Friday, January 06, 2006
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
The Central Political Issue of the Day in One Paragraph @ AMERICAN DIGEST
The Central Political Issue of the Day in One Paragraph @ AMERICAN DIGEST: "The Central Political Issue of the Day in One Paragraph
BY MARK HELPRIN IN Herd Animals
'Irrationality on a political level from these quarters has never been a shock. On a personal level, however, the predominant response of the intellectual Left was a mystery. It was as if the thousands of crushed and incinerated men, women, and children—those who threw themselves into a quarter-mile abyss rather than have the flesh seared off their bones as they stood in the wind at glassless walls, the small children who died in terror after watching hysterical fanatics slit the throats of screaming stewardesses, and so on, for there are almost three thousand stories—simply did not exist. How does one explain such an egregious absence of sympathy (much less assertions that 'they' deserved it, or that it was a work of art) among endlessly self-proclaiming empathetics whose stock in trade is to milk compassion even from the Rock of Gibraltar? This is a real rather than a rhetorical question, because it is significant of a great division.'"
BY MARK HELPRIN IN Herd Animals
'Irrationality on a political level from these quarters has never been a shock. On a personal level, however, the predominant response of the intellectual Left was a mystery. It was as if the thousands of crushed and incinerated men, women, and children—those who threw themselves into a quarter-mile abyss rather than have the flesh seared off their bones as they stood in the wind at glassless walls, the small children who died in terror after watching hysterical fanatics slit the throats of screaming stewardesses, and so on, for there are almost three thousand stories—simply did not exist. How does one explain such an egregious absence of sympathy (much less assertions that 'they' deserved it, or that it was a work of art) among endlessly self-proclaiming empathetics whose stock in trade is to milk compassion even from the Rock of Gibraltar? This is a real rather than a rhetorical question, because it is significant of a great division.'"
The Creche by the Side of the Road @ AMERICAN DIGEST
The Creche by the Side of the Road @ AMERICAN DIGEST: "The Creche by the Side of the Road
[Republished from December, 2003 ]
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
--Eliot, Journey of the Magi"
Read the whole thing!
[Republished from December, 2003 ]
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
--Eliot, Journey of the Magi"
Read the whole thing!
Monday, December 26, 2005
Cafe Hayek: The Beauty and Power of Undesigned Order
Cafe Hayek: The Beauty and Power of Undesigned Order: "The Beauty and Power of Undesigned Order
I love this blog-post entitled 'Of Social Snowflakes...' by Steve Horwitz. It's inspired by this photograph of a real snowflake. Here's Steve's concluding paragraph:
My fervent wish for the 21st century is that more smart and caring people can begin to see and appreciate 'social snowflakes.' People who are so willing to accept the existence and beauty (and benevolence!) of undesigned order in the natural world should be more willing to open themselves to the possibility that there are processes of undesigned order at work in the social world too. These people know that no one can make a snowflake, but seem blind to the fact that much of the innocent blood that was spilled in the last century was because too many people thought they could intelligently design the social world. Not repeating those mistakes will require a renewed aesthetic appreciation of, and deep desire to understand, the awesome beauty and complexity of the undesigned order of 'social snowflakes.'"
I love this blog-post entitled 'Of Social Snowflakes...' by Steve Horwitz. It's inspired by this photograph of a real snowflake. Here's Steve's concluding paragraph:
My fervent wish for the 21st century is that more smart and caring people can begin to see and appreciate 'social snowflakes.' People who are so willing to accept the existence and beauty (and benevolence!) of undesigned order in the natural world should be more willing to open themselves to the possibility that there are processes of undesigned order at work in the social world too. These people know that no one can make a snowflake, but seem blind to the fact that much of the innocent blood that was spilled in the last century was because too many people thought they could intelligently design the social world. Not repeating those mistakes will require a renewed aesthetic appreciation of, and deep desire to understand, the awesome beauty and complexity of the undesigned order of 'social snowflakes.'"
Power Line: Travels with Cheney
Power Line: Travels with Cheney: " [I]t appears the Bush administration will continue to make the case aggressively that Americans are better off because of its conduct of national security policy, including the Iraq war.
That effort will likely include the release of documents and other materials captured in postwar Iraq. In recent weeks, senior Bush administration and intelligence officials have been discussing several plans to expedite the public release of those materials. According to officials familiar with their contents, the documents provide an unfiltered look inside a criminal regime that brutalized its own citizens, bought off numerous European politicians, and provided significant support to transregional terrorists.
Steve also reports on the vice president's meeting with the troops, and much more, including this:
Cheney ended [his interview with the AP's Nedra Pickler on the flight home] with what may be the most forceful on-the-record defense of Bush administration national security policy yet. The vice president said it is this policy--not luck or fate--that explains why the United States has not been attacked in the last four years.
There's a temptation for people to sit around and say, well, gee, [9/11] was just a one-off affair, they didn't really mean it. Bottom line is, we've been very active and very aggressive defending the nation and using the tools at our disposal to do that. That ranges from everything to going into Afghanistan and closing down the terrorist camps, rounding up al Qaeda wherever we can find them in the world, to an active robust intelligence program, putting out rewards, the capture of bad guys, and the Patriot Act...Either we're serious about fighting the war on terror or we're not. Either we believe that there are individuals out there doing everything they can to try to launch more attacks, to try to get ever deadlier weapons to use against [us], or we don't. The president and I believe very deeply that there's a hell of a threat, that it's there for anybody who wants to look at it. And that our obligation and responsibility, given our job, is to do everything in our power to defeat the terrorists. And that's exactly what we're doing."
That effort will likely include the release of documents and other materials captured in postwar Iraq. In recent weeks, senior Bush administration and intelligence officials have been discussing several plans to expedite the public release of those materials. According to officials familiar with their contents, the documents provide an unfiltered look inside a criminal regime that brutalized its own citizens, bought off numerous European politicians, and provided significant support to transregional terrorists.
Steve also reports on the vice president's meeting with the troops, and much more, including this:
Cheney ended [his interview with the AP's Nedra Pickler on the flight home] with what may be the most forceful on-the-record defense of Bush administration national security policy yet. The vice president said it is this policy--not luck or fate--that explains why the United States has not been attacked in the last four years.
There's a temptation for people to sit around and say, well, gee, [9/11] was just a one-off affair, they didn't really mean it. Bottom line is, we've been very active and very aggressive defending the nation and using the tools at our disposal to do that. That ranges from everything to going into Afghanistan and closing down the terrorist camps, rounding up al Qaeda wherever we can find them in the world, to an active robust intelligence program, putting out rewards, the capture of bad guys, and the Patriot Act...Either we're serious about fighting the war on terror or we're not. Either we believe that there are individuals out there doing everything they can to try to launch more attacks, to try to get ever deadlier weapons to use against [us], or we don't. The president and I believe very deeply that there's a hell of a threat, that it's there for anybody who wants to look at it. And that our obligation and responsibility, given our job, is to do everything in our power to defeat the terrorists. And that's exactly what we're doing."
Monday, December 19, 2005
Patriot Act
Power Line: "...the House Republican conference reminds us why the act is so important:
If allowed to expire, the information-sharing provisions critical to breaking down the pre-9/11 “wall” between our law enforcement and intelligence personnel will be lost. This will have dire consequences.
Patrick Fitzgerald, a longtime United States Attorney and current special prosecutor, testified to his experience of how the “wall” worked in practice:
I was on a prosecution team in New York that began a criminal investigation of Usama Bin Laden in early 1996. The team ... had access to a number of sources. We could talk to citizens. We could talk to local police officers. We could talk to other U.S. Government agencies. We could talk to foreign police officers. Even foreign intelligence personnel. And foreign citizens.... We could even talk to al Qaeda members—and we did. .... But there was one group of people we were not permitted to talk to. Who? The FBI agents across the street from us in lower Manhattan assigned to a parallel intelligence investigation of Usama Bin Laden and al Qaeda. We could not learn what information they had gathered. That was “the wall.”
The “wall” had deadly consequences. The 9/11 Commission Report contained an example that none of us should ever forget. According to the unanimous bipartisan report of that Commission, the “wall” thwarted the investigation of Khalid al-Midhdar and Nawaf alHazmi, two of the hijackers who flew an airplane into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. In June 2001, FBI agents investigating the U.S.S. Cole bombing met with the CIA. Even though the CIA knew that al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi were connected to the Cole bombing and had been in the United States, the CIA refused to give the FBI this information because of the “wall.” Even after the FBI learned from the CIA of al-Mihdhar’s and al-Hazmi’s presence in the United States and the FBI launched an effort to try to locate them, FBI Headquarters refused to allow criminal investigators in New York to participate. A New York FBI agent working on the case expressed his frustration with these restrictions in the following e-mail: “Whatever has happened to this - someday someone will die - and wall or not - the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain ‘problems.’”
That's the wall (sometimes referred to as the 'Jamie Gorelick wall') that the Democrats want to re-erect."
If allowed to expire, the information-sharing provisions critical to breaking down the pre-9/11 “wall” between our law enforcement and intelligence personnel will be lost. This will have dire consequences.
Patrick Fitzgerald, a longtime United States Attorney and current special prosecutor, testified to his experience of how the “wall” worked in practice:
I was on a prosecution team in New York that began a criminal investigation of Usama Bin Laden in early 1996. The team ... had access to a number of sources. We could talk to citizens. We could talk to local police officers. We could talk to other U.S. Government agencies. We could talk to foreign police officers. Even foreign intelligence personnel. And foreign citizens.... We could even talk to al Qaeda members—and we did. .... But there was one group of people we were not permitted to talk to. Who? The FBI agents across the street from us in lower Manhattan assigned to a parallel intelligence investigation of Usama Bin Laden and al Qaeda. We could not learn what information they had gathered. That was “the wall.”
The “wall” had deadly consequences. The 9/11 Commission Report contained an example that none of us should ever forget. According to the unanimous bipartisan report of that Commission, the “wall” thwarted the investigation of Khalid al-Midhdar and Nawaf alHazmi, two of the hijackers who flew an airplane into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. In June 2001, FBI agents investigating the U.S.S. Cole bombing met with the CIA. Even though the CIA knew that al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi were connected to the Cole bombing and had been in the United States, the CIA refused to give the FBI this information because of the “wall.” Even after the FBI learned from the CIA of al-Mihdhar’s and al-Hazmi’s presence in the United States and the FBI launched an effort to try to locate them, FBI Headquarters refused to allow criminal investigators in New York to participate. A New York FBI agent working on the case expressed his frustration with these restrictions in the following e-mail: “Whatever has happened to this - someday someone will die - and wall or not - the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain ‘problems.’”
That's the wall (sometimes referred to as the 'Jamie Gorelick wall') that the Democrats want to re-erect."
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Sunday, December 04, 2005
A Glimpse of Iraq
A Glimpse of Iraq: "All those 6000 years of glory, violence, suffering and achievement are there. I see them everyday in people's words and gestures, in their toughness and resilience, in their capacity to handle impossible hardships. I see those 6000 years in the features of little children… and I feel them in my veins.
Many people can only see the hardship, the dirt, the blood and the suffering. I can see a people who, unassisted, put a limit to looting and lawlessness. I see a people who refuse to kill each other and be drawn into stupid sectarian battles. I can tell you stories! I see people with patience that is legendary. I see people who try to go about their shattered lives amid the blood and the chaos and the suffering. I see people who spend all night and fast all day sitting in their cars, waiting for petrol… and when dusk sets in, they break their fasting with a cold sandwich.
I can see people who can tell jokes about it all.
All those 6000 years are there. I see them in little things people do, in their everyday gestures, in their unique way of handling impossible hardships. Those years are there. They come to the rescue… and most people don’t know it!
I see them in date palm trees, tall, proud and beautiful… with their fruit only accessible to the skilled and their beauty only maintainable through expertise and hard work. Yet, they can survive unendurable neglect, and be ready to shine again with care.
Yes! I feel sad and angry and bitter most of the time. But these people remind me every single day that I cannot lose hope. It is only a question of scale. We have to think in longer terms. And that, that is what this country is all about.
This country can be invaded, and it has been, more times than I would care to count. It can be ravaged, bombed, looted and ruined. But I know, in my heart, that it will never be permanently crushed. Six thousand years of experience tell me that it will rise again… and that it will be a lantern to show the world yet again the missing link between mind and soul, between knowledge and spirit… for the world seems to have largely lost that link.
This is where I want to live. This is where I want to be buried when I die… in the hope that my decomposed body will one day be food for a tall and proud palm tree."
Many people can only see the hardship, the dirt, the blood and the suffering. I can see a people who, unassisted, put a limit to looting and lawlessness. I see a people who refuse to kill each other and be drawn into stupid sectarian battles. I can tell you stories! I see people with patience that is legendary. I see people who try to go about their shattered lives amid the blood and the chaos and the suffering. I see people who spend all night and fast all day sitting in their cars, waiting for petrol… and when dusk sets in, they break their fasting with a cold sandwich.
I can see people who can tell jokes about it all.
All those 6000 years are there. I see them in little things people do, in their everyday gestures, in their unique way of handling impossible hardships. Those years are there. They come to the rescue… and most people don’t know it!
I see them in date palm trees, tall, proud and beautiful… with their fruit only accessible to the skilled and their beauty only maintainable through expertise and hard work. Yet, they can survive unendurable neglect, and be ready to shine again with care.
Yes! I feel sad and angry and bitter most of the time. But these people remind me every single day that I cannot lose hope. It is only a question of scale. We have to think in longer terms. And that, that is what this country is all about.
This country can be invaded, and it has been, more times than I would care to count. It can be ravaged, bombed, looted and ruined. But I know, in my heart, that it will never be permanently crushed. Six thousand years of experience tell me that it will rise again… and that it will be a lantern to show the world yet again the missing link between mind and soul, between knowledge and spirit… for the world seems to have largely lost that link.
This is where I want to live. This is where I want to be buried when I die… in the hope that my decomposed body will one day be food for a tall and proud palm tree."
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
todays stock
BBD 61.40 +0.14
CGYN.PK 0.19 +0.01
* DALRQ.PK 0.55 -0.01
FDG 39.64 +0.38
HOLX 71.11 +1.12
* KRY 2.11 -0.09
LIHRY 34.40 0.00
MDR 41.86 +0.40
NTRI 38.93 +0.13
* OMC 84.56 +0.82
PAAS 18.99 -0.60
PTN 3.58 -0.27
TIE 63.15 +1.75
$$CASH 6808.67 0.00
CGYN.PK 0.19 +0.01
* DALRQ.PK 0.55 -0.01
FDG 39.64 +0.38
HOLX 71.11 +1.12
* KRY 2.11 -0.09
LIHRY 34.40 0.00
MDR 41.86 +0.40
NTRI 38.93 +0.13
* OMC 84.56 +0.82
PAAS 18.99 -0.60
PTN 3.58 -0.27
TIE 63.15 +1.75
$$CASH 6808.67 0.00
Monday, November 28, 2005
Major K.: The Honest Broker
Major K.: The Honest Broker: "The Honest Broker
There were protests the other day over the murder of a fairly prominent Sunni Sheikh here in Baghdad. The murderers were dressed in Iraqi Army uniforms and it happened in a sector patrolled by the Iraqi Army. The Iraqi Brigade Commander tried to meet with the family of the Sheikh and the protesters to try to calm the situation. He made little progress as he was not trusted by the Sheikh's relatives. This matter was immediately elevated to the highest military levels on both the American and Iraqi sides. Several Iraqi Officers here in the TOC suggested repeatedly that American involvement was necessary to calm the situation. Yes, an Iraqi Commander should meet with the protestors, but he must be accompanied by a Senior American Officer. Although most Americans considered this an internal Iraqi matter, many Iraqis did not share that opinion. Neither side appeared to trust the other and wanted American involvement to ensure fair treatment.
