COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

The First Mutt's Latest: More Job Creation for China


I first photo-shopped this here , back in November, 2006

Our clueless canine, the First Mutt, thinks it would be a job creating machine to drop another $150 "B" for billion on infrastructure and capital investment, and this will be a job creating machine.

Why did he get a Nobel prize, certainly not for economics?

Capital equipment and infrastructure, if purchased from China, Taiwan and Germany is not going to do piddle for Michigan. It will create a lot of jobs for China and then China will loan the dollars to the US Treasury and add to her own capital base.

The Chinese will use the money, earned from exporting to the US, to expand manufacturing in China, to say, build her own infrastructure in the form of a railroad to Iran, using every nut bolt and rail from Chinese manufactures and exporting Chinese workers to do all the work.

It is enough to make you want to go outside and howl at the moon.
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China to build $2bn railway for Iran

China is poised to sign a $2bn (£1.3bn) deal to build a railway line in Iran in the first step of a wider plan to tie the Middle East and Central Asia to Beijing.

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
Published: 6:15AM BST 07 Sep 2010
Telegraph

China's railways minister, Liu Zhijun, is expected to visit Tehran this week to seal the deal, according to his Iranian counterpart, Hamid Behbahani.

"The final document of the contract has already been signed with a Chinese company and the Chinese minister will visit Iran on September 12 to ink the agreement," said Mr Behbahani.


The new line will run from Tehran to the town of Khosravi on the border with Iraq, around 360 miles as the crow flies, passing through Arak, Hamedan and Kermanshah.

Eventually, the Iranian government said, the route could link Iran with Iraq and even Syria as part of a Middle-Eastern corridor. That could also benefit the 5,000 Iranians who make pilgrimages each day to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala in Iraq.

Nicklas Swanstrom, the executive director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University, said the contract to build the line was the first step for China to build an entire rail infrastructure for central Asia.

"It makes sense that if you build railways in Iran, you then get deals to stretch the lines into central Asia," he said, referring to a "very concrete plan" to run a railway from Iran through the landlocked countries of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and eventually to Kashgar in China, in a modern "silk route".

That line would give the central Asian states vital access to Iran's port of Chahbahar on the shores of the Persian Gulf, and could also eventually give China a vital overland freight route to Europe.

"For China, it could cut the cost of transporting goods to Europe by 5pc or 6pc," said Professor Swanstrom.
"It also makes political sense, because while technically the US, Europe or Russia could block China's sea routes, it would also have a land route. And by tying your neighbour's infrastructure to you, it brings them closer," he added. "It decreases Russia's influence in the region, and definitely decreases the influence of the US and Europe."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, raised the idea of the new railway earlier this year at a summit in Tehran.

Transport ministers from Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Iran are expected to gather in Dushanbe, the Tajik capital formerly known as Stalinabad, next month to firm up a deal for a 1,225-mile route. The Asian Development Bank is funding a feasibility study for the project.

Iran is determined to forge tighter links with its neighbours, and rebuild itself as a trade hub, in order to build a regional alliance that would support it against Nato countries.

At the beginning of last month, Mr Ahmadinejad said Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Iran should join forces to become "an obstacle" to Western influence in the region.

Iran has pointedly not signed up to European Union plans for a trade corridor through Europe, the Caucasus and Asia, and has instead busied itself with bilateral agreements with its neighbours. Reza Rahimi, the Iranian vice-president, has promised to cut freight times between Europe and China from two months by sea to 11 days by land.

In addition, the current sanctions on Iran allow China, which relies on the Persian state for 15pc of its energy needs, to drive a hard bargain on the construction contract for the line.

China is rapidly expanding its own high-speed rail network and has unveiled plans for lines that will connect Beijing with London, both through Russia and through central Asia.

China Railway Group, the largest railway construction company, has also recently revealed it has had "early stage contact" with South African companies about undertaking rail projects in South Africa.



