May 2008
Monthly Archive
May 14, 2008
It’s probably not much of a surprise but John Edwards has decided to endorse Barack Obama for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Edwards is expected to make the announcement at an Obama rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan tonight.
From the New York Times:
“On the campaign trail in the past year, Mr. Edwards regularly attacked so-called establishment politicians like Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and teamed with Mr. Obama against her in debates.
His campaign sounded similar themes to Mr. Obama’s – both candidates positioned themselves as change agents who would clean house in Washington.
Throughout his second bid for the Democratic nomination, Mr. Edwards clashed repeatedly with Mrs. Clinton, criticizing her for accepting campaign contributions from lobbyists, a practice that he fiercely opposed.
And much of his campaign pitch centered on the notion that Washington politicians have become corrupted by the influence of lobbyists for drug companies, oil companies and other corporate interests.
“You can’t just trade corporate Republicans for corporate Democrats,” he told audiences frequently, an attack aimed at Mrs. Clinton.”
May 14, 2008
Afghanistan intends to ask the international community for another $50-billion in aid at the donors conference in Paris in June.
Unfortunately Afghanistan is old news, a country where the international community is already looking for the exit door. Lives have been wasted and billions squandered transforming Afghanistan from a failed state under the Taliban to a failed state under the rule of warlords.
I suppose massive amounts of aid will be promised in Paris but whether that aid will ever reach Afghanistan is another question. Much will probably hinge on next year’s Afghan elections. Who will wind up running the show and what will their agenda look like? No one knows. At the moment, Karzai seems to be everyone’s default choice but no one is particularly happy about it.
Afghanistan’s other problem is that you can only be the poster boy for so long. Since the Taliban were routed in 2001, Afghanistan has been a bottomless pit for Western assistance, military and civil. However, with a government as corrupt and compromised as Karzai’s, it’s been little more than pissing into the wind. That sort of frustrating effort has a limited shelf life and Afghanistan has already passed its “best before” date.
No matter how hard we try not to notice, there are other problems in the world as deserving of our assistance and we’re doing no one any favours by neglecting them. Food shortages, disaster relief, sectarian violence abound seemingly everywhere outside the borders of the Western world.
Besides, what’s in it for us? Both Russia and China have a very tangible, economic interest in Afghanistan. They want at the mineral resources and want to run pipelines across the entire country. Why then aren’t they handling the security? I don’t think they would do a worse job of it than we have.
No, I don’t think we’ll be seeing $50-billion worth of sincere, binding commitments coming out of Paris next month. If America wants to prop up Kabul to keep it out of the sphere of influence of the Russians and Chinese, that’s none of our business. We can put our money and our soldiers’ lives to better use than as fodder for Washington’s geopolitical games.
May 14, 2008
Well maybe it was more like a mudslide or one of those mine collapses. There’s no question that Senator Clinton handily defeated Barack Obama by a 2-1 margin but (and there’s always a “but”) it was
West Virginia! That’s about as big a deal as, well, not very much.
West Virginia has 28 delegates. That’s it, 28. Maryland has 70, Missouri 72, and California 370. That’s why to someone trailing in the final weeks of a campaign, triumph in the least literate state in the union has to be taken out of all proportion.
Dana Milbank had a fun piece in today’s Washington Post in which he compared what remains of the Clinton campaign to Monty Python’s “dead parrot” sketch.
“…Clinton has crossed the Blue Ridge and is over the green hills of West Virginia, home of what she calls the “hardworking Americans, white Americans.” This is Clinton Country.
2:57 p.m., Yeager Airport, Charleston, W.Va.: A steep descent brings Clinton’s plane to Charleston’s hilltop airport. After an appropriate wait, she steps from the plane and pretends to wave to a crowd of supporters; in fact, she is waving to 10 photographers underneath the airplane’s wing. She pretends to spot an old friend in the crowd, points and gives another wave; in fact, she is waving at an aide she had been talking with on the plane minutes earlier.
Customer: “That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not half an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it being tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk.”
Pet-shop owner: “Well, he’s, he’s, ah, probably pining for the fjords.”
