As the most pro-Israel administration in Washington since Harry Truman enters its last six months in office, Israel faces a strategic choice. Will it use the possible indulgence of the Bush Administration to attack Irans nuclear facilities, or will it wait and face an uncertain future with a new American president?
Halting Irans path toward the development of a nuclear bomb appears to be one of those seemingly insoluble chess problems. The Iranians may agree to this negotiating proposal or that proposal, all the while playing for time, while they develop sufficient enriched uranium to produce a nuclear bomb. A nuclear arsenal will allow Iran to become a Middle East hegemon like the Great Persia of antiquity, yet it will also encourage countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey to develop their own bombs. Iran will represent the heretofore unseen and unconventional combination of being a nuclear-armed state which supports sub-state armies in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip.
Enter Israel, which is the only state that Irans president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has specifically and repeatedly threatened with annihilation. Israel recently held massive air exercises hundreds of miles off its coast in the eastern Mediterranean, both honing and displaying to the outside world the complex aerial sortie and air-to-air refueling skills that would be specifically required in an attack on Iran. The exercise was not just a message directed at Iran itself, but at the Europeans - to get serious in helping the United States to force Iran to stop enrichment, or face a military cataclysm that could immediately send the price of oil past $200 a barrel, with collateral effects on world stock markets.
But what if the Europeans dont get the message? Or what if Iran continues its cat-and-mouse negotiating mixed with intransigence? Israels future in this regard is indeed bleak. For even if a moderate Republican realist like John McCain, or even worse, a liberal-left internationalist like Barrack Obama, is elected president, each is likely to subsume Israel to larger geopolitical considerations, rather than hold it up as an icon to be both supported and worshipped in the post-9/11 era, as George W. Bush has done.
Because an air attack on Iranian nuclear facilities will roil world financial markets and thus provide Obama with even more of an edge over the Republican party, Israel may be less inclined to attack Iran before the election. On the other hand, after the inauguration, Israel will be in the hands of a new American president who will show it much less sympathy than Bush. Thats why someone might bet on the period between the election and the inauguration -- say December -- as the perfect time for an Israeli attack.
There is a problem, though. Violating, say, Jordanian or Turkish airspace is not really the issue. The issue is that largely because of the on-going Iraq war, the U. S. controls the airspace over the entry points to Iran: in Iraq and in the Persian Gulf. Thus, an Israeli attack on Iran could probably only happen with U. S. connivance. And even if Israel could evade American sensors, few would believe that it honestly did so. As a sort of a last hurrah, one might speculate that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney would let Israel bomb Iran with a wink and a nod. But I do not believe that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates would do so. And because Gates has emerged as such a critical cabinet member, beloved by both the Pentagon staff and by the media, his word would be crucial.
Gates has shepherded Iraq from nearly a lost cause to a cause that might yet be salvaged. And an Israeli attack on Iran, precisely because it could not occur without both the fact and the appearance of U. S. support, could unleash a fury of Iran-supported bombings inside Iraq. No, Gates would not be on board for an Israeli strike.
Bottom line: precisely because the U. S. dominates the airspace around Iran, it has checkmated itself. Israel will find it very hard to pull Americas chestnuts out of the fire in Iran. An Israeli attack is, in the last analysis, still unlikely. The problem of a nuclear Iran is far from being solved.
Posted by: ryuge ||
07/08/2008 05:33 ||
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#1
And an Israeli attack on Iran, precisely because it could not occur without both the fact and the appearance of U. S. support, could unleash a fury of Iran-supported bombings inside Iraq.
Why would Iraq be happy about the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran? The only common ground I can think here is the Shiite thing, and not much else.
BANGALORE - The suicide bomber who crashed an explosive-laden car into the Indian Embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul on Monday not only killed 41 people and injured more than 140, he sent a powerful message to Delhi that its significant presence and growing influence in Afghanistan through its reconstruction projects are now in the firing line.
