干杯! (Updated) [UPDATED AGAIN]

And now a Chinese beer is the most popular beer in the world, replacing Bud Light (the Thing of Beers).

The Chinese beer is apparently named Snow, possibly from the melamine flakes floating in it, and the Czar does not know anyone who drinks it.

It shall be so noted that the Czar does not know anyone who drinks Bud Light, either, although his money would be on GorTechie.

Thank goodness for soft news.

UPDATE (GorT): Just thought I'd clarify that yes, I've consumed Bud Light, but I generally have a "decent beer threshold" now that I'm out of college and holding a full-time job (Foster's, Guinness, higher-end microbrews) but when limited to lower-end beer, I generally choose Miller Light.  For some odd reason, it's a staple in my neighborhood.

Update Update: The reason it’s popular in GorT’s neighborhood is that—and I stress I am not making this up—as his parish priest once said to his flock, “You are all a bunch of dysfunctional alcoholics!”

Clearly someone isn't reading this blog

We've laid out the case for affordable, easily distributable "renewable" energy.  We've pointed out that until the government pursues energy sources that are fiscally compelling it's a lost cause.  So what happens?  We get Rep. Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Markey (D-MA) have proposed the "American Clean Energy and Security Act" which would require stricter caps in greenhouse gasses than even POTUS Obama has pushed for and would require every region of the country to produce a quarter of its electricty from renewable sources like wind, solar and geothermal by 2025.

If I were a governor of a state, I'd work for more nuclear power.  Currently the U.S. is generating about 19% of its electricty from nuclear power (woefully lacking compared to France (78%), Belgium (60%), South Korea (36%) and others).  Once my state reaches 25% by nuclear power, I'd tell Reps. Waxman and Markey to take a hike.   Pfft.

We're heading for another waste of our money - studies are out showing that the CFC efforts in the 80's might not be needed to save the Ozone layer.  We've already started spending money towards Global Warming, but now it looks like it's "Climate Change" because the Global Warming models aren't describing what we're currently experiencing.  Again, go read this post and think about these idiots in charge.

Nice!

You go girl - good for her to stand up for what she believes in.

A White Knuckle Landing

Imagine this as a movie plot.

A secret military operation sends the space shuttle up, only years after a horrific disaster. The mission is so hush-hush that communications are restricted.

During the mission, the crew notices severe damage to several of the shuttle’s heat tiles...the failure of any one could likely result in total catastrophe and burn up of the shuttle and her crew.

The crew realizes the implication, and each member silently begins to assess the very real probability that he will be vaporized in a matter of days. No rescue mission is possible. There is no lifeboat.

The crew takes detailed video of the damage, but due to the military comms blackout, only a low-res version is sent due to restricted bandwidth on a secure channel. The ground crew reviews the grainy, black-and-white footage and relaxes: the damage is nothing more than shadows and tricks of the light. They order the shuttle to return as scheduled.

The pilot cannot believe his ears. This is suicide, but he follows orders. He even orders the crew to look out the windows to enjoy the wonder of nature for what will likely be the very last time. They start their descent, and the captain watches the controls carefully for the earliest sign that they are seconds from being engulfed in flame, so that at the very least he can notify ground contol of the situation and to say goodbye.

White-knuckled, he tries every trick he can to reduce exposure of the damaged sections to the heat of re-entry, and a combination of luck and skill, he slows the shuttle down to a safe speed and lands perfectly.

Upon landing, ground control is horrified to see the damage was worse than they, or even the crew, understood. These were no tricks of the light or grainy shadows: the crew pulls off a Hollywood miracle by landing at all. Over 700 tiles are found to be damaged. Mathematically, they probably should not have survived.

Scary, huh? Except, it really happened in 1988. And incredibly, no changes were made to prevent this until we lost the Columbia in 2003.

