"The logjam here is the Security Council, and its archaic veto privileges for the 5 permanent members, essentially the victors of WW II who still make policy for the whole world."
Inequities left over from WWI fueled WWII, which left inequities that now fuel WWIII.
Less oil flows every year since 2005. Ergo, less food will be grown using diesel fuel. Lacking farm animals, food producers will turn to farm labor. Where will this labor come from? From homeless, unemployed.
Climate change reduces soil moisture at the latitudes where food is grown. Less food is grown. Whose children will go without? Those who can't fight back. Homeless, unemployed.
Romney's 'very poor' is a segment that increases ... before it decreases.
The one state solution is inevitable. A democratic state where all people have equal voting power is inevitable. It will be renamed Palestine. Ergo, "Israel" is doomed.
"Israel can only survive in some recognizable form if it achieves peace with the Palestinian people and with their supporters in the Muslim world, which means making arrangements for Palestinians to have citizenship in a state. "
Still, Iran's nuclear energy program will be lethal to Israel. As fossil fuels are depleted, nations that export petroleum will have cash, probably not dollar but real cash, and nations (Israel) that depend on the oil hog U.S. will lose influence to the point they are no longer able to pay their bills. When Israel can't pay its bills, it will cease to exist.
In education, we call these people "belligerent non-learners." They refuse to learn anything that upsets their world view. Fox News is the culprit in the sense it provides Republican belligerent non-learners with an excuse.
"It is silly to fight over territory. Tel Aviv is only 20 meters above sea level, and global warming will almost certainly produce a sea level rise of greater than that within two or three centuries,"
This explains why Ariel Sharon was so eager to dump Gaza and to move as many Palestinians as he could there.
Israel has no future. What we are seeing now is the last gasp of an illegitimate state. Collapse will be sudden, unexpected, and spectacular, and also about 5 minutes behind the collapse of the dollar.
We all need to read Gwynne Dyer's "Climate Wars." He can't predict the future, of course, but he does take a look at previous responses to famine and apply them to nations currently holding nuclear warheads.
The decision to create Israel was an emotional one, but the decision to abandon the Zionist experiment will be financial.
We simply cannot afford Israel.
The following is the full text of the Palestinian leadership's letter to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon requesting that Palestine be admitted as a member state of the United Nations.
"Excellency,
I have the profound honor, on behalf of the Palestinian people, to submit this application of the state of Palestine for admission to membership in the United Nations.
"This application for membership is being submitted on the Palestinian people's natural, legal and historic rights and based on United Nations General Assembly resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947 as well as the Declaration of Independence of the State of Palestine of 15 November 1988 and the acknowledgement by the General Assembly of this declaration in resolution 43/177 of 15 December 1988.
"In this connection, the state of Palestine affirms its commitment to the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the vision of two states living side by side in peace and security, as endorsed by the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly and the international community as a whole and based on international law and all relevant United Nations resolutions.
"For the purpose of this application for admission, a declaration made pursuant to rule 58 of the Provisional Rules of Procedure of the Security Council and rule 134 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Assembly is appended to this letter.
"I shall be grateful if you would transmit this letter of application and the declaration to the presidents of the Security Council and the General Assembly as soon as possible,
Mahmoud Abbas
President of the State of Palestine
Chairman of the Executive Committee of the
Palestine Liberation Organization."
"In fact, whether it succeeds or not, this sort of diplomatic push on the part of the Palestinians is salutary precisely because it reworks conflict as politics and international negotiation."
It seems that the Palestinians have 'grown up.' They no longer believe lies from strange people (Netanyahu et al), and rather than pitch a fit (Intifada), they appeal to the grownups next door. (UN)
I think it is just enough at exactly the right time. There have been periods in Palestine's history when the ruling superpowers have declined leaving a vacuum. During one such event, indigenous Semites rose up against their masters and created a new religion and a new kingdom. During a later period, Europeans with confused morals decreed the formation of Israel. Now we have a situation where Western powers decline and Eastern powers ascend. The first interval was on the order of 3500 years. The second interval about a century.
Palestine is seeking world recognition, which they will receive, and a forum to seek legal remedies against Israel. In almost every confrontation, Israel is wrong and without legal justification whereas Palestine is on the right side.
At some time in the near future, people outside Israel who support Israel will find it unwise to continue. When that happens, Israel will disappear from the sands of time.
"Had a Sunni regime come to power in Baghdad after Saddam that treated Sunnis decently, the Sunni insurgency might well never have gotten off the ground. It was Shiite rule that produced polarization. In Libya most people are Sunnis, so this consideration is largely absent."
Did this have anything to do with the Saddam era treatment of Shia's, or is it simply that Shiite rule is bloody whereas Sunni rule is not?
I would appreciate it greatly if you would not duly alarm the masses, most of whom think "The Day After Tomorrow" was climate science and are now even now planning to flee to the less-frozen Texas_Mexico border to escape the frozen wasteland that used to be New York City.
We in the US are still trying to figure out how to make our government work. For example, do the rules by which the Senate and House operate need to be changed? These rules are not part of the Constitution, but they affect our governing process on a daily basis. I imagine Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and ultimately Syria will have to deal with these questions, and they should be allowed enough time to do so.
Godwin's Rule may not be appropriate here, because Mr. Perry has many, oh so many, Patriotic, Religious and/or Simian beliefs, that there should be an inverse law that states, "The longer a thread ignores an obvious comparison to Hitler's methods, the more likely it is that said comparison is valid.
Bachman, Palin, Perry, (insert name of fruitcake here) are all shills for people who have real power/money. The Fruitcakes will do anything to get elected and say anything to please the, what shall I call them, the Bakers. The Bakers have ALEX writing state legislation to incarcerate practically anyone who speaks out against the government, except themselves, of course, and then to do slave labor for more profit. With Fruitcakes willing to do whatever it takes to be in office, expect the situation to worsen.
Since at least 20% of congress has taken the call to visit Israel and get thir marching orders from Likud/AIPAC, there is no possibility of having a Congress that deals with our real needs, such as an economy or a livable climate.
I really think the place to start is with Israel and the way its politics has crippled this nation.
I'm going to use [ to represent the less-than symbol, usually found above the comma, ( as in shift-, ), and ] to represent the greater-than symbol, usually above the period ( shift-. ).
Rick Perry looks like the thug in High Noon. Problem is, he acts like one too. Some of his pronouncements:
Texas will secede.
Pray for rain, but ignore global warming.
Turn down $555,000,000 stimulus money for unemployment insurance.
Support "intelligent design" in public schools. (Texas ranks 49th).
If W. was the smirking chimp, Perry would be the brutish gorilla.
The problem with political philosophies is that people start to believe them. Libertarianism, the idea that less or no government is better than too much government, has some merit, but only some. Democratic Socialism, the idea that the people will elect wise leaders and they will manage a government that tends to the needs of the people has some merit, probably more than complete laissez-faire capitalism only because it supposedly expresses the will of the people rather than the will of the factory owners.
None of these philosophies work; the best they can do is to provide a framework for understanding a current political situation and expressing a coherent near term strategy.
Two great myths need to be confronted. The first is that laissez-faire capitalism will make everybody wealthy. Everybody does not have the capacity to become wealthy, and this myth serves only to placate and subdue the laborers who shine shoes, as if by being part of the same team, they are somehow as worthy as the few billionaires. (Really Professor Cole, 200 of 400 are Jewish? Geez!) What really happens is that the vast majority of us become like Mayan peasants waiting for the priest to cut the heart from a prisoner to bring more rain. It's a lousy idea, it doesn't work, and we are fooled. Well, not me, but you.
The second great myth is that socialism is evil. Socialism is where people decide to let a non-profit, called the government, run the retirement system, the health car system, schools, transportation, etc. We still get to develop our own businesses, but not at the expense of the environment, our health, our minds or our freedoms. It is strange, and evil, that the main adversaries to "socialism" when we try to protect our environment are the coal and oil companies, when we try to protect out health are the for-profit health care businesses, our minds the for profit schools and religious nut christian brainwash factories such as Oral Roberts Law School, and our freedoms the private armies and prison, all of which themselves benefit from socialized infrastructure, tax breaks and government contracts.
So, the actual enemy of these privateers is socialism, because they are socialism at its worst, but healthy democratic socialism. It is typical of these demagogues to demonize a healthy idea by portraying it as the very thing they are doing.
There is a wild card in this deck. Unlike decades and centuries past when evil people could escape into the woodwork, we now have electronic storage where every single culprit can be identified and located. They literally have no place to run and nowhere to hide. right now, the vast electronic machine is used to spy on us, but like in Syria where there is no opposition leader because everyone now hates Assad, the surveillance of the people is rather pointless. Too much information but not enough focus. 'tis easier for us to keep track of them.
For some people, Star Trek was a way to escape. For others, it was a way to stay close to the present and to examine issues to hot to touch otherwise. Which do you suppose King Abdullah wants to do?
Many times when people give in to mass hysteria, it is those with outer-driven mores that do, i.e. the one who do as others do. It would seem the Muslims in particular and those with a more highly developed inner moral;ity in general would be least likely to riot.
