Peanuts and other nuts

We have had lots of nutty regulations recently. But there's room for comfort, at least Sri Lanka is not the only place with nutty regulations. Here's a peanut packet from the U.S:


The packaging says : produced in a factory producing peanuts and other nuts. Inevitable result of silly food processing regulations.Sigh. Democrats..

[pic via Don Luskin]

$500 Oil, are the Liberals happy?

Williem Buiter writing for Maverecon blog paints a gloomy picture about a world with $500 oil. He thinks when it comes to Oil prices, "sky is the limit". With ever increasing demand from places like India and China, he thinks Oil prices will continue to rise in spite of a global economic slowdown, all of which he thinks will adversely affect the poor.

I find that plausible. High oil prices may not be the driving factor behind Sri Lanka's inflation, but it does have a say in everyone's cost of living.

This reminds me of an exchange between me and Indi, where he (and a surprising number of my liberal tree-hugging friends, I might add) think that this high oil prices is actually a "good thing". Their argument is that high oil prices will lead to behavioral changes towards less energy use and incentivise alternative energy use. I certainly agree, but I don't think that's is enough to call high oil prices a "good thing". You will have to consider adverse consequences on the poor and commerce in general before coming into such conclusions. Forgetting all of that is succumbing into the church-of-gore global warming hysteria, which by the way, I don't think of as being "hippie", but simply, elitist. American-liberals shouldn't impose their values to people who cannot afford them. The same goes for democrat obsession about imposing environmental and labor standards in trade agreements for countries which can barely afford them.

For my part, I don't think of high oil as being either good or bad, high prices just are. In some ways, we should be happy about it. This means that millions of Indians, Chinese (and even some Sri Lankans) are climbing out of poverty and able to afford automobiles and in general, more quality of life. For some reason, this part of the story is often neglected.

However, I'm not as optimistic about the benefits of high oil rise, particularly for developing countries. There are several reasons for this,

First, thanks to high taxes and inefficient refinery, we already have higher gasoline prices at the pump, compared to the U.S. even without considering the heavy subsidies given to cover the daily losses of the state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation.

Secondly, any breakthrough from alternative-energy research is unlikely to be spawned by places like Sri Lanka, although my Indian friends might beg to differ. So while global price rise may indeed help incentivise alternative energy research and adaptation, it doesn't justify high taxes in places like Sri Lanka.

Thirdly, behavioral changes in the magnitude that we are seeing in the U.S. and other developed countries are unlikely to be seen in places like Sri Lanka. This is because, high consumption of gasoline in the U.S. is partly due to exuberance -- air travel, SUVs, long trips, so on. and when gas prices rise, Americans change their behavior. So SUV sales are down and Americans are driving less. But consumption of gasoline in places like Sri Lanka has more to do with necessity. Most Sri Lankans use public transport, which doesn't have good alternatives. As for people who are used to driving cars, public transport won't be appealing, given it's poor quality. So even if behavioral changes come (and it will) they will be smaller compared to the U.S. and at a greater cost in terms of living standards of average Sri Lankans.

So no, I don't think high oil prices are a good thing.

But I do have faith in human ingenuity, that when price of oil becomes unsustainable we will find alternatives. I don't know what that alternative is, I don't know whether it's solar, wind or nuclear. I don't know whether we will drive electric cars, or cars which runs on water or hydrogen. But what I do know is we will keep on driving.

For much of human existence, petroleum was a useless, gooey, waste product, until we figured out we can use it for energy. Similarly, we will find something else which can serve the same purpose. Humankind got out of the stone age, not because we ran out of stone, but because we found out new and better things. Similarly, we will come out of the oil-age, with something new and better. But in the meantime, let's be rational about the benefits of high priced oil.

See more stuff about Oil on deaned.