The Taliban issued a statement denying responsibility for Monday's attack. But few in India or Afghanistan are convinced. The Taliban generally claim responsibility for attacks against international or Afghan troops and deny their hand in attacks in which victims are mainly Afghan civilians. Most of the victims of Monday's blast were Afghan civilians; many had lined up for visas to travel to India.
Indian experts say that the needle of suspicion points to the Taliban and its backers in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's intelligence agency. This is the view in Kabul as well. While Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said the 'attack was carried out in coordination and consultation with an active intelligence service in the region' - alluding to the ISI - Karzai said the bombing was the work of the 'enemies of Afghanistan-India friendship', an implicit reference to Pakistan.
India is involved in an array of projects, ranging from providing food to children to improving infrastructure. It is constructing the 218-kilometer Zaranj-Delaram road, the Afghan parliament and a power transmission line from Pul-e-Khumri to Kabul and a substation in Kabul. It is repairing and reconstructing the Salma Dam in the western province of Herat at a cost of $109.3 million and building telephone exchanges linking 11 provinces to Kabul. It has supplied hundreds of buses and mini-buses. India is training bureaucrats and is providing over 3,000 Afghans with skills to earn a livelihood in carpentry, plumbing and masonry.
Hundreds of Afghans have been given scholarships to study in India. India is providing food assistance in the form of high-protein biscuits to 1.4 million school children daily.
'India's reconstruction strategy was designed to win over every sector of Afghan society, give India a high profile with Afghans, gain the maximum political advantage and, of course, undercut Pakistani influence,' the BBC quoted analyst Ahmed Rashid as saying,
India's role in road construction is improving its access to Afghanistan and beyond to Central Asia. The Zaranj-Delaram project, for instance, will run from the Iranian border to Delaram, which lies on Afghanistan's Garland Highway. The Garland Highway connects several of the country's key cities. India can offload shiploads of goods at Iran's Chabahar port and then send the consignments overland through the Zaranj-Delaram highway and the Garland Highway to cities across Afghanistan.
Approximately 3,000-4,000 Indian nationals are working on reconstruction projects across Afghanistan.
Pakistan, which has denied India overland access to Afghanistan, is annoyed that the road construction will provide India with a land route to Afghanistan. India believes that the ISI has used the Taliban to strike at Indian activity in Afghanistan. India's road projects - Zaranj-Delaram in particular - have come under repeated Taliban fire, the most recent being a suicide attack in April that left seven people, including four Indians, dead.
Over the past few years, the ISI and its surrogates in the Taliban have sought to cut India's influence through intimidation and attacks on Indian engineers and construction workers. Now with the attack on the embassy, they have signaled that they are stepping up their battle against India. It marks a major escalation in terrorist attacks not only against India's presence in Afghanistan but against New Delhi's Afghan policy.
And already there are calls in India for troops to be sent to Afghanistan. An editorial in the influential English daily, India Express, says, 'After the Kabul bombing, India must come to terms with an important question that it has avoided debating so far. New Delhi cannot continue to expand its economic and diplomatic activity in Afghanistan, while avoiding a commensurate increase in its military presence there. For too long, New Delhi has deferred to Pakistani and American sensitivities about raising India's strategic profile in Afghanistan.'
A military presence in Afghanistan might increase India's profile and add to its stature as a growing power in the region. But it will end up being bracketed with the Americans in Afghanistan, an image it would do well to avoid. It would work against the country's long-term interests in the region, jeopardizing the enormous goodwill it has earned to date.
#2
I think that one of the terms for Pakistan assistance is that Indian troops be kept out of any coalition in Afghanistan.
Pak would go apeshit if 2-3 Indian mountain divisions got deployed there.
Posted by: john frum ||
07/08/2008 14:51 Comments ||
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#3
Pak would go apeshit if 2-3 Indian mountain divisions got deployed there
Mountain Divisions are by nature tough-as-nails and the Indian Army version can be some pretty 'Nasty Boys®' I understand.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/08/2008 15:34 Comments ||
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#4
Another one for 2008-2012.