I think the riots measure the degree to which a belief has crept in to common perception that says, "Lawlessness is the rule. Lawfulness is merely the perception ." I would think this is exacerbated by Rupert Murdoch's essentially lawless media empire. Note how the rioters are young enough to have their world view substantially influenced by Murdoch's media.
"The long term effect of these trends will certainly be the decline of the United States, which has already begun. And it will be a further decline in the standard of living of middle class people in the US. "
It's called demand destruction and it is necessary b/c the US uses 1/4 of the world's resources.
I fear the debate was a dog and pony show to serve two purposes. One was to offer our creditors a convincing argument that we should be allowed to borrow more because we will restrain government spending. The other was to justify higher interest rates during a prolonged economic slump.
Syrian politics are beyond my comprehension, but I do notice the increasing clout of Russia and China. What are we to do, tell Russia they can no longer sell natural gas to Europe, or forbid China to loan us any more money? All these nations (US and them) have major problems, but ours all relate to maintaining the fiction of international power when we borrow money to import oil, and theirs are the relics of prior authoritarian governments. They can reform and adapt; we can only pretend to refine more ethanol.
At some point in the future, these realities will come knocking on heave^H^H^H^H^H Israel's door.
We in the US have too much experience with the artificial worlds of computer generated action films, polling results oriented political posturing (triangulation), Faux news, outright bat-guano crazy in-name-only-TeaParty delusional rants, denial of basic science concepts such as heat and entropy, and so on.
To expect us to hold individuals accountable is too much of a cognitive shift right now; wait for oil prices to rise to the point where people in this country starve to death, then we might begin to escape out collective schizoid mindset and deal with real issues.
You discuss events that have historical significance, and your twitter followers are interested in that. You are not competing with the Newt and he not with you.
The Newt is competing with Sarah "I read everything halfway" Palin, who is competing with Lindsey "Train Wreck" Lohan and Brittany "Old and Tiresome Train Wreck" Spears. Their followers are interested in events of non-historical nature, unless you mean how many moans so and so had before faking an orgasm to be of historical context. Notice how I managed to avoid using the word 'hysterical.' That would have been too easy. Oh, what the hell, Newt and Sarah and Lindsay are of hysterical significance. So there, I succumbed.
The Great American Solution to liquid fuel depletion, to grow more corn and refine it into ethanol, is about as useful as planning a manned mission to Venus or Mars. All would result in death for all concerned.
Our energy future is going to be a lot like our energy past before petroleum was discovered, except with portable sound devices. Horses will be used for travel, the ratio of city dweller to farm worker will return to normal, except the farm workers will have internet access and be generally better off, better educated, and more civilized than the poor slob stuck in the cities, and when we use enormous quantities of heat energy to make things, we will make them to last because the energy will be available only on a limited basis and the walk into town to buy a new piece of refined and formed steel will be a day wasted that could have been spent farming.
Our energy independence will come about when we stop confusing wasting energy, "I'll give up my plasma TV when they pry it from my grubby, fat hands," for the freedom to walk instead of riding, to tell stories instead of watching canned laughter, to play the guitar instead of listening to sampled drob, and to eat healthy instead of high fructose corn syrup deep fried in corn oil.
We are not free now. When we are forced to live without wasting energy, then we might become free, if only we can stay out of the prison farms.
Just guessing, but the success of Islam in meeting the spiritual needs of its adherents might expose the overwhelming weaknesses of the entitlement oriented Christian and Jewish followers. Not all, just those whose religious identity says "I am special because I believe in ____."
My own religion, of course, is not so strained. Excuse me now while I bow down to the Great Noodly One.
Raised as a mainstream Christian, i.e. in one of the big three non-Anglican protestant churches, it took me a while to see Christianity with better vision. I guess you could say I was born again when I came to realize mainstream Christianity offers an improper bargain.
An improper bargain in this case is where the newly converted gains the powers of a godlike being, namely immortality and the ability to judge others to the point of deciding who is saved and who is not, merely by agreeing to "believe on" him. I have never quite figured out the difference between believing_on Jesus and believing_in Jesus, or merely believing Jesus, but I suspect it is more beatific to believe_on than to merely believe.
It is improper because by subverting human powers of reason, a person becomes less rather than more, and really should not be telling others whether they are saved or not.
I also suspect Jesus was a Buddhist, but that is a story for another day. Back to this diatribe....
So there we have all these people who willingly cripple their own mental abilities deciding they are thusly empowered to judge others. It's almost as bad as the special pleading that makes Judaism what it is today, namely 'special.'
So, whenever I encounter Muslims in America, and I do with increasing frequency, I see them as a third segment of the Judaical tradition, but less encumbered by the belief they are special. I tend to want to protect them from wackos like Glenn Beck, brutal low-lifes like Billie O'Reilly (who was obviously touched by the priesthood, if you know what I mean), and whatever Hannity thinks, if you can call his random mutterings actual thought. At least there are no Muslims in Bolivia where Douglas Feith wants to bomb them. Or Uruguay. Or Paraguay. One of the -guays.
Operating on the theory that Glenn Beck is too stupid to even know who the NSDAP was or what it did (He probably saw "socialist" and assumed it meant the same thing everywhere. Sounds like a "republican" to me.), it is possible he is then too stupid to know how hurtful his comment was.
In which case he was the mouthpiece for someone else, someone who fears the actuality of true, progressive youth socialist movements, much like today's Koch party despises the achievements of the ecological movement in the seventies that gave rise to the EPA and the Clean Water Acts.
A solution would be to work for more progressive youth camps, not fewer.
Glenn Beck is an eighth grade bully who got airtime thanks to his cruel morning DJ pranks, rose (rose?) beyond forgettable shock jock and Ron and Ron wannabe thanks to Rupert Murdoch's relentless drive to poison the airwaves, and is now seeking to reestablish himself through the same antics (see below) that got him noticed before.
Glenn Beck is stupid to realize he was Murdoch's tool whose main purpose was to make Hannity look intelligent and O'Reilly non-subhuman.
An apt solution for Glenn Beck would be a shame (sic) trial for Really stupid crimes against human decency culminating in closing arguments where the defense attorney dons fake intellectual glasses and says to the jury, "Come on guys," and then the prosecution wheels out a chalkboard where they draw two big circles writing "Glenn Beck" in one, "Dumber than monkey poop" in the other, and as the aud^H^H^H jury gasps, they draw a line between them, thus proving his guilt.
Faux Collegiate Footnote from Wikipedia
(21) <a href="^ a b c d e f Alexander Zaitchik (September 22, 2009). 'Glenn Beck becomes damaged goods; The radio phenom takes over the morning zoo, makes fun of miscarriages and flames out'. Salon Magazine."
The Irrelevance of the Knights in a Complex Society
Breivik yearns for return to a simpler black is black and Norway is white. That's not going to happen.
Fossil fuel extraction and combustion, does Norway have a hand in this and did Breivik benefit, has changed the climate. Peoples will migrate, many habitats will be lost while fewer will be gained, and the ones whose progeny survive to the next century will be the ones capable of embracing change and dealing with complexity.
Recent research has shown that in the US, "conservatives" have mindsets less capable of dealing with complexity than liberals. Makes sense, that's why they oppose changing perceptions even though their collective stupidity causes greater changes than liberals ecological conservation. Paradoxes galore, enough to make your brain hurt, and if your name is Breivik, enough to provoke a fantasy driven murderous rage.
Irony 101 Final Exam:
(True or False) The ability to embrace complexity and adapt to global ecological conservation will limits unavoidable anthropogenic changes that mandate adaptation to greater changes.
It would be nice of the United states of America had the reputation of decency throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and the Far East, where Islam is the majority religion, instead of being known through the inane behavior of our surrogate . (Or, are we theirs?)
Instead, our leadership is playing hide the credit card - except the bill has been run up and is now due.
It would be interesting to see a chart of how much violence is committed by different groups as a ratio of the violence effects (how many killed) to the population of those groups, with offensive violence (e.g. The US in Iraq or Israel in Gaza) in red, and defensive violence in blue.
Again, Step 1 is to obtain recognition. Step 2 is to use newly acquired status to seek judgments against Israel for theft of land, money, water. etc. Step 3 is to wait for Boehner and other US idiots to ruin the dollar, making the US vulnerable to the dictates of its creditors (who are then able to use their own financial resources to purchase crude oil), and finally UN Security Council can vote w/o a US veto protecting Israel.
"Would an actual Palestine be able to protect them? Looking at the PA I doubt it."
This is not logical. Do you demand that a state be able to protect its citizens while it is illegally occupied by a foreign power? Do you not see that recognition is the first of many steps required of Palestine to bring it to a position where it can protect its citizens? Do you not think that arguing against recognition, you are arguing for keeping the Palestinians stateless and defenseless?
"But there is another danger: as long as there is no state of Palestine, refugees stay where they are."
This completely illogical. Stateless people can be displaced with fewer obstacles than people living in a weak state.
