Archive for April, 2008
Joshua Foust on Apr 30 2008 | Filed under: Developmental economics, Foreign affairs
Cross-posted from Registan.net, your one-stop shop for news and analysis of going on in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Thirteen months ago, I noted the problems caused by the U.S. State Department having dramatically different divisions than the military COCOMs.
The DoD considers Pakistan part of the Central Command, or CENTCOM (which includes the Middle East and Central Asia), but places India in the Pacific Command, PACOM. Meanwhile, the State Department places all of Central Asia in the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, while neighboring areas like the Middle East are a part of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. How Africa policy is divided up is even more chaotic.
The end result is a confusing, bureaucratic mess, in which multiple and otherwise fairly independent military commands have to coordinate with multiple State Department bureaus to execute the President’s foreign policy goals, whatever they may be. (There is a side issue to this, which is that nearly 93% of the U.S.’s foreign policy budget is military and only 7% is diplomatic and aid, but that’s a larger post not entirely appropriate to this space.)
In that post I was lamenting the problem of considering Pakistan outside of its relationship with India, since Pakistan filters almost all of its foreign policy through the formulation of India as its primary threat.
It seems I’m not alone: Mountain Runner, an excellent blog about public diplomacy, linked to this paper on the ways the DOS needs to change to better adapt to the modern operating environment.
In order to increase American diplomatic power and improve interagency coordination, it is critical to create a diplomatic post on par with the military’s theater combatant commander, providing leadership and oversight, and coordination of regional diplomatic efforts with emphasis on crisis response, stability operations, and “soft power” projection. Placing some diplomatic expertise in the combatant commands, as is being done with USAFRICOM, appears to further the notion that the regional military commander is the “most influential USG representative” and in a “position of preeminence.” DOS must make bold moves to reorganize and revitalize its ability to project diplomatic power and lead the U.S. government’s interagency efforts overseas.
And so on. It’s a damned fine idea. Meanwhile, the State Department is gently reminding us that al Qaeda remains a threat to world security. Pity they can’t field any useful teams of agents to the region most likely to harbor future al Qaeda operatives.
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Keith_Indy on Apr 30 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Election 2008, Keith's Page
The sin of omission that Hillary is committing with the re-telling of the Indiana plant moving to China (while not mentioning that it was sold to China during her husbands tenure,) is starting to gather some light. The following story was linked by the DrudgeReport today.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/election2008/story/35337.html
It’s a story Hillary Clinton loves to tell, about how the Chinese government bought a good American company in Indiana, laid off all its workers and moved its critical defense technology work to China.
And it’s a story with a dramatic, political ending. Republican President George W. Bush could have stopped it, but didn’t.
If she were president, she says, she’d fight to protect those jobs. It’s just the kind of talk that’s helping her win support form working-class Democrats worried about jobs and paychecks, not to mention their country’s security.
What Clinton never tells in the oft-repeated tale is the role prominent Democrats played in selling the company and its technology to the Chinese. She never mentions that big-time Democratic contributor George Soros helped put together the deal to sell the company, or that the sale was approved by the administration of her husband.
I’ve been following this since the 24th when I finally got around doing some investigation of the claims she made in her ad. And even noted that Senator Bayh of Indiana is complicit in her sin of omission.
And what is their excuse for not being concerned with the purchase in 1995…
Because “there were assurances made that production would stay in the United States,”
In other words, they promised not to move production out of the US.
Update:
Instapundit linked to the same story also.
And the story made the Special Report w/ Brit Hume last night on Fox News.
The Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin, keep this wagon rollin’ Update:
More coverage,
Kevin Griffis, Indiana spokesman for U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, said Hillary Clinton’s comments about Magnequench were part of “Washington game-playing” in which “people are willing to say anything to win an election.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24315615/
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4757257&page=1
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/abc-digs-into-clinton-tra_b_99473.html
“In 1995, when this group bought Magnequench, there were assurances made that production would stay in the United States.” But as ABC recounts, the Congressional Research Service reports that the state-owned Chinese company that Clinton allowed to purchase Magnequench “promised to keep those Anderson, Ind., jobs in the U.S. only until 2005.”
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/trailhead/archive/2008/04/29/hoosier-daddy.aspx
Hillary’s chutzpah in flagging this issue is compounded by her criticism of the sale on national-security grounds (“They’re building up their military. They want to compete with us every step of the way. And we’re basically helping them.”) In the late 1990s, Republicans in Congress decided that U.S.-approved technology transfers to China under Clinton were creating a disastrous national-security breach, and conservatives tried to stir anxieties about imminent U.S. surrender to the Middle Kingdom to defeat presidential candidate Al Gore in 2000. Now, to win Indiana, Hillary Clinton seems to be saying that the wingers were right all along about that no-good husband of hers.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2008/05/01/abc-corrects-clintons-indiana-tale-blaming-bush-closed-factory
Interestingly, the hometown paper did carry this on the 17th of last month. But it hasn’t received national attention until now. Hmmm, wonder if the email to the Obama campaign had anything to do with it???
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ChrisB on Apr 30 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Keith_Indy on Apr 30 2008 | Filed under: Culture, Election 2008, Firearms, Keith's Page
Never underestimate the power of a politician to overestimate their power, especially in an election year.
Just as the signs are trending towards a “permanent” majority for Democrats, one of them has the bright idea to poke a sleeping bear.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, has introduced a bill that would allow the FBI to keep background check information on approved gun buyers for 180 days.
Since 2004, records of firearm transactions must be destroyed within 24 hours after those transactions are approved. (Prior to 2004, the FBI retained the records for 90 days.)
Second Amendment supporters strongly oppose the retention of lawful gun sale records, seeing it as a step toward creating a national gun registration list. When the National Instant Criminal Background Check System began running at the end of 1998, the FBI said it would “not be used to establish a federal firearm registry” and that all information resulting in legal firearm transfers would be destroyed.
I can already anticipate the pleas from the usual suspects (NRA, GOA, 2nd Amendment Foundation, etc) coming in the mail.
The last thing the Democrats ought to be doing is riling up those rubes in the heartland who are clinging to their guns and religion. The 2 things they hate most are people trying to take away their guns or religion, which is probably why most of them cling so dearly to them.
Next thing you know they’ll be pushing to pass an “assault weapons” ban.
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ChrisB on Apr 29 2008 | Filed under: Chris' Page, Libertarianism
Following up on Jon’s post a few weeks ago on the group dancing at the Jefferson memorial, we have some more information. A group of friends and other people at the incident have set up a web page. Free the Jefferson 1. The girl was arrested at the incident for “interfering with an agency function,” not “disorderly conduct” as originally reported. The group has also set up a donation page to aid the girl’s legal defense. Lastly you can watch of on .
Watching the videos, it seems obvious the security guards overreacted. The group’s preaching aside, I would blame it on the disposition of the guards, and probably poor training about what the actual rules are for the memorial and park.
UPDATE: For those of you in/around the the DC area, you can join the group Bureaucrash this Friday the 2nd from 5:30-9PM at the Union Pub for a fundraiser. It’s $5 to get in, all of which will be donated to the defense fund. Plus, you’ll get a free drink (well drink or draft Bud, Bud Light, Miller or House Amber) and while supplies last, a bottle of 5 Hour Energy Drink.
