Politics

This will age me, but.... I grew up with the Munsters. I happen to come across an article about the Al Lewis, who was Grandpa Munster in The Munsters. He spoke his mind about quite a number of things.

This is telling my politics, but in the article they quote a controversial screed to a large crowd:

I may offend some people but Mrs. Lewis' son doesn't care! Doesn't care! What happened on September 11th was inevitable. Inevitable! Inevitable! It was horrific. Approximately five thousand lives were lost. Don't get angry with me. Just listen to the message. Were those lives more valuable than those school children who died of shrapnel in an action that was directed, promoted and paid for by the US government? Were the lives on September 11th more valuable than the ... hundred thousand people who were killed in Guatemala? In Nicaragua? You want me to go down the list in killing? Was that horrific? Was that terror? And you want to talk about terror? Again, I don't care if you are angry. As we can now see, from the Freedom of Information acts - the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an act of terror! There was no military objective involved ... One other thing. September 11th happened. The initial [phrases], 'Let's bomb them into the stone age.' 'Let's wipe them out.' 'Let's kill them.' Americans suffer from short or long term memory [loss] ... Baruch Goldstein. You know who he was? He was an Israeli captain who went in on a Friday in the mosque and machine gunned them with an automatic rifle and killed them. Did any of you ... raise the human cry, 'Let's bomb them into the stone age?' Were their lives less valuable than those at the World Trade Center ... if you go now - NOW - to Israel there is a memorial to Baruch Goldstein! I want to ask you something. There were nineteen people involved in [the September 11th attacks] ... that airplane was a bomb because of the high-octane gasoline. It was a flying bomb. Those nineteen men. What would Americans do if some place in the Middle East they erected a monument to them? Who says that our lives are more valuable than his or hers? Where is it written? Where? Where is it written?

I wanted to record this little snippet for something to check back on during some point in the future.

One writer is indicating that Germany is the real economic power in the European Union. Should the European Union break apart or evolve/devolve into something else, Germany can't go it alone. I have to take that assertion with a certain grain of salt, but perhaps the next idea fits in.

It is said that Germany's strength is it's manufacturing and export ability. Germany also has a decreasing population. A logical partner might be France, but they are typically highly competitive with each other, rather than cooperative with each other.

On the other hand, Russia has a large population with nothing much to do. Rather than being an exporter of raw materials, Germany could partner with Russia for manufacturing. Rather than increasing immigration towards Germany, which is something Germany does not want, they would send manufacturing to Russia.

In summary, it would be of interest to see how the European Union reorganizes around a possible Germany - Russion alliance.

Byron King at Whiskey and Gunpowder wrote about how natural relate to human events through history. Any history buffs able to confirm the following? Continue reading "World Events and the Iceland Volcano" »

NIT WITs (Nationalize, Inflate, and Tax . Whatever It Takes) in Washington

Taken from a Casey Daily Dispatch:

Key among the tools used by governments around the globe to fund their steady expansion are the rights they take unto themselves to Nationalize, Tax, and Inflate, or NIT for short.

And they don't stop there. If a problem arises that threatens the status quo in any way, governments these days are quick to do "Whatever It Takes" (WIT). And we.re not just talking about snuffing out Arab bogeymen in Dubai hotels or handing over $180 billion to failing insurance companies - these days, if a problem is considered serious enough, no obvious limits need apply.

In a missive from Contrarian Profits newsletter today, they drew nice intimated an interesting parallel between a Banana Republic and a certain relatively large, very well known country. The recipe for a Banana Republic, as described by Justice Litle, Editorial Director, Taipan Publishing Group.

Wikipedia defines "Banana Republic" as a pejorative term for a country that is politically unstable, dependent on limited agriculture (e.g. bananas), and ruled by a small, self-elected, wealthy, and corrupt clique.

Ingredients:

• out-of-control printing presses
• currency restrictions and controls
• strangling regulation and red tape
• aggressive nationalization of private assets
• extravagant social programs (bribing the poor)
• deeply corrupt financial structures (bribing the connected)
• crushing pressures on small business (extorting the middle class)

Directions:

• Combine fervent promises of "hope," "change" and "revolution" in demagogue crockpot. Bring mixture to a slow rolling boil.
• As mixture firms, stir in aggressive spending plans and "revolutionary" public adjustments. Sprinkle liberally with insider connections and oligarchic financial loopholes to maintain smooth consistency. Let simmer for a full election cycle on low-heat propaganda flame.
• Pour filling into flaky self-righteous crust. Top with blatant corruption, repressed scandal and outright nationalization. Bake in fiscal suicide oven until inflation thermometer registers 30%+ and insider cronies are sufficiently enriched.*

*As with a delicate souffle, the middle class must not experience complete collapse during this phase. If this happens, you have inadvertently followed the recipe for a coup.

For years, I've heard reports that the Earth is warming up, and as a consequence, something should be done about it. Primary symptoms of warming have been through reports of that Antartica's Ice Cap is reducing in size. A primary contributing factor which has been suggested as a primary contributor has been the combustion of various fossil fuels which added carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, which in turns traps reflected sunlight, which in turn warms the Earth/Atmosphere. Among other things.

I've been lead to believe that that global warming is a bad thing, and should be stopped, or even possibly reversed.

A fellow by the name of Mann recently presented a chart, now known as the 'hockey stick' chart, which shows a significant increase in average global temperatures. Popular media has become enamoured with this chart, particularily recently, what with all the latest brouhaha during the Copenhagen Climate talks.

From what I hear, developing nations want developed nations to give them billions of dollars in either cash or technology cut emissions. If developed nations can't even commit to cutting their own emissions, what is the point in giving some one else money in the illusion that they might also cut emissions.

Would it not be better to just put the hundreds of billions of dollars directly into alternate energy research? Obviously, there will be expensive gaffs along the way, but at least something direct may come of it to assist the developed as well as developing countries.

But then comes along some data that indicates that this may all be a moot point. A number of different scientific observers have put together data from many different sources, with the data indicating that we are by no means currently at a historically high global temperature. The middle ages (around 1000AD) saw higher temperatures than what we are currently experiencing. The time around 0 AD saw even higher temperatures. And 1000 years before that were even higher temperatures. And over the course of history, substantial temperature swings have been noted.

Mann's 'Hockey Stick' may be significant in recent history, but is it significant in the grand scheme of things? Is global warming an event which would have arrived regardless of human meddling?

One way or another, the climate is going to give us some interesting action over the next little while, for some value of little. It looks like I should be concerned, but due to completely different reasons.

For more climate oriented pointers, visit Watts Up With That?.