expression of 'salad days' and it's changing meaning in America. How appropriate ;-)

SALAD DAYS
[Q] From Mike Bumbeck: “We here at work were tossing around hackneyed phrases this morning. Two of us thought of the phrase salad days. What is the origin of this phrase?”

[A] A nice easy one for a change. Unlike so many words and phrases, we know for certain where this one comes from. It appears in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra of 1606, in the speech at the end of Act One in which Cleopatra is regretting her youthful dalliances with Julius Caesar: “My salad days, When I was green in judgment”. So the phrase came to mean “a period of youthful inexperience or indiscretion”, though it only became popular from the middle of the nineteenth century on.

The link here is green, which had already had a meaning for a couple of centuries at least before Shakespeare’s day of someone youthful, just like the young green shoots of spring, and also of somebody who was as yet inexperienced or immature. Incidentally, for Shakespeare a salad wasn’t just lettuce with some dressing, but a much more complicated dish of chopped, mixed and seasoned vegetables (its name comes from the Latin word for salt); the word was also used for any vegetable that could be included in that dish.

However, Jan Freeman pointed out in one of her word columns for the Boston Globe back in April 2001 that the expression has shifted sense in the US in the past twenty years or so. It now often refers to a period in the past when somebody was at the peak of their abilities or earning power, in their heyday, not necessarily when they were young. The shift isn’t so hard to understand when you think how few people actually know their Shakespeare.

Robert Newman's History of Oil

2006-06-03T22:19:00.000-04:00

Here's an entertaining 45 minute show from the British comedian Robert Newman. It's an overview of modern oil politics given a nice sugary coating to go down easy. The one point he makes that I really agree with is the total lack of discussion of the strategic reasons behind the Iraq war.

Understanding the State of the Real Global Economy

2006-05-26T22:18:00.000-04:00

Recently I've been spending a lot of time looking into macroeconomics issues and investments. It seems pretty clear to me that the world economy has major economic 'imbalances' that are probably only going to be corrected after the US dollar decreases dramatically and the debt fuelled US economy has a substantial 'correction'. In the short term this would almost certainly mean an economic downturn for most other countries in the world, since the US accounts for so much of the world's economic consumption at present . However, the long term trend of rapid development in Asian countries like China and India is likely to continue.

In term of investments, all this means that US stocks and bonds are a very poor investment. Given the massive structural problems with the US economy (the ENORMOUS government, consumer, and trade debts; military overextension and worldwide hostility; MASSIVE amounts of excess liquidity in markets and real estate; rising oil prices and other commodities; continuing loss of manufacturing base), the dollar is likely to decline relative to other currencies quite dramatically in the near future. Since the dollar is the world's reserve currency and many other major economies suffer from similar economic problems, the classic safe haven of gold will continue to be an excellent investment for some time to come.

In the short term, foreign stock markets, particularly the less established markets, are probably highly vulnerable as well. However, looking at things from a longer time frame, investing in promising areas of the developing market are probably excellent investments. The best approach might be to wait for much of the economic instability to pass, and invest in these markets when most of their companies are bleeding. The rapid development of Asia also means that we are in a long term bull market in commodities such as metals, agricultural goods and oil and etc. Hundreds of millions of newly arrived 'middle-class' Asians will undoubtedly dramatically increase their consumption of basic commodities such as base metals, grains, meat, cotton, oil and etc. There's a huge leap in consumption of most of these commodities when a population moves from a traditional 'peasant' economy to an industrial one. This is also coming in a time where most commodities have been hammered for two decades by extremely low prices, which has meant that countless mines and farms have been closed down making for very low levels of supply. In my opinion, this means we're in the midst the biggest bull market in commodities the world has every seen.

But that's enough of my babbling for now. I'll throw out a few links that I think will give people an accurate sense of the state of the global economy at the moment.

To start off, if one really wants to comprehend what's going with the economy and in the capital markets today, one has to have a basic grasp of the world's current monetary system. If you have no clue what a central bank or reserve currency is than check out this audio series entitled the Wizards of Money. The first few episodes do a pretty good job of explaining some basic ideas about the present monetary system and it's importance for the novice.

To get some sense of how big of a problem the current US government deficits are at the moment check out this interview with the USA's Auditor-in-Chief David Walker on the BBC program HardTalk.

My favorite financial internet radio show to listen to at the moment is the Financial Sense Newshour hosted by Jim Puplava. The second hour where he interviews an expert guest is particularly worth listening too. Puplava's mission is to expose the structural problems with the US economy and to counteract the government spin which attempts to cover-up this situation.

For those interested in investing in gold and precious metals I recommend Jim Sinclair's Mineset blog. Also check out Kitco.com and TheBullionDesk.com for breaking news and charts.

One of my favorite market analysts is Marc Faber, a Swiss economist that has been living in East Asia for decades now. He has his own website and newsletter. You can also find his commentary on various websites. To read a detailed summary of his thoughts on the global economy you can check out one of my previous posts. If you're really looking for some insight on the global economy I highly recommend you check out his work.

Here's a couple of websites that do an excellent job of exposing the massaged and inaccurate economic statistics produced by the US government. These websites are crucial for understanding the real state of the US economy, which is at present the driving force behind much of the world's economic growth as well. The first is called Shadow Statistics and the second is Now and Futures. You will need a bit of economic savvy to navigate those websites, but they're worth effort. You can also check out this interview with John Williams of Gillespie Research on how the US government has been continually fudging economic stats on inflation, employment and other variables, painting a far rosier economic outlook than is warranted.

Another couple of very interesting websites that attempt to cut through distortions of mainstream US economists are ITulip and RGE Monitor. Some very good info to be found on both sites.

Here's a very interesting article on financial derivatives by the famed self-made billionaire investor and guru Warren Buffett. It's not an easy read but it's worth the effort. According to Buffett the MASSIVE derivatives industry is creating enormous risk throughout the world's capital markets. This is creating so much potential risk to the derivative holder that he's actually labeled derivatives as 'financial weapons of mass destruction'. He has first hand experience on just how risky and financially painful these derivative positions are from his experience of buying Gen Re and trying to get the company out of it's enormous derivatives tangle. It has been estimated by some that there are hundreds of TRILLIONS worth of derivative bets infesting the capital markets of the world. Needless to say, the unraveling of a portion of these positions could be disastrous. In short, complicated financing of vast amounts of easy money has created tremendous risks which can affect the entire world economy.

My favorite forum for discussion economic and investment issues is the Daily Reckoning Forum. A very free-wheeling and zany place- definitely plenty of 'characters' on that board. But there's also quite a few very knowledgeable and helpful people who post there regularly too. Just be prepared for the occasional extreme political thread, not much censoring of political views there ;-)

If anyone has some good financial websites/resources they'd like to share please post them in the comments. There's tones of good financial info out there, I'm always looking for more good info.

Tracking Shrubya's Crappiness

2006-05-26T16:22:00.000-04:00

It should give Bush haters some consolation that the American public has recently been responding somewhat sanely to Shrub's disastrous presidency. Bush's approval ratings have been hovering around 30-35% for the past few weeks. If you take a look at the chart of Bush's historical approval rating the dramatic decline is pretty revealing. Following the huge increase in support following 9-11, aside from a couple of spikes surrounding the Iraq war, Bush's approval rating has been consistently and dramatically sliding downward. It's true a president's approval rating has nowhere to go but down when it's sitting at 90% as Bush's did following 9-11. However, the neverending downward slide, bolstered only temporarily by war euphoria in the lead up and start of the Iraq war, can only be attributed to his failings as president. There just doesn't seem to be a floor for how low these ratings can plunge.

For the sake of comparison, take a look at past presidents' approval ratings at the end of their terms. At present, the chimp seems to be sitting around Carter's end of term approval, but with that downward slope on his historical approval rating and 2.5 years left in his second term it looks like he'll be giving Nixon a run for his money.

In contrast, take a look at blowjob Billy's historical approval ratings.

When Shrubya entered office he vowed that his presidency would be the total opposite of Bill Clinton's. At least in one respect he appears to be well on his way to accomplishing this goal ;-)

More on the Pro-War Propaganda

2006-05-24T19:52:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting post from The Galloping Beaver on the recent spurious stories over Iran being given much play by the pro-war crowd, this time written from a Canadian perspective. Apparently it was Canada's right wing paper The National Post that first gave this story the play it needed to spread. There's a lot to write about here, hopefully I'll get a chance to pull together some of these recent developments and post my own thoughts soon.

Debunking Pro-War Propaganda on Iran

2006-05-23T21:18:00.000-04:00

Recently Professor Juan Cole over at Informed Consent posted an informative piece on the most recent pieces of misinformation being hauled out by the pro-war crowd. He debunks the Iranian dress requirement for Jews story, and points out flaws with the 'Israel should be wiped off the map' quote. Again does any hear about the factual corrections of these stories? Some certainly do, but not nearly as many who heard the misinformation in the first place. The seed is successfully planted. In the end that's all that really matters to the propagandist.

'Fun' Stories From Russia

2006-05-23T19:23:00.000-04:00

I came across this English language website from Russia called 'Funreports' via Pravda.ru. As you might have gathered from the title, the website is dedicated to uncovering amusing and ridiculous headlines from Russia and around the world that would fall in the 'oddly enough' category. If you think you have a dark sense of humour then take a look at these stories. I suspect only a Russian could fully appreciate the humour in some of these stories. Put it this way, if one was looking for some good one liners you could probably do worse than a Russian gallows ;-) It's pretty amusing to read these absurd stories being told to you in not so perfect English. Here are some of the more interesting stories I came across while perusing their website. I'm posting the actual title of the story as they wrote it:

Cat rapes woman after performing oral sex on her

Cow and bull have animal sex in office supplies shop

Russian commando smashes bottles on his head and falls asleep on the 24th

Man carries embryo of his brother under scapula for 35 years

British spy caught on tape masturbating on a stone-like transmitter

German cannibal wants to eat all of Rammstein rockers

Black babes lose their African spirit and attraction in Moscow

Man with a bottle of vodka falls through the ice but never lets vodka drown

Kevin Costner's male organ frightens his masseuse

Actually, after looking over these titles, dark, vulgar, and sex-obsessed seems to be a more accurate description. Good stuff from Russia. I think I'm beginning to understand why the Soviet Union collapsed ;-)

Pravda also has some crazy-assed links as well. Here's an entire webpage from their features section entitled 'some people can live well with knives and nails in the heads'. My favorite is the story of Arthur Javanyan who survived having a knife plunged into his face by a drunken 'friend'. This was my favorite line from the story:
The young man is not going to file a police report against his treacherous friend. He said that he would settle scores with him later.

Talk about the 'Wild East' ;-) For obvious reasons, the 'Russian character' seems to contain a very morose and cynical streak to it. They say that humour is one of the most culturally specific aspects of a society...after reading this post some of you will no doubt agree.

P.S. A totally unrelated but interesting point about Pravda. If you think mainstream media outlets expressing vitriolic anti-American sentiment is confined to the Middle East you're sorely mistaken. Check out this section of Pravda entitled The eyes of Donald Rumsfeld are watching the world. You'll find some blisteringly negative, and even somewhat paranoid, opinion on the US here.

Was Stephen Colbert Funny?

2006-05-22T16:53:00.000-04:00

After Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondents' dinner a heated debate emerged over whether Colbert's routine was actually funny. The left tended view his performance as extremely funny and a remarkable feat considering the setting, while those on the right either ignored it or proclaimed the act to be a bomb. Radio Open Source recently gathered a panel of commentators with a variety of opinions to discuss this burning issue ;-) By the way, Radio Open Source is an excellent thought-provoking current affairs podcast and website, I definitely recommend you check it out.

I personally thought his routine was absolutely hysterical, but I can definitely see why those with a different political persuasion weren't amused. I think the panelist on the ROS program who said it was routine intended to amuse outsiders rather than the elites gathered in the room was on the mark. Colbert tore apart Shrubya and the White House Press, so it's not surprising his routine was met with stony silence by a room full of his targets. Since he was relentless and pulled no punches and didn't resort to the feel good routine that's expected in that sort of occasion, he really didn't give his 'targets' much room to find any humour in his routine. So no, to them it wasn't particularly funny, but to most of the informed public it was hysterical and definitely holding a mirror to the naked emperor. In my opinion this is satire at its finest, 'mercilessly' exposing the stupidity, incompetence, and cowardice of the powers that be. And yes, undoubtedly it took some massive cajones to pull that one off.

Iraq: The Hidden Story

2006-05-18T18:37:00.000-04:00

Yet another example of why the BBC is arguably the best source of TV news in the 'anglosphere'. Here's a revealing documentary on how news is gathered in Iraq and disseminated in the 'Western' media. Iraq: The Hidden Story argues that 'Western' journalists have been hamstrung in terms of what they can report since they are severely limited in gathering news in person. [A poster in the comments pointed out this is actually a Channel 4 documentary and not the BBC- my bad :P Still the doc provides a fine example of why maintream British journalism actually provides a valuable service in contrast to the television news outlets in the USA]

In reality, all media outlets are completely dependent on Iraqi freelance journalists to gather information since most of the country is simply too dangerous for non-Arab journalists. Just think of it as another example of outsourcing, I'm sure they're saving quite a bit of green by relying on the 'natives' as well ;-)

What I suspect is that the US occupation forces are probably not all that much better in terms of their information gathering than the media outlets. In fact, since they are seen as the occupying force, I would imagine that in many ways they're far more limited at gathering information on the ground. Considering this fact, it doesn't exactly give one much faith that the country will be stabilized anytime soon. From the beginning the biggest problems have arisen out of 'cultural rifts' and misunderstandings. Needless to say when there's effectively no dialogue between the occupying force and population, bridging any cultural chasms is virtually impossible. This suggests that not only does the US army have very little control over the country at present, but will likely have limited ability in determining what will happen in the future as well.

More Rarely Viewed Images From Iraq

2006-05-16T17:11:00.000-04:00

Previously I posted a link to a Salon article showing some of the graphic war photography from Iraq that are rarely viewed by the public. Here's a link to one of the largest gallery of uncensored photos on Iraq I've come across. Again, as a warning this gallery contains several extremely violent images that explicitly show the disturbing consequences of war.

I'm honestly not posting this in attempt to create more 'anti-war propaganda'. Rather I post this link to bring attention to the side of war that the US government has an interest in suppressing.

Rumsfeld's Logic

2006-05-13T20:18:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting email I got from a friend today.

This reminds me of one of Donald Rumsfeld's "poems",

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

Leave it to "Rummie" to clear things up, but I think we can add a category to Captain Morgan's typology. Namely, that there are things we think we know but in fact do not know. It's what some post-modernist thinkers are calling the end of history and it's easy to see why. Should the propaganda and cover ups be utterly complete, that there is no trace of what really occurred then the lies and deceit become what occurred. You can only imagine how difficult it will be for future historians, who may try to piece together any recent events, to plow through all of the propaganda, innuendo, cover-ups, lies etc and actually decide what is true and what is not. You could probably argue quite convincingly that in a lot of cases they simply won't be able to extract the truth. I have read Hersh's article. Some of the stuff the Shrubya administration believes is nuts. They appear to have become victims of their own propaganda.
America has never really had freedom of the press. If they are not subservient to their government then they are bound to make money by winning viewers. The only way they could have any good journalism would be if social and cultural conditions support consumption of it. As it stands now I find it thoroughly repugnant to watch them exploit stories of child abuse, child porn and murder just to keep their viewers watching. Not to mention the moronic "feel good" stories they intersperse in their newscasts. The evening newscast has become a nauseating emotional rollercoaster ride.
I believe Shrubya will strike Iran too and there's not a lot that will prevent it. He's had a Messiah Complex since entering office and after 9/11 he hasn't tried to hide it. If Shrubya's Presidency isn't already poised to go down in history as the worst the US has ever known, then a nuclear strike on Iran will surely cement that legacy. The US is still the only country ever to use nukes against another country and this is in a world that has seen a maniac like Josef Stalin running a country that possessed them.

Paul Schofield.

Some comments: Paul does a nice job of describing the 'unknown knowns' the Bush administration is completely oblivious too and it's consequences. However, Rumsfeld's 'poem' was actually made to highlight the existence of 'unknown unknowns', those unknown factors that are completely unpredictable. Rumsfeld took the concept of 'unknown unknowns' to its logical conclusion by failing utterly to heed the extensive advice given to him on how to stabilize Iraq. Despite repeatedly commiting stupendous blunders Rumsfeld has somehow avoided pikcing up the label he so richly deserves from the American public- criminally incompetent. Instead he gets chastised for being 'abrasive' or 'lacking in tact'. Wake up people, the man is directly responsible for creating the quagmire in Iraq. Instead of being praised by Bush the lesser, he should be hanging from his heels in the public square.

More Dark Clouds Gathering Over Iran

2006-05-09T18:18:00.000-04:00

By now everyone following the developing news on Iran has heard about Seymour Hersh's article claiming that the Bush administration has decided to carry out plans for a massive bombing campaign of Iran in order to destroy its nuclear capability and destabilize its theocratic regime. Despite the fact that Hersh's article was based on the statements of a variety of high-level sources within the White House, intelligence community, and congress, his article was dismissed as being 'wild speculation' and 'nuts', or 'sensationlistic' by many. However, there's been a couple of recent news items that should be something of a wake up call for those naive enough to think that Bush's belligerence is just empty bluster.

The first item was Blair's sacking of Jack Straw as Britain's Foreign Secretary last week. This piece of news came as a big surprise to many observers. The Guardian weighed in on the issue and speculated on the reasons behind Jack Straw's dismissal from the post. The article argues that Straw was likely removed for two main reasons: 1. His chummy relationship with labour rival Gordon Brown, 2. His recent comments about an attack on Iran being 'inconceivable', and the use of tactical nukes being 'nuts'. The following passage from the article elaborates on the second reason:
Mr Blair, who sees Iran as the world's biggest threat, does not agree with his former foreign secretary. The prime minister argues that, at the very least, nothing should be ruled out in order to keep Iran guessing. Downing Street phoned the Foreign Office several times to suggest Mr Straw stop going on the BBC Today programme and ruling it out so categorically.

His fate was sealed when the White House called Mr Blair and asked why the foreign secretary kept saying these things. In any case, Mr Straw had boxed himself in on Iran to the extent that he would have had to resign if a military strike became a reality.

It should come as no surprise that Blair has denied that the removal of Straw had anything to do with his previous statements on Iran.