The Bureaucrash group will be joined by the First Friday folks and their guest, Christopher Hitchens.
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Joshua Foust on Apr 29 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Media
A few weeks ago, my friend Megan Carpentier wondered on Glamocracy why there aren’t more prominent female political bloggers out there:
But does it have to be that way? Blogs are supposed to be populist and thus it would seem like women could more easily level the playing field here than in other media. Red State’s Mike Krempasky says, “You’d think the internet would be the great equalizer or the ultimate meritocracy. ‘far from it.” Looking at my blogroll, I’d have to agree.
Argh. How do we change that? How loud do women have to shout? Or is it sadly that we have to stop seeing politics from a woman’s point of view to get taken seriously?
The reaction from the blogosphere was striking: naked hostility from both sides. Markos Moulitsas sent his executive editor after her, claiming that because a woman edits Dailykos.com that women are fairly represented in the blogosphere (though I would consider myself of above average awareness in the realm and I still don’t associate Dailykos with a woman’s viewpoint).
Then a female right wing blogger—whose name for all the world I read at first as Café Sano, a favorite lunch place of mine in Reston, VA—told her to stop being such a whiny girl because she’s never experienced sexism… and then proceeds to brag about how nice it is to give her male readers “something to ogle at.” Calling Ann Althouse.
Another interesting note: the left wing blogs spelled Megan’s name correctly, while the vast majority of the right wing ones did not. It is “Carpentier,” like a French word, not “Carpenter” like Jesus.
Anyway, in the midst of all the rancor, it isn’t an unfair question to ask. After all, politics—and power games in general—are still generally seen as a man’s game. That isn’t fair, and isn’t even reflective of reality, but that’s the way it is. What do you think? Does Megan have a point, or is she just being a silly girl about it?
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Joshua Foust on Apr 28 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Media
Question the timing! That old mantra from the halcyon days of 2002-4, when the Left would be mocked by the Right for wondering about the suspicious timing of terror alerts, is universally applicable to the Presidency. In the case of the Syrian nuclear facility—the underlying story of which isn’t significant—what the intelligence community is choosing to say, and even more importantly, not say, is highly significant:
Perhaps most notable in the briefing on Thursday was how coy the analysts were being about the possibility that Syria has a covert nuclear weapons program. They noted very specifically that “there is no reprocessing facility in the region of al Kibar,” but refused to elaborate when asked whether the Syrians might be building such a facility elsewhere. They also refused to comment on how Syria might have been planning to acquire the natural uranium required to fuel the reactor and they dodged a question about how North Korean diplomats have so far reacted to this disclosure.
Yet, in the briefing detailing their findings, the analysts were certain of the design and intent of the reactor. That isn’t to say that Syria was probably up to something bad—it almost certainly was. But the reasons this is being released right now is definitely puzzling. It makes me wonder what Bush has up his sleeve concerning Iran and reviving all that terrible Axis of Evil talk (Syria, recall, did not make the cut last time).
Even more interesting is the reactions of some on the Right.
I was mildly amused to see FP contributor and respected nuclear expert Joe Cirincione labeled “Obama’s radioactive potato” and “an apologist for Syria” this week on Commentary’s “Connecting the Dots” blog and the Powerline blog, respectively…
Powerline’s Paul Mirengoff seems to think Cirincione is biased against Israel — even though the latter has family in Israel and describes himself as “strongly pro-Israel.” Commentary’s Gabriel Schoenfeld, meanwhile, is certain that Cirincione, despite his rather explicit denial, really is secretly the top nuclear advisor to the Obama campaign. I guess conspiracy theories aren’t exclusive to the Middle East.
This is, recall, for the crime of being skeptical of a poorly sourced press leak with no evidence at the time, and wishing for greater detail to emerge before believing the administration’s reports about the incident.
All the while those carping heads keep missing the real point here, which is not that Syria has a high-level relationship with North Korea. It is that this event has highlighted the way the media is spoon fed stories by the government, and has apparently abrogated the lion’s share of its investigative power over to government agencies.
That so many don’t seem to realize this remains baffling.
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Keith_Indy on Apr 28 2008 | Filed under: Election 2008, Keith's Page
In searching today about the post I put up last week, about Clinton’s ad about defense jobs lost to China, I found these juicy bits…
Bayh blasted federal policies that allowed the sale of the plant to the Chinese, saying that now the United States has to buy the magnets used in its smart bombs from China. The Pentagon bureaucrat who approved the sale ought to have lost his job, Bayh said, not the 225 people who worked at Magnaquench. “We ought to put a stop to it, and President Clinton will,” he said.
Trout said Indiana used to be the magnet capital of the United States, but that all magnet manufacturing plants have since been sold to foreign interests.
“If we had someone in the White House who was paying attention, maybe this wouldn’t have happened,” he said.
Clinton said America is losing its military advantage. To allow the sale of a company that makes magnets for use in smart bombs to the Chinese is “anything but smart,” she said.
Eee gads, the irony is just to good to be true.
Coverage of the issue…
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one to figure it out.
UPDATE:
OH, and it really does keep on rolling:
We might just want to ask ourselves, who was governor of Indiana at the time of the sale to China?
I know, I know, but they promised not to move the company out of the country, so that makes it OK to sell them the technology.
More coverage:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/clinton-criticizing-closu_b_98972.html
http://thetmexperience.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/clinton-misremembers-again/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/24/193716/354/588/502845
And I got a letter in the local paper…
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Joshua Foust on Apr 27 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Josh's Page, Notes on the war
I honestly don’t have the time to reformat everything for several cross-posts, so this is a summary of posts at my other blog, Registan.net, where I’ve been discussing some interesting topics related to counterinsurgency and reconstruction in Afghanistan, as well as media and culture issues.
- First up is a critical review of a new essay by Dave Kilcullen, on the security benefits of road construction. It was followed up by posting a disturbing video of an ambush against U.S. forces in the Korengal Valley to support my analysis.
- Related to the above is a look at scholarship on the implementation and effectiveness of Provincial Reconstruction Teams, and where both scholarship and tweaked policy could yield enormous positive dividends on the ground and larger community.
- I noted some not-so-buried racism shining brightly at the L.A. Times. Co-blogger Kayumars Turkestani noted this isn’t the first time.
- I take a peek at the potential of Kazakhstan dominating the global uranium market, and if concerns over their security capabilities are legitimate or overblown.
- And yet again, a look at how Afghanistan is not at all the same as Iraq, and why arguments that apply to one country do not necessarily apply to the other.
- And finally, some lighter cultural stuff: a reporter traveled to Afghanistan several years ago and found out they deeply loved Johnny Cash. Yes, that is typed correctly. Go check out that video!
- Oh and let’s all look at that movie about PMCs and Central Asia starring Hillary Duff as a slutty Central Asian pop star.
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Peg on Apr 25 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Election 2008, Law, Libertarianism, Media
John McCain was one politician I admired greatly. While I still believe that the man is a true hero, and while I still do applaud some of what he does, the veil has been lifted from my eyes for one major reason: McCain-Feingold.
