In the list of other winners of the prize, commentaries on President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech never mention one of those other winners, Dr. Henry Kissinger, who succeeded in extending the Vietnam War by a number of years resulting in many thousands of Vietnamese and American deaths.
In Dr. Kissinger’s case that result fits well with the gentleman’s program of significantly reducing world population, so that the resources the US requires are located in unpopulated or thinly populated areas.
Liberals expressing disappointment with President Obama’s performance are being very selective in their memory. Candidate Obama promised to intensify the war in Afghanistan, and to start a new war, in Pakistan, which is going very nicely, thank you.
In his acceptance speech President Obama praised what Bernard Shaw called the Armorer, the creator of weapons, to be sold freely to all customers, and to all sides in all wars, in this case Mr. Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. No one forces you to buy weapons or use them.
But the world is full of weapons, not all of them obvious. George Orwell warns in Down and Out in Paris and London that the waiter may spit in your soup, but the waiter can do more than spit. Sprinkling ground bamboo would have roughly the same result as the DIME weapons used in Gaza, shredding of the inner organs. Very painful. Not good.
Talk of rights, human or animal, is a waste of time and breath except as a cover for other agenda. None of us can demonstrate a right to exist in the first place, let alone three meals a day; the gift of life comes without deserving of any kind. When Polonius says to Hamlet I shall give them what they deserve, Hamlet’s reply is worth remembering: Much better, man! If we all got what we deserve, who would escape whipping?
For the super rich, the movers and shakers, a world with a sufficient number of hotel workers, bar tenders, golf caddies, and ladies of the night is required, and the huge crowds of people everywhere are surplus to requirements.
But the super rich, such as Senator Kerry of Massachusetts, who has more of his own private funds in US military support companies than any other member of Congress, (which, one assumes, is why photos of President Karzai so often have Senator Kerry at his shoulder, protecting his investments) are never entirely safe. Tsunamis are no respecters of luxury hotels, the wife or mistress may be plotting one’s demise, and the rabble are everywhere, requiring increasing numbers to police them. One’s life and fortune remain largely in the hands of others.
That may also have the seeds of an answer to the dilemma. Perhaps Auden was right: We must love one another or die. That requires active concern for the well being of others. Nothing else will do it.
Dec 12, 2009
Dec 9, 2009
Climate change, a note for the perplexed
Because of the lead times involved climate change has long passed its tipping point; nothing we can do will change what happens in the next fifty years and whatever we do will benefit, if anyone, our great great grandchildren.
To the deniers and paid hacks, one word is sufficient “Nome.” A ship arrived in Nome, Alaska this summer, having passed through the fabled Northwest Passage, open for the first time ever, linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
Ice at the Arctic is all first year ice, i.e., laid down this season. The vast packs of ice laid down in previous centuries have disappeared. Sea level rise in the Bay of Bengal is already double the average rise world wide. The lake forming at the tip of one of the main Himalayan glaciers will destroy most of Nepal, and perhaps the mountain kingdom of Bhutan, when it bursts.
Those taking part in the current scam on the emails hacked from the university of East Anglia’s computers, typical funded scientists maneuvers (and traced, interestingly, to a central computer complex in Siberia; if the calculation is that the population of all the Russias can withstand the floods and storms and droughts of climate change better than the Americans, they’re onto a winner.) are welcome to take the hacked emails round to all the folks whose houses are slipping off cliffs; perhaps it will cheer them up.
The Copenhagen meeting is an exercise in futility. The delegation of African countries has already agreed they’ll withdraw entirely if they don’t get what they want, which they won’t. India is shaping up as the main spoiler, using all its fabled skills, and will accept no enforced limits at all; in their defense it has to be admitted that the US with five per cent of world population, consuming twenty five per cent of world resources and creating thirty percent of world pollution for many years, are mainly responsible for a situation the Indians are refusing to pay for.
Don’t be led astray by the cold winter we’re about to get; the cold Pacific currents generated by the alternating El Nino/La Nina are probably the driving force, but Arctic cores containing bubbles of the air of the time have allowed a fairly accurate picture that this is what is to be expected.
(Note as of September, 2010: Warm air holds more moisture than cold air, and warm oceans evaporate more liquid than cold ones; even a first year high school science student should be able to work out that after the warmest three months on record, precipitation in the coming winter is also likely to be a record.)
Good luck. We'll all need lots of that.
To the deniers and paid hacks, one word is sufficient “Nome.” A ship arrived in Nome, Alaska this summer, having passed through the fabled Northwest Passage, open for the first time ever, linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
Ice at the Arctic is all first year ice, i.e., laid down this season. The vast packs of ice laid down in previous centuries have disappeared. Sea level rise in the Bay of Bengal is already double the average rise world wide. The lake forming at the tip of one of the main Himalayan glaciers will destroy most of Nepal, and perhaps the mountain kingdom of Bhutan, when it bursts.