60 comments:

  1. It is enough to make you want to go outside and howl at the moon.

    I've tried it before. Appears quite ineffective.

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  2. The new line will run from Tehran to the town of Khosravi on the border with Iraq, around 360 miles as the crow flies, passing through Arak, Hamedan and Kermanshah...

    Troubling in a number of ways.

    One of the keys to Roman power was its roads that allowed troops to be moved quickly.

    I recall someone saying railway lines in the US and Europe where designed on the basis of the Roman roads. (Rufus I think, our font of arcane knowledge.)


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  3. I'm sick as a dog, can't work today.

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  4. Eat Shit Nation:

    Op-Ed Contributor
    Building on Faith
    By FEISAL ABDUL RAUF

    President Obama and Mayor Michael Bloomberg both spoke out in support of our project. As I traveled overseas, I saw firsthand how their words and actions made a tremendous impact on the Muslim street and on Muslim leaders. It was striking: a Christian president and a Jewish mayor of New York supporting the rights of Muslims. Their statements sent a powerful message about what America stands for, and will be remembered as a milestone in improving American-Muslim relations.

    The wonderful outpouring of support for our right to build this community center from across the social, religious and political spectrum seriously undermines the ability of anti-American radicals to recruit young, impressionable Muslims by falsely claiming that America persecutes Muslims for their faith. These efforts by radicals at distortion endanger our national security and the personal security of Americans worldwide. This is why Americans must not back away from completion of this project. If we do, we cede the discourse and, essentially, our future to radicals on both sides. The paradigm of a clash between the West and the Muslim world will continue, as it has in recent decades at terrible cost. It is a paradigm we must shift.

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  5. I have no idea why you guys are so worried, we have a couple of thousand nuclear weapons.

    Biggest Navy and most technologically advance Army and an Air Force that is unmatched in all the whirled.

    Why worry?

    Unless those things don't really matter to the long term prosperity of the nation. Were and are wasted investments, in stuff that provides little positive return.

    We have a heck of a hammer, when that is not what we need, to provide prosperity to our people.

    It seems that our standing Army cannot defend Europe from its own demographics. Cannot even defend our own southern frontier.

    Could not change the culture of the Persian Gulf region, nor keep Charlie Chi-com from partnering up with Iran and Venezuela.

    We've been played for suckers by the military-industrial complex.
    "Change" brought and bought by General Dynamics, right.

    Always fighting the "last war" those Generals and Politicos.

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  6. Just because the only tool in the box is a hammer, it still does not make every task a nail.

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  7. Not good T. Sorry.


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  8. Power is not always a matter of tools but rather of influence.

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  9. China, and railroads. Interesting.

    China is building the coolest bullet trains in the world.

    They, also, have a third world freight shipping system. Feedlots in the South of China (sure they have feedlots) buy DDGS from the U.S. because they can't get them shipped down from the North.

    Everyone raves about Europe's rail system, but they're in the same fix. Ship "people" by rail, but "goods" by truck.

    Socialists are all the same. Love "Glitzy" projects, but lousy at basic infrastructure.

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  10. True enough, Q.

    Look at who has the power to influence whirled events, now.

    China and Saudi Arabia.

    The folks with mountains of cash, not mole hills of derivatives.

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  11. Engorged by debt, fertility drops:



    Obesity
    Think that Charlie Chi-com is suffering from this self-inflicted affliction?

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  12. I Want Your Money: New Conservative Documentary

    The tone of the film, which Mr. Griggs directed and helped write, is a little softer than that of those three conservative commentators. Its central argument is a straightforward case for the virtues of smaller government and the futility of efforts to redistribute wealth. But its charm, if that word can apply to political documentary, comes from computer-generated animations in which bobbing-headed political figures, designed by Tom Richmond of Mad Magazine, try to school one another on the ins and outs of policy.