OSAMA BIN LADEN's threat agz the VATICAN + SAVING THE JIHAD + NO US-IRAN WAR 2008-2010 or 2012 > "THERE CAN ONLY BE TWO", i.e. US-Allies versus [Nuclear?]ISLAMIST CENTRAL ASIA + Peripheries.
OSAMA, ZAWI, etal. + RADICAL ISLAM DID NOT START THEIR JIHAD TO LOSE NOR FOR [permanent]]"PARITY".
NEWS > NEW ISLAMIST THREATS AGZ NORTH ASIA [Russia, China, Japan], PHILIPPINES, BANGLA, and now INDIA again. ISLMAIST THREATS > already causng POPULATION DISPLACEMENT = EMIGRATIONS FROM SOUTH ASIA TO AUSTRALESIA/AUSTRANESIA, AND IS GONNA WORSEN OVER TIME.
Long piece at the New Statesman that suggests that Hugo could be in trouble. Might be over-stated, but we'll see. You have to feel for Cindy Sheehan: Saddam's gone, Fidel's ill and Hugo might fall. Heh. Just the first few paragraphs here:
Chávez has little more than four months - perhaps even less - to come up with a solution to a very difficult equation or his Bolivarian project faces derailment.
On 5 July, Venezuelans celebrated the 197th anniversary of their Declaration of Independence from Spain. On that day in 1811, a group of rebel criollos (those born in the Spanish colonies but of Iberian descent), gathered in the Santa Rosa Lima Chapel in Caracas to found a new Republic, the American Confederation of Venezuela. It would take another decade of bloody warfare war before the republican rebels, famously led by Francisco Miranda and Simón Bolívar, could declare victory over their Royalist foes.
Almost two centuries on, another kind of rebel is in charge in Venezuela, a mestizo (a person of mixed race) this time round, inspired as much by his criollo ancestors determination to rid themselves of foreign domination, through another, more recent ideal, also partly of European descent: Socialism.
However, victory for Chávez Bolivarian Project is by no means guaranteed. If anything, it is in more danger of being derailed, both from internal rifts and external pressures, than at any other time in its ten year existence.
Later this year, on 23 November, Venezuela will hold regional and municipal elections to elect state governors in 22 of its 23 federal states, 219 members of regional parliaments, 332 mayors, 2 city mayors, and 13 city councillors. These elections will be the most decisive since Chávez came to power in 1999. In Venezuela, regional elections always carry great weight reflecting the extensive powers of state governors. In fact, what here is called the old geometry of power the territorial divisions of a decentralised system of public administration going back to colonial times is a core axis of political and economic clientelism. This is preoccupied with the capture of shares of Venezuelas huge oil rent for regionally and locally based family clans.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/08/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
He won't go without a fight. He knows how to stay in power with force, and being the kind of guy he is, I don't see him bowing before the people and gently stepping aside.
#2
This woman has some valid points but as a liberal she missed the biggest point in that Chavez did not and does not care for the little people of South America. His primary wish was to be the all powerful incarnation of Simon Bolivar with a legacy of "saving" all of South America under socialism. To that end he has been complicate in a great many "dirty" deals including with FARC. May the worms eat him slowly.
Initailly the Natives fought against the independentists. They knew too wel that their consitition would only worsen once the protections, as weak and ineffective it was due to the distance, from Spain would be withdrawan and they would have to live under Criollo's rule.
It was when Napoleon took Sevilla that Natives thinking Spain was definitelely defeated and would never be able to send help began switching sides to avoid Criollo's vengeance after their victory.
#6
It is fascinating how decisions about how to colonize made 500 years ago continue to reverberate. And how the Spanish were "lucky" and got the gold and silver and the English "unfortunately" got only the arable land and fisheries. Makes you consider how valuable all that oil will be in a few centuries.
For a deeply religious man who saw himself as Venezuela's messiah, it was deliciously apt that President Hugo Chavez was deposed on Friday only to return in a miraculous political resurrection on Sunday.