I have seen similar situations since my 2nd week after arriving here in January. I am not bringing this up to draw any conclusions with regard to sectarian tension and conflict, other than to confirm that such things do occur here. What I would like to point out is how US Forces are regarded here. We have been asked to supervise or arbitrate at every level from neighborhood to national repeatedly. The reason for this is because of the entrenched culture of corruption of the past 35 years. Whether Sunni, Shia or Kurd, the presence of Americans at neighborhood council meetings, disputes and detention facilities is not only favored, but is often greeted with a sigh of relief. The Iraqis know they will get fair treatment from us because ethnic group, tribal affiliation and political power do not weigh upon our measurement of justice.
This brings two things to mind. Firstly, the average Iraqi will often (not always) trust us more than other I"
There were protests the other day over the murder of a fairly prominent Sunni Sheikh here in Baghdad. The murderers were dressed in Iraqi Army uniforms and it happened in a sector patrolled by the Iraqi Army. The Iraqi Brigade Commander tried to meet with the family of the Sheikh and the protesters to try to calm the situation. He made little progress as he was not trusted by the Sheikh's relatives. This matter was immediately elevated to the highest military levels on both the American and Iraqi sides. Several Iraqi Officers here in the TOC suggested repeatedly that American involvement was necessary to calm the situation. Yes, an Iraqi Commander should meet with the protestors, but he must be accompanied by a Senior American Officer. Although most Americans considered this an internal Iraqi matter, many Iraqis did not share that opinion. Neither side appeared to trust the other and wanted American involvement to ensure fair treatment.
I have seen similar situations since my 2nd week after arriving here in January. I am not bringing this up to draw any conclusions with regard to sectarian tension and conflict, other than to confirm that such things do occur here. What I would like to point out is how US Forces are regarded here. We have been asked to supervise or arbitrate at every level from neighborhood to national repeatedly. The reason for this is because of the entrenched culture of corruption of the past 35 years. Whether Sunni, Shia or Kurd, the presence of Americans at neighborhood council meetings, disputes and detention facilities is not only favored, but is often greeted with a sigh of relief. The Iraqis know they will get fair treatment from us because ethnic group, tribal affiliation and political power do not weigh upon our measurement of justice.
This brings two things to mind. Firstly, the average Iraqi will often (not always) trust us more than other I"
Sunday, November 27, 2005
BREITBART.COM - US senators demand oil execs re-testify, under oath
BREITBART.COM - US senators demand oil execs re-testify, under oath: "US senators demand oil execs re-testify, under oath
Nov 16 6:44 PM US/Eastern
Email this story
Senate Democrats demanded that oil company executives who testified last week about skyrocketing energy prices reappear before lawmakers and testify under oath, after news reports raised questions about the truthfulness of their testimony."
Nov 16 6:44 PM US/Eastern
Email this story
Senate Democrats demanded that oil company executives who testified last week about skyrocketing energy prices reappear before lawmakers and testify under oath, after news reports raised questions about the truthfulness of their testimony."
THE ASTUTE BLOGGER: "MURTHAGATE" - the loud tear-filled call for immediate withdrawal was a smokescreen
THE ASTUTE BLOGGER: "MURTHAGATE" - the loud tear-filled call for immediate withdrawal was a smokescreen: "'MURTHAGATE' - the loud tear-filled call for immediate withdrawal was a smokescreen"
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Ghostzilla - the invisible browser
Ghostzilla - the invisible browser: "
Ghostzilla !
Ghostzilla snapshot: click to enlarge
Ghostzilla in action
(click to enlarge)
What is Ghostzilla? Take a look at the screenshots and you'll get the idea.
Ghostzilla is a Web browser like Firefox, but it shows up and disappears instantly, discreetly, blended with your application -- any application -- so the Web pages look like part of it and not like the Web at all. (Read here how.) "
Ghostzilla !
Ghostzilla snapshot: click to enlarge
Ghostzilla in action
(click to enlarge)
What is Ghostzilla? Take a look at the screenshots and you'll get the idea.
Ghostzilla is a Web browser like Firefox, but it shows up and disappears instantly, discreetly, blended with your application -- any application -- so the Web pages look like part of it and not like the Web at all. (Read here how.) "
Move over Viagra: equal-opportunity sex drug just a sniff away - Yahoo! News
Move over Viagra: equal-opportunity sex drug just a sniff away - Yahoo! News: "Move over Viagra: equal-opportunity sex drug just a sniff away
Sat Nov 19,12:14 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A new inhaler-delivered love drug for women and men is threatening to do Viagra one better, putting anyone with dysfunction in the mood, US media reported.
Sex experts say the drug, known as PT-141 and which is in final trials before US
Food and Drug Administration review, will be the boon to women with desire woes that Viagra has been for millions of impotent men."
Sat Nov 19,12:14 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A new inhaler-delivered love drug for women and men is threatening to do Viagra one better, putting anyone with dysfunction in the mood, US media reported.
Sex experts say the drug, known as PT-141 and which is in final trials before US
Food and Drug Administration review, will be the boon to women with desire woes that Viagra has been for millions of impotent men."
Monday, November 14, 2005
Saturday, November 12, 2005
Friday, November 11, 2005
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Virginity!
Hog On IceVirgins Rule
Assuming They Still Exist
Comcast is still running on one cylinder today. If I haven't responded to your emails or popped up on AIM to say hi, this is the reason. Every once in a while, the lights on the modem go on and I get a couple of minutes during which I can just barely use the Internet, but that's about it.
It's amusing to me that people are saying negative things about virginity in my comments. Arguing with people who take this ridiculous attitude reminds me of arguing with the folks who thought the 21st century began with "Y2K, DUDE!" They're very obviously wrong, but you can't make them understand it.
Human beings are not capable of fornicating and getting away with it. Yes, you—one individual—may get away with it (or tell yourself you do), but when society endorses it and it becomes a standard practice, terrible problems arise, and we can't prevent them. And once they occur, we are often incapable of fixing them.
Tell that to a walking hard-on who measures his self-esteem by the number of women he's screwed, and he'll generally get angry. You're threatening the whole foundation of his high regard for himself. If you think he's a boob and a user for screwing around, you're cheating him of the admiration he thinks you owe him.
"You're just jealous!" That one always tickles me. Yes, yes mighty Penis Warrior. It is inconceivable that the rest of us would not envy you and admire you almost as much as you admire yourself. I wish I had what it takes to sit on a bar stool and tell lies to extremely ordinary women I don't care about. "You wish you were me! You just can't admit it! Now excuse me while I put more ointment on my sores."
Whatever, dude. If you don't like it, consider doing something of actual value. That might impress me. If inserting your unit in females is your idea of an impressive achievement, you must not have much to be proud of. The biggest dogs I’ve known were men that didn’t have much else to offer.
It's 2005, and it has been over three decades since we sent people to the moon. But no matter how much money we pour into research, we still haven't been able to solve the horrible problems fornication causes.
Laugh it up, bed-hoppers. But answer this for me: if screwing around is safe and wonderful and wholesome, why are thirty million people dying because of it in Africa? Call me hysterical; I think that's a serious negative consequence.
AIDS is causing suffering on a gigantic scale in Africa, and it has killed thousands and thousands of people here in the US, and it has made many more very ill--incurably so--without killing them. A big percentage of Americans have genital herpes and/or genital warts (caused by a virus which also causes cervical cancer). There are still Americans going insane and dying from syphilis. There are many, many women who can't bear children because VD has ruined their machinery.
If we've got it all figured out, how can all that be true?
Why do we still have millions of unwanted pregnancies every year in this country alone? Can't you admit the obvious, which is that human contraception is still primitive? We can vaccinate against smallpox with a single shot which is totally harmless and works for decades, but contraception is still sloppy and difficult, and I’m sorry to say that on a societal scale, it AIN’T working.
Right now, all over America, women are poisoning themselves with synthetic hormones—get this—because the men they sleep with are too whiny to give up a little friction. Can’t you see the absurdity? Does that seem like an elegant, advanced solution to you?
We now deal with the hazards of sex outside of marriage about as well as we dealt with polio before the Salk vaccine. We do a lame job of preventing them, and when we fail, we do a lame job of responding to them.
If you can’t see the obvious truth, I still love you, but don’t expect me to take your opinion seriously. I realize people are herd creatures, and the herd says, “If it feels good do it,” and most members of the herd would rather die than think for themselves. Besides, if the herd said sex outside of marriage was bad, you’d say it, too.
How can anyone think virginity is a bad thing? I’ve known women who were virgins, and I admired them tremendously. While the other girls were pulling trains on spring break and doing whatever it took to fit in with their classy tongue-pierced friends, the virgins were thinking for themselves and doing what they themselves wanted to do. They weren’t letting themselves be manipulated. That impresses me.
Apart from that, virgins don’t have AIDS, herpes, chlamydia, PID, HTLV, or any of the other hideous ailments you get from screwing around. That’s fantastic. And they also don’t have the other sexually transmitted viruses and microbes medical science hasn’t discovered yet. You think we’ve found them all? Yeah, right. I was an adult before they discovered the bacterium that causes most ulcers. And when I was a kid, no one knew cervical cancer was transmitted through sex. Enjoy living in your cocoon of arrogance. I for one know better. If you think more links between promiscuity and incurable disease aren’t on the way, you my friend are a true idiot.
Haven’t you noticed that promiscuous people are unhealthy and die younger? Are you aware that gay men—the most promiscuous people in our society—have a low life expectancy even after correction for things like AIDS and suicide?
Disease and expensive little bastards aren’t the only problems that arise from promiscuity. Women who screw around become hardened toward men, because they get used so much. I don’t want to deal with an emotional porcupine, do you?
Men say they prefer women who “know what they’re doing” in bed. Do you really think sex is that difficult? It’s not rocket science, folks. And if you’re monogamous, you have a whole lifetime to figure out how to make each other happy. And is it really important to get the best sex partner possible? If that’s your goal, you are what is known as “a shallow person.” You are probably not capable of actual “relationships,” so you might as well grab whatever pleasure you can. I hear the brothels in Thailand are inexpensive.
In the long term, “okay” sex combined with true love and trust will make you happier than great sex and a troublesome bitch.
I’ve pretty much written women off, and even if I hadn’t, I know there is virtually no chance I could land a virgin. I wouldn’t expect that; I realize it’s unrealistic. But I have nothing but admiration for women who wait until they’re truly ready. Other women may hate you because you make them feel like whores, and men may hate you because they can’t get between your legs, but I am your faithful fan. So keep it up.
Assuming They Still Exist
Comcast is still running on one cylinder today. If I haven't responded to your emails or popped up on AIM to say hi, this is the reason. Every once in a while, the lights on the modem go on and I get a couple of minutes during which I can just barely use the Internet, but that's about it.
It's amusing to me that people are saying negative things about virginity in my comments. Arguing with people who take this ridiculous attitude reminds me of arguing with the folks who thought the 21st century began with "Y2K, DUDE!" They're very obviously wrong, but you can't make them understand it.
Human beings are not capable of fornicating and getting away with it. Yes, you—one individual—may get away with it (or tell yourself you do), but when society endorses it and it becomes a standard practice, terrible problems arise, and we can't prevent them. And once they occur, we are often incapable of fixing them.
Tell that to a walking hard-on who measures his self-esteem by the number of women he's screwed, and he'll generally get angry. You're threatening the whole foundation of his high regard for himself. If you think he's a boob and a user for screwing around, you're cheating him of the admiration he thinks you owe him.
"You're just jealous!" That one always tickles me. Yes, yes mighty Penis Warrior. It is inconceivable that the rest of us would not envy you and admire you almost as much as you admire yourself. I wish I had what it takes to sit on a bar stool and tell lies to extremely ordinary women I don't care about. "You wish you were me! You just can't admit it! Now excuse me while I put more ointment on my sores."
Whatever, dude. If you don't like it, consider doing something of actual value. That might impress me. If inserting your unit in females is your idea of an impressive achievement, you must not have much to be proud of. The biggest dogs I’ve known were men that didn’t have much else to offer.
It's 2005, and it has been over three decades since we sent people to the moon. But no matter how much money we pour into research, we still haven't been able to solve the horrible problems fornication causes.
Laugh it up, bed-hoppers. But answer this for me: if screwing around is safe and wonderful and wholesome, why are thirty million people dying because of it in Africa? Call me hysterical; I think that's a serious negative consequence.
AIDS is causing suffering on a gigantic scale in Africa, and it has killed thousands and thousands of people here in the US, and it has made many more very ill--incurably so--without killing them. A big percentage of Americans have genital herpes and/or genital warts (caused by a virus which also causes cervical cancer). There are still Americans going insane and dying from syphilis. There are many, many women who can't bear children because VD has ruined their machinery.
If we've got it all figured out, how can all that be true?
Why do we still have millions of unwanted pregnancies every year in this country alone? Can't you admit the obvious, which is that human contraception is still primitive? We can vaccinate against smallpox with a single shot which is totally harmless and works for decades, but contraception is still sloppy and difficult, and I’m sorry to say that on a societal scale, it AIN’T working.
Right now, all over America, women are poisoning themselves with synthetic hormones—get this—because the men they sleep with are too whiny to give up a little friction. Can’t you see the absurdity? Does that seem like an elegant, advanced solution to you?
We now deal with the hazards of sex outside of marriage about as well as we dealt with polio before the Salk vaccine. We do a lame job of preventing them, and when we fail, we do a lame job of responding to them.
If you can’t see the obvious truth, I still love you, but don’t expect me to take your opinion seriously. I realize people are herd creatures, and the herd says, “If it feels good do it,” and most members of the herd would rather die than think for themselves. Besides, if the herd said sex outside of marriage was bad, you’d say it, too.
How can anyone think virginity is a bad thing? I’ve known women who were virgins, and I admired them tremendously. While the other girls were pulling trains on spring break and doing whatever it took to fit in with their classy tongue-pierced friends, the virgins were thinking for themselves and doing what they themselves wanted to do. They weren’t letting themselves be manipulated. That impresses me.
