Skirmishes broke out between police and protesters outside Manama in Bahrain. “Shops stayed closed and shuttered, the streets were clear of cars amid a heavy police presence”. The NYT reports:
there were calls for universities to close in anticipation of what organizers here have called Bahrain’s own “Day of Rage,” a demonstration modeled after the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.
Similar scenes were being played out in Iran, Jordan and Yemen, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The smell of tear gas was in the air in central Tehran from reported clashes near Tehran and Amirkabir universities. Meanwhile, thousands more people who turned out for the main scheduled march were walking quietly along the sidewalks toward Azadi Square as thousands of police looked on.
In Yemen, demonstators clashed with police as “around 3,000 protesters marched from Sanaa University towards Al-Tahrir square in the centre of the capital demanding that Saleh, who has been in power for 32 years, step down”.
City streets around the square echoed to chants of “After Mubarak, Ali,” referring to the ouster of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak who quit after 18 days of protests by hundreds of thousands of Egyptians centered on Cairo’s main square, also named Tahrir.
Shouts of “No corruption after today,” reverberated through the narrow streets, while some demonstrators brandished banners reading: “The people want to oust the regime” — slogans used by protesters in Egypt.
It was hot time in the old region, a situation made all the more uncertain by worries over which side could capture the momentum of events. As the Iranian government prepared to crack down on its dissidents, it cheered on the Egyptians and Tunisians, and probably the Bahraini protesters, who were largely Shi’ite in a Sunni majority country.
Diplomats say Bahrain’s demonstrations, organized on the social media websites Facebook and Twitter, will be a gauge of whether a larger base of Shi’ites can be drawn on to the streets. The big test will be if demonstrations take hold in Manama, where demonstrations are rare.
Big protests in the Gulf Arab island state could embolden other marginalized Shi’ites in nearby Saudi Arabia, political analysts say. Diplomats say Bahrain’s demonstrations, organized on the social media websites Facebook and Twitter, will be a gauge of whether a larger base of Shi’ites can be drawn on to the streets. The big test will be if demonstrations take hold in Manama, where demonstrations are rare.
Big protests in the Gulf Arab island state could embolden other marginalized Shi’ites in nearby Saudi Arabia, political analysts say.
However most eyes were glued on developments in Iran, where crowds were measured in the hundreds of thousands, according to the Financial Times, despite the pre-emptive crackdown by the government. A new kind of instant documentary debuted in Toronto where The Green Wave, a production based on blogs, animation and cellphone video made its debut at a human rights festival. Below is YouTube video that hasn’t been shown by the major news sources yet. Action on the streets of Teheran is said to be substantial.
embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt
The Obama administration is still struggling to keep pace with fast changing developments in Egypt and may not have a handle on events cropping up everywhere. SFGate writes that “in the 18 days it took massive demonstrations to force a once-immobile American ally to relinquish power, the Obama administration revised its message several times. While talking points solidified around non-violence, universal rights and orderly political change, the administration’s initial response to the protests was muted.”
Although former Secretary of Defense William Cohen said, “anytime you have a situation like this, you’re going to have some confusion, no matter how well oiled the machine might be and how seasoned the people are” the more natural conclusion is that Washington, like Riyadh and Teheran, is completely uncertain which way the situation will go. Hillary Clinton made a first attempt at establishing US policy by accusing Teheran of “hypocrisy” and asserting that Iranians had the same rights as Egyptians.
But the administration’s attempts to bestride events seem hollow. What appears to be happening is that everything in the Middle east is the same as it always was, only more so, and in a way that has shredded the diplomatic green baize routine. None of the hatreds, fault lines, corruption, ethnic divisions, schisms and vendettas of the region have been resolved; only now they are in the open and clamoring in the street, fueled by Google, Facebook and Twitter. The policy of kicking the can down the road has suddenly stopped working. All the problems which diplomats thought they had decades to solve are now simultaneously coming to the table, urgent, immediate and uncompromising.
In decades past the West could impose a kind of queue on the incoming threads and marshal resources for their orderly resolution. The current crisis threatens to blow past the elaborately constructed edifices of the EU, UN, IMF and group of industrialized countries the way German Panzers blasted past the Maginot Line. What may be failing, in addition to the authoritarian regimes of the Middle East and Southwest Asia, is the entire International System.
After the shock and euphoria of change fade next few months, the resolution of the problems which have been so abundantly thrown up will come down to the primitive things: supplies of energy, food, logistics, information and military force. It would be ironic indeed if the 21st century ushered in, not the suave, international order that Eurocrats predicted, but a Hobbesian world in which the new rules have yet to be determined.
Watching the video below is almost like re-reading the last two weeks of Belmont Club posts. If the readers go back to this site’s commentary on events in Egypt, the similarities between Niall Ferguson’s conclusions and the posts is striking. But if Ferguson is correct in whole or in part, the question is: why was it so easy for commentators to see yet so difficult for the administration to perceive?
embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt
If the “international system” is indeed broken then the answer is obvious. The system as constituted is designed to promote the wrong kind of people to power, to detect the wrong sorts of facts and respond in accordance to priorities which bear no relationship to current events. Just look at how nonplussed the media people in the clip above are. They are living on a different planet. Now maybe the news readers are living in the correct universe and Ferguson is living in the wrong one, but it is indisputable that they are inhabiting separate universes.
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Valentine’s Day, a time to briefly get away from the trials and travails of the world and think about more important things. I re-post this valentine I wrote to my daughter some years ago, and offer it to all BC fathers lucky enough to have a daughter, for well we know that having a daughter makes a man feel like he accomplished something.
The dawning paints the night sky pink
With rose and amber hue
To look at it I have to think
The morning loves you too.
The rising sun climbs in the sky
Too bright for us to view
Another reason I know why
The noontime loves you too.
As sunset draws the curtain low
And sky turns dusk from blue
I ken full well that this I know
The evening loves you too.
And as I trundle off to bed
I think always of you
And count the thousand times I’ve said
Your father loves you too.
Walt Erickson
Tehran has long fermented trouble among the Shi’ites across her Gulf.
The strategic intent was to generate a pretext for Shia protection/ Iranian intervention.
That’s the only reason to explain the huge investment Tehran has made in high speed skiffs, hovercraft and commando training.
The debacle of falling methane prices globally is a mortal blow to the mullah’s future.
Iran does not have all that much oil — and is using a hefty fraction of her own ‘exports’ to supply gasoline back home.
Hence, her near term future looks to imitate Mexico’s.
Worse, Iraq is now far more attractive for direct investment than Iran. What a bummer.
Which points to a desperate hour: rocketing food prices are out pacing even heavy sour crude. Iran is in a pinch that may trigger a 1939 calculus.
The Zero projects the aura of Chamberlain.
What could go wrong?
Somebody bring me up to speed. In the beliefs of the twelvers is chaos supposed to bring the 12th Imam out of the well or does chaos result after he comes out…or both?
Where does the money lead, should I follow it?
What if these ME regimes fall, one after the other, as appears to be happening? Given that they don’t have much of anything with which to sustain themselves, save oil, them’s that’s got it, what with the price of food going up and them not growing nearly enough of it for themselves, why, they’ll starve. Unless good ol’ Uncle Sam feeds ‘em, on the taxpayer’s borrowed dime, of course. I don’t know the answer, but I’d like to, howsomever it occurs to me to wonder who-all controls what in the world of food production here in the USA?
Meanwhile, if the ME is dissolved in chaos, that can’t be good for the production and transport of oil. Meanwhile, domestic oil production is scotched by the enviro-loonies and The Great Sphinxter’s contempt of a court order declaring the ban of Gulf oil drilling unconstitutional. I note with interest that a certain Mr. S has bought up not only a bunch of Gulf Coast banks, but a big chunk of Petrobras to boot. It’s plausible that there might be a connection between the last two factoids and the the drilling ban, but is it plausible that there might also be a connection between Mr. S and the ME domino game?
Just kinda speculatin’ on my keyboard here. Probably better get back to work.
For the ME it’s obvious “the summer of our discontent” has arrived quite early.
Rush Limbaugh just had on a funny piece.
A reporter for CNN went down the street in Cairo asking Egyptians what they would like to say about their revolution to President Obama.
They all said they had nothing to say to him, that it was their revolution and they did it without help from the outside. One of them said that Obama’s response to the events in Egypt seemed rather confused, first supporting Mubarak and then not.
I am surprised that no one has asked the Egyptians if they were influenced by the creation of a democracy in Iraq. Then again, I’m not surprised. For the MSM who are interested in how this all relates to Obama, they might not like the answer.
The Zero projects the aura of Chamberlain.
I disagree with you there. His aura is more like PeeWee Herman stoned on a combination of Ecstasy and paint fumes.
None of the hatreds, fault lines, corruption, ethnic divisions, schisms and vendettas of the region have been resolved; only now they are in the open and clamoring in the street…
Yet again Wretchard the Cat pulls the golden nugget from myopic mud. Is reality the Medusa of our time, something so terrifying that it must never even be looked at except by a blogging Perseus?
I read earlier that Susan Rice, Obama’s Ambassador to the UN, is not in New York huddling with her contemporaries to try and figure this thing out, but off on a nationwide tour of the US pitching schoolchildren on the importance of the UN. Stupid me thought always thought the job of the UN Ambassador was to pitch the US interests at the UN.
The Italian govt has declared a state of emergency because it’s sacred to death of the 5,000 Tunisians that have already landed on some little Italian island 90 miles off the African coast. What are the Europeans going to do when the migration hits 500,000 or 5,000,000? Will the Euros call them refugees and put them on the dole?
The American Thinker pointed to an article that called for the collapse of Arab Civilization? Is that what we’re seeing happening now?
Susan Rice doesn’t even know there’s a problem that needs her attention. Neither does Obama or anybody else in national intelligence or State based on what they said about Egypt.
This is not ending well.
Subotai Bahadur
Thanks for responding to my query on the last thread re: The Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How of getting Egypt into the shape so many here and in the world believe she “might” go…democracy, which to me is lunacy to think about a ME country going that direction…
Your answer about China being the only country that MIGHT be able to step in is spot on and so are your reasons for why she can’t. Food shortage in their own country. In fact those who have followed the non inflation, inflation we have will have noticed that there is a worldwide food shortage at this time…..not in the Upper East Side or Santa Barbara or Sausalito, but famine stalks the world. That is why from the beginning I have said that this total rioting-by-a-few (1-2%) to topple governments was ill timed and dangerous because of the reach and influence of the MB, and an entire range of problems that will develop. Of course with my love for Islam I could care how many die but you can bet the Dearborn USA contingent will not stay quiet. In fact this is beginning to look entirely orchestrated, as I have also said before.
Allow me one of those delicious illogical analogies…..George Halas is dead, George Gipp is dead , but their names come up all the time as half time “pump ups” to exhort the team to victory….Well the MB isn’t dead but several have told us how impuissant they are; flaccid and of no importance…well, they are already making their move with the huge following and influence they have. As I posted yesterday Quidaffi is shouting at the Jews already, calling for blood.
Well I guess the old adage is true ……. ( please feel free to fill in your own old adage) you can lead a hoard to knowledge but you can’t make’em think.
Now in our depleted state (this is part of why I believe this was all orchestrated) HOW are we going to be able to do anything to influence this tide of events flowing toward the high mark…….anyone for nuking a few countries NOW to put the rest on notice? Otherwise, without deprivation in this country we are up against losing ALL influence in the ME.
This is an example of why I read this blog. We may be seeing a megatrend where the establishment can’t keep up with currrent events as fast as 1. they happen and 2. they are broadcast via facebook/twitter and then 3. people around the world react to them.
It’s a beautiful day, the sky falls
Abd you feel like it’s a beautiful day
Don’t let it get away
See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out
See the Bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light
And see the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood all the colors came out
Tanquam…
I can’t speak to Mr. S….
But Soros has links via the Open Society Foundation — providing funding for the boyz that took down Mubarak.
http://summit2010.globalvoicesonline.org/
As you know, Soros is rabidly anti-Semitic. Not withstanding his genes — he’s an atheist — he spent the war years rounding up Jews for the SD even as a teen. ( His autobiography — I didn’t force it out of him. )
Soros hates Israel with a passion and sustains any number of pro-muslim anti-jewish NGOs via one cut-out or another. If it’s a kooky Left wing outfit — he’s managed to find funding for it.
In fact there is a strong Liberal American Jewish component to the whole operation. While doubtlessly framing themselves as Jews, these players are, virtually to a person, atheists. They’d rather play god than worship God. Hubris.
And then there’s the crazy man: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. ( aka Sabourjian ) He is — reportedly — of Jewish descent. Well, he’s a muslim salafist now. Based upon his life’s work — he belongs in Soro’s extended clan.
http://tinyurl.com/y9jbqvv
“The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad’s birthplace, and the name derives from “weaver of the Sabour”, the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia. The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran’s Ministry of the Interior.”
“jian” = Jewish.
4. Tamquam, I hear opportunity knocking. They need food, which we have in abundance; We need oil, which they have in abundance. Match made on Valentine’s day. As a bonus, China needs both food and oil and we owe them a mountain of debt. If we were saavy business men and women we could make this work. Unfortunately, the current administration knows as much about business as sea slugs know about astrophysics. (No offense intended to sea slugs)
127. Subotai Bahadur
# 117 Habu
I took your expressing the questions as rhetorical with the answers [or lack of good ones] being obvious. The food is not going to be there. The only country that has the surplus cash on hand to try to buy it is China, and they have their own problems with that. As in the failure of their own winter wheat crop. China itself is going to be a food importing nation on a very large scale for at least a year. The parts of the Ummah where Malthus is stalking are well and truly scrod. Hunger breeds unrest, that will not be stopped forever with army bullets, unless the the army is willing to use military level force forever on dissidents. The Iranian and Syrian Muslim regimes are safest in the ME. The rest, not so much. Eventually a regime like the MB, who will take Iranian and Syrian type measures will arise. The only way to redirect a hungry populace’s anger from whoever is on top is to give them an outside enemy. They already have one to hand. This will not end well.
Let me add a “Where”, as in where are they going to get this food? Every major grain exporter is having crop problems [some like our ethanol program, self inflicted], and there is not enough food to be bought for humanitarian aid for Egypt. And in any case, the hunger/inflation problems are not restricted to Egypt, but cover much of the Ummah and beyond. There is not enough food available to do what is suggested, nor even if it was available is there any indication that turning the welfare spigot back on will lead to Democracy, Constitutional or otherwise. There are more than a few pre-conditions that have to be met before that stage; and the Ummah has no chance of attaining any one of them in the short term. People starve, revolt, and go to war in the short term.