The second news item was Bush's statement that the passenger 'revolt' on flight 93 was the 'first blow' to strike the enemy in 'World War III'. Many will likely dismiss this as idle rhetoric or a poor choice of words, but it should be noted that the administration has consciously avoided characterizing the conflict in those terms in the past and has made no attempt to back track on Bush's remark. What many may find more surprising is how welcome his words were to many on the American right. To get an idea of how the pro-Bush crowd responded to his 'World War III' remark, check out this thread on the freerepublic website ('freepers', like many other online Conservative groups, are notorious for their complete unwillingness to listen to any criticism of their glorious leader). The 'freepers' seem pretty delighted by this characterization.

These two stories give us some indication of how charged the Iranian showdown really is. The message behind both stories is the breadth and aggressiveness of Bush's foreign policy agenda. Given that there's nothing in Bush's history to suggest that he will opt for negotiations over military force despite ample evidence that aggressive action would be detrimental, the recent developments seem to point to the conclusion that the Bush administration is paving the way for an airstrike if Ahmadinejad refuses to capitulate. The case for expecting the worst scenario is convincingly laid out in this recent opinion piece by the astute New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

While the Bush administration seems poised to strike intransigent Iran, the American public and media have been 'mobilizing' for military action as well. Feeding the war frenzy has been a relatively easy task considering the deep unpopularity of the target. Of course Ahmadinejad has done much to fuel the fear and anger of the US and Israel. stifling the public's weariness towards war has also been accomplished by the spread of a number of fear-mongering attack pieces on the Iranian president Ahmadinejad. These attacks are largely based on questionable rumours floating around about Ahmadinejad, rumours designed to incite a level of hysteria necessary to get the public on a war footing. One example is the often repeated claim that Ahmadinejad was actively involved in the 1979 hostage taking 'crisis'. This 'photographic evidence' that has been used to spread the notion that the Iranian president was a hostage taker far and wide, despite the fact this 'evidence' has clearly shown to be false. Obviously, if such an accusation were shown to be true, it would greatly bolster support for military action amongst an American public still fuming over the 'national humiliation' of the hostage crisis. Despite the refutation, various war-mongerors allude to this false 'evidence' and unwittingly or maliciously spread misinformation. Professor Gary Leupp author of an article entitled accusing Ahmadinejad, describes how such misinformation, even after being refuted, effectively plants these spurious 'facts' in the minds of the public:
Even so, it serves the Bushites' interests that my morning paper, the Boston Globe, which has relegated the Downing Street memos to its back pages, put the photo in question on page A1 July 1, with the tendentious caption: IRAN ELECTION SPURS QUESTIONS ABOUT 1979. I don't expect another front-page piece any time soon entitled: QUESTION ANSWERED: IRANIAN PRESIDENT NOT INVOLVED IN EMBASSY SEIZURE. Rather, I see a three-sentence AP item in the Globe this morning (July 5) concluding: "Ahmadinejad, who won a landslide presidential election victory, has been accused of taking American hostages in 1979 when radical students seized the US Embassy in Tehran." He has been accused. I suspect many will read that to mean "He did it" and this will pass for truth in pub conversations all over Boston.

Doesn't this process sound all too familiar? Another example of pro-war hyst is evident in the reaction of war-mongering elements over a recent article from Amir Taheri an exiled Iranian journalist hysterically titled The Frightening Truth About Why Iran Wants The Bomb. This incredible report essentially paints Ahmadinejad as an apocalyptic fanatic determined to get a nuclear weapon in order to somehow facilitate the second coming of Shia Islam's 'messiah'. The article essentially says very little other than the Iranian regime is deeply religious and views itself as being in conflict with the US, it present no actual information on what will be done with this bomb. Instead of presenting concrete information and sources the article works hard at planting sinister insinuation to great affect. On top of this, the information is presented by a man exiled by the very regime he writes. Remember the last time the US government relied on an exile community for its intelligence gathering? Given the sensational tone of the article, the complete lack of source material, and the likely agenda of the author, you would think the article would be greeted by healthy skepticism. Instead the pro-war crowd continually pull out this article to bolster their argument that Ahmadinejad is an aggressively dangerous lunatic that needs to be stopped.

Overall, the recent developments seem to indicate that a variety of forces are 'mobilizing' in preparation for a military campaign against Iran. The Bush administration has given every indication that it will use military force to achieve its goals, and we have every reason to believe the threat. I personally suspect that Sy Hersh is right, and Bush has effectively decided to 'take action' if the Iranians do not capitulate. It also seems clear that Ahmadinejad's hardline regime will not yield to Washington's demands. In the final analysis, it's hard to see how a war between the US and Iran will be avoided for the remainder of Bush's second term. The consequences of such an American airstrike will most probably greatly complicate the situation in Iraq, generating tremendous conflict between US forces and the Shia population. In addition, a US airstrike will almost certainly lead to 'covert activity' by both sides in Iraq and Iran. However, these 'complicating' factors can be viewed as desirable, in the sense that they are politically destabilizing events and therefore necessary for reshaping the region as the US sees fit. A project justifiable by an administration believing itself to be engaged in 'World War III'.

Rumsfeld Gets Interrogated By Former CIA Man

2006-05-09T15:33:00.000-04:00

Yet another sign of the changing political climate in the US. At an appearance in Atlanta on May 4th, Rumsfeld was clobbered by questions from the former senior CIA officer Ray McGovern. McGovern is a man who spent 27 years serving the US federal government, and was one of the senior intelligence briefers to both Reagan and Bush Sr. Bush Sr. actually awarded McGovern the Intelligence Commendation Medal, which he later returned in protest during the reign of Bush the lesser. McGovern has become a very outspoken critic of the Bush administration, publicly criticizing them for their manipulation and politicization of intelligence, and their use of torture and other human rights violations. McGovern is one of the founding members of a group calling itself Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group dedicated to criticizing the Bush White House for deliberately distorting the work of the American intelligence community. He's also written a number of critical articles that you can find listed here. Here's the video of Rumsfeld finally getting grilled by the former CIA officer. The hesitation and befuddlement Rumsfeld shows is understandable when you consider that this is coming from a very senior level former intelligence agent- I wouldn't be surprised at all if Rumsfeld recognized who he was. You can also find the full transcript of the exchange below.

QUESTION: So I would like to ask you to be up front with the American people, why did you lie to get us into a war that was not necessary, that has caused these kinds of casualties? why?

RUMSFELD: Well, first of all, I haven't lied. I did not lie then. Colin Powell didn't lie. He spent weeks and weeks with the Central Intelligence Agency people and prepared a presentation that I know he believed was accurate, and he presented that to the United Nations. the president spent weeks and weeks with the central intelligence people and he went to the american people and made a presentation. I'm not in the intelligence business. they gave the world their honest opinion. it appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction there.

QUESTION: You said you knew where they were.

RUMSFELD: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were and ...

QUESTION: You said you knew where they were Tikrit, Baghdad, northeast, south, west of there. Those are your words.

RUMSFELD: My words ... my words were that ... no, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let him stay one second. Just a second.

QUESTION: This is America.

RUMSFELD: You're getting plenty of play, sir.

QUESTION: I'd just like an honest answer.

RUMSFELD: I'm giving it to you.

QUESTION: Well we're talking about lies and your allegation there was bulletproof evidence of ties between al Qaeda and Iraq.

RUMSFELD: Zarqawi was in Baghdad during the prewar period. That is a fact.

QUESTION: Zarqawi? He was in the north of Iraq in a place where Saddam Hussein had no rule. That's also ...

RUMSFELD: He was also in Baghdad.

QUESTION: Yes, when he needed to go to the hospital.

Come on, these people aren't idiots. They know the story.

(PROTESTER INTERRUPTS)

RUMSFELD: Let me give you an example.

It's easy for you to make a charge, but why do you think that the men and women in uniform every day, when they came out of Kuwait and went into Iraq, put on chemical weapon protective suits? Because they liked the style?

(LAUGHTER)

They honestly believed that there were chemical weapons.

(APPLAUSE)

Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons on his own people previously. He'd used them on his neighbor (AUDIO GAP) the Iranians, and they believed he had those weapons.

We believed he had those weapons.

QUESTION: That's what we call a non sequitur. It doesn't matter what the troops believe; it matters what you believe.

MODERATOR: I think, Mr. Secretary, the debate is over. We have other questions, courtesy to the audience.

Documentary: Why We Fight

2006-05-06T13:17:00.000-04:00

Here's the 2006 Academy Award nominated documentary Why We Fight. I recommend you take a look at it if you haven't seen it already. It does a nice job of exposing the militaristic nature of American society, and the ability of the government to control its citizens in spite of having a 'free and open media'. Actually there isn't too much in the documentary I found all that revealing, but it's effective in presenting its criticism of US policy in a form palatable to the American public.

You can also watch it at Google Video. You can find Eisenhower's military-industrial complex speech here.

Malaysia's Answer to Harold and Maude

2006-05-06T11:27:00.000-04:00

Harold and Maude ain't got nothin' on Muhammad and Wook.

Muhammad: I know society is cynical but I didn’t marry Wook for her money. She is poor. Her only asset is her deep religious knowledge. Through her, I can deepen my knowledge of the religion.

Wook: I hope this marriage will last.

Methinks Wook will get her wish.

The Power of Nightmares: Baby It's Cold Outside

2006-05-03T01:51:00.000-04:00

Here is the first installment of an excellent documentary series from the BBC called The Power of Nightmares. It's split into two sections, both of which you can find below. There are two other parts to this series which I'll be posting on my blog over the next week or so. The first doc in the series, 'Baby It's Cold Outside', makes a compelling case that the present conflict between 'the West' and 'the Muslim world' has been fueled by two revolutionary anti-liberal movements: Radical/Political Islamism and American Neoconservatism.

The documentary draws interesting parallels between the two groups. It notes that both groups are elitist, focused on fear and conflict, and deeply ideological movements. These parallels are intriguing, but not altogether surprising considering both movements have a strong anti-liberal component (i.e. they both feared modern individualism and the culture it 'inevitably' produced). Both Qutb and Strauss were particularly terrified by the notion that anything seems to be permissible or possible in liberal societies.

The intellectual founders of Middle Eastern radical/political Islam and American neoconservatism are the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb and Leo Strauss. Strauss was inspired by the vision of a Platonic ruling intelligentsia keeping America safe from the inevitable nihilism that results from individualism, while Qutb envisioned a vanguard of pious Muslims keeping the spiritually devoid and selfish materialist culture of the West out of the Muslim world.

Various figures in the Bush administration are linked to Straussian thought, including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Abram Schulsky, and John Bolton. You can listen to a couple of interviews with professor Shadia Drury on Leo Strauss and the Neoconservatives. Here's another interview on Strauss with a panel of political scientists. In Strauss' view, liberal democracy contained the seeds of it's own undoing since it encouraged 'the masses' to engage in uninhibited 'free-thought' which they are inherently 'unequipped' for. This inevitably leads to dangerous experimentation that could destroy society (the Weimar republic being the classic example of this).

The radical political Islamists have direct links to Sayyid Qutb. Osama Bin Laden's 'mentor' Ayman Al-Zawahiri, often described as the brains behind Al-Qaeda was directly inspired by the thought of Qutb, and deeply involved in the political movement influenced by Qutb. The ideas of Qutb have also been one of the main inspirations for political Islamist movements across the Arab world, from Algeria to Palestine. Sayyid Qutb's ideas were formed while living in the US as a student, and were increasingly made more radical during the ten years he spent in Egyptian prisons. He believed that Western culture was creating miserable selfish individuals, completely divorced of any sense of community and the greater good. In his eyes, 'Westernized' individuals thought they were free, but actually their 'liberal freedoms' made them slaves to their 'basest' 'animal' desires.

I found the emphasis the documentary placed on torture at the hands of Nasser's regime in radicalizing the Egyptian Islamists an interesting and compelling point. It seems intuitively correct that the bloody world view of Al-Qaeda would have roots in humiliation and rage, in this case spawned by repressive governments. The most heinous means becomes acceptable when you're convinced your objectives are sublime and you believe your enemy is completely depraved.

It was fascinating and disconcerting to see in the documentary how much Egypt, and the Middle East in general, has 'dewesternized' and increasingly moved towards a politicized version of Islam over the past few decades. Some would probably rightly argue that 'westernization' only extended to a small elite in these societies, and the rise of conservative forces has coincided with the growth of democratic and anti-authoritarian notions in these societies. There is probably some truth to this, but it should be noted that radical political Islam has done great harm to itself across the Muslim world in the last couple of decades. The violent tactics, repressiveness, and incompetence of the political Islamists displayed in Algeria, Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt etc. had largely discredited these movement by the late 90s. This argument has been articulated quite well in a book titled Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam by Gilles Kepel. According to Kepel the events of September 11th, instead of showing the strength of the political Islamists, was actually an act of desperation by a floundering movement. I believe there's a great deal of truth to this view; political Islam was largely successfully stifled by the powers that be, failed to receive the support it expected from the 'masses', and demonstrated an inability to adequately govern where their revolution was successful. Unfortunately, the events following the September 11th attacks have breathed new life into political Islamism by reinforcing the notions of assimilative Western imperialism and an inherent hostility of Westerners towards the Muslim world.

Another intriguing and troubling theme raised by the documentary is the concept of the 'noble lie' or myth-making advocated by Straussian thought, and the use of misinformation by 'Straussians' involved in American politics. Particularly interesting was the revelation that Pipes and Wolfowitz deliberately built up an exaggerated case of a Soviet threat. Dangerous weapons were hypothesized to exist and it was argued that there existence could not be disproven despite the lack of any meaningful evidence. Even more troubling was how the documentary demonstrated distortions deliberately fabricated by the CIA were actually believed by Reaganites, and were used to justify increased aggressiveness towards the Soviets. Needless to say, this should sound eerily familiar to the reader.

While I thought the makers of the documentary did an excellent job of drawing the links between the anti-liberal roots of ideologues on both sides, it did have its limitations. Obviously with the short time frame, and the nature of the medium, the documentary could only delve into the complex subject matter it investigated in partial detail. The creators of the documentary were sometimes forced to draw facile conclusions for the sake of affect, when more detailed inquiry is occasionally called for. This gives neocons and their sympathizers far too much room to maneuver, and respond to the doc by dismissing it as a dramatic oversimplification of Straussian thought and the influence it has had on American politics. Also, there are other important factors behind radical political Islam which the documentary doesn't address. In particular, the influence of the Saudi petrodollar-funded spread of Wahhabi/Salafism isn't discussed. In my opinion, this is an influence at least as pernicious as Qutb and the Egyptian Jihadists. But as I mentioned above, I believe these important omissions by the documentary are primarily due to the limited time and lack of viewer knowledge on the subject matter. Overall, the doc did a remarkably effective job in connecting the dots and providing insight considering the constraints.

One final point that I think is important to make is that while their ideology should be condemned, there are some valid complaints that both Strauss and Qutb had about modern liberalism. Strauss' ideas were formed primarily out of the rise of Nazism from the Weimar liberal-democracy in Germany. The divisiveness and instability of the Weimar republic did enable a radical figure like Hitler to rise to power. Liberal democracy failed to provide stability to Germans in the chaotic aftermath of World War I, and the inherent divisiveness of liberalism was ruthlessly exploited by the Nazis for their own advantage. A Straussian would presumably argue that, a 'morally grounded' society with de facto constraints on democracy, would have provided the necessary stability to have avoided such disastrous consequences. Similarly, Qutb recognized that a liberal secularized society tends to degrade notions of community and greater good in the name of selfish individualistic desires. Liberalism naturally leads towards an ever-present nagging skepticism and a questioning of all tradition. To Qutb, a man raised in the pious and modest world of Egyptian village life, he could see the seeds that 'western' liberalism would plant that would undermine the aspects of his identity that he held most dear.

The point that both ideologies neglect is that while a meaningful commitment to human liberty will necessarily produce negative consequences, so does any other form of government. While liberalism does tend to diminish traditional beliefs and is inherently chaotic, the codified freedoms it provides are also what safeguards the pious from persecution and provides some means of preventing despots from accumulating too much power. While the Straussians and radical Islamists might think that a whole-hearted embrace of liberalism might inevitably lead to the enslavement of mankind, they fail to recognize that their own ideologies are much more likely to produce repressive and regressive societies.

Gender Studies: Phallic Symbolism of 9-11

2006-05-02T15:38:00.000-04:00

Recently came across a strange article with one of the most absurd metaphors I've seen in my life. The article is entitled The Land of the Smoldering Vagina. Ridiculous, kinda stupid, but also oddly compelling.

Within five weeks of the World Trade Center incident, five different men and women said to me, "The phallic symbol of America has been cut off. " I was surprised to learn of this undercurrent of feeling among the people, especially amidst the genuine concern for the victims and their friends and families, but upon reflection, I realized the depth of their statements.

The phallic symbol of America had been cut off, and at its base was a large smoldering vagina the true symbol of the American culture for it is the western culture that represents the feminine materialistic principle, and it is at its extreme in America.

The smoldering vagina is unsatisfied, it wants more cars, more clothes, more food, more drink, more money, more stuff. I want more, more, more are the shouts coming from the land of the smoldering vagina.

This thought-provoking article is posted on the website of a group calling itself Men's Action. This is an excerpt from their mission statement:

A natural way of life is a balance between the masculine, feminine, and life principles.

Do you know the functioning of the entire universe is based upon gender? That everything created in the universe is a result of a pregnancy?

Western culture in its ignorance is attempting to create a genderless society. Pregnancies can not occur without the interplay of gender. Standards can not exist without the interplay of gender. Family can not be without the interplay of gender.

A genderless society will disintegrate because it based on an unnatural premise. Our society is disintegrating.

Yes, thank Men's Action for uncovering the REAL significance of 9-11. ;-)

One of the things I found 'interesting' about the article is that it equates material greed with femininity. Not too sure about that one. I think you could make a reasonable argument for either side being more materialistic. Perhaps women are more 'worldly', i.e. focused on people and things in their day-to-day life, I think that's probably true. While 'Men's Action' proposes to restore balance to the world through gender realignment, I'm inclined to believe that one of the defining features of maleness is precisely a lack of balance. Almost by definition women are more 'grounded', while men are more likely to be more extreme and have their 'head in the clouds'. North American society has probably become more 'feminine' in many respects, but if there is a 'dominant gender outlook' it's still probably a male one. I agree that much of what is natural male instinct has been pathologized, but so have many female instincts. The modern ideal does seem to be some sort of gender neutrality- adopt whatever characteristics are best in terms of making you a good drone. Bah, enough of this silly gender babble.

Stephen Colbert Brings Too Much 'Truthiness' To The White House Correspondents' Dinner

2006-04-30T05:16:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: YouTube has pulled the Colbert Vids because of copyright infringement. You can find Colbert's Correspondents' Dinner performance here:

Part 1

Part 2

And here's an interesting 60 Minute interview with Colbert.