Apart from that, virgins don’t have AIDS, herpes, chlamydia, PID, HTLV, or any of the other hideous ailments you get from screwing around. That’s fantastic. And they also don’t have the other sexually transmitted viruses and microbes medical science hasn’t discovered yet. You think we’ve found them all? Yeah, right. I was an adult before they discovered the bacterium that causes most ulcers. And when I was a kid, no one knew cervical cancer was transmitted through sex. Enjoy living in your cocoon of arrogance. I for one know better. If you think more links between promiscuity and incurable disease aren’t on the way, you my friend are a true idiot.
Haven’t you noticed that promiscuous people are unhealthy and die younger? Are you aware that gay men—the most promiscuous people in our society—have a low life expectancy even after correction for things like AIDS and suicide?
Disease and expensive little bastards aren’t the only problems that arise from promiscuity. Women who screw around become hardened toward men, because they get used so much. I don’t want to deal with an emotional porcupine, do you?
Men say they prefer women who “know what they’re doing” in bed. Do you really think sex is that difficult? It’s not rocket science, folks. And if you’re monogamous, you have a whole lifetime to figure out how to make each other happy. And is it really important to get the best sex partner possible? If that’s your goal, you are what is known as “a shallow person.” You are probably not capable of actual “relationships,” so you might as well grab whatever pleasure you can. I hear the brothels in Thailand are inexpensive.
In the long term, “okay” sex combined with true love and trust will make you happier than great sex and a troublesome bitch.
I’ve pretty much written women off, and even if I hadn’t, I know there is virtually no chance I could land a virgin. I wouldn’t expect that; I realize it’s unrealistic. But I have nothing but admiration for women who wait until they’re truly ready. Other women may hate you because you make them feel like whores, and men may hate you because they can’t get between your legs, but I am your faithful fan. So keep it up.
Hammorabi
Hammorabi: "War against terrorism
The suicidal bombs in Jordan yesterday by the Jordanian Abomusaab Al-Zarqawi are just the beginning of many other attacks. The next attacks will be much tougher and only a matter of time. Jordan is still a target as well as others. In Iraq the attacks are happening daily and on variable and bigger scales.
It is so wrong to blame terrorism for one man or a group of people only. Terrorism requires a lot of elements. It needs people to carry out its effects, large amount of cash, armaments, equipments, logistic and brainpower support, media, and above all theoreticians among clergy men. These can not be provided by Binladen, Alzarqawi, or Alzawahri alone?
There are three countries connected to three elements of terrorism especially its promulgation in Iraq. Terrorism is born and incubated in Saudi Arabia. Then adopted by Syria and exported to kill inside Iraq while kept alive by the Jordanian Islamists who act as the energy and brain providers. However these roles are overlapping between these countries.
"
The suicidal bombs in Jordan yesterday by the Jordanian Abomusaab Al-Zarqawi are just the beginning of many other attacks. The next attacks will be much tougher and only a matter of time. Jordan is still a target as well as others. In Iraq the attacks are happening daily and on variable and bigger scales.
It is so wrong to blame terrorism for one man or a group of people only. Terrorism requires a lot of elements. It needs people to carry out its effects, large amount of cash, armaments, equipments, logistic and brainpower support, media, and above all theoreticians among clergy men. These can not be provided by Binladen, Alzarqawi, or Alzawahri alone?
There are three countries connected to three elements of terrorism especially its promulgation in Iraq. Terrorism is born and incubated in Saudi Arabia. Then adopted by Syria and exported to kill inside Iraq while kept alive by the Jordanian Islamists who act as the energy and brain providers. However these roles are overlapping between these countries.
"
U.S. Trade Deficit Hits High on Storms
U.S. Trade Deficit Hits High on Storms: "The trade deficit soared to a record in September as the Gulf Coast hurricanes helped push America's foreign oil bill to an all-time high. The politically sensitive deficit with China also set a record.
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the deficit jumped to $66.1 billion in September, 11.4 percent higher than the $59.3 billion imbalance recorded in August. It was a far bigger increase than analysts had been expecting and reflected in part a record $23.8 billion in oil purchases as the price skyrocketed, reflecting widespread shutdowns of production facilities following hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
So far this year, the deficit is running at an annual rate of $706.4 billion. This puts the country on track to far surpass the old deficit record of $617.6 billion set last year and gives critics ammunition to argue that President Bush's trade policies are not working."
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the deficit jumped to $66.1 billion in September, 11.4 percent higher than the $59.3 billion imbalance recorded in August. It was a far bigger increase than analysts had been expecting and reflected in part a record $23.8 billion in oil purchases as the price skyrocketed, reflecting widespread shutdowns of production facilities following hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
So far this year, the deficit is running at an annual rate of $706.4 billion. This puts the country on track to far surpass the old deficit record of $617.6 billion set last year and gives critics ammunition to argue that President Bush's trade policies are not working."
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Arthur C. Clarke Unauthorized Homepage
Arthur C. Clarke Unauthorized Homepage: "Arthur C. Clarke Unauthorized Homepage
'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' - Clarke's Third Law."
'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' - Clarke's Third Law."
Arthur C. Clarke Laws
Arthur C. Clarke Laws: "Arthur C. Clarke Laws
In the book Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible Arthur C. Clarke states his three Laws, which are formulated as follows:
Clarke's First Law:
'When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.'
Clarke defines the adjective 'elderly' as :'In physics, mathematics and astronautics it means over thirty; in other disciplines, senile decay is sometimes postponed to the forties. There are of course, glorious exceptions; but as every researcher just out of college knows, scientists of over fifty are good for nothing but board meetings, and should at all costs be kept out of the laboratory'. (in Profiles of the Future.)
Clarke's Second Law:
'The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.'
Clarke's Third Law:
'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'
Thought he wrote after the laws that 'Since three laws was sufficient for both the Isaacs - Newton and Asimov - I have decided to stop here', he continued to write laws, as we can see in the Appendix 2 of The Odissey File where he states th e Clarke's 69th Law:
'Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.'"
In the book Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible Arthur C. Clarke states his three Laws, which are formulated as follows:
Clarke's First Law:
'When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.'
Clarke defines the adjective 'elderly' as :'In physics, mathematics and astronautics it means over thirty; in other disciplines, senile decay is sometimes postponed to the forties. There are of course, glorious exceptions; but as every researcher just out of college knows, scientists of over fifty are good for nothing but board meetings, and should at all costs be kept out of the laboratory'. (in Profiles of the Future.)
Clarke's Second Law:
'The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.'
Clarke's Third Law:
'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'
Thought he wrote after the laws that 'Since three laws was sufficient for both the Isaacs - Newton and Asimov - I have decided to stop here', he continued to write laws, as we can see in the Appendix 2 of The Odissey File where he states th e Clarke's 69th Law:
'Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.'"
Arthur C. Clarke Laws
Arthur C. Clarke Laws: "Arthur C. Clarke Laws
In the book Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible Arthur C. Clarke states his three Laws, which are formulated as follows:
Clarke's First Law:
'When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.'
Clarke defines the adjective 'elderly' as :'In physics, mathematics and astronautics it means over thirty; in other disciplines, senile decay is sometimes postponed to the forties. There are of course, glorious exceptions; but as every researcher just out of college knows, scientists of over fifty are good for nothing but board meetings, and should at all costs be kept out of the laboratory'. (in Profiles of the Future.)
Clarke's Second Law:
'The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.'
Clarke's Third Law:
'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'
Thought he wrote after the laws that 'Since three laws was sufficient for both the Isaacs - Newton and Asimov - I have decided to stop here', he continued to write laws, as we can see in the Appendix 2 of The Odissey File where he states th e Clarke's 69th Law:
'Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.'"
In the book Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible Arthur C. Clarke states his three Laws, which are formulated as follows:
Clarke's First Law:
'When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.'
Clarke defines the adjective 'elderly' as :'In physics, mathematics and astronautics it means over thirty; in other disciplines, senile decay is sometimes postponed to the forties. There are of course, glorious exceptions; but as every researcher just out of college knows, scientists of over fifty are good for nothing but board meetings, and should at all costs be kept out of the laboratory'. (in Profiles of the Future.)
Clarke's Second Law:
'The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.'
Clarke's Third Law:
'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'
Thought he wrote after the laws that 'Since three laws was sufficient for both the Isaacs - Newton and Asimov - I have decided to stop here', he continued to write laws, as we can see in the Appendix 2 of The Odissey File where he states th e Clarke's 69th Law:
'Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.'"
Weapons of Mass Destruction: Stopping the Riots Might Be The Easy Part
Weapons of Mass Destruction: Stopping the Riots Might Be The Easy Part: "Stopping the Riots Might Be The Easy Part"
France's Woes __EconoPundit
EconoPundit: "
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Yesterday's explanations no longer need apply...
With my Tuesday evening international finance seminar I reviewed a twenty minute segment of this Frontline documentary last night. Interestingly, everyone agreed the documentary combined with the day's headlines would lead to conclusions precisely opposite to the puzzlingly standard current MSM approach:
WHEN THE MEDIA began covering the spreading violence in France, it appeared to go out of its way to avoid the notion that Islam had anything to do with the riots or their organizers. After all, even the French viewed the first couple of nights of unrest with a jaundiced eye. A nation that experiences nationwide protests every decade over some real or perceived injustice doesn't react quickly to a few burning cars in the Parisian suburbs. France averaged 80 cars a day lost to arson this year even before the riots began, and they assumed the riots meant little.
After a few straight days of increasing violence, however, the only people still believing that comforting line appeared to be members of the French government and the media, who insisted on doing everything they could to miss the story. Twelve days into the riots, even after they had spread across France and inspired violence in Germany and Belgium, the media for the most part still could not bring itself to mention the 'M' or 'I' words: Muslim and Islamist. The lack of even any suggestion that radical Islamists might have initiated the violence, or at least be taking advantage of it, boggles the imagination.
Anyway, read the whole thing for Ed Morrisey's solution to the puzzle."
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Yesterday's explanations no longer need apply...
With my Tuesday evening international finance seminar I reviewed a twenty minute segment of this Frontline documentary last night. Interestingly, everyone agreed the documentary combined with the day's headlines would lead to conclusions precisely opposite to the puzzlingly standard current MSM approach:
WHEN THE MEDIA began covering the spreading violence in France, it appeared to go out of its way to avoid the notion that Islam had anything to do with the riots or their organizers. After all, even the French viewed the first couple of nights of unrest with a jaundiced eye. A nation that experiences nationwide protests every decade over some real or perceived injustice doesn't react quickly to a few burning cars in the Parisian suburbs. France averaged 80 cars a day lost to arson this year even before the riots began, and they assumed the riots meant little.
After a few straight days of increasing violence, however, the only people still believing that comforting line appeared to be members of the French government and the media, who insisted on doing everything they could to miss the story. Twelve days into the riots, even after they had spread across France and inspired violence in Germany and Belgium, the media for the most part still could not bring itself to mention the 'M' or 'I' words: Muslim and Islamist. The lack of even any suggestion that radical Islamists might have initiated the violence, or at least be taking advantage of it, boggles the imagination.
Anyway, read the whole thing for Ed Morrisey's solution to the puzzle."
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Monday, November 07, 2005
Everything I Know Is Wrong: The Truth About Avian Flu
Everything I Know Is Wrong: The Truth About Avian Flu: "The Truth About Avian Flu
Michael Fumento has written an excellent article about the 'avian flu':
'Race to Prevent World Epidemic of Lethal 'Bird Flu,'' and 'Hong Kong 'Bird Flu' Could be the Next Big Outbreak,' blare the headlines. Former Washington Post reporter and author of a book on viruses, Robin Marantz Henig, penned an essay called 'Danger in the Air: Why Hong Kong's 'Bird Flu' Signals a Serious Threat,' chock full of scary 'what-ifs.'
Meanwhile, 'What is frightening about this flu strain is that it is unlike any that has infected people before,' NBC News tells us. We repeatedly hear of this new 'deadly flu,' or 'killer flu,' or to cite one headline: 'Mutant Killer Virus.'
Now, for a reality vaccination.
All influenzas are 'mutant killer viruses.' Flu always mutates at least slightly each year. That's why you need a flu shot each year, because the antibodies that you got from the last one (or the bout of flu you caught last year) will no longer afford you full protection from the new strain.
A flu that didn't kill would never be noticed. It would just be one of zillions of viruses we carry around that do us little or no harm. Each year on average, about 20,000 Americans die of flu.
Finally flu, of course, is always a virus.
Indeed, all flu is probably also 'avian.' Its 'reservoir' is generally ducks, and sometimes geese and chickens. They usually suffer little from it or not at all. But when their feces infects a water supply (or domesticated animals, usually pigs), they can transfer it to humans.
Oh, by the way, this isn't a recent article. Fumento wrote this in 1998 about an altogether different--yet all to familiar--'avain flu'. So why all the hubbub? I"
Michael Fumento has written an excellent article about the 'avian flu':
'Race to Prevent World Epidemic of Lethal 'Bird Flu,'' and 'Hong Kong 'Bird Flu' Could be the Next Big Outbreak,' blare the headlines. Former Washington Post reporter and author of a book on viruses, Robin Marantz Henig, penned an essay called 'Danger in the Air: Why Hong Kong's 'Bird Flu' Signals a Serious Threat,' chock full of scary 'what-ifs.'
Meanwhile, 'What is frightening about this flu strain is that it is unlike any that has infected people before,' NBC News tells us. We repeatedly hear of this new 'deadly flu,' or 'killer flu,' or to cite one headline: 'Mutant Killer Virus.'
Now, for a reality vaccination.
All influenzas are 'mutant killer viruses.' Flu always mutates at least slightly each year. That's why you need a flu shot each year, because the antibodies that you got from the last one (or the bout of flu you caught last year) will no longer afford you full protection from the new strain.
A flu that didn't kill would never be noticed. It would just be one of zillions of viruses we carry around that do us little or no harm. Each year on average, about 20,000 Americans die of flu.
Finally flu, of course, is always a virus.
Indeed, all flu is probably also 'avian.' Its 'reservoir' is generally ducks, and sometimes geese and chickens. They usually suffer little from it or not at all. But when their feces infects a water supply (or domesticated animals, usually pigs), they can transfer it to humans.
Oh, by the way, this isn't a recent article. Fumento wrote this in 1998 about an altogether different--yet all to familiar--'avain flu'. So why all the hubbub? I"
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Friday, November 04, 2005
Beltway Intellectuals Are Useless by Leon Hadar
Beltway Intellectuals Are Useless by Leon Hadar: "Beltway Intellectuals Are Useless" Beltway Intellectuals Are Useless
Washington intellectuals seem to have little idea
of how to fix US foreign policy
by Leon Hadar
by Leon Hadar
Save a link to this article and return to it at www.savethis.comSave a link to this article and return to it at www.savethis.com Email a link to this articleEmail a link to this article Printer-friendly version of this articlePrinter-friendly version of this article View a list of the most popular articles on our siteView a list of the most popular articles on our site
When he was once asked to define what exactly an "intellectual" was, British writer Aldous Huxley proposed that it was "a person who's found something in life that's more interesting than sex."