The UNFAO’s Feb. 8 announcement of the failure of the Chinese winter wheat crop puts the finish on it. We are locked into a pretty nasty ride.
I turn up on another blog [not my own but the owner has a sufficiently strange sense of humor to loan me the keys] every week or two. The House Rules are somewhat less civil than our host’s, but it is a good place to discuss things. Y’all think I am a wordy bugger here …
In any case, if I may quote a couple of excerpts from what I wrote yesterday on the subject:
China has made food self-sufficiency a key policy goal since 1949, except for politically caused famines. It has succeeded pretty well up till now. China avoids massive grain imports most years. It just failed.
China is suffering from the worldwide inflation. Food price rises, and unemployment, are causing …”disturbances” and unrest. The average Chinese family spends 40-50% of their income on food, and prices have been rising. In the last month, the official minimum wage has been raised on a panic basis by about 15-20% [it varies from province to province] to cover the increased cost of food.
China is NOT going to suffer a major famine now if the Chinese government can help it, because over a billion hungry Chinese are going to remember how certain dynasties ended if they do. And the Chinese government can afford to buy the food from overseas. China has a huge trade surplus with us. They have dollars coming out the south end of the northbound dragon. They will bid whatever it takes to secure food supplies. The amounts of both money and grain will be horrendous. And the world price will go up. And up. And up. And the supply of grain available for purchase by the rest of the world is going to go down. And down. And down. It is going to get damned hungry out there in the world. And hungry people do not have much patience.
The Third World is going to get served with a Writ of Res Amo a Vilis Meretricis, and there is no appeal. Where free markets and innovation are allowed, Malthus can be held at arms length. Look at the Third World. Malthus wins, and the regimes will not go down quietly.
There will be effects in this country, not only in the increase of the price of grain here, but also perhaps fiscally:
Another possible consequence. China will be using dollars to buy a huge amount of food. They also buy the worthless script that we call Treasury Securities. What if they use the money they buy Treasuries with to buy food; or if they start selling our Treasuries to pay for food. The reduced demand for Treasuries means that government interest costs skyrocket and the shell game is over. We go Weimar/Zimbabwe.
Short form, we have no non-violent levers left to influence things. Economically, politically, and strategically we are now bystanders; and we had best be looking to our own self preservation in the nastiness to come. Incidentally, the violent levers are there for show. Buraq Hussein & Co. will not use them.
In addition to the moves # 124 Habu cited into the Sinai [but the link takes me to a blank page], the enemy has taken our measure. Libya is again calling for attacks on Israel. If Khaddafi is willing to crawl out from under the rock where he hid after Reagan and Bush II made him soil his burnoose; it is a sign that none of the Ummah fears the West at all. Britain proved it can be bought off cheap. The US has made itself into a capon, and the EU is an economic house of cards that can be pushed over. Russia and China side with the Ummah insofar as it is attacking the West.
This nasty ride is just beginning.
Habu
Reference your #121. Yeah, I saw that. Of course, there are limitations; but any commentary you might be safely able to provide would be of interest. Gee, I wonder if there is a reason that the regime was hinting at a return to “duck and cover” drills like in our youth?
Subotai Bahadur
There is an unholy alliance of flags; Red Chinese, Brown Russians, Black Islamists, Green Euro-Luddites, and Pink Gender-Nazis. All are united by their desire to explode a bomb under the Capitalist-Patriarchal-Caucasian-Judeo-Christian-Americans. We can only hope that like the idiot proto Global-Utopianist Franz Liebkind they have lit the fast fuse that will run back through the powder they tracked in to the combustible lockers of inbreeding, incompetence, poverty, famine and arrogance that sit in their own cellars.
13. HABU: Again, I see opportunity where others see disaster. We can ramp up food production pretty quickly if the price is right. And that will create jobs. The ethanol boondoggle will lose traction if the better price is selling to foreign governments. Yes, indeed this is all contingent on good decision making but in this country the government works for us- when we work up the nerve to remind them. I’m feeling nervy. Anyone else?
We need to kick the nation off of alcohol ASAP just on humanitarian grounds.
At a minimum, chicken, pork and beef are going to skyrocket in price right through 2012.
And I’m reading that Mexico was absolutely NAILED by the big freeze: all Roma tomatoes are gone. The cost of lettuce is going to explode.
We may have to fall back onto meat salads.
The Democratic Party rests on a three legged stool.
1. ACORN-SEIU-CBC bigotry, teamed with radical feminism and suppression of educational standards.
2. GE-Algore Enviro-fraud, promoting capital misallocation, regulatory deindustrialization and energy dependence.
3. Archer-Daniels-Midland farm manipulation, doing for food what energy suppression does for industry.
Each is supported by lawyers and each launders industrial sized streams of money.
Each provides a pipeline to China for influencing US policy and weakening our defenses.
If Dinnerjacket is descended from Jews then he proves that any litter can have a runt and the fantasies of the bigots that all Jews are super smart and competent is instantly falsified. While Iranians probably have Jewish relatives most Arabs probably have Jewish ancestors, given that the Ummah expanded by conquering Jewish tribes and killing the men followed by rape of the women. What do mitochondrial DNA tests show?
What are the Europeans going to do when the migration hits 500,000 or 5,000,000?
This is essentially the plot of Jean Raspail’s apocalyptic novel “The Camp of the Saints.” Boat loads of third-worlders just decide to go to Europe one day and basically dare Europe to turn them away. Europe, besotted with guilt and self-hatred, of course let’s them in, and that’s the end of that.
It will be very interesting indeed to see what happens when the steady stream of 3rd world arrivals turns into a Biblical flood.
Jordan [justice] minister calls for release of soldier who killed seven Israeli school girls
…wonder why Jews might feel victimized, Clown? … … … Gosh, it must be genetic, like the ability to smell an anti-Semite from 7,000 miles.
Hmmm… … … … …
Where is the Lesbian Legion, defender of women and children everywhere?… … …
…other than Israel/Zion, of course…
NEVER AGAIN!
Hosni Mubarak called it quits and I said at the end of one of my offerings that no good would come of it. After supporting him for 3 decades, the US threw him under a beach umbrella, under a tank.. Almost everywhere except the Mubarak household, people rejoiced. that “free elections” might be coming next. Free elections my a$$…one man ,one vote, one time…if they’re lucky.
Typical was the report in The Washington Post:
“Mubarak became the second Arab leader in a month to succumb to his people’s powerful thirst for freedom.” (Too bad the WP backed the Sandinistas, Castro, and cried when the Berlin Wall came down..ah..for the wrong reasons they cried. No doubt the WP want Hugo Chavez to get nukes .
“Thirst for freedom?” Baloney, it was a fixed deal, we’ll just have to wait for WikiLeaks, the honest news broker of the world to let us know what’s really gone on over there..
Many spoke of the “jubilant crowds”(2-3% of the population) and the “idealistic youth” behind the peaceful revolution.
Well, jubilant crowds attended the fall of Saigon but the crowds were the enemy and then Cambodia came around….killing what, 3-5 million?… Mubarak left office on Friday. The army took control on Saturday. On Sunday, the generals dissolved parliament. Today the MB is flexing its muscle.
Revolutions don’t always turn out well. The French Revolution was a good time to be in England. The Russian Revolution was a good time to be almost anywhere other than Russia. Even the American Revolution was a good time to be west of the Alleganies or elsewhere too. And then, when Americans finally got their freedom from Britain the recriminations against one another began. Tax rates had been only about 3% when the English ran the colonies. Now, the federal rate is 11 times as much. And for every injustice done to Americans by the English there must be 100 they have done to themselves. And then the bickering over who was to pay what portion for the revolution.
But revolutions happen.
Where should you be now? I don’t know. But I suggest that you have a rabbit hole somewhere. A refuge…a getaway…a family stronghold…
Many things could go wrong. Earthquakes. Plagues. Volcanic eruptions. Wars. Bankruptcies. Hyperinflations…anarchy..
Sh*t ty stuff happens.
That kind of bad stuff? All kinds. Kinds you expect. And kinds you don’t. A “peaceful revolution,” for example, can turn bloody mighty fast. And no one gives you advance notice. But black swans do not announce their arrival. They just appear.
Anticipating disaster? Will there be a collapse of the international monetary system, for example. It is almost inevitable…but it is still unpredictable. I can’t say when or how it will come about. I can say, much higher inflation rates are coming….…and a huge sell-off in government bond markets. Those things will provoke widespread financial disasters – possibly leading to riots, revolutions and other bad stuff.
It is very likely these financial calamities will cause a major economic disruption, like the collapse of the Roman Empire. In the chaos, trading networks could fall apart and take decades to be rebuilt. GDP growth could turn negative and remain in the red for years. Developed regions could slide backward for generations. Emerging markets could explode. Who knows what would happen? I see trouble coming…but I can’t tell you exactly what color it will be wearing…….when it will get here…or what it will do when it arrives. Take the worldwide computer wormy thing..Stuxnet.
Whether we acquiesce or not, our lives are determined by technology and computer systems. Our electric grids, nuclear systems, water supplies, financial institutions, fuel systems, communication systems, as well as our governments, are directed by technological systems, which are subject to attack or disruption.
Apparently, the cyber attackers are well funded, very sophisticated groups engaged in serious warfare all the time.I have mentioned the Chinese before with two Army divisions dedicated to crashing our systems. Imagine what happens when the USA runs out of money? How long will it take the attackers to get ahead technologically? With all the billions and billions of dollars worth of capital in the world…..…and the millions of people with high-tech computer skills…it seems like a matter of time before a serious Black Swan event occurs.
One thing about cyber war makes it especially attractive to low budget terrorists…….. it costs relatively little to maintain a serious threat. No battleships necessary. No billion-dollar fighter jets. No nuclear deterrent. In fact, with the right team of software geniuses, it may be possible to turn a nation’s own nuclear capability against itself.
The US Department of Defense classified military computer networks were attacked in 2008. At a military base in the Middle East, an infected flash drive was inserted into a US military laptop, presumably by a foreign intelligence agency. The code uploaded itself to a network run by the US Central Command, spreading undetected in classified and unclassified systems, creating a digital source from which data could be transferred to computer systems under foreign control.
In other words, when it comes to bad stuff…the sky’s the limit. It’s gonna happen, eventually…one way or another. And it could be real bad. NO, IT WILL BE REAL BAD. And when bad stuff happens, you’re better off being somewhere else.
Where?
Generally, bad stuff seems to happen most often in cities. Why is that? Cities are where most people live. It is where governments are. And it is where the labor force is most specialized. There are no subsistence farmers living in cities. Nor do urban populations “live off the land.” Instead, they depend on complex networks of commerce. The typical city dweller produces neither food nor energy. He sits all day in an office – completely dependent on others to provide power and food. Then, he goes home – still completely dependent on the division of labor for his most important needs.
Progress can be described as the elaboration of the division of labor. In man’s most primitive state, specialization is extremely limited. From what we’ve been told, the early man was the hunter. Early woman gathered…that’s about the extent of it. As the tribe grows larger, specialization increases. One person might tend the fire. Another might be in charge of making clothes or arrows.The advent of sedentary agriculture and towns caused a big leap forward in human progress and, not coincidentally, the division of labor. Some townspeople went out to tend the fields. Others began to focus on woodworking…or iron mongering…or making weapons…or clothes. Some played cards and hung around at bars. There was soon a homebuilding industry…and, not long after, merchants, prostitutes and bankers…and even shyster lawyers and tax collectors.
As the division of labor expanded, the average person became richer…and more dependent on others. In order to eat, someone else had to plant…and till…and harvest…and hunt…and gather. And then, when agriculture became mechanized, he depended on faraway people who produced oil and gasoline…and people who built tractors and combines…and bankers who financed industries and factories. And, of course, he was more dependent on money too. In the days when he bartered, money was no threat. Then, when he traded only with gold and silver coins, there were no monetary breakdowns…no hyperinflations…and no financial crises. As the 20th century progressed, more and more people gave up agriculture, moved to cities and took part in other industries. Today, cities may have millions of residents – like Bombay with 14 million…or Sao Paulo with 20 million…or Mexico City with even more. All of these people are dependent on vast, stretched lines of communication and commerce.
Even the farmers themselves are now dependent on these sophisticated networks of commerce. They depend on money…and what it will buy. Agriculture has become monocultural. That is, a farmer is likely to produce only wheat. Or only rapeseed. Or only barley. Or only cattle. Gone are the chickens around the farmhouse and the pig in the back pen. If the system of transport and trade breaks down – or the money itself goes bad – thousands of farmers could go hungry too.
There are black swans all over the place, waiting to be discovered. And when a black swan appears, people in the cities seem to suffer most. That’s why I own two places in Montana. One close to Helena, the other more remote.
In the hyperinflation in Germany in 1923, for example, farmers had so much food they ran out of storage space. But they wouldn’t sell it to city slickers. The mark was losing value so fast, farmers preferred to hold their crops off the market, knowing that the price was soaring…and that if they sold, the money they got would soon be worthless.
People in the cities, meanwhile, were starving. Soon, gangs roved the countryside, raiding rural barns and houses…and occasionally killing farmers who tried to resist. Plagues hit city dwellers hard too. Proximity seems to be a curse when an infectious disease appears.
And, of course, in time of war and revolution, cities tend to be the battlegrounds. And guess what, just like I would like to nuke a few now to prevent further adventures later, civilians, children included died by the hundreds of thousands in those revolutions.
Advancing armies are rarely polite. But even if they are advancing through the countryside, they are usually advancing towards cities, which they attack. Pillage and rape follow. When bad stuff happens, progress goes away……. so does the division of labor. It’s just you and maybe a few friends… When an economy goes backward, much of the specialization that developed during the boom years turns out to be worth sh*t and the bicycle is king again..
As the division of labor goes backward, people also find they need to tend to their own food and energy needs. Here is where it gets very tough for people who live in cities. They have no stores of mason jars with food from their own gardens that they have canned themselves. They have no hams hanging in the barn or stocked away in the larder. They have no animals on the hoof that they can slaughter. They get no eggs from the chickens they don’t have…and they can hardly go into the local park and shoot squirrels to make a pie.Instead, they are out of luck.Generally, when the black swans come out you are better off in the country – with country-boy skills and old-time farms supplies.
Good luck optimists.
O/T permission requested
The fix was in.
Derivatives: The Real Reason Bernanke Funnels Trillions Into Wall Street Banks
We’ve been over the numerous BS excuses that US Dollar destroyer extraordinaire Ben Bernanke has made for QE enough times that today I’d rather simply focus on the REAL reason he continues to funnel TRILLIONS of Dollars into the Wall Street Banks.