A great Obama Poster

Despite vowing to oppose unauthorized wiretapping legislation, senator Obama decided to flip-flop on the issue and support wiretapping bill anyway. This is now one of many 'policy shifts' by Obama scrambling to center of the spectrum after taking a ride on to the left to get not-so-well-off democrat votes to win the primaries. So much for "Hope" and "change" the way washington does business. See This NY Times editorial and the economist article for more of Obama's centrism. This doesn't come as a surprise for me, but should be clear to everyone there is a huge difference between the real and the imaginary Obama.

Also see Why not Obama and more on Obama on deaned.

[Poster via Technology Liberation Front]

HilBama's Broken Window Fallacy

James Pethokoukis of Capital Commerce points out a serious flaw in all those new "green collar" jobs Barrack Obama and Hilary Clinton hope to create in their plans to battle climate change. He writes,

As Clinton said in one presidential debate, "This issue of energy and global warming has the promise of creating millions of new jobs in America. It can be a win-win, if we do it right."

Heck, if climate change was a sham, it almost seems that it would be worthwhile to fabricate it, given all the apparent economic benefits. Then again, maybe not. Here is what William Pizer, an economist at Resources for the Future and a lead author on the most recent report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said at a symposium earlier this week here in Washington: "As an economist, I am skeptical that [dealing with climate change] is going to make money. You'll have new industries, but they'll be doing what old industries did but a higher net cost.... You'll be depleting other industries." [link]

So here's an idea for Obama and Clinton, next time try throwing stones at random windows, that way the people who fix windows will make a profit, and so many window-fixing jobs will be created and that would help the economy.

None of the democrats apparently have never heard of the broken window fallacy. In one of his most famous works, Fedric Bastiat, the 19th century French economist, wrote about the broken window fallacy about people who talk about the "economic benefits of war" adhere to. In an essay tittled What is seen and the unseen, Bastiat argued that while breaking windows will certainly benefit the window-fixers(glaziers), at the expense of other actors. He wrote,

Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James Goodfellow, when his careless son happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the fact, that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them, by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this invariable consolation—"It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?"

Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our economical institutions.

Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the accident brings six francs to the glazier's trade—that it encourages that trade to the amount of six francs—I grant it; I have not a word to say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task, receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen.

But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! Your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen."

It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented. [link]

Broken window fallacy, and Bastiat's essay could help in explaining the futility of how the Sri Lankan government is supposedly "creating jobs" for thousands of "unemployed graduates" by offering them jobs in an already over-bloated government.

Incidentally, the annual Bastiat prize for journalism is open for entries. Tragically, I can't name a single print or electronic media journalist from Sri Lanka, whom I can recommend for the prize.

Obama's Bad Day

That's probably an understatement. Obama's debate performance on the last democratic debate is the worst I've seen of him. Obama having gone through a rough time, with his 'bitter' comment and pastor wright's association came under heavy fire under Clinton and the two anchors from NBC.

For a someone who's winning, Obama looked defeated. He looked tired and weary and he tumbled over the first 40 minute of the debate trying to fend off attacks, and looked incoherent and stuck to rehersed-answers for the rest of the debate. It wasn't pretty. Clinton on the other hand looked competent, and for the first time can confidently say she won the debate.

Obamedia is trying to spin this as a great failure of the NBC moderators, and how being lost will actually help Obama. Bullshit. Someone should remind them that Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos are not running for the democratic nomination, Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton is.

and let's not talk about this , "oh how unfair, the debate-didn't'-get-to-the-real-issues" nonsense. Are we retarded? I mean, if someone was living under a rock for the past year, maybe that's a relevant question. People know their positions on the issues, and guess what, it's not so different. So let's play this straight, it ain't about the issues anymore, it's about personality. In fact, it was personality all along and Obama was winning it. So the Obamedia can stop whining about getting a black eye now. Grow up, and admit it. Obama Lost the Debate. End of story.

The real winner, may not have been in the debate. I keep telling my friends to get used to the term President McCain. This guy has some luck, and that's a dangerous asset to have in an election. If there's one thing McCain could have wished for, that's for the two Dems to keep fighting, and that's exactly what's happening.