Based on Huxley's definition, I'm here to report to you that I had a very, very interesting weekend which I spent with a group of some of Washington's leading policy intellectuals, AKA policy "wonks" in a Big-Ideas retreat outside of the US capital, where one of those wealthy foundations wined and dined us for three days, in what could be described as a mini-Davos.
In return, we were expected to come up with new ideas on how to fix the universe or, more precisely, draw up the outline of a strategy that would permit the Master of the Universe, the United States, to stabilize Iraq, bring peace to the Middle East, re-energize the Western alliance and accommodate the Chinese, among many other things.
I have to admit that most of these wonks are clearly more intelligent, more knowledgeable and more experienced than your humble scribe here. Some of them have Ph.D.s from the most prestigious universities in the land, are fluent in many foreign languages, including Chinese, Persian and Urdu, and have served in top positions in the White House, Pentagon, State Department and Congress, where they provided advice to US officials, lawmakers and generals as they attempted to manage American foreign policy and resolve international crises.
No Big Ideas
Hence the expectation among the conference's organizers that some of these Washington's Best of the Brightest – I'm not including myself in that category – would have one of those eureka! moments and 72 hours of food consumption, beer drinking and long debates into the early morning hours would produce – Boom, Gee Whiz – the Big Idea in the form of, say, an exit strategy from Iraq or a new approach to deal with Iran.
Well, don't hold your breath. The long weekend failed to generate either Big Ideas or even tiny ones. While I'm prohibited by the off-the-record ground rules from revealing the names of the conference's attendees or what exactly was said during that retreat in Virginia, I can convey to you my main and very depressing impression: American foreign policy in Iraq, the Middle East and elsewhere is in a mess, and no one really knows how to get out of it.
Most of the participants suggested that Americans have to "stay the course in Iraq," expressed hope (wishful thinking?) that we will soon "turn the corner" there and things will get better in Mesopotamia, that perhaps the Sunnis will join the political process and that the elections in December will be "successful" (whatever that means).
In short, just continue muddling through and pray for a miracle.
There are some signs of the emergence of a foreign policy debate in Washington – clearly reflected in the discussions at the conference – which pits Kissinger-style Realpolitik types against Wilsonian idealists.
But taking into consideration some of the comments and predictions I heard during the weekend, the idealists – that is, the neoconservative ideologues who had hijacked US foreign policy after 9/11 – have not lost their momentum.
The notion that the US has the right and the obligation to promote American-style freedom and democracy not only in the Middle East but worldwide seems to be a dominant view among many of Washington's policy wonks. In fact, one of the panels during the conference was devoted to a discussion of how America could use its power to "democratize" Southeast Asia, including Singapore.
Even those Democrats participating in the event who have been critical of the neocons have not expressed opposition to the Global Democracy project itself. They just seemed to suggest that unlike the neocons, they would be able to achieve it at less cost especially in military terms, for the US. Call it Neocon Lite.
Interestingly enough, the harshest denunciation of the conduct of the Bushies' foreign policy and the neoconservative Global Democracy agenda that one can hear these days doesn't come from the direction of the Democratic Party but from Republican establishment figures who had served in the administration of President George the First.
Democracy by force
Hence Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser under Bush I, in an interview he gave to New Yorker magazine, criticized Vice-President Dick Cheney for siding with the militant neocons who wanted to reform the Middle East by force.
Scowcroft said in the interview that he believed that Paul Wolfowitz and other neocons "got a Utopia out there." Democracy cannot be imposed by force, and not everyone values freedom above all, Scowcroft argued.
As a realist, Scowcroft expressed in the interview the necessity of considering the consequences of action, or "outcomes." For Scowcroft, "the second Gulf War is a reminder of the unwelcome consequences of radical intervention, especially when it is attempted without sufficient understanding of America's limitations or of the history of the region," concluded the New Yorker article.
But it's important to remember that one of the main reasons that Scowcroft feels comfortable expressing such views that run contrary to the policy paradigm dominating in Washington is that this elder statesman is not looking for a job in the administration, Congress or the other centers of power in Washington.
Most of the policy intellectuals I met over the weekend are still relatively young and are marketing their ideas as part of a strategy to win professional benefits, and challenging the conventional wisdom on Iraq ("stay the course") and other issues wouldn't help advance that goal.
They might have found something more interesting in life than sex – but it's not an exit strategy from Iraq.
November 4, 2005
Washington intellectuals seem to have little idea
of how to fix US foreign policy
by Leon Hadar
by Leon Hadar
Save a link to this article and return to it at www.savethis.comSave a link to this article and return to it at www.savethis.com Email a link to this articleEmail a link to this article Printer-friendly version of this articlePrinter-friendly version of this article View a list of the most popular articles on our siteView a list of the most popular articles on our site
When he was once asked to define what exactly an "intellectual" was, British writer Aldous Huxley proposed that it was "a person who's found something in life that's more interesting than sex."
Based on Huxley's definition, I'm here to report to you that I had a very, very interesting weekend which I spent with a group of some of Washington's leading policy intellectuals, AKA policy "wonks" in a Big-Ideas retreat outside of the US capital, where one of those wealthy foundations wined and dined us for three days, in what could be described as a mini-Davos.
In return, we were expected to come up with new ideas on how to fix the universe or, more precisely, draw up the outline of a strategy that would permit the Master of the Universe, the United States, to stabilize Iraq, bring peace to the Middle East, re-energize the Western alliance and accommodate the Chinese, among many other things.
I have to admit that most of these wonks are clearly more intelligent, more knowledgeable and more experienced than your humble scribe here. Some of them have Ph.D.s from the most prestigious universities in the land, are fluent in many foreign languages, including Chinese, Persian and Urdu, and have served in top positions in the White House, Pentagon, State Department and Congress, where they provided advice to US officials, lawmakers and generals as they attempted to manage American foreign policy and resolve international crises.
No Big Ideas
Hence the expectation among the conference's organizers that some of these Washington's Best of the Brightest – I'm not including myself in that category – would have one of those eureka! moments and 72 hours of food consumption, beer drinking and long debates into the early morning hours would produce – Boom, Gee Whiz – the Big Idea in the form of, say, an exit strategy from Iraq or a new approach to deal with Iran.
Well, don't hold your breath. The long weekend failed to generate either Big Ideas or even tiny ones. While I'm prohibited by the off-the-record ground rules from revealing the names of the conference's attendees or what exactly was said during that retreat in Virginia, I can convey to you my main and very depressing impression: American foreign policy in Iraq, the Middle East and elsewhere is in a mess, and no one really knows how to get out of it.
Most of the participants suggested that Americans have to "stay the course in Iraq," expressed hope (wishful thinking?) that we will soon "turn the corner" there and things will get better in Mesopotamia, that perhaps the Sunnis will join the political process and that the elections in December will be "successful" (whatever that means).
In short, just continue muddling through and pray for a miracle.
There are some signs of the emergence of a foreign policy debate in Washington – clearly reflected in the discussions at the conference – which pits Kissinger-style Realpolitik types against Wilsonian idealists.
But taking into consideration some of the comments and predictions I heard during the weekend, the idealists – that is, the neoconservative ideologues who had hijacked US foreign policy after 9/11 – have not lost their momentum.
The notion that the US has the right and the obligation to promote American-style freedom and democracy not only in the Middle East but worldwide seems to be a dominant view among many of Washington's policy wonks. In fact, one of the panels during the conference was devoted to a discussion of how America could use its power to "democratize" Southeast Asia, including Singapore.
Even those Democrats participating in the event who have been critical of the neocons have not expressed opposition to the Global Democracy project itself. They just seemed to suggest that unlike the neocons, they would be able to achieve it at less cost especially in military terms, for the US. Call it Neocon Lite.
Interestingly enough, the harshest denunciation of the conduct of the Bushies' foreign policy and the neoconservative Global Democracy agenda that one can hear these days doesn't come from the direction of the Democratic Party but from Republican establishment figures who had served in the administration of President George the First.
Democracy by force
Hence Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser under Bush I, in an interview he gave to New Yorker magazine, criticized Vice-President Dick Cheney for siding with the militant neocons who wanted to reform the Middle East by force.
Scowcroft said in the interview that he believed that Paul Wolfowitz and other neocons "got a Utopia out there." Democracy cannot be imposed by force, and not everyone values freedom above all, Scowcroft argued.
As a realist, Scowcroft expressed in the interview the necessity of considering the consequences of action, or "outcomes." For Scowcroft, "the second Gulf War is a reminder of the unwelcome consequences of radical intervention, especially when it is attempted without sufficient understanding of America's limitations or of the history of the region," concluded the New Yorker article.
But it's important to remember that one of the main reasons that Scowcroft feels comfortable expressing such views that run contrary to the policy paradigm dominating in Washington is that this elder statesman is not looking for a job in the administration, Congress or the other centers of power in Washington.
Most of the policy intellectuals I met over the weekend are still relatively young and are marketing their ideas as part of a strategy to win professional benefits, and challenging the conventional wisdom on Iraq ("stay the course") and other issues wouldn't help advance that goal.
They might have found something more interesting in life than sex – but it's not an exit strategy from Iraq.
November 4, 2005
When Will America’s Housing Bubble Burst? by Eric Englund
When Will America’s Housing Bubble Burst? by Eric Englund
When Will America�s Housing Bubble Burst?
by Eric Englund
by Eric Englund
Throughout 2005, my clients � contractors of all trades, fabricators, and suppliers � have watched housing continue on its tear. Housing demand seems insatiable. Residential, commercial, and public works contractors are busy all across the U.S. When housing subdivisions and condominium complexes are built out, commercial and public works projects often follow. Strip malls, supermarkets, restaurants, and department stores are constructed to serve these new population centers � much to the delight of the commercial construction trades. With these new population centers comes the "need" for new public schools and other public infrastructure. Public works contractors get a piece of the action as well. Most of my clients are quite busy and turning nice profits. However, during a recent business trip, a common theme emerged in meeting after meeting. My customers are seeing severe shortages in building materials and quality labor. Many are outright stating that the heady pace of construction is simply unsustainable. In turn, some of the more seasoned contractors are predicting a bust � but they just don�t know when; yet I will hazard a guess.
In my meeting notes, I found that contractors were running into shortages of the following (pre and post-Hurricane Katrina):
* Certain dimensional lumbers
* Concrete
* Labor
* Oriented strand board
* Plumbing supplies
* Plywood
* PVC pipe
* Quality architectural designs and plans (indicating a strained architectural labor pool)
* Roofing materials
* Steel
Of these shortages, the one causing the most frustration pertains to a dearth of quality labor. Contractors, frequently, have little choice but to load their construction budgets with ample overtime pay in order to keep quality (and often shorthanded) crews together for the duration of a project. One client quipped: "This constant battle for labor and materials can�t go on forever. Things have to cool down sooner or later. But when?"
As to precisely when the bust will occur, this is not knowable. As to why boom turns into bust, only the Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle provides the intellectual framework allowing one to understand the boom-bust cycle. What we will find, as explained by Roger Garrison, is that central banking is at the epicenter of the business cycle. Dr. Garrison provides the following explanation in the Mises Institute�s fabulous book The Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle:
The Austrian theory of the business cycle emerges straightforwardly from a simple comparison of savings-induced growth, which is sustainable, with a credit-induced boom, which is not. An increase in saving by individuals and a credit expansion orchestrated by the central bank set into motion market processes whose initial allocational effects on the economy's capital structure are similar. But the ultimate consequences of the two processes stand in stark contrast: Saving gets us genuine growth; credit expansion gets us boom and bust.
Undoubtedly, the current American housing boom has not been built upon a foundation of savings � keeping in mind that, presently, America has a negative savings rate. This boom has been fueled by the Federal Reserve�s aggressive creation of money and credit. Correspondingly, the federal funds rate hit a low of 1% in June of 2003 � about the same time the housing boom began to accelerate.
Since money and credit can be created out of thin air, yet building materials and other resources cannot, does it not stand to reason that relentless credit creation would lead to resource shortages? Of course, the answer is "yes" � and Austrian economists know this. Accordingly, Roger Garrison covers this issue in his excellent book Time and Money: The Macroeconomics of Capital Structure:
In sum, credit expansion sets into motion a process of capital restructuring that is at odds with the unchanged preferences and hence is ill-fated. The relative changes within the capital structure were appropriately termed malinvestment by Mises�The boom is unsustainable; the changes in the intertemporal structure of production are self-defeating. Resource scarcities and a continuing high demand for current consumption eventually turn boom into bust.
It is not often one finds an economic theory that describes reality � and Austrian theory does so magnificently. In fact, from the labor and materials shortages my clients have described, it would seem the bust phase of the business cycle is nearly upon us.
Tom Barrack, widely considered to be among the world�s greatest real estate investors, wittingly or not, has an Austrian perspective as to why the United States� real estate/housing boom will soon come to an end. He stated the following, about real estate, in a recent Fortune article: "There�s too much money chasing too few good deals, with too much debt and too few brains�. That�s why I�m getting out." Tom Barrack certainly understands the dangers of high-octane credit expansion. Yet, what about the inevitable resource scarcities caused by the Federal Reserve�s accommodative credit policy and how will this affect the housing bubble? In the following excerpt, from this article, Mr. Barrack hits the ball out of the park:
�he sees the bubble deflating soon. Barrack thinks the catalyst will be a trend that few others are talking about, a steep rise in the price of building materials and labor. "Construction costs have spiked 30% in the past nine months," he says. The reasons: shortages of labor and materials like lumber because of the building boom, and increases in the price of oil, needed to produce everything from plastic piping to insulation to shingles.
The slump will show up first in speculative hot spots like Miami and Las Vegas, he says, where condo developers are preselling their projects for what look like big profits. When they actually build the units over the next year or two, he predicts, they will end up spending more than the units are now selling for. At that point, says Barrack, the developers will try to raise prices. "But most of these buyers are speculators," he says. "They will either sue the developers to get the original prices or get their deposits back and walk away." The developers will then put the units back on the market, and the glut of vacant condos will drive prices down. "It's the busted deals caused by construction costs that will cause a turn in the market," he predicts.
To be sure, the severe construction labor and materials shortages, seen throughout the U.S., signify the housing boom is nearing its end. Not surprisingly, Austrian economic theory predicted such shortages would emerge before boom turns to bust.
For good measure, let�s throw in the following housing affordability and financial-stress factors into the fray � which also point to the impending demise of the housing bubble:
* The average American household has $10,000 of credit card debt and, due to pressures brought to bear by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, minimum payments are now doubling.
* Soaring energy prices are going to make for financially punishing heating bills this winter � McMansions are energy hogs.
* The Federal Reserve just raised the fed funds rate to 4%. Hence, there should be no surprise that mortgage interest rates are at 15-month highs.
* Price inflation is much higher than Uncle Sam�s Consumer Price Index suggests � just go to the gas station and to the grocery store.