In a bizarre turnaround that surprised Venezuelans and caught the international community off-guard, he was back in the presidential palace in Caracas yesterday, 48 hours after a military coup had forced him out of office.
Mr Chavez was flown by helicopter from his brief captivity on a Venezuelan island to the Miraflores palace, where he triumphantly resumed his presidential powers in a televised ceremony. "I'm still stupefied. I'm still assimilating," he said, smiling.
Thousands celebrated in the streets outside, singing the national anthem and setting off firecrackers.
Chavez - a fiery leftwing nationalist - appealed to the nation for calm. "I do not come with hate or rancour in my heart, but we must make decisions and adjust things."
He added: "Venezuela would not tolerate an autocracy."
An extraordinary week for the world's fourth largest oil-exporting country began last Tuesday with a general strike called by unions in solidarity with the state oil monopoly, PDVSA, which had objected to the way Mr Chavez was appointing political allies to top posts.
By Thursday hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans were marching against the president through the streets of Caracas. When the march drew close to the Miraflores palace witnesses reported seeing Chavez snipers fire at the crowds, killing more than 16 people.
Within hours the military high command had gathered at the palace and demanded that Mr Chavez resign - only three years after he had swept into office with vast popular support. The ousted president was then arrested and taken into custody at army barracks in Caracas. It was reported that he had asked for asylum in Cuba, but was refused so that he could be put on trial in Venezuela.
Pedro Carmona, the head of Venezuela's largest business association, was declared the leader of a transitional government. But by Saturday it was clear that the coup was beginning to collapse.
Mr Carmona had angered many by trying to sweep away all vestiges of Mr Chavez's rule by dissolving Congress and cancelling the constitution approved under his administration. He was soon forced to reverse his decision after the armed forces chief, General Efrain Vasquez, said he would only support Mr Carmona if the Congress was restored. Mr Carmona was then forced to suspend the inauguration of his new cabinet.
WASHINGTON--When a candidate calls a second news conference to say the same thing he thought he said in the first one, you know he knows he has a problem.
Thus Barack Obama's twin news conferences last week in Fargo, N.D. At his first, Obama promised he would make a "thorough assessment" of his Iraq policy in his coming visit there and "continue to gather information" to "make sure that our troops are safe, and that Iraq is stable."
You might ask: What's wrong with that? A commander in chief willing to adjust his view to facts and realities should be a refreshing idea.
But when news reports suggested Obama was backing away from his commitment to withdrawing troops from Iraq in 16 months, Obama's lieutenants no doubt heard echoes of those cries of "flip-flop" that rocked the 2004 Republican National Convention and proved devastating to John Kerry.
Another very long opinion piece on Dubya's plans for Asia. First few paragraphs here.
By M K Bhadrakumar
A long time ago, we heard that US President George W Bush had become a lame duck. In April 2005, Craig Crawford, Washington TV commentator who famously distilled the 25 rules for survival in the brutal and manipulative world of American politics, felt certain 'signs abound that the Bush presidency is winding down'.
The news coming in from Iraq was real bad. Four months later, with Hurricane Katrina swamping New Orleans, Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service wrote in September, Bush was 'looking like a 'political lame duck', struggling hard to stay afloat on a rising tide of pessimism and political discontent'. Lobe was not wrong. Indeed, the polls were showing stunning drops in public confidence; moderate Republicans were said to be deserting Bush's camp.
Bush's approval rating today is dismal. The campaign to find his successor is well under way. He is still embattled by the Iraq war. Bush fits the textbook definition of a lame duck. Worse still, as James Forsyth of The Spectator magazine points out, even 'Bush-hatred, like the president himself, has become a lame duck'. There were hardly any public protests during Bush's European tour last month.
Bush is undeterred. He meant what he said during Christmas 2006, 'I'm going to sprint to the finish.' Free of electoral pressures and the tyranny of popularity rating, the sprinter is gaining in velocity. Just as experts began concluding Bush's missile defenses were dying with his presidency comes the news from Washington last Tuesday regarding a US-Poland deal for a future missile shield. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be arriving in Warsaw this week for follow-up. Not only that. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates revealed that Lithuania had agreed to consider hosting a missile interceptor base if the US deal with Poland fell through. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrel explained that 'prudent planning requires that we simultaneously look at backups, if necessary. Lithuania would geographically serve as a good alternative.'