I’ve written this analysis before. But given the enormity of what it entails, it’s worth repeating. The following paragraphs are the REAL reason Bernanke does what he does no matter what any other media outlet, book, investment expert, or guru tell you.
Bernanke is printing money and funneling it into the Wall Street banks for one reason and one reason only. That reason is: DERIVATIVES
According to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activities for the Second Quarter 2010 (most recent), the notional value of derivatives held by U.S. commercial banks is around $223.4 TRILLION.
Of course, Bernanke tells the public and Congress that the reason we need low interest rates is to support housing prices. He doesn’t mention that $188 TRILLION of the $223 TRILLION in notional value of derivatives sitting on the Big Banks’ balance sheets is related to interest rates.
Yes, $188 TRILLION. That’s thirteen times the US’ entire GDP, and nearly four times WORLD GDP Black Swan cocktail anyone?
READ ON…..
http://tinyurl.com/4morfue
peterike…
Italy is faced with moral hazard. If they have any foresight they’d ship these aliens back home.
Europe cannot possibly handle the disaster that low food prices have created.
Unlimited births at the source cannot be cured by venting them — unless the target populations don’t mind being economically crushed.
All over the Maghreb, Egypt and Araby millions of poverty stricken souls stand waiting for ever more hand outs. The edge of the Petrie dish looms directly ahead.
Any further muslim immigration into Europe will cause the EEC to fold up like a cheap tent.
As it stands, muslim immigration has gutted their economic dynamo.
We’ve seen something like it in North America. By permitting the Smart Fraction ™ of Mexico & South to flee home we’ve completely destabilized those lands. Without human talent everything falls apart. Because of American attitudes the first pillar to fall is medical care. We start by sucking out all of the nurses and then the doctors. This then causes everyone else to flee north. Staying alive is always an issue.
Of course, just because Mexican immigrants are smart by Mexican standards does not mean that they are going to rank as even above average in America. There is an IQ norm gap of 15 ish points. Hence, we can cripple Mexico and still lower our own national IQ norm.
Sweet.
Folks 90% of the per capita GDP is determined by the Smart Fraction ™ of a society. This has huge policy implications.
For starters, government policy should be — at every turn — geared towards lifting IQs and maximizing human potential. No Child Left Behind is an example of a heart-warming policy that works entirely against maximizing human potential. The only way — in the applied art — that schools are able to meet the mandate is to slow e v e r y t h i n g d o w n — to the slowest idiot in class — no matter how slow. This can be very slow indeed because the NEA has pushed for ‘main-streaming’ idiots, dolts, morons, and malcontents.
Not surprisingly, teachers faced with such children jump the wall and escape.
Wild kids, mentally challenged kids need special everything. Plopping them down into the common classroom is a fiasco all the way around. If the wild kids were removed from class — the rest could get educated even in the ghetto. It is the case that the only principals famed for inner-city success run a tough railroad. I would go so far as to replace the female instructors in such settings with male jocks — with a distinct preference for African-Americans. I’d also toss out the teaching credential B.S. that the NEA loves so much. It’s worthless.
——
Back to Tunisia…
The smarter they are the quicker they flee. Any open gate policy is going to trigger a wholesale collapse in Tunisia and the rest of the Maghreb.
The population there must drop. It would be much better if such were to happen by natural attrition — but that’s not in the cards.
France is about to find that methane is cheaper when drilled at home. Apparently the entire zone from Paris to the Channel is laden with tight gas — and suitable for ‘fracking.’ Back of the envelope calcs indicate a two century supply. France doesn’t need Algeria much longer.
Since the ummah is almost entirely free of manufacturing how in the world can they support themselves? I don’t see it.
Iraq the Model.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, the rancor of both Republicans and Democrats in US energy producing states keeps growing at the Obama administration. The loss of jobs, brown outs, rising food and fuel prices are all ratchiting up the anger nation wide. There has been an increase in Dimocrats at the local levels crossing the aisle.
There is growing fear that the next few winters are going to be worse than this one. We are looking at interconnect failure across all issues both foreign and domestic.
The water is starting to get dense with rats in life vests.
If the Suez cannal gets plugged and things explode in the Straits of Hormuz, even for a week, look out.
Habu…
Easy on the italics, please.
We shall indeed see what comes out of the turmoil in the Middle East. But I am not optimistic. When you live in a dysfunctional and outmoded culture it is easy to see its flaws.
Throwing down the rulers is not much of a problem compared to a dysfunctional culture coming up with an alternative that is any better than what they had before. That is the essential problem. The West is hated not so much because of what they are, but because they illustrate to the rest of the world what the rest of the world is not, and seemingly is incapable of being.
Regarding the comments on whether China would have an interest to intervene in Egypt, I can’t understand why they would. I can’t think of anything that Eqypt has that China would want. On the other hand, I can understand why Russia might want control of the Suez Canal. They would then gain the last bit of control that they don’t already have over Europe’s energy supply.
Maybe I’m dense, but I’m not sure what freedom is going to mean to a resource poor, illiterate society like Egypt. Last time I checked, the average Bolivian has been free for sometime.
To use a poor sports analogy, it appears that all the Egyptians have done is fire the unpopular head coach. If the team was cr&p before the coach was fired, odds are that it’s still cr&p the day after.
The establishment sees what it wants to see and ignores what it doesn’t want to see. It happened in France during the revolution, it happened in Egypt last week and it is happening right now in Washington DC. Establishments are not built for speed. Like a convoy, they move no faster then the slowest element. Some of those elements are slow indeed.
The establishment was dead set against the Campaign in Iraq. That is why they refuse to see that the democracy craved my so many Muslims was let loose in Iraq and is now running free.
Don’t know how it will turn out. The despots can always leave the anti-social non-networks up and disappear the posters. You can find bully boys for that easier then you can find thugs to use automatic weapons on the mobs. That would require an understanding of how the net worked, which is unlikely.
America is NOT immune.
Through it all I wonder, Who stands to gain?
28. stoicheion
Through it all I wonder, Who stands to gain?
Perhaps a better question might be “who, already in power, stands to lose?” And to what ends will they go to preserve the status quo so they do not? Putting up a new facade is much easier than facing extinction. It has an historical precedent of being a very good game plan for survival.
Habu, woah ! “a intellectual is born !”
a bit more of the fis(sic) fix being in …….
addition to #21
“Of course, Bernanke tells the public and Congress that the reason we need low interest rates is to support housing prices. He doesn’t mention that $188 TRILLION of the $223 TRILLION in notional value of derivatives sitting on the Big Banks’ balance sheets is related to interest rates.
Yes, $188 TRILLION. That’s thirteen times the US’ entire GDP, and nearly four times WORLD GDP.
Now, of course, not ALL of this money is “at risk,” since the same derivatives can be traded/spread out dozens of ways by different banks as a means of dispersing risk.
However, given the amount of money at stake, if even 4% of this money is “at risk” and 10% of that 4% goes wrong, you’ve wiped out ALL of the equity at the top five banks.
Put another way, Bank of America (BAC), JP Morgan (JPM), Goldman (GS), and Citibank (C) would CEASE to exist.
yeah, wow. Montana here I come..I can take the cold….the remote place is built like Coober Pedy…… http://tinyurl.com/l23t8a
25. blert
Inadvertant & sloppy…my apologies
30. Marie Claude
You just haven’t read me over six years.
Peterike #18:
I have heard of that novel. The huge, immense flaw in it is that if such people had enough intelligence, gumption, guts, and competence to grab that many ships and set sail they would not have to leave in the first place.
I wonder how badly we have harmed the 3rd world by effectively providing an escape route for the most non-screwed up people there?
Currency, food, energy, diplomacy, and maintenance of access to the commons are the pillars of the international system. And all of those are anchored on their essentials, either on the US or protected by it.
The best way to deal with the crisis in the Middle East is to focus on US domestic policy. Washington in the key to overseas events. Three or four things have to happen to turn things around globally.
1. energy production must be unleashed. Drill and build.
2. stop printing money. Cut the deficit, kill Obamacare or replace it with a sustainable program costing no more and preferably less than the status quo ante.
3. regain control of the border.
The President won’t do any of these things so as the situation worsens, as oil gets more expensive, the dollar weakens and the US becomes ever more ridden by internal weakness and overseas crisis a political crisis will inevitably descend on Washington.
Maybe the Democratic Party can prevail on the President to ask Joe Biden to resign and replace Biden with an acceptable and competent Democrat to whom the President will give way to by resignation. But I don’t think it will happen.
What might happen is that the entire establishment will hang on with the their fingernails as the whole world tumbles down, unable to even comprehend that it is no longer even perceived to be in charge. There won’t be any putsches or power plays, even at the last, just a kind of stunned silence punctuated by observations on Justin Bieber’s latest single or Lady Gaga’s gown. And by assent, we’ll know that it’s over.
Habu,
yes, though you were almost the time geared into your nuclear fallout shelter
Wretchard: That is one great article. I know it’s been said before, but you are really good at this.
Wretchard, are you going isolationist? Not that I disagree.
33. RWE
Do you suppose they will go back home after the new despot takes over?
Tcobb: “His aura is more like PeeWee Herman stoned on a combination of Ecstasy and paint fumes.”
-Given the drug problems in Iran, that makes him the equivalent of more than a few Mullahs and their dinner jackets. Good luck to future historians charting this one.
Wretchard @ 34 said:
“The President won’t do any of these things so as the situation worsens, as oil gets more expensive, the dollar weakens and the US becomes ever more ridden by internal weakness and overseas crisis a political crisis will inevitably descend on Washington. … What might happen is that the entire establishment will hang on with the their fingernails as the whole world tumbles down, unable to even comprehend that it is no longer even perceived to be in charge.”
I’d be the first to agree that Obama is a catastrophe, the world is a mess and we need to take serious action now. However I’m sceptical that we can’t wait until after Obama is ejected through the normal election cycle. Are things so screwed up that we really need a competent President today, otherwise all hell breaks loose? Are we really that close to the edge of the cliff?
Are things so screwed up that we really need a competent President today, otherwise all hell breaks loose? Are we really that close to the edge of the cliff?
I don’t know. Events have a way of ebbing and flowing. Things run on quickly for a while, then seemingly disappear. Then they show up all at once again.
Nor is it clear that even if the President were voluntarily replaced by say, Colin Powell, that Powell could do anything about it. But sometimes winning a war is simply the process of not outblundering the other actors.
The President is not the ultimate problem. He’s just a product of an entire system whose faults are now becoming fatal. That system is now incapable of producing anything but incremental improvements until reality comes and dismantles it. About all you can do is wait, with bated breath, for whatever is out there to come through the door.
What happened during World War 2 was that the US remained functional while the rest of the world tore itself down. It built stuff, grew food, and listened to the radio while the super-race made war against the vanguards of history and the sun emperor attempted to gain his divine destiny.
The American century was the flip side of European and Asian suicide. All you really need to do in a world gone crazy is to be the last man standing; the last unburned house on the block. So somebody should persuade the President that one ought to pump out a little more oil, build lots more new-tech nuclear reactors, quit printing money and to close the door. Nothing crazy there. It only sounds radical because we live in an insane world where the goals are to print carbon credits, borrow our way out of debt and expiate historical guilt by providing employment of last resort to people fleeing South American dictators.
The real data doesn’t lie in finding a solution to the current problems. The solutions are obvious. The real data, as Ferguson notes, is that we are incapable of grasping the obvious and therefore the problem is us. As a society the West has gone nuts. It was OK for a while after ’45, but the same old bad dreams have come back in new, twisted forms.
Sanity, kindness and plain old common sense are our friends. If we could but cling to the fact that the sun is shining outside the window and that the ceiling is up, we’ll make it through the next decade. And if that sounds too simple, remember that for many — especially many of the most “qualified” — those simple acts are far, far too hard.
Yep, I’m looking forward to hearing about Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. It’s really all we can focus on in this trying time. Maybe tomorrow we’ll pick up the spoon with a cereal in it and stop putting off tasting it like we’ve done these last three days.
40. Eggplant
Sir,
“I’d be the first to agree that Obama is a catastrophe, the world is a mess and we need to take serious action now. However I’m skeptical that we can’t wait until after Obama is ejected through the normal election cycle. Are things so screwed up that we really need a competent President today, otherwise all hell breaks loose? Are we really that close to the edge of the cliff?
You say you are skeptical that we can’t wait for the next election cycle; after proclaiming POTUS a catastrophe. You’re right on both counts from where I sit…..#1. They’ll be no impeachment…..,#2 second to nuking foreign enemies , US elections are the best way.
T o take the liberty of answering what may have been a rhetorical question: “Are we really that close to the edge of the cliff?……refer to my #21 just as a starter … notice it totally leaves out all the foreign trouble we must face. So I would say ….our toes are already over the edge of the cliff.
wretchard @ 41 said:
“What happened during World War 2 was that the US remained functional while the rest of the world tore itself down. It built stuff, grew food, and listened to the radio while the super-race made war against the vanguards of history and the sun emperor attempted to gain his divine destiny.”
Prior to WW-II, the world was much less interconnected. It was economically and politically possible for a large nation like the United States to engaged in isolationism. Truth be told, the United States became a super power by default because we were the only one left standing after WW-II.
We may have destroyed ourselves through globalism. I should add that the main reason why we adopted globalism was because we had depleted our readily accessible petroleum supply within the continental United States.
We no longer have the option of curling up like a clam inside our shell and wait for the world to destroy itself. Some sort of military break out maybe our best option, i.e. behave like Alexander the Great did when presented with a huge military and a decayed Persian Empire.
In post #41 W nails it again.
I would add however not just closing the door but exporting all Islams from the USA, citizens or not. Lincoln imprisoned US citizens that he thought troublemakers and held them without charges. He even threatened to suspend Congress. We cannot afford Islam to have any,none,nada foothold in the USA….they are the antithesis to our thesis and contary to Hegelian dictum thar ain’t no synthesis with them thar folks.
Europe has awakened , but it may be too late for them.
Are things so screwed up that we really need a competent President today, otherwise all hell breaks loose? Are we really that close to the edge of the cliff?
I don’t know. Events have a way of ebbing and flowing. Things run on quickly for a while, then seemingly disappear. Then they show up all at once again.
Actually “events” are on a 24/7 cycle. It’s just that the gatekeeppers controlled the gates and only showed us what was deemed worthy. Now their control has slipped to the point of almost being gone and “events” are being shoved thru the gates by those participating in them. By 2020 news will be a ticker provided by your ISP and you’ll have your PDA gather those items of interest and get your own personalized news channel. Big bucks to the software team that works that out.