"and considering what is actually left after what Israel carved out,"
Israel goofed by refusing to delineate its borders, preferring instead to adopt a posture of land theft by settler proxy. The real question is, What will be left of Israel after the economic engine of the illegal settlements and the economic boost of dual national residents is removed by the UN?"
It seems to me you use argument superficially protective of the Palestinian nation to weaken the Palestinian nation.
I think there is nothing that would inflame (in-Plame?? Sorry, inside joke) the "Greater Israel" mindset more than the reality that there exists millions of native Palestinians, because the "Greater Israel" mindset denies the existence of Palestinian people. It denies their humanity, their aspirations, their legitimacy, their existence and their right to exist, which is truly ironic because they demand these non-existent and illegitimate people recognize Israel's right to exist.
I think that Palestine should and will proceed to request recognition. To deny their recognition is to deny reality.
The reality is that Palestine today is the natural consequence of Palestinians living there for millennia, whereas Israel is an artificial nation created to assuage European guilt over their centuries of anti-Semitism.
If Israel is to be, then it has to be one nation among many, not the special exception it has been all along.
(The snarky fake html tags [Rupert Murdoch mode on] and [Rupert Murdoch mode off] did not appear 'cause I used angle brackets, which real html tags use, instead of square brackets.)
Here's an app someone needs to write: Individual news profiles, culled from multiple news sources, with microfees paid to those sources, printed on demand when the individual scans his pcd across the instant newspaper printer. Fees vary according to how much advertising is permitted according to the profile.
This way, you can get your Times, Guardian, Informed Comment and FDL along with only the parts of the WSJ that don't make you puke. I'm truly sorry for that last remark. Very sorry. So is my son James. We are both sorry. We apologize. YOU SOB - Get that pie out of my face! I'm truly sorry.
Electronic books are fabulously handy, indeterminably unstable and hence, unsustainable. Paper rots, but only slowly, whereas electronic storage disappears .... in a flash.
Besides, books, coffee, storytelling, community are all impossible or lesserly (sic) compatible with electronics.
I feel compelled to utter the phrase "Muammar Koch" due to the influence of their faux legislative advisory group and the ways it pollutes our state houses.
Continuing the meme that we get mostly lies from the government/Koch/Fox complex, John Mearsheimer has produced another book, this one about Lies. Money graf in the review by James Bovard: "Lies subvert democracy by crippling citizens’ ability to rein in government. Citizens are left clueless about perils until it is too late for the nation to pull back. "
Mearsheimer goes into detail about the organized lying machine known as the Office of Special Plans. "Special" in this case means "no contact with reality."
At this time, I think very few people understand what is going on in Syria. Hillary Clinton is gaining a clue, but since our intelligence services have been gutted and/or perverted to get info on Professor Cole or to corroborate Douglas Feith's delirium du jour, it is fair to wager that Putin and company have the advantage. Dosvedanya? (Russian for "You owe me no money.")
During the time Professor Cole was publishing facts about Iraq that conflicted with Bush/Cheney fantasies, the official version was that it would be a "cakewalk" costing no more than $50 billion.
We need to investigate the people who lied to us and bullied the independent press.
"The Tahrir Movement is divided over whether to challenge the military council that, behind the scenes, still ultimately rules the country. It rules through a civilian prime minister, Essam Sharaf, and his cabinet."
This is the kind of detail Prof. Cole provides regularly, and for which Bush's people had him targeted. It makes me furious that they launched a war on independent journalism, and it is just as bad as you would expect from the USSR, PRC, Cuba or Iran.
(at first glance, way off topic, but when I connect the dots, almost relevant)
The people who brought us climate catastrophe and endless, unnecessary wars that we cannot pay for, stolen elections and frankly bat-guano crazy Tea Party parrots, are now trying to permanently destroy the economy and the remnants of the middle class by forcing the US into an unnecessary default.
Let's be clear: The debt crisis is a phony as the Saddam-Al Qaeda link, and the four trillion dollars that war cost us is the reason for the problem now.
The US runs on debt. We buy petroleum on debt. If we default on anything, then we can no longer buy fuel or grow food, and only the Kochs will prosper.
(slightly off topic) If we, people who disdain bullying and respect truth, fail in this chance, now, to bring justice to Bush and Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith and Rumsfeld, and Murdoch and his staff liars, we probably won't get another chance.
Prof. Cole writes, "All I can figure is that the Bush White House was upset over my analysis of the course of the Iraq War, which it depicted as a bright and glorious enterprise. In contrast, I was simply trying as best I could from a distance to understand what exactly was happening in that country, using the Arabic press and my own sources on the ground. My depiction did not accord with theirs. " (emphasis added)
This is an understatement. Bush, the Lesser, was an unaccomplished, spoiled rich kid who, in a perfect world, would be relegated to gas station attendant, trainee. Cole's facts upset Bush's political sandbox. Bush et al should be tried for torture, and I'm not talking here about the pain and suffering of hearing him speak.
One can hope that as the world descends into chaos fueled by climate catastrophes about double what they would have been had Al Gore's victory been acknowledged, economic catastrophes caused directly by Bush's waste of Clinton's surplus, and a future where we all bow down to our Chinese landlords, that someone has the presence of mind top sharpen the pitchforks. Literally, if the legal process fails again to punish the children of privilege.
It is difficult to have a free press when there is one, overbearing, cancerous member of the press hell bent on destroying our freedoms, beginning with the freedom not to be bullied by bat-guano crazy commentators.
Murdoch's Fox News might be a cult, but it is (was) also like an HIV infection that destroys the very organs designed to prevent infection.
I guess that analysis reduces O-Reilly to a useless piece of DNA.
FactCheck.org would be the appropriate counter to balance Fox news because Fox is mostly lies and distortions.
Democracy is based on an informed population that votes. There is no organization today that does more to spread lies, conceal the truth (ignoring the anti-boycott law in Israel, for instance while offering continuing coverage of Casey Anthony) and confuse voters than Murdoch's media.
There is instability everywhere. Literally, political instability, economic instability, energy supply instability and climate instability. \
Climate instability reduces the carrying capacity which increases political and economic instability.
Energy supply instability curtails economic expansion, literally sounding a death knell to the political and economic vitality of western civilization.
The only solution is to embrace contraction.
Murdoch and the Kochs will not allow that.
Instability eventually causes catastrophe.
So, one guy gives up on making money selling fruit, he immolates himself and a country burns. Other countries follow. Neocons congratulate themselves, for what, I do not know, perhaps the tides.
Now we come to a bodyguard who may have just had too much of Karzai's whining, so he pops a cap in his head, then the entire continent goes on red alert.
The absurdity starts with the notion of a US influenced regime change and ends with all sorts of worry about whether it would be good for Israel.
I think the situation has spun out of control, and whatever political force takes over will likely influence everybody from Beirut to Baghdad. I have no idea what that might be, but it won't be good for Israel.
If this was about the hijackers, then we should have invaded Saudi Arabia. The bad logic at the time was we would attack them over there to keep them from attacking us here. I think there's a poem to that effect, paraphrasing Ronald Dumbsfeld.
The only thing attacking them over there has accomplished is to make the dollar worth much less, here, there, everywhere to the tune of four trillion dollars. I suspect that when the US finally allows UN Security Council action against Israel, it will be due the worthless dollar and our need to borrow.
If a four ton mammal sits on you, you probably would not quibble about whether it was an elephant or a rhinoceros, because you would be smothered dead.
An insane person would do completely random things that are real, real stupid just as a real, real stupid person could do real, real insane things. We're still dead.
I would rather call him a nut-job because that does a better job of explaining the decision to bomb the -guays.
Amy Goodman asks, "AMY GOODMAN: Where does Douglas Feith fit into this picture?" which might seem like a random question except for Feith's career track as resident nut-job at the Pentagon as Under-Secretary for Insane Military Action. Really.
If you don't believe me, Google on "Feith" and "Paraguay."
From a blog thusly found, "A slightly old story from Newsweek that is truly eye-opening. Apparently, there was a secret proposal down at the Pentagon to bomb sites in South American due to the dissatisfaction, in the wake of 9/11, of “good targets in Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, Neocon nutjob Douglas Feith had his fingerprints all over the brilliant idea to catch al Qaeda off guard by bombing suspected Hezbollah training grounds outside of Paraguay.
and as former CIA analysts Micheal Scheuer wrote in another site (Antiwar on May 2, 2008) Douglas Feith's War and Decision: Life in a Neocon's Parallel Universe
...
Feith's horse-opera-like script (Feith's missive 'War and Decision' purports to justify all the invasions, but sadly fails.) will be familiar to all who read this book, and it should have had a happy ending except for the fact that Feith, like all neoconservatives, lives in a parallel universe where he defines reality and only his ideas are valid, pure, and good for America.
And so, the decision to investigate why the White House (Feith et al) asked the CIA to violate its charter must be investigated, because the same nut-jobs who ruined our country's economy with their two trillion dollar cakewalk are still free men.