Those taking part in the current scam on the emails hacked from the university of East Anglia’s computers, typical funded scientists maneuvers (and traced, interestingly, to a central computer complex in Siberia; if the calculation is that the population of all the Russias can withstand the floods and storms and droughts of climate change better than the Americans, they’re onto a winner.) are welcome to take the hacked emails round to all the folks whose houses are slipping off cliffs; perhaps it will cheer them up.
The Copenhagen meeting is an exercise in futility. The delegation of African countries has already agreed they’ll withdraw entirely if they don’t get what they want, which they won’t. India is shaping up as the main spoiler, using all its fabled skills, and will accept no enforced limits at all; in their defense it has to be admitted that the US with five per cent of world population, consuming twenty five per cent of world resources and creating thirty percent of world pollution for many years, are mainly responsible for a situation the Indians are refusing to pay for.
Don’t be led astray by the cold winter we’re about to get; the cold Pacific currents generated by the alternating El Nino/La Nina are probably the driving force, but Arctic cores containing bubbles of the air of the time have allowed a fairly accurate picture that this is what is to be expected.
(Note as of September, 2010: Warm air holds more moisture than cold air, and warm oceans evaporate more liquid than cold ones; even a first year high school science student should be able to work out that after the warmest three months on record, precipitation in the coming winter is also likely to be a record.)
Good luck. We'll all need lots of that.
Dec 8, 2009
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
Before the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen opened, the African delegation had already agreed to leave the conference if their minimum goals were ignored. The secret text agreed by the UK, US, and Denmark leaked on Tuesday December 8, 2009 suggests the decisions have been made before the conference starts.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/08/copenhagen-climate-summit-disarray-danish-text
"The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role in all future climate change negotiations.
The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.
The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as "the circle of commitment" – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalized this week.
The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol's principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.
The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as "a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks".
A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries also seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:
• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;
• Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called "the most vulnerable";
• Weaken the UN's role in handling climate finance;
• Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.
Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.
"It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process," said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.
Antonio Hill, climate policy adviser for Oxfam International, said: "This is only a draft but it highlights the risk that when the big countries come together, the small ones get hurting. On every count the emission cuts need to be scaled up. It allows too many loopholes and does not suggest anything like the 40% cuts that science is saying is needed."
Hill continued: "It proposes a green fund to be run by a board but the big risk is that it will run by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility [a partnership of 10 agencies including the World Bank and the UN Environment Programme] and not the UN. That would be a step backwards, and it tries to put constraints on developing countries when none were negotiated in earlier UN climate talks."
The text was intended by Denmark and rich countries to be a working framework, which would be adapted by countries over the next week. It is particularly inflammatory because it sidelines the UN negotiating process and suggests that rich countries are desperate for world leaders to have a text to work from when they arrive next week.
Few numbers or figures are included in the text because these would be filled in later by world leaders. However, it seeks to hold temperature rises to 2C and mentions the sum of $10bn a year to help poor countries adapt to climate change from 2012-15."
Not quite the same shambles as the previous climate change conference in 2007 (see Bali Climate Change conference at http://wahyusamputra.blogspot.com/2008/02/ecologists-will-probably-remember-this.html) but in its way a worthy successor.
"It's an incredibly imbalanced text intended to subvert, absolutely and completely, two years of negotiations. It does not recognize the proposals and the voice of developing countries." Lumumba Stanislaus Dia Ping, the Sudanese ambassador to the Group of 77 developing countries, speaking of a leaked document known as the "Danish text" which proposes measures to keep average global temperature rises to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
"The document, subtitled "The Copenhagen Agreement," has driven an even deeper wedge between rich and poor countries embroiled in UN climate talks in Copenhagen, CNN reports. The UN body hosting the talks has played down the document's importance, stressing that it is an "informal paper" put forward by the Danish prime minister.
"This was an informal paper ahead of the conference given to a number of people for the purposes of consultations. The only formal texts in the UN process are the ones tabled by the Chairs of this Copenhagen conference at the behest of the Parties," said Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
"Around 15,000 delegates are meeting daily in Copenhagen as they seek to form a global agreement on climate change. Next week they will be joined by around 100 heads of state to form a final deal, if negotiations in the coming days succeed in closing the gap between rich and poor nations.
"The "Danish text" proposes "developed country parties commit to deliver upfront public financing for 2010-201[2] corresponding on average to [10] billion USD annually for early action, capacity building, technology and strengthening adaptation and mitigation readiness in developing countries." The draft text also proposes that the money is distributed by a "Climate Fund" by a board with "balanced representation."
"Charity group Oxfam says the Danish text risked sidelining poorer countries as the world seeks to reduce global carbon emissions. "Like ants in a room full of elephants poor countries are at risk of been squeezed out of the climate talks in Copenhagen," said Antonio Hill, Oxfam International's climate adviser. China also criticized portions of the text that refer to a "peak" year for carbon emissions from developing countries.