Iran has riots EVERY year. It’s in June on the date the police shot down some student protesters back in the late 90′s. MSM won’t say that for a lot of reasons. Mostly money but aoso they don’t want the suckers thinking “if it’s news today, why wasn’t it news 5 years ago?’. Jordan has riots fairly often also.
AS far as America, so long as the voters think their vote counts we are good. The US system is just as rigged as the Iranian one only most people haven’t figured that out yet.
Remember, control of the Senate was decided by 3 Judges, all Clinton Judges.
The current world crisis presents enormous opportunities for the US, but to take advantage of them requires putting its house in order. Control of the seas, access to the vast food producing areas of North America, South America and Australia; a strong technology base, and power over the undersea fiber optic cables, space and leadership in information systems — these provide enormous levers with which to build a better world.
But they can only be used by through an effort of conscious rationality that is not there. Recovering that rationality is akin to waking up and regaining control over powerful limbs and far vision. But right now all those strengths avail us not. Until we wake up, the valleys will be kept arid to save the snail darter; it will take decades to build new powerplants, food will be turned to ethanol and we will continue to worship the worst and most backward ideas that we can find simply on the strength that these ideas are hostile to everything we used to hold dear.
We need to snap out of this horrible paralysis as the first step.
w/46; the horrible paralysis comes from not knowing whether our own government is with us or against us. Attack the government, attack the nation, attack the nation, you’re fighting for the geography. And for most of us, the geography still seems safe –that is, there’s nobody to fight for it, nobody has come for it yet. The NWO planners inside the US government are very skilled. As we saw leak out via the recently fired Carol Browner, nothing is ever put down in writing, so it can always be simple ignorance of the things falling down all around.
Stoichion #38:
Some years ago I heard an interview on NPR with a political refugee from Argentina, I believe it was. The military junta there had fallen and they asked her if it was so much better now and that if she was going back home as a result.
Her reply was that after the junta had fallen that people had become very individualistic and that this was a serious problem. She never said if she was going back. I guess she was going to wait until the people stopped being so individualistic. And after that she probably would refuse to go back in protest of so may people wearing purple socks or green hats or the horrible situation humanitarian situation resulting from too few Starbucks that are open before 0700.
Wretchard #41:
In other words, the system gets better and better until it collapses. Where have we heard that before?
“All you really need to do in a world gone crazy is to be the last man standing; the last unburned house on the block.”
Not any more. You just get your property taxes raised because the value of all the other homes have decreased so radically and the government cannot do with any less money (it’s happening where I live) – and also end up with a lot of “guests” who think they have a right to live with you because their own place burned down during that last wild party (happened at a rental property I own).
W@46: The horrible paralysis might end when incomes in the USA become downwardly realigned to output, (as someone said recently in the Daily Telegraph). That would bring on a huge domestic political crisis and would focus minds on one of the first things that must be fixed – increase US outputs of real stuff.
The same downward realignment of incomes to output is happening in Europe. This is a big deal. The world has been run by crazy people for some time now. If everybody gets poorer and they know the crazy people did it, then sanity might prevail once more as a few ‘leaders’ get dumped off the end of the dock into the saltchuck. Metaphorically speaking of course.
buddy larsen/47
And the NWO you can trace directly back to the FED, from the FED to the bankers, and from the bankers and their too bloated to fail derivatives, to the bailout money that impoverished the middle class, destroying the middle class and their children’s chances for a better life.
Wall Street and all the aforementioned no longer have ANY national allegiance to any nation, much less the USA. They worship only the NEXUS…money, and they work it 24/7/365 draining the lifeblood of this nation. They will end up ok because they will simply go wherever there isn’t a bad time going on for them to have to endure.
It is bad and history repeatedly tells us when things get this FUBAR’ed…. WAR results.
I still say we are going to be forced to use nuclear weapons sooner rather than later, so preemption is the way to go. It will buy us time which we are rapidly running out of…look at the damage one man, obama , has done worldwide in just two years.
Iran announced “they’ve already had their revolution, anything now would be a counter-revolution”.
aka a coup-coup.
One positive trend that we can take comfort in is that US oil and gas producers are doing a great job of developing shale resources. It’s gone beyond just natural gas (where US nat gas prices are half of that in Europe and Asia) and we are seeing those impacts in the US crude oil market. Today, our marker crude West Texas Intermediate traded $20/barrel below the European marker Brent crude. The shale revolution has come to oil and US oil production is back on the rise again despite the offshore ban. Not that the EPA and Lisa Jackson (imo one of the most dangerous members of this administration) aren’t trying to shut this great phenomenon down. Considering that shale was a nascent play just six years ago, this is nothing short of phenomenonal.
In an era where it is easy to lose hope, I find that this story is not getting enough play.
The British Empire thrived by maintaining free trade through control of the oceans through the Royal Navy.
They also engaged in successful moral quests–like the abolition of slavery.
The main focus, however, was always British national interests.
America should adopt the same self interests focus
–stop handouts to both Egypt and Israel and tell them to sort out their differences in a commercial manner or self destruct
–if we are firm they will come to their senses.
The Iranian regime is doomed by demographics and the decreasing price of natural gas and they know it
—30years ago we made a devils pact with fundamentalist Islam because it seemed a better alternative than the Soviet hegemony.
Times have changed-the recent developments in Egypt, Tunisia etc reject both fundamentalists and AQ.
In a one crop cycle the US, Canada and Australia can triple their grain production and go much further from there.
That is good for the Anglosphere and Western Christian civilization.
The key strategic threat to Western Christian Civilization is China
–as the WSJ article pointed out in detail this weekend.
People can thrive on a diet of rice/corn and beans–less meat, spam and sugar.
There is, in fact, a world crisis in obesity.
There is no food crisis–just an opportunity for the Anglosphere to correct for the price of oil relative to grain.
America needs to focus upon its own interests and ignore foreign lobbies and agents.
@43 Eggplant
“Prior to WW-II, the world was much less interconnected. It was economically and politically possible for a large nation like the United States to engaged in isolationism.”
True to an extent…prior to 1914 the world was certainly deeply interconnected, a globalization if you will. Of a different form than we experience now through the wonders of telecommunication, but interconnected nonetheless. The USA was still the other side of the world. But it did work, until Europe decided to pitch itself into the abyss in August 1914.
I agree with Wretchard regarding our way out…hydraulic fracturing is booming in the US right now…it is occurring for the most part out of sight of the media (thank god). As “blert” notes above France has opportunities there as well, as do most countries if I can feel a bit optomistic. Part one of the prescription is partially in motion…which has promise. The Malthusian Middle East situation? I used to think 1789…I’m not sure we aren’t discussing something from the 4th Century now…
h/50; They will end up ok because they will simply go wherever there isn’t a bad time going on for them to have to endure
New dwellings at least in Ordos are said to be snapped up as soon as they come on the market, but it seems the buyers are not moving in yet.
Lord Rothschild, said to control a third of the new development of Astana, Kazakhstan, meets with the Kazakh officials, UK PM Cameron, and Prince Andrew regularly, and has opened up a fund for us peons: (TAU:LN)
Astana’s near neighbor just over Kazakhstan’s northern border.
=lots of stuff on the web about all three.
***
dP/54, re ’4th century’ –Astana is built on the ancient site of the main departure point for the Golden Horde.
Just now someone asked me “why are today’s celebrities so tanned they look like a piece of wood?” My instinctive answer was that it was because someone started a trend and everyone just followed. To the question why, you really don’t need a reason as a starting point. All you need a magazine ad or PR campaign.
Yesterday I went walking up the Central Coast and stopped every now and again for coffee. The scenery was spectacular but it was the people who were fascinating. What was the story with the tight jeans with the love handles spilling over, the dyed hair or the white shoes? Why would anyone buy that stuff and put it on?
The answer was probably because somebody did, like the wood-colored tan. And that was enough to start a trend.
Maybe TV has conditioned most people to want to be “like somebody”. And as you go through the world you find better and worse copies of archetypes depending on what they can afford. The water was covered with boats and while some were no doubt the objects of passion for those innate sailors drawn by the romance of the sea, a lot of the watercraft, seemed bought by people who saw themselves as starring in an Old Spice commercial. They you would go from the big ones, all hardwood, brass and 1,500 horsepower engines right down to painters dignified by a hopeful mast, more expressions of aspiration than reality.
And the cafes were like the harbor, and the man with the bargain-basement equivalent of the trophy wife would occasionally come sailing in. The same big hair, the same attempts at emulating some celebrity, but on a budget, as the gentleman himself was.
The sad thing was that they weren’t content to be themselves, which wouldn’t be half bad. For some reason we’ve become ashamed to be ourselves and we’d rather be a bad copy of Brad Pitt or Liberace than Joe Blow. Through some impoverishment of the imagination there are many who remained imprisoned in these advertising and media archetypes.
Take tattoos. I am sure there are some people who have themselves tattooed for some deep existential or aesthetic impulse, but 99.9% of them, I’ll wager, have gotten themselves illustrated because they read about it in a magazine.
As I walked along the inlets, I wondered, “what did people do before boats?” Probably pitched horseshoes or collected stamps or grew cacti in the backyard. Maybe some of them played pianos or read books. But heck now, all some can do is think of hocking themselves to the gills for a boat or tanning themselves into something the consistency of varnished deal. And they’ll do it for no other reason than because somebody else did.
Maybe that is what’s happening, to a more complex extent, in public life. You have media and political figures who believe in these fantastic things, like carbon credits, or in the Timothy Treadwell school of diplomacy that holds that if you go out and sing among the predators of the world, someone will write a book about you as the “Ahmedinajad whisperer”. And none of them would have believed it on their own, if they had to think from first principles or design their lives from scratch. It would be too ludicrous a conclusion to reach independently. But since they have role models to base their behavior on, then nothing is too insane to embrace.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=TAU:LN
Nice chart –almost straight up since mid-January. Be sure and check volume chart too, at the bottom of page.
***
w sez; The sad thing was that they weren’t content to be themselves, which would have made them interesting
Lord knows where that starts, probably at home as a wee babe, but for sure fractured identities can never be happy with what they have, because they don’t know who they are.
And too, modernity does broaden us out, but since nothing can add volume, the only way forward to the front is to get shallower.
Excellent thread. Before Tunesia and Egypt went into play, I recently read somewhere that the islamic revolution (not just the Iranian Islamic Revolution) was given the go-ahead to start bringing down governments in the Middle East and take over, establish their islamic theocracies. I can’t remember where I read it……pajamasmedia, realclearpolitics, or hotair. Either way, it’s happening before our eyes.
None of this is happening by chance. It was well orchestrated to look like it was a spontaneous set of events leading to the downfall of these STRONGMAN leaders. Once these countries and the other states that will fall (hopefully the Saudi’s will be among them, they will all fall into place like pieces to a puzzle and become islamic republics. It sickens me to see the word islamic in front of the word republic. Sorry guys. The Arab Republic of Egypt………is that the definition of “republic” in the arab world?
The Middle East is: Failed States, Failed Religion, and Failed Civilization.
Food for Oil. Or they can drink their stinkin oil.
Get ready my friends. Even though oceans separate us from THEM, they mean to take over and we aren’t ready or prepared for it.
33. RWE I have heard of that novel. The huge, immense flaw in it is that if such people had enough intelligence, gumption, guts, and competence to grab that many ships and set sail they would not have to leave in the first place.
Well, it’s an allegorical fantasy, like a modern “Piers Plowman.” The real point is to examine the Liberal mind, at which it does a very good job. It’s a bit of a slog (I don’t know how much of that is a possible bad translation from the French), but it has a profound power to it.
22, Blert: Wild kids, mentally challenged kids need special everything. Plopping them down into the common classroom is a fiasco all the way around.
Don’t I know it. Brings to mind the great Chesterton line, “It is simply another example of the modern and morbid weakness to sacrifice the normal to the abnormal.” Is there a better one sentence description of Liberal social thinking than that?
The rats won’t give up that cheese called “The West” until they’ve devoured it to the very last crumb. Big and thick as it is, that will take them some time. They’re at it even now. — Jean Raspail
One more thing to consider:
Suppose the U.S. wheat crop fails?
In my area the winter wheat looks worse than I have ever seen it for this time of year. A large percentage of the continuous wheat never came up. It has also been very dry. The last good rain came in August. Nothing but sprinkles since.
If it looks this bad in Kansas and Oklahoma we will have a short crop this year.
God bless Niall Ferguson! Telling it like it is.
I love how he calls Egypt a “poor and not very well-educated society”–too many people ignore this fact–revolution in the Czech republic is one thing–here we’re playing with fire.
This doesn’t justify endless dictatorship, of course, but it does suggest a degree of extreme wariness in the days ahead.
peterike@59: Chesterton made some remarks about prophecy in which he identified a game called “Cheat the Prophet”. In this game:
‘The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else…..
But in the beginning of the twentieth century the game of Cheat the Prophet was made far more difficult than it had ever been before. The reason was, that there were so many prophets and so many prophecies, that it was difficult to elude all their ingenuities …..
And it did certainly appear that the prophets had put the people (engaged in the old game of Cheat the Prophet) in a quite unprecedented difficulty. It seemed really hard to do anything without fulfilling some of their prophecies. All these clever men were prophesying with every variety of ingenuity what would happen soon, and they all did it in the same way, by taking something they saw “going strong,” as the saying is, and carrying it as far as ever their imagination could stretch….. Then the people went and did what they liked.‘
Maybe it’s high time we started playing “cheat the prophet.”
W: The answer was probably because somebody did, like the wood-colored tan. And that was enough to start a trend.
Mister Music, cue The Cure please….
It won’t take you long
To learn the new smile
You’ll have to adapt
Or you’ll be out of style
It’s always the same
You’re jumping someone else’s train
If you pick up on it quick
You can say you were there
Again and again and again
You’re jumping someone else’s train
It’s the latest wave
That you’ve been craving for
The old ideal
Was getting such a bore
Now you’re back in line
Going not quite quite as far
But in half the time
Everyone’s happy
They’re finally all the same
’cause everyone’s jumping
Everybody else’s train
Jumping someone else’s train
Jumping someone else’s train
Jumping someone else’s train
W said-” Take tattoos. I am sure there are some people who have themselves tattooed for some deep existential or aesthetic impulse, but 99.9% of them, I’ll wager, have gotten themselves illustrated because they read about it in a magazine.”
In California most Arabs are Christian Arabs and most Muslims resemble Mormons-who are seen as Christians.
Ironically, American Muslims share many values with American Christians–the culture of Life–Sobriety–Family Values etc.
The extremists will be marginalized, just as the Mormons marginalized their extremists–after the US Cavalry had imposed monogamy.