    Animated politicians on both sides of the aisle — Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sarah Palin, the older and younger George Bushes — all take some good-natured hits. Ronald Reagan offers Mr. Obama a couple of jelly beans, but Mr. Obama figures he’s already entitled to half, and so on…


    I Want Your Money

    A can’t-miss movie for most of the EB.

    Rat and Ash, we’ll save you some popcorn.

    Dougo, notice the Mad Magazine reference.

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  13. Charlie's weight troubles are developing in their cities. The civilized and urbane are packing on the pounds.

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  14. Socialists are all the same. Love "Glitzy" projects, but lousy at basic infrastructure.


    Times They are a Changin

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  16. No need, for that popcorn, doug.

    Cause for obesity, sitting watching movies and stuffin' your face at the same time.

    Ought to be campaigning for a freeze of Federal spending at 2010 levels for the next 2 years.

    That would be understandable and doable. But not in any of the "conservative" playbooks.

    They want to redistribute the wealth, too. Just divvy it up a bit differently then the "liberals".

    Both will make sure that General Dynamics share increases.

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  17. "Demand for floating storage has all but disappeared," Gibson Tanker Report said earlier this month. According to Gibson, oil stored globally in tankers offshore fell by 30 percent in July alone, or 25.6 million barrels, to around 59 million barrels. Much of the crude oil still in tanker storage is from Iran, which has had trouble selling crude due to recent international sanctions aimed at halting its uranium enrichment program.

    Floating Inventory almost gone

    Sure, we've added a little inventory On shore, but we've taken a lot more down Off shore.

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  18. One could (and many do) spend a lot of energy berating Republicans for exploiting the anger and frustration for their own political gain and their failure to offer real solutions that will put Americans back to productive work. No one is listening.

    However, the Democrats must share the blame for all this anger and frustration.

    Why?

    Because no one from Obama on down is articulating an alternative path that will put us back to work without piling on even more debt and hidden agenda government regulation.

    Keeping the GOP tax breaks for the rich isn’t going to “trickle down” to more jobs.

    Passing another “stimulus” package to throw money at state and local governments for public works projects is not going to create a permanent new economy that allows us to make enough money day in and day out to pay our bills and buy homes and cars and all that stuff.

    Our current situation is the product of both Republican and Democrat policies.


    The View from Baja Arizona
    by Hugh Holub

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  20. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  21. Forced Labor

    A conspiracy indictment was brought last week against a Los Angeles company, alleging forced labor on a chilling scale. Six contractors are accused of a scheme to hold 400 workers from Thailand in virtual slavery on farms in Hawaii and Washington State. The Justice Department says it is the largest human-trafficking case ever brought by the federal government. Just as disturbing is how familiar the accusations are.

    The company, Global Horizons Manpower, is accused of abusing the federal guest worker program, known as H-2A, in 2004 and 2005 and luring workers with false promises of steady work at decent pay. The workers, poor men from the Thai countryside, took on crushing debt to pay exorbitant recruiting fees, about $9,500 to $21,000. After they arrived in America, according to the indictment, their passports were taken and they were set up in shoddy housing and told that if they complained or fled they would be fired, arrested or deported..."


    Forced Labor

    Officials say this remains an ongoing investigation as they pursue one of the operations kingpins, a man known only as Doug.

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  22. Correction: "...alleged kingpins..."


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  23. Israel turns back clock for Yom Kippur, sparking debate

    Critics of the early time shift argue that because of the demands of a religious minority, Israelis will rise when the sun is higher and hotter, come home from work in the dark, and spend more time with their lights turned on, costing the national economy millions of dollars.

    According to the Manufacturers Association of Israel, the 170 days of daylight saving time this year saved more than 26 million dollars.

    The early time shift in Israel has a parallel only in the West Bank areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority and in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, where the the clock was turned back last month to help people fasting from dawn to sundown during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan...