Although I, like so many others, wish that we lived in some la-la land where candidates never had to solicit campaign funds from anyone, and that we could miraculously learn about the candidates’ beliefs, abilities, character, experience, etc. for free, such is not the case. We live in the real world, and in the real world, we need money to accomplish this.
McCain-Feingold restricts our speech and the ability of candidates to communicate with the public. I have always found it to be straight out unconstitutional; perhaps one day the Supreme Court will strike it down.
Until that happens, however, all of us will have to labor under its inequities and burdens. Right now, McCain is finding himself ensnared in a web of his own making.
The McCain camp is teaming up with the Republican National Committee to tap into big, big donations from big, big donors – hoping to close the big, big money gap with Democrats.
Their effort to do so will involve some creative abuse of the campaign finance restrictions Mr. McCain authored a few years back. Whatever. The Arizonan may not yet fully understand that money is speech. At least he has come around to the view that more of the stuff is better when it comes to winning the presidency.
Whether this will ease Mr. McCain’s financial woes is yet unclear, but it’s arguably his smartest move, given the hand he’s dealt himself. Just imagine what might have happened if Mr. McCain had fought instead for simple transparency – and trusted Americans to decide how much to give and to whom. Free speech, via money, can be a liberating thing.
Part of me feels like saying, “Serves you right!” to Senator McCain. But, as I believe he would be a better choice for president than Obama or Clinton, I’ll simply hope that he and others learn from this ironic lesson.
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Peg on Apr 25 2008 | Filed under: Economics, Environment, Peg's Page, energy, science
Sooner rather than later.
And this:
Perhaps turning food into transportation fuel would make sense if massive amounts of grain spoiled every year from a lack of demand, but that certainly isn’t the case. Farmers love the higher prices that come from the new demand to fill gas tanks, but higher prices have consequences for poorer nations that have just begun to be felt. Morally speaking, shouldn’t we feed people before we feed cars?
What makes this even more absurd is ethanol itself. It burns cleaner, but has significant problems as a transportation fuel. It has only two-thirds the potential energy of gasoline, which means more of it has to be used to get the same mileage. Ethanol has to be shipped by truck as it cannot be pumped through a pipeline, so much more energy has to get expended just to bring it to market. In order to use more than just a small amount in a mixture, car engines have to be designed differently to use it, which means more energy and resources have to go into producing the vehicles.
Every fill of the tank with ethanol uses the same amount of corn a child would eat in a year, and let’s not even talk about the amount of potable water used to grow the corn in the first place. Given the above, which is the better use of the corn?
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Peg on Apr 25 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Law, Media, Peg's Page, regulation
One of my girlfriends is smart as a whip and a talented artist to boot. Cathy is also hard of hearing.
While Cathy can read lips and she also has a device that allows her to converse in very small groups, she is unable to hear in most other settings. Last year, the two of us attended a fundraiser for Rudy Giuliani. As we watched Rudy live on TV, I quietly “translated” what he was saying for Cathy. Many of the other people in attendance thus realized how unfortunate it was that there weren’t closed captions for Cathy and people like her.
Elise Knopf, of the Minnesota Commission Serving Deaf and Hard of Hearing People wants the state of Minnesota to pass a law making it mandatory to have closed captions in political ads. As you all know, my philosophy is to urge small government, and I’m not quite certain that people should be forced to include closed captions. Nevertheless, I am very sure that the captions should be included in these ads – not to mention most everything else on TV! Cathy has explained to me that the cost to do so is minimal – and that the captions can be invisible to those who do not need them.
Including those among us who cannot hear well or at all has a simple solution. Let’s apply it.
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Peg on Apr 25 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Economics, Education
From a Wall Street Journal reader:
“The courageous thing for Congress to do would be to get rid of student-loan subsidies entirely. Then watch tuitions tumble towards ‘the affordable’ as academe realizes nobody’s throwing money at it any more.”
– John K. Lunde
Why is it so difficult for so many to miss this simple truth? If the enormous maw of federal spending were not available to pump up tuition prices at schools, then they would of necessity fall to levels where real people could pay them.
And if our schools taught courses highlighting this sort of reasoning, we’d all be far better served, too!
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Lance on Apr 25 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Environment
Over at Green Tech we get some figures that should be rather sobering for those who wish for alternative energy to be a significant source of energy in the near future:
Put another way, we’d need to equip 250,000 roofs a day with solar panels for the next 50 years to have enough photovoltaic infrastructure to provide the world with a CMO’s worth of solar-generated electricity for a year. We’re nowhere close to that pace.
But don’t blame the solar industry. You’d also have to erect a 900-megawatt nuclear power plant every week for 50 years to get enough plants (2,500) to produce the same energy in a year to equal a CMO. Wind power? You need 3 million for a CMO, or 1,200 a week planted in the ground over the next 50 years. Demand for power also continues to escalate with economic development in the emerging world.
“In 30 years we will need six CMOs, so where are we going to get that?” Malhotra said. “I’m trying to communicate the scale of the problem.”
What is a CMO? A cubic mile of oil: (more…)
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Keith_Indy on Apr 25 2008 | Filed under: Election 2008, Keith's Page
Finally, someone else is bringing up the same point I’ve been making about Obama’s remarks at that SanFran fundraiser…
For a man who clings to a racist black preacher as tightly as Obama has clung to Reverend Wright, it’s odd that he would speak of clinging to religion as a small-town phenomenon that grew out of bitterness. Someone might think that he’s projecting his own reason for clinging to religion onto white people, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here.
…
Likewise, I don’t know anybody who “clings to” religion out of bitterness. In fact, the people I know who are truly bitter invariably become atheists. It’s the people with faith and hope who cling to religion. Surely Obama knows this from his own experience and from the religious people in his life. Does he really think white people cling to religion for reasons so radically different from black people?
Or is he actually admitting that while he attends Rev. Wright’s church, Obama himself doesn’t actually believe in religion — he just knows that going to church is something a politician has to do? And Rev. Wright was his friend, so it might as well be his church? To explain away religious faith as, in effect, the “opiate of the people” — something you cling to because your life is so awful — is a position, not of a believer, but of the atheistic intellectual Left.
Read the rest as sci fi author Orson Scott Card deconstructs what Obama said, and what it implies. At least in his view.
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Man I Hate Illinois Nazis
ChrisB on Apr 25 2008 | Filed under: Chris' Page, Election 2008, Humor
I’m sure by now most of you have heard of Tony Zirkle, the Indiana lawyer running for Congress (as a third candidate) who attended a Nazi party in Chicago. However, I found his campaign site and joy of joys, it turns out he has a message board! You’ll absolutely love his excuse for going the party.
Socialists deserve to hear the Gospel and some of them might need it more than the average person. I took it as an opportunity to hand out an entire box of books on the life of Christ. Additionally, WWII may never have happened had we not neglected pornography and prostitution in the Jewish community. Hitler would not have had his most powerful argument when he claimed that Jews cartelled 97% of all international prostitution. Let’s not repeat history. (emphasis mine)
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Joshua Foust on Apr 24 2008 | Filed under: Josh's Page
This came courtesy a post on Registan.net, the blog where I spend the majority of my brain power. There’s some really cool stuff up there this week, discussing stereotyping, historical context, the downed Georgian drone, and Afghanistan’s most famous cover musician. Go on and add it to your RSS Reader.