Yes, many thanks to Rachel Maddow, a journalist with a liberal viewpoint that I usually agree with, and kudos to Professor Cole for the metamorphosis of Informed comment from a strictly informative blog to one that now explicitly includes his viewpoint, which I am always interested in reading, but back in the day, when Shrub the Lesser tried to discredit Professor Cole, the blog was less political and mostly straight news from Arab language sources, and *that* is why he was attacked.
Let's be clear. The White house was not attacking a political viewpoint, the White was attacking an independent source of news.
Actually, we need an investigation into why Prof. Cole and his blog became targets because this blog was one of the most unbiased, informative and, well collegial reporting sites during the run-up to the war and the war itself.
We need an investigation into the decision to attack the free flow of information, and we need to dispense with the notion that since other people were also targets, they may also have been damaged.
And to oppose this blog is outrageous. There must be an investigation because when the truth is suppressed, then we no longer have any freedoms because the primary freedom is to perceive reality without interference.
Remember, these are the same people who torched Valerie Flame for petty politic purposes. They deserve nothing but hard time.
The whole system is caterwampus. You, professor Cole, are perceived as a war critic and a liberal. Stephen Colbert said that reality has a liberal bias.
This blog has always been a source of relatively unbiased information. The only people giving it a political slant are the lying liars who resent the way your blog provides information that gets in the way of their delusions.
It makes no sense until you consider that fear drives conservatives, and protection from perceived threats is all they seek, even if the protection is to be feared more than the threat they conjure. Enter the Koch brothers to fuel the idiocy.
The NY Times article called you a critic of the war. The facts and reason were critical of the war, and all you did was present them.
This is more egregious than trying to silence a war protester. Your blog was a more credible source of information than anything else (not hyperbole), and the Bush admin was trying to prevent a free press in the truest sense of the word.
There should be an investigation, followed of course by trials, conviction and pardon.
I know you mean well and have nice credentials, but there are such serious errors in your column that I can no longer allow them to go unchallenged.
You state, "Second, the US covert activities in Pakistan have become public and are unpopular among the public, just as the US would not react positively to being spied on, bombed and having rogue operations go bad on city streets– all by even a close ally. as if the US can be compared to any other nation.
Perhaps you should consult with Sarah Palin or Rick Santorum. They know. They will tell you that The US is the greatest nation in the world! We do not ask other nations for permission to act with impunity on their soil, they ask us for permission to be invaded, because The US is the greatest nation in the world!
I feel very strongly that you should consider your remarks very carefully before posting again, and like Sarah Palin, I feel other things too!
It's too bad Douglas Feith has gone onto other enterprises, for he could have sent US troops to Bolivia, or one of the -guays!!!!
(This has been a satire)
PS Abortions are bad, starving nursing mothers is good.
Yes, most of our reps and more than a few senators are twits who do what they are told to do say what they are told to say, and all for the glory of being congressmen.
From the Saw this coming down Broadway Department, "Let's be frank. He tries to be the big hot dog but he's just a little piece of artifical casing with meat by products."
At least now we have had a chance to see what a fine job AIPAC has done stuffing Congress with their weiner-types who say on national TV, "Yes, I'm telling the truth today and I haven't been for several days. Now I have to go back to work (making our nation's laws).
What if Syrian President Assad went on national tv and said, "You know, guys, I made an improper bargain a few years ago and now it's haunting me. I mean, I thought I could be civil like those people in London where I was studying medicine, and still be president with my father's old friends in place. Well, we all know how that turned out, so I'm going to turn control over to a democratic coalition of all Syrian people and assume leadership of one of many parties. I think we will all do better if I try to be a medium sized fish in a very big pond rather than the big fish in a mud puddle."
Or, perhaps in Syria's neighbor, Israel, if the opposition parties got their act together and said, "It's true that the pro-Israel lobby has undo influence in American politics, but we want Israel to last and that won't happen if our stranglehold on Congress continues, so we are now going to tell every senator and congressman that we will support them no matter how they vote on the Palestine independence movement."
Well, one of these could never happen. AIPAC's death grip on Congress is forever.
From all that I have read, a 2 degree C rise would make most of the planet too hot to support agriculture, and it was chosen several years ago, before the full impacts were understood, as a reasonable attainable level. IIRC, 2 degrees C correlates to 450 ppm.
Here are some of the problems:
We (planet) are already at or have just passed the carrying capacity based on arable land and fossil fuels. This means disruptions in the weather or in fuel/fertilizer will send significant populations into famine. With last year's wheat harvest destructions in Australia and Russia, and this year's disaster, which is still unfolding, in the American Midwest, more people will face food insecurity this year.
Dmitry Orlov characterized excess deaths (mortality above the average rates for a cohort): Unless you work in a morgue, you don't see it as it happens, but one year you go to a class reunion and you realize many of your classmates are gone.
so, we might not even see the excess deaths until several years after the fact just as we could not see peak oil when it occurred in 2005, but only the effect on the economy/housing market/debt system in 2008.
All this from just one half a degree (F) warming.
There is the problem of cascading effects. When one system breaks, the ones dependent on it may also break. We do not know how many instances of death via starvation this will cause.
At some point, the non-linear effects will kick in. Take sea level rise. When the wet process of glacier disintegration accelerates, then this previously untabulated cause of sea level rise (because scientists do not know how to quantify it, they do not include it in their calculations) becomes a major factor. Hundreds millions more displaced onto non-arable land.
It just gets worserer and worserer.
So, all the dismal projections are based on linear effects, but the larger non-linear effects are not figured in because we do not know how to do so.
So, the promise exists that the THREE TRILLION DOLLAR global war on terror can now wind down significantly. Too bad that Republicans, Neo-cons, war mongers and Joseph Lieberman suffered from collective ADD and could not focus on bin Laden, choosing instead to squander america's resources on Israel's proxy wars on Iraq (oil exporting nation) and Iran (oil exporting nation).
If our phony defense minded Republicans et al had been able to keep bin laden in their sights, oil would be less expensive, the dollar more valuable, and the world less dangerous for travel.
It sounds like the primary purpose if the mission was to stop bin Laden, and to capture him if possible was secondary. Does anybody seriously have a problem with that?
It is beginning to emerge that the significance of the bin Laden (what word to use - termination?) is prima facie evidence that Barack Obama does what GWB could not or would not do. In one case it is to face up to the health care problem, which is essentially an economics growth problem and if you don't believe me, read up on W. Edwards Deming and why the US could not duplicate the Japanese industrial advances. In other cases it is to restore diplomatic relations with the rest of the world, and the Tea Party nonsense that Obama is ruining the same makes about as much sense as a list of the accomplishments of Sarah Palin's second term as governor.
Obama has followed through on the mission to terminate the mastermind of the 9-11 attacks on this country. Now, if only he will follow through on the more difficult job of removing American forces from places where they are neither want, needed, nor effective.
If he can do this, then his slogan for re-election is simple: Obama walks where the others merely talk.
The Donald was not amused, which in itself is very funny.
I waited for the symbiont living on top of his head to come alive and turn Obama into a Jaffa warrior. Did not happen.
But seriously folks, when you get old, you lose your hair and you are not afraid to show a little baldy on top. Lack of hair did not keep Joe Biden out of the White House, and if Trump were "an adult," he would lose the vanity.
Does the concept of sphere of influence apply here? If so, Syria is Turkey's primary concern. Can anybody envisage like minded governments in Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and (who am I forgetting? Oh yes!) Palestine. If so, Hezbollah and Hamas could put their guns back into the closet and pay attention to politics, food, water and trade.
"The logjam here is the Security Council, and its archaic veto privileges for the 5 permanent members, essentially the victors of WW II who still make policy for the whole world."
Inequities left over from WWI fueled WWII, which left inequities that now fuel WWIII.
I suspect this crisis is beyond the comprehension of everyone who is not directly involved.
I came to this conversation late, so briefly:
Less oil flows every year since 2005. Ergo, less food will be grown using diesel fuel. Lacking farm animals, food producers will turn to farm labor. Where will this labor come from? From homeless, unemployed.
Climate change reduces soil moisture at the latitudes where food is grown. Less food is grown. Whose children will go without? Those who can't fight back. Homeless, unemployed.
Romney's 'very poor' is a segment that increases ... before it decreases.
Evil man.
The one state solution is inevitable. A democratic state where all people have equal voting power is inevitable. It will be renamed Palestine. Ergo, "Israel" is doomed.
"Israel can only survive in some recognizable form if it achieves peace with the Palestinian people and with their supporters in the Muslim world, which means making arrangements for Palestinians to have citizenship in a state. "
Israel is doomed.
Still, Iran's nuclear energy program will be lethal to Israel. As fossil fuels are depleted, nations that export petroleum will have cash, probably not dollar but real cash, and nations (Israel) that depend on the oil hog U.S. will lose influence to the point they are no longer able to pay their bills. When Israel can't pay its bills, it will cease to exist.
Assad might be especially susceptible to an indictment if he still identifies with his time in London.
Here's a cheery thought, Saudi's, who control 12% of world petroleum production, are challenged by witchcraft.