The 2006 correspondents' dinner held up the long-standing tradition of poking fun at the president. This year Stephen Colbert was chosen as the topper for the event...I'm guessing the guy from Associated Press responsible for 'hiring' Colbert might now be having some second thoughts about that decision. For those of you not familiar with Colbert, he's a very funny and biting satirist who used be a 'correspondent' on the The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and is now the host of his own spin-off show The Colbert Report. Colbert plays the role of an uninformed loud-mouthed pro-Bush talk show pundit modeled largely on Bill O'Reilly, whom Colbert affectionately refers to as 'Papa Bear'. Of course Colbert was completely in character during the correspondents dinner, you can see the full video of his performance below.

The Bush administration usually doesn't take too kindly to criticism, and that was pretty evident in the video from the pained fake smiles and chilly silence that often followed Colbert's riffs. In contrast to the happy USA today article I linked to above, you can an honest idea of the real reaction to his performance in this article from Editor and Publisher. Apparently a lot of attendees weren't too pleased. I can imagine Bush and his cronies fuming about the perfidious 'liberal media' after having to sit through Colbert's 'blistering' performance. It's great to see at least one publication captured the uncomfortable and sometimes stony reaction from the assembled guests. For a while now I've been inclined to give Colbert the edge over Jon Stewart for the title of America's greatest television satirist. After his performance last night I think Colbert has clinched it. Here's an interesting interview with Stephen Colbert talking about his show on NPR.

The man must have balls the size of watermelons to have stood in front of that audience at the White House and mercilessly lambasted the president on every level, taking some pointed shots at the cowardly media as well. Incredibly gutsy and pure genius. His video audition wasn't quite as amusing as the rest of performance, but I did get a chuckle out of the Gannon button on his podium. The Helen Thomas chase scene probably dragged on a little too long, but she definitely deserves the hat tip. Helen Thomas, who's now 86 years-old, is the ball-buster of the White House correspondents. She's the only White House correspondent who has had the guts to consistently ask Bush critical questions during his press conferences.

Here's the entire video of Stephen Colbert at the Correspondents' Dinner in three parts.

And here's a bunch of hilarious clips from The Colbert Report I found at youtube. Great show, and one of America's finest satirists. :-)

Physicists Chastise Bush Over 'Tactical' Nukes

2006-04-27T20:39:00.000-04:00

Found this article over at the Information Clearing House. It's a letter from 13 leading physicists to G.W. Bush criticizing him for considering the use of tactical nukes to destroy underground bunkers in the planning of a future airstrike on Iran. For more background on the Iranian situation, including a link to the Seymour Hersh article that broke the news of Bush considering the use of 'tactical' nukes, you can refer to my earlier post.

By Dr. Jorge E. Hirsch

04/23/06 "ICH" -- -- Thirteen of the nation’s most prominent physicists have written a letter to President Bush, calling U.S. plans to reportedly use nuclear weapons against Iran “gravely irresponsible” and warning that such action would have “disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world.”

The physicists include five Nobel laureates, a recipient of the National Medal of Science and three past presidents of the American Physical Society, the nation’s preeminent professional society for physicists.

The letter echoes a petition signed by over 1800 physicists and scientists across the US and the world

Join Dr. Jorge E. Hirsch, Professor of Physics, UCSD To deliver the letter to President Bush Wednesday April 26, 5 PM, Lafayette Park, opposite the White House, Washington, DC

Letter to President Bush

The Honorable George W. Bush

President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President: Recent articles in the New Yorker and Washington Post report that the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran is being actively considered by Pentagon planners and by the White House. As members of the profession that brought nuclear weapons into existence, we urge you to refrain from such an action that would have grave consequences for America and for the world.

1800 of our fellow physicists have joined in a petition opposing new US nuclear weapons policies that open the door to the use of nuclear weapons in situations such as Iran's. These policies represent a "radical departure from the past", in the words of Linton Brooks, National Nuclear Security Administration director. Indeed, since the end of World War II, US policy has considered nuclear weapons "weapons of last resort", to be used only when the very survival of the nation or of an allied nation was at stake, or at most in cases of extreme military necessity. Instead, the new US nuclear weapons policies have significantly lowered the threshold for the potential use of nuclear weapons, as clearly evidenced by the fact that they are being considered as another tool in the toolbox to destroy underground installations that are "too deep" to be destroyed by conventional weapons. This is a major and dangerous shift in the rationale for nuclear weapons. In the words of the late Joseph Rotblat, Nobel Peace Prize recipient for his efforts to prevent nuclear war, "the danger of this policy can hardly be over-emphasized". Nuclear weapons are unique among weapons of mass destruction: they unleash the enormous energy stored in the tiny nucleus of an atom, an energy that is a million times larger than that stored in the rest of the atom. The nuclear explosion releases an immense amount of blast energy and thermal and nuclear radiation, with deadly immediate and delayed effects on the human body. Over 100,000 human beings died in the Hiroshima blast, and nuclear weapons in today's arsenals have a total yield of over 200,000 Hiroshima bombs.

Using or even merely threatening to use a nuclear weapon preemptively against a nonnuclear adversary tells the 182 non-nuclear-weapon countries signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that their adherence to the treaty offers them no protection against a nuclear attack by a nuclear nation. Many are thus likely to abandon the treaty, and the nuclear non-proliferation framework will be damaged even further than it already has, with disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world.

There are no sharp lines between small "tactical" nuclear weapons and large ones, nor between nuclear weapons targeting facilities and those targeting armies or cities. Nuclear weapons have not been used for 60 years. Once the US uses a nuclear weapon again, it will heighten the probability that others will too. In a world with many more nuclear nations and no longer a "taboo" against the use of nuclear weapons, there will be a greatly enhanced risk that regional conflicts could expand into global nuclear war, with the potential to destroy our civilization.

It is gravely irresponsible for the U.S. as the greatest superpower to consider courses of action that could eventually lead to the widespread destruction of life on the planet. We urge you to announce publicly that the U.S. is taking the nuclear option off the table in the case of all nonnuclear adversaries, present or future, and we urge the American people to make their voices heard on this matter.

Sincerely,

Philip Anderson, Michael Fisher, David Gross, Jorge Hirsch, Leo Kadanoff, Joel Lebowitz, Anthony Leggett, Eugen Merzbacher, Douglas Osheroff, Andrew Sessler George Trilling, Frank Wilczek, Edward Witten

The Liberal Candidates

2006-04-27T06:35:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting post at Cerebrus on the ages of the various candidates running for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. Executive summary: Age doesn't matter.

Who do I think has the best shot at the leadership? Of course it's way too early to tell- we haven't even seen any of these candidates actively campaigning for the leadership yet. But I'll unwisely stick my neck out and venture some unwarranted predictions. So here's the list:

Scott Brison
Gerard Kennedy
Maurizio Bevilacqua
Martha Hall Findlay
Stephane Dion
Carolyn Bennett
Bob Rae
Michael Ignatieff
Joe Volpe
Ken Dryden

Let me scratch off those I don't think have a prayer:

Scott Brison
Gerard Kennedy
Stephane Dion
Carolyn Bennett
Bob Rae
Michael Ignatieff
Ken Dryden

So out of these folk here's my predictions.

First of all it's far from certain who's going to win. All of the above candidates do have a legitimate shot at winning the race.

Ignatieff will be among the top three candidates come convention time. If I were a bookmaker I would probably be giving him the best odds at winning the race, maybe a 25% chance. If he's to win the leadership though he's going to have to pick up support from left and right of the party. If he can 'walk the line' and shine at the same time he'll be the one to beat. At this point I'm really not sure if he's up for it though.

I'm guessing Dion will probably be rated as the second most likely to win by most. And I'm pretty sure some pundits would rank him as the favorite in the race. Personally I think his chances are overrated. First of all, I don't think support for the Liberals' is going to pick up significantly in Quebec by the time of the next election. Why have a Quebec candidate when the party is unlikely to gain many new seats there? The last two leaders of the party, Chretien and Martin, were Quebecers and they couldn't gain support in the province- why would Stephane Dion, who is hated by nationalistic Quebecers, have any better chance of making headway in the province? If Ignatieff's campaign completely falls apart then Dion will stand a better chance. Both candidates have a similar brainy academic left-of-center appeal about them, and I only expect one to be among the couple of candidates.

Out of these three:

Ken Dryden
Scott Brison
Carolyn Bennett

Only one of these three, if any, will be among the top three or so candidates during the convention. It really depends of their performance. IMO Brison is the best politician out of the three, Dryden and Bennett are fine and respectable but bland. Bland isn't necessarily a career ending quality in Canadian politics, but even hosers aren't immune from charm and a little more personality would definitely improve their chances. Why do I clump them all together? They are all Martinite Liberals on the right of the party. I don't expect this faction to fare all that well during the convention.

And finally we have these two:

Gerard Kennedy
Bob Rae

The traditional social welfare left. Gerard Kennedy could have as easily joined the NDP as the Liberals, and of course Bob Rae is the former head of the Ontario NDP. While I haven't seen much of Kennedy myself, I've only heard good things about him. He's apparently charismatic and articulate, and has won lots of Kudos as Ontario's Education minister. Kennedy has to be everyones favorite dark horse candidate, and my guess is he'll garner more support than Rae does in the end. One of these two will have to be removed from the picture early on. My bet is Rae will step down first and will do something unexpected like throw his support behind Ignatieff or Dion, not Kennedy.

Rumsfeld Directly Linked to the Torture of Guantanamo Detainee

2006-04-27T03:00:00.000-04:00

Recently it has been reported that US secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was directly involved in the torture of a Guantanamo detainee. Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident? Yeah right.

By the way, the picture above is the work of the controversial Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff. His work isn't exactly subtle or for the faint of heart...which probably makes him a pretty effective political cartoonist in the era of Bush the lesser.

Iraq: The Unseen War

2006-04-26T10:13:00.000-04:00

Recently came across this Salon article from Sept.2005 about photos from Iraq that are too graphic for the mainstream American press. Needless to say some of the pictures are quite disturbing.

Pirates and Emperors

2006-04-24T23:10:00.000-04:00

What happens when Schoolhouse Rock meets subversive anti-Imperial politics?

And for those who are curious where the creator got the title from.

Polish Engineering

2006-04-23T19:17:00.000-04:00

Another fine example of Polish engineering.

Beginning to Talk About the Israeli Lobby

2006-04-19T02:25:00.000-04:00

Here's a link to one of the few well-written blog posts on the reluctance of the American left to talk about the Israeli lobby by the Canadian blogger liberal catnip.

Finally the American left is beginning to openly discuss and do some real soul searching on their unqualified support for Israel. If there's a US attack on Iran, and I expect that there will be one before the end of Bush's second term, look for a real loss of support for hawkish Israeli policy on the American left. The disastrous policies of the Bush admin just maybe the thing that breaks the power of the Israeli lobby on American mid-east policy.

Hungry for placenta? Tom Cruise says 'YES!'

2006-04-18T19:54:00.000-04:00

I not too big on inane celebrity gossip, but this is one was too juicy to pass up ;-)

In a recent interview with GQ magazine Tom Cruise revealed he's going to eat the placenta of the baby he's having with Katie Holmes.

"I'm gonna eat the placenta. I thought that would be good. Very nutritious. I'm gonna eat the cord and the placenta right there."

Hmmm, I have the feeling this isn't going help to correct his growing image as a massive nutjob. Let's see, a cultish devotion to Scientology, a hatred of psychiatry, manic behavior in public, and now a placenta eating advocate. I don't think Cruise is going to be getting many scripts for playing the 'everyman' type of role anytime soon. I can definitely see some 'character' roles opening up for him though.

The Independent actually just posted a pretty lengthy article on the merits of placenta eating. Apparently, there's actually quite a few websites out there advocating placenta consumption for it's nutritional and supposedly positive ritualistic aspects. Some claim that placentophagy can help stave off postpartum depression. You can find some interesting placenta recipes here. This one article talks about other uses of placenta, such as for ritualistic burial or even placenta art:
Yes, you can make art out of it. Generally mothers talk about placenta prints. After the birth you take a piece of paper and lay the placenta on it. If it is fresh you can let the blood and amniotic fluid leave the print or others choose to use paints to add color. Now what? Well, hang your framed art or store it for safekeeping.

While I don't think I'll be purchasing a placenta print anytime soon, it does seem to be a bit of a waste to throw away what was once such a valuable organ. One interesting argument in favour of human placentophagy was that it's the only form of meat you don't have to kill or harm anything to consume. Interesting point. Perhaps there's a market for placenta consumption among the moral Veggies out there?

Think that the price of oil is going down anytime soon? Think again.

2006-04-18T18:35:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting post I found over on Jim Sinclair's Mineset website. Since I can't link directly the post I've pasted it below. In only a few sentences it manages to make it abundantly clear that the price of oil isn't going to decline anytime soon...despite what some analysts would you have you believe.

Dear Jim,

To summarize a couple key points I got from the wise and experienced Larry Jeddeloh (www.tisgroup.net, a MUST HAVE service for those that can afford it) of the Institutional Strategist. Maybe you cannot afford NOT to get it.

1. Several more wars in the Middle East are happening as the battle for control of 4/5th of the world’s light sweet crude continues.

2. Shia occupies the great majority of the land where this crude oil exists and Sunnis run the countries where most of it exists. On Shia-occupied land Sunnis are making a whole lot of money.

Now some of your and my points

3. The Shia, Sunnis and Kurds, as well as smaller groups in the region, all fear annihilation at the hands of one another. There will be no mixed group governments that last.

4. As you and I have both pointed out in the past, the pipeline systems in Iraq and in Saudi Arabia are very vulnerable. Larry also makes this point.

5. As we have been mentioning for years, the demand for oil in China, Brazil, India and other emerging countries will continue for many years. Now that the growth genie is out of the bottle governments are under tremendous pressure to continue the growth and provide higher standards of living for their people.

In China it means revolution if it does not occur. In India, Brazil and elsewhere it means loss of power for the ruling political class and the stopping of their income from the public trough and corruption.

6. Last time I checked wars never did anything other than increase the debt and budget deficits of the countries involved in them.

Monty Guild
Guild Investment Management, Inc.
23805 Stuart Ranch Road, Suite 105
Malibu, CA 90265
www.guildinvestment.com
Phone (310)456-8100
FAX (310)456-8093
mguild@guildinvestment.com

Failure

2006-04-18T10:49:00.000-04:00

This is what you get when you piss off enough geeks. Go to google, type in failure and choose the I feel lucky option.

Seymour Hersh: Bush is on a Messianic Mission to 'Save Iran'

2006-04-16T23:50:00.000-04:00

Despite the soothing assurances that the conflict has been exaggerated, the current tensions between the US and Iran just keep on mounting. The Iranians have been unyielding and unapologetic about their nuclear development, and President Ahmadenijad keeps on delivering inflamatory speeches in which he proclaims Iran's readiness to beat back any potential US attack. At the same time he's been raising the ire of Israel and the 'West' by talking about wiping it off the world map and expressing doubts about the Holocaust.

Presumably, Ahmadenijad thinks he's calling the Bush administration's bluff. After all the US military is bogged down in the grinding guerilla war and anarchy that has engulfed Iraq, and there's little sign of the situation improving. Add to this their commitments in Afghanistan and it's not hard to see that the US military apparatus has it's hand full. On top of that, the most reliable analyses are that Iran is probably several years away from developing any sort of nuclear weapon. In light of these factors, is the US military really willing and able to carry out a campaign against Iran at the present time? Ahmadinejad seems to be betting that the answer is no. When you can 'get away with it', why not increase tensions and 'stand up' to US pressure? Conflict with the US will likely strengthen the hold of the conservative forces that Ahmadinejad supports. Arguably, the increased tensions between the US and Iran following the Iraq invasion led to Ahmadinejad's election in the first place. Why not foment the clash that feeds the theocracy while the Goliath is paralyzed? It might sound like a 'clever' strategy, but maybe it's time for Mr. Ahmadinejad to reconsider that approach.

Recently the New Yorker published the latest eye-popping piece of investigative journalism from Seymour Hersh. Sy Hersh is the renowned journalist who was the first to expose the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq, as well as the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. Hersh's controversial article claims that the Bush White House has drawn up plans to launch a sustained bombing campaign, combined with covert operations, in order to destroy Iran's nuclear capacity and weaken its government. The ultimate goal of these military plans is to neutralize the Iranian threat by 'freeing' Iran from its oppressive theocracy. Hersh's article is based on interviews with several unnamed high level sources within the White House, military, and congress. Some of the sources describe Bush as 'Messianic' about the coming military campaign against Iran. One of the more shocking allegations is that the White House's extensive military strategizing has even included the possibility of using nuclear weapons to destroy some of Iran's underground military facilities. Predictably, the Bush administration has repudiated the article, calling Hersh's work 'ill informed' and 'wild speculation'.

Here's a link to a Wolf Blitzer interview of Sy Hersh (you need a Windows Media Player to view the video). Blitzer more or less gets Sy to give an 'executive summary' of the article. Here's a link to the transcript of the interview if you can't view the video.

US military folk in the know have seconded Hersh's sentiments on the situation. Here's a link to a CNN interview with former US Airforce Col Sam Gardiner. In it he expresses his opinion that an attack on Iran is likely, as well as describing how extensive a US bombing campaign would 'have to be'. In an article from June of last year, the former marine officer and Iraqi weapons inspector Scott Ritter claimed that clandestine US operations against Iran were already underway. Hersh himself reported about the existence of US-led covert operations in Iran over a year ago.

All of this definitely doesn't sound like promising news for the doves out there. I've heard some postulate that the Hersh 'leak' is just part of some elaborate head fake on the part of the administration. Get Hersh to report that the attack is imminent and Iran will start to capitulate to US demands out of desperation. While this doesn't sound totally implausible, I'm inclined to give Hersh much more credit than that in terms of verifying the legitimacy of his sources. The wide variety of his sources reporting different but converging information also makes a 'faked leak' seem unlikely. Finally, what Hersh reports appears to be completely in line with the Bush administration's previous track record. After all that has happened does anyone doubt that Bush and his cronies are not capable of carrying out this attack? This administration has shown an eagerness to use military force to achieve their objectives. I wouldn't bet on them not using their favorite tool in Iran.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties.

From Dwight Eisenhower's famous 1961 speech warning against the power of the military industrial complex.

The Seven Deadly Sins

2006-04-14T18:11:00.000-04:00

This is probably something I shouldn't be posting for the world to read, but what the heck...isn't the internet all about sharing inappropriate info that should never see the light of day? Here's my seven deadly sins profile. Apparently Lust is my biggest flaw, with Sloth and Pride being close behind. You can take the sin quiz here.