Hadn't heard that one. Putin's gotta be taking the gaspipe ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/08/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
I suspect Bush will not be "slinking" to Texas and that his Iraq legacy will be positive as well. This will really p### off the liberals of the world.
If the Democrats hadn't had such a bad case of BDS they would have gotten many of their pet projects passed with the support of (the not so conservative) Bush but they were so nutszo that they lost a great many opportunities (thankfully).
#3
I suspect the Iraq war may be effectively over before Bush leaves office. March was the hump, and Basra was the peak of the hump.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2008 9:27 Comments ||
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So effectively over that it will be apparent to every one that what ever the next president does, it will be nothing more than what Bush would have done anyway. Bwahahahaha.
#5
Nah Fred - the war won't be over [at least in the eyes of the MSM and Liberals] until the next DEMOCRATIC president wins it for us - no matter if its in 2009, 2013, 2017 or 2021....
The Media, at least, will keep it alive - unless the MSM finally gives up the ghost.
On the eve of his departure from office, President George W Bush's global reputation as a reviled war-monger might appear to be sealed. Yet the most right-wing president in recent memory has become the unlikely darling of anti-poverty activists for his unsung efforts to help Africa.
Under Mr Bush's leadership, America is firmly among the countries who Oliver Buston, a prominent campaigner specialising in tracking the G8's promises, calls the 'good guys'. Mr Buston places America among the G8 nations doing everything possible to redeem the Gleneagles pledge on raising aid budgets.
In the last year of Bill Clinton's presidency, America's direct bilateral assistance to Africa was only Pounds 700 million. Mr Bush has almost quadrupled this sum.
Combating Aids once played virtually no part in America's development policies. Mr Bush has established the biggest fund ever devoted to fighting an epidemic. The President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, funded to the tune of Pounds 7.5 billion, is paying for hundreds of thousands of Africans to receive the life-saving drugs which hold Aids at bay. Mr Bush has also made America the biggest single donor to the Global Fund for Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, contributing one third of its Pounds 5 billion.
No other leader has given as much money to the World Food Programme as Mr Bush. America now provides about half of all the emergency food aid distributed across the globe.
Countries which desperately need this help often have viscerally anti-American governments. The rulers of Sudan and Zimbabwe, where millions depend on emergency food supplies, probably do not grasp the irony of the man they vilify keeping so many of their own people alive.
Bob Geldof, the anti-poverty campaigner, has often praised Mr Bush's 'Africa story'. Overall, however, this side of the president's legacy has earned him few votes and precious little international credit. The point, as Mr Geldof stresses, is that Mr Bush helped Africa anyway.
To quote Orrin Judd: 'W is governing for the world's future, not for headlines in today's fishwrap.'
Not that we should ignore the MSM; as the NYT has demonstrated, a dying empire can cause considerable trouble. But look at what Bush is doing with Africa, India, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Pacific Rim, and you see a long-term strategy that promotes personal liberty, economic freedom and democratic government. That's in the interests of all those countries, and not so coincidentally, it's in ours as well. Perhaps this is why Pinch and Nancy and the rest hate him so.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/08/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
All of the above, as Steve W. notes, as well as this may be the month when it dawns on everyone that Iraq is poised to replace KSA as the center of SW Asia/Middle East - its historic role going back millenia.
Look for more play on the respective production and reserve graphs for KSA and Iraq, as well as peripheral diplomatic developments (Dubai is one of basically 3 finalists for the 2016 olympics - be timely to recognize Israel, no?) and wonder how it all happened? Must be Obamaticipation!
Posted by: Pearl Jeager2939 ||
07/08/2008 0:16 Comments ||
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#2
Radical islam awaits its anti-US HIDDEN IMAM-MAHDI, so does AFRICA + ASIA + AMERICAS in their turn [new generation].