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Sunni Bloc To Rejoin Government
MichaelW on Apr 24 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Media, MichaelW's Page, Notes on the war
This is a positive development:
Iraq’s largest Sunni bloc has agreed to return to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s cabinet after a nine-month boycott, several Sunni leaders said on Thursday, citing a recently passed amnesty law and the Maliki government’s crackdown on Shiite militias as reasons for the move.
The Sunni leaders said they were still working out the details of their return, an indication that the deal could still fall through.
[...]
“Our conditions were very clear, and the government achieved some of them,” said Adnan al-Duleimi, the head of Tawafiq, the largest Sunni bloc in the government. Mr. Duleimi said the achievements included “the general amnesty, chasing down the militias and disbanding them and curbing the outlaws.”
The recently passed amnesty law has already led to the release of many Sunni prisoners, encouraging Sunni parties that the government is serious about enforcing it. And the attacks on Shiite militias have apparently begun to assuage longstanding complaints that only Sunni groups blamed for the insurgency have been the targets of American and Iraqi security forces.
Exactly which ministries will be given to which Sunni politicians is still under negotiation, said Ayad Samarrai, the deputy general secretary of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest party within Tawafiq. Among those under consideration are the Ministries of Culture, Planning, Higher Education and Women’s Affairs and the State Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Samarrai said.
What the greater affects of the Sunnis rejoining will be remain to be seen, and I wouldn’t be surprised if future events precipitate another walkout. But I think it’s hard to deny that Maliki’s offensive in Basra is paying the political dividends he had hoped for.
On another note, the NYT piece is prefaced with an incongruous image of what is claimed to be the remnants of a car bomb blast:
Caption: The site of a car bombing where one civilian was killed while six others were wounded on Thursday in Baghdad. // Photo by:Mohammed Ameen/Reuters
Does that look like the results of a car bomb? None of the buildings near the wreckage look like they’ve sustained blast damage. There’s no cratering in the ground, and there’s no shrapnel from the blast strewn around. And, of course, there’s the obligatory wailing woman in the foreground. Is this another fauxtography case? Even if it’s not, and the photo is exactly what it claims to be, what does it have to do with a story about Sunnis ending their boycott of the Iraqi government?
UPDATE: Keith provides another view of the car bomb wreckage in the comments. It appears to be a legitimate bomb scene, just with the staged wailing woman for affect. I guess the bomb wasn’t terribly big so there isn’t any noticeable damage to the surrounding scene. Either way, it does not appear to be a case of fauxtography, although it is a strange photo to accompany a news story about political reconciliation.
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From the Horses’ Mouths (so to speak)
Joshua Foust on Apr 24 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Notes on the war
Whatever could this guy be going on about?
“Saddam had his big castles; they symbolized his power and were places to be feared, and now we have the castle of the power that toppled him,” says Abdul Jabbar Ahmed, a vice dean for political sciences at Baghdad University. “If I am the ambassador of the USA here I would say, ‘Build something smaller that doesn’t stand out so much, it’s too important that we avoid these negative impressions.’ “
Why, he’s one of many Iraqis in Baghdad who are furious at the monstrous U.S. Embassy that will open for occupancy next month. It will cost approximately $1 billion per year to operate, in part because it will be self-sufficient, completely disconnected with the rest of Baghdad and Iraq. And it was built by slave labor.
On the brighter side, however, it was only $250 million over budget, which makes it among the most economic decisions made during this war. For context, the new American Embassy in Beijing, which is needless extravagance of the first kind, costs less—an entire embassy complex—than this one embassy’s budget overflow. And the operating costs aren’t even in the same league.
It’s like a huge unfunny joke, only it’s not.
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ChrisB on Apr 24 2008 | Filed under: Chris' Page, Domestic Politics, Society
German “Gary” Talis of the 9/11 “Truth” organization “We Are Change” beat up a wheel chair bound girl with cerebral palsy yesterday. His compatriots also got into an argument with Secret Service after trying to verbally assault Laura and Jenna Bush at an event for their children’s book “Read All About It.”.
The assailant and his cohorts are currently seeking pro-bono or reduced fee legal representative to defend them and pursue legal action against the NYPD.
Also covering this is LauraW at Ace’s, though I don’t think she has figured out it was a truther yet.
UPDATE:
A truther has also posted the personal phone number and street address of the family in a comment on digg and asked for people to harras them. No, I’m not going to link to it, but I have reported it to digg.
by dnafrequency 1 hour ago
I think John Lovetro needs to be confronted about his out of control lying behavior. A little public humiliation works wonders but don’t get to close, he is an attack dog! You can contact him at: 718 ***-**** (number has been temporarily disconnected) and you can write or visit him at 1*************, NY ****. What a piece of filth! I’m sure his wife and daughter are very proud of him today!
UPDATE 2:
Just wanted to throw in a link to Pat at the Screw Loose Change blog. Those guys do some great work.
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Keith_Indy on Apr 24 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Election 2008, Keith's Page, Technology
Here’s an ad some of you may not have seen. But now (wonder of wonders) since Indiana is a battleground state in the Democratic primary, it’s been getting plenty of air play during the local news programs.
Hillary Clinton:
Right here over 200 Hoosiers built parts that guided our military’s smart bombs to their targets.
They were good jobs, but now, they’re gone to China.
And now America’s defense relies on Chinese spare parts.
George Bush could have stopped it, but he didn’t.
As your president, I will fight to keep good jobs here, and to turn this economy around.
I’m Hillary Clinton and I approve this message because American workers should build America’s defense.
Seems like a simple enough case, doesn’t it. Bush and the Republicans failing to do what she would do.
But wait till you here the kicker about this.
(more…)
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I’m with Senator Obama
Peg on Apr 24 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Economics, Election 2008, Peg's Page, energy
At least on this topic.
Economists in general oppose a tax holiday because it would encourage consumption of gasoline at a time of soaring demand.
Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens, a longtime Republican donor, criticized Sen. McCain’s policy in an interview with The Wall Street Journal and other news organizations last week.
Mr. Pickens said suspending the federal gas tax “sends a signal that we have plenty of gasoline and diesel, and that’s not the case.”
Yep; what Boone said.
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Get Over It!
Peg on Apr 24 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Law, Peg's Page, Society
Justice Antonin Scalia will appear on 60 Minutes this coming weekend. A preview of what he has to say is here.
“I say nonsense,” Scalia responds to Stahl’s observation that people say the Supreme Court’s decision in Gore v. Bush was based on politics and not justice. “Get over it. It’s so old by now. The principal issue in the case, whether the scheme that the Florida Supreme Court had put together violated the federal Constitution, that wasn’t even close. The vote was seven to two,” he says, referring to the Supreme Court’s decision that the Supreme Court of Florida’s method for recounting ballots was unconstitutional.
Furthermore, says the outspoken conservative justice, it was Al Gore who ultimately put the issue into the courts. “It was Al Gore who made it a judicial question….We didn’t go looking for trouble. It was he who said, ‘I want this to be decided by the courts,’” says Scalia. “What are we supposed to say — ‘Not important enough?’” he jokes.