Greed:	Medium
Gluttony:	Medium
Wrath:	Medium
Sloth:	High
Envy:	High
Lust:	High
Pride:	High

Take the Seven Deadly Sins Quiz

Bush in Free Fall

2006-04-12T20:27:00.000-04:00

A visualization of where Bush's personal popularity is heading. Make sure to use your cursor to throw him around like a rag-doll.

Rogers, Faber, and Yergin Discuss the World Economy

2006-04-12T17:33:00.000-04:00

Got this link through Puplava's 'Financial Sense' webpage. It's a very interesting after dinner conversation with the famous market analysts Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, and Daniel Yergin. You can stream the video of this conversation here, it's a Dutch public programming production but the actual conversation is in English. Just click the video icon on the right side and the conversation will start after a Dutch language intro.
I have to admit I took great pleasure in seeing Faber and Rogers teach Yergin a few hard economic facts about our present age. Interestingly, Yergin is considered to be one of the foremost oil industry analysts in the world. Yergin also has a place among the mainstream economists out there that presently determine most institutional and national policies, he's one of the writers of Commanding Heights, a collection of mainstream economic wisdom on the 'global economy' which was made into a slick PBS documentary series. Seeing how he fares in this little discussion doesn't exactly boost my confidence in mainstream economists suggesting that there's no problem major problems with the US economy and there's plenty of oil for decades to come. Note that Yergin actually was expecting the price of oil to decline...not quite right. The conversation is a little old, took place 3 years ago, but its still as relevant today as ever. Definitely worth watching.

HaHaHa America

2006-04-05T14:19:00.000-04:00

"Enjoy Fragrant Monkey Tail, HaHaHa!"

Here's a short film that was submitted to the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, appropriately titled HaHaHa America. The description of the film on the Sundance website is 'A translated harangue from China to the US that laughs at our misteps.' Subtitled with a faux Chinese narrator, the film juxtaposes scenes of booming Chinese industry against US sloth and corporate corruption. It's pretty amusing stuff. Although, much of the film is obviously tongue-in-cheek, I don't think the 'harangue' is too distant from one a nationalistic corporate Chinese elite would deliver to the US if suddenly stricken by a bout of honesty. There's actually a lot to chew on in that video.

The world is still waking up to the fact that within a few decades Asian powers will likely dominate economically, and will not be beholden or submissive to the West. Look at the figures on world manufacturing, economic growth, manpower, science and engineering graduates, debt and savings, foreign goodwill, military commitments, and then tell me the US is going to be the world's major power half a century from now with a straight face. By the way, that picture to above isn't some scene out of Bladerunner, it's the skyline of Shanghai ;-)

Wafa Sultan: The Full Transcript Of Her Al-Jazeera Appearance

2006-04-05T13:18:00.000-04:00

Thanks to MEMRI, by now most of us have heard of Wafa Sultan's appearance on the Al-Jazeera, in which she gave a very harsh critique of the Islam in front of millions of Arab viewers. What most English speakers don't realize is that her appearance is heavily edited by MEMRI. Virtually all of her opponent's and the moderator's comments are cut out. Not surprisingly this gives the viewer a somewhat distorted picture of the event. Here's a link to the full unedited transcript of her Al-Jazeera appearance. It'll take a bit of time to read through. It's fairly long, the material isn't exactly lightweight, and the translation can be a little awkward at times. Here's a link to the edited MEMRI transcript for the sake of comparison.

Since I don't have the time to go into detail on my thoughts about the unedited debate, I'll hold my tongue for now and give you guys a chance to comment on this first. IMO, the full debate is actually pretty interesting and worth dissecting in some detail.

Women against women's suffrage

2006-04-04T18:19:00.000-04:00

An amusing little demonstration of America's lax educational standards.

Understanding Modern Geopolitics: A Century of Oil Wars

2006-04-02T17:38:00.000-04:00

Some quick links, hopefully I'll get a chance to write something a little more detailed soon. Just wanted to draw your attention to F.W. Engdahl. He's written a book called A Century of War, in which he's argued for the overwhelming importance of fossil fuels in all major conflicts of the past century, the present day Iraq wars being no exception. You can get a flavour of his ideas in this article entitled A New American Century.

You can also listen to Jim Puplava interview Engdahl here. The interview starts off a little slow but Engdahl is definitely worth listening to, highly recommended.

Berlusconi's 'Happy 'Handshake'?

2006-03-30T04:03:00.000-05:00

Some people are claiming this video isn't legit. To be honest, I have no idea if it is. If not, they did a pretty good job in finding a Berlusconi look-a-like.

Silvio Berlusconi?? manages to reinforce every sexist stereotype about Italian men in this little video clip. With the Italian parliamentary election only a few weeks away, Silvio shows his special way of greeting an unsuspecting female voter.

If it is real, it shouldn't be too surprising considering his history of putting his foot in his mouth.

Visualizing the Iraq War

2006-03-30T02:08:00.000-05:00

A bunch of links showing the human and economic costs of the Iraq war.

Here's an unsettling visualization of the coalition casualties by date and location in Iraq. It does make an impression on you when you realize that each of those blips means a few lives lost.
Here's a link to a map of US casualties by their hometown.

A few graphs comparing US casualties in Iraq to Vietnam. Here's some figures on the number of US soldiers wounded in Iraq.

You can get some idea on the financial cost of the war for US citizens to date. Here's a detailed report, co-authored by the Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, describing the direct and indirect financial costs of the war on the USA. Including direct military costs and the negative macroeconomic effects (e.g. increase in the price of oil), the reports makes a Conservative estimate of the eventual total war cost being $1.026 trillion, and a moderate estimate of $2.239 trillion.

The best website cataloguing violent Iraqi civilian casualties is probably Iraq body count. This figure currently stands at 33,000-38,000 according to the website. Their estimates however are probably conservative as they only take into account officially reported cases of violent deaths. An article published in the prestigious medical journal the Lancet calculated deaths resulting from the war to be 98,000, and that was as of October, 2004 (including both violent and non-violent deaths attributable to the onset of the war). Here's another demoralizing link showing that violent civilian deaths in Iraq have actually been rising every year since the start of the invasion. You can find out more Iraqi casualties in thiswikipedia article.

Deeyah: The' Muslim Madonna'?

2006-03-24T04:05:00.000-05:00

Recently stumbled across an artist that's being touted as the next big 'ethnic' pop-star sensation. Her name is Deeyah and she's been dubbed by many as the 'Muslim Madonna'. Deeyah is apparently a Muslim of 'Pakistani-Afghan-Persian' decent (I get the feeling she's trying to snatch up every ethnic label she get her hands on ;-)). You can watch her latest music video 'What Will It Be' here. Definitely not my cup of tea when it comes to music, even with all the 'exotic' samples I still find her music pretty unoriginal and dull. You can find more samples of her music and her videos on her webpage. To be fair, her stuff is probably not that much worse than most other girlie pop acts out there. I was amused by how the Deeyah video tries to throw in anything 'Eastern'. Her video mixes classical Indian percussive chanting, shisha smoking, burkas, Muslim feminist political messages, and clips from an Indian street. Now is that ethnic enough for ya?! But it looks like she's having some success. She's been working with Darrin Prindle (producer for Madonna, TLC), and one of her music videos hit the top of the charts in the UK recently.

Deeyah was raised in Norway, and became a pop-star in her teens. She ended up moving to the UK because of threats and disdain from offended Muslims who felt her 'provocative' act was somehow denigrating their religion. She's also received 'intimidating' phone calls in the UK. Here's some biographical bits from Freemuse.org, a website dedicated to free expression in music:

At the age of 16, Deeyah signed with BMG and released her second album the following year, a more pop-oriented offering of songs recorded in multiple languages - Deeyah speaks five. The album went Top 10 and yielded two Top 10 singles and music videos.
The award-winning music video for the second single from that album made Deeyah the target of conservative Muslims who were outraged that her uncovered back could be seen in the video. This led to harassment, threats against Deeyah and her family, physical assaults, and an attempted abduction at her school.
"I would get very abusive phone calls," she explains. "I would get abused as I walked down the street. I would have people spit at me."
At a concert in Norway, she was attacked on stage by angry Muslim men who thought she was degrading their culture.
By mid-1996, at just 18 years old, Deeyah was disillusioned and fearful and decided to leave the music business and move to London to escape the tension and dangers she faced in Norway and start a new life.
In 1998, Deeyah's need to make music had become too strong to ignore. Towards the end of 1999, she signed a deal with Warner Records and went back into the studio in early 2000 - wanting to break her silence and speak out about her struggle against it. But then her producer suddenly died of cancer, and it took another five years before her next album was completed and published.
The music video for the first single from the album reached #1 on The Box, the leading request music video channel in the UK. As was the case when Deeyah's last album came out, her video led to new threats from conservative Muslims who are angry that Deeyah appears in sexy clothes and dances with a black man. The video has been frequently shown on Indian tv channels.
She has received intimidating phone calls, aggressive emails and verbal threats from Asian youths warning her to "tone down and cover up".

And in the words of Deeyah herself:
"It is not going to make me go away. This is such a liberal, multicultural country and I never thought my background could become such an issue to some people. It does scare me but it also angers me and encourages me not to give up, and my parents encourage me. I do not flaunt my religious background, I never sing about it and compared to other pop stars I am not particularly risque."

She does have a point about not being particularly risque by contemporary pop vixen standards. In the arena of pop-girl combat, Deeya is easily outskanked by Mariah or Jessica Simpson or even J.Lo. I do not flaunt my religious background. Not to sure about that one considering her use of a burka a striptease prop in a controversial video she ended up pulling. Not to mention that the 'What Will It Be?' video showcases a variety of Muslim feminists (like Irshad Manji shown with Deeyah above) and features her? strolling around in a Burka. The lyrics to What Will It Be? also have a strong anti-Muslim-fundie message to them as well. Given her background, it's perfectly natural that she would have an interest in Muslim issues and culture. But, for her to claim she isn't flaunting her background is a little dishonest to say the least.

Is Deeyah really breaking down barriers or is she stirring up controversy for the sake of publicity? Well probably a bit of both. Almost any publicity is good publicity for a newbie pop celebrity, so stirring up controversy will benefit her career. On the other hand, given her past experiences, it isn't surprising that pro-feminist messages for Muslim women would be a big part of her music. The truth is, the treatment of women in many Muslim societies is pretty abysmal. So it is an important message and she's bringing attention to it- which is good. That said, at the present time it's an issue that already receives a great deal of attention in the Western media. What's really needed is some reasonable debate about the subject, and more importantly human rights laws in the 'offending' countries. Given that her message is wrapped up in the typical soft-porn imagery of a contemporary pop video, her music isn't going to get much play among the people who should arguably hear a Muslim feminist message. Seeing her 'provocative' videos get so much attention by 'Western' media, is far more likely to elicit knee-jerk defensiveness rather than any meaningful debate in the Muslim community.

Obviously there's plenty that can't tolerate the idea of a Muslim woman flaunting her sexuality in public. A Muslim organization in the UK even tried to claim she wasn't a Muslim because she has a Hindu name (on her website she denies this allegation and explains she was named after a family friend). I'm sure some young Muslim women will listen to her music and find it inspiring. And as for the thugs that are threatening her- get a grip. Threatening and trying to intimidate her is only going to end up giving her more media attention, and confirming every negative stereotype the West has about violent Muslims. If you don't like her music and message, you do have the right to 'preach' against it if you want. But there's absolutely no justification for threats and violence.

What about her chances to be the next big thing on the music scene? I think this article on altmuslim.com summed it up best:

However, once the threats subside (or not), there's the question of finding an audience for the message and music. "A lot of us are working for women's rights, particularly in the Muslim world. I think we have more self-respect than to dance around naked to make our point," said Hoda Fahmy, who works with an education group for Muslim women in Canada. "It's unfortunate that she has to use those means, because it's true - women are not able to speak up in a lot of these countries." Musically, it goes without saying that the Sami Yusuf crowd will give Deeyah a pass, though she may also find her song too sabre-rattling for the mainstream hip-hop/R&B crowd, too lacking in the Bollywood-inspired sentimentality of bhangra/Indo-pop, and missing the edgy innovation of artists such as M.I.A.

Well put. So far, the little music I've heard from her is kinda lame and her videos are the typical seductress pop vixen fluff. While she may get plenty of attention for being controversial, in the end she may end up having few devoted fans of her music. But hey, she is just starting out- she may eventually come up with something interesting. And one has to admit, if nothing else she is pretty easy on the eyes ;-)

Bush's Latest Press Conference: "History has proven democracies don't war."

2006-03-23T01:32:00.000-05:00

Last Tuesday Bush held a rare one-on-one press conference in a desperate attempt to boost sagging public support for the Iraq war. The press conference was particularly unusual for its candour- with the White House press corps actually doing its job and asking Shrubya some difficult questions. You can find the transcript and video of the press conference here on the White House website. I was somewhat surprised the Bushies actually put the transcript up in its entirety given the tough questions and Bush's lame performance. While they seemed to put up the whole transcript, not everything is on the level in the video. Having watched the original televised press conference, and the video on the government website, it's pretty obvious to me that the White House has sped up the video slightly in order to make Bush look more articulate then he actually is. I'm 95% certain of this. If someone can prove me wrong let me know. On TV he was talking quite a bit slower and fumbling for words, speeding up the video really helped smooth this out. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if they edited the transcript a bit too, but I haven't looked at it closely enough to tell.

Surprisingly, Helen Thomas, the 85 year old doyenne of the White House press corps was called upon for a question for the first time in 3 years. While a lot of the other reporters asked critical questions as well, this was the probably the harshest exchange of the whole press conference. Prior to this she had been locked out of questioning Bush, basically because she was too probing and critical- of course this is exactly what a good reporter should be doing. Here's the transcript from the Thomas/Bush exchange below:

THE PRESIDENT: Helen. After that brilliant performance at the Grid Iron, I am -- (laughter.)

Q You're going to be sorry. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: Well, then, let me take it back. (Laughter.)

Q I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House, from your Cabinet -- your Cabinet officers, intelligence people, and so forth -- what was your real reason? You have said it wasn't oil -- quest for oil, it hasn't been Israel, or anything else. What was it?

THE PRESIDENT: I think your premise -- in all due respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist -- is that -- I didn't want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect --

Q Everything --

THE PRESIDENT: Hold on for a second, please.

Q -- everything I've heard --

THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me, excuse me. No President wants war. Everything you may have heard is that, but it's just simply not true. My attitude about the defense of this country changed on September the 11th. We -- when we got attacked, I vowed then and there to use every asset at my disposal to protect the American people. Our foreign policy changed on that day, Helen. You know, we used to think we were secure because of oceans and previous diplomacy. But we realized on September the 11th, 2001, that killers could destroy innocent life. And I'm never going to forget it. And I'm never going to forget the vow I made to the American people that we will do everything in our power to protect our people.

Part of that meant to make sure that we didn't allow people to provide safe haven to an enemy. And that's why I went into Iraq -- hold on for a second --

Q They didn't do anything to you, or to our country.

THE PRESIDENT: Look -- excuse me for a second, please. Excuse me for a second. They did. The Taliban provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where al Qaeda trained --

Q I'm talking about Iraq --

THE PRESIDENT: Helen, excuse me. That's where -- Afghanistan provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where they trained. That's where they plotted. That's where they planned the attacks that killed thousands of innocent Americans.

I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That's why I went to the Security Council; that's why it was important to pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences --

Q -- go to war --

THE PRESIDENT: -- and therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it.

Q Thank you, sir. Secretary Rumsfeld -- (laughter.)

Q Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: You're welcome. (Laughter.) I didn't really regret it. I kind of semi-regretted it. (Laughter.)

Q -- have a debate.

THE PRESIDENT: That's right. Anyway, your performance at the Grid Iron was just brilliant -- unlike Holland's, was a little weak, but -- (laughter.)

My googling revealed that this ballsy old bird actually has her own podcast where she regular rips Shrubya a new one. Make no mistake Helen is an outspoken critic of the Bush administration. Here's another a link to a recent interview where she's being harassed by a right-wing radio host, Hugh Hewitt, for not liking Bush. Helen holds her own pretty well considering Hewitt has obviously ambushed her with the irrelevant line of questioning.

Clearly, the Bush administration, notorious for shielding Bush from any overly critical questions, recognizes that even they have to answer some of their critics given the increasing weariness over the Iraq debacle. The press conference was their attempt to provide a rebuttal to the growing dissent over their disintegrating foreign policy. I wasn't impressed. Just more of the same empty bluster...but this time with a lot less confidence.

My favorite 'Bushisms' from the press conference:

History has proven democracies don't war.

But I see progress. I've heard people say, oh, he's just kind of optimistic for the sake of optimism. Well, look, I believe we're going to succeed. And I understand how tough it is -- don't get me wrong -- I mean, you make it abundantly clear how tough it is. I hear it from our troops; I read the reports every night. But I believe -- I believe the Iraqis -- this is a moment where the Iraqis had a chance to fall apart, and they didn't. And that's a positive development.

I believe that my job is to go out and explain to people what's on my mind. That's why I'm having this press conference, see. I'm telling you what's on my mind. And what's on my mind is winning the war on terror. And I understand war creates concerns, Jim. Nobody likes war. It creates a sense of -- of uncertainty in the country.

Wafa Sultan's Interview on Israeli Radio

2006-03-21T05:24:00.000-05:00

Recently Wafa Sultan, the West's great beige hope for Muslim reform was
interviewed on Arutz Sheva, Israeli National News Radio. She was interview by Rabbi Tovia Singer who is apparently a famous right-wing talk radio host in the Israeli media.

It's pretty amusing to listen to Singer's unctuous flattering of Wafa. Even more entertaining is listening to Wafa snatch the bait wholeheartedly. After a glowing introduction where Singer literally expresses his love for Wafa, she explains her role as the anointed one self-appointed to tear down the wall of ignorance blocking 'her people' off from modernity. She actually says "I've been asking myself who the savior is, and answering myself by saying 'It is me'". Even Singer seems taken aback at certain points by the self-righteous tone she seems to take on at points. At least you have to give her credit for having self-confidence. Then again one person confidence is another's delusions of grandeur ;-) She finally seems to wake up a bit from her self-aggrandizing reverie at the end of the interview when Singer tries to extract some pro-Israeli statements out of her, and appears to register that he might be using her to prop up his anti-Palestinian agenda. One can only give her credit for falling back on her proclaimed secular humanism by emphasizing how both sides of the Israel/Palestine conflict need to recognize the humanity in each other.

