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."

Friday, January 21, 2011

Obama's Winning Play




You do not become President of China by being lucky or the result of a political sequence of events that puts you in the right plave at the right time. Media does not make political decisions in China. The Chinese sent a four time super bowl winning quarterback and we fielded a cheerleader. What do you think happened?


_______________________


Chinese Tiger ate US Dove for lunch

Last Updated: 9:09 AM, January 21, 2011
Posted: 2:18 AM, January 21, 2011
WASHINGTON -- Who did you think would come out on top if you put a tiger and a dove in the same room together to work out their differences?
Yes, those were white bird feathers sticking out of the tiger's mouth at the lavish state dinner hosted by President Obama at the White House this week.
President Hu Jintao is a Tiger Leader. That's kind of like a Tiger Mother, only less nurturing and more demanding.
President Obama is a Dove Leader. He speaks endlessly and carries no stick. And he likes to do a lot of bowing and scraping. Kind of like the way Hu Jintao likes to do a lot of not smiling.
If you see all that together in one room, bet on the Tiger.
But even a Dove like Obama will manage to emerge with something. In this case, he escaped with his vocal chords unscathed.
And he is still talking.
He is talking all about what a great deal he got us while doing his little humble shtick.
He is crowing about $45 billion in US exports he got China to agree to. That doesn't exactly close the more than $250 billion in trade deficits we rack up against the communist state each year.
Nearly half of the total value of those trade deals -- $19 billion -- is for aircraft from Boeing that China had already agreed to purchase as part of a larger deal going back to 2007. That was more than a year before the Dove Leader had even landed in our midst.
And Obama said he really busted Hu's chops over his country's unfettered piracy of everything from designer handbags to software to drugs to sophisticated electronic gadgetry that American companies have plowed billions upon billion of dollars of research and development into -- only to have rogue companies in places like China rip them off and flood the market with cheap goods.
For years, of course, China has denied many of the accusations of intellectual-property theft while at the same time claiming to crack down on the stealing.
Then came Hu's big concession to Obama -- perfectly illustrating his country's regard for intellectual property. Hu promised he would try to get his own government agencies to quit using pirated software.
His OWN GOVERNMENT AGENCIES???
You call this a concession?
No, that is called complete bamboozlement.
The other hot topic of negotiation was currency manipulation, and, apparently, Hu was not up for any lectures from the leader of a country so perilously drowning in debt and unable to quit recklessly spending money it does not have.
No specific "deals" were offered in that department.
And Obama is talking about how he really wagged his finger in Hu's face over China's human-rights record.
To be certain, Hu surprised many -- and surely caused the Dove Leader's heart to flutter -- by admitting that his country could do more in the area of human rights. But those are nothing more than words, and they did not spring a single freedom-loving dissident from a Chinese prison.
It was, at least, a baby step in the right direction.
Quick! Someone alert the Nobel Prize Committee that it needs to award President Hu Jintao of China the Peace Prize for all the great acts of respect for human freedom that he has as yet not quite fulfilled but surely will!
Or, perhaps, such awards are handed out on credit only to Dove Leaders, never Tigers.

65 comments:

  1. After meeting Hu, President Obama said:

    The positive, constructive, cooperative U.S.-China relationship is good for the United States. We just had a very good meeting with the business leaders from both our countries. They pointed out that China is one of the top markets for American exports.

    We’re now exporting more than $100 billion a year in goods and services to China, which supports more than half a million American jobs. In fact, our exports to China are growing nearly twice as fast as our exports to the rest of the world, making it a key part of my goal of doubling American exports and keeping America competitive in the 21st century.


    Obam neglected to mention Chinese exports to the US.

    ReplyDelete
  2. In 2009 we imported $296 billion from China.
    Let's do the math:

    *Obama claims US exports to China at $100 billion equals a plus 500,000 of US jobs. That means $200,000 worth of trade for one job.

    *So if we take $296 billion in Chinese imports at the same $200,000 per job we have the loss of 1,480,000 US jobs.

    Add the two and we have a net loss of 980,000 jobs.

    Good thing we have so many stupid voters in the US.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ash said...

    "and they can't float debt to cover that deficit."