The key issues are economics and values.
Modern Western values are corrupted by a culture of hedonism–a rakes progress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rake%27s_Progress
The protests in Cairo were sober–compare them with the drunken madness on any weekend in the UK or on US campuses
–or much, worse the drunken, drug fuel riots in LA in the early 90s.
The fact is that Christians have common values with many Muslims and Arabs.
Demonizing ALL Muslims and Arabs is not in American best interests, we need to build on common ground and values and isolate the Jacobins and fanatics.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/the_story_of_the_egyptian_revo.html
a very interesting take on Egypt, it’s ten days old already but seems to have the ring of truth about it.
it does not end very hopefully.
Why is cleverness frowned upon?
bl…
I’m not really sure…
What I do know is that I received corporal punishment for reading well.
My 5th grade teacher was enraged that one ( I ) of her students could read at an adult tempo and understanding.
Furious, she was.
Hence… Off to the Mother Superior for a Blues Brothers corporal slap.
The single oddest thing about an entirely weird event — it was entirely out of the blue — no proximate rationale.
Only with the Mother Superior did I find that I’d vexed my ‘teacher’ for months on end — and this was my due punishment.
Now understand: my teacher DEMANDED to re-teach me.
She’d been my fourth grade ‘teacher’ — my grief was great…
And then managed to con the administration into teaching the exact same cohort a second time!
It was all ever about me.
Decades later…
I find out that my parents were VERY close to her brother ( of the cloth ) … and that even though I was having unending nightmares under her grace… never thought much of it.
!
In short: I had to endure this crazy bitch for two full scholastic years in my youth — of which this crazy shrew made my life hell every school day. Even when my parents knew that I was having relentless nightmares…. Hey no problem here.
Yeah, the bitch was a spinster.
Even as warped as she was she knew that she’d never see a child the like of me in her….
I’ll trade Egypt for Iran. Then it will be like 1970.
#2 blert
The Zero projects the aura of Chamberlain.
Chamberlain, despite being the Jimmy Carter of his time, after he was replaced by Churchill became an ardent foe of Germany in his remaining time. Buraq has something of the stench of Pierre Laval about him, I think.
#34 wretchard & #40 Eggplant & #47 buddy larsen
Are things so screwed up that we really need a competent President today, otherwise all hell breaks loose? Are we really that close to the edge of the cliff?
the horrible paralysis comes from not knowing whether our own government is with us or against us.
Things ARE that bad. We may be in the act of testing the old skydiving theory that free fall after a chute failure doesn’t hurt. It is the sudden stop that hurts, for a little while.
The incumbents in the government are not the nation or its people. And the question as to which side the government is on has to be rhetorical. They are against us. And even if they were not, what would they be doing differently if they were?
#60 feeblemind
Where are you seeing the winter wheat?
If the US Wheat crop fails, so long as it is not a total failure, we should be able to handle domestic demand; unless of course, our current regime decides in the name of international solidarity to export food to the needy in the ME, even if it hurts us. However, in the rest of the world, there are going to be Four Horsemen [the popular culture version, not the strict Biblical translation] doing dressage all over several continents.
Subotai Bahadur
W/65 – Honkey see, honkey do.
It’s a tribal thing. . . look at any picture of a few tribesmen and see how they’re all dressed and painted alike.
Team spirit.
Reminds me of a John Cleese joke making the rounds:
ANNOUNCEMENT
The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have therefore raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.”
Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross.” The English have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out.. Terrorists have been re-categorized from “Tiresome” to “A Bloody Nuisance.” The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada..
The Scots have raised their threat level from “Pissed Off” to “Let’s get the Bastards.” They don’t have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.
The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide.” The only two higher levels in France are “Collaborate” and “Surrender.” The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country’s military capability.
Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout Loudly and Excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing.” Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides.”
The Germans have increased their alert state from “Disdainful Arrogance” to “Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs.” They also have two higher levels: “Invade a Neighbor” and “Lose..”
Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels .
The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.
Australia , meanwhile, has raised its security level from “No worries” to “She’ll be alright, Mate.” Three more escalation levels remain: “Crikey!”, “I think we’ll need to cancel the barbie this weekend”, and “The barbie is cancelled.”
The are 77 million people in Egypt, 20 million in greater Cairo, 6.5 million in the urban center, and 200,000 demonstrators at any given time in that square. Those numbers tell me the situation and the public mood and thinking is way more complex than the talking heads seem to think. This situation is going to roil for some time and the central truth for all the Mideast and Islamic world is that if Israel were to disappear tomorrow not a single one of their problems would go away. Until the Arab street is able to digest that truth there is no possibility of representative democracy or prosperity emerging in the region.
bl @ 66: excellent article, with its own antidote:
We should remember that self-esteem under its old name, pride, was considered sinful.
How true this is, modesty these days is seen as lack of confidence, etc.
uh Moniker
these jokes are just low jokes that reflected the Neocons supporters’, if they aren’t just a insidious racism from the angloxaxonnery against the French
W 41. “Sanity, kindness and plain old common sense are our friends. If we could but cling to the fact that the sun is shining outside the window and that the ceiling is up, we’ll make it through the next decade. And if that sounds too simple, remember that for many — especially many of the most “qualified” — those simple acts are far, far too hard.”
It’s OCP what’s done screwed up the system. None more “qualified” than the graduates of the Office of Communist Propaganda.
As for why people mimic each other, Humans are intrinsically mimetic. Try Reflections on the Flannery O’Connor story A Good Man is Hard to Find, or pick up Bailie’s book on Amazon.
B 67. Oh, yeah. When on the first day I saw that I was going to have the same psychopath again in the 5th grade, I broke into tears. Fortunately my mother was with me, and was surprised at my reaction. Bless her heart, she enrolled all five of us in another school the next day.
SB 68. “…If the US Wheat crop fails, so long as it is not a total failure, we should be able to handle domestic demand; unless of course, our current regime decides in the name of international solidarity to export food to the needy in the ME, even if it hurts us.” Wouldn’t that be a lovely historical parallel? Then we could be the Ukranian States of America.
b/67, maybe she was suffering from the no bigamy of soft expectations
mc/73 –re culture jokes, i was looking up ”targe” the other day, take a look at the translation of the (depicted) old Hungarian shield –it’s great –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targe
bl@66: Cleverness isn’t frowned upon in Canadian private schools. It is frowned upon in Canadian public schools. The article you reference is dripping with irony because, in the English post WWII shiny new welfare state, cleverness was used to stream high school students into vocational schools and Grammar Schools. Every kid in the state schools took a series of rigorous intelligence, arithmetic and English tests at the age of 11. Only the ones with high test scores went on to Grammar School. Only Grammar School students were considered as candidates for University. Entrance to university was also competitive and only the brightest were selected. In this system, poor kids who were clever were encouraged to compete, succeed and achieve great social mobility. Many, many working class kids eventually entered the Professions and Sciences under this system, thereby escaping generations of entrapment by the English class system.
As the English welfare state matured, the mud theory of education took over and streaming became politically incorrect. According to the mud theory, the minds of all kids are made from the same bucket of mud and therefore must be equally mistreated. It was now wrong to say that some kids are smarter than others. You see, it might cause low self esteem amongst the majority of students – especially if the teachers worked hard enough to make it so. The US and Canadian public school systems are also fine examples of the mud theory.
The mud theory of education is responsible for the biggest waste of talent since Robert Rogers (Rogers’ Rangers) turned into a drunk.
A couple of half-formed, poorly thought out questions and comments:
1) why is it that people seem to think that China has some sort of special immunity when it comes to the problems and issues the world is facing? The theme that China will march in a straight line to global prominence, displacing the West, is pretty unlikely to me.
2) we’re facing an imminent oil crisis. When it happens I think the greenies will be shunted to the side, and we will be killing all of the Polar Bears to make warm coats for the workers who will be erecting pipelines in Caribou country. The Caribou are probably very tasty if cooked correctly. $10 and worldwide depression will clear minds. The ME is sowing the seeds of it’s own irrelevance.
3) Maybe it’s time we rethought our foreign policy, and instead of backing the status quo we encourage things like Egypt. Status quo makes you a stationary target, and that’s not a good thing to be. Maybe a little shaking up and they’ll be kept busy fighting each other, leaving less time for their Jihad against us. First we have to figure out how to replace the oil.
4) Does it seem like the impetus to attack the West via terrorist activities has grown in tandem with the Internet? Maybe a coincidence, maybe not. How do you keep a population living in the past when they’re completely surrounded by the present? Is that even possible long term?
wc/77; not just talent but ambition. It really beggars the imagination, that such a wall has been built between the earth’s natural resource of the species’ brainpower capacity and the kiddo’s species birthright of hard-won knowledge and understanding of the universe.
Back on Egypt, glenn beck is on my screen just now talking about the US state dept crew that has been working with the Alliance for Youth Movement for several years now, trying to organize the “spontaneous” riots which now may or may not turn out to have done anything good for the Egyptian people.
Beck is wondering, not if Egypt has won or lost, but if the Americans in the state dept working against the American policy actually have, or had, now that it’s too late to reverse, any idea what they were actually doing, besides deposing Mubarak.
Couple that question with the fact (according to Beck) that one of these guys (now employed at Google, natch) is also an adjunct member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and i was reminded of a similar sentiment posed about the Council on Foreign Relations Obama advisors who controlled for Obama’s nuclear weapons discussion trip to Russia:
Russia also got the renewal of past disarmament agreements in furtherance of goal #1, with virtually no commitments to bring their portion of these past agreements back into compliance. The reason the US didn’t press for compliance is because Obama’s CFR advisors are only interested in US disarmament and not in exposing Russia’s secret arms programs in underground cities at Yamantau and Kosvinsky mountains
The quote is from this article, found on this search. I’m still trying to find out if the underground facilities in the Urals are one of the several whole categories of weapons, factories, and activity sites that were simply X’d off the items covered by the Start II treaty, and thus X’d off senate debate, in order to get that jubilant Obama/Medvedev Start II signing moment.
The way the ‘surprises’ are coming at us these days, it’s like we’re defending Fort Apache with a band of Chiricahuas. Wondering who exactly are we defending against.
Us, maybe? i guess i could ask Geronimo.
PS, BTW, not only is Deutsche Bourse probably buying the NYSE, which has been the center of American capitalism since Charles II gave the colony to the Duke of York and the good burghers began trading there under a spreading Chestnut tree, but Google is probably buying Twitter –i think they said sixteen, or was it sixty, billion dollars.
Also, FARC in Colombia released some hostages on the same day China and Colombia announce a rail link to rival the Panama Canal. Maybe the FARCs don’t wanna fight the Chinese. Maybe they’ve talked to the Tamil Tigers, or what’s left of them.
#56 W – Yes but what’s wrong with white shoes?
dtmack @78
why is it that people seem to think that China has some sort of special immunity
Well of course, it doesn’t. Every society on the planet has had its date with the modern world. Very few (maybe only Switzerland) has survived the meeting with minimal damage. Some met it earlier than others (30 years war in Europe, and what followed), some in the last century (Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba). Some recoiled from the meeting (North Korea), some overcame successfully (Germany after two world wars).
Egypt has had its date in the last weeks. It will recoil because the candelight dinner will not be consumated. They picked the worst possible time – they have no money, and the price list is too high. There is a Chinese guy in the restaurant, an Indian guy too, flashing their money, their date gives them the eye.
1.5k years of conditioning must be jetisoned if they wish to compete. There is only one way – they must become American.
Not possible, so they are doomed. I expect mass slaughter, and lest we gloat in our superiority, mass slaughter just like WW1 and WW2.
ADE
Keynes was right, up to a point. Spending money in a recession or depression may well be a good idea – but it depends what the money is spent on.
For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority may well have been a good idea. However, it it certain that if the spending consists of handing out money to people for doing nothing then it won’t work.
That having been said, I’ll say again what I’ve said a number of times before. Resource and energy shortages are drivers of the current problems – and energy purchase from lunatics is another. Time to go for broke. Start putting some reasonably serious money into “alternative energy” and choose the approaches that might work. Which do not include wind, ground solar or tokamak fusion. The amounts of money involved, in national budget terms, are trivial. Rather less trivial amounts would be needed for the approach that has the biggest payback of all – literally astronomical, in fact. SPS which will involve some degree of space colonisation, because it must.
Power? There are four hundred trillion terawatts for the taking. Let’s start to go get it. And while we are about it, make space enough for quadrillions to live in comfort.
Sometime during this process; blow up all the Gulf ports and all the pipelines coming out of there, mine the Gulf – and let the Dark Ages savages rot.
83. Fletcher Christian
“Start putting some reasonably serious money into “alternative energy” and choose the approaches that might work.”
That’s all cute, Fletcher, but in the meantime, drill, baby,drill.
If the International System is indeed collapsing- and I’m sure it is- one of the things it surely will drag down with it is a US political establishment capable of producing a state department that will actively work against the interests of the American electorate. Folks might miss that sort of thing when the nation is prosperous and few suspect problems but when the nation appears to be stupidly stumbling towards bankrupt collapse it sticks out like that proverbial sore thumb.
Exhibit A is that as buddy larsen notes Glen Beck has taken the time to shine a spotlight upon the activities of said state department- and more broadly that the ex-drunk radio DJ and self-described rodeo clown Glen Beck has a spotlight to shine at all. I’ve been reading about the state department acting against American interests since the 1980s. Back then it was working to thwart the policies of Ronald Reagan, now it just acts as Buraq Obama wishes.
But in the 1980s few people heard about it, now millions do. So I have to call myself an optimist- not because we have a better state department or political establishment- but because now far more Americans know just how bad both are.
Fletcher C and other Greens who believe in ‘alternative energy’.
You are mad if you don’t think that the energy supply industry hasn’t got the alternatives covered. The reason they won’t go for ‘wind, ground solar or tokamak fusion’ right now is because there are cheaper alternatives, like ME oil. The Arabs haven’t got us over a barrel, to coin a phrase. Not even close. With the expected increase in food prices, and the riots in the Arab world, the US poker hand is now incredibly strong.
Before we get to the alternatives, we have to exhaust the current cheapest. Now that means continue to use ME oil. We (the US) have the fire power to see our investment in ME oil is fully amortised (and it will take fire-power). It will be rough in spots, but worth the ride.
ADE
RE: Security Levels (M@70)
The Norwegians have a two-state threat level: “Uffda! Sven!” (general terrorism) and “Inga hide the lutefisk!” (specialized case of a Swedish invasion.)
I’d need an expert interpreter to explain this pic.
Visually different, for sure, like out of a movie.