I think Obama would still be the nominee, and like I've said before, I do like him, really. I hate Hillary, I mean, if Hilary Clinton and George Bush happen to run for president, I'd pick a clear candidate, and it ain't Clinton. If it turned out to be (as it should) a McCain Vs. Obama election, then that's a difficult choice. Luckily, a choice I don't have to make.

Related, Why Not Obama.

Quote of the Century

This one is for you democrats (and local variants). Apparently, this fellow called Joseph Sobran said this:

"Need" now means wanting someone else's money. "Greed" means wanting to keep your own. "Compassion" is when a politician arranges the transfer.

ring true..? it should.

[via ASI]

Pimping Morals

The American politico-blogosphere is going crazy over the Eliot Splitzer story, virtually every U.S. blog I read has a post on the New York Governor's involvement in an international prostitution ring. The Governor, a democrat, will step down from his job next week.

If something like this happened in Sri Lanka, (like a few years ago when a government deputy minister was caught in the infamous Liberty Plaza brothel, who later explained he went there to have tea) it would be an almost non-story, finding itself space only in perhaps the satire pages of Sri Lankan news papers without even their name being mentioned .

But wait, aren't we supposed to be morally superior to these yankee-pankie Americans? we are of course. Just that, our strategy is to pretend stuff like this never happens. Which I'm down with, by the way.

Thankfully, spitzer's scandal has opened the debate on legalizing prostitution. It's time the Sri Lankan lawmakers accept the reality of their own moral standing and legalize prostitution here as well no?

Who knows, it might even solve the 'abductions' problem.

Why Not Obama Part 2

Ouch:


That's got to hurt. I Rest my case.

[via India Uncut]

Why not Obama

Lots of people like Barack Obama. He’s now the frontrunner for the democratic nomination, and if he does get it, He’ll be hard to beat for McCain. He’s articulate, charismatic and black. This appeals to a lot of people, not just in the U.S. but it seems around the world and here in Sri Lanka. The 20-somethings I meet often are captivated by his persona, excited about his message of “Hope” and “Change” and optimistic about the prospect of an Obama Presidency.

Obama has been celebrated as a Liberal Reagan – the great communicator of the American Left (which btw, is not so ‘left’ compared to say, Sri Lanka). People have written essays claiming he’s a left-libertarian, a Civil-Libertarian, a principled guy, a generation’s hope, yada yada. He has lot of independents supporting him, and even some conservatives. That’s all great. What’s going for Obama is that he’s the new kid on the block, so he doesn’t have a lot of baggage. Couple this with the kind of romance that people have developed for him, it makes people want to cherry-pick facts and project him as whoever they want to. As others have noted, Obama as of now is whatever people want him to be. Infatuation can do that to people.

There was a time not so long ago I was idealistic enough for this kind of blind romance, but those days are gone. This romance is unhealthy, because it stops you from actually examining the issues.

Let’s take foreign policy. Now I oppose the Iraq war, and I agree with the fundamentals of his withdrawal plan. But Obama’s position on the Iraq isn’t necessarily principled as some would like it to be, it’s just populist. His call for a troop withdrawal in Iraq is not coming from a principled non-interventionist position, based on his assessment of ground realities or from a fundamental change in the way U.S. approaches foreign policy, it’s coming from an assessment of voter sentiment.

My biggest beef with Obama of course, is with his economics, I’m not going to talk much about specific U.S. domestic policy issues, but it’s safe to say that Obama offers no “change” from the standard liberal democrat rhetoric, except Obama’s whole game is based on rhetoric.

Where Obama suck is trade, his “fair trade” plan would not only have free-traders worried (that’s basically most economists on the planet – including Obama’s own advisors.) but his “Fair Trade” plan to protect American jobs and Open foreign markets will have Oxfam-type- Do-gooder Fair Traders scratching their heads. Obama wants to talk to Chaves, but wants to renegotiate NAFTA. In other words he wants to talk to their oil-dictator while screwing over the people of Latin America.