* The ratio of house prices to rental values is at an all-time high.
* The ratio of house prices to disposable income is highly elevated.
But what about my promise to hazard a guess as to the timing of the bust? After all, Tom Barrack indicated that he sees enough busted deals materializing, over the next year or two, to bring about a downturn in the real estate market.
In order to make a reasonable prediction, I am going to bring into the mix a September 2005 Federal Reserve discussion paper titled House Prices and Monetary Policy: A Cross-Country Study. Per this discussion paper�s abstract: "This paper examines periods of pronounced rises and falls of real house prices since 1970 in eighteen major industrial countries, with particular focus on the lessons for monetary policy." Here is what I found to be most interesting: "House price booms are typically preceded by a period of easing monetary policy, with policy rates bottoming out about the same time that house prices take off, about three years before house prices peak." Considering the fed funds rate did not bottom out, at 1%, until June of 2003 (and remained at 1%, until June of 2004, before being ratcheted upwards) one could reasonably surmise house prices will peak somewhere between June of 2006 and June of 2007 � and then, of course, will break downwards (for the reasons mentioned above).
With a plausible timeframe in hand, I am predicting the housing bubble will begin to burst within the next 14 months � perhaps by around December of 2006. Ultimately, we have a housing boom built on credit (and not savings) which has lead to labor and materials shortages and has lead to overleveraged consumers. This is why I see a bust � as indicated by accelerating mortgage defaults and a general decline in housing prices � commencing well before June of 2007. To close, always remember Austrian theory allows us to know there will be a central bank-induced bust. As to timing, I am only providing an educated guess.
November 4, 2005
When Will America�s Housing Bubble Burst?
by Eric Englund
by Eric Englund
Throughout 2005, my clients � contractors of all trades, fabricators, and suppliers � have watched housing continue on its tear. Housing demand seems insatiable. Residential, commercial, and public works contractors are busy all across the U.S. When housing subdivisions and condominium complexes are built out, commercial and public works projects often follow. Strip malls, supermarkets, restaurants, and department stores are constructed to serve these new population centers � much to the delight of the commercial construction trades. With these new population centers comes the "need" for new public schools and other public infrastructure. Public works contractors get a piece of the action as well. Most of my clients are quite busy and turning nice profits. However, during a recent business trip, a common theme emerged in meeting after meeting. My customers are seeing severe shortages in building materials and quality labor. Many are outright stating that the heady pace of construction is simply unsustainable. In turn, some of the more seasoned contractors are predicting a bust � but they just don�t know when; yet I will hazard a guess.
In my meeting notes, I found that contractors were running into shortages of the following (pre and post-Hurricane Katrina):
* Certain dimensional lumbers
* Concrete
* Labor
* Oriented strand board
* Plumbing supplies
* Plywood
* PVC pipe
* Quality architectural designs and plans (indicating a strained architectural labor pool)
* Roofing materials
* Steel
Of these shortages, the one causing the most frustration pertains to a dearth of quality labor. Contractors, frequently, have little choice but to load their construction budgets with ample overtime pay in order to keep quality (and often shorthanded) crews together for the duration of a project. One client quipped: "This constant battle for labor and materials can�t go on forever. Things have to cool down sooner or later. But when?"
As to precisely when the bust will occur, this is not knowable. As to why boom turns into bust, only the Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle provides the intellectual framework allowing one to understand the boom-bust cycle. What we will find, as explained by Roger Garrison, is that central banking is at the epicenter of the business cycle. Dr. Garrison provides the following explanation in the Mises Institute�s fabulous book The Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle:
The Austrian theory of the business cycle emerges straightforwardly from a simple comparison of savings-induced growth, which is sustainable, with a credit-induced boom, which is not. An increase in saving by individuals and a credit expansion orchestrated by the central bank set into motion market processes whose initial allocational effects on the economy's capital structure are similar. But the ultimate consequences of the two processes stand in stark contrast: Saving gets us genuine growth; credit expansion gets us boom and bust.
Undoubtedly, the current American housing boom has not been built upon a foundation of savings � keeping in mind that, presently, America has a negative savings rate. This boom has been fueled by the Federal Reserve�s aggressive creation of money and credit. Correspondingly, the federal funds rate hit a low of 1% in June of 2003 � about the same time the housing boom began to accelerate.
Since money and credit can be created out of thin air, yet building materials and other resources cannot, does it not stand to reason that relentless credit creation would lead to resource shortages? Of course, the answer is "yes" � and Austrian economists know this. Accordingly, Roger Garrison covers this issue in his excellent book Time and Money: The Macroeconomics of Capital Structure:
In sum, credit expansion sets into motion a process of capital restructuring that is at odds with the unchanged preferences and hence is ill-fated. The relative changes within the capital structure were appropriately termed malinvestment by Mises�The boom is unsustainable; the changes in the intertemporal structure of production are self-defeating. Resource scarcities and a continuing high demand for current consumption eventually turn boom into bust.
It is not often one finds an economic theory that describes reality � and Austrian theory does so magnificently. In fact, from the labor and materials shortages my clients have described, it would seem the bust phase of the business cycle is nearly upon us.
Tom Barrack, widely considered to be among the world�s greatest real estate investors, wittingly or not, has an Austrian perspective as to why the United States� real estate/housing boom will soon come to an end. He stated the following, about real estate, in a recent Fortune article: "There�s too much money chasing too few good deals, with too much debt and too few brains�. That�s why I�m getting out." Tom Barrack certainly understands the dangers of high-octane credit expansion. Yet, what about the inevitable resource scarcities caused by the Federal Reserve�s accommodative credit policy and how will this affect the housing bubble? In the following excerpt, from this article, Mr. Barrack hits the ball out of the park:
�he sees the bubble deflating soon. Barrack thinks the catalyst will be a trend that few others are talking about, a steep rise in the price of building materials and labor. "Construction costs have spiked 30% in the past nine months," he says. The reasons: shortages of labor and materials like lumber because of the building boom, and increases in the price of oil, needed to produce everything from plastic piping to insulation to shingles.
The slump will show up first in speculative hot spots like Miami and Las Vegas, he says, where condo developers are preselling their projects for what look like big profits. When they actually build the units over the next year or two, he predicts, they will end up spending more than the units are now selling for. At that point, says Barrack, the developers will try to raise prices. "But most of these buyers are speculators," he says. "They will either sue the developers to get the original prices or get their deposits back and walk away." The developers will then put the units back on the market, and the glut of vacant condos will drive prices down. "It's the busted deals caused by construction costs that will cause a turn in the market," he predicts.
To be sure, the severe construction labor and materials shortages, seen throughout the U.S., signify the housing boom is nearing its end. Not surprisingly, Austrian economic theory predicted such shortages would emerge before boom turns to bust.
For good measure, let�s throw in the following housing affordability and financial-stress factors into the fray � which also point to the impending demise of the housing bubble:
* The average American household has $10,000 of credit card debt and, due to pressures brought to bear by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, minimum payments are now doubling.
* Soaring energy prices are going to make for financially punishing heating bills this winter � McMansions are energy hogs.
* The Federal Reserve just raised the fed funds rate to 4%. Hence, there should be no surprise that mortgage interest rates are at 15-month highs.
* Price inflation is much higher than Uncle Sam�s Consumer Price Index suggests � just go to the gas station and to the grocery store.
* The ratio of house prices to rental values is at an all-time high.
* The ratio of house prices to disposable income is highly elevated.
But what about my promise to hazard a guess as to the timing of the bust? After all, Tom Barrack indicated that he sees enough busted deals materializing, over the next year or two, to bring about a downturn in the real estate market.
In order to make a reasonable prediction, I am going to bring into the mix a September 2005 Federal Reserve discussion paper titled House Prices and Monetary Policy: A Cross-Country Study. Per this discussion paper�s abstract: "This paper examines periods of pronounced rises and falls of real house prices since 1970 in eighteen major industrial countries, with particular focus on the lessons for monetary policy." Here is what I found to be most interesting: "House price booms are typically preceded by a period of easing monetary policy, with policy rates bottoming out about the same time that house prices take off, about three years before house prices peak." Considering the fed funds rate did not bottom out, at 1%, until June of 2003 (and remained at 1%, until June of 2004, before being ratcheted upwards) one could reasonably surmise house prices will peak somewhere between June of 2006 and June of 2007 � and then, of course, will break downwards (for the reasons mentioned above).
With a plausible timeframe in hand, I am predicting the housing bubble will begin to burst within the next 14 months � perhaps by around December of 2006. Ultimately, we have a housing boom built on credit (and not savings) which has lead to labor and materials shortages and has lead to overleveraged consumers. This is why I see a bust � as indicated by accelerating mortgage defaults and a general decline in housing prices � commencing well before June of 2007. To close, always remember Austrian theory allows us to know there will be a central bank-induced bust. As to timing, I am only providing an educated guess.
November 4, 2005
The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History
http://www.lewrockwell.com/gordon/americanhistory.html
The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History
Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Regnery Publishing, 2004
xv + 270 pgs.
Thomas Woods’s superb new book delivers much more than it promises. Woods offers his book as a guide to "those who find the standard narrative or the typical textbook unpersuasive or ideologically biased" (p. xiv). This suggests that Woods has principally students in mind as his audience; but many others will benefit from reading the book. Woods displays a remarkably broad knowledge of the latest specialized research on various episodes of American history. This permits him, again and again, to raise illuminating points that will instruct even knowledgeable readers.
The book is no mere compilation of surprising facts. Woods has rather organized his account around a central theme. Americans have, from the colonial period to the present, flourished so long as they lived in a free economy, accompanied by a government strictly limited in powers. But throughout much of our history, the efforts of Americans to live freely have confronted a formidable enemy: the Leviathan state. Woods shows that the federal government, far from being the protector of the rights of minorities, has been the main obstacle on the path to liberty.
But, one might object to this account, was not the American settlement conceived in sin? How can one say that Americans always sought to live freely when the earliest Puritan settlers began their "free" society by theft of Indian lands?
Woods meets this initial challenge head on. The Puritans did not steal from the Indians: they bought land from various tribes, in willing and beneficial exchange. "[W]hile the king had issued colonial land grants, the Puritan consensus . . . was that the king’s charter conferred political and not property rights to the land, which Puritan settlers sought by means of voluntary cession from the Indians. The colonial government actually punished individuals who made unauthorized acquisitions of Indian lands" (p. 8, emphasis in original).
The American colonists, as they developed a free society, realized that a strong central government threatened their achievements. Once they gained independence, they were not about to surrender the freedom that they had won from the British to a new despotism. Woods ably brings out that although the supporters of the Constitution were the centralizing party, as opposed to the more prescient Antifederalists who warned of the possible dangers of the new regime, even they sought to restrain national authority.
In this connection, Woods emphasizes the Tenth Amendment, which "guaranteed the states’ rights to self-government. . . . Since the states existed prior to the federal government, they were the source of whatever power the federal government had" (p. 26).
All well and good in theory: but how could the federal government be kept within strict limits? To rely on "checks and balances," Woods insightfully comments, does not suffice: to think otherwise is to rely on the federal government to police itself. Jefferson and his followers argued that the states had the right to nullify laws they deemed unconstitutional. If a state resisted in this way, the operation of the disputed law would be suspended in the state, pending a resolution of the matter by a conference of the states. By no means was this theory an invention of Southern firebrands, anxious at all costs to cement slavery in place. Though the nullifications of 1798 did not find favor with the Northern states at the time, "they used the unmistakable language of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 when nullifying the fugitive slave laws" (p. 39).
The politically correct historians who are the objects of Woods’s assault would here interpose an objection. Were not states’ rights the key to the defense of slavery? How without a strong central government could slavery have been ended?
Woods easily turns aside this counterargument. The Civil War—as he points out, not a genuine civil war since the South did not wish to replace the national government—was not fought to end slavery: Lincoln rather aimed to consolidate national power. In opposing Lincoln’s dictatorship, the South defended the cause of liberty, a fact that was not lost on the great classical liberal Lord Acton. In a letter of 1866 to Robert E. Lee, Acton said that he "saw in States’ rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy" (p. 74).
In the pursuit of their centralizing mission, the Northern armies shocked European historians by their assaults on civilians. Woods, illustrating his excellent command of the historical literature, cites in this connection the seldom-mentioned classic of F.J.P. Veale, Advance to Barbarism. He argued that the Northern forces "broke deliberately and dramatically from the European code of warfare that had developed since the seventeenth century and that had forbidden targeting the civilian population" (p. 71).
Given what has already been said, it will come as no surprise that Woods does not view Reconstruction with favor. He maintains, here following Forrest McDonald, that the Fourteenth Amendment, a key element both in the plans of the Radical Republicans and the machinations of their centralizing successors down to the present, was never legally ratified. His argument is straightforward: the Southern states were required to ratify the Amendment before their governments were legally recognized. If so, their acts of ratification had no legal force, since they were made by legislatures not part of the union.
Despite the horrendous destruction of the Civil War, America recovered and prospered, owing to a largely free economy. But the centralizers and proponents of government never learn the lesson that freedom works better than coercion. When the Great Depression struck in 1929, Herbert Hoover responded with the supreme inanity of trying to keep wages up. In doing so, he ensured massive unemployment. (For the causes of the depression, Woods refers readers to Murray Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression.)
Franklin Roosevelt of course continued and greatly extended Hoover’s interventionist policies. In doing so, he prolonged the depression throughout the 1930s, and prosperity did not return until after World War II. Woods is careful to note, here following Robert Higgs, that the war itself, with its vast conscription of men and resources, was not a period of economic good times.
With much of this economic story, readers of the Mises Review will be familiar. But once more showing his ability to find the little known but significant fact, Woods comes up with something remarkable. The New Deal made constant efforts to increase the power of labor unions, and "progressives" often cite the Wagner Act and similar measures as among Roosevelt’s greatest triumphs. Woods remarks: "The ways in which labor unions impoverish the economy are legion, from distortions in the labor market to work rules that discourage efficiency. In a study published . . . in late 2002 . . . economists Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway of Ohio University calculated that labor unions have cost the American economy a whopping $50 trillion over the past fifty years alone" (p. 150, emphasis in original).
Despite the manifold failures of interventionism, some of the self-styled intellectual elite thought that interference with the market had not gone far enough. Until the onset of the Cold War, sympathy with the Soviet "experiment" was widespread among academics, journalists, and government employees. Some of the sympathizers went beyond intellectual flirtation; Alger Hiss, among many others, aided Soviet Russia through espionage. Woods suggests that the much-maligned Senator Joseph McCarthy was in substance correct in his claims about Communist penetration of the U.S. government.
Much of this is relatively well known, but Woods has once again highlighted a surprising fact. Thanks in large measure to the assiduous efforts of his disciple Sidney Hook, John Dewey has acquired a reputation as a leading anti-Communist. Woods reminds us that Dewey once held entirely different views. "Progressive educator John Dewey, in a series of articles for The New Republic in 1928, could hardly contain his enthusiasm for Soviet Russia. ‘I have never seen anywhere in the world such a large proportion of intelligent, happy and intelligently occupied children,’ he recalled" (pp. 159–60).