    Dem Crazy Semites


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  24. House Minority Leader John Bohner (R-Ohio) wants to freeze taxes at 2010 levels for the next two years, but does not mention a spending freeze.

    He's working the wrong side of the equation.

    Typical of a DC elitist.

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  25. Panama Ed: House Minority Leader John Bohner (R-Ohio) wants to freeze taxes at 2010 levels for the next two years, but does not mention a spending freeze.

    A spending freeze would unduly impact funding for Obama's War, which is the one government program most 'Pubs do support.

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  26. There is plenty of money in the system, Ms T, they would just have to prioritize where it went.

    Rather than hiding a tax increase by expanding spending with ever greater debt.

    When I was younger, inflation was the "hidden tax", now it is debt that is the "hidden tax".

    None of the elitists want to address it.

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  27. Rufus: Socialists are all the same. Love "Glitzy" projects, but lousy at basic infrastructure.

    The socialists in Washington State built a glitzy light rail line to keep up with the Portland Joneses, but there's no park and ride near any of the terminals because you're supposed to ride your carbon-neutral bike to the train from your commune.

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  28. When I was younger, inflation was the "hidden tax", now it is debt that is the "hidden tax".

    Fortunately interest rates are near zero, so it's not so much money down the shitter that inflation was.

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  29. That's just bizarre, T. Just plain mind-fucking.

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  30. Quirk: The early time shift in Israel has a parallel only in the West Bank areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority and in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, where the the clock was turned back last month to help people fasting from dawn to sundown during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan...

    Quirk, obviously you hate Jews because you are drawing moral equivalence between them and the Muslims. ;-)

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  31. Yeah, but, boy, when them interest rates go back up there's gonna be hell to pay.

    Used to, we issued more long-term debt, now we issue more short-term debt. When those rates head back up those bonds are going to, seemingly, start rolling faster, and faster. It's going to be like having a rocket tied to your ass, sucking for air with your heart in your throat as you watch the little blue ball get smaller and smaller.

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  32. Rufus: It's going to be like having a rocket tied to your ass, sucking for air with your heart in your throat as you watch the little blue ball get smaller and smaller.

    My criticism with your post is the same as with your posts about peak oil. You don't seem to grok dynamic relationships. You predict peak oil based on a declining production variable and rising consumption variable, but don't consider that consumption moderates when prices rice. If interest rates go back to about 12% like they were in '79, housing prices will collapse again, and we'll be in a deflation scenario.

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  33. Come on T, let's not go there this early in the morning.

    We may have to send you off to work, sick or not.


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  34. Tight Conditions Predicted on Food, Water, and Energy

    Water
    Today, in the developed world, the average adult uses some 1,800-2,500 m3 of water per year.
    By 2025, 1.8 billion will be living with absolute water scarcity, with access to less than 500 m3 per person/year; while two-thirds of the world’s population will live “under stress” with only 500-1,000 m3 of water per person/year. Given that it takes some 16,000 liters of water to produce one kilogram of beef (for the animal’s consumption, care, and grain feed production), it will be much harder in 2025 to ignore the immediate social, environmental and human cost of beef production.

    The NIC’s Global Trends 2025 says:
    Clean water is set to become the world’s scarcest but most-needed natural resource because of new demands resulting from population increases and expectations that climate changes will reduce natural fresh water sources in some areas. Demand will increase for water for domestic use, as well as for agriculture (including new biopharma and biofuel crops) and industry processes...


    Shortages

    I guess I just remain parked here next to the Great Lakes.


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  35. I Want Your Money


    I find it kinda funny that the knickers are in a twist over ObamaCare with the plaintive cries of "We can't afford it" yet those same people got no problem with 'affording' two wars and the great military infrastructure. This whole 'starve the beastly government' meme would really threaten the support for military wouldn't it? No problems though, right? Just can't 'afford it'.