Customer: “He’s not pining! He’s passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! He’s expired and gone to meet his maker! He’s a stiff! Bereft of life, he rests in peace! . . . His metabolic processes are now history! He’s off the twig! He’s kicked the bucket, he’s shuffled off his mortal coil, rung down the curtain and joined the bleeding choir invisible! This is an ex-parrot!”
At the convention centre, a crowd of 89-supporters has gathered to celebrate Hillary’s victory:
“There are some who wanted to cut this race short!” Clinton says from the faux-wood lectern. They boo.
“I am more determined than ever to carry on this campaign,” she says. They cheer.
“There are many who wanted to declare a nominee before the ballots were counted or even cast,” she says. They boo.
“This race isn’t over yet,” she says. They cheer.
The sound system emits a loud screech of feedback. The confetti cannons fire.
See? She wasn’t dead; she was just pining for the fjords. “
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/13/AR2008051302862.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter
May 12, 2008
With all the problems facing the world – global warming, resource exhaustion, freshwater depletion and desertification, species extinction, overpopulation and migration, terrorism and security – you would think there wouldn’t be room for anymore. But there is.
Also on today’s menu is nuclear proliferation and, according to a report in today’s Washington Post, it’s a problem on the verge of getting out of control:
“At least 40 developing countries from the Persian Gulf region to Latin America have recently approached U.N. officials here to signal interest in starting nuclear power programs, a trend that concerned proliferation experts say could provide the building blocks of nuclear arsenals in some of those nations.
At least half a dozen countries have also said in the past four years that they are specifically planning to conduct enrichment or reprocessing of nuclear fuel, a prospect that could dramatically expand the global supply of plutonium and enriched uranium, according to U.S. and international nuclear officials and arms-control experts.”
The list includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Algeria and Morocco. There are already seven nuclear plants underway in Egypt and Turkey. Even Yemen wants one.
“We are concerned that some countries are moving down the nuclear [weapons] path in reaction to the Iranians,” a senior U.S. government official who tracks the spread of nuclear technology said in an interview. He declined to speak on the record because of diplomatic sensitivities. “The big question is: At what point do you reach the nuclear tipping point, when enough countries go nuclear that others decide they must do so, too?”
Mohammed ElBaradei, the director general of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency and a winner with the IAEA of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize for his work preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, has likened the pursuit of “latent” nuclear capability to buying an insurance policy.
“You don’t really even need to have a nuclear weapon,” ElBaradei said at a recent international conference of security officials in Munich. “It’s enough to buy yourself an insurance policy by developing the capability, and then sit on it. Let’s not kid ourselves: Ninety percent of it is insurance, a deterrence.” I
Although they don’t like to admit it, it was the original nuclear weapons powers that made a joke out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty under which lesser nations were supposed to give up the right to nukes while the nuclear weapons states undertook to disarm. With decades of indifference to their NPT obligations by the United States, CCCP/Russia, China, France and Britain, the rest of the world saw no reason they shouldn’t ignore the treaty either. Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea so far and there’ll undoubtedly be more to come.
I suppose a recommitted nuclear disarmament agreement might be theoretically possible but don’t count on it. There’s a global arms race underway involving the US, China, India and Russia that will almost certainly preclude any agreement on disarmament by the nuclear powers.
May 12, 2008
Can a tax aimed at achieving a social objective be effective if it’s invisible?
That seems to be a stumbling block on carbon taxes on gasoline. Last week I filled up the VW with regular at a breathtaking $1.27 a litre. That afternoon I saw the price had jumped to $1.32.
That’s five cents a litre in the course of as many hours. When I saw that, I sure wasn’t thinking of the 3-4 cents a litre carbon tax BC levies. I was wondering where the overall price was going to be six months down the road.
Surely any sin tax is much more meaningful when you recognize you’re paying it. But when that sin tax is utterly submerged in much larger market fluctuations, there’s an “out of sight/out of mind” element that comes into play.
I support a carbon tax to discourage wasteful use of fossil fuels leading to unnecessary release of greenhouse gases. I’m just not sure the pump is the best possible place to be collecting it when fuel prices are predicted to just keep increasing in the foreseeable future.
It may be there is no better way but I’d like to see someone explore alternatives.