A pox on the House of Saud!
In education, we call these people "belligerent non-learners." They refuse to learn anything that upsets their world view. Fox News is the culprit in the sense it provides Republican belligerent non-learners with an excuse.
Fail!
"It is silly to fight over territory. Tel Aviv is only 20 meters above sea level, and global warming will almost certainly produce a sea level rise of greater than that within two or three centuries,"
This explains why Ariel Sharon was so eager to dump Gaza and to move as many Palestinians as he could there.
Israel has no future. What we are seeing now is the last gasp of an illegitimate state. Collapse will be sudden, unexpected, and spectacular, and also about 5 minutes behind the collapse of the dollar.
We all need to read Gwynne Dyer's "Climate Wars." He can't predict the future, of course, but he does take a look at previous responses to famine and apply them to nations currently holding nuclear warheads.
The decision to create Israel was an emotional one, but the decision to abandon the Zionist experiment will be financial.
We simply cannot afford Israel.
It might be a good time to provide the Syrian youth with scopes, ammo and a large number of 50 BMG sniper rifles.
....except Israel would forbid it.
I feel a musical coming on, or perhaps a sit-com. "The Not-quite-good-enough terrorists."
Theme song: "Springtime for Ahmed"
Homs? Dude!
Obama's new slogan:
"Yes we can, but we won't."
The following is the full text of the Palestinian leadership's letter to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon requesting that Palestine be admitted as a member state of the United Nations.
"Excellency,
I have the profound honor, on behalf of the Palestinian people, to submit this application of the state of Palestine for admission to membership in the United Nations.
"This application for membership is being submitted on the Palestinian people's natural, legal and historic rights and based on United Nations General Assembly resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947 as well as the Declaration of Independence of the State of Palestine of 15 November 1988 and the acknowledgement by the General Assembly of this declaration in resolution 43/177 of 15 December 1988.
"In this connection, the state of Palestine affirms its commitment to the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the vision of two states living side by side in peace and security, as endorsed by the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly and the international community as a whole and based on international law and all relevant United Nations resolutions.
"For the purpose of this application for admission, a declaration made pursuant to rule 58 of the Provisional Rules of Procedure of the Security Council and rule 134 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Assembly is appended to this letter.
"I shall be grateful if you would transmit this letter of application and the declaration to the presidents of the Security Council and the General Assembly as soon as possible,
Mahmoud Abbas
President of the State of Palestine
Chairman of the Executive Committee of the
Palestine Liberation Organization."
There are some very smart people in Homs.
It is time for all Europeans to leave Palestine. Palestine is everything between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.
"In fact, whether it succeeds or not, this sort of diplomatic push on the part of the Palestinians is salutary precisely because it reworks conflict as politics and international negotiation."
It seems that the Palestinians have 'grown up.' They no longer believe lies from strange people (Netanyahu et al), and rather than pitch a fit (Intifada), they appeal to the grownups next door. (UN)
I think it is just enough at exactly the right time. There have been periods in Palestine's history when the ruling superpowers have declined leaving a vacuum. During one such event, indigenous Semites rose up against their masters and created a new religion and a new kingdom. During a later period, Europeans with confused morals decreed the formation of Israel. Now we have a situation where Western powers decline and Eastern powers ascend. The first interval was on the order of 3500 years. The second interval about a century.
Palestine is seeking world recognition, which they will receive, and a forum to seek legal remedies against Israel. In almost every confrontation, Israel is wrong and without legal justification whereas Palestine is on the right side.
At some time in the near future, people outside Israel who support Israel will find it unwise to continue. When that happens, Israel will disappear from the sands of time.
(note to self: Read, print, study, prepare to discuss amongst selves.)
Thank you Professor Cole for a more reality based, less emotional and self-serving discussion of the events of September 11, 2001 and the aftermath.
Explosive revelation! This makes GWB complicit in Qaddafi's crimes, and he in his.
"Had a Sunni regime come to power in Baghdad after Saddam that treated Sunnis decently, the Sunni insurgency might well never have gotten off the ground. It was Shiite rule that produced polarization. In Libya most people are Sunnis, so this consideration is largely absent."
Did this have anything to do with the Saddam era treatment of Shia's, or is it simply that Shiite rule is bloody whereas Sunni rule is not?
Professor Cole,
I would appreciate it greatly if you would not duly alarm the masses, most of whom think "The Day After Tomorrow" was climate science and are now even now planning to flee to the less-frozen Texas_Mexico border to escape the frozen wasteland that used to be New York City.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thanks to you, we stay informed.
You forgot that new segment, "Will the terrorist float?"
We in the US are still trying to figure out how to make our government work. For example, do the rules by which the Senate and House operate need to be changed? These rules are not part of the Constitution, but they affect our governing process on a daily basis. I imagine Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and ultimately Syria will have to deal with these questions, and they should be allowed enough time to do so.
Godwin's Rule may not be appropriate here, because Mr. Perry has many, oh so many, Patriotic, Religious and/or Simian beliefs, that there should be an inverse law that states, "The longer a thread ignores an obvious comparison to Hitler's methods, the more likely it is that said comparison is valid.
Perry thinks it will rain in Texas. He says, "It always does."
The National Weather Service disagrees.
Providence does not like Rick Perry.
Shades of "Comical Ali?" (Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf)
Bachman, Palin, Perry, (insert name of fruitcake here) are all shills for people who have real power/money. The Fruitcakes will do anything to get elected and say anything to please the, what shall I call them, the Bakers. The Bakers have ALEX writing state legislation to incarcerate practically anyone who speaks out against the government, except themselves, of course, and then to do slave labor for more profit. With Fruitcakes willing to do whatever it takes to be in office, expect the situation to worsen.
Since at least 20% of congress has taken the call to visit Israel and get thir marching orders from Likud/AIPAC, there is no possibility of having a Congress that deals with our real needs, such as an economy or a livable climate.
I really think the place to start is with Israel and the way its politics has crippled this nation.
This just in, The Libyan Interior Minister has decided to visit Cairo, Egypt, for a holiday.
You have a couple of non-functioning links. Here's how to insert a link into the comment box:
Let's say the link is to http://www.weather.gov
I'm going to use [ to represent the less-than symbol, usually found above the comma, ( as in shift-, ), and ] to represent the greater-than symbol, usually above the period ( shift-. ).
You would type
[a href="www.weather.gov"] link to http://www.weather.gov [/a]
Feith and Luti? What, no Wolfowitz?
Rick Perry looks like the thug in High Noon. Problem is, he acts like one too. Some of his pronouncements:
Texas will secede.
Pray for rain, but ignore global warming.
Turn down $555,000,000 stimulus money for unemployment insurance.
Support "intelligent design" in public schools. (Texas ranks 49th).
If W. was the smirking chimp, Perry would be the brutish gorilla.
The problem with political philosophies is that people start to believe them. Libertarianism, the idea that less or no government is better than too much government, has some merit, but only some. Democratic Socialism, the idea that the people will elect wise leaders and they will manage a government that tends to the needs of the people has some merit, probably more than complete laissez-faire capitalism only because it supposedly expresses the will of the people rather than the will of the factory owners.
None of these philosophies work; the best they can do is to provide a framework for understanding a current political situation and expressing a coherent near term strategy.
Two great myths need to be confronted. The first is that laissez-faire capitalism will make everybody wealthy. Everybody does not have the capacity to become wealthy, and this myth serves only to placate and subdue the laborers who shine shoes, as if by being part of the same team, they are somehow as worthy as the few billionaires. (Really Professor Cole, 200 of 400 are Jewish? Geez!) What really happens is that the vast majority of us become like Mayan peasants waiting for the priest to cut the heart from a prisoner to bring more rain. It's a lousy idea, it doesn't work, and we are fooled. Well, not me, but you.
The second great myth is that socialism is evil. Socialism is where people decide to let a non-profit, called the government, run the retirement system, the health car system, schools, transportation, etc. We still get to develop our own businesses, but not at the expense of the environment, our health, our minds or our freedoms. It is strange, and evil, that the main adversaries to "socialism" when we try to protect our environment are the coal and oil companies, when we try to protect out health are the for-profit health care businesses, our minds the for profit schools and religious nut christian brainwash factories such as Oral Roberts Law School, and our freedoms the private armies and prison, all of which themselves benefit from socialized infrastructure, tax breaks and government contracts.
So, the actual enemy of these privateers is socialism, because they are socialism at its worst, but healthy democratic socialism. It is typical of these demagogues to demonize a healthy idea by portraying it as the very thing they are doing.
There is a wild card in this deck. Unlike decades and centuries past when evil people could escape into the woodwork, we now have electronic storage where every single culprit can be identified and located. They literally have no place to run and nowhere to hide. right now, the vast electronic machine is used to spy on us, but like in Syria where there is no opposition leader because everyone now hates Assad, the surveillance of the people is rather pointless. Too much information but not enough focus. 'tis easier for us to keep track of them.
Pitchforks anyone?
For some people, Star Trek was a way to escape. For others, it was a way to stay close to the present and to examine issues to hot to touch otherwise. Which do you suppose King Abdullah wants to do?