"Meanwhile, small island states and poor African nations vulnerable to climate impacts laid out demands for a legally-binding deal tougher than the Kyoto Protocol, the BBC reports. This was opposed by richer developing states such as China, which fear tougher action would curb their growth. Tuvalu demanded - and got - a suspension of negotiations until the issue could be resolved."
Devex International report "Rotting in Denmark."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/08/copenhagen-climate-summit-disarray-danish-text
"The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role in all future climate change negotiations.
The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.
The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as "the circle of commitment" – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalized this week.
The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol's principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.
The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as "a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks".
A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries also seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:
• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;
• Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called "the most vulnerable";
• Weaken the UN's role in handling climate finance;
• Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.
Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.
"It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process," said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.
Antonio Hill, climate policy adviser for Oxfam International, said: "This is only a draft but it highlights the risk that when the big countries come together, the small ones get hurting. On every count the emission cuts need to be scaled up. It allows too many loopholes and does not suggest anything like the 40% cuts that science is saying is needed."
Hill continued: "It proposes a green fund to be run by a board but the big risk is that it will run by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility [a partnership of 10 agencies including the World Bank and the UN Environment Programme] and not the UN. That would be a step backwards, and it tries to put constraints on developing countries when none were negotiated in earlier UN climate talks."
The text was intended by Denmark and rich countries to be a working framework, which would be adapted by countries over the next week. It is particularly inflammatory because it sidelines the UN negotiating process and suggests that rich countries are desperate for world leaders to have a text to work from when they arrive next week.
Few numbers or figures are included in the text because these would be filled in later by world leaders. However, it seeks to hold temperature rises to 2C and mentions the sum of $10bn a year to help poor countries adapt to climate change from 2012-15."
Not quite the same shambles as the previous climate change conference in 2007 (see Bali Climate Change conference at http://wahyusamputra.blogspot.com/2008/02/ecologists-will-probably-remember-this.html) but in its way a worthy successor.
"It's an incredibly imbalanced text intended to subvert, absolutely and completely, two years of negotiations. It does not recognize the proposals and the voice of developing countries." Lumumba Stanislaus Dia Ping, the Sudanese ambassador to the Group of 77 developing countries, speaking of a leaked document known as the "Danish text" which proposes measures to keep average global temperature rises to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
"The document, subtitled "The Copenhagen Agreement," has driven an even deeper wedge between rich and poor countries embroiled in UN climate talks in Copenhagen, CNN reports. The UN body hosting the talks has played down the document's importance, stressing that it is an "informal paper" put forward by the Danish prime minister.
"This was an informal paper ahead of the conference given to a number of people for the purposes of consultations. The only formal texts in the UN process are the ones tabled by the Chairs of this Copenhagen conference at the behest of the Parties," said Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
"Around 15,000 delegates are meeting daily in Copenhagen as they seek to form a global agreement on climate change. Next week they will be joined by around 100 heads of state to form a final deal, if negotiations in the coming days succeed in closing the gap between rich and poor nations.
"The "Danish text" proposes "developed country parties commit to deliver upfront public financing for 2010-201[2] corresponding on average to [10] billion USD annually for early action, capacity building, technology and strengthening adaptation and mitigation readiness in developing countries." The draft text also proposes that the money is distributed by a "Climate Fund" by a board with "balanced representation."
"Charity group Oxfam says the Danish text risked sidelining poorer countries as the world seeks to reduce global carbon emissions. "Like ants in a room full of elephants poor countries are at risk of been squeezed out of the climate talks in Copenhagen," said Antonio Hill, Oxfam International's climate adviser. China also criticized portions of the text that refer to a "peak" year for carbon emissions from developing countries.
"Meanwhile, small island states and poor African nations vulnerable to climate impacts laid out demands for a legally-binding deal tougher than the Kyoto Protocol, the BBC reports. This was opposed by richer developing states such as China, which fear tougher action would curb their growth. Tuvalu demanded - and got - a suspension of negotiations until the issue could be resolved."
Devex International report "Rotting in Denmark."
Dec 4, 2009
But he's black! So was Condy Rice.
President Obama is making statements which he is in the best position of all to know are untrue, such as “as a result of our efforts (in Afghanistan) the 21st century will be the American century, just like the 20th.”
During his attendance at the ASEAN summit Obama’s preferred form of words was ignored in the final communiqué which used the general form preferred by most ASEAN leaders, without mentioning Aung San Su Ki by name. His town hall meeting in (was it Shanghai?) was similarly ignored by China, which didn’t even broadcast it on state TV, strange treatment for a personal appearance by the leader of the self styled “most powerful country in the world.” The 21st century is already visibly the Chinese century.