She certainly seems committed to 'spreading her message' and willing to face the inevitable rejection, threats, and scorn that will come her way. She has already announced plans to publish a book called 'The Escaped Prisoner: When God is a Monster'. However, the fact that she gives her first 'western' interview to some far-right Israeli radio bloviator isn't the most promising sign for her chances of bringing on an 'Islamic enlightenment'. Not to mention her strong atheist message is unlikely to have much resonance among devout Muslims. Nonetheless, I'm sure we'll be hearing more about Wafa in the near future. She's certainly endeared herself to the anti-Islamist right (and much of the left for that matter) in the West. That will likely secure her healthy book sales, at least in the English language market ;-)

The Evolution of the Razorblade

2006-03-20T00:51:00.000-05:00

The razorblade tech wars continue with Gillette uping the ante anouncing the'fusion' five blade razor.

Eerily this was forecast in this prescient Onion article.

The economist speculates on a shaving Moore's law enabling us to predict future progress in razorblade tech.

Real Life Horror Story from India

2006-03-19T02:31:00.000-05:00

"This happened about a month or two ago near Lonavala, and even though it sounds like something out of the X Files or the Twilight Zone...it actually happened! This guy drives from Mumbai to Pune and decides not to take the new expressway as he wants to see the scenery. The inevitable happens and when he reaches the ghats his car breaks down - he's stranded miles from nowhere. Having no choice he starts walking on the side of the road, hoping to get a lift to the nearest human habitation. It's dark and raining and pretty soon he's wet and shivering. The night rolls on and no car goes by, the monsoon rains are so strong he can hardly see a few feet ahead of him. Suddenly in the midst of pitch black night he barely makes out a car just a few feet away, coming towards him with its headlights out. The strange vehicle stops next to him. The guy is SO relieved to see another human soul that he immediately flings open the car's door and jumps in without a second thought. Seated in the back, he leans forward to thank the person who had saved him when he realizes there is nobody behind the wheel! Even though there's no one in the front seat and no sound of any engine,the car starts moving slowly. The guy looks at the road ahead and sees a curve coming the hills and there is a steep drop beyond the curve). Scared almost to death he starts to pray, begging the Lord for his life. He hasn't come out of shock, when just before he hits the curve, a hand appears through the window and moves the wheel! The car makes the curve safely and continues on the road to the next bend. The guy, now paralyzed in terror, watches how the hand appears every time the car is at a curve and moves the steering wheel just enough to get it around each bend. Finally, the guy sees lights ahead. Gathering his courage he wrenches open the door of then silent, slowly moving car, scrambles out and runs as hard as he can towards the lights. It's a small town. Wet and in shock goes to a roadside dhabba, which is open, and asks for a drink. They find some hooch and give him a shot. And he starts telling whoever is in the dhabba about the horrifying experience he just went through. A silence envelops everybody when they realize the guy isn't drunk, and is really frightened - he's crying and shaking. So they give him more hooch and talk about what they should do, whether to call the police or find a priest, or what. But just then two tired looking men walk into the dhabba. One excitedly points a finger and says to his friend "Look Raj! That's the asshole that got in the car when we were pushing it..."

Canada gives safe harbour to music freebooters

2006-03-16T06:14:00.000-05:00

Pay for me music?? Arrr, take that you scurvy CRIA dawg!

Another reason to be proud of Canada. According to the The Canadian Recording Industry Association(CRIA) Canada has the highest per capita rate of illegal MP3 downloads in the world! In light of this, the CRIA has been
bitching and complaining about Canada's lax copyright protection laws. According to the CRIA illegal downloading hasn't just hurt the music industry but also software developers.

Canada's failure to modernize its copyright laws has come at considerable cost to the economy. A recent study conducted for the Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft (CAAST), an industry alliance of software publishers, found that software piracy rates in Canada are significantly higher (36 percent) than those of major trading partners such as the United States (21 percent) and the United Kingdom (27 percent) that have enacted digital copyright reforms. As a result, Canada has lost more than 14,000 jobs and suffers $7 billion in annual economic losses in the software industry alone. For Canada's music industry, the rise of file-swapping coincided with a 41 percent - or $541 million -- decrease in retail sales of pre-recorded CDs and cassettes between 1999 and 2005 and a 20 percent loss in employment.

Waaaah waah. So a number large software and music companies suffer some economic loss. It's likely massively overstated because many of those 'pirates' wouldn't own the software or music if they couldn't get it for free. And just think about all the wealth in digital products gained by the starving masses out there with high-speed connections ;-) However dark clouds are gathering as Canada is looking to 'tightening' up its copyright laws.

OK, even I admit that 'something will have to done' about illegal downloading, but what's going to work is probably something far different than what most in the recording industry think should happen. The reality is that the nature of the medium makes a mockery of strict copyright laws regardless of what the courts decide. Most digital content can ultimately be hacked and cracked. The content providers can make it extremely difficult for the hackers to do their work but someone will eventually find a method for circumventing their barriers. Once these protections have been broken the digital content can then easily be 'shared' via the world wide web. Not to mention there will always be countries like Canada and Sweden which will have less strict interpretations of copyright which will make other countries laws harder to enforce. Given that a strict interpretation of copyright law is virtually impossible to enforce, because of the decentralized nature of the internet and ease of reproducing digital content, a major task of media enterprises of all sorts will be figuring out ways of generating revenue through their using audience. Charging users to own the content isn't the only way producers of the content have to make money. There is also advertising and even donation models that do work for some. A good analogy is the advent of commercial radio or television. The creators of radio or television content didn't start demanding that 'users' pay for their product. Rather they developed an advertising sponsorship model to fund their work.
A pay-to-own model can still work for providers of media content. But it will only work if the price to own that content is low enough to make it worthwhile for the consumer to buy it from a 'legitimate' source. The reality is that, any digital content can be reproduced and spread at virtually no cost. It simply isn't the equivalent of stealing a bunch of CDs or DVDs. On top of that, you can't regulate your way to a monopoly on the internet, digital information is too easily manipulated and spread. Many will probably dispute this and point to the emerging monopoly on MP3s that Apple itunes has. Sure a company like Apple has a growing monopoly on MP3 devices, offering the possibility of a monopoly on the distribution MP3s. This has definitely bolstered the pay-to-own model through itunes. Eventually, I'm sure as the pay-to-own internet distribution models mature there will be a push to eliminate CDs to tighten up their monopoly on distribution. But inevitably there will be someone out there that will find a way to get past the barriers they put up, and much of that protected content will find it's way on the internet and will be distributed for free.

There is now a strong hacking/cracking culture committed to keeping as much content as possible free on the internet. Free content has its advantages, it more readily allows for the free flow of information and ideas. Take public libraries as an example, it can be argued that libraries deprive many authors of a great deal of revenue. But fortunately there is a strong culture of promoting the free flow of ideas amongst authors and in the publishing industry- there has to be free access to books since everyone should have access to the ideas they promote. This idea of knowledge being accessible by all was not always promoted. In various stages knowledge and writing was monopolized by a priestly, scribal, or bureaucratic class, much like trade guilds monopolized the trade and know-how of a specific craft. One of the main things that brought about a literate culture with a free flow of ideas in Europe was the printing press which made producing books much less expensive. Now with the contemporary computing and communications technology, ALL media are reproduced at virtually no cost. Therefore, this content should be much cheaper for the consumer than it was before. Even more important, people who can't afford to buy the content should not be deprived of the right to view it since it costs the producer nothing to allow them access. There will likely be tremendous benefits to society as a whole of allowing free access to all types of media.
In my view, the recording industry should be selling their music for much cheaper prices. If they did, many more people would actually pay for their music online. Why is itunes charging $1 a song?! That's pretty close to the price they charge for a song on a CD, yet the overhead for distributing the music is much lower. Not to mention, with the advent of cheap software for music production, the cost of producing the music should also be far lower, and can now even be done independent of a high-priced studio. The music industry is gouging the consumer because they have a great deal of control over the means of distributing and producing the content- it's as simple as that. How about a dime or a quarter for each song? If they charged 10 cents a song I'd probably get most of my music 'legally'. Why should the price of a song cost roughly the same as it did when the only effective distribution method for music was CDs, tapes, records? I don't have any stats but I'm willing to wager that in the case of many artists the bulk of the recording industries money goes into advertising. Why not throw the music out on the wild world of the web and let the strong songs survive. The good songs will natural reproduce and spread- you don't need to spend as much to hype stuff up in the age of viral marketing and considering how fanatical music fans can be. A devoted horde of music fans will do all the marketing for you. And if the music is unable to garner a devoted fan base on its own than why should some corporation prop it up. It's corporate subsidies for music. Not to mention that much of the music they 'patronize' is watered-down content-free unoriginal garbage that they promote because it's the easiest to spoon-feed to a mass audience. In the digital age, a mass audience isn't required to support the production and distribution of music.

Will the record execs ever get it? Some of them definitely don't; they just don't realize that a new medium often comes with a new business model. Some of them probably do and resist anyways because they realize they're profits are largely a product of the influence they have they have over the means of music distribution. Regardless, the future of music is going to be more decentralized in production, distribution and marketing. This will mean a much greater variety of music- a much wider body of musicians (part and fulltime) being able earn some money by creating music. And yes it will also probably mean fewer millionaire superstars. A wide variety of easily accessible, interesting and good music, versus, popstar hype 'for the masses' churned out by corporate execs. I know what model I prefer.

Muslim R.A.H. Profile #1: Wafa Sultan

2006-03-14T01:08:00.000-05:00

This is the first installment in a new series on Blovi-blog. Every couple of weeks I'll be featuring a new Muslim R.A.H. (Reformer, Apostate, or Heretic). The militants and fundamentalists steal all the limelight, while the challengers of the orthodoxy usually only garner attention when someone is trying to kill them. In that light, the R.A.H. will be dedicated to highlighting all the Muslim dissenters and critics out there. Yes, they do actually exist. Some of these people are quite articulate and perceptive, some aren't. But the all of them deserve some respect for promoting open debate about religion in the Muslim world.

My first profile is a rising star in the arena of critical debate on Islam, Wafa Sultan. In the last week or so, the video of her controversial interview on Al-Jazeera has been spending a lot of time zipping around the fiber-optic arteries of cyberspace. You can find Wafa Sultan's famous Al-Jazeera appearance here. Here is a link to the transcript of her Al-Jazeera appearance on the M.E.M.R.I. website. Here's are some of the more interesting remarks she made in the debate:

The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality.

The Prophet of Islam said: "I was ordered to fight the people until they believe in Allah and His Messenger." When the Muslims divided the people into Muslims and non-Muslims, and called to fight the others until they believe in what they themselves believe, they started this clash, and began this war. In order to start this war, they must re-examine their Islamic books and curricula, which are full of calls for takfir and fighting the infidels.

What civilization on the face of this earth allows him to call other people by names that they did not choose for themselves? Once, he calls them Ahl Al-Dhimma, another time he calls them the "People of the Book," and yet another time he compares them to apes and pigs, or he calls the Christians "those who incur Allah's wrath." Who told you that they are "People of the Book"? They are not the People of the Book, they are people of many books. All the useful scientific books that you have today are theirs, the fruit of their free and creative thinking.

The Jews have come from the tragedy (of the Holocaust), and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror, with their work, not their crying and yelling. Humanity owes most of the discoveries and science of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists. 15 million people, scattered throughout the world, united and won their rights through work and knowledge. We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. The Muslims have turned three Buddha statues into rubble. We have not seen a single Buddhist burn down a Mosque, kill a Muslim, or burn down an embassy. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people, and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.

Wafa apparently chose her words to be as provocative as possible for the Al-Jazeera audience. She passionately states her case and it's pretty obvious there's a great deal of anger behind what she says. If nothing else, you have to admire this woman's courage to assert her taboo opinions so openly. By openly stating such controversial views she is sure to have generated some debate in the Arab world. She does raise some valid points about the barbarity of religiously-motivated violence, it's prevalence in Islam today, and the orthodox ideas that perpetuate them. In traditional Muslim societies where this sort of debate is forbidden, this may be the first time they've heard an Arab woman openly make such arguments. However, much of what she says is overblown rhetoric, and of course it's completely one-sided. I came across this interesting rebuttal to the M.E.M.R.I video and transcript of her appearance on a Desicritics discussion thread (scroll to the bottom of the page, comment #18). I don't agree with all of the points, the posts author occassionaly resorts to Wafa-style rhetorical tactics at points and makes a spurious claim about her being a Coptic Christian. Nonentheless, I found the points about the translation and editing of the debate by M.E.M.R.I, and the misrepresentation of the Quranic passages Wafa makes reference to in the debate to support her claims to be very valid points.
Hmm, how is she a hero?

to those that will bother to learn:

i WATCHED this clip on Al Jazeera itself, and guess what, EVERY point she said was replied to, and after a certain point, she changed her tone... don't take memri seriously cause it's biased EVEN in words translated.

anywho, here are some points to those that'll bother to read:

1- This clip is incomplete, there's a HUGE part that's NOT in there, where SHE ended up looking like an idiot and changing her tone because she knew what she was saying was wrong. memri is VERY selective, notice the cuts in the video.

2- If you think stuff like this doesn't come on Al jazeera and other arab channels all the time, you're kidding me... you need to follow arab tv more before you critize it... believe it or not, Al-Jazeera was Bush's pal before they broadcasted something bush didn't like. Yay.

3- secondly mistranslations from memri such as "woman as a beast, no, woman as a mule" "are you a heretic, no , are you an Atheist" "secular, no, science believer" "i'm a secular person that does not believe in spirtual things, no, i am a science beleving woman that does not believe in anything paranormal" memri is VERY selective in translations to invoke even more anger. especially the heretic point, since he wasn't insulting her, he was asking her if she was an atheist or not. (and additon i'm just adding, he was saying that if she was an atheist, then there is no blame on her of committing blasphemy, which actually SHOWS civility)

4- other than her points, which mostly DON"T make sense and which SHE HERSELF retracted afterwards (in the part you don't see) it's obvious by anyone that knows arabic is that her Arabic is NOT native, it's TAUGHT as a second or third language. any phonetics expert could tell that.

5- it's obvious she hasn't been in most of the muslim countries lately if she thinks we're backwards and living in some sort of "repression and ignorance" do yourself a favor, do a search on Melody tv and/or singers such as the egyptain "ruby" the lebanese "nancy agram" and a zillion others, or do a search for arabic movies from even the 1950's and before.

6- she opposes that muslims refer to non-muslims with names they haven't chosen, well then she should be offended by the term 'goy' ,'gentiles', 'unenlightened' and whatever term christians use or used to denote non christians... and don't even CLAIM they didn't exist, because guess what, christians thought non christians were barbarians and savages and that's why there were missionaries, you know who else thought they needed to bring enlightment to others? the japanese when they invaded and buthchered china.
anywho, for the terms she opposes;

a- "Ahl el Beit" directly means "people of the house" meaning wise means: people of the house of God.

b- "ahl el kotob" directly means "people of the book" meaning wise means: people of the books of God, i.e people who believe in one of the holy books (torah, Enjeel, Qu'ran).

c- "ahl el Dhimma" directly means "people of Concience" meaning wise means: people who have concience.

d- "el nasara" directly means "the victory helpers" meaning wise: "those who saved the Muslims" or "those that stood by the muslims" in islamic history, when the Prophet Mohammed and his followers were being attacked and killed in Mecca, they left for Madina, Madina was a Christian City, and the people of Madina helped the Prophet and the muslims, and they shared their houses and Bread, el Nasara is a term used to show how much islam LOVES these people.

so far, the above three names AREN"T in any way offensive... now let's see what she says that SEEMS offensive:

a- " El Maghdoob 3alehom" (3 denotes a sound unavalible in english) : directly means :"those that are angered upon" meaning wise : "those that God frowns upon, or God is angry at" HOWEVER, this word is NOT used to refer to christians or jews , or even ANYONE in particular, it is used to refer to those that have gone astray and God is angry at, it's part of a prayer that basically is asking God not to be one of those Gone astray... not so evil sounding now is it?

b- "el khanzeer we'll Korooud" : "the monkeys and pigs" (both translations) : Everyone attacks this point for existing... HOWEVER what they don't understand, YES it exists in the Qu'ran but it's telling part of a story.
In the story, Some people angered God so God turned them to Pigs and Monkeys. and yes these people WERE jews. however this story is a story that PREDATES Islam by eons, and it's not used to riducle or attack jews, it's used to show that EVEN followers of God can anger God if they disobey him. in this vein i guess everyone should attack both the bible and the Qu'ran for having mass genocide (Noah's Flood).
are these words used in a bad way? Yes, sometimes by some people THEY ARE USED, but then again, so is the term Sand Nigger.

i can't recall what other names she was "angry at"

7- in NO part of Islam does it call to "Fight non muslims until they believe" in fact, in Part of the Qu'ran, The Prophet was sad that he couldn't get everyone to believe in God, and God told him " I ordered you to Preach to them, NOT to force or convert them,if you can go into the deepest earths or highest heavens, to find something that would make them believe, then do so, If i willed, i would make everyone a believer."

YAY FOR MISINFORMATION! i hope the above passage cleared up the view of "FORCING" someone into a religon, which DOESN"T EXIST in islam. and umais already said, it's spreading in europe and the usa and other western cultures... is anyone FORCING them to convert?

8- Muslims started a culture clash or a clash of civilizations? really? hmm, that's odd... i thought people were doing that for centuries and ages and ages.... even before the existance of muslims.... hmm... anyone care to clarify to me how this is even possible? is it a time paradox of some sort? did some muslim guy invent a time machine or something?

9- as for saying "they're people of all scientific books" yeah, go ahead and ignore all the arab and muslim influences on science... in fact go ahead and ignore the MUSLIM egyptain scientist called "Ahmed Zoweil" who's researches have more or less changed physics for the past few years. yeah.

10- As for her point that no jews burn embassies or kill germans... some probably did, but other than that, did she point out that they've killed and bombed arabs and their holy places?

Maybe she is secular, but she is misinformed in her suggestions that The arabic and muslim world hasn't added anything to the worlds of science. Perhaps not so much in the modern world but they paved the way, pretty much all modern maths (algebra and further concepts of greek geometry) originated in the mid east.

Now on her statement that other peoples (christians, buddhists and jews were what she mentioned) don't commit attrocities for their religions and specifically the Jews who have achieved everything with hardwork and perserverence rather than complaining and murder;

The creation of Israel is the bloodiest blackest event in Jewish history. Not only did they conduct an incredibly violent hostile takeover in 1948 after they were eventually awarded a state, before that time they committed acts of terrorism both in the mid east and on the King David Hotel (a British fortress in Jerusalem) to muscle their way into Palestine.

Another main pivotal argument for the creation of Israel, the rights and respect attained by jews as the speaker suggested, was the holocaust. It is known that the Zionist movement used the holocaust as leverage and continue to defend their actions and label anyone who questions them as antisemetic.