Having civil liberties for Americans doesn’t really matter for the rest of us, but trade and foreign policy, those are heavy impact areas. It’s time some of us stop being swept away by Obama speeches and really look into what policies Obama’s advocating. If you agree – if you think protecting American jobs at our cost is a good thing – fine enough. But otherwise, it’s time to stop being in love and grow up.

Climate Change Sense

Maybe everyone will come to their senses this year, if even the NY Times can report on stuff like this. Below is a quote from the article, the full article is well worth the read.

Today’s interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels.

A year ago, British meteorologists made headlines predicting that the buildup of greenhouse gases would help make 2007 the hottest year on record. At year’s end, even though the British scientists reported the global temperature average was not a new record — it was actually lower than any year since 2001 — the BBC confidently proclaimed, “2007 Data Confirms Warming Trend.”

When the Arctic sea ice last year hit the lowest level ever recorded by satellites, it was big news and heralded as a sign that the whole planet was warming. When the Antarctic sea ice last year reached the highest level ever recorded by satellites, it was pretty much ignored. A large part of Antarctica has been cooling recently, but most coverage of that continent has focused on one small part that has warmed.

When Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans in 2005, it was supposed to be a harbinger of the stormier world predicted by some climate modelers. When the next two hurricane seasons were fairly calm — by some measures, last season in the Northern Hemisphere was the calmest in three decades — the availability entrepreneurs changed the subject. Droughts in California and Australia became the new harbingers of climate change (never mind that a warmer planet is projected to have more, not less, precipitation over all). [link]

On Iowa Results

The big news from Iowa is Obama. He has made it, making the democrat race wide Open. If he beats Hillary in New Hampshire, Bill's "First Man" dreams would be gone. Obama talks of Change, I don't buy that. Let's face it, lot of people like Obama (especially non-Americans) because he's black and looks different. But his chances have improved now, and the U.S. might well have it's first "African-American" president.

It seems to be a two horse-race as far as the Dems are concerned. I'd count Edwards out, unless he can pull something off in the next two causes. Highly unlikely.

On the Republican side, the race is wide open. Huckabee came in a comfortable first with Romney in 2nd. Romney probably lost most in Iowa, he badly needed the win, having spent over $10 M in Iowa. Huckabee's win has most to do with the Christian evangelicals in Iowa, the win doesn't make him the top contender.

My man Ron Paul (the Libertarian anti-war republican) didn't do well as I had hoped, I expected 4th, he came in 5th. His die-hard supporters are a bit bummed, but on the bright side. He reached double digits with 10% of the vote, just 3% behind 3rd and 4th place Thompson and McCain. Paul also kicked Rudy Gulliani's ass, with the former mayor and the national front runner for the GOP, just getting 13% 4%. Gulliani must be regretting the little scuffle the two had at an earlier debate. Paul also won the only county which didn't go to either Huckabee or Romney, Jefferson County. Many people consider this as impressive showing.

Paul also got most of the Independent vote on the republican side with 29% to McCain's 22%. Independents would be a key constituency in New Hampshire, the location of the next primary. It's probably the most Libertarian state in U.S., the home to the free state project and Paul need to get into the top-3 here to remain marginally relevant.

It's also the state where McCain is leading, and a win here could propel him to the GOP nomination. He's probably the biggest winner from Iowa on the Republican side. McCain needed to Huckabee to beat Romney to deny him the momentum going into NH, just what he needed. A McCain-Huckabee ticket is certainly on the cards.

Tompson is going to be out soon, he's not a serious contender, but Gulliani would need to get into the top 3 as well, if Paul beats Gulliani in NH, it could be curtains for the former Mayor.

Whatever the case if not for Paul, there's no one I can whole heartedly endorse. I can live through a McCain presidency, he's a decent fiscal conservative but also a nut who wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years, I won't find anything much agreeable with Obama, but hell - he's a damn good speaker.