The US has the most restricted press coverage of any western nation, (and so Guardian readers in Britain, for example, have known for some weeks that the US is paying the Taliban to protect and guide – into ambushes in some cases – their convoys) and more restricted than, for example, India, where interesting ideas on the single captured Mumbai bomber were very openly discussed, and so the many snubs – if you wish to regard them in that way – that Obama experienced on his trip to Asia were never allowed to penetrate into the awareness of the average American in whatever minutes in the busy day they can devote to “news.”
America retains massive resources, such as a large educated and highly skilled middle layer of technocrats, but that the tide of its full spectrum dominance is receding beyond hope of retrieval is an open secret outside America, and its involvement in Afghanistan is a lost cause; “No one can beat the Afghans” said a Russian general who had fought them, “it’s like fighting sand.”
The Taliban in Afghanistan have been fighting for well over a century, certainly since Churchill described them as the most dangerous of opponents in 1897 when he was working there as a war correspondent, with one single aim, to get the foreigners out of their country.
December 5, 2009 Here is what Mullah Omar said in his letter of a few days ago:
“Obey the commands of your superiors in all matters of jihad. Be very careful not to harm civilians and public property. Pay special attention to targeting occupiers, their mercenaries and important targets only while launching martyrdom (self-sacrificing) operations. It is a religious duty of every Muslim to avoid harming ordinary people. There is no Islamic justification for killing and injuring ordinary people nor is there any space in our holy religion for such an act.
“The cunning enemy wants to defame mojahedin by launching bloody attacks among the people (in religious centres, mosques and similar places) and then call their attacks martyrdom attacks. Mojahedin should be vigilant about enemy tactics and never engage in this kind of activity.”
The address by Mullah Omar to the Taliban can be found at
http://www.juancole.com/2009/11/mullah-omar-rejects-talks-with-us.html
a striking contrast to the politicians in all western nations and an effective way of winning hearts and minds that can not be aimed at western audiences, who will never be allowed to see it.
It makes no sense for terrorist groups to commit terrorist acts and then deny doing it. The Taliban are continually denying that they have anything to do with many of the attacks against civilians and mosques for which they are blamed. There is no reason to disbelieve them. Whether one likes the Taliban or not is neither here nor there. They have a track record of telling the truth whereas our side has a long track record of lying through their teeth every time they open their mouths.
A bomb has just gone off at a mosque Pakistan. If the Taliban deny involvement I'd be inclined to believe them. Even at the height of The Troubles in Ireland the Protestants and Catholics never bombed each others churches. Only the war fomenting foreigner does that. If any interest in creating stability actually existed, India would be forced - at gun point if necessary - to allow the plebiscite in Kashmir long demanded by the UN, but in fact a permanently suppurating open wound is what is in the interests of the war fomenting foreigner.
That the open US espousal of torture will serve to justify whatever is done to captured Americans (“It seemed the way grown ups did, and we had not made the world”) is only one of many disastrous results of that policy, another example of the relentless operation of divine justice.
During his attendance at the ASEAN summit Obama’s preferred form of words was ignored in the final communiqué which used the general form preferred by most ASEAN leaders, without mentioning Aung San Su Ki by name. His town hall meeting in (was it Shanghai?) was similarly ignored by China, which didn’t even broadcast it on state TV, strange treatment for a personal appearance by the leader of the self styled “most powerful country in the world.” The 21st century is already visibly the Chinese century.
The US has the most restricted press coverage of any western nation, (and so Guardian readers in Britain, for example, have known for some weeks that the US is paying the Taliban to protect and guide – into ambushes in some cases – their convoys) and more restricted than, for example, India, where interesting ideas on the single captured Mumbai bomber were very openly discussed, and so the many snubs – if you wish to regard them in that way – that Obama experienced on his trip to Asia were never allowed to penetrate into the awareness of the average American in whatever minutes in the busy day they can devote to “news.”
America retains massive resources, such as a large educated and highly skilled middle layer of technocrats, but that the tide of its full spectrum dominance is receding beyond hope of retrieval is an open secret outside America, and its involvement in Afghanistan is a lost cause; “No one can beat the Afghans” said a Russian general who had fought them, “it’s like fighting sand.”
The Taliban in Afghanistan have been fighting for well over a century, certainly since Churchill described them as the most dangerous of opponents in 1897 when he was working there as a war correspondent, with one single aim, to get the foreigners out of their country.
December 5, 2009 Here is what Mullah Omar said in his letter of a few days ago:
“Obey the commands of your superiors in all matters of jihad. Be very careful not to harm civilians and public property. Pay special attention to targeting occupiers, their mercenaries and important targets only while launching martyrdom (self-sacrificing) operations. It is a religious duty of every Muslim to avoid harming ordinary people. There is no Islamic justification for killing and injuring ordinary people nor is there any space in our holy religion for such an act.
“The cunning enemy wants to defame mojahedin by launching bloody attacks among the people (in religious centres, mosques and similar places) and then call their attacks martyrdom attacks. Mojahedin should be vigilant about enemy tactics and never engage in this kind of activity.”