Dewey had earlier supported American entry into World War I; and, as Woods makes clear, support for intervention at home goes hand-in-hand with an aggressive foreign policy. Woodrow Wilson, the economic interventionist, influenced by partiality toward England and by his desire to reshape the world, abandoned America’s traditional policy of noninvolvement in European power politics. Woods stresses Wilson’s blatantly unfair prewar diplomacy. Wilson insisted that Americans had the right to travel on armed belligerent ships, holding the Germans to "strict accountability" for American lives lost in submarine attacks. At the same time, he accepted the British hunger blockade of Germany, though this cost many times more lives than the German policy.
Franklin Roosevelt proved an apt pupil of Wilson in the events leading to America’s entry into World War II. Roosevelt’s "destroyers for bases" agreement with the British in September 1940 might have provoked a German declaration of war: nevertheless, Roosevelt saw no need to secure the approval of Congress. Woods as always has found a telling quotation. Edward Corwin, one of the foremost Constitutional scholars of the time and by no means an opponent of the New Deal, commented: "Why not any and all of Congress’s specifically delegated powers be set aside by the President’s ‘executive power’ and the country be put on a totalitarian basis without further ado?" (p. 176). Roosevelt’s efforts to provoke a German declaration of war failed, but he succeeded in getting America into the war through the "back door." His aggressive policy toward Japan provoked the Japanese attack: as Secretary of War Stimson noted in his diary on November 25, 1941, the question was how "to maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot" (p. 181).
I shall conclude with one more surprising fact that Woods has brought to light. He calls attention to the vital work of Julius Epstein, a longtime researcher at the Hoover Institution, on Operation Keelhaul. In this nefarious program, at least one million Russian prisoners of war were forcibly returned to Russia. In one incident, "About 200 Soviet nationals were among the prisoners of war in Fort Dix, New Jersey. . . . They were taken prisoner with the solemn promise that under no circumstances would they be repatriated to the Soviet Union, where they faced certain death. That promise was betrayed so that the American president might be faithful to Uncle Joe [Stalin]" (p. 188).
I have been able to offer only a sample of the many topics that Woods discusses. His account of civil rights legislation and his discussion of the fallacy that Marshall Plan aid brought about European recovery after World War II should not be missed. His stimulating book helps to correct the many myths that today pass for American history. n MR
The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History
Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Regnery Publishing, 2004
xv + 270 pgs.
Thomas Woods’s superb new book delivers much more than it promises. Woods offers his book as a guide to "those who find the standard narrative or the typical textbook unpersuasive or ideologically biased" (p. xiv). This suggests that Woods has principally students in mind as his audience; but many others will benefit from reading the book. Woods displays a remarkably broad knowledge of the latest specialized research on various episodes of American history. This permits him, again and again, to raise illuminating points that will instruct even knowledgeable readers.
The book is no mere compilation of surprising facts. Woods has rather organized his account around a central theme. Americans have, from the colonial period to the present, flourished so long as they lived in a free economy, accompanied by a government strictly limited in powers. But throughout much of our history, the efforts of Americans to live freely have confronted a formidable enemy: the Leviathan state. Woods shows that the federal government, far from being the protector of the rights of minorities, has been the main obstacle on the path to liberty.
But, one might object to this account, was not the American settlement conceived in sin? How can one say that Americans always sought to live freely when the earliest Puritan settlers began their "free" society by theft of Indian lands?
Woods meets this initial challenge head on. The Puritans did not steal from the Indians: they bought land from various tribes, in willing and beneficial exchange. "[W]hile the king had issued colonial land grants, the Puritan consensus . . . was that the king’s charter conferred political and not property rights to the land, which Puritan settlers sought by means of voluntary cession from the Indians. The colonial government actually punished individuals who made unauthorized acquisitions of Indian lands" (p. 8, emphasis in original).
The American colonists, as they developed a free society, realized that a strong central government threatened their achievements. Once they gained independence, they were not about to surrender the freedom that they had won from the British to a new despotism. Woods ably brings out that although the supporters of the Constitution were the centralizing party, as opposed to the more prescient Antifederalists who warned of the possible dangers of the new regime, even they sought to restrain national authority.
In this connection, Woods emphasizes the Tenth Amendment, which "guaranteed the states’ rights to self-government. . . . Since the states existed prior to the federal government, they were the source of whatever power the federal government had" (p. 26).
All well and good in theory: but how could the federal government be kept within strict limits? To rely on "checks and balances," Woods insightfully comments, does not suffice: to think otherwise is to rely on the federal government to police itself. Jefferson and his followers argued that the states had the right to nullify laws they deemed unconstitutional. If a state resisted in this way, the operation of the disputed law would be suspended in the state, pending a resolution of the matter by a conference of the states. By no means was this theory an invention of Southern firebrands, anxious at all costs to cement slavery in place. Though the nullifications of 1798 did not find favor with the Northern states at the time, "they used the unmistakable language of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 when nullifying the fugitive slave laws" (p. 39).
The politically correct historians who are the objects of Woods’s assault would here interpose an objection. Were not states’ rights the key to the defense of slavery? How without a strong central government could slavery have been ended?
Woods easily turns aside this counterargument. The Civil War—as he points out, not a genuine civil war since the South did not wish to replace the national government—was not fought to end slavery: Lincoln rather aimed to consolidate national power. In opposing Lincoln’s dictatorship, the South defended the cause of liberty, a fact that was not lost on the great classical liberal Lord Acton. In a letter of 1866 to Robert E. Lee, Acton said that he "saw in States’ rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy" (p. 74).
In the pursuit of their centralizing mission, the Northern armies shocked European historians by their assaults on civilians. Woods, illustrating his excellent command of the historical literature, cites in this connection the seldom-mentioned classic of F.J.P. Veale, Advance to Barbarism. He argued that the Northern forces "broke deliberately and dramatically from the European code of warfare that had developed since the seventeenth century and that had forbidden targeting the civilian population" (p. 71).
Given what has already been said, it will come as no surprise that Woods does not view Reconstruction with favor. He maintains, here following Forrest McDonald, that the Fourteenth Amendment, a key element both in the plans of the Radical Republicans and the machinations of their centralizing successors down to the present, was never legally ratified. His argument is straightforward: the Southern states were required to ratify the Amendment before their governments were legally recognized. If so, their acts of ratification had no legal force, since they were made by legislatures not part of the union.
Despite the horrendous destruction of the Civil War, America recovered and prospered, owing to a largely free economy. But the centralizers and proponents of government never learn the lesson that freedom works better than coercion. When the Great Depression struck in 1929, Herbert Hoover responded with the supreme inanity of trying to keep wages up. In doing so, he ensured massive unemployment. (For the causes of the depression, Woods refers readers to Murray Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression.)
Franklin Roosevelt of course continued and greatly extended Hoover’s interventionist policies. In doing so, he prolonged the depression throughout the 1930s, and prosperity did not return until after World War II. Woods is careful to note, here following Robert Higgs, that the war itself, with its vast conscription of men and resources, was not a period of economic good times.
With much of this economic story, readers of the Mises Review will be familiar. But once more showing his ability to find the little known but significant fact, Woods comes up with something remarkable. The New Deal made constant efforts to increase the power of labor unions, and "progressives" often cite the Wagner Act and similar measures as among Roosevelt’s greatest triumphs. Woods remarks: "The ways in which labor unions impoverish the economy are legion, from distortions in the labor market to work rules that discourage efficiency. In a study published . . . in late 2002 . . . economists Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway of Ohio University calculated that labor unions have cost the American economy a whopping $50 trillion over the past fifty years alone" (p. 150, emphasis in original).
Despite the manifold failures of interventionism, some of the self-styled intellectual elite thought that interference with the market had not gone far enough. Until the onset of the Cold War, sympathy with the Soviet "experiment" was widespread among academics, journalists, and government employees. Some of the sympathizers went beyond intellectual flirtation; Alger Hiss, among many others, aided Soviet Russia through espionage. Woods suggests that the much-maligned Senator Joseph McCarthy was in substance correct in his claims about Communist penetration of the U.S. government.
Much of this is relatively well known, but Woods has once again highlighted a surprising fact. Thanks in large measure to the assiduous efforts of his disciple Sidney Hook, John Dewey has acquired a reputation as a leading anti-Communist. Woods reminds us that Dewey once held entirely different views. "Progressive educator John Dewey, in a series of articles for The New Republic in 1928, could hardly contain his enthusiasm for Soviet Russia. ‘I have never seen anywhere in the world such a large proportion of intelligent, happy and intelligently occupied children,’ he recalled" (pp. 159–60).
Dewey had earlier supported American entry into World War I; and, as Woods makes clear, support for intervention at home goes hand-in-hand with an aggressive foreign policy. Woodrow Wilson, the economic interventionist, influenced by partiality toward England and by his desire to reshape the world, abandoned America’s traditional policy of noninvolvement in European power politics. Woods stresses Wilson’s blatantly unfair prewar diplomacy. Wilson insisted that Americans had the right to travel on armed belligerent ships, holding the Germans to "strict accountability" for American lives lost in submarine attacks. At the same time, he accepted the British hunger blockade of Germany, though this cost many times more lives than the German policy.
Franklin Roosevelt proved an apt pupil of Wilson in the events leading to America’s entry into World War II. Roosevelt’s "destroyers for bases" agreement with the British in September 1940 might have provoked a German declaration of war: nevertheless, Roosevelt saw no need to secure the approval of Congress. Woods as always has found a telling quotation. Edward Corwin, one of the foremost Constitutional scholars of the time and by no means an opponent of the New Deal, commented: "Why not any and all of Congress’s specifically delegated powers be set aside by the President’s ‘executive power’ and the country be put on a totalitarian basis without further ado?" (p. 176). Roosevelt’s efforts to provoke a German declaration of war failed, but he succeeded in getting America into the war through the "back door." His aggressive policy toward Japan provoked the Japanese attack: as Secretary of War Stimson noted in his diary on November 25, 1941, the question was how "to maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot" (p. 181).
I shall conclude with one more surprising fact that Woods has brought to light. He calls attention to the vital work of Julius Epstein, a longtime researcher at the Hoover Institution, on Operation Keelhaul. In this nefarious program, at least one million Russian prisoners of war were forcibly returned to Russia. In one incident, "About 200 Soviet nationals were among the prisoners of war in Fort Dix, New Jersey. . . . They were taken prisoner with the solemn promise that under no circumstances would they be repatriated to the Soviet Union, where they faced certain death. That promise was betrayed so that the American president might be faithful to Uncle Joe [Stalin]" (p. 188).
I have been able to offer only a sample of the many topics that Woods discusses. His account of civil rights legislation and his discussion of the fallacy that Marshall Plan aid brought about European recovery after World War II should not be missed. His stimulating book helps to correct the many myths that today pass for American history. n MR
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
One Hand Clapping � Blog Archive � Senate goes to closed session
One Hand Clapping � Blog Archive � Senate goes to closed session: "Senate goes to closed session
by Donald Sensing
CBS News reports, �Dems Force Closed Senate Session.�"
by Donald Sensing
CBS News reports, �Dems Force Closed Senate Session.�"
Monday, October 31, 2005
Michael Fumento: Fill 'er Up with Oil Sands!
Michael Fumento: Fill 'er Up with Oil Sands!: "Fill 'er Up with Oil Sands!"
TCS: Tech Central Station - Fill 'er Up with Oils Sands!
TCS: Tech Central Station - Fill 'er Up with Oils Sands!: "Fill 'er Up with Oils Sands!
By Michael Fumento Published 10/31/2005
E-Mail Bookmark Print Save
TCS
It was a tenet of the late great economist Julian Simon that we'll never run out of any commodity. That's because before we do the increasing scarcity of that resource will drive up the price and force us to adopt alternatives. For example, as firewood grew scarce people turned to coal, and as the whale oil supply dwindled 'twas petroleum that saved the whales.
Now we're told we're running out of petroleum. The 'proof' is the high prices at the pump. In fact, oil cost about 50% more per barrel in 1979-80 than now when adjusted for inflation. Yet it's also true that industrializing nations like China and India are making serious demands on the world's ability to provide oil and are driving prices up. So is this the beginning of the end?
Nope. The Julian Simon effect is already occurring."
(Full Story)
By Michael Fumento Published 10/31/2005
E-Mail Bookmark Print Save
TCS
It was a tenet of the late great economist Julian Simon that we'll never run out of any commodity. That's because before we do the increasing scarcity of that resource will drive up the price and force us to adopt alternatives. For example, as firewood grew scarce people turned to coal, and as the whale oil supply dwindled 'twas petroleum that saved the whales.
Now we're told we're running out of petroleum. The 'proof' is the high prices at the pump. In fact, oil cost about 50% more per barrel in 1979-80 than now when adjusted for inflation. Yet it's also true that industrializing nations like China and India are making serious demands on the world's ability to provide oil and are driving prices up. So is this the beginning of the end?
Nope. The Julian Simon effect is already occurring."
(Full Story)
Suitcase Bombs- No Way!!
"I have known since being trained as a nuclear target analyst in 1983 (and remaining current through my 1995 retirement from the Army) that there is no such thing as “suitcase nuke.” The term refers to an atomic bomb that is small enough to fit in the space of a suitcase and is therefore presumably approximately as portable as a suitcase.
There was such a thing as atomic demolition munitions and I was trained in how to compute their use against targets such as bridgeheads or to create obstacles by filling a valley with displaced earth. ADMs were indeed man portable, but not easily and certainly not by only one man. Their utility (such as it might have been) was obviated with the invention of terminal-guided missiles such as a late variant of Lance, cruise missiles and GPS-guided weapons.
So I am glad to see today’s piece in OpinonJournal busting the myths about so-called “suitcase nukes.” Not a short read, it is thorough at explaining why suitcase nukes don’t exist. It isn’t simply a matter of engineering challenges, which given enough time and money could be overcome. Read it all!
There was such a thing as atomic demolition munitions and I was trained in how to compute their use against targets such as bridgeheads or to create obstacles by filling a valley with displaced earth. ADMs were indeed man portable, but not easily and certainly not by only one man. Their utility (such as it might have been) was obviated with the invention of terminal-guided missiles such as a late variant of Lance, cruise missiles and GPS-guided weapons.
So I am glad to see today’s piece in OpinonJournal busting the myths about so-called “suitcase nukes.” Not a short read, it is thorough at explaining why suitcase nukes don’t exist. It isn’t simply a matter of engineering challenges, which given enough time and money could be overcome. Read it all!
Friday, October 28, 2005
Power Line: Continental drift
Power Line: Continental drift: "Continental drift
Every three months I announce that the Claremont Review of Books is my favorite magazine -- every three months because the magazine is a quarterly. CRB is the flagship publication of the Claremont Institute, the organization whose mission it is to restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life. See, for example, today's astringent column by CRB editor Charles Kesler on the matter of Harriet Miers: 'Bush's philosophy.'