If 50 years ago is too long ago to consider Jewish terrorism as significant then consider everyday of the time since then. Israelis broke into ['Israelis' is wrong, I believe he's referring to Baruch Goldstein] a mosque not too long ago and sprayed hundreds of bullets into the place murdering many not so long ago is just one such example of terror comitted in the name of Israel.

Christians aren't much better, from the Crusades where they roasted babies up to the conflict in Ireland and one can even argue American foreign policy today is Christian aggression.

also be sure not to ignore the recent attack on a church by 3 israeli's (one jewish) (there's an article i posted about it on shoutwire) , the attack on people PRAYING at the Aqsa mosque, the uss liberty, the borrowing that's threatening to make the Aqsa mosque collapse and a million other such attacks... Yes i know not all jews have done this, but hey, since she's generlizing i might as well do the same!

11- Islam says Judgement lies with God only... which is why there is a story in the Qu'ran about a brother that was constently praying, and another that wasn't... the one that was praying went to his brother and told him that he's going to go to hell, in the end it was the brother that was praying all the time that went to hell because he had done more evil even though he was praying at the same time.

12- she is not an atheist, she is a Coptic Christian. [She's defended Copts publicly but is a Syrian of Muslim background] She's well known in egypt.

13- in the videoclip, in arabic, she ATTACKED ALL MUSLIMS, and supported ALL Jews, she did NOT single out extremists in islam.

The point about M.E.M.R.I. being biased has been reiterated by Juan Cole and Dr. Bhaskar Dasgupta. M.E.M.R.I. has a very strong presence on the internet but undeniably has a strong pro-Israel agenda. Not exactly the most balanced source of information on the Arab media.

The NYTimes wrote a somewhat sympathetic piece on Wafa. In it we learn that the killing of one her professors during a vicious anti-Baathist uprising by Muslim militants is the key event that precipitated her questioning of Islam. By the way, this was a vicious uprising on both sides in which Syria's dictator at the time Hafez Al-Assad killed some 10000-40000 dissidents. You can find a somewhat more critical article about Wafa in the LA Times.

According to the NYTimes piece she's already received some death threats.

One message said: "Oh, you are still alive? Wait and see." She received an e-mail message the other day, in Arabic, that said, "If someone were to kill you, it would be me."

Dr. Sultan said her mother, who still lives in Syria, is afraid to contact her directly, speaking only through a sister who lives in Qatar. She said she worried more about the safety of family members here and in Syria than she did for her own.

"I have no fear," she said. "I believe in my message. It is like a million-mile journey, and I believe I have walked the first and hardest 10 miles."

While she's certainly captured a great deal of attention with her provocative statements, will her message have much resonance in the Muslim world? She's won a lot of admirers in the West. One of the many Western blogs bravely 'standing on guard for the free world against Islamofascism' has proclaimed her to be the first Muslim Voltaire. Maybe just a tad premature? ;-) After all Voltaire was a highly regarded intellectual before he ever took on the Christian establishment, was an outstanding scholar of Christianity, and wrote an enormous amount- he wrote over 20000 letters alone not to mention books, pamplets, novels etc. (he would have been a kick-ass blogger). Given that Wafa was born in the middle-east and is fluent in Arabic, she certainly has more credibility than some other 'Westernized' critics of orthodox Islam such as Irshad Manji. She has also won some praise from a few secular Muslims. However, I'm quite certain the majority of Muslims would interpret her message as nothing more than a full frontal assault on their fortress of faith. In their eyes she probably comes across more as dangerously unbalanced, and a 'brainwashed sell-out', rather than rational and brave. In the LA Times article she's quoted as saying "I don't believe you can reform Islam". Her message obviously isn't a constructive reformist one, nor is it truly one of religious tolerance. It's a strong athiest message, it is clear Wafa hopes to tear down the walls of a faith she's come to despise. Sometimes hearing this sort of message can be a good thing, it can help wake the great mass of slumbering and complascent believers. On the other hand, this approach can backfire and end up provoking a vicious backlash. Not to mention it helps to bolster some of the most unfair and one-sided anti-Islamic rhetoriticians that currently flourish in the West. While she does raise very important points about the intolerance and rigidity plaguing contemporary Islam, in my view her repudiation of all things Muslim is driven as much by anger and hatred as it is by reason. The website she started her career as a critic on Annaqed (The Critic), is full of similar enraged anti-Muslim and pro-US rhetoric. I'm partial to a more cold-blooded and synthetic approach to debating the issues- I think it produces a lot more meaningful progress in the long run and less destructive backlash. Even though I wished she toned down the rhetoric and took a more balanced approach, one has to admit her uber-confrontational style has stirred up some discussion among Muslims. Unfortunately, since much of what she says is unbalanced and totally lacking in nuance, it will be easy for critics to pick apart her arguments and ultimately ignore what she has to say.

One of the things this interview clearly demonstrates is that Al-Jazeera is a genuine forum for democractic and open debate. The accusation that they're a mouthpiece for extremists is misleading at best. They allow free debate like no other media outlet in the Arab world. Occassionaly free debate is going to bring up some voices that people won't want to hear but that comes with territory. Open Source recently had a very informative show on Al-Jazeera, you can find it here.

The debates were aired on the Al Jazeera show Al-Itijah Al-Mu'akis, Opposite Directions, a very provocative debate program hosted and put together by Dr. Faisal al-Qassim. The show is notorious for getting extreme voices on different sides of very devisive issues. Apparently this show is hugely popular and has a reputation for debating any issue, no subject or opinion is taboo- as demonstrated by the Sultan video. Ironically, Opposite Directions has been the source of much of the 'unacceptable comments' which have led to government censorship of Al Jazeera. Not only in Iraq but in the West as well. If the West is serious about encouraging free speech in the Muslim world it has to learn to tolerate shows like this. Of course there's going to be some people who espouse a militant Islamist perspective because it exists in the region, but at the same time there will be plenty of voices to argue a pro-Western and reformist ideas. In the end, censorship ends up cutting off debate.

Wafa Sultan's vital R.A.H. stats:

Religious status: Apostate, Secular humanist

Location: Syrian-born, Currently living in Los Angeles.

Raging Against the Mullahs Since:

July, 2005

What Got Her R.A.H. Ball Rolling:

Watching one of her professors being killed by militants from the Muslim Brotherhood.

Exposure Rating (0-10):

In the Muslim world- 5
In the West- 8

Likelihood of Influencing Muslim Reform (0-10):

2, she's declared herself to be non-Muslim. It's not going to win her much influence among the devout majority.

Special Abilities:

Talent for delivering a sustained, eloquent, and forceful rant in hostile territory.

Weaknesses:

Too much hate behind her words. One-sided, totally lacking in any nuance. Possibly emotionally unstable and probably will allow the anti-Islamists fawning get to her head.

Most provocative quote to date:
The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings. What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete.

Bush Announces Energy Breakthrough??

2006-03-13T06:43:00.000-05:00

Bush recently announced that the US is on the verge of startling new energy breakthroughs.

This is the most entertaining part of the whole article:

On Tuesday, Bush plans to visit the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., to talk about speeding the development of biofuels.

The lab, with a looming $28 million budget shortfall, had announced it was cutting its staff by 32 people, including eight researchers. But in advance of Bush's visit, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman over the weekend directed the transfer of $5 million to the private contractor that runs the lab, so the jobs can be saved.

Great strategy shrub. Get all those research labs lean, mean and downsized so they'll be all primed to pump out the next revolutionary energy breakthrough. Right.You can find a copy of Shrub's speech to the funding starved NREL here.

You probably don't need to hear this but it's worth repeating. Scientific research under Bush has been
highly politicized and funding hasn't kept pace since he came to power. His record on funding research and development in the area of alternative energy isn't any better than his funding of research in general.
Despite the hoopla of the president's whirlwind tour, and his promises of more federal dollars in the future, the nation's premier center for research into wind, solar, and ethanol energy labors under a shrunken budget at a time when consumers are facing record-high prices for fossil fuels. Regardless of the last-minute move that allowed NREL to hire back its fired workers, the center's funding is down 11 percent from last year, and Bush's proposed budget would not even restore the lab to 2005 levels.

So why is Bush hyping up alternative energy all of a sudden? Is he privy to some earth-shaking new tech developments that will come to fruition with a bit more funding? I highly doubt it. More than likely he's just talking up some minor tech developments in order to stave off criticism from the energy independence crowd. The beneficial environmental and security effects of alternative energy development can't reasonably be denied even by the most rabid and cynical of the neocons. Another likely reason for hyping-up alternative energy developments is the need to make pre-emptive maneuvers to appease a furious US electorate in the event of $100 a barrel oil. If oil prices do rise that high, and the average citizen gets drained every time they go to the pump, feeding them dreams about a glorious alternative energy future is better than nothing. At least Shrub will be able to say he's doing something about the problem. Probably a smart idea considering the midterm elections are about half a year away.

I wonder how much further alternative energy would be if Gore were elected in 2000. I'm pretty certain he would have massively increased funding in this area after 9-11. Well presuming it would have happened on his watch ;-)

More Political Quizzes

2006-03-12T17:22:00.000-05:00

Here's a couple more political quizzes.

This one is from the Fraser Institute. Basically a Canadian version of the Shortest Political Quiz in the world I had a link to in the previous post. Again, I view is it as how a libertarian would see your particular political ideology.

Here's another one from the US, from a website called Politopia. According to that one I'm socially liberal and in favour of bigger government. The most interesting part of the quiz tells you what part of the US agrees most with your political views. Apparently I should be living in California.

I thought this next quiz was actually the best of the lot. It's pretty similar to the one from Politopia but I think it's little more thoughtfully put together. It tries a little harder to get at the underlying attitudes that ultimately determine your political views rather than just listing off a bunch of very specific issues. You can find it here on the Political Compass website. Here's an explanation of the test and how I scored on it.

About The Political Compass
In the introduction, we explained the inadequacies of the traditional left-right line.
If we recognize that this is essentially an economic line it's fine, as far as it goes. We can show, for example, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and Pol Pot, with their commitment to a totally controlled economy, on the hard left. Socialists like Mahatma Gandhi and Robert Mugabe would occupy a less extreme leftist position. Margaret Thatcher would be well over to the right, but further right still would be someone like that ultimate free marketeer, General Pinochet.
That deals with economics, but the social dimension is also important in politics. That's the one that the mere left-right scale doesn't adequately address. So we've added one, ranging in positions from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian.
Both an economic dimension and a social dimension are important factors for a proper political analysis. By adding the social dimension you can show that Stalin was an authoritarian leftist (ie the state is more important than the individual) and that Gandhi, believing in the supreme value of each individual, is a liberal leftist. While the former involves state-imposed arbitary collectivism in the extreme top left, on the extreme bottom left is voluntary collectivism at regional level, with no state involved. Hundreds of such anarchist communities exisited in Spain during the civil war period.
You can also put Pinochet, who was prepared to sanction mass killing for the sake of the free market, on the far right as well as in a hardcore authoritarian position. On the non-socialist side you can distinguish someone like Milton Friedman, who is anti-state for fiscal rather than social reasons, from Hitler, who wanted to make the state stronger, even if he wiped out half of humanity in the process.
The chart also makes clear that, despite popular perceptions, the opposite of fascism is not communism but anarchism (ie liberal socialism), and that the opposite of communism ( i.e. an entirely state-planned economy) is neo-liberalism (i.e. extreme deregulated economy).
The usual understanding of anarchism as a left wing ideology does not take into account the neo-liberal "anarchism" championed by the likes of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and America's Libertarian Party, which couples law of the jungle right-wing economics with liberal positions on most social issues. Often their libertarian impulses stop short of opposition to strong law and order positions, and are more economic in substance (ie no taxes) so they are not as extremely libertarian as they are extremely right wing. On the other hand, the classical libertarian collectivism of anarcho-syndicalism ( libertarian socialism) belongs in the bottom left hand corner.

Here's my score

Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -1.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.15

According to the test this means I'm basically in the center on the economic scale, and pretty far towards the Libertarian side on the social scale.

Here's a couple graphs showing how the 'professional team' of the political compass website ranked some famous figures. The first graph shows how they rated the various Canadian political parties in the last election. The second graph shows how they ranked contemporary political figures. The third if their highly speculative ranking of the political views of composers. I get the feeling their test is a little too skewed towards the libertarian and left sides of the scale, but they're some interesting results nonetheless.

Hat tip to Eugene Plawiuk over at the Revue Gauche for pointing out Political Compass test.

Those Old Fashioned Values

2006-03-12T03:08:00.000-05:00

Recently read one of the most famous quotes attributed to Genghis Khan. Found it an interesting book called The Empire of Debt (I plan on writing a review on this book sometime soon). I think the anecdote speaks for itself:

One of the Khan's generals commented that the sweetest pleasure in life was practising the art of falconry. This was Genghis' reply:
No, you are mistaken. Man's greatest good fortune is to chase and defeat his enemy, seize his total possessions, leave his married women weeping and wailing, ride his gelding and use the bodies of his women as a nightshirt and support.

Ahh, the good old days, when real men were maurading murdering rapists. Fortunately, people have changed. Or have they really? I think it's more accurate to say that the basic human instincts are the same, but are channeled in more productive directions by 'civilized' rules of engagement. In the long run it's better for everyone involved to slay their opponents in the market place, or in a debate, than to actually fire an arrow into to their eyesocket. I have to admit though, there are times when the latter would be far more rewarding in the short-term ;-)

For those of you not familiar with Genghis' wonderful record here's my very brief summary. The 12th and 13th century are often called the "Age of the Mongols". The Mongol armies during that time were extremely well organized, using the classic central Asian steppe warrior tactics lethally combining superb horsemanship with deadly accurate archery skills. Genghis was clever enough to use blitz and withdraw tactics in the field and was able to learn how to conduct seige warfare mainly during his conquest of Chinese cities. Genghis conquered and laid waste to Northern China, Central Asia, and 'Persia'. He had a habit of completely annihilating entire cities usually when they offered any sort of resistance to his armies. But on occasion he slaughtered entire cities even if they didn't resist because 'he had no use for them' (particularly in areas of modern-day western Afghanistan, areas which never fully recovered from the Mongol depredations). His offspring continued his legacy laying waste to much of the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and his blood could be found running through the veins of later mass-murdering conquerors such as Tamerlane. His conquests laid the foundations of the largest land empire in the history of the world. The death toll (by battle, massacre, and famine) of the Mongol wars of conquest has been placed as high as 40-60 million, up to one fifth of the world's population at the time.

And what's the reward for being one of mankind's greatest butchers. Here's a passage from the Wikipedia entry on Genghis:

Historians and scientists are looking into positive aspects of Genghis Khan's conquests. Genghis Khan, successor Khans and Mongols are credited to bringing the Silk Route under one cohesive political environment... Genghis Khan is ranked #29 on Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential people in history. An article that appeared in the Washington Post on December 31, 1995 selected Genghis Khan as "Man of the Millenium".

Splendid idea, since there's no longer any full-blooded visceral record of his crimes (i.e. since there was no one with a camera to capture what an entire city of people being slaughtered by hand looks like), let's glorify him as a great empire builder. The ivory-tower dwelling sophists that come up with these types of arguments are the same sort who argue that war can be a good thing when it stimulates a moribund economy, or the black death was ultimately for the best since it helped to bring on the renaissance. Don't believe a word of this Panglossian nonsense. If someone dropped a nuke on London I'm sure you could find some positive consequences after the fact. Word of advice for future rampaging conquerors, make sure you win. The old adage of the winner writing history is true. But probably a more accurate way of putting it, any winner with any sort of lasting constructive legacy is always viewed kindly by history- no matter how much they destroyed to establish their dominance. After all, the ruler usually gets a good chunk of the credit for anything positive happening during their reign.

But what was the biggest prize was for good old Genghis, this great sower of human misery:

The authors of a paper published in 2003 identified a Y-chromosomal lineage present in about 8% of the men (or about 0.5% of the men in the world if extrapolated) in a large region of Asia stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea...The authors propose that the lineage is carried by likely male-line descendents of Genghis Khan, and that it has spread not through any biological advantage, but through social selection resulting from their behavior.

The quote from Genghis doesn't just reveal the mindset of one man, but it reveals some of the 'values' most men living in a conquering warrior society would have held. It isn't just pleasurable, but somehow a good thing for the most savage and strong to exterminate (or at least dominate) the peaceful and weak. It's certainly hackneyed, but it's undeniable that much of human history is a litany of horrors and outrages. It's an important reminder to all the gloomy cynics out there: for the most part, the world used to be a much more wretched place for human beings than it is now. Despite all the talk of inhumanity and decadence of our modern age, we're largely shielded from the ugliest side of the life. We only catch glimpses of what real human depravity is vicariously. The vast majority of us only see the tip of the iceberg in our day to day interactions with others.

A lot of you are probably thinking to yourself: Why is he bringing up all this ancient history?? First of all, I think it shows that those who look to the past for a some golden-age better than the one we live in are deluded. I'm definitely not saying that history can't teach us anything, on the contrary it shows how humans behave in a variety of circumstances- it reveals a great deal about human nature. The genetic legacy of Genghis Khan is as clear a demonstration as any that our human heritage is largely a product of the most ruthless and savage triumphing over those with more gentle temperaments. In other words, much of human nature has been inherited from the most savage competitors in life and death zero-sum contests. Of course, some of human nature is also a product of those who successfully learned to cooperate with each other as well. We do derive much of our inheritance from those likeable backslapping ancestors who had amenable and ingratiating characteristics. The inner savage can be noble and generous but also hideously cruel as well. In my view, it is clear that much of human morality is about promoting 'the greater good' over the natural selfish, base, and destructive human instincts that lie in all of us. Natural impulses are not necessarily good. This idea was eloquently presented in Robert Wright's The Moral Animal, I highly recommend it.

Believe it or not, I'm an optimist. The constructive side of humanity has been winning over time, the progress of civilization is a testament to that (Actually, Robert Wright wrote another great book exactly on that topic called NonZero). But we shouldn't forget from where we came from...and what we always have to potential to return to.

For a humourous take on good old fashioned male warrior values, check out Gary Brecher's article (one those wretched souls over at the Exile), on how an old fashioned Dane might have dealt with the whole Muhammad cartoon kerfuffle.

Virtual Tour: Scenes From Rural China

2006-03-10T07:14:00.000-05:00

Beautiful pictures of rural landscapes in Southern China.

Libertarian Quizzes

2006-03-07T18:55:00.000-05:00

Here's a link to the Web's shortest political quiz. Basically, it tells you how a libertarian ideologue would classify your political beliefs.

This is what it said about my score:

ACCORDING TO YOUR ANSWERS,
You fall exactly on the border
of two political philosophies...