The address by Mullah Omar to the Taliban can be found at
http://www.juancole.com/2009/11/mullah-omar-rejects-talks-with-us.html
a striking contrast to the politicians in all western nations and an effective way of winning hearts and minds that can not be aimed at western audiences, who will never be allowed to see it.
It makes no sense for terrorist groups to commit terrorist acts and then deny doing it. The Taliban are continually denying that they have anything to do with many of the attacks against civilians and mosques for which they are blamed. There is no reason to disbelieve them. Whether one likes the Taliban or not is neither here nor there. They have a track record of telling the truth whereas our side has a long track record of lying through their teeth every time they open their mouths.
A bomb has just gone off at a mosque Pakistan. If the Taliban deny involvement I'd be inclined to believe them. Even at the height of The Troubles in Ireland the Protestants and Catholics never bombed each others churches. Only the war fomenting foreigner does that. If any interest in creating stability actually existed, India would be forced - at gun point if necessary - to allow the plebiscite in Kashmir long demanded by the UN, but in fact a permanently suppurating open wound is what is in the interests of the war fomenting foreigner.
That the open US espousal of torture will serve to justify whatever is done to captured Americans (“It seemed the way grown ups did, and we had not made the world”) is only one of many disastrous results of that policy, another example of the relentless operation of divine justice.
Dec 1, 2009
The Age of Iron
The Greek poet Hesiod, a contemporary of Homer, wrote of the five ages of men, the gold, the silver, the bronze, the heroes living in the western isles, and the fifth, the iron age, his and ours.
“This is the Race of Iron. Dark is their plight.
Toil and sorrow by day are theirs, and by night
The anguish of death. And the gods afflict them, and kill
Though there’s yet a trifle of good amid manifold ill.”
Not exactly a comfortable existence. And what is likely to happen to them?
“With beautiful bodies veiled in their robes of white
Forsaking the human race for the gods, in flight,
Forbearance and Righteous Wrath depart, and leave
Evil too great to resist, and mortals who grieve.”
Not good, you might say.
“And Zeus will destroy them in turn on his chosen day
When children at birth show heads already grown grey”
And destroyed they may well be, though the precise name of the destroyer varies according to taste; if you wish to identify the heads grey at birth as already burdened with huge debts, feel free.
It is not the movers and shakers of that time that we remember. It is a certain fat balding old guy who went out whenever possible to escape from his wife and to hoist a few flagons with his mates, young guys who hung on his every word, and even wrote them all down, that we teach in our schools; the leader among them laid the basis of all western philosophy, including a good eighty per cent of Christianity, for the next three thousand years, and the nerdy second in class became the tutor of Alexander the Great, and was also the founder of all western, and most eastern, science. (His record achievement of having a technical manual, the Optics, still in use at a prestigious European university some two thousand five hundred years after his death turns textbook writers green with envy.)
Alexander had an interesting family background, certainly very different from the wholesome family life all good Americans claim and that none of them actually possess. His father was the inventor of the wedge tactic in battles as opposed to the standard straggly line, and his mother claimed a mysterious god as the true father of Alexander. (Does that remind you at all of the permanent pain in the life of Winston Churchill, that his wife had a lifelong affair with Beaverbrook, the newspaper magnate, leaving Churchill free to concentrate on affairs of state since in the British Upper Classes divorce was not an option?)
Those who gloried in the description of America as the “New Rome” now have to deal with the arrival at 500 AD. You’d think one could live quite comfortably amid the accumulated loot of empire for a good few years after that empire had ended, but that didn’t turn out to be the case. Franks and Gauls turned up, all kinds of riff raff, Goths and Visigoths, and made demands, and even shaggy Mongolian types, intent on plunder. Until the practice was banned, Roman citizens often sold themselves into slavery to escape the financial burdens laid on them by the state.
But while the race of iron is in control, we live in interesting times; we have no choice.
“Fifth is the race I call my own and abhor,” says Hesiod
“Oh to die, or be later born, or born before.”
The dying is no problem, under the beneficent program of Dr. Kissinger implemented by all American presidents since Carter. Just go to Afghanistan. The rest is more difficult.
“This is the Race of Iron. Dark is their plight.
Toil and sorrow by day are theirs, and by night
The anguish of death. And the gods afflict them, and kill
Though there’s yet a trifle of good amid manifold ill.”
Not exactly a comfortable existence. And what is likely to happen to them?
“With beautiful bodies veiled in their robes of white
Forsaking the human race for the gods, in flight,
Forbearance and Righteous Wrath depart, and leave
Evil too great to resist, and mortals who grieve.”
Not good, you might say.
“And Zeus will destroy them in turn on his chosen day
When children at birth show heads already grown grey”
And destroyed they may well be, though the precise name of the destroyer varies according to taste; if you wish to identify the heads grey at birth as already burdened with huge debts, feel free.