Bahrain
ADE #86:
You misread Fletcher.
He was saying that “wind, ground solar or tokamak fusion” won’t work because they won’t work, not because there is an evil conspiracy to keep them down.
I have a friend who lives in the mountains of Vermont. He is so far back in th woods that he has no power or phone lines going to the place. He uses solar power to run his place, with a propane powered generator backup and a gasoline powered backup to the propane.
But he is not stupid enough to try to live there in the winter. He comes down to his Florida place then.
Here in Florida they have a really stupid TV commercial that touts solar power for when commercial line power goes down. Now when is that going to be useful? During a hurricane or thunderstorm it is really C L O U D Y. And even if you have an extended 10 day outage like we did in 2004 it is still useless, because there is no storage capacity and at night it will get D A R K.
Visual Observation of Northeastern Oklahoma Wheat Crop . . . From an Oklahoma Farmer.
Winter wheat looks good . . . our weather has been not the ideal for the crop, but has been on the cold side. Winter wheat does best when the temps hang in the low to mid 30′s, warm enough for some growth, but cold enough to prevent “jointing”. So far no jointing. We have had substantially more snow cover than in years past, record setting year in fact. Thus, the added allowance that winter wheat is used as grazing for cattle has been impacted, so some extra costs to the rancher/farmer are in order. The real deciding factor on the outcome of winter wheat is two fold, 1) The added moisture could create problems with various disease, this will unfold over the next couple of months as the temps rise and jointed growth begins. Toppage is still months away, but the added moisture in the soil is where the invasion of mold, mildew and rusts begin. 2) The added moisture in the soil, and having a “wet spring” . . . wet springs seasons happen in Oklahoma about every 4 years . . . we have not had a wet spring in the past three or four years . . . it is due . . . but who knows what mother nature will bring. But if a wet spring occurs, with the already wet soil, the harvest will be seriously impacted and thus the crop, even if a good one, will lose quality due to delayed or inability to harvest.
Summary: I view this as a good to outstanding year for Oklahoma. My optimism is based on the cycles of harvest, it is time for a good one. All we need is a little cooperation from mother nature for record harvests to occur.
90. Tallgrass
Way too many variables to be useful to central planning.
We need a 5 year agricultural plan from Obama so we can
rely on certainties not provided by your report.
Leave this to the experts.
ArabWorld is broken, and it ain’t going back together again. From the Guardian:
“The raw statistics speak of a tipping point: more than half of the 350 million Arabs in the world are under 30. A great majority of these have slender prospects of finding good jobs or building a prosperous future. Youth unemployment rates are as high as 80% in some areas.”
The Guardian article goes on to typify the aspirations of the “Arab youth” in a isn’t it wonderful to be young kind of way, but the article ends there. It’s as if nobody wants to go beyond the boundary of feeling good as an end in itself.
What happens next? There is no industry, no jobs, no capital, and no ideas. The Muslim Brotherhood also has a feel good message but does it terminate at the same place as the Guardian article? Ideological purity sounds nice but how much does it pay, and when can I expect my first check?
Is this the beginning of the end of Islam as a socially unifying force? I think in many respects that Al Qaida was a desperate, go for broke, move against modernism. Bin Laden may stay a hero in those parts of the world where goat herders really do herd goats but it’s looking less likely that the “youth” who want a real job with real responsibilities will see living in a cave for the rest of their lives as a top choice.
Where is the only place in the Middle East were education and hard work actually pay off? Gulp. Israel.
Here’s where I go where no man has gone before. The West Bank Arabs internalize a big dose of reality and agree to a permanent minority status in the State of Israel. The Christians, Druze and Sunnis in Lebanon defeat Hizbullah and Syria once and for all by becoming a federal state in Greater Israel.
All the participants enjoy the benefits of living in an island of genuine prosperity and opportunity immune from a sea of roiling chaos.
No time to read the whole thread, but has anyone commented on the fact of the Ferguson interview itself?
This, on PMSNBC and the Newspeak cover seem very significant. They look to be cracks in the propaganda arm and narrative that have sustained the myth of Obama and the culture of death itself (which probably began to erode with the advent of ultrasound).
Could it be that, along with the death of the myth of ME viability, which is really an artifact of Western progress and wealth, we are also seeing the beginning of the end of the entire web of leftist unreality?
Doug;
Agree with you about all the uncertainties. To bad isn’t that what I just wrote is what “the farmer” uses to budget, predict, plan, and project.
In this repect, perhaps the individual farmer is out of date and needs the various government organizations to tell him who, what, when and where to do it.
In addition what you just said is the YOU have no idea where the loaf of bread for tomorrows table is going to come from. Ironic isn’t it, lol.
The art of farming has given way to the technology of the insane, lol.
angloxaxonnery
I’m speechless. Marie, all my friends thank you. I hereby claim that word for American English. Insanely jealous that I didn’t think of it.
Just on the slight chance you are blonde let me tell you about the all blond carpenters I had working for me. Jill, the long legged one was nailing trim up under the roof. Her buddy Jane the big titted one was trimming back the rafters. Jane noticed that Jill was taking a nail out of her nail bag, looking at it and either driving it home or throwing it over her shoulder. ‘Why are you throwing those nails away’ she asked? Jill said, ‘the heads are on the wrong end’. Jane exploded ‘Dummy, those nails are for the other side of the house’!
mc/73 – Pardon. Je ne veux pas faire l’offense. The French part of the joke is definitely tired. I really posted it for the Australian part, the rest is just context, but funny, I thought.
I was a little bit miffed that Cleese seems to have left out Americans. What are the cowboys doing??
86. ADE: Before we get to the alternatives, we have to exhaust the current cheapest.
That’s a simplistic quantized view, like claiming that when you go in a higher tax bracket ALL your income is dinged at the higher rate. In reality, the contribution of mined energy and farmed energy create a vector sum which is the current price per barrel.
44. Habu: We cannot afford Islam to have any,none,nada foothold in the USA….they are the antithesis to our thesis and contary to Hegelian dictum thar ain’t no synthesis with them thar folks.
I am sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and if you really are a CIA agent / Jarhead like you claim, so are you. And the Constitution says this:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Börse AG confirmed that they are in advanced tie-up talks, reviving a plan that would create the world’s largest financial exchange if it manages to pass scrutiny from regulators
A deal is driven in part from the opportunities in the derivatives market, particularly as an evolving regulatory landscape drives more over-the-counter business on to exchanges. The enlarged company would have a dominant role in the European derivatives market and provide a new beachhead for NYSE’s efforts in the U.S. futures and options sector.
http://tinyurl.com/6by3qw9
Damn, won’t we be lucky when they get the bigger wheel of destruction finally built.
derivatives…those cuddly ,furry little things that of course “spread the risk” right up to the point where they don’t. Then the already super rich walk away with your investment dollars, perhaps collaspsing the entire financial world …think that dramatic…think again.
BLERT 67
I had the same third grade teacher my father had, Yes she was a spinster and by the second day she had snatched me up (it was the mid 50′s and allowed then) shook me really hard and stated, “I know who your daddy is and he is a ridge runner and you will be a ridge runner just like your father” I didn’t know what a ridge runner was my father was a carpenter!
This lady lived to be 109 years old. un married and in the same house she was born in. Ever after when we met in town I was still scared of her even after I had joined the Marines!
To me she was a terminator robot with my name programmed in.
Habu 44
I can’t see how anything short of changing the laws and constitution would allow such forced removal of a religion and it’s believers.
Now should the ones mentioned but cannot be mentioned by name were to start up with carBques and slaying non Ummah members left and right and blood ran in the street that might change. The forced removal and concentration of the Japanese took place in a different climate and time but I imagine that should it come to mass muslim riots and slaughter of infidels then the government would do what was needed and pay the reparations cost afterwards.
Common sense in war would say, Kick the enemy out and now.
Ms T,
The list is long and distinguished of our leaders, such as Abraham Lincoln, John Adams, FDR etc who took the same oath but then cast it aside when they felt it necessary. Military manuals and guides are just that as is the oath. It doesn’t require one to go down with the ship, especially when there is a distinct internal threat.
That same oath requires that we defend this nation from all enemies domestic and foreign and if you can’t see that Islam is totally antithetical to our security then your myopia doesn’t even get your eyesight past your nose.
Defense of the whole trumps one section every time. You cited the wrong part of the oath…too bad..you lose.
Thanks for playing the Islam is a religion game, but it is a killing ideology veiled in a veneer of a religion. I guess you would have called Adolf’s National Socialism a religion too.
Throw all Islams OUT of this country for they are a cancer to our security.
Have a nice day.
97. Teresita
Not a problem. We downgrade Islam from religion to cult. Then we can burn them out and murder their children. Google (well, Alta Vista or dogbone) Wacco, Texas. Or “Branch Davidian”. There the Clinton administration under Reno and the ATF murdered some cultist. All of them, pretty much. Since they were a cult and not a religion, their religious rights were not violated. That is why none of the principals were ever sent to jail. Clinton did it, why not Berry?
Additionally you may recall a “religious group” known as the Branch Dividians.
The government rolled tanks into their compound, flushed it with something (you may recall the tanks were IMMEDIATELY loaded back on flatbed trucks and hauled away and cleaned of all residue. The something,perhaps an accelerant burned down the compound and killed women and children, all of which could have been avoided had they arrested Koresh on one of his daily jogs.
Yes, Islam is a killing cult philosophy and our Congress has the power to define it as such and round up the “enemy within” and relocate then to hell.
Just repeat after me, defend against ALL enemies domestic and FOREIGN…Islam doesn’t get much more foreign than it is to American values.
Wretchard: “As a society the West has gone nuts.”
This is the executive summary of the entire opening of the 3rd Millenium.
Here’s where I go where no man has gone before….
Wonderful if you could, um, make it so…..
Great. Super. Awesome.
But what happens if their Prime Directive is a bit different than yours.
What happens if theirs goes something like: “They make me look bad, so I’m going to crush them! They’re better than me, so I’m going to destroy them! They are interlopers and have no rights, so I’m going to erase them!”??
All reinforced by extremely nationalistic, chauvinistic fervor and (perceived) divine sanction .
What then?
“The fourth issue that I will address is democracy. (Applause.)
I know — I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other.
That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere.”
— President Obama, Cairo University 6/4/09
These were really the only words in the whole speech directed at the Egyptians. The rest of the speech was directed at America. (We love and respect Muslims, however, on the other hand, let me be clear, Israel, at the same time, and finally…).
It’s beginning to look like Obama lit the fuse and just stood there. Or did he even believe these words in the first place? Didn’t he or anyone around him imagine that the Egyptians might believe them? You stand next to a firecracker with a moving fuse when you don’t believe it’s going to go off.
OK, America should not presume. What has the administration been doing for the past three weeks? Hectoring Robert Gibbs and neighing Hillary bombinating Obama…I thought Obama was going to turn America into Bartleby the Scrivener: ‘I prefer not to’?
p.s. Habu get a grip; take a break. Mr. Fernandez fills the world with posts of sanity, clarity and charity and you scream for ethnic cleansing. What are you talking about? I live in South Seattle which means I live with many hundreds if not thousands of Muslim immigrants. They’re just people. We stand in line at the library, the grocery, at the gas station, post office and the bank. They’re becoming Americans, Bub. When the two Muslim moms (yes, wearing headscarves) asked me to give their stalled van a jump in the Safeway parking lot last week what would you have me do? Scream at them, “Go back to where you came from!” No, sorry I helped them. I even cleaned all the built up grime off their battery terminals. They were nice and smiled and we joked about Seattle rain.
Knock off the ethnic cleansing bit; you’re wrecking the comments section.
107 Das
What do you call someone who’s answer to a difference of opinion is an attack on that person?
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html
If you are against removing Muslims from America please explain why you see that as a bad idea. Attacking those expressing that idea just demonstrates that you are incapable of making a coherent argument against the idea. Not an unusual thing with a west coast liberal.
While you are at it, please explain why liberals faced with arguments against their PC POV de’ jour either go ad hominem, try to censor or offer incoherent rants.
I can think of several good reasons why tossing out the Muslims might be a bad idea. I can also see the logic of it.
So I’m confused and would appreciate your insight. You should be prepared to defend your position.
The Resident is on the teewee telling us how much he’s cut future deficits with his health care legislation. I can’t recall such delusional behavior since Lyndon Johnson kept telling us the Vietnam war was under control.
And in talking about Egypt, and now the debt again … he talks as an observer, not as a participant, and certainly not as an executive. He’s still Barry the Community Organizer.
Oh, and the future deficits of $700b/year even *after* his cuts, are Bush’s fault, these are interest on “decisions made over the past decade”.
Clueless.
#105 Barry
It’s my hyperactive imagination again.
You gotta’ be a wild-eyed optimist to think that democracy is coming to ArabWorld anytime soon, but I do think there is at least a possibility that reality will trump ideology in a good part of it.
The Palis in the West Bank are a cause celebre when some Leader wants to score a few populist points, but I suspect the “Cause” will stop drawing energy when the “youth” start catching on that their dream of freedom is a delusion if not a nightmare. A handful of folks in the West Bank, who almost certainly will be living better than them, are not going to be a blip on the radar of everyday life.
I don’t know what’s going to happen any more than the next guy, but I would bet a tidy sum that the ME will look completely different in a generation, and in ways that nobody can imagine.
Josh…
Barry Soetoro wants to continue to run against the Man — even though is is the Man.
Peter…
Democracy in the ME = one vote, one time — every time. Hamas yield power? Hah!
They run Gaza like it’s Chicago on the Med.
Their primaries look like the St. Valentines Day Massacre.
Just like Soetoro, they eliminate rivals BEFORE the vote.
Don’t expect the Republicans to nominate a strong candidate. Soetoro’s crew is going to throw spanners in every conservative/ strong candidate’s campaign — even if he has to make stuff up.
Just ask the Ryans.
I must have used too many key words.
PJM swallowed another political opinion whole.
Habu, Das,
I ‘m not to keen on that ethnic cleansing thing either. That said, we need to explicitly define to those muslims legally here, what our Constitution expects of them. We have not done that. We have allowed the Islam’s “freedom of religion” rights to stomp all over our other Constitutional rights. We can’t allow that. Islam ‘s violent cult qualities must be reined in. Now. We all too often have given a muslim’s bad behavior a free pass and excuse it away.
If we can not define what we expect of Islam here at home, how can expect to define what we expect of them abroad?
The lack of resolve to clearly define the Constitutional limits of Islamic behavior creates a situation where Habu’s nuking ideas and W’s three conjectures are the only viable alternatives left.