LIBERAL
LIBERTARIAN

LIBERALS usually embrace freedom of choice in personal
matters, but tend to support significant government control of the
economy. They generally support a government-funded "safety net"
to help the disadvantaged, and advocate strict regulation
of business. Liberals tend to favor environmental regulations,
defend civil liberties and free expression, support government action
to promote equality, and tolerate diverse lifestyles.

LIBERTARIANS support maximum liberty in both personal
and economic matters. They advocate a much smaller government;
one that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion
and violence. Libertarians tend to embrace individual
responsibility, oppose government bureaucracy and taxes,
promote private charity, tolerate diverse lifestyles, support the
free market, and defend civil liberties.
Your PERSONAL issues Score is 90%.
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 50%.
(Please note: Scores falling on the Centrist border are counted as Centrist.)

Here's a longer test assessing you're 'Libertarian Purity'.

This was my scoring range:

31-50 points: Your libertarian credentials are obvious. Doubtlessly you will become more extreme as time goes on.

I used to have more centrist-liberal views, but have been becoming more libertarian over time. I guess it's starting to show ;-)

The Ten Lego Wonders of the World

2006-03-07T00:34:00.000-05:00

A list of the world's greatest lego creations. My favorites are the Lego Car and Pinball game, and the lego sculpture of Han Solo trapped in carbonite.

Marc Faber: Dr. Gloom and Doom on the Weakness of the US Economy and Investing

2006-03-06T17:48:00.000-05:00

Here's some very gloomy economic analysis from Dr. Marc Faber, a famous Swiss-born and educated economist, who has lived in Asia for the past several decades. He has a reputation as a solid economic prognosticator due to a track record of being able to deliver accurate assessments on when economic bubbles are forming and are likely to burst. Dr. Faber has long held contrarian views on the economy and investing, and strongly believes in the necessity of the gold standard as a means of stabilizing and properly valuing paper currency. I have a great deal of respect for his views, and think they are well worth considering for anyone interested in economics and how to manage whatever assets they have. While I find many of his arguments compelling, I am somewhat skeptical about the degree of his economic pessimism- he really thinks a major economic catastrophe is about to unfold.

My first link is an audio interview of Marc Faber by Jim Puplava on the Financial Sense Newshour. Here's a brief summary of his major points:

- Loose monetary policy, and the subsequent indebtedness of the United States, will lead to the devaluation of the US dollar and hyperinflation in the US economy. Predictably, these economic phenomenon will lead to a major economic downturn in the US economy- one in which the current world hyperpower may never fully recover from.

- The US Dollar will most probably undergo a major 'correction', with its price declining in particular to commodities, and especially declining relative to precious metals such as gold.

- Inflation is going to come about largely because it is in the interest of the wealthiest 1% of the population. The very wealthiest benefit from asset (stock, bonds, real estate) inflation which is what is currently occurring due to loose monetary policy. Since the 'oligarchic' elites benefit from the present policy, they are likely to use their political influence to delay necessary changes to US fiscal policy. Delaying the 'correction' will only make the coming economic crash more dramatic.

- While he wouldn't be surprised if commodity prices drop in the near term, in the long run we are likely to see a bullish trend since Asian demand for raw materials will increase as their consumer markets expand. In addition, investors will flock to commodities in order to preserve their wealth during the coming period of major instability in fiat currencies and asset prices (the traditional outlets for the world's capital).

- For many years to come the best investment opportunities will be in the booming economies of Asia. It's important to diversify your assets around the world, and not a good idea to hold all your money in one bank or in one country.

A more detailed presentation of his argument can be found in the article I've pasted at the bottom of this post. It might be somewhat hard to digest for novices on macroeconomic issues and monetary policy, but it's definitely worth a careful read. You can find quite a lot more intriguing and informative analysis on Marc Faber's Gloomboomdoom website. This is a link to the very latest opinion piece from Marc Faber, where he finds more economic indicators to make us worry, pointing out signs of a fast approaching decline in US stocks. Here's another interesting link from Dr. Faber's website related to Asian investing. Dr. Faber argues that Taiwanese stocks may prove be an excellent investment for several decades to come. This of course highlights his argument that the best opportunities for capitalists have shifted to Asia (i.e. allocating your capital to Asian investments will give you much greater returns).

Since I'm throwing out all these dismal econ links, I might as well point you towards a few other similar websites. Some very gloomy macro/monetary and investing news presented with a good dose of humour can be found on the daily reckoning website. Another fantastic resource for finding gloomy news related to the world economy, energy consumption, and out-of-control fiscal policy is The Energy Bulletin website. Here's a fairly well-researched paper written by devoted gold-bugs making predictions on the possible long-term increases in gold prices due to the Fed's loose monetary policy. Finally, here is one of the best Macroeconomic blogs out there, by Brad Setser with a critical perspective on US monetary policy. And finally I'd be remiss if I didn't include a link on the most obvious sign of excess liquidity sloshing around the US asset markets.

If anyone else out there has some interesting and relevant links to share by all means post a link in the messages (but only relevant links- no spam please). I particularly welcome any links to any well-articulated counter arguments to all this gloomy gold-standard-loving, anti-fiat currency, economic analysis.

This Marc Faber article was originally posted on the Whiskey and Gunpowder website:

Fed Rate Hikes: A Roadmap to Financial Ruin
by Dr. Marc Faber
Whiskey & Gunpowder
Chiangmai, Thailand
November 23, 2005

FOR AS LONG as the Fed perceives the economy to be healthy, it is almost a certainty that it will continue to increase the Fed fund rate in baby steps to between 4.25% and 4.50%, and possibly even higher. Some observers believe that in order to gain credibility, Mr. Bernanke will increase rates more aggressively than Mr. Greenspan intended.

However, the economy is most likely far less healthy than what Fed officials believe. Plunging consumer confidence and especially the Consumer Optimism Index's expectations seem to confirm this point (see the chart below). (The Consumer Optimism Index, compiled by Ed Yardeni, is the average of the Consumer Sentiment and Consumer Confidence indexes.) Note the close correlation between the Consumer Optimism Index and stock prices in the past, which would under normal circumstances suggest a significant downside risk for equities in the near term.

Fed Rate Hikes: Expansionary Monetary Policy

But here is my point: the market participants may be beginning to anticipate that the Fed will shortly (in the next three to six months) wake up to the fact that the economy isn't as healthy as it thought. And once the Fed notices, home prices will decline (as is indicated by the sharp drop in the shares of homebuilding companies), and consumer spending will stall or even decline moderately. Mr. Bernanke, whose principal concern is deflation, will immediately cut interest rates again and move to an expansionary monetary policy.

Depending on the Fed's view on the impending threat of asset deflation and its negative consequences for the economy, the money-printing press could, in this phase two of our roadmap to the next severe recession, possibly run at full speed. This renewed monetary easing is likely to stabilize asset prices. This is what the stock market may now already be discounting by not selling off and following the Consumer Optimism Index on the downside. However, in phase two of our roadmap to ruin, two new trends will likely become more persistent.

From the chart below, courtesy of Barry Bannister of Legg Mason, we can see that, in the past, upturns in commodity prices have always led to upturns in the Consumer Price Index, while downturns in commodity prices have always led to declining consumer prices - except for the period post-Second World War when, after 1980, declining commodity prices only led to a deceleration of consumer price increases (disinflation, as opposed to deflation). Why was the pattern of declining commodity prices bringing down consumer prices broken after 1980? Very rapid money supply growth and unprecedented budget deficits in peacetime led to rapid debt growth, which prevented consumer prices from deflating.

From yet another chart below, we can see that following Paul Volker's monetary squeeze of 1979/ 1980, money supply growth exploded in the period 1982-1986. I would argue that if money supply hadn't exploded at the time, it is likely that we might have experienced for the first time since the Second World War declining consumer prices for several years in a row. (This would certainly have been the case under a gold standard.) Note that whereas in 1983 most economists, including Milton Friedman, expected consumer price inflation to reaccelerate - based on the rapidly expanding money supply - it didn't happen, as inflation had moved away from consumer price increases to asset inflation (bonds, stocks, and real estate).

There were at the time two main reasons for the moderation in consumer price inflation. First, as can be seen from the second chart, commodity prices tumbled after 1980, which certainly removed some inflationary pressures for consumer goods prices. In addition, as a result of rapidly growing US consumption, Asian manufactured goods began to flood the US market and pressured at least manufactured goods prices.

This trend has continued, as Chinese imports began to increase very rapidly in the 1990s. Rising imports of low-cost Chinese goods then led to import price deflation and contained wage increases in the developed world. The trend to declining wages in real terms gained momentum in the last few years as more and more high-value services became tradable and allowed their outsourcing to countries such as India.

We can therefore say that, in the 1980s and 1990s, the developed world enjoyed the tailwind of declining commodity prices and the outsourcing of production and services to low-cost countries, which, despite easy monetary policies, didn't lead to rising consumer price inflation. (Other factors contributing to disinflation were the peace dividend, privatizations, and aggressive cost-cutting measures by the corporate sector and - not to be forgotten - declining interest rates, which reduced the financing costs of companies.)

Fed Rate Hikes: Demand will Exceed Supply

But the next time the Fed embarks on a massive liquidity creating exercise (such as the one Mr. Greenspan implemented following the Nasdaq collapse in 2000), these favorable conditions may no longer be in place. For one thing, it is evident that the commodity cycle has turned up (see Figure 6). And while I don't rule out a meaningful correction for industrial commodity prices, it would seem to me that the dynamics of demand and supply as a result of the growing need for commodities from countries such as India and China, which are in the process of industrializing at breakneck speed, are so vast that, in the absence of a global deflationary depression, the demand will structurally exceed supplies - especially for energy - for years to come.

Therefore, my view would be that we are at the beginning of a long-term upward wave in commodity prices that could last for another 15 to 20 years. (Commodity cycles, also called Kondratieff cycles - see the second chart-- tend to last between 45 and 60 years from peak to peak.) Also, one should consider that whereas industrial commodity prices look stretched and vulnerable at present, many soft commodities such as cotton and agricultural commodities have not yet participated in the commodity cycle upturn. Their future rise could cushion - at least to some extent - any medium-term decline in industrial commodity prices.

So, whereas declining commodity prices provided expansionary monetary policies with a tailwind between 1980 and 2000, from here on their price increase could become a strong headwind. (In September the CPI increased by 4.7%.) As far as the benefits from low-cost imports and the outsourcing of services are concerned, it is debatable whether import prices will continue to deflate. I have no doubt that China and India are both at the beginning of huge market share gains in the production of goods and the provision of high-value services, which will keep some pressure on prices and wages in the Western world.

In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if, one day, Chinese exports were to make up 25-30% of the world's total exports, up from around 12% currently, and if research facilities in India were to account for a huge chunk of global R&D spending and any imaginable tradable services. But therein lies precisely the threat to higher global inflation rates, for two reasons. If both India and China are so successful at gaining global market share in export markets and in tradable services, their demand for natural resources - especially energy - could increase possibly far more than even the commodity bulls anticipate and pressure prices to far higher levels than we expect.

Moreover, if both China and India - not to mention a host of other countries such as Russia, other former Soviet Union states, and Vietnam - are so successful at hollowing out the economies of the Western world and especially the US, what will the governments of these "economically threatened" countries do? They will try to force these new competitors on the block to revalue their currencies in order to make them less competitive. Should this fail, however, or succeed only partially, the central bankers of the Western world will print money and debase their own currencies (competitive devaluation).

Fed Rate Hikes: The Temptation of Mr. Bernanke

This will be particularly tempting for Mr. Bernanke, who believes that budget and current account deficits don't matter, as well as for US policymakers, since 90% of Americans don't have a passport and so wouldn't even notice that the dollar was losing value against foreign currencies.

Moreover, since the foreign indebtedness of the US is denominated in US dollars, at first sight the easy monetary policies by the Fed which are designed to lower the value of the dollar against its principal economic competitor and geopolitical arch-rival, China, which owns a big chunk of the American debt in the form of foreign exchange reserves, would seem to punish China most. (The Japanese would also be punished, but, feeling threatened by China, they would go along with any economic policy that could hurt China.)

As we have seen above in our roadmap to the next severe recession, the Fed will, in phase one, continue to increase short-term rates in baby steps. In phase two, when the Fed realizes that the economy is weaker than expected, it will reverse its tightening bias, cut rates, and ease massively. Along the way, it will blame the undervalued Chinese currency, which gives China an unfair competitive advantage for the soft patch in the US economy.

However, as I have tried to explain above, a policy where the Fed eases in the upward phase of the long-term commodity cycle, and with the US recording such large current account deficits and a staggering negative net asset balance that requires foreigners to acquire at least US$2 billion of US debts every day, could backfire very badly.

For one, it is far from certain that the coming soft patch in the economy - whenever it comes and however severe it turns out to be - will be accompanied by moderating upward pressures on consumer prices and wages. Commodity prices may possibly remain firm or ease only moderately, or some import price inflation may become visible. It is also conceivable that wages for employees in the service sector whose services are not tradable will rise more rapidly than in the past in order not to let wage increases fall behind the rate of consumer price inflation. (The vast majority of service jobs, such as those in the hospitality industry, retail, fast food, health and beauty care, government, and so on, are not tradable and, therefore, are immune from being outsourced to foreign countries.)

Moreover, since Mr. Bernanke's main concern will be deflation of asset prices - in particular, homes - it is likely that the money-printing press will be turned on at full throttle. In any event, I suspect that once monetary policies reverse from a modest tightening bias, such as we have had over the past year or so, to an easing bias, the dollar and the bond market will begin to weaken in earnest. In fact, the weakening bond market may have already begun to discount this coming easing bias and its inflationary implications.

Fed Rate Hikes: Crisis of Confidence

In addition, I simply cannot believe that foreign creditors will forever accumulate US dollars when they realize that there is no will at all among US policy-makers to redress what are, in the long run, unsustainable external imbalances. Whether it is at that point of phase two of our roadmap to the next serious recession that the dollar will collapse against gold or foreign currencies is debatable,

but some crisis of confidence in the dollar is almost a certainty. The weakness of the dollar, even at a time of a soft economy, will likely lead to some upward pressure on US interest rates. This could force the Fed to ease more than it originally intended in order to support the asset markets.
At this stage, dollar weakness, rising commodity prices, and rising import prices could lift the rate of consumer price increases and the yield on long-term bonds above the rate of asset and wage inflation (declining asset prices and wages in real terms). If that were to occur, the economy wouldn't benefit from the easier monetary policies at all. Moderate stagflation would follow. In this situation of poor or no economic growth but modest inflation, the Fed will likely opt for an all-out assault to revitalize growth with its monetary tools and massively monetize with "extraordinary measures".

This would occur in phase three of our roadmap to ruin. Asset prices would then rise in dollar terms, but decline in terms of gold or - if there still existed any - hard currencies. In phase three, I wouldn't rule out that the Dow Jones could rise to 36,000 (see James Glassman, Dow 36,000, New York, 1999) or 40,000 (see David Elias, Dow 40,000, New York, 1999), or 100,000 (see Charles W. Kadlec, Dow 100,000: Fact or Fiction, New York, 1999).

As an aside, I bought all three of these books to add to my "financial curiosities" collection. Note that they were all published in 1999. However, in gold terms, the Dow - no matter how high it will rise in dollar terms (even to 100 million) - will most likely decline to a Dow/ gold ratio of around 10. See the chart below, which shows how many ounces of gold are required to buy one Dow Jones Industrial.)

So, if the Dow were to rise to 36,000 as a result of massive money printing, the price of gold would rise to $3,600 in order to achieve a Dow/gold ratio of 10. I might add that at present the Dow/ gold ratio is still very high by historical standards and could, in an extreme crisis of confidence, decline to around 1, as was the case in the 1930s and in 1980 . With the Dow at 36,000, this would mean an ounce of gold would sell for $36,000 as well!

In this third phase of our roadmap to economic and financial ruin, consumer price inflation and interest rates will be extremely high (hyperinflation). The economy, however, will slump, as wage increases will badly lag behind the rate of asset and consumer price inflation. In phase three, wealth inequity will reach extremes and lead to a breakdown of American society's social fabric. At the beginning of phase three, foreign exchange controls will be imposed and the ownership of gold will be declared illegal.

Also, oil and gold companies could at this point be appropriated and nationalized. (If not, we can be sure that an excess profit tax will be imposed.) In this phase all dollar bills below $100 in face value will have been retired and will be sought after as curiosities and collectors' items. Phase three will be an age of "penniless billionaires". There are currently more than 300 billionaires in the US, compared to fewer than 10 in 1980. The likelihood of a major war breaking out will be highest during this phase. Religious and racial intolerance will become dangerous, as the government will need to blame a minority for the "Schlamassel" (mess) it has created.

Now, I know that some readers will be questioning my sanity. However, what I am describing is already well under way. I am grateful to Barron's for having published recently a figure that shows the loss of purchasing power of the US dollar in the last 100 years (see the chart below). The figure is actually the reciprocal pattern displayed by the price of gold. As the price of gold rises, the value of the dollar declines.

Barron's explains that the log scale in the chart "of the purchasing power of the dollar begins with an index value of 100 at the passage of the Mint Act of 1792. The solid lines present periods when the dollar was convertible into a quantity of gold, and the fluctuations represent changes in the purchasing power of gold." Note that the purchasing power of gold increased in the deflationary periods, or commodity downward waves, of 1814-1845, 1864-1895, and 1921-1942 - a subject Fred Sheehan discussed in a report entitled "Gold and 'Flations."

Barron's continues: [T]he dotted lines present periods when the dollar was not pegged to gold, during and after the War of 1812, the Civil War, World War I and World War II. There was limited convertibility from 1945 to 1971, but the dollar lost purchasing power during the period. The link between the U.S. currency and gold was cut in 1971 and the loss of purchasing power accelerated. By 2004, the dollar had lost more than 92% of its original purchasing power. (Emphasis added)

What is interesting about the dollar's long-term chart is that for as long as there was no Federal Reserve, the dollar maintained its purchasing power (1800-1913). But once the Federal Reserve Board came into existence, and especially after the link between the US dollar and gold was cut in 1971, the dollar's value began to slide in earnest. My point is simply this: the last time around it took 100 years for the dollar to lose 92% of its purchasing power. But with Mr. Bernanke at the Fed, it won't take another 100 years for the same to happen again! From here on, events will unfold at a rapid pace. This is a high-confidence prediction.

As a commentator recently remarked, Mr. Bernanke was moved from the Board of Governors at the Fed to become the Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors four months ago, "bringing him inside the White House for a while so that the President could become comfortable with him before his appointment as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board was made". Correct. The President had to be absolutely sure that Mr. Bernanke was really serious about the Fed's power to print money and, in emergencies, to drop dollar bills from a helicopter in order to finance this administration's ill-fated military follies and alarmingly rising debts which are fuelling asset inflation and financing excessive US consumption. So much for the Fed's independence!