I forgot to add ...
Many times when people give in to mass hysteria, it is those with outer-driven mores that do, i.e. the one who do as others do. It would seem the Muslims in particular and those with a more highly developed inner moral;ity in general would be least likely to riot.
I think the riots measure the degree to which a belief has crept in to common perception that says, "Lawlessness is the rule. Lawfulness is merely the perception ." I would think this is exacerbated by Rupert Murdoch's essentially lawless media empire. Note how the rioters are young enough to have their world view substantially influenced by Murdoch's media.
"The long term effect of these trends will certainly be the decline of the United States, which has already begun. And it will be a further decline in the standard of living of middle class people in the US. "
It's called demand destruction and it is necessary b/c the US uses 1/4 of the world's resources.
I fear the debate was a dog and pony show to serve two purposes. One was to offer our creditors a convincing argument that we should be allowed to borrow more because we will restrain government spending. The other was to justify higher interest rates during a prolonged economic slump.
Syrian politics are beyond my comprehension, but I do notice the increasing clout of Russia and China. What are we to do, tell Russia they can no longer sell natural gas to Europe, or forbid China to loan us any more money? All these nations (US and them) have major problems, but ours all relate to maintaining the fiction of international power when we borrow money to import oil, and theirs are the relics of prior authoritarian governments. They can reform and adapt; we can only pretend to refine more ethanol.
At some point in the future, these realities will come knocking on heave^H^H^H^H^H Israel's door.
We in the US have too much experience with the artificial worlds of computer generated action films, polling results oriented political posturing (triangulation), Faux news, outright bat-guano crazy in-name-only-TeaParty delusional rants, denial of basic science concepts such as heat and entropy, and so on.
To expect us to hold individuals accountable is too much of a cognitive shift right now; wait for oil prices to rise to the point where people in this country starve to death, then we might begin to escape out collective schizoid mindset and deal with real issues.
You discuss events that have historical significance, and your twitter followers are interested in that. You are not competing with the Newt and he not with you.
The Newt is competing with Sarah "I read everything halfway" Palin, who is competing with Lindsey "Train Wreck" Lohan and Brittany "Old and Tiresome Train Wreck" Spears. Their followers are interested in events of non-historical nature, unless you mean how many moans so and so had before faking an orgasm to be of historical context. Notice how I managed to avoid using the word 'hysterical.' That would have been too easy. Oh, what the hell, Newt and Sarah and Lindsay are of hysterical significance. So there, I succumbed.
The Great American Solution to liquid fuel depletion, to grow more corn and refine it into ethanol, is about as useful as planning a manned mission to Venus or Mars. All would result in death for all concerned.
Our energy future is going to be a lot like our energy past before petroleum was discovered, except with portable sound devices. Horses will be used for travel, the ratio of city dweller to farm worker will return to normal, except the farm workers will have internet access and be generally better off, better educated, and more civilized than the poor slob stuck in the cities, and when we use enormous quantities of heat energy to make things, we will make them to last because the energy will be available only on a limited basis and the walk into town to buy a new piece of refined and formed steel will be a day wasted that could have been spent farming.
Our energy independence will come about when we stop confusing wasting energy, "I'll give up my plasma TV when they pry it from my grubby, fat hands," for the freedom to walk instead of riding, to tell stories instead of watching canned laughter, to play the guitar instead of listening to sampled drob, and to eat healthy instead of high fructose corn syrup deep fried in corn oil.
We are not free now. When we are forced to live without wasting energy, then we might become free, if only we can stay out of the prison farms.
Just guessing, but the success of Islam in meeting the spiritual needs of its adherents might expose the overwhelming weaknesses of the entitlement oriented Christian and Jewish followers. Not all, just those whose religious identity says "I am special because I believe in ____."
My own religion, of course, is not so strained. Excuse me now while I bow down to the Great Noodly One.
Raised as a mainstream Christian, i.e. in one of the big three non-Anglican protestant churches, it took me a while to see Christianity with better vision. I guess you could say I was born again when I came to realize mainstream Christianity offers an improper bargain.
An improper bargain in this case is where the newly converted gains the powers of a godlike being, namely immortality and the ability to judge others to the point of deciding who is saved and who is not, merely by agreeing to "believe on" him. I have never quite figured out the difference between believing_on Jesus and believing_in Jesus, or merely believing Jesus, but I suspect it is more beatific to believe_on than to merely believe.
It is improper because by subverting human powers of reason, a person becomes less rather than more, and really should not be telling others whether they are saved or not.
I also suspect Jesus was a Buddhist, but that is a story for another day. Back to this diatribe....
So there we have all these people who willingly cripple their own mental abilities deciding they are thusly empowered to judge others. It's almost as bad as the special pleading that makes Judaism what it is today, namely 'special.'
So, whenever I encounter Muslims in America, and I do with increasing frequency, I see them as a third segment of the Judaical tradition, but less encumbered by the belief they are special. I tend to want to protect them from wackos like Glenn Beck, brutal low-lifes like Billie O'Reilly (who was obviously touched by the priesthood, if you know what I mean), and whatever Hannity thinks, if you can call his random mutterings actual thought. At least there are no Muslims in Bolivia where Douglas Feith wants to bomb them. Or Uruguay. Or Paraguay. One of the -guays.
There, I feel better now.
Operating on the theory that Glenn Beck is too stupid to even know who the NSDAP was or what it did (He probably saw "socialist" and assumed it meant the same thing everywhere. Sounds like a "republican" to me.), it is possible he is then too stupid to know how hurtful his comment was.
In which case he was the mouthpiece for someone else, someone who fears the actuality of true, progressive youth socialist movements, much like today's Koch party despises the achievements of the ecological movement in the seventies that gave rise to the EPA and the Clean Water Acts.
A solution would be to work for more progressive youth camps, not fewer.
Here's the link
Glenn Beck is an eighth grade bully who got airtime thanks to his cruel morning DJ pranks, rose (rose?) beyond forgettable shock jock and Ron and Ron wannabe thanks to Rupert Murdoch's relentless drive to poison the airwaves, and is now seeking to reestablish himself through the same antics (see below) that got him noticed before.
Glenn Beck is stupid to realize he was Murdoch's tool whose main purpose was to make Hannity look intelligent and O'Reilly non-subhuman.
An apt solution for Glenn Beck would be a shame (sic) trial for Really stupid crimes against human decency culminating in closing arguments where the defense attorney dons fake intellectual glasses and says to the jury, "Come on guys," and then the prosecution wheels out a chalkboard where they draw two big circles writing "Glenn Beck" in one, "Dumber than monkey poop" in the other, and as the aud^H^H^H jury gasps, they draw a line between them, thus proving his guilt.
Faux Collegiate Footnote from Wikipedia
(21) <a href="^ a b c d e f Alexander Zaitchik (September 22, 2009). 'Glenn Beck becomes damaged goods; The radio phenom takes over the morning zoo, makes fun of miscarriages and flames out'. Salon Magazine."
limit
The Irrelevance of the Knights in a Complex Society
Breivik yearns for return to a simpler black is black and Norway is white. That's not going to happen.
Fossil fuel extraction and combustion, does Norway have a hand in this and did Breivik benefit, has changed the climate. Peoples will migrate, many habitats will be lost while fewer will be gained, and the ones whose progeny survive to the next century will be the ones capable of embracing change and dealing with complexity.
Recent research has shown that in the US, "conservatives" have mindsets less capable of dealing with complexity than liberals. Makes sense, that's why they oppose changing perceptions even though their collective stupidity causes greater changes than liberals ecological conservation. Paradoxes galore, enough to make your brain hurt, and if your name is Breivik, enough to provoke a fantasy driven murderous rage.
Irony 101 Final Exam:
(True or False) The ability to embrace complexity and adapt to global ecological conservation will limits unavoidable anthropogenic changes that mandate adaptation to greater changes.
Will Jennifer Rubin post an apology, now that we know the terrorist was a Zionist? I don't think so, as she lack basic decency herself.
It would be nice of the United states of America had the reputation of decency throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and the Far East, where Islam is the majority religion, instead of being known through the inane behavior of our surrogate . (Or, are we theirs?)
Instead, our leadership is playing hide the credit card - except the bill has been run up and is now due.
It would be interesting to see a chart of how much violence is committed by different groups as a ratio of the violence effects (how many killed) to the population of those groups, with offensive violence (e.g. The US in Iraq or Israel in Gaza) in red, and defensive violence in blue.
Again, Step 1 is to obtain recognition. Step 2 is to use newly acquired status to seek judgments against Israel for theft of land, money, water. etc. Step 3 is to wait for Boehner and other US idiots to ruin the dollar, making the US vulnerable to the dictates of its creditors (who are then able to use their own financial resources to purchase crude oil), and finally UN Security Council can vote w/o a US veto protecting Israel.
But step 1 is to obtain status.
"Would an actual Palestine be able to protect them? Looking at the PA I doubt it."