As for Paul, I think Obama's victory was probably his biggest lost out of Iowa, lot of young people supporting Obama would have been potential Paulites. Now independents probably see a viable candidate as opposed to a less-viable one in Paul.

But what can I say, watching the Ron Paul Revolution has been wonderful so far. I first sent an email to his exploratory committee earlier this year urging him to Run, apparently so did many others and he did turn up, I thought he'd disappear but no, the Ron Paul's ideas caught on with people, especially the young and the web-savvy, it has fun watching the Ron Paul Rise on Youtube and on the web. From less than 1% to 10% it has been amazing, the grassroots organization, the money-bombs, the Ron Paul blimps, its been a phenomenal effort that someone will eventually write a book about it. I Hope the revolution keeps going 'cos it isn't about Paul in the end, it's about Liberty!. But no Paul's not out yet!.

Will ‘they’ follow them home?

I was watching the Republican CNN/YouTube debate the other day, couldn’t help but be amused by this view that unless the US is in Iraq, the ‘terrorists follow us home’ subscribed to by almost all GOP candidates.

First of all, are the terrorists lost or something? They can’t find the way perhaps now? They have to wait till the US troops go home to follow them? That’s kind of idea people would have got they encountered the argument for the first time in that debate, the idea however is slightly (note slightly) more sophisticated. It’s this notion that if ‘extremists’ get hold of Iraq, they can use it as a base for attacking the US and other ‘moderate’ leadership in the region.

This is the dominant view among the Republican presidential candidates, all of them – except Ron Paul. Paul (of whom I’m a huge fan) advocates a strict non-interventionist foreign policy for the United States, and calls for an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq. He claims that the extremists in the Arab (and the Muslim) world are motivated to attack the US because of its interventionist foreign policy towards the region, and particularly because of its troop deployments in the region.

Now, I don’t think that US should employ a strict by-the-book foreign policy, but I find it extraordinary that the NeoCons in media in the US and the rest of his colleagues running for president considers Paul’s views as some sort of a discredited conspiracy theory, when it's clearly not.

The 9/11 commission report for example, comprising of testimonies from experts on terrorism, the middle east and intelligence articulated exactly what Paul says.

Further the follow-home theory doesn’t have much currency from the experts either, the Foreign Policy Magazine reporting on its “terrorism index” which measures opinion of intelligence experts, military persons, and other academics as well as national security advisers, etc. on the US performance on the ‘War on Terror’ reports that experts find it unlikely.

Only 12 percent believe that terrorist attacks would occur in the United States as a direct result of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq. Eighty-eight percent of the experts said that either such a scenario was unlikely or that they see no connection between a troop withdrawal from Iraq and terrorist attacks inside the United States. This line of thinking was consistent across party lines, with 58 percent of conservatives saying they did not believe terrorist attacks would occur at home as a result of a military drawdown in Iraq. [Link]

It has also long being established that what’s going on Iraq now is more of an internal sectarian power struggle, and not an attack on the US or ‘American Values’.

Paul has surprised many with the success of his candidacy, partly because he’s right on many of the issues. Its highly unlikely though he’ll actually get the nomination (not that I’d have believed he could raise 4.3 million a day either) But if republicans are to win a anti-war majority who's just fed up of Iraq, I think its high time they start moderating a bit.

NeoCons aren’t cool anymore and besides whatever the mistakes Americans have made, no country deserves a Rodham presidency. Paul Save America.

God is a Republican, Santa is a Democrat

I find myself least busy at exam times. i shut down - say no to kottu-parties, meetings, etc. and stay home with the noble intention of 'studying'. Instead, i find myself drifting away to useless blog-readeing, blogging, and all those books I haven't read..

one of them is Parliament of Whores by P.J O'Rourke. it's a brilliantly funny book and here's a great quote :

I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat.

God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle-aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men strictly accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well-being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on literally everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get invited into God's heavenly
country club.

Santa Claus is another matter. He's cute. He's nonthreatening. He's always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who's been naughty and who's been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without thought of a quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he's famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus

The Planet is Warming – We are all dead! Do something!