And–
Stahl asks how he can be a close friend of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, his liberal bench mate, despite the fact that they oftentimes disagree. “I attack ideas, I don’t attack people, and some very good people have some very bad ideas,” he tells Stahl.
Bravo, Justice Scalia! I have dear friends (and, dare I say it – relatives) whom I very much love and care for – yet, on some topics, they are utterly wrong. Of course, I myself have been utterly wrong on issues and at times in my life!
If we are looking for perfection in our friends, relatives, peers, associates …. we will assuredly be woefully disappointed in our lives. We also will have never ending battle.
I do not agree with Scalia myself on a number of topics. On what he says above, however, applause from me. And – get over it, those of you who have not!
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The Wonders of the Midwest
Joshua Foust on Apr 23 2008 | Filed under: Humor, Josh's Page
Ever since I moved to the Midwest four-point-five long months ago, I’ve been amazed at the subtle difference that occasionally make me feel like I’m in another country. Maybe Arlington, VA is just too damned humorless, but there are random bits of naughty that crop up here and there that just make me giggle uncontrollably. For instance, I saw this the other day in a Price Chopper:
Really? The cheshire-grinning coach is packing fudge bars? Ridiculous. This brings up an interesting Tyler Cowen post, in which he lays out his “Anti-American” positions. Among them?
4. I could not live in rural America and be happy.
I used to say the same thing about the Midwest. While many of my fears of it are, in fact true—the racism in particular is galling (like the old white guy at Wal-Mart checking only the receipts of black people)—there are surprising benefits. I’m still unaccustomed to random strangers saying hello to me and probably meaning it. A far higher percentage of fast food employees are white (this, too, stands out for some reason). Even the local flavors of homosexual are far gentler, friendlier in many ways, though not as delicately coiffed and a touch flakier.
I guess what I’m saying is, I just didn’t expect it to be so mild. But that sort of sums up this whole region: mild. I was afraid of that at first. But not anymore.
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Lance on Apr 23 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
This is cool, David Adesnik of Oxblog has been in Iraq working for the coalition on the sly. I find that encouraging and I can’t wait to hear what his impressions are.
I am also encouraged that he is now working for McCain. I won’t say it will sway me to vote for him, but it sure doesn’t hurt.
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MichaelW on Apr 23 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Jonathan Adler tells us why it was a “Big Day In Philadelphia.” If you don’t know why I care, then read this closely (and yes, the picture was taken by my four-year old son).
If you read the comments to Adler’s post, keep in mind that Caps fans are not terribly knowledgeable about hockey … that comes with playoff experience, which they will get plenty of in the next few years. Also, I do want to shout out to the Caps fans in general that y’all are very classy. Flyers fans are used to getting pummeled in any opinion forum, but by and large Caps fans not only took the series in stride (which was hands down the best series of the first round), they were just as classy as their players on the ice in for a well fought series. I look forward to a new (and honestly appreciative) rival in the Eastern Conference. Given the talent that the Caps have, it will be the Flyers wishing them well in their march towards the Stanley Cup in a few years, if not sooner.
So, good luck Caps, and LET’S GO FLYERS [CLAP, CLAP, CLAPCLAPCLAP]!
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ChrisB on Apr 23 2008 | Filed under: Chris' Page, Society, regulation
No, not that. We’re talking Weed Beer. I’m talking about a beer made in the city of Weed, California. A local brewer there has named his beer after the small town. The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms however, wasn’t too pleased with their slogan on their bottle cap, “Try Legal Weed”.
Bureau spokesman Art Resnick said Monday that the bottle caps tell consumers to support an illegal drug
Since it literally says “legal weed” on it, I’m not sure how they think it refers to illegal weed. The owner of the brew counters with the fact that Budweiser is known as “bud”
“They sell Bud — we sell Weed.”
Just add this to another casualty in this ridiculous war on drugs.
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Peg on Apr 23 2008 | Filed under: Economics, Health Care, Peg's Page
We all expect to eat – but we don’t get insurance to guarantee food. We all need various sorts of
transportation. But, other than some insurance to cover the value of a valuable vehicle, we don’t need insurance to make sure that we can get around.
Why then, do we need health insurance for routine exams, medications, doctor visits and the like?
Jonathan Kellerman, professor of pediatrics and psychology at USC’s Keck School of Medicine asks some insightful questions and provides some well grounded and thoughtful answers.
Insurance is all about betting against negative consequences and the insurance business model is unique in that profits depend upon goods and services not being provided. Using actuarial tables, insurers place their bets. Sometimes even the canniest MIT grads can’t help: Property and casualty insurers have collapsed in the wake of natural disasters.
Health insurers have taken steps to avoid that level of surprise: Once they affix themselves to the host – in this case dual hosts, both doctor and patient – they systematically suck the lifeblood out of the supply chain with obstructive strategies. For that reason, the consequences of any insurance-based health-care model, be it privately run, or a government entitlement, are painfully easy to predict. There will be progressively draconian rationing using denial of authorization and steadily rising co-payments on the patient end; massive paperwork and other bureaucratic hurdles, and steadily diminishing fee-recovery on the doctor end.
Some of us are old enough to remember visiting the doctor and paying him/her directly by check or cash. You had a pretty good idea going in what the service was going to cost. And because the doctor had to look you in the eye – and didn’t need to share a rising chunk of his profits with an insurer – the cost was likely to be reasonable. The same went for hospitals: no $20 aspirins due to insurance-company delay tactics and other shenanigans. Few physicians became millionaires, but they lived comfortably, took responsibility for their own business model, and enjoyed their work more.
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Keith_Indy on Apr 23 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Interesting if true…
Alseyed Josef Alsadar a member of the honored Sadar family wrote a letter to Alrafedain news which said: ‘Muqtada Alsadar has tainted the reputation of this respected family, and the family disowns Muqtada. We are as innocent of him as the wolf is of the blood of Josef (Biblical (Old Testament I believe) and Koranic reference). The family is working on ways to discipline him with in the family. Consultation for this are held at the highest level to come up with punishments for its rogue son.
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Joshua Foust on Apr 23 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs
For at least a decade, there has been a running joke in the world of intelligence contractors that perhaps 90% of what the CIA does could be done for 1/10 the cost and 10x the effective accuracy by private, open-source agencies. The superiority of open source analysis is not really in question, though there are some topics, namely about specific military capability and intent, that kind of by design require classification.
Take North Korea. The CIA is set to publicly confirm ties between North Korea and Syria over the development of nuclear technologies, definitely including power generation and probably including weapons production. This, however, is something that has been spread across the news wires since at least 2004.
Why 2004? Almost exactly four years ago on April 22, 2004, two trains traveling through the northern city of Ryongchon collided, and the explosion killed dozens and injured thousands. Satellite photos showed an enormous area of devastation around the impact site.
At the time, niche right-wing newspapers were discussing the presence of Syrians at the explosion site, or that the explosion delayed the shipment of missile components or WMD material to Syria, or variations on the same story. In the years since, the connection slowly dropped off everyone’s radar until the Osirak-style Israeli raid on a suspected Syrian nuclear site in late 2007. There were naturally some skeptics, despite Israel’s claim to have seized “nuclear materials” at the site.