    How come only boob is standing up for the burn the Koran day? I thought just about all of you thought Islam was the problem. What better way to show your disgust than participating is such an event. Heck, make it nationwide. Beck should start howling from his pulpit and organize such an evetn.

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  36. Dems Under Pressure

    "Political handicappers now say it is conceivable that the Republicans could also win the 10 seats they need to take back the Senate. Not since 1930 has the House changed hands without the Senate following suit."

    Is this a piece from National Review, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal or Fox News.com, all major conservative news outlets in the United States? No. It’s a direct quote from yesterday’s Washington Post, usually viewed by conservatives as a flagship of the liberal establishment inside the Beltway. The fact The Post is reporting that not only could Republicans sweep the House of Representatives this November, but may even take the Senate as well, is a reflection of just how far the mainstream, overwhelmingly left-of-centre US media has moved in the last month towards acknowledging the scale of the crisis facing the White House.


    Obama Presidency Crumbling

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  37. Burning books is stupid, no matter who does it.

    Would I rather it wasn't done?

    Given a choice, probably.

    Do I really care if some whack-job religious type in FL burns some Korans?

    Not so much.

    When you get down to the essence of it all you are burning is a pile of paper.

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  38. Deuce you are ahead of the curve in canine POTUS art....I know squat about economics and still cant wrap my head around $50B more of infrastructure spending when less than a 3rd of the $230B has been spent to date.

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  39. When you get down to the essence of it all you are burning is a pile of paper.

    Book burning might have made sense before the advent of e-texts, but it's sort of like burning CDs today. Deleting "Satanic" MP3s doesn't have the same cachet.

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  40. Books have value in and of themselves.

    Many are beautiful, not only for their content but in themselves.

    There is a certain tactile emotive that you can get from holding and reading a good book that you don't get from Google or Kindle.

    Still unless you have a rare one or a first edition, they can always be replaced.

    I doubt the ones in FL fall into either of the categories mentioned.
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  41. How come only boob is standing up for the burn the Koran day?

    Ash-0, show me where I stood up for burn the koran day. I made one joke about the State Department calling book burning 'inflammable' and you slander and libel the boob.

    In fact I'm conflicted on the situation, seeing Gen P's point of view, and the Pastor's too.

    The odd thing is, not many people in Afghanistan have read the koran, about 90% of the women not being able to read, and 70% of the men, too. (not positive about the percentages, but you get the point)

    There's a wider question too, how long to put up with the double standard. You wear a cross in Saudi, you lose your head, or get whipped, or whatever.

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  42. Books have value in and of themselves.

    Quirk, really, that's so obviously wrong. Some books have value in and of themselves.

    Some books, well, it's a sin to waste a tree making the pages.

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  43. This is refill my prescription day.

    You're feeling shitty Miss T cause you're not getting enough sleep.

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  44. It is enough to make you want to go outside and howl at the moon.

    I've tried it before. Appears quite ineffective.


    Generally relieves tension, in my experience.

    Man, I had an epic cat fight outside my window last night, went on for fifteen minutes or more. Then one side or the other lost or backed down, and it was back to the crickets.

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  45. We can burn the flag, piss on the Bible, put Jesus in a bottle of urine at taxpayer expense and call it art, but some poor pastor wants to make a name for himself and get donations by burning the koran, all of a sudden it's a matter for the United Nations.

    We are dhimmified.

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  46. No, bob, we are trying to keep US troops alive.

    That you have a basic disconnect between base desires and responsibilities to those that are protecting us, more than obvious.

    Such a hedonist.

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  47. I'm conflicted on the situation, seeing Gen P's point of view

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  48. That you would support endangering US troops in the field, so you can "feel good" ...

    Pure hedonist bile.

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  49. You put words in my mouth. A long time tactic of yours.

    You, as a stanch supporter of the Constitution, does the guy have the right to do it, or not? Regardless of the wisdom of it.

    But here I am dialoging with rat, when I promised myself I wouldn't, so I quit the topic.

