tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016Sat, 06 Jul 2024 06:02:24 +0000In Coherence<br/><i>Crawling out of the Mainstream Media cave and making sense of the blooming buzzing digital confusion.</i><br/>
<br/><a href=" src="; height="180" width="679" alt=""/></a><br/>noreply@blogger.com (Wise G)Blogger147125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-116555969337249928Fri, 08 Dec 2006 06:27:00 +00002006-12-08T01:34:53.373-05:00Blood And Treasure<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href=" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="; border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br />Joe Stiglitz, a nobel prize winning economist (he wrote Globalization And Its Discontents- excellent book), revises <a href=" estimate of the total cost</a> of the Iraq war as being over $2 Trillion. That's right <span style="font-weight:bold;">over $2 Trillion.</span>2006/12/blood-and-treasure.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-116555813563723018Fri, 08 Dec 2006 05:45:00 +00002006-12-08T01:10:13.270-05:00Chan Akya: A Feral Garfield With Guns<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href=" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="; border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />A couple of interesting articles from Chan Akya, a columnist for <em>Asia Times Online</em>. 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. <br /><br /><a href=" with guns.</a><br /><br /><br /><em><strong>America's backward leap</strong><br />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.</em> <br /><em>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.</em><br /><br /><em>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".</em><br /><br /><em>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?</em><br /><br /><em>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.</em><br /><br /><em>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.</em> <br /><br /><em>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".</em><br /><br /><em>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.</em><br /><br /><em>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.</em><br /><br /><br /><a href=" cats, beware</a><br /><br /><em>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.</em><br /><br /><em>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.</em><br /><br /><em>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.</em><br /><br /><em>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.</em><br /><br /><em>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.</em>2006/12/chan-akya-feral-garfield-with-guns.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-116476485895967965Wed, 29 Nov 2006 01:39:00 +00002006-11-28T21:37:01.673-05:00Nir Rosen: "What you're going to see in Iraq is a virtual genocide of the Sunnis"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href=" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="; border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href=" a revealing interview</a> of the American journalist Nir Rosen on Democracy Now. He's the author of the book <em>In the Belly of the Green Bird</em>, 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): <br /><br /><br /><br />Some of the more interesting statements he makes in this interview:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br /><em>"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."</em></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br /><em>"Bush and Maliki are absolutely irrelevant."</em></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><em>"Virtually every young Shia male in Iraq supports Muqtada Al-Sadr today."</em></span><br /><br /><br /><strong>Describing a surprise appearance of Muqtada at a Shia mosque:</strong> <span style="font-weight:bold;"><span style="font-style:italic;">"it was like being at a Michael Jackson concert...the crowd just went crazy"</span></span><br /><br /><br /><strong>- 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.</strong><br /><br /><br /><strong>- 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.</strong><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><em>"There's no solution, we've (US) destroyed Iraq"</em></span><br /><br /><br /><br />Here's a long but fascinating account of the civil war in Iraq by Nir Rosen:<br /><br /><a href= of a civil war.</a><br /><br /><br />You can find links to more of his articles <a href="2006/07/everyday-brutality-and-criminal.html">in this previous post.</a>2006/11/nir-rosen-what-youre-going-to-see-in.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-116458305869723669Sun, 26 Nov 2006 22:36:00 +00002006-11-26T19:15:20.640-05:00American 'Conservative Intellectual' an Oxymoron?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href=" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="; border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br />Austin Bramwell, former <span style="font-weight:bold;"><span style="font-style:italic;">National Review</span></span> director and trustee, <a href=" the smackdown on contemporary American 'conservatism'.</a> 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. <br /><br /><em>Apologies for sounding a little too much like a Politburo member, but it sure is fitting rhetoric in our day and age. ;-)</em><br /><br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">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.</span></blockquote><br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />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.</span></blockquote><br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">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.</span></blockquote><br /><br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">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.</span></blockquote><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />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.</span></blockquote><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />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.</span></blockquote><br /><blockquote><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">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.</span></blockquote><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />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.