Of course, with all such things, there was too much reliance on rumor and speculation, and way too little on-the-scene reporting by journalists (most of whom rely on official government sources for most of their stories and do very little investigation).
This is not really a surprise, in other words. Anyone who is shocked North Korea was actively selling dangerous weapons has never seriously studied the country (there is a good reason they’re labeled one of the world’s top weapons traffickers and proliferators). Anyone who is familiar at all with the twisted mindset of intelligence analysts—some of whom have told me they don’t read the news because “open source in unreliable” and don’t watch Al-Jazeera because it is “an enemy broadcast”—will not find any of this new or even particularly interesting. Which of course raises the question: why does it even matter now? This is old information, in the public arena for years. That the CIA has only now caught up, at least publicly, is not too surprising. The only interesting aspect to this is how thorough they were, if they can justify their enormous collection budget (and, not coincidentally, how much of their reporting actually did rely on things like the Open Source Center).
So will the CIA’s revelation confirm or refute the many theories that have been passing back and forth for a good four+ years about the ties between Syrian and North Korea? That remains to be seen. What I think is more interesting is both how this yet again demonstrates a critical way Big Media punts its responsibility to investigate things; how, despite that shortcoming, open sources can bring one a relatively clear picture of the state of the world; and how out-of-sync with the modern media environment our intelligence agencies appear to be. That is the buried lede here, one the LA Times could have highlighted if they knew what they were talking about.
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Open Minds
Peg on Apr 23 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Environment, Peg's Page, regulation, science
One of the toughest tasks to master is to keep an open mind. We work hard to discover what we ultimately believe to be the truth. After all that effort, often the last thing we wish to do is have to re-analyse, check – and toss out what we have labored so long to achieve.
Nevertheless, sometimes the honest course is to do just that!
Here is a man who took that course.
Science shows that adding chlorine to drinking water was the biggest advance in the history of public health, virtually eradicating water-borne diseases such as cholera. And the majority of our pharmaceuticals are based on chlorine chemistry. Simply put, chlorine is essential for our health.
My former colleagues ignored science and supported the ban, forcing my departure. Despite science concluding no known health risks – and ample benefits – from chlorine in drinking water, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have opposed its use for more than 20 years.
Opposition to the use of chemicals such as chlorine is part of a broader hostility to the use of industrial chemicals. Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” had a significant impact on many pioneers of the green movement. The book raised concerns, many rooted in science, about the risks and negative environmental impact associated with the overuse of chemicals. But the initial healthy skepticism hardened into a mindset that treats virtually all industrial use of chemicals with suspicion.
Sadly, Greenpeace has evolved into an organization of extremism and politically motivated agendas.
And – if you think I am pointing fingers at others, I am – but at myself, too. Just like most people, my mind frequently wishes to stay slammed shut – and I must work to insure that it does not happen.
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Silent Tsunami
Peg on Apr 23 2008 | Filed under: Developmental economics, Economics, Peg's Page
As an update to this previous post, be sure to read this from The Economist.
Governments ought to liberalise markets, not intervene in them further. Food is riddled with state intervention at every turn, from subsidies to millers for cheap bread to bribes for farmers to leave land fallow. The upshot of such quotas, subsidies and controls is to dump all the imbalances that in another business might be smoothed out through small adjustments onto the one unregulated part of the food chain: the international market.
For decades, this produced low world prices and disincentives to poor farmers. Now, the opposite is happening. As a result of yet another government distortion—this time subsidies to biofuels in the rich world—prices have gone through the roof. Governments have further exaggerated the problem by imposing export quotas and trade restrictions, raising prices again. In the past, the main argument for liberalising farming was that it would raise food prices and boost returns to farmers. Now that prices have massively overshot, the argument stands for the opposite reason: liberalisation would reduce prices, while leaving farmers with a decent living.
There is an occasional exception to the rule that governments should keep out of agriculture. They can provide basic technology: executing capital-intensive irrigation projects too large for poor individual farmers to undertake, or paying for basic science that helps produce higher-yielding seeds. But be careful. Too often—as in Europe, where superstitious distrust of genetic modification is slowing take-up of the technology—governments hinder rather than help such advances. Since the way to feed the world is not to bring more land under cultivation, but to increase yields, science is crucial.
The record of governments trying to manage markets is woefully poor. Free markets assuredly are not free from their own anomalies and swings; witness our current real estate difficulties. Nevertheless, even with all their flaws, free markets are superior to the alternatives.
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Keith_Indy on Apr 23 2008 | Filed under: Keith's Page, Notes on the war
Security improvements bringing people back to their homes in South Baghdad…
With security improving, local economies flourishing and community reconstruction underway, Iraqis who once fled their South Baghdad homes in fear are now returning to the villages they deserted.
This is a good sign, said Maj. Mark Bailey, the officer in charge of the Multi-National Division – Center governance cell.
“Once people are convinced that security is good in their area, they come back,” said Bailey, who is with 401st Civil Affairs Battalion, attached to 3rd Infantry Division. “If they own a business, they re-open their business, which helps the economy.”
Out of the approximate 18,700 Iraqis who left their homes, it is estimated that 10,450 have returned, according to MND-C records.
via Hot Air we find that the Iraqis are making further progress in reconciliation.
Most of those released were Sunnis who had been low-level army officials or former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. They were among thousands of Iraqis who were arrested without charges by coalition and Iraqi forces. The discharges signal “a return to some sense of normalcy,” said U.S. Army Col. David Paschal, commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division, who attended the ceremony. “At some point, the fighting must stop.”…
The prisoners are being freed under an amnesty law passed by Iraq’s parliament in February. More than 52,400 detainees in government custody have applied for their freedom. Of those, nearly 78%, or more than 40,000, were granted amnesty. More than one in five, though, were denied because they are being held for crimes not covered by the law. These include killing, kidnapping, rape, embezzling government funds, selling drugs and smuggling antiquities.
Ed Morrissey says of this:
This marks yet another benchmark in the Maliki government’s progress in meeting the political benchmarks set by Congress. It also defuses a longstanding point of friction with the Sunni tribes who have complained loudly about the imbalance in treatment for their communities by Baghdad. Their efforts to work within the political system have paid off, and their win in gaining amnesty for so many detainees will encourage them to work within the democratic system rather than conduct insurgencies against it.
Day by day, week by week, Iraq is making the progress we all want to see on all fronts. Security, Economic, and Socio-Political.
That this isn’t bigger news isn’t a surprise. After all, we need to know when Hillary knocks back a cold one, or someone finds yet another radical in Obama’s past.
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As Ye Sow
Peg on Apr 23 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Economics, Peg's Page
So shall ye reap.Am I the only one who finds massive government interference in agricultural markets to be insanity? And, surely our own nation’s recent love affair with ethanol is a significant contribution to world wide inflationary food costs – and starvation.
I would say we should vote for politicians that will end government sticking its snout into agriculture markets. But – would we have anyone left for whom to vote?
Sadly, the answer is unclear.