May 12, 2008
387. That’s a record for the past 650,000 years (sorry Steve, sorry Stockwell). We’ve now pumped atmospheric CO2 levels to 387 ppm (parts per million). That’s an increase of about 40% since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
From The Guardian:
The figures, published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on its website, also confirm that carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than expected. The annual mean growth rate for 2007 was 2.14ppm – the fourth year in the past six to see an annual rise greater than 2ppm. From 1970 to 2000, the concentration rose by about 1.5ppm each year, but since 2000 the annual rise has leapt to an average 2.1ppm.
Scientists say the shift could indicate that the Earth is losing its natural ability to soak up billions of tons of carbon each year. Climate models assume that about half our future emissions will be re-absorbed by forests and oceans, but the new figures confirm this may be too optimistic. If more of our carbon pollution stays in the atmosphere, it means emissions will have to be cut by more than currently projected to prevent dangerous levels of global warming.
Martin Parry, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s working group on impacts, said: “Despite all the talk, the situation is getting worse. Levels of greenhouse gases continue to rise in the atmosphere and the rate of that rise is accelerating. We are already seeing the impacts of climate change and the scale of those impacts will also accelerate, until we decide to do something about it.”
May 12, 2008
Posted by MoS under
Dion,
Harper
[9] Comments
Who is going to lead Canada’s next majority government?
I don’t know and neither do you because that person hasn’t won their party’s leadership yet.
Neither Stephen Harper nor Stephane Dion has struck the essential chord with the Canadian public to lift their parties out of the minority rut. If anything, each is propping up the other’s mediocre performance. The best thing Stephane has going for him is Stephen and the best thing Stephen has going for him is Stephane.
Stephen has shown even the Tory faithful that he’s a cold, secretive, manipulative guy, the sort few are willing to trust. Stephane has shown himself a weak and uninspiring leader with utterly atrocious communications skills.
Now before you jump on me for critiquing Stephane Dion, think about this. When you run for the leadership of a party, you’re representing that you have the skills and the aptitude for the job. You’re representing yourself to be able to reach beyond card-carrying party faithful and connect with the general public. After you win that leadership you have to make good on those promises. All you won was the right to lead but you have to perform and perform well.
Stephane Dion is a good man. He’s certainly intelligent and well-intentioned. He probably has enough skills to get at least a passing grade. It’s on the other part, aptitude, that he fails badly. It’s the aptitude that’s necessary to reach out to the general public – charisma, confidence, clarity. This is where Mr. Dion repeatedly comes up empty.
Stephane Dion’s command of the English language is not good and it’s not one bit better than it was when he was running for the leadership. He ought to have dealt with that, he plainly hasn’t and that’s inexcusable.
So, let’s clean house. It’s time for an election. Conventional wisdom in Liberal ranks holds that Mr. Dion, regardless of his performance, has won the right to lead our party into the next election. If that’s the way things are then, fine, let him lead but let’s get this over with so that the Liberal Party of Canada can actually move ahead.
Look at it this way. The first party, Liberal or Conservative, to move to a powerful, effective leader will form the next majority government of Canada. Wouldn’t it be great if that party was ours?
May 12, 2008
Hillary Clinton’s nomination campaign isn’t just out of money, it’s in the red to the tune of $20-million. It’s believed at least $11-million of that debt is in the form of money loaned by Clinton to her own campaign.
This suggests Hillary is now entering the “pay as you go phase” where the amount of campaigning she’ll be able to do will be governed by the wad of cash in hand at any given point. There have been rumours in recent weeks of antsy creditors looking for payment on outstanding bills.
Her senior advisor, Howard Wolfson, told Fox News Sunday, “There is no reason for her not to continue this process.” Actually Howard there are about twenty million reasons but, then again, who’s counting?
May 11, 2008
It’s got all the makings of a James Bond movie: a fortified island, an underground submarine base, even a hidden tunnel through which nuclear subs come and go unseen. It exists and it’s giving the Indian navy absolute fits.
A big part of the arms race now underway focuses on containing China, including China’s blue water access. Two key players in this are the Indian and US navies.
The Indian navy has announced that its sphere of influence will stretch from the Persian Gulf all the way eastward to the East China Sea which, entirely coincidentally, covers every bit of China’s shoreline. To do this, India has embarked on an ambitious plan to expand its fleet. There’s even talk of an Indian designed and built nuclear sub in the planning.