Yes, it’s no use, we are officially dead. Greenland is melting, Polar bears are dying, and soon we will be under more than 20 feet of water, the planet is warming and it’s all due to inconsiderate humans activities!

So, um.. What else is new? Well, Al Gore won an Oscar, and apparently this time around the Oscars were all ‘green’. Yet another achievement for the hysterical global climate change movement, led by its poster boy, President-not-to-be- Al Gore.

Al Gore’s inconvenient truth won an Oscar for the best documentary; perhaps they should have judged it under whatever category they judged ‘Star Wars’ because that’s what it was, an elaborated piece of science fiction. The inconvenient truth is nothing but a load of convenient lies, and half-truths exaggerated to push an agenda.

There is an excellent article in CATO exposing the sorry-science in the Movie.

The main point of the movie is that, unless we do something very serious, very soon about carbon dioxide emissions, much of Greenland's 630,000 cubic miles of ice is going to fall into the ocean, raising sea levels over twenty feet by the year 2100.
Where's the scientific support for this claim? Certainly not in the recent Policymaker's Summary from the United Nations' much anticipated compendium on climate change. Under the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's medium-range emission scenario for greenhouse gases, a rise in sea level of between 8 and 17 inches is predicted by 2100. Gore's film exaggerates the rise by about 2,000 percent.

What’s more, the summary for policy makers the IPCC report (full report is expected in May) actually decreased the earlier estimate of sea-level rise by 30%. The summary, for all counts and purposes was actually reassuring, rather than alarming.

But that’s not how the New York Times, or even the local Sunday Times played it. The popular media continues to project a doom and gloom scenario, when nothing can be further from the ‘truth’.

This over-hyping of global warming is entirely intentional, in fact Gore himself is quoted as saying that he believes “it’s appropriate to over-represent how dangerous global warming is” to open up people to the dangers of global warming. The movie is therefore part of his personal project to ‘over-represent’ facts, and perhaps this is why Gore doesn’t seem to believe his own messages, quite evident from the recent unraveling of Al Gore’s own energy consumption which stands at 10,000 kWhs per year!, obviously Gore, like most politicians is a hypocrite.

Ok, enough Gore-bashing.

Now I’m not suggesting the ‘planet is not warming’, or that climate change isn’t real. It is warming, and has been for the last few decades, but the rate in which the planet is warming doesn’t warrant for the sort of radical OMG!-solutions that the climate-change freaks are advocating, nor as far as I know are scientists in complete agreement on the degree of human involvement of climate change among other things.

Ultimately a possible ‘solution’ for climate change is technological, and not political. Policymakers won’t solve the climate change puzzle; they can make only symbolic gestures to that end, at the expense of possible growth. The irony of the fact is that the only way the technological solution can come about is through accumulation of wealth through free-markets and free-flow of ideas.

The state of the world is not bad as the lefties would tell you, in fact by the turn of the century the average life expectancy of the world population stood at just about 30 years, which by now has more than doubled, the infant morality rate has increased and people are richer, better off and in better health across the board.

Science and technology has, in the past, found solutions to problems at were termed impossible to ‘solve’. Nowadays no one hears about the fragile ozone layer, acid rains etc. ultimately it will be down to cost factors which would lead to more focus on finding an affordable forms of renewable energy, there are already few promising technologies which aim to harness the power of wind, ocean waves and solar power. This is definitely where the future lies.

The solutions won’t be found in Koyoto, or any other international agreement or in some green tax on transport, which restricts trade and at breeds poverty. one thing that could work however is ‘voluntary submission’ to green ethics by consumers which in turn would make companies more ‘green’, this is one thing the al-gore types have been successful in doing and they deserve some credit for it (I have to admit an Inconvenient truth is a powerful piece of video advocacy) if the ‘green culture’ takes off, which it has to a degree in the west, then that wont be the most terrible thing in the world.