The magazine is also popular in the White House and the Pentagon; 30 copies of each new issue are shipped out by overnight mail to the White House upon publication, and a dozen to the Pentagon. If you don't subscribe, you should.
The institute has just announced that Mark Steyn will receive the 2005 Henry Salvatori Prize at its annual dinner in honor of Sir Winston S. Churchill. The event will be held on Friday, December 2, 2005 at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.
The fall issue of the CRB is in the mail. As usual, it is packed full of outstanding essays and thoughtful reviews of books on mostly political subjects. Among the rewards of my enthususiasm for the magazine is the privilege of debuting a few of the items from the issue exclusively on Power Line.
Cornell University Government Professor Jeremy Rabkin has become a unique resource on issues of national sovereignty, international law and the related constellation of issues implicit in the 'We Are The World' thrust of the modern Democratic Party. Professor Rabkin is the author most recently of Law Without Nations? Why Constitutional Government Requires Sovereign States. Among the featured essays in the current CRB issue is Professor Rabkin's essay on the European Union: 'Continental drift.'
Imagine if our agricultural policy were made in Ecuador with agricultural ministers from all over the Hemisphere, our taxes paid for housing in Canada, and Paraguayan judges ruled on our immigration policy —- oh, and the American voter really had no say about any of it. Then you’d have something like the New World counterpart to the European Union. It wouldn’t work very well. It doesn’t for Europe. So what is Europe’s fate? Why did the European constitution fail? What does a constitution do, anyway? These are the questions to which Professor Rabkin addresses himself in this invigorating essay."
Every three months I announce that the Claremont Review of Books is my favorite magazine -- every three months because the magazine is a quarterly. CRB is the flagship publication of the Claremont Institute, the organization whose mission it is to restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life. See, for example, today's astringent column by CRB editor Charles Kesler on the matter of Harriet Miers: 'Bush's philosophy.'
The magazine is also popular in the White House and the Pentagon; 30 copies of each new issue are shipped out by overnight mail to the White House upon publication, and a dozen to the Pentagon. If you don't subscribe, you should.
The institute has just announced that Mark Steyn will receive the 2005 Henry Salvatori Prize at its annual dinner in honor of Sir Winston S. Churchill. The event will be held on Friday, December 2, 2005 at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.
The fall issue of the CRB is in the mail. As usual, it is packed full of outstanding essays and thoughtful reviews of books on mostly political subjects. Among the rewards of my enthususiasm for the magazine is the privilege of debuting a few of the items from the issue exclusively on Power Line.
Cornell University Government Professor Jeremy Rabkin has become a unique resource on issues of national sovereignty, international law and the related constellation of issues implicit in the 'We Are The World' thrust of the modern Democratic Party. Professor Rabkin is the author most recently of Law Without Nations? Why Constitutional Government Requires Sovereign States. Among the featured essays in the current CRB issue is Professor Rabkin's essay on the European Union: 'Continental drift.'
Imagine if our agricultural policy were made in Ecuador with agricultural ministers from all over the Hemisphere, our taxes paid for housing in Canada, and Paraguayan judges ruled on our immigration policy —- oh, and the American voter really had no say about any of it. Then you’d have something like the New World counterpart to the European Union. It wouldn’t work very well. It doesn’t for Europe. So what is Europe’s fate? Why did the European constitution fail? What does a constitution do, anyway? These are the questions to which Professor Rabkin addresses himself in this invigorating essay."
Americans won't let Democrats lose Iraq - Los Angeles Times
Americans won't let Democrats lose Iraq - Los Angeles Times: "A FEW DAYS AGO, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) made a speech urging the U.S., in effect, to get out of Iraq the way we got out of Vietnam.
Leahy told the Senate that we cannot win in Iraq. 'It has become increasingly apparent that the most powerful army in the world cannot stop a determined insurgency.' (U.S. troops, Iraqi troops, long-suffering Iraqi civilians to Leahy: Thanks, senator, we needed that.) And Leahy announced that the president must lay out a public formula to tell the world just when U.S. troops will leave Iraq. Otherwise, Leahy said, he will urge the Senate to choke off the war by refusing to fund it. That's how the U.S. finally lost Vietnam: Congress snuffed out the money.
"
Leahy told the Senate that we cannot win in Iraq. 'It has become increasingly apparent that the most powerful army in the world cannot stop a determined insurgency.' (U.S. troops, Iraqi troops, long-suffering Iraqi civilians to Leahy: Thanks, senator, we needed that.) And Leahy announced that the president must lay out a public formula to tell the world just when U.S. troops will leave Iraq. Otherwise, Leahy said, he will urge the Senate to choke off the war by refusing to fund it. That's how the U.S. finally lost Vietnam: Congress snuffed out the money.
"
Thursday, October 27, 2005
EconoPundit
EconoPundit: "New Orleans: A Geopolitical Prize
By George Friedman
...
During the Cold War, a macabre topic of discussion among bored graduate students who studied such things was this: If the Soviets could destroy one city with a large nuclear device, which would it be? The usual answers were Washington or New York. For me, the answer was simple: New Orleans. If the Mississippi River was shut to traffic, then the foundations of the economy would be shattered. The industrial minerals needed in the factories wouldn't come in, and the agricultural wealth wouldn't flow out. Alternative routes really weren't available. The Germans knew it too: A U-boat campaign occurred near the mouth of the Mississippi during World War II. Both the Germans and Stratfor have stood with Andy Jackson: New Orleans was the prize.
Last Sunday, nature took out New Orleans almost as surely as a nuclear strike. Hurricane Katrina's geopolitical effect was not, in many ways, distinguishable from a mushroom cloud. The key exit from North America was closed. The petrochemical industry, which has become an added value to the region since Jackson's days, was at risk. The navigability of the Mississippi south of New Orleans was a question mark. New Orleans as a city and as a port complex had ceased to exist, and it was not clear that it could recover.
The Ports of South Louisiana and New Orleans, which run north and south of the city, are as important today as at any point during the history of the republic. On its own merit, POSL is the largest port in the United States by tonnage and the fifth-largest in the world. It exports more than 52 million tons a year, of which more than half are agricultural products -- corn, soybeans and so on. A large proportion of U.S. agriculture flows out of the port. Almost as much cargo, nearly 17 million tons, comes in through the port -- including not only crude oil, but chemicals and fertilizers, coal, concrete and so on...
The oil fields, pipelines and ports required a skilled workforce in order to operate. That workforce requires homes. They require stores to buy food and other supplies. Hospitals and doctors. Schools for their children. In other words, in order to operate the facilities critical to the United States, you need a workforce to do it -- and that workforce is gone. Unlike in other disasters, that workforce cannot return to the region because they have no place to live. New Orleans is gone, and the metropolitan area surrounding New Orleans is either gone or so badly damaged that it will not be inhabitable for a long time...
The displacement of population is the crisis that New Orleans faces. It is also a national crisis, because the largest port in the United States cannot function without a city around it. The physical and business processes of a port cannot occur in a ghost town, and right now, that is what New Orleans is. It is not about the facilities, and it is not about the oil. It is about the loss of a city's population and the paralysis of the largest port in the United States...
To summarize: this is very likely much more than a massive human refugee crisis. It may be the first stage of an international economic crisis as well."
By George Friedman
...
During the Cold War, a macabre topic of discussion among bored graduate students who studied such things was this: If the Soviets could destroy one city with a large nuclear device, which would it be? The usual answers were Washington or New York. For me, the answer was simple: New Orleans. If the Mississippi River was shut to traffic, then the foundations of the economy would be shattered. The industrial minerals needed in the factories wouldn't come in, and the agricultural wealth wouldn't flow out. Alternative routes really weren't available. The Germans knew it too: A U-boat campaign occurred near the mouth of the Mississippi during World War II. Both the Germans and Stratfor have stood with Andy Jackson: New Orleans was the prize.
Last Sunday, nature took out New Orleans almost as surely as a nuclear strike. Hurricane Katrina's geopolitical effect was not, in many ways, distinguishable from a mushroom cloud. The key exit from North America was closed. The petrochemical industry, which has become an added value to the region since Jackson's days, was at risk. The navigability of the Mississippi south of New Orleans was a question mark. New Orleans as a city and as a port complex had ceased to exist, and it was not clear that it could recover.
The Ports of South Louisiana and New Orleans, which run north and south of the city, are as important today as at any point during the history of the republic. On its own merit, POSL is the largest port in the United States by tonnage and the fifth-largest in the world. It exports more than 52 million tons a year, of which more than half are agricultural products -- corn, soybeans and so on. A large proportion of U.S. agriculture flows out of the port. Almost as much cargo, nearly 17 million tons, comes in through the port -- including not only crude oil, but chemicals and fertilizers, coal, concrete and so on...
The oil fields, pipelines and ports required a skilled workforce in order to operate. That workforce requires homes. They require stores to buy food and other supplies. Hospitals and doctors. Schools for their children. In other words, in order to operate the facilities critical to the United States, you need a workforce to do it -- and that workforce is gone. Unlike in other disasters, that workforce cannot return to the region because they have no place to live. New Orleans is gone, and the metropolitan area surrounding New Orleans is either gone or so badly damaged that it will not be inhabitable for a long time...
The displacement of population is the crisis that New Orleans faces. It is also a national crisis, because the largest port in the United States cannot function without a city around it. The physical and business processes of a port cannot occur in a ghost town, and right now, that is what New Orleans is. It is not about the facilities, and it is not about the oil. It is about the loss of a city's population and the paralysis of the largest port in the United States...
To summarize: this is very likely much more than a massive human refugee crisis. It may be the first stage of an international economic crisis as well."
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Hammorabi on Syria
Syria on the verge of new era
The death of the interior Minister of Syria who was the main Syrian figure directly involved in Lebanon for long time is of no doubt related to the ongoing investigations about the Syrian role in the death of Rafiq Hariri.
Irrespective of whether the death was by suicide or some one kills him the investigations of Hariri̢۪s death should be extended to include the death of the Syrian Interior Minister.
It has been shown for long time now that Syria knows only one language which is to kill its opponents and to create a scene of bloodshed both in Iraq and Lebanon as well as against its own people. In Iraq they train, support, recruit and help the terrorists. They set out camps for such training and provide multiple logistic supports. The evidence given by those who were captured including Syrian officers needs no explanation. However they deny it on the highest level and blamed the Americans of not cooperating with them like in discussion or in providing equipments to facilitate observation of the borders.
In Lebanon there were many deaths among Syrian opposition figures since the murder of Hariri. Many Lebanese were forced to leave for more safe regions like Paris including the sons of Hariri himself.
It is so surprising that the Syrian Baath regime digging for itself a big and deep hole. On the other hand the Syrian people are now awaiting the moment to escape from the long-lasting dictatorship regime.
The above article was written about few days ago and not published due to a priorty for other matters. Today the report of Detlev Mehlis the chief investigator in Rafiq Hariri assassination was handed over to the UN. Not surprisingly at all that the report strongly indicated that top ranking Syrian officials were involved in the assassination. But surprisingly that among those involved were the brother and brother in law of Bashar Al-Asad the president of Syria. He denied in a CNN interview any personal or even low level links. It is very unlikely that if his two brothers were involved that he didn̢۪t knew about it.
If the report is true and proved correct, what will be the position of such a regime in the world and who would be able to sit and make deals with it unless they are alike.
The death of the interior Minister of Syria who was the main Syrian figure directly involved in Lebanon for long time is of no doubt related to the ongoing investigations about the Syrian role in the death of Rafiq Hariri.
Irrespective of whether the death was by suicide or some one kills him the investigations of Hariri̢۪s death should be extended to include the death of the Syrian Interior Minister.
It has been shown for long time now that Syria knows only one language which is to kill its opponents and to create a scene of bloodshed both in Iraq and Lebanon as well as against its own people. In Iraq they train, support, recruit and help the terrorists. They set out camps for such training and provide multiple logistic supports. The evidence given by those who were captured including Syrian officers needs no explanation. However they deny it on the highest level and blamed the Americans of not cooperating with them like in discussion or in providing equipments to facilitate observation of the borders.
In Lebanon there were many deaths among Syrian opposition figures since the murder of Hariri. Many Lebanese were forced to leave for more safe regions like Paris including the sons of Hariri himself.
It is so surprising that the Syrian Baath regime digging for itself a big and deep hole. On the other hand the Syrian people are now awaiting the moment to escape from the long-lasting dictatorship regime.
The above article was written about few days ago and not published due to a priorty for other matters. Today the report of Detlev Mehlis the chief investigator in Rafiq Hariri assassination was handed over to the UN. Not surprisingly at all that the report strongly indicated that top ranking Syrian officials were involved in the assassination. But surprisingly that among those involved were the brother and brother in law of Bashar Al-Asad the president of Syria. He denied in a CNN interview any personal or even low level links. It is very unlikely that if his two brothers were involved that he didn̢۪t knew about it.
If the report is true and proved correct, what will be the position of such a regime in the world and who would be able to sit and make deals with it unless they are alike.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Anthony de Jasay, Are High Oil Prices a Form of Exploitation: Library of Economics and Liberty
Anthony de Jasay, Are High Oil Prices a Form of Exploitation: Library of Economics and Liberty: "Are High Oil Prices a Form of Exploitation?" That is the question!
Russell Roberts, The Reality of Markets: Library of Economics and Liberty
Russell Roberts, The Reality of Markets: Library of Economics and Liberty: "The Reality of Markets" EXCELLENT READ RE WALLMART and OIL PRICES!
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Sunday, October 16, 2005
The White House, the CIA, and the Wilsons (theFull Story)
The White House, the CIA, and the Wilsons: "The White House, the CIA, and the Wilsons
The chain of events that gave rise to a grand jury investigation.
by Stephen F. Hayes
10/24/2005, Volume 011, Issue 06 "
The chain of events that gave rise to a grand jury investigation.
by Stephen F. Hayes
10/24/2005, Volume 011, Issue 06 "
The White House, the CIA, and the Wilsons (theFull Story)
The White House, the CIA, and the Wilsons: "The White House, the CIA, and the Wilsons
The chain of events that gave rise to a grand jury investigation.
by Stephen F. Hayes
10/24/2005, Volume 011, Issue 06 "
The chain of events that gave rise to a grand jury investigation.
by Stephen F. Hayes
10/24/2005, Volume 011, Issue 06 "
Saturday, October 15, 2005
THE MESOPOTAMIAN: Comments!!
THE MESOPOTAMIAN: 10/01/2005 - 10/31/2005: "Here we have the U.S.A. and Great Britain and their smaller friends, an alliance that has defeated Nazi Germany and the mighty Reich, and have had the stomach to obliterate Japanese cities with atomic bombs. Here we have the Americans, the descendants of those who wrested a whole continent by shear obstinacy and fought for every inch of land with blood and sweat. Here we have nations that have waded through rivers of blood and mud and marched through entire continents to become symbols of human perseverance and enterprise. Yes all this history and yet we have some who think that our miserable 'Sunni Triangle' poses an insurmountable problem and that one should 'cut and run' and 'bring home troops immediately' etc. etc.