    I'm going to Wal-Greens.

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  50. But first--

    far as Terry Jones is concerned, he's just supplying the kindling -- several hundred copies of the Koran, Islam's holiest book.

    Looks to be a real bonfire.

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  51. T opined,

    You don't seem to grok dynamic relationships. You predict peak oil based on a declining production variable and rising consumption variable, but don't consider that consumption moderates when prices rice.


    T, it's you that ain't "grokkin."

    Peak Oil is the point that, for whatever reasons, the production of oil Peaks. Being a finite resource, it's a dead-lock certainty that, at some time, oil production will Peak.

    We're just discussing, "When?"

    It also doesn't matter if it peaks because the oil that would push us over the peak is just too expensive/difficult to "produce," or if the Iranians/Al Queda sabotage all of the drilling rigs. All that matters is that at some point we will hit a peak, or a plateau (such as we've been on since 2005,) and never achieve over that amount.

    Personally, I think we're just about there. We'll see.

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  52. That you would support endangering US troops in the field, so you can "feel good" ...

    Come on rat, give us a break.

    "The Obama administration. In count is mounting under the the 18 months Obama has been president, 557 Americans have died. That compares to 655 U.S. deaths in the eight years of the Bush administration..."

    US Deaths In Afghanistan

    If Gen P were concerned about the troops, he'd be complaining about the mission as defined and the ROE.

    In the last eighteen months, troops have been dying in Afghanistan in larger numbers, long before the Koran issue came up.

    Worrying about nits when the war is going to hell.


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  53. Bob: You're feeling shitty Miss T cause you're not getting enough sleep.

    I'm feeling shitty because I have the flu.

    But your comment about piss Christ and the Koran was good, I tweeted it.

    Rufus, you are correct, peak oil refers to production, and we might be there now, but currently demand is not exceeding production, because oil trades in the $70-$80 range instead of $140-$200.

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  54. Edward Pinto: "Here’s my proposal to bring Congress’s penchant for imprudent lending to a quick end: All congressional pension assets should be invested in funds backed solely by the high- risk loans mandated by federal housing legislation. I have a feeling that things would change fast."

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  55. From the Baja Arizona link above:

    “It is the job of government to manage the flow of money.”

    The above statement is one formulation of Lester Thurow's Third Way theme postulating a more aggressive role for government in free market capitalism.

    The article continues:

    We have done a really poor job of managing the flow of money in our country. It concentrated into Wall Street schemes. It flowed overseas. It went everywhere expect in creating employment here in America.

    It seems to me that (real) enforcement - as opposed to the cozy incestuous relationship that currently exists between the doers and the regulators - would do a lot to 'manage the flow of money.'

    Actually it isn’t the “government” that is the source of the misdirected money flow…it is the special interests who manipulate the government for their private gain without any regard for the broader societal benefits.

    This is where the Third Way thinking goes off the rails - every time, I might add, that Third Ways are proposed. This is the essence of an emerging theory going under the label of Creative Capitalism (google Bill Gates).

    'Broader societal benefits' as a corporate objective. Doesn't much matter whether or not it works - or makes sense. The Third Way is coming.

    The author goes on to suggest vision statements and win-win agendas to define 'social agendas' that escape the death trap of socialist labeling.

    I agree with his concluding statements:

    Republicans don’t have a positive agenda here.

    But neither do the Democrats.

    I would add neither does the Tea Party movement - without an intellectual foundation to give defined substance to the rebellion, it will remain nothing but a knee-jerk reaction to status quo policies.

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  56. Meanwhile, wretchard writes:

    The belief in statist solutions — Faith in the King and his court — is so great among Western elites that no amount of argument is likely to shake it.

    The debate cannot escape the either-or solution sets of the radical purists. Third Ways are dedicated elevators to hell.

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  57. Robert Reich: Stimulate Economy With 90% Tax On Top Earners

    (moron)

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