    ---

    Exactly.
    But Rufus picks and chooses his "facts," turning the basket case that is California into another minor problem.

    ...as he said would be the mortgage meltdown back when I first posted "New Centuries" woes.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm back online, yay!

    But now I gotta get firefox.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ash said...

    "In a "normal bankruptcy" the pensioners usually take a haircut. In the States case they'd be bald. I wonder if they'd win a legal suit based on the contract and the States ability to pay being 'unlimited' given their ability to tax.

    What do you do with all those old poor folk with no pension? It isn't like they neglected to plan for it.
    "

    ---

    Yeah, I think in terms of retired teachers who had 83k/yr in benefits, and LA City Workers raking in more than 100k/yr in retirement.

    I would cut, not eliminate some of that.

    But I have no idea what will actually be done.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'll sacrifice 200,000 jobs sewing shirts if we can have 50,000 jobs assembling jets.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The Blogger user whit has invited you to contribute to the blog: The Elephant Bar.

    . . .

    Blog Invitation Error

    We could not find the invitation you requested. Please confirm that you copied the exact URL that was sent to you by email.

    If you continue to have problems responding to invitations, please contact Blogger Support.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Bob as a 1000 yr old mad man who raped and murdered his daughter? A rotted corpse of a human being before he was ever dead? A sadist. A masochist. A power-drunk monster, lover and executioner of the living?

    Yeah, I can see that.

    I already had that thought about the daughter anyway.

    Bob to Quirk recently: I love to blow your brains out.

    A few days later, as has been the case countless times of late, it occurred to me that that can be read two ways.

    But I digress.




    "They didn't go to the police. They handled it themselves."

    And I've said to myself, "I bet they did."



    But for real horror I think you can't beat the notion of evil, not as a corpse, not as a mad man, not as a hideous, snarling, giggling freak of nature, but as cool, calm, unsmilingly serious and outwardly respectable. And completely unaware of its own nature.

    Evil that does not know itself.




    Oh, yeah...

    China.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Just thinking of you, T:

    Have you read anything by Rita Mae Brown?

    She's a writer from the South who happens to be a lesbo.

    Wife's read all her books.

    I always remember "Brocoli Detweiler" a character in her early works.

    Think she mostly writes books involving cats these days.

    ReplyDelete
  10. "You shut up or I'll knock your lips down your throat, Broccoli Detwiler."

    lol

    ReplyDelete
  11. Rubyfruit Jungle

    "As the story begins, we meet Molly, a seven year-old girl living in Coffee Hollow, Pennsylvania, a small town just outside the town of York.

    Molly recalls a September day when she was walking home from school with her friend Brockhurst Detwiler a boy she calls Broccoli.

    As they walk, Broccoli announces that he needs to urinate and asks Molly if she wants to watch.

    Molly notices that Broccoli's penis is uncircumcised. Molly has never seen an uncircumcised penis and decides that she and Broccoli can make money by showing it to the other children.

    They spread the word at school the next day and by the time they head home that evening, they are fifty-five cents richer. This continues for the remainder of the week.

    At one point, one of the girls....."

    ReplyDelete
  12. Or rather like a good spy: Evil as the last person on earth you would ever suspect. Outwardly unmemorable.






    I dreamed of suicide. Not my own.

    Double barrel shotgun.

    In the bed of a pickup truck, I do believe.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Doug, have I ever read Rita Mae Brown. Have I ever read the lesbian "Huckleberry Finn" aka Rubyfruit Jungle? That's like asking Bob if he ever read something about Near Death Experiences.

    That's like asking Mel if she knows anything about Pisces.

    That's like asking Rufus if he knows that nuclear power can crack the shale oil nut.

    Dude, it's me.

    ReplyDelete
  14. How could a rube dude like me have known that?

    ReplyDelete
  15. "Trish, you have basically accused me of the rape and murder of my own daughter."

    And fine literature it makes. Bob.

    ReplyDelete
  16. "Trish, please, you're nuts..."

    I'm a lot of things.

    I'm just not that thing.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Whit , don't delete, move to spam.

    ReplyDelete
  18. And, yes. I'm a slow reader. Always have been.

    But I am used to the straightforward and literal.