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Joshua Foust on Apr 22 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
The home of the world’s oldest oil paintings is coming soon to the National Gallery of Art. “Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul” is a collection of artifacts and beautiful art pieces hidden in vaults at the National Museum in Kabul. These priceless treasures survived nearly half a decade of relentless Taliban depredations which resulted in the destruction of those enormous Buddha statues, among other, smaller works.
If you’re in the DC area, I envy you. I highly recommend a visit.
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Raise Your Hand
Peg on Apr 22 2008 | Filed under: Election 2008, Peg's Page
Are you someone who thinks that the Republican Attack Machine is far more vicious than anything Democrats could ever dream up?
Please read this – and if you are still convinced, raise your hand.
That is – if you have never been tortured and are still able to raise your hand.
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Airspace Violations
Joshua Foust on Apr 22 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Military Matters
Cross-posted to Registan.net, which is “All Central Asia, All the Time.”
Last year, Georgia was abuzz with accusations against Russia for its military jets supposedly violating its airspace and possibly even attacking radio stations. Now, Georgian officials are hopping mad over accusations that Russia shot down one of their surveillance drones. They even have video:
The video is fuzzy enough to where the plane—which is only seen to have swept wings and twin tails—could very well be a MiG-29 Fulcrum. According to Wikipedia (my subscription to Jane’s has lapsed, alas), Georgia only flies the Sukhoi SU-25 as a fixed-wing attack aircraft—those have a single tail fin. With the understanding that that reference carries with it certain caveats as to its reliability, there is also a link in the Wikipedia entry on Abkhazia’s Air Force that claims they fly Sukhoi SU-27 fighter planes.
This is where the story becomes more interesting.
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ChrisB on Apr 22 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Joshua Foust on Apr 21 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics
Here’s a quote, but read the whole thing:
Apr 21st, 2008 | JONESVILLE, S.C. — A South Carolina pastor says he wasn’t trying to be political when he posted a sign in front of his church linking Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
Pastor Roger Byrd said he just wanted to make people think when he put up a sign reading “Obama, Osama — humm, are they brothers” in front of the Jonesville Church of God on Thursday.
Of course, making comments about a presidential candidate with a Muslim-y last name… well, that’s totally innocent and not at all endangering a church’s tax-exempt status.
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Observations of an American in Central China
Joshua Foust on Apr 21 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs
“Chris Bartlett” is the pseudonym of a good friend of mine currently teaching English in a random city in Central China. He has contributed before his observations of life in the People’s Republic at my only begotten personal blog (kept online for its years upon years of writing). Here, he discusses what it feels like to be determined the representative of a country he no longer calls home, and what might possibly seal the breach.
Being the first American that many Chinese people meet, even in a large city like Xi’an, I’m often peppered with questions about how the West perceives China. It’s a complicated conversation to have because most people I run into believe that the West is ignorantly and permanently succumbing to an anti-China bias. In response to this perceived phenomenon I’ve made the focus of classes this last week revolve around how to deal with anti-China protests. It’s been a revealing and occasionally frustrating experience.
The root of these frustrations stems from a very different concept of government vis self in China as opposed to in the West. When I get in front of a group of my students, even the ones I have a very good relationship with, and talk about international politics, I am not viewed as someone with an individual opinion. I’m viewed as representative of my culture, my country, and am intrinsically tied to my government. This is only made worse because of the general feeling that foreign governments are, again, attempting to interfere with and dominate China. This perception, which is encouraged by the media, colors everything I say as suspicious and possibly manipulative.
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MichaelW on Apr 21 2008 | Filed under: Environment, MichaelW's Page, Technology, energy, science
Hoystory poses a thought-provoking question with potentially dramatic consequences for the concept of “peak oil”:
What if “fossil fuels” weren’t made of fossils at all? What if the earth naturally made petroleum? What if gasoline was a renewable resource?
Imagine the howls from the environmentalist left if there was no such thing as “peak oil.”
In answer of the questions, Hoystory points to the following:
Lost in the big news last week — the race for the Democratic nomination, the reeling U.S. economy, the ongoing life/death saga that is “Dancing with the Stars” — came word that a new deep-water exploration area off the coast of Brazil could contain as much as 33 billion barrels of oil. How much is that? If estimates are accurate, the Brazilian find would amount to the world’s third-largest oil reserve. In comparison, the U.S. has proven oil reserves of 21.8 billion barrels.
What makes the Brazil find interesting is really the gold; not as in “black gold,” but as in Thomas Gold:
The Austrian-born astrophysicist, who died in 2004, was a renowned maverick in the science community, a brilliant rogue whose anti-establishment proclamations were often proven right. For instance, in the 1960s, as NASA began its assault on the moon, many scientists debated whether the moon’s surface was comprised of hard rock or might in fact be a layer of dust so thick that, upon touchdown, the Apollo lunar modules would sink out of sight. Gold, studying evidence from microimpacts, moon cratering, electrostatic fields, and more, boldly predicted that the astronauts’ boots would sink into the lunar regolith no more than three centimeters. And, give or take a centimeter or so, he was proven right.
What does Gold have to do with the recent Brazil oil find? In 1999, Gold published “The Deep Hot Biosphere,” a paper that postulated that coal and oil are produced not by the decomposition of organic materials, but in fact are “abiogenic” — the product of tectonic forces; i.e., deeply embedded hydrocarbons being brought up and through the earth’s mantle and transformed into their present states by bacteria living in the earth’s crust.
The majority of the world’s scientists scoff at Gold’s theory, and “fossil fuel” remains the accepted descriptor of oil. Yet in recent years Russia has quietly become the world’s top producer of oil, in part by drilling wells as deep as 40,000 feet — far below the graveyards of T-Rex and his Mesozoic buddies.
Is it possible that Thomas Gold was right again, and that the earth is actually still producing oil? It’s tantalizing to think so.
(emphasis added; more on Thomas Gold here.) If Gold was right and oil is abiogenically produced, then the fears of “peak oil” are premature at best. Of course, that assumes that the world does not consume the oil faster than the earth can produce it or that, alternatively, we don’t learn how to create artificially. But according to Gold’s theory, there is a staggering amount of oil to be discovered beneath the Earth’s crust, much more than we could rapidly consume. The following is from an interview Gold did with Wired Magazine (edited for clarity):
WIRED: How much more oil is there in your view of the world than in the view of traditional petroleum geology?
GOLD: Oh, a few hundred times more.
WIRED: But not all of it is accessible at the moment?
GOLD: It becomes accessible by recharging, and the recharging process I think I completely understand. There’s a stepwise approximation of the pore pressure to the rock pressure – that will always be the case if the stuff is coming up from below. You will not just fill up one reservoir at the top in the shallow levels. It will always be underlaid by another reservoir, and that in turn by another, and so on for a long way down.
WIRED: And by pumping out oil from the highest reservoir you release the pressure on the lower ones, allowing more oil to seep up.
GOLD: Yes, the partial seal between the surface reservoir and the one below in some cases appears to break open violently.
The most obvious evidence that Gold’s theory may be correct is that Russia seems to have reaped huge rewards by adhering to it. Hoystory specifically noted this part of the Brazil story:
Yet in recent years Russia has quietly become the world’s top producer of oil, in part by drilling wells as deep as 40,000 feet — far below the graveyards of T-Rex and his Mesozoic buddies.