AFAIK IRAN IS GETTING ITS WAY 2008-2012 AND SUNSPOT CYCLE "24" IS STILL RUNNING LATE!
#3
Yet the most right-wing president in recent memory...
The writer must have not been an adult before '92 if he's relying upon his memory. I'm old enough to remember Ronald Reagan. He was certainly more 'conservative' than Georgie. George is a 60's liberal by comparison. Kennedy tax cut, Bush tax cut. Kennedy strong on defense [for a Donk], Bush strong on defense.
After we Boomers die off and the cynical Y'ers get to write the history, I'd like to see the 'revisionist' stories that'll be around.
#4
But look at what Bush is doing with Africa, India, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Pacific Rim, and you see a long-term strategy that promotes personal liberty, economic freedom and democratic government. That's in the interests of all those countries, and not so coincidentally, it's in ours as well.
Bah! Just window dressing Steve, nothing to see here, move along.
Bad Bush!
Bad Bush!
#8
Just wait for the moonbat spin. it is all those mouths in Africa that are causing the food price crises. It is the Indians prosperity creating demand and causing oil prices to go up. It's all Bush's FAULT!
#9
I never did get an answer on whether he was a Retarded Monkey Boy or an Evil Genius With A Diabolical Plan for World Domination.
I think they're still discussing it over at Kos...
#10
The growing consensus I'm detecting from those suffering BDS is the former category with him as Dick Chaney's, of the latter category, sock puppet. That's how they can fit it into their model of the universe.
#11
Well I wish they'd make up their minds, cause you can either be an incredibly devious, evil genius, OR a total r-tard. But not both at the same time.
What would happen if the U.S. won a war but the media didn't tell the American public? Apparently, we have to rely on a British newspaper for the news that we've defeated the last remnants of al-Qaida in Iraq.
London's Sunday Times called it "the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror." A terrorist force that once numbered more than 12,000, with strongholds in the west and central regions of Iraq, has over two years been reduced to a mere 1,200 fighters, backed against the wall in the northern city of Mosul.
The destruction of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) is one of the most unlikely and unforeseen events in the long history of American warfare. We can thank President Bush's surge strategy, in which he bucked both Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington by increasing our forces there instead of surrendering.
We can also thank the leadership of the new general he placed in charge there, David Petraeus, who may be the foremost expert in the world on counter-insurgency warfare. And we can thank those serving in our military in Iraq who engaged local Iraqi tribal leaders and convinced them America was their friend and AQI their enemy.
Al-Qaida's loss of the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis began in Anbar Province, which had been written off as a basket case, and spread out from there.
Now, in Operation Lion's Roar the Iraqi army and the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is destroying the fraction of terrorists who are left. More than 1,000 AQI operatives have already been apprehended.
Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin, traveling with Iraqi forces in Mosul, found little AQI presence even in bullet-ridden residential areas that were once insurgency strongholds, and reported that the terrorists have lost control of its Mosul urban base, with what is left of the organization having fled south into the countryside.
Meanwhile, the State Department reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government has achieved "satisfactory" progress on 15 of the 18 political benchmarks a big change for the better from a year ago.
Things are going so well that Maliki has even for the first time floated the idea of a timetable for withdrawal of American forces. He did so while visiting the United Arab Emirates, which over the weekend announced that it was forgiving almost $7 billion of debt owed by Baghdad an impressive vote of confidence from a fellow Arab state in the future of a free Iraq.
But where are the headlines and the front-page stories about all this good news? As the Media Research Center pointed out last week, "the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 were silent Tuesday night about the benchmarks" that signaled political progress.
The war in Iraq has been turned around 180 degrees both militarily and politically because the president stuck to his guns. Yet apart from IBD, Fox News Channel and parts of the foreign press, the media don't seem to consider this historic event a big story.
#1
Because the 'We' of the MSM included the enemy. They were on the losing side. That's why they don't want to report it. You don't broadcast your defeats and particularly a major one like this.