It is not the movers and shakers of that time that we remember. It is a certain fat balding old guy who went out whenever possible to escape from his wife and to hoist a few flagons with his mates, young guys who hung on his every word, and even wrote them all down, that we teach in our schools; the leader among them laid the basis of all western philosophy, including a good eighty per cent of Christianity, for the next three thousand years, and the nerdy second in class became the tutor of Alexander the Great, and was also the founder of all western, and most eastern, science. (His record achievement of having a technical manual, the Optics, still in use at a prestigious European university some two thousand five hundred years after his death turns textbook writers green with envy.)
Alexander had an interesting family background, certainly very different from the wholesome family life all good Americans claim and that none of them actually possess. His father was the inventor of the wedge tactic in battles as opposed to the standard straggly line, and his mother claimed a mysterious god as the true father of Alexander. (Does that remind you at all of the permanent pain in the life of Winston Churchill, that his wife had a lifelong affair with Beaverbrook, the newspaper magnate, leaving Churchill free to concentrate on affairs of state since in the British Upper Classes divorce was not an option?)
Those who gloried in the description of America as the “New Rome” now have to deal with the arrival at 500 AD. You’d think one could live quite comfortably amid the accumulated loot of empire for a good few years after that empire had ended, but that didn’t turn out to be the case. Franks and Gauls turned up, all kinds of riff raff, Goths and Visigoths, and made demands, and even shaggy Mongolian types, intent on plunder. Until the practice was banned, Roman citizens often sold themselves into slavery to escape the financial burdens laid on them by the state.
But while the race of iron is in control, we live in interesting times; we have no choice.
“Fifth is the race I call my own and abhor,” says Hesiod
“Oh to die, or be later born, or born before.”
The dying is no problem, under the beneficent program of Dr. Kissinger implemented by all American presidents since Carter. Just go to Afghanistan. The rest is more difficult.
Nov 28, 2009
More ways of killing a cat than choking it with cream
“There are more ways of killing a cat than choking it with cream.”
The opposition leader in Myanmar (Burma) Aung Sang Su Ky has been criticized by some of her followers and supporters for having preserved her Buddhist purity while things have only become worse for the population during the many years of her arrest.
It is certainly true that the discovery of one senior general stark naked in his office marching up and down giving salutes and bellowing orders, and his removal to a sanatorium, provided no relief for the population, nor any decrease in the power of the generals, whose grip grew ever tighter.
Generally speaking, Buddhists have a tendency to follow the advice of the Japanese master swordsman, “Instead of thinking maybe I could do this, or maybe I could do that, the first thing you must do is create a self as solid and unmoving as Mount Fuji.” Those who think of Buddhists as a subspecies of wimpy tree huggers might be gently reminded that all the martial arts there are were invented by Buddhist monks forbidden to carry weapons by the local war lords. The martial arts remain; the war lords are long forgotten. So it goes.
Gently reminded? “How do you get the attention of a political animal? Hit it between the eyes with a two by four.” A two by four does not qualify as a weapon and may be acquired at very modest cost from any local timber yard.
Awareness of possibilities is not limited to any particular culture or ethnicity. The tale of a property manager under notice to quit making some mutually beneficial arrangements with various debtors and creditors of the estate with an eye to the future is told by one Yeshua bin Youssef (aka Jesus of Nazareth) with the moral, or injunction, at the end of the tale “Study therefore the ways of the children of darkness, for they are wiser in their generation than the children of light.”
So what exactly did the supporters of Aung Sang Su Ky have in mind when they voiced their criticism that the lady had preserved inviolate her Buddhist purity over the years, but that everything had just got worse? What else could she have done?
Well, one can imagine a scenario where the lady carrying all the trappings of world fame and a Nobel Prize might have announced a conversion to the philosophy of the generals, offered to use her good offices to present their case to world opinion, strengthen their influence with neighboring states, generate new sources of income, spread their power further over Asia, mollify and enthuse the population.
There are a number of avenues to elbowing her way to a seat at the table, and then genuinely opening up and improving international relations up to the very moment when the two by four hits the generals between the eyes.
Burmese have a reputation for xenophobia and isolationism, but macho types with a secret yearning to strut in the altogether yelling orders should be putty in the hands of a resourceful woman.
Update November 9, 2010:
Aung San Su Ky is free, released by Than Shwe and the generals. Barbed wire and guards removed from house, free to go, meets with supporters at NLD headquarters.
"If she resumes where she left off in 2003 — campaigning against the regime — I'm afraid the likelihood is that she will return to house arrest fairly soon," he told the U.K. broadcaster. "However ... we are allowed to hope."
Good one, girl.
The opposition leader in Myanmar (Burma) Aung Sang Su Ky has been criticized by some of her followers and supporters for having preserved her Buddhist purity while things have only become worse for the population during the many years of her arrest.
It is certainly true that the discovery of one senior general stark naked in his office marching up and down giving salutes and bellowing orders, and his removal to a sanatorium, provided no relief for the population, nor any decrease in the power of the generals, whose grip grew ever tighter.