In his interview, Gold explained why Russia would have set its compass to the abiogenic star of oil production:
WIRED: Were there precedents for your idea that deep hydrocarbons are a normal fact of planetary geology?
GOLD: In the ’60s, Sir Robert Robinson [a Nobel Prize-winning chemist and president of Britain's Royal Society] said that petroleum looks like a primordial hydrocarbon to which biological products have been added.
WIRED: And what was the response?
GOLD: The response was that I quoted his remark in many of my papers. But the profession of petroleum geology did not pick it up. Mendeleyev [the Russian chemist who developed the periodic table] in the 1870s had said much the same thing, but Robinson had done a more modern analysis of oil and had come to the same conclusion. And, in fact, the Russians have in the last 20 years done an even more precise analysis that completely proves the point. The fact that Mendeleyev was in favor of a primordial origin of petroleum had a great effect – you see, to most Russians, Mendeleyev was the greatest scientist that Russia ever had.
So I guess, in reality, it isn’t Gold’s theory at all, but one posited by a Russian scientist from the late 1800’s, and one that was echoed by the founder of Britain’s national academy of science. Yet somehow the term “fossil fuels” has become fixed, and the concept that oil comes from the decay of death rather than the regeneration of life is treated as gospel. The consensus must have been against them …
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More Like This Please
MichaelW on Apr 21 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, MichaelW's Page, Military Matters, Notes on the war
I was pleasantly surprised, and mildly irritated, to see that Condi Rice basically called Muqtada al-Sadr a coward while she was in Baghdad recently (via: Instapundit):
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers.
Rice, in the Iraqi capital to tout security gains and what she calls an emerging political consensus, said al-Sadr is content to issue threats and edicts from the safety of Iran, where he is studying. Al-Sadr heads an unruly militia that was the main target of an Iraqi government assault in the oil-rich city of Basra last month, and his future role as a spoiler is an open question.
“I know he’s sitting in Iran,” Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr’s latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. “I guess it’s all-out war for anybody but him,” Rice said. “I guess that’s the message; his followers can go too their deaths and he’s in Iran.”
Both my surprise and irritation are because our government has been notably reticent to openly ridicule people like Sadr and bin Laden, or to state the obvious with respect to the civilian-targeting terrorists who blow themselves (they hope) to high heaven. None of them are brave enough to face off against their enemies. Instead they snipe from the sidelines, issue crude and fantastic proclamations about their superiority, and in the end they prey upon the weakest and least protected members of the enemy herd. There is a word for these types of people: cowards.
When one considers the fact that we are knee-deep in an information war (as opposed to a conventional, battlefield, territory-taking war), it’s difficult to understand why we haven’t resorted to deriding the enemy much earlier. The war-supporting blogosphere does so on occasion, but our leaders certainly don’t.
By “deriding the enemy” I don’t mean producing propaganda. Instead, call them out regularly and forcefully as the cowards and charlatans that they are. Employ the poison pen and wipe that arrogant smile off of their collective faces. In other words, take them on in the battle space they’ve chosen. We can defeat them there just as easily as we’ve done in actual combat.
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Lance on Apr 20 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
The NEW YORK POST reviews Michael Yon’s new book.
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The Next Baseless Consumer Scare
peter on Apr 19 2008 | Filed under: Peter's Page
Yesterday our flappy-headed friends to the North fired the opening salvo in the next ridiculous consumer scare that, thanks to New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, is sure to be convulsing US consumer markets soon. The enemy this time? BPA, a.k.a. bisphenol-a, a chemical used in the production of polycarbonate, the plastic best known for it’s use in re-usable water bottles and plastic baby bottles. And of course this massive intervention is accompanied by the usual, schizophrenic “danger! danger! But there’s nothing to fear” language that’s typically heard when the government gallops in to save us from nothing:
“We’re not waiting to take action to protect our people and our environment from the long-term effects of bisphenol-a,” the environment minister, John Baird, told a news conference, where he displayed an array of baby bottles made from plastics that do not use the material. The health minister, Tony Clement, told reporters that after reviewing 150 research papers and conducting its own studies, his department concluded that children up to the age of 18 months were at the most risk from the chemical. Mr. Clement said that animal studies suggested “behavioral and neural symptoms later in life.” Potentially unsafe exposure levels are far lower for children than for adults, Mr. Clement said, and he and Mr. Baird both said that adults who use plastic containers made with the chemical were not at risk. “For the average Canadian consuming things in those products, there is no risk today,” Mr. Clement said.
Of course the ironic part of all this is that polycarbonate became the shatter-less choice for spring water and for lining steel food cans precisely due to the fact that it doesn’t impart the “plastic” taste to its contents—even over long periods of time—that other popular polymers eventually do. As far as the science goes, it’s extrapolated from the results of animal experimentation, but searching the internet I could find no mention of a single suspected case of BPA poisoning anywhere. This of course will not prevent thousands of lawsuits citing phony symptoms, but hey, it’s for the children, right? We can’t have our baby daughters becoming lesbians can we?
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Lance on Apr 19 2008 | Filed under: Economics, Lance's Page
While spending increased in March by 1.8% over a year ago, adjusted for inflation it was way down. The only reason sales were positive was gasoline, though food sales were positive. Even there, that is mostly due to inflation and rising prices of food and staples.
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Lance on Apr 19 2008 | Filed under: History, Lance's Page, Libertarianism
Dale Franks honors the story of how the fight for our Independence began on April 19th, 1775. McQ ponders how we got to where we are today, drawing from the great T Harry Williams, and Jules Crittenden has a roundup of first hand accounts of what took place.
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Lance on Apr 19 2008 | Filed under: Humor, Lance's Page, Music, Religion and theology
Heh, a response to Richard Dawkins and the unbelievers amongst us. Right or wrong, arrogant condescension does not go unpunished.
Hat tip: D.A. Ridgely
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Man Found Dead in Lady Bird Lake in East Austin
ChrisB on Apr 18 2008 | Filed under: Chris' Page
Riad Hamad was found with in the lake with duct tape on his face and his hands and feet tied.
Hamad ran the Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund (PCWF). He sued a number of people and entities like David Horowitz, NGO Monitor and others, for defamation, lost big and had to pay court costs. The case was thrown out and dismissed as “wholly frivolous” and “baseless”. In addition the judge leveled Rule 11 sanctions against Hamad and ordered him to pay defendants’ attorney’s fees and costs totaling almost $60,000 as well as a $1000 fine to each defendant for Hamad’s repeated violation of court orders.
Police are leaning toward ruling it a suicide because, among other reasons, he had mentioned suicide to his family, and the way his hands and feet were tied looked like he tied them himself.
Police identified Riad Hamad, 55, at a news conference Thursday and said the binding of his limbs and the placement of the tape was consistent with Hamad having done it himself.
Austin police homicide Sgt. Joe Chacon said family members told investigators that the Clint Small Jr. Middle School teacher had “several stressors” in his life and had talked about possibly killing himself. Police said that they think Hamad walked from his car to the lake, based on evidence they gathered at the scene.
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