    Quirk is titillated by intentional ambiguity in language. By deliberate and deceptive duality.

    He has a thing for ambiguity. Period.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I am referring to that which I tanked into the spam cesspool.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Thanks ever so much, Blue, for making it appear as though I'm talking to myself.

    What a gag.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I think, Deuce, you are falling for the false sex interest of Melody.

    With all this nonsense about slander.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Red, I understand the frustration. On one level I would prefer you did not engage him at all, but I do enjoy most of your responses which would eviscerate a normal human being, but he appears to be bloodless.

    I am appalled that I once considered him an asset.

    ReplyDelete
  23. "I am appalled that I once considered him an asset."

    Oh, I can imagine the smile.

    ReplyDelete
  24. You are a bully, a misogynist. Anytime you tried this with a man on this blog you crawled away whimpering, slinging your snot and blood, the Smeagol and Gollum whining for your precious.

    ReplyDelete
  25. I don't need the infantile obsessive fantasy of false hope and digital delusion. When I want a woman, I get a real one.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Very nice job on Aquarius, Mel.

    It's too bad that the tread deteriorated the way it did. But then, they all seem to don't they? Everyone seems lucid for a while then, "Here's Johnny" and it's like redrum, redrum all over again.

    ReplyDelete
  27. I vote we bring back the frogs.

    Where is the strong but never silent, John Wayne when we need him?

    ReplyDelete
  28. Thanks Whit.

    It is a shame. But that seems to be the pattern these days.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Your Type is
    ENTJ

    Strength of the preferences %
    Extraverted 1
    Intuitive 31
    Thinking 1
    Judging 11

    ReplyDelete
  30. Oh yeah, that's you alright.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Extraverted = 11

    Sensing = 1 I think

    Feeling = 11 I think

    Perceiving = 44

    ReplyDelete
  32. I was slightly for the first two and moderate for the second two.

    I can't believe I didn't save that page

    ReplyDelete
  33. TRADEMARK: -- "I'm really sorry you have to die." (I realize this is an overstatement. However, most Fs and other gentle souls usually chuckle knowingly at this description.)

    Now that is funny.


    But I can see you being the rest.

    ReplyDelete
  34. I took that once, came out INTP, but maybe I'm different now.

    ReplyDelete
  35. I also think it corresponds, in a way, to my right brain thinking.

    ReplyDelete
  36. I took it about a year ago and it was the same then as it is now. I thought that was interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  37. You're an introvert. I don't think I would have guessed that.

    ReplyDelete
  38. If you saw me spend all day stashing e-books onto floppy disks you would call me introverted.

    ReplyDelete
  39. INTPs are relatively easy-going and amenable to almost anything until their principles are violated, about which they may become outspoken and inflexible. They prefer to return, however, to a reserved albeit benign ambiance, not wishing to make spectacles of themselves.



    I think this is you.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Now that I don't have to use my computer at work I can admire Mel's pictures for more than a half-second.

    ReplyDelete
  41. I'm glad I could please you, T.

    It's funny I prefer a photo of a woman's body over a man's. Of course it has to be precise beauty. It's hard to come by a man of beauty. They are few and far between.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Art of Noise - Moments in Love

    You should be having sex while listening to this song.

    ReplyDelete
  43. You know what I have notice on this blog that I normally don't see elsewhere. Most of the time there is only a two person conversation.

    I find that odd.

    ReplyDelete
  44. I'll see your Norah Jones and raise Loquat

    ReplyDelete
  45. I also find it odd that there is a 100 on my vodka bottle.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Oh, I see Rufus was back on topic while we were kicked back in the corner.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Rufus is always on a topic. He has an Aquarian mind always trying to invent something.

    ReplyDelete
  48. I've watched and listened to that Norah Jones video about four times now.

    ReplyDelete
  49. The talent and beauty she possesses is so breathtaking.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Especially for someone so young to be that talented.

    ReplyDelete
  51. I could just watch her videos all day. She just mesmerizes me.

    I use her music for my candle lit baths.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Mel you're so feminine. It really is a shame the things that BOB said, most of which I missed, fortunately.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Thanks T. I am not anything near of what he says. If you do catch any of it please don't believe it. It's not true.

    ReplyDelete