Generally speaking, Buddhists have a tendency to follow the advice of the Japanese master swordsman, “Instead of thinking maybe I could do this, or maybe I could do that, the first thing you must do is create a self as solid and unmoving as Mount Fuji.” Those who think of Buddhists as a subspecies of wimpy tree huggers might be gently reminded that all the martial arts there are were invented by Buddhist monks forbidden to carry weapons by the local war lords. The martial arts remain; the war lords are long forgotten. So it goes.
Gently reminded? “How do you get the attention of a political animal? Hit it between the eyes with a two by four.” A two by four does not qualify as a weapon and may be acquired at very modest cost from any local timber yard.
Awareness of possibilities is not limited to any particular culture or ethnicity. The tale of a property manager under notice to quit making some mutually beneficial arrangements with various debtors and creditors of the estate with an eye to the future is told by one Yeshua bin Youssef (aka Jesus of Nazareth) with the moral, or injunction, at the end of the tale “Study therefore the ways of the children of darkness, for they are wiser in their generation than the children of light.”
So what exactly did the supporters of Aung Sang Su Ky have in mind when they voiced their criticism that the lady had preserved inviolate her Buddhist purity over the years, but that everything had just got worse? What else could she have done?
Well, one can imagine a scenario where the lady carrying all the trappings of world fame and a Nobel Prize might have announced a conversion to the philosophy of the generals, offered to use her good offices to present their case to world opinion, strengthen their influence with neighboring states, generate new sources of income, spread their power further over Asia, mollify and enthuse the population.
There are a number of avenues to elbowing her way to a seat at the table, and then genuinely opening up and improving international relations up to the very moment when the two by four hits the generals between the eyes.
Burmese have a reputation for xenophobia and isolationism, but macho types with a secret yearning to strut in the altogether yelling orders should be putty in the hands of a resourceful woman.
Update November 9, 2010:
Aung San Su Ky is free, released by Than Shwe and the generals. Barbed wire and guards removed from house, free to go, meets with supporters at NLD headquarters.
"If she resumes where she left off in 2003 — campaigning against the regime — I'm afraid the likelihood is that she will return to house arrest fairly soon," he told the U.K. broadcaster. "However ... we are allowed to hope."
Good one, girl.
Nov 27, 2009
The ancestry of Harry Reid
Judy Wallman, a professional genealogy researcher in southern California, was doing some personal work on her own family tree. She discovered that Congressman Harry Reid's great-great uncle, Remus Reid, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889. Both Judy and Harry Reid share this common ancestor.
The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows in Montana territory.
On the back of the picture Judy obtained during her research is this inscription: 'Remus Reid, horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889.'
So Judy recently e-mailed Congressman Harry Reid for information about their great-great uncle.
Harry Reid's staff sent back the following biographical sketch for her genealogy research:
"Remus Reid was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory. His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad. Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad. In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed."
The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows in Montana territory.
On the back of the picture Judy obtained during her research is this inscription: 'Remus Reid, horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889.'
So Judy recently e-mailed Congressman Harry Reid for information about their great-great uncle.
Harry Reid's staff sent back the following biographical sketch for her genealogy research:
"Remus Reid was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory. His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad. Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad. In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed."
Nov 19, 2009
Why did Obama bow to the emperor Hirohito of Japan?
America dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Most Americans have probably succeeded in forgetting this, if they ever knew it, but it is highly unlikely the Japanese have forgotten it.
You do not cease to be yourself when you become president of the United States. Obama had a clear run in his election to the Senate; his opponent withdrew unexpectedly at the last moment, leaving him unopposed. (Remember Napoleon’s demand of all the generals he appointed that they be lucky.)
Diplomatic protocol does not demand that any head of state should bow to any other head of state. Was Obama’s action a momentary oversight, practicing what he knew was a local form of courtesy, or was it deliberate?
Obama’s first action has to be to maintain, and even increase, the power he has; if he becomes powerless he can do nothing. This would come naturally to the little Luo, a member of the minority tribe in Kenya. Having allied himself to the most powerful groups around, he must then begin to increase the area of his own action independently of them, while continuing to keep them at least propitiated. So much is simple realpolitik.
I have often suspected that Obama may have the art of leading from behind. How does that work? Well, for example, the problem of graphic depictions of American brutality to conquered and imprisoned nations may arise. The trick is to keep the subject alive by occasional statements that these pictures can not be allowed to be made public, thus leaving the public to use their own imagination on just how awful the depictions might be, and leaving the busy army of hackers and diggers up of unsuspected corpses to get going on finding the actual videos or at least graphic descriptions of them. If public knowledge and outcry become overwhelming, you then pass the entire problem to a public prosecutor or independent investigator, and make clear the administration has zero control over them. You’ve done your best.