This is not logical. Do you demand that a state be able to protect its citizens while it is illegally occupied by a foreign power? Do you not see that recognition is the first of many steps required of Palestine to bring it to a position where it can protect its citizens? Do you not think that arguing against recognition, you are arguing for keeping the Palestinians stateless and defenseless?
"But there is another danger: as long as there is no state of Palestine, refugees stay where they are."
This completely illogical. Stateless people can be displaced with fewer obstacles than people living in a weak state.
"and considering what is actually left after what Israel carved out,"
Israel goofed by refusing to delineate its borders, preferring instead to adopt a posture of land theft by settler proxy. The real question is, What will be left of Israel after the economic engine of the illegal settlements and the economic boost of dual national residents is removed by the UN?"
It seems to me you use argument superficially protective of the Palestinian nation to weaken the Palestinian nation.
I think there is nothing that would inflame (in-Plame?? Sorry, inside joke) the "Greater Israel" mindset more than the reality that there exists millions of native Palestinians, because the "Greater Israel" mindset denies the existence of Palestinian people. It denies their humanity, their aspirations, their legitimacy, their existence and their right to exist, which is truly ironic because they demand these non-existent and illegitimate people recognize Israel's right to exist.
I think that Palestine should and will proceed to request recognition. To deny their recognition is to deny reality.
The reality is that Palestine today is the natural consequence of Palestinians living there for millennia, whereas Israel is an artificial nation created to assuage European guilt over their centuries of anti-Semitism.
If Israel is to be, then it has to be one nation among many, not the special exception it has been all along.
Guillotine! Guillotine!
[Charlie Sheen mode on]
No, I am not crazy.
(The snarky fake html tags [Rupert Murdoch mode on] and [Rupert Murdoch mode off] did not appear 'cause I used angle brackets, which real html tags use, instead of square brackets.)
[Charlie Sheen mode off]
Here's an app someone needs to write: Individual news profiles, culled from multiple news sources, with microfees paid to those sources, printed on demand when the individual scans his pcd across the instant newspaper printer. Fees vary according to how much advertising is permitted according to the profile.
This way, you can get your Times, Guardian, Informed Comment and FDL along with only the parts of the WSJ that don't make you puke. I'm truly sorry for that last remark. Very sorry. So is my son James. We are both sorry. We apologize. YOU SOB - Get that pie out of my face! I'm truly sorry.
Electronic books are fabulously handy, indeterminably unstable and hence, unsustainable. Paper rots, but only slowly, whereas electronic storage disappears .... in a flash.
Besides, books, coffee, storytelling, community are all impossible or lesserly (sic) compatible with electronics.
I feel compelled to utter the phrase "Muammar Koch" due to the influence of their faux legislative advisory group and the ways it pollutes our state houses.
It would seem that for once, the tactic of going after the money is the most effective.
"In fact, there is evidence from defectors that Qaddafi is running out of commanders."
So is Rupert Murdoch.
Continuing the meme that we get mostly lies from the government/Koch/Fox complex, John Mearsheimer has produced another book, this one about Lies. Money graf in the review by James Bovard: "Lies subvert democracy by crippling citizens’ ability to rein in government. Citizens are left clueless about perils until it is too late for the nation to pull back. "
Mearsheimer goes into detail about the organized lying machine known as the Office of Special Plans. "Special" in this case means "no contact with reality."
At this time, I think very few people understand what is going on in Syria. Hillary Clinton is gaining a clue, but since our intelligence services have been gutted and/or perverted to get info on Professor Cole or to corroborate Douglas Feith's delirium du jour, it is fair to wager that Putin and company have the advantage. Dosvedanya? (Russian for "You owe me no money.")
The cost of the unnecessary war in Iraq has been estimated at Four Trillion Dollars.
During the time Professor Cole was publishing facts about Iraq that conflicted with Bush/Cheney fantasies, the official version was that it would be a "cakewalk" costing no more than $50 billion.
We need to investigate the people who lied to us and bullied the independent press.
"The Tahrir Movement is divided over whether to challenge the military council that, behind the scenes, still ultimately rules the country. It rules through a civilian prime minister, Essam Sharaf, and his cabinet."
This is the kind of detail Prof. Cole provides regularly, and for which Bush's people had him targeted. It makes me furious that they launched a war on independent journalism, and it is just as bad as you would expect from the USSR, PRC, Cuba or Iran.
(at first glance, way off topic, but when I connect the dots, almost relevant)
The people who brought us climate catastrophe and endless, unnecessary wars that we cannot pay for, stolen elections and frankly bat-guano crazy Tea Party parrots, are now trying to permanently destroy the economy and the remnants of the middle class by forcing the US into an unnecessary default.
Let's be clear: The debt crisis is a phony as the Saddam-Al Qaeda link, and the four trillion dollars that war cost us is the reason for the problem now.
The US runs on debt. We buy petroleum on debt. If we default on anything, then we can no longer buy fuel or grow food, and only the Kochs will prosper.
(this just in)
Cheney had no military service - but he did have a dishonorable discharge! Think about it.
(slightly off topic) If we, people who disdain bullying and respect truth, fail in this chance, now, to bring justice to Bush and Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith and Rumsfeld, and Murdoch and his staff liars, we probably won't get another chance.
Prof. Cole writes, "All I can figure is that the Bush White House was upset over my analysis of the course of the Iraq War, which it depicted as a bright and glorious enterprise. In contrast, I was simply trying as best I could from a distance to understand what exactly was happening in that country, using the Arabic press and my own sources on the ground. My depiction did not accord with theirs. " (emphasis added)
This is an understatement. Bush, the Lesser, was an unaccomplished, spoiled rich kid who, in a perfect world, would be relegated to gas station attendant, trainee. Cole's facts upset Bush's political sandbox. Bush et al should be tried for torture, and I'm not talking here about the pain and suffering of hearing him speak.
One can hope that as the world descends into chaos fueled by climate catastrophes about double what they would have been had Al Gore's victory been acknowledged, economic catastrophes caused directly by Bush's waste of Clinton's surplus, and a future where we all bow down to our Chinese landlords, that someone has the presence of mind top sharpen the pitchforks. Literally, if the legal process fails again to punish the children of privilege.
It is difficult to have a free press when there is one, overbearing, cancerous member of the press hell bent on destroying our freedoms, beginning with the freedom not to be bullied by bat-guano crazy commentators.
Murdoch's Fox News might be a cult, but it is (was) also like an HIV infection that destroys the very organs designed to prevent infection.
I guess that analysis reduces O-Reilly to a useless piece of DNA.
FactCheck.org would be the appropriate counter to balance Fox news because Fox is mostly lies and distortions.
Democracy is based on an informed population that votes. There is no organization today that does more to spread lies, conceal the truth (ignoring the anti-boycott law in Israel, for instance while offering continuing coverage of Casey Anthony) and confuse voters than Murdoch's media.
There is instability everywhere. Literally, political instability, economic instability, energy supply instability and climate instability. \
Climate instability reduces the carrying capacity which increases political and economic instability.
Energy supply instability curtails economic expansion, literally sounding a death knell to the political and economic vitality of western civilization.
The only solution is to embrace contraction.
Murdoch and the Kochs will not allow that.
Instability eventually causes catastrophe.
So, one guy gives up on making money selling fruit, he immolates himself and a country burns. Other countries follow. Neocons congratulate themselves, for what, I do not know, perhaps the tides.
Now we come to a bodyguard who may have just had too much of Karzai's whining, so he pops a cap in his head, then the entire continent goes on red alert.
And *that* is what instability means.
The absurdity starts with the notion of a US influenced regime change and ends with all sorts of worry about whether it would be good for Israel.
I think the situation has spun out of control, and whatever political force takes over will likely influence everybody from Beirut to Baghdad. I have no idea what that might be, but it won't be good for Israel.
If this was about the hijackers, then we should have invaded Saudi Arabia. The bad logic at the time was we would attack them over there to keep them from attacking us here. I think there's a poem to that effect, paraphrasing Ronald Dumbsfeld.
The only thing attacking them over there has accomplished is to make the dollar worth much less, here, there, everywhere to the tune of four trillion dollars. I suspect that when the US finally allows UN Security Council action against Israel, it will be due the worthless dollar and our need to borrow.
Does Israel do this to the people of Gaza because they hate them, because they enjoy inflicting pain, or because they need to feel superior?
Professor Cole, this is what you do best. You inform. Thank you!
If a four ton mammal sits on you, you probably would not quibble about whether it was an elephant or a rhinoceros, because you would be smothered dead.
An insane person would do completely random things that are real, real stupid just as a real, real stupid person could do real, real insane things. We're still dead.
I would rather call him a nut-job because that does a better job of explaining the decision to bomb the -guays.
Amy Goodman asks, "AMY GOODMAN: Where does Douglas Feith fit into this picture?" which might seem like a random question except for Feith's career track as resident nut-job at the Pentagon as Under-Secretary for Insane Military Action. Really.
If you don't believe me, Google on "Feith" and "Paraguay."