What cant work is imposing agendas on developing countries citing ‘climate change’ by trying to beat us into agreements that are clearly not in our favor. If you really look at its completely hypocritical, here are a few developed nations saying that, “look here India and china, we grew at the expense of the whole planet, and that’s so not cool, so now that you guys are growing and developing why don’t you develop more ‘sustainably’, and slowly? “

I’d say, go to fucking hell.

Somewhat Related Link:
http://www.greatglobalwarmingswindle.com/

Dead Man Walking

Much has been written about the death sentence of former Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein. Some say it’s a good thing, others say its not, and some others like me, are stuck somewhere in between. For now though, Saddam may still be walking, But the Saddam to a lot of people is dead; he has been for a quite some time.

The Saddam Hussein the world knew in pre-occupation Iraq was a different man from the court-house maniac that he has become, from the days of his military salutes to his one-handed shooting antics; the public persona of Saddam Hussein was one of strength, control and obedience from his people. Weather anyone would acknowledge it or not a tyrants induce a sort of admiration by at least some people of this globe if not most people. Their very existence is based on their image of respect and absolute unquestioned power. Stalin, Mao, and even Hitler are still adored by their supporters (and sometimes by non-supporters) for their god-like personas. When Saddam Hussein appeared from a rat hole in December 2003, looking like a pre-Christmas Santa clause, appearing on TV in hand cuffs and being examined by an American medic, he gave up membership of that elite club of dictators. He was no more the great Saddam, he was dead then and now we are just having the ceremony.

That said, ceremonies conducted by the US-backed Iraqi court seemed to be somewhat flawed, and genuine concerns whether or not the justice in its purest sense was served is an open question. I do think some justice was served, but I have reservations as to the way it was served - Including the invocation of the death penalty, something which I’m fundamentally opposed to. Much of the reaction from the world over seems to follow those lines, opposing the death penalty imposed on Saddam whilst upholding the fact that he was a brute.

In this vein, I read with amusement, a small box story in the front page of the Daily Mirror on Monday (Nov 6, 2006) with the title ‘Muslim leaders condemn verdict’ in which the body of the story goes on to say Alawi Moulana (Governor, W.P) has told the Mirror that the ‘entire Muslim world would rise up’ against the sentence. Obviously Mr. Maulana was unaware of the fact Iran has already come forward in support of the verdict, and called for Saddam’s execution. Its interesting that Maulana would use the term ‘Muslim world’, because the Baath Party, or should is say The Baath Arab Socialist Party which provided the political foundation for the Saddam-dictatorship was not terribly Islamic, in fact it was more fascist, in both philosophy and operation also inspired by the JVP-like Arab nationalism and European socialism. Iraq then, (contrary perhaps to the reality on the ground which we now see) was seen somewhat more secular societies in the Arab world during the Saddam regime; probably due to the fact that Saddam favored guns over religious clerics for obedience. So it’s a bit surprising to me, why the so called Muslim World would ‘rise-up’ against this decision. It must also be said, however, that conduct of Muslim leaders of this country deserves a lot of praise, and I would not exclude Mr.Maulana from this list. They seemed to have managed to attain the correct balance and not let things slip into religious fanaticism like some parts of the world. If statements like this one, and some limited action (like burning up bush-dolls and American flags) is part of what keeps things in check, then so be it.

Coming back to Saddam’s case, there has always been conspiracy theories thrown about with regard to the case it self, and the capture of Saddam. Some claim the Santa-like figure who appeared from the rat hole is an impostor and the real Saddam is either in exile or dead ( as in physically). Some others believe the court’s decision to announce the verdict was to cushion a Republican defeat in the mid-term elections that are currently under way in the US. I’m usually not so big on conspiracy theory, for I would reject both these claims.

But whatever said and done at the end of the day, a Saddam execution may have little impact on the situation in Iraq, but a GOP defeat, which is now certain in the US House of Representatives and possibly even in the Senate might have a bigger impact on the Bush policy, and therefore the lives of people in Iraq.

Deane.