You do not cease to be yourself when you become president of the United States. Obama had a clear run in his election to the Senate; his opponent withdrew unexpectedly at the last moment, leaving him unopposed. (Remember Napoleon’s demand of all the generals he appointed that they be lucky.)
Diplomatic protocol does not demand that any head of state should bow to any other head of state. Was Obama’s action a momentary oversight, practicing what he knew was a local form of courtesy, or was it deliberate?
Obama’s first action has to be to maintain, and even increase, the power he has; if he becomes powerless he can do nothing. This would come naturally to the little Luo, a member of the minority tribe in Kenya. Having allied himself to the most powerful groups around, he must then begin to increase the area of his own action independently of them, while continuing to keep them at least propitiated. So much is simple realpolitik.
I have often suspected that Obama may have the art of leading from behind. How does that work? Well, for example, the problem of graphic depictions of American brutality to conquered and imprisoned nations may arise. The trick is to keep the subject alive by occasional statements that these pictures can not be allowed to be made public, thus leaving the public to use their own imagination on just how awful the depictions might be, and leaving the busy army of hackers and diggers up of unsuspected corpses to get going on finding the actual videos or at least graphic descriptions of them. If public knowledge and outcry become overwhelming, you then pass the entire problem to a public prosecutor or independent investigator, and make clear the administration has zero control over them. You’ve done your best.
Nov 13, 2009
"A government not of men, but of laws."
"A government not of men, but of laws."
Under the Symington Amendment to the 1961 Foreign Appropriations Bill, the United States Government is banned from sending aid to any nation with nuclear weapons who has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Therefore, it is illegal for the Obama administration to send so much as a single penny to North Korea, India, Pakistan and Israel.
"The Iraqis are writing a new constitution? Hey, take ours; we're not using it." Robin Williams
My mum's birthday today - Happy Birthday, Mum.
Under the Symington Amendment to the 1961 Foreign Appropriations Bill, the United States Government is banned from sending aid to any nation with nuclear weapons who has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Therefore, it is illegal for the Obama administration to send so much as a single penny to North Korea, India, Pakistan and Israel.
"The Iraqis are writing a new constitution? Hey, take ours; we're not using it." Robin Williams
My mum's birthday today - Happy Birthday, Mum.
Nov 1, 2009
Robert Mugabe
It would take someone with the meticulous discrimination of Mr. Greenwald (of www.Salon.com) to understand that one does not throw one’s weight behind the oppressed of the earth because of any faith that they possess moral standards superior to their oppressors, and if one does, one is likely to be disappointed. The oppressed have experienced brutality – how could they not do likewise given the chance? “It seemed the way grown ups did, and we had not made the world.”
In the far distant struggle of the Patriotic Front against the Selous Scouts we were losing 900 men a month at the height of the carnage, farm boys, no match for the trained killers and their weapons, and another nine hundred the next month – we drowned those f*ckers in blood, but we did win, thereby establishing Mugabe as the first African leader to inflict a signal defeat on superior white forces, a position of prestige he used to the full to turn his country from the breadbasket of Africa into a graveyard, and inflict cruelties on his own people that would have made the smirking “Smitty” blench and taken the plastic grins off the faces of his Rhodesian followers. So were we wrong?
Not at all. The oppressed ended up with their fate in their own hands, just like the rest of us, and the Selous Scouts were free to get in line at the Haringey Job Centre, or for the more stubborn ones, end up in other African courts for smuggling in weapons to foment a coup – they also had their fate in their own hands.
Mugabe turned out to be a monster, but we needed a monster to deal with the Selous Scouts – Joshua Nkomo, who turned up at Heathrow Airport to ask for asylum would not have served to do the business. This proves little except “what all schoolkids learn/that those to whom evil is done/will do evil in return,” and not necessarily to those who did it to them, either.
In the far distant struggle of the Patriotic Front against the Selous Scouts we were losing 900 men a month at the height of the carnage, farm boys, no match for the trained killers and their weapons, and another nine hundred the next month – we drowned those f*ckers in blood, but we did win, thereby establishing Mugabe as the first African leader to inflict a signal defeat on superior white forces, a position of prestige he used to the full to turn his country from the breadbasket of Africa into a graveyard, and inflict cruelties on his own people that would have made the smirking “Smitty” blench and taken the plastic grins off the faces of his Rhodesian followers. So were we wrong?
Not at all. The oppressed ended up with their fate in their own hands, just like the rest of us, and the Selous Scouts were free to get in line at the Haringey Job Centre, or for the more stubborn ones, end up in other African courts for smuggling in weapons to foment a coup – they also had their fate in their own hands.
Mugabe turned out to be a monster, but we needed a monster to deal with the Selous Scouts – Joshua Nkomo, who turned up at Heathrow Airport to ask for asylum would not have served to do the business. This proves little except “what all schoolkids learn/that those to whom evil is done/will do evil in return,” and not necessarily to those who did it to them, either.
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