#2
I prefer conquest of middle east oil fields. At the very least, that Iraq should supply the U.S.A. with steeply discounted oil in return for their freedom - a freedom provided by our dead soldiers...
#3
At the very least, that Iraq should supply the U.S.A. with steeply discounted oil in return for their freedom - a freedom provided by our dead soldiers...
And hundreds of billions of dollars in war spending.
#5
1) Drill Here, Drill NOW. That immediately opens the futures market to stability - and probably a drop that will filter back into the spot (cash) markets. Back this with shales - and a tarriff to provide a floor price of $100/bbl to prevent OPEC market flooding from destroying the new comapnies beore they get their footing. Make it clear that this is a solution that will be phased out starting in 25-30 years, over a decade or so.
2) Build 100 Nuclear energy plants in the next 15 years, 20 of them breeders to burn the wast from the others and turn it into fuel for them. To this add smaller "pebble bed" reactors for smaller communities. Also exploit geothermal power.
3) Build out the infrastructure for electrical and fuel-cell (hydrogen) based vehicles. Provide tax and rebate incentives.
#6
Let Iraq sell to the rest of the world, reducing the stranglehold Saudi Arabia and Russia have. The sooner we drill here, the less reliant we will be on countries whose governments are more or less inimical to ours, like Mexico.
#7
energy is the future, why have we not made it our mission in life to become the world leader in energy production? Congress is a joke. Petty fools that they are can't see the forest through the trees. Every major city should have it's own nuke plants/wind/solar or whatever works for the locals of that community. Let the free market rule and I am confident they will find the best solution and the cleanest technologies.
. . . I had another conversation with the clipboard people outside the grocery store. Honestly, Im not being confrontational; Im just curious about what they think. Its instructive. The clipboard guy twice my height, half my age wanted me to sign a petition to ensure that 25% of the states power came from renewable sources by 2020.
Thats the law, I said. (I drew my finger in a lateral motion to indicate the link.)
He nodded.
So . . . whats the petition about? He said that Congress had failed to renew the renewable energy tax credits, and they needed to be reinstated. I agreed that this was short-sighted, but decided not to get into all the usual hideous politics around that bill. I asked if his group was in favor of expanding all available energy sources, so we could be have baseload capacity to back up intermittent sources, like wind and solar.
Baseload? he said. He didnt know the term. I gave a rough definition; eyes glazed. Then I asked if his group was in favor of drilling in the Bakken oil fields. He didnt know about the Bakken oil fields.
Its in North Dakota, I said.
Were opposed to drilling, he said.
In North Dakota? I said.
Were opposed to drilling, he repeated.
A few months ago I noted, in hardy-har jest, that people would oppose drilling in North Dakota because they feared its impact on the Bison, or the now-depopulated newly-pristine plains. Turns out they dont need a reason. Nobody drill anywhere anyhow ever. I said what Id said before, and will probably say the next time I engage in this act of total futility: if you guys were for everything, Id be with you. We need to try everything. But he had turned cold by then.
The imperatives of the present are an inconvenient obstacle to heaven. The needs of the near future, even more so. . . .
- - - - - - - -
. . . it's time for What Makes Garrison Keillor Get Angry About George Bush: this week it's a little girl playing in a softball game in a small town. The piece begins:
A couple of hours to kill on a humid afternoon in a small town in Masachusetts and rather than sit looking at hotel wallpaper I took a little walk.
Here, free of charge: I had. Apply them to the beginning of the sentence. Its a little trick we learned in writing class; helps folks out. They dont have to read the sentence twice. The town reminds him of Norman Rockwell, and he likes Rockwell. So do I good painted. But I never saw him this way:
I liked a lot of Rockwells stuff because he was a liberal and he painted faces with great devotion. The faces shine through, as they should in a liberals art.