I salute President Bush who does not care much for this kind of defeatism and treats it with the contempt it deserves."
I salute President Bush who does not care much for this kind of defeatism and treats it with the contempt it deserves."
Friday, October 14, 2005
Hog On Ice
n top of that, truly brilliant lawyers don't necessarily make good judges. Brilliant people often have poor judgment, and they're often out of touch with society and unable to relate to normal human beings. People like that have no business working as judges. They are basically idiot-savants, and society has generously created havens for them. I am referring to law schools, where they go to serve as professors. Without tenure, they’d be pushing grocery carts up and down the streets, muttering about ERISA.
I would much rather have a 150-IQ justice with common sense than a 180-IQ justice who can't find his way out of his office. Not every job requires genius. Jimmy Carter was almost certainly smarter than Ronald Reagan, but he was a complete buffoon who turned out to be utterly impotent as a leader. I’m a pretty smart guy, and I freely admit I would rather live in Somalia than an American city where I was mayor for life.
I would much rather have a 150-IQ justice with common sense than a 180-IQ justice who can't find his way out of his office. Not every job requires genius. Jimmy Carter was almost certainly smarter than Ronald Reagan, but he was a complete buffoon who turned out to be utterly impotent as a leader. I’m a pretty smart guy, and I freely admit I would rather live in Somalia than an American city where I was mayor for life.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Hog On Ice
Hog On IceFar and away, the most likely outcome is that Harriet Miers will prove to be extremely intelligent, extraordinarily capable, and well able to equal the feats of geniuses like Ruth Ginsburg and Sandra O'Connor. In my opinion, she has already proven that by making a powerful impression on the highly knowledgeable people who help George Bush pick nominees. If they're wrong, we'll find out during the confirmation hearings. But if she turns out to be incapable of doing the job, believe me, not going to Yale will have nothing to do with it.
More on Lawyers/Har. Miers
Hog On Ice: "I went to an Ivy League school, at least until they threw me out for firing rockets into Morningside Park and setting fire to a dorm room, and I also went to a non-Ivy-League law school. I'm here to tell you, it makes absolutely no difference where a judge goes to college. In fact, it makes no difference where ANYONE goes to college. As a shrewd man once told me, where you went to college matters for two years after you graduate, and after that, nobody asks.
If you went to Harvard Law School, I hate to burst the giant, throbbing bubble which is your ego, but there are two or three people in virtually every law school class who are as smart as you are, or smarter. Every reputable law school admits students--every year--who will prove bright enough and mature enough to sit on the Supreme Court.
Law is just not that hard. Lawyers hate it when I say that, because they want people to think we're as smart as doctors (we are not) but it's true. I did the vast bulk of my work between classes, and I ended up in the top third of my class. In undergraduate physics, for any given course, I did more work in two weeks than I did in ANY law school course for an entire semester. I'm not including brainless work, like hanging around the Legal Aid office, waiting to help with an uncontested divorce. I mean studying."
If you went to Harvard Law School, I hate to burst the giant, throbbing bubble which is your ego, but there are two or three people in virtually every law school class who are as smart as you are, or smarter. Every reputable law school admits students--every year--who will prove bright enough and mature enough to sit on the Supreme Court.
Law is just not that hard. Lawyers hate it when I say that, because they want people to think we're as smart as doctors (we are not) but it's true. I did the vast bulk of my work between classes, and I ended up in the top third of my class. In undergraduate physics, for any given course, I did more work in two weeks than I did in ANY law school course for an entire semester. I'm not including brainless work, like hanging around the Legal Aid office, waiting to help with an uncontested divorce. I mean studying."
Earthquakes etc Poor countries
EconoPundit: "Tens of thousands are killed when earthquakes strike poor countries. Only dozens are killed when the same quakes hit richer countries. We grieve for the dead and injured in Pakistan, but one needs to remember Pakistan is a nation that has spent, for every dollar on poor peoples' earthquake-proof housing, untold thousands or more on nuclear arms.
As anyone can confirm from this web site each year we buy about $2.9 billion from Pakistan -- most of it textiles we could easily produce right here at home -- while Pakistan reciprocates by importing only $1.8 billion in US goods. The deficit is minor compared with total GDP (less than 0.01%) but in real life terms it translates into thousands of lost US jobs.
Some of the taxes going to earthquake relief come right out of the pockets of workers displaced by globalization. Exactly how guilty are they and their families supposed to feel?"
As anyone can confirm from this web site each year we buy about $2.9 billion from Pakistan -- most of it textiles we could easily produce right here at home -- while Pakistan reciprocates by importing only $1.8 billion in US goods. The deficit is minor compared with total GDP (less than 0.01%) but in real life terms it translates into thousands of lost US jobs.
Some of the taxes going to earthquake relief come right out of the pockets of workers displaced by globalization. Exactly how guilty are they and their families supposed to feel?"
Monday, October 10, 2005
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Saturday, October 08, 2005
A Look at Major Earthquakes Last 50 Years
A Look at Major Earthquakes Last 50 Years: "A Look at Major Earthquakes Last 50 Years
By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Saturday, October 8, 2005; 9:04 AM
-- Major earthquakes around the world since early last century:
_ Oct. 8, 2005: Pakistani Kashmir; magnitude 7.6; hundreds killed.
_ March 28, 2005: Sumatra, Indonesia; magnitude 8.7; up to 1,000 killed.
_ Dec. 26, 2004: Sumatra, Indonesia; magnitude 9.0; more than 176,000 people killed in 11 countries from earthquake and subsequent tsunami.
_ Dec. 26, 2003: Bam, Iran; magnitude 6.5; more than 26,000 killed.
_ May 21, 2003: Northern Algeria; magnitude 6.8; nearly 2,300 killed.
_ March 25, 2002: Northern Afghanistan; magnitude 5.8; up to 1,000 killed.
_ Jan. 26, 2001: India; magnitude 7.9; at least 2,500 killed. Estimates put death toll as high as 13,000.
_ Sept. 21, 1999: Taiwan; magnitude 7.6; 2,400 killed.
_ Aug. 17, 1999: Western Turkey; magnitude 7.4; 17,000 killed.
_ Jan. 25, 1999: Western Colombia; magnitude 6; 1,171 killed.
_ May 30, 1998: Northern Afghanistan and Tajikistan; magnitude 6.9; as many as 5,000 killed.
_ Jan. 17, 1995: Kobe, Japan; magnitude 7.2; more than 6,000 killed.
_ Sept. 30, 1993: Latur, India; magnitude 6.0; as many as 10,000 killed.
_ June 21, 1990: Northwest Iran; magnitude 7.3-7.7; 50,000 killed.
_ Dec. 7, 1988: Northwest Armenia; magnitude 6.9; 25,000 killed.
_ Sept. 19, 1985: Central Mexico; magnitude 8.1; more than 9,500 killed.
_ Sept. 16, 1978: Northeast Iran; magnitude 7.7; 25,000 killed.
_ July 28, 1976: Tangshan, China; magnitude 7.8-8.2; 240,000 killed.
_ Feb. 4, 1976: Guatemala; magnitude 7.5; 22,778 killed.
_ Feb. 29, 1960: Southwest Atlantic coast in Morocco; magnitude 5.7; some 12,000 killed, town of Agadir destroyed."
By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Saturday, October 8, 2005; 9:04 AM
-- Major earthquakes around the world since early last century:
_ Oct. 8, 2005: Pakistani Kashmir; magnitude 7.6; hundreds killed.
_ March 28, 2005: Sumatra, Indonesia; magnitude 8.7; up to 1,000 killed.
_ Dec. 26, 2004: Sumatra, Indonesia; magnitude 9.0; more than 176,000 people killed in 11 countries from earthquake and subsequent tsunami.
_ Dec. 26, 2003: Bam, Iran; magnitude 6.5; more than 26,000 killed.
_ May 21, 2003: Northern Algeria; magnitude 6.8; nearly 2,300 killed.
_ March 25, 2002: Northern Afghanistan; magnitude 5.8; up to 1,000 killed.
_ Jan. 26, 2001: India; magnitude 7.9; at least 2,500 killed. Estimates put death toll as high as 13,000.
_ Sept. 21, 1999: Taiwan; magnitude 7.6; 2,400 killed.
_ Aug. 17, 1999: Western Turkey; magnitude 7.4; 17,000 killed.
_ Jan. 25, 1999: Western Colombia; magnitude 6; 1,171 killed.
_ May 30, 1998: Northern Afghanistan and Tajikistan; magnitude 6.9; as many as 5,000 killed.
_ Jan. 17, 1995: Kobe, Japan; magnitude 7.2; more than 6,000 killed.
_ Sept. 30, 1993: Latur, India; magnitude 6.0; as many as 10,000 killed.
_ June 21, 1990: Northwest Iran; magnitude 7.3-7.7; 50,000 killed.
_ Dec. 7, 1988: Northwest Armenia; magnitude 6.9; 25,000 killed.
_ Sept. 19, 1985: Central Mexico; magnitude 8.1; more than 9,500 killed.
_ Sept. 16, 1978: Northeast Iran; magnitude 7.7; 25,000 killed.
_ July 28, 1976: Tangshan, China; magnitude 7.8-8.2; 240,000 killed.
_ Feb. 4, 1976: Guatemala; magnitude 7.5; 22,778 killed.
_ Feb. 29, 1960: Southwest Atlantic coast in Morocco; magnitude 5.7; some 12,000 killed, town of Agadir destroyed."
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Term Limits for Supreme Justices?
Power Line: Reaching our limits: "Reaching our limits
Peggy Noonan has a long, insightful column about the Miers nomination. She concludes by advocating term limits for Supreme Court Justices.
I've supported such term limits, and the Roberts confirmation process coupled with the Miers nomination throws the case for them into sharper relief. Under the current rules of engagement (the Ginsburg precedent), nominees refuse to tell the Senate and the public much about what they are likely to do on the bench. And the large number of Democrats willing to vote against Roberts on ideological grounds increases the incentive for presidents to nominate individuals who haven't publicly said much about constitutional issues. Finally, Miers notwithstanding, we can expect relatively young nominees going forward.
In short, we are getting less and less information about individuals who are likely to serve on the Court for longer and longer periods of time in an era when the Court has never been more important. In this perfect storm, the case for term limits seems overwhelming, and my skepticism about the possibility of enacting them is diminishing a bit. Whatever happens to Miers (and I'm pretty sure she will be confirmed), the process will leave a bad taste in the mouth of many Senators on both sides."
Peggy Noonan has a long, insightful column about the Miers nomination. She concludes by advocating term limits for Supreme Court Justices.
I've supported such term limits, and the Roberts confirmation process coupled with the Miers nomination throws the case for them into sharper relief. Under the current rules of engagement (the Ginsburg precedent), nominees refuse to tell the Senate and the public much about what they are likely to do on the bench. And the large number of Democrats willing to vote against Roberts on ideological grounds increases the incentive for presidents to nominate individuals who haven't publicly said much about constitutional issues. Finally, Miers notwithstanding, we can expect relatively young nominees going forward.
In short, we are getting less and less information about individuals who are likely to serve on the Court for longer and longer periods of time in an era when the Court has never been more important. In this perfect storm, the case for term limits seems overwhelming, and my skepticism about the possibility of enacting them is diminishing a bit. Whatever happens to Miers (and I'm pretty sure she will be confirmed), the process will leave a bad taste in the mouth of many Senators on both sides."
Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | Breaking America's grip on the net
Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | Breaking America's grip on the net: "After troubled negotiations in Geneva, the US may be forced to relinquish control of the internet to a coalition of governments "
READ IT HERE!
READ IT HERE!
BREITBART.COM - Just The News
BREITBART.COM - Just The News: "Here is the text of former Vice President Al Gore's remarks at the We"
Good speach !
Good speach !
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Energy Prob Solved
EconoPundit
How to achieve full energy independence in fifteen years...
Here's the EconoPundit national energy policy.
1. Impose an immediate and permanent oil import tax set on a sliding scale between $95/bbl and current world price. If world price is $70, the tax is $25/bbl. If world price sinks to $35, the tax automatically rises to $60/bbl.
This tax is permanent. Energy costs as seen by households and businesses will initially rise substantially but will quickly stabilize and won't fluctuate even one tiny bit from year to year. What now goes "up and down" is import tax revenue, not domestic energy costs. It is possible there are massive cost reductions in many if not all areas of production to be realized if energy costs are permanently and credibly stabilized.
2. Spend some of the new massive revenue on whatever redistribution is necessary to ease the transition to the new economy. Spend some of it on alternative energy and conservation. Spend some of it on lowering other taxes here and there. Heck, I don't care.
3. Spend the rest on speeding the development of domestic recoverable oil shale. James Perry, who provided this link, describes the situation as follows:
The largest known oil shale deposits in the world are in the Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Estimates of the oil resource in place within the Green River Formation range from 1.5 to 1.8 trillion barrels. Not all resources in place are recoverable. For potentially recoverable oil shale resources, we roughly derive an upper bound of 1.1 trillion barrels of oil and a lower bound of about 500 billion barrels. For policy planning purposes, it is enough to know that any amount in this range is very high. For example, the midpoint in our estimate range, 800 billion barrels, is more than triple the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.
At current rates of consumption these deposits would keep a U.S. petroleum-based economy going for another 100 years with no oil imports.
How to achieve full energy independence in fifteen years...
Here's the EconoPundit national energy policy.
1. Impose an immediate and permanent oil import tax set on a sliding scale between $95/bbl and current world price. If world price is $70, the tax is $25/bbl. If world price sinks to $35, the tax automatically rises to $60/bbl.
This tax is permanent. Energy costs as seen by households and businesses will initially rise substantially but will quickly stabilize and won't fluctuate even one tiny bit from year to year. What now goes "up and down" is import tax revenue, not domestic energy costs. It is possible there are massive cost reductions in many if not all areas of production to be realized if energy costs are permanently and credibly stabilized.
2. Spend some of the new massive revenue on whatever redistribution is necessary to ease the transition to the new economy. Spend some of it on alternative energy and conservation. Spend some of it on lowering other taxes here and there. Heck, I don't care.
3. Spend the rest on speeding the development of domestic recoverable oil shale. James Perry, who provided this link, describes the situation as follows:
The largest known oil shale deposits in the world are in the Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Estimates of the oil resource in place within the Green River Formation range from 1.5 to 1.8 trillion barrels. Not all resources in place are recoverable. For potentially recoverable oil shale resources, we roughly derive an upper bound of 1.1 trillion barrels of oil and a lower bound of about 500 billion barrels. For policy planning purposes, it is enough to know that any amount in this range is very high. For example, the midpoint in our estimate range, 800 billion barrels, is more than triple the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.
At current rates of consumption these deposits would keep a U.S. petroleum-based economy going for another 100 years with no oil imports.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