</span></blockquote><br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">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.</span></blockquote><br /><br /><br /><br />Bramwell has previously described the vacuity of 'conservative thought' in somewhat more detail in this article from August 2005:<br /><a href=" Conservatism Down.</a><br /><br />I suppose one could very make the argument that the lack of intellectual rigour in contemporary American 'conservatism' goes a long way in explaining <a href="2006/07/john-dean-neocon-fearmongering-and-its.html">the rise of authoritarian tendencies in US politics.</a>2006/11/american-conservative-intellectual.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-116457735056219782Sun, 26 Nov 2006 20:53:00 +00002006-11-26T16:42:30.696-05:00The Death Squads (Documentary)<a href=" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="; border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a href=" a revealing Channel 4 documentary</a> 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. <br /><br />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.2006/11/death-squads-documentary.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-115733361786277827Mon, 04 Sep 2006 00:40:00 +00002006-09-03T21:33:37.990-04:00Why 'Imperial Fantasies' Rather Than 'Imperial Reality'?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href=" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="; border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Just thought I'd add some commentary to a <a href="2006/09/imperial-fantasies-redrawing-mideast.html">previous post</a> about a suggested redrawing of the Mideast map by <a href=". Ralph Peters</a>. 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.<br /><br />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 <span style="font-style:italic;">and</span> 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 <a href=" Brzezinski</a>, former National Security advisor to President Jimmy Carter, quotes from <a href=" Grand Chessboard</a>. Last quote suggests a reason for why the US would have an interest in encouraging multi-ethnic states throughout the Middle East.<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />"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." <br /><br />"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." <br /><br />"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."</span></span>2006/09/why-imperial-fantasies-rather-than.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-115727176906779446Sun, 03 Sep 2006 07:40:00 +00002006-09-03T04:35:42.813-04:00What Does An Iraqi Public Service Announcement Look Like Nowadays?Well here's one...<br /><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value=" src="; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br /><br />Brought to you by <a href=" Terror</a>...couldn't find out who was behind the campaign on their website...they seem a little secretive about their identity.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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<br /><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value=" src="; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>2006/09/what-does-iraqi-public-service.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-115709868600382226Fri, 01 Sep 2006 07:35:00 +00002006-09-05T08:48:57.126-04:00Imperial Fantasies: Redrawing the Mideast Map as a Weekend Project<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href=" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="; border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><a href=" style="font-weight:bold;"><span style="font-style:italic;">Wannabe American satrap brings peace to the Middle East after spending a few hours with Adobe Illustrator. <br /></span></span></a><br />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...<br /><br />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'. ;-)<br /><br />Hmmm...maybe <a href=" evil aspartame stuff</a> really is an incredibly dangerous neurotoxin...say comparable to Roman lead plumbing... ;-)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href=" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="; border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href=" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="; border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Edit: More comments on Col. Peter's proposal <a href="2006/09/why-imperial-fantasies-rather-than.html">for a new Middle East map.</a></span>2006/09/imperial-fantasies-redrawing-mideast.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-115708026439455144Fri, 01 Sep 2006 03:02:00 +00002006-08-31T23:11:04.416-04:00Devestating Critique of Rumsfeld and the Bush Administration<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value=" src="; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br /><br />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! <br /><br /><br />You can find the transcript of the editorial <a href=";2006/08/devestating-critique-of-rumsfeld-and.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-115689697051918903Wed, 30 Aug 2006 00:14:00 +00002006-08-29T20:16:10.550-04:00Is Bush Drinking Again??<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value=" src="; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>2006/08/is-bush-drinking-again.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-115689614916420205Tue, 29 Aug 2006 23:38:00 +00002006-09-01T06:00:50.333-04:00Sell Your McMansion!!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href=" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="; border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br />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. <br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href=" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;"src="; border="0" alt="" /></a> <br /><br />Well it looks like the US housing market <a href=" really starting to take a turn for the worse</a>, 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. <span style="font-weight:bold;">If you're thinking about selling a house do it now.</span> 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, <span style="font-weight:bold;">this will likely lead to a recession in the US, and a possible corresponding downturn across the globe, in the next few months.</span><br /><br />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.2006/08/sell-your-mcmansion.