Heh. Sorry about that. But I never quite realized the shiny-face aspect of liberal painting before; from now on, when I see a luminescent Caravaggio, Ill assume he supported a single-payer health-care system. The amusing part of the assertion, of course, is that the liberal wing of painting, if you can call it that, has shied away from the difficult task of painting faces for almost a hundred years, preferring the progressive styles of abstraction. Representational art is regarded as conservative not in the political sense, of course, but still. One also suspects that there might not be a straight unbroken line between Rockwells liberalism and the modern sort; he did a lot of stuff about Boy Scouts, and like many modern liberals might be dismayed by those in the vanguard who consider them political untouchables. But Keillor has a rather ossified notion of liberalism, untroubled by history or subtlety; he's almost a mirror-image of the paleoconservatives who believe to this day that True and Honest Conservatives dasn't listen to Elvis, lest their hips be corrupted.
Anyway. He found a baseball game and got chatting with a father of a girl on the team. A ballgame is a great place to get to know somebody, Keillor writes, and thats so. Of course, when you make stuff up, its more difficult to get to know the guy whos sitting next to you:
. . . we got to the grim business of What Do You Do For a Living. He said he was a cop. I said I was unemployed. (You tell people youre a writer and they tend to clam up.)
Tough times, he said. I nodded.
Also, you tell people youre a millionaire posing as an unemployed guy, they tend to clam up as well, but for different reasons. The piece goes on to note that Mr. Keillor feels he has done okay in the last eight years but has a hot collar and ground-up teeth thinking about what the Current Occupant has done to the country the little girl will inherit. Hes mad about spending Im with him there, although a bit perplexed to find Keillor coming down on the side of spending less and he doesnt approve of the war. It ruined his Rockwell moment.
Being unable to watch a kid play baseball because you are mad at George Bush does not necessarily mean you are a better person or a person more attuned to truth and the future. It might mean, at best, you are a person who writes run-on sentences stringing together predictable assertions; at worst, it might mean youre anhedonic, and looking for scapegoats. I look at my daughter and consider her future, and I see possibility and peril as well. But thats up to us, and while Im sure Mr. Keillor anticipates the day where he is legally required to pay the taxes he heretofore feels he is morally required to pay, we can do fine without him. Weve done fine without his money so far, and I think we can keep that up. Unless hes been paying in at the pre-tax-cut level, of course. In which case: hats off! A principled man is rare in any era.
Final note: why is it "grim business" to talk about what you do for a living? Almost every interesting conversation I've had with strangers had to do with their jobs, because people in this country do all sorts of diverse and amazing things. It's "grim business" perhaps if you expect everyone else to be bent before a gritty grease-smeared gear a la Metropolis, but everyone you meet by happenstance usually does something for a living you don't do, and you can learn from it. I'd love to read a column about the life of a cop in a Norman Rockwell town, but that inessential pebble pinged off the author's glacial self-regard. Who cares what a little girl feels about having a dad for a cop? The real issue is how mad she makes the author feel about the President.
I mean, I have lots of problems with Bush as well - lots, and then lots again - but when I see my daughter on the soccer field, running for the ball, heading for the goal, I'm hoping she scores. Even if it ruins a potential metphor for projected increases in college tuition in 2019.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/08/2008 06:34 ||
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#2
I read a lot of fiction and I usually manage to finish even the most dismally awful crap. I never managed to finish a Kiellor novel. Which makes it crap in a class of its own.
#4
There's a meme growing about how we're a nation in decline. I think I'd start pointing out, if anybody listened to me, that if we're a nation in decline it'd be precisely because we listened to the people like Keillor.
I'd be real happy to see the nation go on a reindustrialization binge, myself. It'd be great fun watching the inhabitants of Lake Woebegone taking the gaspipe at all the drilling and the smokestacks and such.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2008 9:10 Comments ||
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#5
I think Potatohead should up his dosages.
He'll feel better.
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WASHINGTON--When a candidate calls a second news conference to say the same thing he thought he said in the first one, you know he knows he has a problem.
On the eve of his departure from office, President George W Bush's global reputation as a reviled war-monger might appear to be sealed. Yet the most right-wing president in recent memory has become the unlikely darling of anti-poverty activists for his unsung efforts to help Africa.