Is this sort of thing a threat to China? Of course it is. The Americans have made no secret of wanting permanent basing in the Persian Gulf specifically so that the US could sever Chinese access to Gulf oil if the need should ever arise. Not that anyone’s saying they would ever do that, of course, but hey.
So what’s China doing? Well it’s building up its own navy with a healthy supply of blockade busters, its own designed and built fleet of nuclear subs. Of course, having a gaggle of subs and keeping them from being obliterated in a blitzkrieg air attack are two different things and that seems to be where the Ya Long naval base on Hainin Island comes in.
The picture at top left shows sleepy Ya Long in 2002. The bottom right shows the development of Ya Long as it stood in early 2007, complete with shore installations, breakwalls and piers. Somewhere in there is an underground submarine cavern, believed capable of housing about two dozen nuclear subs.
From Asia Times Online:
“Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Defense Minister A K Antony have said that all steps are being taken to protect India’s security interests and sea lanes.
In a more detailed reaction, India’s navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta said India has been aware of the base and would like to avoid a situation where it faces the prospect of a large number of nuclear submarines in its neighborhood.
“‘Though India is not worried about Beijing building a strategic naval base on Hainan Island in the South China Sea, it is concerned about the numbers. Nuclear submarines have long legs [traversing anywhere between 7,000-15,000 kilometers] it is immaterial where they are based,’ Mehta said.
The latest reports will only deepen the already heightened China focus of India’s ongoing US$50 billion defense modernization exercise. This week, India tested for the third time the 3,500 kilometer-range Agni III ballistic missile that would be capable of hitting Beijing and Shanghai. New Delhi has said that the Agni III is now ready for induction. China’s capabilities are of course far advanced, with its missiles capable of hitting over 11,000 kilometers.”
GlobalSecurity.Org, in a 2006 report, noted that satellite imaging sleuths have been spotting all manner of interesting things popping up in China
“Three times in the past few months, they’ve stumbled across unusual military installations using Internet programs that allow those online to view satellite and aerial images of the world.
In the most recent find, users spotted an underwater submarine tunnel off China’s Hainan Island. They’ve also found a mock-up of a Taiwanese air base in China’s western desert. In a bizarre discovery, a computer technician in Germany noticed a huge and startlingly accurate terrain model in northwest China that replicates a sensitive border area with India.”
China is also expanding its influence into Pakistan and Afghanistan, something else bound to give India fits.
May 10, 2008
Yeah, sure. Bring on Reverend Wright. Bring on Michelle Obama’s gaffe about “pride in America.” Bring on Obama’s, well, ethnicity.
At the end of the day, John McCain’s supposed advantages over Barack Obama wither and die just as soon as anyone drops the “D-Bomb.”
“D” stands for “draft” which is exactly what Johnny Boy will have to wind up doing if he wants to transform Bush’s follies into a more permanent debacle. America doesn’t have enough troops to keep this silliness going much longer. You can only “stop loss” reservists – keep them from returning to their ruined businesses and overstressed families – for so long. There are people who are now on their fourth tour of Iraq and/or Afghanistan. You can’t keep making them go, you just can’t.
If McCain wants to “fight to win” in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s going to take a lot of soldiers, a lot more than Bush’s “marking time” force of the past three years. The US Army is facing a huge problem now. A lot more people, plenty of them held against their wishes for one year or more, want to leave than newcomers want to join. You have to release your hostage soldiers at some point but then what? They’ll have to be replaced with even more new, inexperienced and – in many cases – unwilling. There’s only one answer – you have to institute a draft.
The only way McCain will be able to maintain his wars, even without winning them, is to draft replacements. McCain’s personality is not strong enough to overcome, with voters, the dislocation, dissatisfaction and dissent of the past six years. Try as he might, and must, he can’t bury the legacy of George w. Bush. Yet, without answering even one of the strategic blunders of Bush/Cheney, without renouncing the way they abused their Constitution and the nation itself in the pursuit of their ideology, McCain merely proposes to carry on more powerfully. He doesn’t understand that it’s already been proven that a huge power advantage often means almost nothing at all and can even be a handicap.
Just by standing on principle, Obama ought to be able to beat McCain by a wide margin. Just show that he has to draft and that’s the overwhelming end of John McCain.
Memo to Obama:
“Read Above”
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