The lady interviewing Ferguson resembles nothing so much as a child who has just been told by another child that there is no Santa Claus. A common foreign dismay that Obama is a dangerous amateur?
Justice Department Resists Releasing Records That Could Shed Light on Whether Justice Kagan Needs to Recuse Herself from Health Care Case
#111 blert
If you were the chief strategy guy for the Muslim Brotherhood right now you would have to be worried about staying on message and still staying relevant. Although we do not know how deep it goes there does appear to be a genuine feeling of hopefulness in the ME that things are going to get better, even if nobody knows how that could happen.
It’s a lot easier to pitch the Islamic way of life when there is an identifiable enemy to point at. I think the concept of the ummah, and common bonds and brotherhood in a noble fight against The Oppressor is a strong message. Israel fills that spot perfectly and useful idiots like Tom Friedman keep the ball in the air.
Most of the appeal of the MB gets lost when the enemy is seen as the lack of economic opportunity and you can see all the reasons for it right in your own backyard. The MB has everything at risk. If Arab youth don’t buy in and reject the Way of Life message then the MB loses relevance overseas too.
Nobody is going to care what Tariq Ramadam has to say in the USA when it becomes obvious that nobody back home cares what he has to say.
Maybe I’m just seeing the glass half full but there is a chance that Islamic Revivalism gets washed away as quickly as the line of presidents, generals, and princes.
Louie723@81 ‘Yes but what’s wrong with white shoes?’
Up here we have a sartorial term ‘the full Nanaimo’. It comes from a man named Frank Ney, who was the mayor of the city of Nanaimo, British Columbia in the 1980′s. He was a real character whose regular clothes used to feature white patent leather shoes, a white belt and polyester pants. After his tenure people started to refer to a man dressed this way as ‘wearing the full Nanaimo’.
Cameron outlines key issues behind terrorist threat posed by extremism
07 Feb 11
The Prime Minister said that “the doctrine of state multiculturalism” had encouraged segregation and failed to supply “a vision of society” to which people want to belong.
He urged: “Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream. We have failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong.”
Cameron added: “We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values. I believe it’s time to turn the page on the failed policies of the past.”
The Prime Minister explained: “First, instead of ignoring this extremist ideology, we – as Governments and societies – have got to confront it in all of its forms. Second, instead of encouraging people to live apart, we need a clear sense of shared national identity, open to everyone.”
W 41: “Sanity, kindness and plain old common sense are our friends… The real data doesn’t lie in finding a solution to the current problems. The solutions are obvious. The real data, as Ferguson notes, is that we are incapable of grasping the obvious and therefore the problem is us… As a society the West has gone nuts.”
Orwell was a prophet.
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously (the lie and the truth), and accepting both of them (Insanity)… with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth… Those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is; in general the greater the understanding the greater the delusion; the more intelligent the less sane… If human equality is to be forever averted; if the “high,” as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently; then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.” George Orwell – 1984
“Crimestop… includes the power of not grasping analogies; of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc (Socialist Principles of Oceania), and of being bored or rebelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop in short means protective stupidity… The world view of the Party imposed its self most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm because it left no residue behind; just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird… In the long run a hierarchical society was only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance.” George Orwell – 1984
“The heresy of heresies was common sense. George Orwell – 1984
C@118: The Prime Minister explained: “… instead of encouraging people to live apart, we need a clear sense of shared national identity, open to everyone.”
I’ve been wondering where this new ‘shared identity’ was going to come from. Love of country is fine by me. Not sure how well that will go down with the left side of the various political aisles, considering how little “love” to be found stateside. The emergence of national pride could evolve into an antidote movement to the NWO.
wc@117: After his tenure people started to refer to a man dressed this way as ‘wearing the full Nanaimo’.
That’s just a regional variant of the full Monty worn by all politicians. Everywhere. At all times.
113. Unsk
In the context of this paticular colloque your use of the phrase “ethnic cleansing” is wholly unappropriate.
We are talking about a philosophy that is totally antagonistic to the philosophy that founded and maintains this country. There can be no higher duty than to identify and root out those who participate and do not believe in that philosophy and who have already attacked us and a large part of the civilized nations of the world.
If you side with them and espouse their ideology then you are against me and the US way of life and I will fight you, and attempt to deport you; for you will have sided with a sworn enemy of the USA and all who oppose Islam. Is that where you want to be? Europe tried the multicultural thing with Islam and they are now waking up to the realization that Islam is immisible with ALL other cultures. ALL OTHR CULTURES. This Islam against the world has been going on since the Islamic philosophy was generated our of the sick mind of a pedophile. We’re not going to change it with Hershey’s chocolate kisses.
And Unsk, do you truly believe that if we explain to them “what our Constitution expects of them”, that they will abandon Islam under penalty of death? They are BTW already suppose to live by and understand our Constitution, and believe me they understand our Constitution they just don’t like it , want it to morph into sharia law and have the US go back to cutting off hands and clits and stoning women to death …line up my man and join them..you can be their spokesperson.
The sum total of having such a horrid ideology, antithetical to ours with no chance for a middle ground is dangerous and must be recognised as such and dealt with by expulsion so they can do no harm.
Mr. Cameron’s ‘melting pot’ plea, combined with the same coming from the governments of France and Germany, is pretty big news. Like the sound coming from the Democratic party re its union bloc, and the sound soon to be coming from the 24 year old google mavens in the Alliance for Youth Movement, and the sound coming from Obama voters in general, it all sounds like “oops!” and if it’s only the eleventh hour, we’ll all be very lucky.
113 Unsk There are other options. An infinite number depending on how far out of the box you are willing to go. HUGE AMOUNTS OF LIQUID OIL ARE BEING DISCOVERED ALMOST DAILY. Brazil, China, Africa. JPL got their Fusion reactor started last November, IIRC. Kept it running for long enough to have sustained the reaction, if that had been the goal. Most US OIL imports come from Tar Sand conversion plants in Canada.
Soon the mainstream will figure out that they don’t need OIL from the ME. That it is cheaper, but that low cost OIL has a ‘hidden’ price in death and destruction. So a complete embargo of all Islamic lands is within reach, economically.
Let them sit in the desert, trying to grow something to eat. When they give up Islam, or at least the nuttier aspects, then we open communication about returning to the 21st century.
Or we could start a list of mosques preaching Jihad and supporting terrorism. Then every Friday after a terrorist attack ANTWHERE, we JDAM a number of mosques equaling the number of terrorist attacks thye previous week. During prayer service. Give those seeking paradise a ticket to ride. Tit for tat. The Muslims would figure it out.
To keep Habu happy, we could nuke Mecca during the Haji. EVERY year. That way those seeking death against the Infedal could hang out in the crater waiting for that warhead to come streaking down. Other nations could take turns so we could get some systems testing done.
Then there is the Religious angle. If Allah wanted the Jews gone, why is he protecting them? If he isn’t protecting them, why aren’t they gone? Might there be a message there? WHY isn’t the Att-hole-aha addressing that?
WC 77: “As the English welfare state matured, the mud theory of education took over and streaming became politically incorrect. According to the mud theory, the minds of all kids are made from the same bucket of mud and therefore must be equally mistreated. It was now wrong to say that some kids are smarter than others.”
C.S. Lewis noted this form of Political Correctness (Cultural Marxism) in Englnad – now it has metastasized to the United States. Here is an excerpt from “Screwtape Proposes a Toast.”
“Democracy [meaning Marxist “equality” of economic and social outcomes] is the word with which you must lead them by the nose… You are to use the word purely as an incantation; if you like, purely for its selling power. It is a name they venerate. And of course it is connected with the political ideal that men should be equally treated [equal rights with equality before the law]. You then make a stealthy transition in their minds from this political ideal to a factual belief that all men are equal [in outcome – regardless of creativity and labor]… The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior [under-achieving, tax-eating proletariat class]. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority which the patient refuses to accept; and therefore resents. Yes, and therefore resents every kind of superiority [laboring, tax-paying middle class] in others; denigrates it; wishes its annihilation [Communist Manifesto]. Presently he suspects every mere difference of being a claim to superiority. No one must be different from himself in voice, clothes, manners, recreations, choice of food… They’ve no business to be different. It’s undemocratic… Under the name of Envy it has been known to humans for thousands of years. But hitherto they always regarded it as the most odious, and also the most comical, of vices. Those who were aware of feeling it felt it with shame; those who were not gave it no quarter in others. The delightful novelty of the present situation is that you can sanction it — make it respectable and even laudable — by the incantatory use of the word democratic… Under the influence of this incantation those who are in any or every way inferior can labour more wholeheartedly and successfully than ever before to pull down everyone else to their own level [middle class pulled down to the proletariat]. But that is not all. Under the same influence, those who come, or could come, nearer to a full humanity, actually draw back from fear of being undemocratic… They might (horror of horrors!) become individuals.”
“The spirit of I’m as good [equal] as you has already begun something more than a generally social influence. It begins to work itself into their educational system… The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be “undemocratic.” These differences between pupils – for they are obviously and nakedly individual differences – must be disguised. This can be done at various levels. At universities, examinations must be framed so that nearly all the students get good marks. Entrance examinations must be framed so that all, or nearly all, citizens can go to universities, whether they have any power (or wish) to profit by higher education or not. At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages and mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing things that children used to do in their spare time. Let, them, for example, make mud pies and call it modelling. But all the time there must be no faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work. Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have – I believe the English already use the phrase – “parity of esteem.” An even more drastic scheme is not possible. Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma — Beelzebub, what a useful word! – by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval’s attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT. In a word, we may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when I’m as good as you has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows?”
http://screwtapeblogs.wordpress.com/2009/06/30/screwtape-proposes-a-toast/
“Knock off the ethnic cleansing bit; you’re wrecking the comments section”
Golly das, which rhymes with _ _ _ I’ll sure ignore that OK with you?
Please say hello to your domestic partner “Squishy”
And let’s dedicate the next nuke to Syria.
Oh yeah, keep cleaning those car batteries …you’re such a mensch.
Das 107. Re: Habu seems to of the ‘Kill them all, let God sort them out’ school of social relations, and has received the coveted ‘Does not play well with others’ award with napalm clusters on more than one occasion. I confess that I sometimes enjoy whipping out that old chestnut while playing Dungeons and Dragons. Its actual implementation seems to have been more often exercised by such notables as Genghis Khan in the elder days, and by Stalin, Pol Pot et al more recently.
The argument that Islamic religion is inherently flawed and dangerous is one that has been popular in this country at one time or another, only with different villains. At one time it was quite popular to denounce Romanism in the same breath with Rum and Rebellion. And certainly there were, and for all I know, still are, Catholic Pinkeys itching to take over the USA for the Pope (although upon his election Kennedy sent a telegram to John XIII, “UNPACK”), the threat, if it was ever really there, has passed.
Of course America had an assimilationist culture back then, which, even if it hasn’t fallen entirely into disuetude, rather strongly persists. Most immigrants really don’t want to assimilated into the LeftBorg, but into America the beautiful. This is true of most Muslims as well.
Yet it remains sadly true that under the influence of Saudi money radical imams are being exported to this country to prepare the way for the triumph of the Ummah. That makes some of them very dangerous indeed. But I seriously doubt if the solution is an orgasmic, sacrificial slaughter offered to – well, to whom or what, exactly? Security? The Spirit of America? I don’t think so. Orgasmic sacrificial slaughter is what they are about.
America has a whole range of tools available to defend and perpetuate itself; W has outlined some of them, and I’m sure there are more. I agree with Habu that the situation is gravely urgent and fraught with peril. All the more reason then, to avail ourselves of what tools we have, and forge others at need, to employ them intelligently and enthusiastically and so preserve and defend the sacred principles that make us who we are in this land that we all love.
A hammer is a great tool, but you can’t build nation or a civilization using only a hammer.
123. stoicheion
“To keep Habu happy, we could nuke Mecca during the Haji.”
Hey , I like that. Say we could sell T-shirts to Habu’s Hajj Hell with a cartoon of Mohambone on it. And also some Kaaba corndogs and Mecca Trail Mix.
126. Tamquam
Well you used up alot of words and space and convince who? Nobody who knows anything about the history of Islam.
Looks like you have some reading to do. Say, since it’s development by ole Mohambone tell us just how many countries Islam has tried to take over, how many they’ve assaulted, how many women they’ve stoned to death, how many clits they’ve cut off, hands, tongues and other assorted body parts. Not to mention the chipper shredder.
Would it be fair to say you now want to give them sufficient latitude to acquire a nuclear device…to use for what? Heating camel meat?
Hey dude , have a nice Mecca type day….oh yes how discourteous of me…do you have a Islamic name like Uck chuck or al ch-ick fi al-let? Please let us know so we can address you in you chose role as defender of Islam, the religion of peace.
126. Tamquam
Das 107. Re: Habu seems to of the ‘Kill them all, let God sort them out’
Hey , I resent that remark….I just want to nuke them because they are filty ,backward,mean, and brutish people who ….if they had the means would nuke us first…so lets just get them where they want to be and that is dead for ALLAH-lu ya AllAH-lu-ya…etc, etc….
Don’t foegt today is garbage day so you Islam lovers take one to lunch, or better have one for lunch!!..Pass the beans please.
I’ve been a long-time reader of the Belmont Club, though I’ve never commented, and have been most impressed with the wisdom and insight of Mr. Fernandez. Concerning some of the regular commenters, though entertaining, well … I keep getting the feeling that the answer to the coming catastrophe, and a catastrophe is always lurking just around the corner, is for me to load up on weapons and move out to the country to become a subsistence farmer, raising crops and mowing down any sorry-ass lefties who get too close. There seems to be an almost morbid desire on the part of some that death and destruction be visited upon the earth for the purpose of … what exactly?
Yes, we do live in interesting times, but I’m not quite sure that the end of civilization as we like it is as close as some here seem to think, or hope, it is.
Tito,
Let me help you out..The Boy Scouts use to have one oveerarching saying, “Be Prepared”..now they have two. The one just mentioned and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” OK
Those of us who are prepared are hedging, just as we do in the stockmarket with puts and calls. In other words if you need a gun and don’t have one you’re at the total mercy of some nefarious person who wants what you have and that which you can’t protect, including your life. With a gun the odds change considerably….no guaranteed outcome but you get to at minimum defend youself.
This nations now has 305 million people and psychologists tell us that a good 20-25% have treatable mental problems. We read about it daily as someone “loses” it and kills totally innocent people because they couldn’t get to the rich creamy nugget center of their piece of candy. The police write the report and the dead are buried.
So it comes down to whether or not you are inclined to defend yourself or beg for mercy …. now simply add water and enlarge this to the world as a whole….defend youself or beg for mercy.