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-115626046099160816Tue, 22 Aug 2006 15:26:00 +00002006-08-22T11:27:41.123-04:00New and Improved!?Any commnents on the new name and look for the blog?2006/08/new-and-improved.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-115622898097388919Tue, 22 Aug 2006 05:32:00 +00002006-08-22T02:43:01.086-04:00Where's the Terror?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href=" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="; border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br />Some recent events which would have literally garnered 100x as much media attention if the perpetrators were Muslims:<br /><br /><a href=" />Tamil Tigers kill hundreds of Muslim refugees.</a><br /><br /><a href=" />Bombing of Russian market.</a><br /><br /><a href=" Tamil Tigers arrested buying surface-to-air missiles.</a><br /><br /><br />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.2006/08/wheres-terror.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-115613074454784084Mon, 21 Aug 2006 03:20:00 +00002006-08-20T23:25:44.586-04:00Norman Finkelstein Lecture<a href=" very highly recommended lecture</a> 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.2006/08/norman-finkelstein-lecture.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-115577125480381128Wed, 16 Aug 2006 23:08:00 +00002006-08-16T21:20:35.243-04:00A Deliberate Lack of Perspective on Terrorism?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href=" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="; border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br />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.<br /><br /><a href=" False Sense of Insecurity?</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Some interesting bits:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><strong>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.</strong><br /><br /><strong>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.</strong><br /><br /><strong>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.</strong> <br /><br /><strong>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.</strong><br /><br /><strong>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.</strong><br /><br /><strong>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." </strong><br /><br /><strong>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).<br />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.</strong><br /><br /><strong>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?"</strong><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">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.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">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%.</span><br /></span><br /><br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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? ;-)2006/08/deliberate-lack-of-perspective-on.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-115576828669699643Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:39:00 +00002006-08-16T19:02:02.036-04:00Bush is an Idiot?? Really?!Conservative media figure, <a href=" Scarborough</a>, 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.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value=" src="; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>2006/08/bush-is-idiot-really.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-115516893869701488Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:02:00 +00002006-08-09T20:15:38.720-04:00Production Versus PriceYou notice anything developing here? <br /><br /><a href=" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="; border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />I can see two divergent conclusions arising from this:<br /><br />1. Limited Supply <br />2. Price gouging<br /><br />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.2006/08/production-versus-price.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-115500857941290910Tue, 08 Aug 2006 02:46:00 +00002006-08-07T23:42:59.506-04:00A Bunch of Interesting Links on the War in LebanonA 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.<br /><br /><a href=" attacks stem from Israeli incursions into Lebanon.</a><br /><br /><a href=" Hedges: Mutually Assured Destruction in the Middle East.</a><br /><br /><a href="; It's about annexation, stupid!</a><br /><br /><a href=" backed by army of cyber-soldiers.</a><br /> <br /><a href=", Not Hizbullah, is Putting Civilians in Danger on Both Sides of the Border.</a><br /><br /><a href=" moral culpability for Qana.</a><br /><br /><a href=", this is not 'our war'</a>.<br /><br /><a href=" "hiding among civilians" myth.</a><br /><br /><a href=" prepared for attack by Syria.</a><br /><br /><a href=" Chomsky: U.S.-Backed Israeli Policies Pursuing "End of Palestine".</a><br /><br /><a href=": Israel's Actions in Lebanon Essentially Amount to "the Killing of Hostages"</a> <br /><br /><a href=" Chomsky on Israel, Lebanon and Palestine.</a><br /><br /><a href=": The Beginning of the End for Israel.</a><br /><br /><a href=" neocons' next war</a><br /><br />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. <br />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, <strong>criticizing Israel does not make one an 'anti-semite'.</strong>2006/08/bunch-of-interesting-links-on-war-in.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Wise G)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8999016.post-115422458777250108Sun, 30 Jul 2006 01:39:00 +00002006-07-29T23:05:09.573-04:00John Dean: Neocon Fearmongering and its Consequences<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href=" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="; border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br />The following was posted on one of my favorite internet forums. It's a great excerpt from <a href=" Dean's</a> latest critique (that's probably far too gentle, 'skewering' is probably more appropriate), of the Bush administration, <a href=" Without Conscience</a><img src="; width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />. 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.<br /><br /><em><strong>"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." <br />--President Dwight Eisenhower </strong></em><br /><br /><br /><em>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. </em><br /><br /><br />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