From a blog thusly found, "A slightly old story from Newsweek that is truly eye-opening. Apparently, there was a secret proposal down at the Pentagon to bomb sites in South American due to the dissatisfaction, in the wake of 9/11, of “good targets in Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, Neocon nutjob Douglas Feith had his fingerprints all over the brilliant idea to catch al Qaeda off guard by bombing suspected Hezbollah training grounds outside of Paraguay.
and as former CIA analysts Micheal Scheuer wrote in another site (Antiwar on May 2, 2008) Douglas Feith's War and Decision: Life in a Neocon's Parallel Universe
...
Feith's horse-opera-like script (Feith's missive 'War and Decision' purports to justify all the invasions, but sadly fails.) will be familiar to all who read this book, and it should have had a happy ending except for the fact that Feith, like all neoconservatives, lives in a parallel universe where he defines reality and only his ideas are valid, pure, and good for America.
And so, the decision to investigate why the White House (Feith et al) asked the CIA to violate its charter must be investigated, because the same nut-jobs who ruined our country's economy with their two trillion dollar cakewalk are still free men.
If Qaddafi had allowed people in Misrata peacefully to assemble, as is their right, instead of training tank turrets on them, there would be no war.
Ditto Assad.
Yes, many thanks to Rachel Maddow, a journalist with a liberal viewpoint that I usually agree with, and kudos to Professor Cole for the metamorphosis of Informed comment from a strictly informative blog to one that now explicitly includes his viewpoint, which I am always interested in reading, but back in the day, when Shrub the Lesser tried to discredit Professor Cole, the blog was less political and mostly straight news from Arab language sources, and *that* is why he was attacked.
Let's be clear. The White house was not attacking a political viewpoint, the White was attacking an independent source of news.
Actually, we need an investigation into why Prof. Cole and his blog became targets because this blog was one of the most unbiased, informative and, well collegial reporting sites during the run-up to the war and the war itself.
We need an investigation into the decision to attack the free flow of information, and we need to dispense with the notion that since other people were also targets, they may also have been damaged.
To which I must add,
And to oppose this blog is outrageous. There must be an investigation because when the truth is suppressed, then we no longer have any freedoms because the primary freedom is to perceive reality without interference.
Remember, these are the same people who torched Valerie Flame for petty politic purposes. They deserve nothing but hard time.
The whole system is caterwampus. You, professor Cole, are perceived as a war critic and a liberal. Stephen Colbert said that reality has a liberal bias.
This blog has always been a source of relatively unbiased information. The only people giving it a political slant are the lying liars who resent the way your blog provides information that gets in the way of their delusions.
It makes no sense until you consider that fear drives conservatives, and protection from perceived threats is all they seek, even if the protection is to be feared more than the threat they conjure. Enter the Koch brothers to fuel the idiocy.
The NY Times article called you a critic of the war. The facts and reason were critical of the war, and all you did was present them.
This is more egregious than trying to silence a war protester. Your blog was a more credible source of information than anything else (not hyperbole), and the Bush admin was trying to prevent a free press in the truest sense of the word.
There should be an investigation, followed of course by trials, conviction and pardon.
Juan,
I know you mean well and have nice credentials, but there are such serious errors in your column that I can no longer allow them to go unchallenged.
You state, "Second, the US covert activities in Pakistan have become public and are unpopular among the public, just as the US would not react positively to being spied on, bombed and having rogue operations go bad on city streets– all by even a close ally. as if the US can be compared to any other nation.
Perhaps you should consult with Sarah Palin or Rick Santorum. They know. They will tell you that The US is the greatest nation in the world! We do not ask other nations for permission to act with impunity on their soil, they ask us for permission to be invaded, because The US is the greatest nation in the world!
I feel very strongly that you should consider your remarks very carefully before posting again, and like Sarah Palin, I feel other things too!
It's too bad Douglas Feith has gone onto other enterprises, for he could have sent US troops to Bolivia, or one of the -guays!!!!
(This has been a satire)
PS Abortions are bad, starving nursing mothers is good.
Yes, most of our reps and more than a few senators are twits who do what they are told to do say what they are told to say, and all for the glory of being congressmen.
From the Saw this coming down Broadway Department, "Let's be frank. He tries to be the big hot dog but he's just a little piece of artifical casing with meat by products."
At least now we have had a chance to see what a fine job AIPAC has done stuffing Congress with their weiner-types who say on national TV, "Yes, I'm telling the truth today and I haven't been for several days. Now I have to go back to work (making our nation's laws).
Just a couple of whacky ideas I'd like to share:
What if Syrian President Assad went on national tv and said, "You know, guys, I made an improper bargain a few years ago and now it's haunting me. I mean, I thought I could be civil like those people in London where I was studying medicine, and still be president with my father's old friends in place. Well, we all know how that turned out, so I'm going to turn control over to a democratic coalition of all Syrian people and assume leadership of one of many parties. I think we will all do better if I try to be a medium sized fish in a very big pond rather than the big fish in a mud puddle."
Or, perhaps in Syria's neighbor, Israel, if the opposition parties got their act together and said, "It's true that the pro-Israel lobby has undo influence in American politics, but we want Israel to last and that won't happen if our stranglehold on Congress continues, so we are now going to tell every senator and congressman that we will support them no matter how they vote on the Palestine independence movement."
Well, one of these could never happen. AIPAC's death grip on Congress is forever.
From all that I have read, a 2 degree C rise would make most of the planet too hot to support agriculture, and it was chosen several years ago, before the full impacts were understood, as a reasonable attainable level. IIRC, 2 degrees C correlates to 450 ppm.
Here are some of the problems:
We (planet) are already at or have just passed the carrying capacity based on arable land and fossil fuels. This means disruptions in the weather or in fuel/fertilizer will send significant populations into famine. With last year's wheat harvest destructions in Australia and Russia, and this year's disaster, which is still unfolding, in the American Midwest, more people will face food insecurity this year.
Dmitry Orlov characterized excess deaths (mortality above the average rates for a cohort): Unless you work in a morgue, you don't see it as it happens, but one year you go to a class reunion and you realize many of your classmates are gone.
so, we might not even see the excess deaths until several years after the fact just as we could not see peak oil when it occurred in 2005, but only the effect on the economy/housing market/debt system in 2008.
All this from just one half a degree (F) warming.
There is the problem of cascading effects. When one system breaks, the ones dependent on it may also break. We do not know how many instances of death via starvation this will cause.
At some point, the non-linear effects will kick in. Take sea level rise. When the wet process of glacier disintegration accelerates, then this previously untabulated cause of sea level rise (because scientists do not know how to quantify it, they do not include it in their calculations) becomes a major factor. Hundreds millions more displaced onto non-arable land.
It just gets worserer and worserer.
So, all the dismal projections are based on linear effects, but the larger non-linear effects are not figured in because we do not know how to do so.
So, the promise exists that the THREE TRILLION DOLLAR global war on terror can now wind down significantly. Too bad that Republicans, Neo-cons, war mongers and Joseph Lieberman suffered from collective ADD and could not focus on bin Laden, choosing instead to squander america's resources on Israel's proxy wars on Iraq (oil exporting nation) and Iran (oil exporting nation).
If our phony defense minded Republicans et al had been able to keep bin laden in their sights, oil would be less expensive, the dollar more valuable, and the world less dangerous for travel.
But it's not us they care about, is it?
It sounds like the primary purpose if the mission was to stop bin Laden, and to capture him if possible was secondary. Does anybody seriously have a problem with that?
It is beginning to emerge that the significance of the bin Laden (what word to use - termination?) is prima facie evidence that Barack Obama does what GWB could not or would not do. In one case it is to face up to the health care problem, which is essentially an economics growth problem and if you don't believe me, read up on W. Edwards Deming and why the US could not duplicate the Japanese industrial advances. In other cases it is to restore diplomatic relations with the rest of the world, and the Tea Party nonsense that Obama is ruining the same makes about as much sense as a list of the accomplishments of Sarah Palin's second term as governor.
Obama has followed through on the mission to terminate the mastermind of the 9-11 attacks on this country. Now, if only he will follow through on the more difficult job of removing American forces from places where they are neither want, needed, nor effective.
If he can do this, then his slogan for re-election is simple: Obama walks where the others merely talk.
Raw Story reports that Trump called Seth Meyers a stutterer, to which I think Meyers could remark about Trump,
"L-l-l-oser."
The Donald was not amused, which in itself is very funny.
I waited for the symbiont living on top of his head to come alive and turn Obama into a Jaffa warrior. Did not happen.
But seriously folks, when you get old, you lose your hair and you are not afraid to show a little baldy on top. Lack of hair did not keep Joe Biden out of the White House, and if Trump were "an adult," he would lose the vanity.
7. Turkey vs. Iran
Iran needs to worry about Iran.
Does the concept of sphere of influence apply here? If so, Syria is Turkey's primary concern. Can anybody envisage like minded governments in Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and (who am I forgetting? Oh yes!) Palestine. If so, Hezbollah and Hamas could put their guns back into the closet and pay attention to politics, food, water and trade.
Now, *that* would be a solution.