Fed Rate Hikes: Nero's Devaluation of the Denarius

Following Nero's first devaluation of the denarius in AD 54, when he reduced the coin's silver content from 100% to 94%, it took almost 200 years for the denarius to lose around 70% of its value. In AD 244, under Gordian, the denarius still had a silver content of 28%. (Without machines that can print paper money, there are some physical limitations on how fast new coins with a lower and lower silver content can be issued and distributed throughout an empire.

With electronic money, this constraint doesn't exist.) However, during the following 24 years the rate of depreciation of the denarius accelerated, and by AD 268, under Claudius Gothicus, the denarius had a silver content of just 0.02% (a 99.9% loss of value in 24 years)! I might add that the deflationists will tell you that the purchasing power of money will increase.

But if you look at the dollar's long-term chart, how likely is this? In my opinion, at least in this instance, the trend of the dollar's and other paper money's diminishing purchasing power will, for now, remain by far your best friend. At the end of phase three, the system will break down. A major financial reform will become unavoidable. A gold standard will be reintroduced.

A deflationary stabilisation crisis will follow in phase four of our road to financial fiasco. Large segments of the population will be totally impoverished. Smart hedge fund managers will all have sold their businesses to banks and will have left the US to live in the Caribbean, Brazil, Singapore, or Thailand, while members of the Federal Reserve Board will either be in jail or defending themselves from class action suits in costly litigations in courts of law.

In the meantime, as John Law once fled France to settle in England in a luxurious home (which was later burned down), Ben Bernanke will flee the US in a hurry; unlike Mr. Law, however, he won't even be able to afford to buy a shed with his billions of worthless dollars.

Regards,
Marc Faber

Mar.20th-26th: 80% Chance of Major World Economic/Political Crisis

2006-03-03T10:50:00.000-05:00

An amusing press release from a 'European' (i.e. French) 'think-tank' making a very bold short-term economic prediction. The group calls itself The Laboratoire europeen d'Anticipation Politique (Europe 2020) (Their not so eloquent, but somehow charming, English translation of this is The European Laboratory of Anticipation). They're actually predicting a major economic catastrophe, with an 80% chance of happening sometime between Mar.20-26th ;-) Now that's some hardcore political prognostication for you. These guys really know how to stick their necks out- at least it's getting them some attention.

The rationale behind their prediction is revealed in the their press release which I've posted below. While this 'think-tank' doesn't exactly impress me with their credentials, or the rigour of their theory for that matter, it does say something about the state of the world economy. It is worrying when a think-tank, even when it is a group of axe-grinding euro-nutters, feel confident enough to predict a major worldwide economic disaster within a one week window. It highlights how widespread, and strongly held, a certain notion is becoming. And what is this dangerous idea? It is essentially the notion that the present economic order is teetering on the brink because of out of control fiscal policies (particularly US debt and loose monetary policy), which is also being aggravated by the political instability that currently exists in the world; and when combined these factors will likely produce a serious economic 'correction' in the US with all sorts of negative global consequences. This meme seems to be on its way to becoming a global consensus view, and when it does there is a high probability that it will happen since any market is ultimately the product of the combined perceptions of its individual investors. This doesn't necessarily mean a global financial catastrophe, but if investors lose faith in the US dollar and inflation spirals out of control, then there will probably be a substantial long-term downturn in most of the world. So while their timeline may be off, and the doomsday tone of their statement might be hyperbole, these Euro 'Political Anticipators' may have the general outline right. And hey who knows, they may prove everyone wrong and be on the mark. To be honest I wouldn't mind if they were, since I currently own gold call options (all this stuff would be fantastic for the price of gold). We'll find out soon enough ;-)

You can find the link to the press release on their website here

EUROPE 2020 ALARM / Global Systemic Rupture
March 20-26, 2006:
Iran/USA - Release of global world crisis

The Laboratoire européen d’Anticipation Politique Europe 2020 (LEAP/E2020) now estimates to over 80% the probability that the week of March 20-26, 2006 will be the beginning of the most significant political crisis the world has known since the Fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, together with an economic and financial crisis of a scope comparable with that of 1929. This last week of March 2006 will be the turning-point of a number of critical developments, resulting in an acceleration of all the factors leading to a major crisis, disregard any American or Israeli military intervention against Iran. In case such an intervention is conducted, the probability of a major crisis to start rises up to 100%, according to LEAP/E2020.

An Alarm based on 2 verifiable events
The announcement of this crisis results from the analysis of decisions taken by the two key-actors of the main on-going international crisis, i.e. the United States and Iran:

--> on the one hand there is the Iranian decision of opening the first oil bourse priced in Euros on March 20th, 2006 in Teheran, available to all oil producers of the region ;

--> on the other hand, there is the decision of the American Federal Reserve to stop publishing M3 figures (the most reliable indicator on the amount of dollars circulating in the world) from March 23, 2006 onward [1].

These two decisions constitute altogether the indicators, the causes and the consequences of the historical transition in progress between the order created after World War II and the new international equilibrium in gestation since the collapse of the USSR. Their magnitude as much as their simultaneity will catalyse all the tensions, weaknesses and imbalances accumulated since more than a decade throughout the international system.

A world crisis declined in 7 sector-based crises
LEAP/E2020's researchers and analysts thus identified 7 convergent crises that the American and Iranian decisions coming into effect during the last week of March 2006, will catalyse and turn into a total crisis, affecting the whole planet in the political, economic and financial fields, as well as in the military field most probably too:

1. Crisis of confidence in the Dollar
2. Crisis of US financial imbalances
3. Oil crisis
4. Crisis of the American leadership
5. Crisis of the Arabo-Muslim world
6. Global governance crisis
7. European governance crisis

The entire process of anticipation of this crisis will be described in detail in the coming issues of LEAP/E2020’s confidential letter – the GlobalEurope Anticipation Bulletin, and in particular in the 2nd issue to be released on February 16, 2006. These coming issues will present the detailed analysis of each of the 7 crises, together with a large set of recommendations intended for various categories of players (governments and companies, namely), as well as with a number of operational and strategic advices for the European Union.

Decoding of the event “Creation of the Iranian Oil Bourse priced in Euros”
However, and in order not to limit this information to decision makers solely, LEAP/E2020 has decided to circulate widely this official statement together with the following series of arguments resulting from work conducted.
Iran's opening of an Oil Bourse priced in Euros at the end of March 2006 will be the end of the monopoly of the Dollar on the global oil market. The immediate result is likely to upset the international currency market as producing countries will be able to charge their production in Euros also. In parallel, European countries in particular will be able to buy oil directly in their own currency without going though the Dollar. Concretely speaking, in both cases this means that a lesser number of economic actors will need a lesser number of Dollars [2]. This double development will thus head to the same direction, i.e. a very significant reduction of the importance of the Dollar as the international reserve currency, and therefore a significant and sustainable weakening of the American currency, in particular compared to the Euro. The most conservative evaluations give €1 to $1,30 US Dollar by the end of 2006. But if the crisis reaches the scope anticipated by LEAP/E2020, estimates of €1 for $1,70 in 2007 are no longer unrealistic.

Decoding of the event “End of publication of the M3 macro-economic indicator”
The end of the publication by the American Federal Reserve of the M3 monetary aggregate (and that of other components) [3] , a decision vehemently criticized by the community of economists and financial analysts, will have as a consequence to lose transparency on the evolution of the amount of Dollars in circulation worldwide. For some months already, M3 has significantly increased (indicating that « money printing » has already speeded up in Washington), knowing that the new President of the US Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, is a self-acknowledged fan of « money printing » [4]. Considering that a strong fall of the Dollar would probably result in a massive sale of the US Treasury Bonds held in Asia, in Europe and in the oil-producing countries, LEAP/E2020 estimates that the American decision to stop publishing M3 aims at hiding as long as possible two US decisions, partly imposed by the political and economic choices made these last years [5]:

. the ‘monetarisation’ of the US debt
. the launch of a monetary policy to support US economic activity.
… two policies to be implemented until at least the October 2006 « mid-term » elections, in order to prevent the Republican Party from being sent in reeling.
This M3-related decision also illustrates the incapacity of the US and international monetary and financial authorities put in a situation where they will in the end prefer to remove the indicator rather than try to act on the reality.

Decoding of the aggravating factor “The military intervention against Iran”
Iran holds some significant geo-strategic assets in the current crisis, such as its ability to intervene easily and with a major impact on the oil provisioning of Asia and Europe (by blocking the Strait of Ormuz), on the conflicts in progress in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the possible recourse to international terrorism. But besides these aspects, the growing distrust towards Washington creates a particularly problematic situation. Far from calming both Asian and European fears concerning the accession of Iran to the statute of nuclear power, a military intervention against Iran would result in an quasi-immediate dissociation of the European public opinions [6] which, in a context where Washington has lost its credibility in handling properly this type of case since the invasion of Iraq, will prevent the European governments from making any thing else than follow their public opinions. In parallel, the rising cost of oil which would follow such an intervention will lead Asian countries, China first and foremost, to oppose this option, thus forcing the United States (or Israel) to intervene on their own, without UN guarantee, therefore adding a severe military and diplomatic crisis to the economic and financial crisis.

Relevant factors of the American economic crisis
LEAP/E2020 anticipate that these two non-official decisions will involve the United States and the world in a monetary, financial, and soon economic crisis without precedent on a planetary scale. The ‘monetarisation’ of the US debt is indeed a very technical term describing a catastrophically simple reality: the United States undertake not to refund their debt, or more exactly to refund it in "monkey currency". LEAP/E2020 also anticipate that the process will accelerate at the end of March, in coincidence with the launching of the Iranian Oil Bourse, which can only precipitate the sales of US Treasury Bonds by their non-American holders.

In this perspective, it is useful to contemplate the following information 7: the share of the debt of the US government owned by US banks fell down to 1,7% in 2004, as opposed to 18% in 1982. In parallel, the share of this same debt owned by foreign operators went from 17% in 1982 up to 49% in 2004.
--> Question: How comes that US banks got rid of almost all their share of the US national debt over the last years?

Moreover, in order to try to avoid the explosion of the "real-estate bubble" on which rests the US household consumption, and at a time when the US saving rate has become negative for the first time since 1932 and 1933 (in the middle of the "Great Depression"), the Bush administration, in partnership with the new owner of the US Federal Reserve and a follower of this monetary approach, will flood the US market of liquidities.

Some anticipated effects of this systemic rupture
According to LEAP/E2020, the non-accidental conjunction of the Iranian and American decisions, is a decisive stage in the release of a systemic crisis marking the end of the international order set up after World War II, and will be characterised between the end of March and the end of the year 2006 by a plunge in the dollar (possibly down to 1 Euro = 1,70 US Dollars in 2007) putting an immense upward pressure on the Euro, a significant rise of the oil price (over 100$ per barrel), an aggravation of the American and British military situations in the Middle East, a US budgetary, financial and economic crisis comparable in scope with the 1929 crisis, very serious economic and financial consequences for Asia in particular (namely China) but also for the United Kingdom [8], a sudden stop in the economic process of globalisation, a collapse of the transatlantic axis leading to a general increase of all the domestic and external political dangers all over the world.

For individual dollar-holders, as for trans-national corporations or political and administrative decision makers, the consequences of this last week of March 2006 will be crucial. These consequences require some difficult decisions to be made as soon as possible (crisis anticipation is always a complex process since it relies on a bet) because once the crisis begins, the stampede starts and all those who chose to wait lose.
For private individuals, the choice is clear: the US Dollar no longer is a “refuge” currency. The rising-cost of gold over the last year shows that many people have already anticipated this trend of the US currency.

Anticipating… or being swept away by the winds of history
For companies and governments - European ones in particular - LEAP/E2020 has developed in its confidential letter – the GlobalEurope Anticipation Bulletin -, and in particular in the next issue, a series of strategic and operational recommendations which, if integrated in today's decision-making processes, can contribute to soften significantly the "monetary, financial and economic tsunami" which will break on the planet at the end of next month. To use a simple image – by the way, one used in the political anticipation scenario « USA 2010 » [9] -, the impact of the events of the last week of March 2006 on the “Western World” we have known since 1945 will be comparable to the impact of the Fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 on the “Soviet Block”.

If this Alarm is so precise, it is that LEAP/E2020’s analyses concluded that all possible scenarios now lead to one single result: we collectively approach a "historical node" which is henceforth inevitable whatever the action of international or national actors. At this stage, only a direct and immediate action on the part of the US administration aimed at preventing a military confrontation with Iran on the one hand, and at giving up the idea to monetarise the US foreign debt on the other hand, could change the course of events. For LEAP/E2020 it is obvious that not only such actions will not be initiated by the current leaders in Washington, but that on the contrary they have already chosen "to force the destiny" by shirking their economic and financial problems at the expense of the rest of the world. European governments in particular should draw very quickly all the conclusions from this fact.

For information, LEAP/E2020's original method of political anticipation has allowed several of its experts to anticipate (and publish) in particular : in 1988, the pproaching end of the Iron Curtain; in 1997, the progressive collapse in capacity of action and democratic legitimacy of the European institutional system; in 2002, the US being stuck in Iraq’s quagmire and above all the sustainable collapse of US international credibility; in 2003, the failure of the referenda on the European Constitution. Its methodology of anticipation of "systemic ruptures" now being well established, it is our duty as researchers and citizens to share it with the citizens and the European decision makers; especially because for individual or collective, private or public players, it is still time to undertake measures in order to reduce significantly the impact of this crisis on their positions whether these are economic, political or financial.

LEAP/E2020's complete analysis, as well as its strategic and operational recommendations intended for the private and public actors, will be detailed in the next issues of the GlobalEurope Anticipation Bulletin, and more particularly in the econd one (issued February 16th, 2006).

King Ralph Has Another Hissy Fit

2006-03-03T04:54:00.000-05:00

Another sign that the many years of absolute rule have gone to head of the King of Alberta. Or did he just get back from a Liquor Barn run?

Online Universities Get A Huge Boost From US Congress

2006-03-03T00:43:00.000-05:00

The US Congress has just approved some legislation that will likely fuel the growth of online institutions of higher learning. The US government enacted legislation in 1992 that required university/colleges to have half of their courses taught on a physical campus in order to qualify for federal student aid. Thanks to effective lobbying and the support of some key Republicans, Congress has now removed this restriction on federal aid for post-secondary institutions.

Here's one of the more interesting passages from the article linked above:

"This is a growth industry and you get rich not by being skeptical, but by being enthusiastic," said Henry Levin, director of Columbia University's National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education.
People at the academic conferences will say they did a survey about Internet-based education, but there are a lot of phantom statistics," he said, "and it's all very promotional. We have not found a single rigorous study comparing online with conventional forms of instruction."
How fast the college landscape will change is uncertain. Sean Gallagher, a senior analyst at Eduventures, a Boston research firm, predicted that the proportion of students taking all their classes online could rise over the next 10 years or so to 25 percent from the current 7 percent.

So essentially the method is in its infancy, and there is no substantial data about the relative efficacy of this form of learning as of yet. That said, one doesn't have to look .too far to see the potential of the internet as means of acquiring and building networks of knowledge- which are ultimately the most important functions of any university or college. Even collaborative aspects of learning can be replicated with good design and savvy usage of technology by the students. The bottom line is that the passage of this bill will probably mean a rapid increase in the development of online post-secondary education, not only in the US but also in Canada. While great care and effort has to be put into monitoring the quality and legitimacy of the educational experience that these online institutions will offer, there's little reason why the majority of courses taught at universities can't be offered by online institutions. Especially when you consider there is such a large pool of .underemployed or underpaid PhD holders out there that could create the content and manage the service. Not to mention the hordes of disaffected undergraduates who would gladly jump at the opportunity to study online in order to avoid incurring an enormous student loan debt.

In my experience (I'm currently a postdoctoral researcher working in an academic setting), most universities, like most academics, are quite conservative and slow to adapt when it comes to making structural changes to the educational experience (and in many way when it comes to altering the content of the education itself). This is somewhat ironic considering our post-secondary institutions are also the center of most research and development, which is ultimately the source of a tremendous amount of the innovation and growth that we see in all sectors of society. But given the cloistered nature of academia, largely protected from the free market and dominated by academics entrenched for life in little departmental fiefdoms, it's not surprising that many aspects of the academic experience are far from being dynamic. I have little doubt that commercial interests will lead the way in bringing education online, and the potential in terms of improving the quality of the experience and reducing expenses is enormous. I look forward to what this change will bring and welcome anything that will encourage innovative and high-quality post-secondary learning/teaching.

Stephen Harper's Conservatives would be wise to take note of this development. The changes that are occurring in the US might be a cue for them to put forward some progressive free-market oriented proposals encouraging the growth of online centers of higher learning. It would it fit in with their market ideology, and would facilitate the growth of online learning in Canada (it would be unfortunate if this 'industry' was completely dominated by US companies and institutions). But frankly bold and innovative doesn't exactly come to mind when I think Harper's Conservatives, the Con crew seems much more likely to mindlessly decrease post-secondary education funding without taking steps to encourage the innovation that might make the delivery of post-secondary education more efficient in Canada. On top of that, I don't think they have the moxy and will to provide the necessary regulatory framework, and possibly government sponsorship of entrepreneurs, in order for such a development to succeed. So I'm not holding my breath.

The Opinionator

2006-03-02T13:40:00.000-05:00

I wasn't too impressed when I first read his weblog, but I have to admit Chris Suellentrop seems to have hit his stride. A lot of really good stuff at his NYTimes blog, The Opinionator. Unfortunately, you need NYTimes Select subscription to view it, you can find one for free at myleftwing.com.

I'm planning on posting about a couple of his stories soon.

BLOVIATOR button

2006-03-01T20:54:00.000-05:00

Want to help spread the bloviation? Here's a little link button you can add to your own website.

Check the message section for the code for this button. I'll reciprocate any links to me under a friends of the bloviator blogroll.

The world's greatest omnivores?

2006-02-28T22:18:00.000-05:00

Handsdown, the Chinese. I really had to fight the urge to give this post a less appropriate headline- it's just too easy.
As if we already didn't know this.

Hard Time For Groped Behind

2006-02-28T20:10:00.000-05:00

A South American man gets 4 years for grabbing a woman's bum. The female judge decided to take a tough stance in order to 'fight sexist behaviour'. I'm guessing she was probably provoked by the fact that at the time of arrest the victim was offered the opportunity to slap the perp rather than press charges. The way I see it, the main effect of this sentence will be to discourage women and police from pressing charges against bum-gropers and increase the likelihood of onsite slap-sentencing. But I have to say, 4 years should give any ass-pincher some pause. At least the guy got off light compared to this Sudanese perv.