“There seems to be an almost morbid desire on the part of some that death and destruction be visited upon the earth for the purpose of … what exactly?”
Well, for exactly what you have that they want..it’s that simple.
BTW…have you ever been in a war?
Tito…
Are you the first, only and last Yugoslav?
—
As long as Benny and the Press/Inkjets keep our government addicted to hyperinflation — the sooner the end must come.
Hyperinflation kills: contracts, credit, commercial linkages, liquidity and ultimately tax collections and all liquid wealth this side of silver and gold.
Benny has us on a death spiral and refuses to pull back on the stick.
He’s a seat-of-the-pants economist who can’t read the gauges.
So at the present time we are experiencing controlled flight into insanity.
Cheers.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/49521.html
I’ve mentioned before that Barry Soetoro is going to cut down his rivals long before the election.
It has begun.
Barry is showing us the style of despotism with a Democrat face.
I read “A history of Islam and the Arab speaking peoples”. last fall. I don’t recommend it. Al Bar-somethingorother. It was recommended to me by a friend in DC. who said it was the trendy book. Books, like tans and beehive hairdos, are subject to fads.
Nowhere in the “History” (yes, sneer quotes) does he mention any of the numerous wars fought by Islam. No war against the Eastern Roman Empire or the Habsburgs.
No mention of terrorism and only a paragraph on Israel. Anyone reading it and being to lazy to cross check it (most of the East coast elites) would come away thinking Islam was a religion of peace, instead of some of the most brutal barbarians to ever go a-conquering.
On a positive note, I did learn that Mosques ARE NOT mentioned in the Koran. They are something grafted onto Islam by one of the 9th century Caliphs. I cross checked that and it appears to be a fact. Mosques were built to be not just a place of worship, but Armory, Marketplace ( strip mall, 8th century AD style), Town hall and Library and administrative center. As the center of everyday life, it tended to pacify newly conquered lands.
Habu, “And Unsk, do you truly believe that if we explain to them “what our Constitution expects of them”, that they will abandon Islam under penalty of death?”
Ya know what Habu, the answer is Yes. Has to be. Otherwise, your solutions inevitably down the road become the only viable options. Islam unrestricted will eat away at our core institutions like a cancer. ( And I am not discounting what you are saying). And yes, I know what that means. Muslims in this country have to be become Apostate. And the penalty for that under Sharia law is death.
All Americans must be equal under the law, which Sharia does not allow. There’s no granting Muslims special dispensation to do otherwise because some nutcase in the seventh century thought differently. The First Amendment does not grant that right.
#89 RWE: Precisely. Wind and ground solar have truly terrible power density and both are ridiculously unreliable. Wind in particular is ecologically damaging into the bargain. Tokamak fusion has three disadvantages. First, it’s thirty years off and always will be. Second, even if it can be got to work it will almost certainly only work in very large and expensive units – undesirable IMHO for many reasons. And third, it creates even more radioactivity than a fission plant does.
I can see, although I disagree with, the problems the watermelons have with fission power. I cannot begin to understand their objection to wave, tidal (which can be done without building dams) or OTEC. Unless they have some other agenda as well as their stated one.
Wave power works – demonstrated numerous times in numerous ways. Ditto tidal. Ditto OTEC – the first plant of the latter was built in the 1930s, for God’s sake!
Stoi…
You’re describing a RABAT.
BTW, that’s what the Ground Zero ‘Mosque’ was … A Rabat.
And a Rabat is not a mosque. It’s a fort for jihad.
There are only 2 critical elements to a mosque: an orientation for Mecca & a time schedule for salat/salah.
Everything else is simply optional. The true purpose of the mosque is group ritual and group re-indoctrination.
The muslim form of supplication is NOT prayer. No requests are to be made of allah. Instead, every utterance is of submission and prostration. Salat is performed with the same motivation that the superstitious toss salt over their shoulder — having stepped on a crack. The hope is to ward off bad luck/allah’s displeasure/the jin.
This mind-set flows constantly through conversational Arabic. Speakers are constantly asking the indulgence of allah or his messenger. It’s so reflexive is as common as curses at a construction site; actually more!
——–
OTEC can’t compete with: Andean hydropower OR simply extending cooling inlet pipes down 500 meters into the abyssal cold for conventional seacoast power plants.
If you’re not aware of it, all such thermal plants are designed backwards from the exhaust temperature available. This condensation temperature dictates the design of the last stage of the expansion turbine in the prime mover.
Dropping exhaust temperatures from a nominal 20 degrees C down to 0 degrees C gives you the OTEC benefit without the mass transfer problem. Further, sucking up deep water produces drastically less bio-fouling. And then the exhaust water should be extremely stimulating to oceanic life.
All of the great oceanic fisheries occur because nature wells up deep water — rich in phosphorous an such. This then fires of plant growth and the rest of the food chain.
First stipulation; everything that Habu et al say about the nature of Islam may be true.
Second stipulation; this is Wretchard’s house and he has set boundaries to what he considers appropriate as to the subject and tenor of the debate in here. Specifically he has asked us not to resort to ad hominems or call for mass expulsions or the preemptive use of WMD. If I am wrong in believe that is our host’s request then please correct me.
Under that condition it should be possible to constructively explore the nature of the problem we face, and even point at the apocalyptic consequences of failing to respond effectively as Wretchard did himself in “The Three Conjectures,” without crossing into advocacy of means of last resort. To do otherwise is wrong for two reasons. It is as ill mannered to ignore the owner’s wishes as it would be to enter a military hospital or Officer’s Club covered. Also it ends the debate since if the necessity of end game solutions is conceded a priori then the only things left to discuss are purely technical.
Finally while the nature of the threat is something to discuss and we should not concede to any party the privilege of constraining how we refer to them, as the Left so frequently attempt to do, the introduction of terms of contempt as opposed to common or technical identifiers adds nothing useful to the conversation. The followers of the religion of Islam are commonly referred to as Muslims or Moslems, they may be for some purposes usefully referred to as members of the Ummah, it is an anachronism that may make sense in discussing a European perspective to call them Muhammadans. To refer to them as “Islams” serves no useful purpose. It reeks of an unhelpful effort to inject an emotional tone that interferes with the dispassionate study of the issue. It can result in a good argument being passed over. One hundred years ago Establishment Protestants referred to Jews as Hebrews in order to preemptively establish them as objects of contempt. If we engage in similar taunting then we will reduce the power of our arguments.
This does not mean that in the right time and place a calculated policy of denigration to deflate the pretensions of our enemies might not be appropriate. Everyone Draw Muhammed Day was a powerful blow for liberty as was Greg Gutfeld’s Name the Gay Bar next to the Ground Zero Mosque competition.
My apologies to our host if he does not want this subject discussed further.
137. blert
Apologies fro breaking in , but what do I put on the T-shirts?
“A tiscut ,a tasket, it’s all just a wrabat?” ..naw too cheesy
“Supplication” NOT prayer, e,i..e,i. oh…and when you supplicate, don’t defecate ooo-wee ooo-wee mess”..naw too compex….
“Whose’s the leader of with the club that cuts off hands and clit’s…Moh-ham’madd man Mohammad, Mohammad, for ever let use hold our butts up high..high..high…supplicate , don’t defecate, and kill the infidels…Mohamadd man” ….naw, Disney did that….
Oh well…..
the old fallback..Nuk’em
Habu 128. “Well you used up alot of words and space and convince who?”
Habu, old bud, you accuse me of using up a lot of words and space. Serious irony, there. Your meds, dude, take your meds!
I know the history of Islam fairly well. They seem to have a built-in need for periodic smack-downs if left too long to themselves. In this they resemble Churchill’s observations about the Teutonic race, they are either at throat or at your feet. That’s why I prefer the other conversion method. Not the matter to energy you advocate, but Muslim to anything else. If the conversion of the Jews [to Christianity] is to mark the end of history it stands to reason that the Muslims must be converted before the Jews. That requires time, patience and sustained effort, which you seem unwilling to exert. Don’t immanentize the eschaton, its bad for you.
JPL + fusion? I don’t think so. A year or so ago somebody ran a plasma for several microseconds (milliseconds) which on paper maybe showed break-even. As FC says, thirty years off and always will be, unless Iran shows us how to do that cold fusion.
I’m thinking the only real answer is let mother nature do the fusion, start working towards space-based solar power which is the long-term answer (dyson spheres!).
OTEC? Is it generally accepted that large-scale utilization is even possible, much less harmless, or even better beneficial? Didn’t we just take the phosphorous out of our dishwasher soap? Salt-water is just nasty stuff as it is, unless you’re a fish.
What was the question?
Did Otero really say today that “oil is the fuel of the past”, that Rush was carrying on about today?
“I, HABU, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic ; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.” (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962).
Now having recited that it MUST be noted that an officer or enlisted person is only reponsible for carrying out LAWFUL orders …like Nuk’um, or ‘rond ‘em up and deport ‘em ..that of course after we change Islam to a hostile ideology, essentially what we did to the communists, some of whom became feral and became Speaker of the House a ways back, or POTUS, but our current POTUS is just an Islam.
The absolute show stopper for He and T based fusion is that the vast bulk of the energy is released as hyper-energetic neutrons.
In economic terms that’s an epic fail. It is IMPOSSIBLE to deal with them.
The molten salt fission reactor died the same way: ‘hot atom’ halogens destroy all known materials. Period.
Both designs look great on paper but are complete dead ends.
Polywell fusion is the only solution that might have a shot. It doesn’t emit neutrons.
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More generally, any technology that emits copious neutrons is a political non-starter. Until humanity has matured — a lot — the world is not ready for open ended rampant expansion of nuclear explosive production. It’s bad enough that the Russians keep spitting out Pu239.
( Somehow this issue gets swept under the rug: Russia is in constant hyper-production of nuclear explosive. Even Pakistan can’t keep up. And as for Pakistan — she’s cranking out nuclear explosive as fast as one can imagine. It’s a one nation arms race. The only thing that makes sense is that she’s gearing up to fight the US in a nuclear confrontation. After all, Islamabad had their hair on fire WRT 911. Down the road there will be further super atrocities like Mumbai — take it to the bank. Islamabad wants enough atomics to ward off retribution by either India or America. Think on that. )
140. Tamquam
Your meds, dude, take your meds!
Oh dude, so yesterday. Please stop before you embarass the entire blog.
I didn’t bother reading the rest.
143. blert
“Even Pakistan can’t keep up. And as for Pakistan — she’s cranking out nuclear explosive as fast as one can imagine. It’s a one nation arms race.”
I hope you’ve notified the appropriate intelligence apparatus..seems they caan use all the help they can get these days. I think they have operators standing by 1-800-555-1212, ask for (codename) Cheese-Dip.
thread protocol debates:
Custer’s Last ‘And’
Josh – As already stated, the first pilot plant (about 20kW) was built seventy years ago. And it worked. Others have been built since. OTEC also has possible benefits that might even persuade the watermelons; it brings nutrient-rich bottom water to the surface thus encouraging plankton growth (which both improves fish populations and soaks up CO2) and the surface water is slightly cooled – which, if there were enough OTEC plants, might reduce the frequency and severity of hurricanes.
Efficiency for an OTEC plant (which won’t be all that good for reasons based on thermodynamic laws) isn’t as important as it might be – because the input energy is free.
Having said all that – we need to use all possible methods, cheapest first. Polywell or focus fusion ought to be demonstrable (or not) fairly cheaply as these things go, because the apparatus is intrinsically small. Tidal can be built in very small units indeed, if necessary. Ditto OTEC. Space solar cannot be built small, because the only way to make it really work is to use space materials – requiring huge investments in infrastructure. But for SSPS, the side benefits are astronomical – literally.
I have a little dream. Get aneutronic proton/B11 fusion (which is actually fission but never mind) working in small units – large refrigerator size generating maybe 10kW – and make the plans available for an easily affordable licensing fee. And watch the economy of the whole of the Ummah collapse as the price of oil drops like a rock. It would also put the rather saurian power supply companies out of business, pretty much. Wouldn’t you spend an extra $10K on a house, if that meant you could tell the electric company where to stick its bills?
Most likely, though, none of this will happen – precisely because the Greens are in fact watermelons.
Meds?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1ZSSrIxaug
ttps://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2010/nnsa/NR-NNSA-10-01-02.html
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/10/the_national_ignition_facility.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100129122442.htm
No magnetic containment. It seems they use the lasers instead.
Fusion Reaction is a reality( no, I’m not counting the H-Bomb) How long the Engineers take to turn the science into a working clean energy source is a guess at this point. 2014? 2020?
The MSM is passing on this because they are clueless about what it means. Geothermal and wave-tide are good but limited. NO energy source should be sneered at. They all have their place. Wave-tide won’t work in the Gobi Desert but Wind-solar might. Energy is the future and the future is energy. Can’t have too much.
LIPS (Laser Ignited Power Sources) has it’s place. NO silver bullets.
OIL is to expensive to burn for electrical power. That has to stop. On the other hand Hydrocarbons are the most effective means of personal transportation. Electric cars might work in the city. Unless that city is on a non OIL power generation plan, the gains from electric automobiles are not very cost effective. Electric autos are a non-starter in rural America. LNG is dangerously explosive.
If Allah wanted the Jews gone, why is he protecting them? If he isn’t protecting them, why aren’t they gone?
Well, them Jews are pretty powerful folks. And in league with the US of A, too. Awesome combination (cf. W&M’s magnum opus).
But don’t you worry. The A-Team will overcome. Eventually. It’s destined. It’s prophesied. It’s fated. It’s all written down. It’s official. (Though before that can happen, the Faithful have got to get more serious about their faith. Really, really serious. (Works every time!—AKA “the death spiral,” but softly, softly).
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Islamabad wants enough atomics to ward off retribution by either India or America. Think on that.
I think it’s actually a lot simpler (it is, after all, an attention grabber): “They say we’re dysfunctional. OK. Let’s show ‘em exactly how dysfunctional we are.” (I.e., building nukes gets you a lot more attention than not being able to pave your roads.)
(To be sure, in my fantasy of fantasies, I see those thangs pointed in the direction not of Delhi, but of Teheran—just in case those mullahs get a bit too uppity).
117 westerncanadian – “After his tenure people started to refer to a man dressed this way as ‘wearing the full Nanaimo’.”
Well then my father wore the Full Nanaimo and didn’t realize there was a name for it. I have whittled it down to just the white buck shoes myself.
Hey, Niall Ferguson, who gave you the authority to announce so much truth? Especially, to such a bunch a deception worshippers, as NBC. You may damage their self-esteem or cause their world view to hyper-ventilate.