Sliding down that slippery slope

So with all this outrage over the AIG bonuses the government is here to save the day.  Now, led by Rep. Barney Frank, Congress is looking to pass a bill that would allow the Treasury Department to exercise control over all pay (not just executives) in companies receiving government monies.  This goes beyond just the AIGs and GMs.  Of course, I doubt if Planned Parenthood would be up for that.  It received over $330M in federal money in 2007.  It's president had a total salary and compensation of over $900,000 in 2007.  Is Rep. Frank looking at that?  Does that salary qualify as "unreasonable"?  I know there is outrage over federal monies paying that salary.

How many people who are outraged over the AIG bonuses have considered what the next slide on this slippery slope towards socalism is?  This bill will allow the Treasury Secretary to set all salaries in the companies receiving federal money or "where the government has a capital stake."  Are you ready for that?

Capitalism is the single greatest advancing power in history.  Watch this 1979 interview with Milton Friedman by Phil Donohue.

Did you watch it all the way through? Pretty timely given the circumstances today. How many of Obama's appointees are based on merit? Having the government control industry is a bad thing - it derails growth and puts the already inefficient behemoth in charge of industries that need to be lighter and agile in the world market. I'll tell you who is greedy - it's the democrats in the government. Greedy for power and position. We're all told to make sacrifices in these times, have you seen the government make a sacrifice yet?

On Vampires

This is a slightly edited piece of personal correspondence in response to this piece and Jonah Goldberg’s post. For a great illustration of the Evil Vampire vs. Sexy Vampire, see this Final Girl post on 30 Days of Night. Also note this hilarious and dead-on follow-up letter to the editor at NR. N.B. some of the links at the end contain partial nudity.

Confucius will defend Kristy Swanson’s honor! (Or at least that of the scenarists of the movie she was in.) Your Volgi does not think that Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie) was part of the “romantic outsider” vampire genre. It’s been years since I saw it, but if I recall right, the main vamps were Rutger Hauer—a much older, not particularly romantic figure by the standards of vampires (there’s, what one dream sequence?)—and Paul “Pee-Wee Herman” Rubens as his loathsome henchvamp. They were purely evil.

Your Volgi was shocked that the article’s writer doesn’t even mention Anne Rice, whose Vampire Chronicles are a foundational text of the cool-Boho vampire cult. Lestat is literally a rock star in at least one of those books, as I recall.

Anyway, the guy is right and wrong about the sexual symbolism of Dracula (which I’m re-reading now by chance). The way I’ve always seen it is that the book depends on a number of binomial oppositions with Dracula on the one side and the heroes on the other.

Of course the vampire represents sex in one sense, as his m.o. is to take women (in Stoker’s book) in isolated locales and swap bodily fluids. It’s not a coincidence that he’s always played by someone who’s sexually attractive in movies. Christopher Lee is the obvious example in the sexy Hammer Draculas, but it’s worth remembering that Béla Lugosi was considered extremely sexy in the 1930s. Even in person. I remember reading something about a contemporary who knew him when he first came over and said that when Lugosi entered the room, every woman’s eye was drawn to him. It’s hard to see that now, of course, but if you watch enough of his old stuff, it’s there.

However, Dracula represents disordered eros, with his polygynous harem back in Transylvania, his (if you continue the metaphor) seduction/rape of the young, unmarried Lucy Westenra, and then of course, his final trespass into a marriage by preying on Mina, by then Mrs. Jonathan Harker. Mina, interestingly, always shows bad side effects from the vampire’s predation, unlike Lucy, who’s kind of perky early on (as if enjoying a lover’s tryst, rather than evincing guilty complicity [however unwitting] in adultery). The idea, of course, that either Lucy or Mina were willing participants is explicitly denied in the text, but of course catnip to today’s critics who want to see “transgressive” desire everywhere. (And who have plenty to work with—blood and sex are clearly linked in the book (and the Victorian mind), not least in an odd-to-us motif of, “Ohmigod, don’t tell him you transfused your blood into his fiancée! He’ll be so jealous!”)

Drac’s sick “relationship” with Mina Harker is explicitly contrasted with her passionate, married love with Jonathan, which is to say rightly-ordered eros. Mina’s such an energetic, vibrant, modern young woman; reading between the lines, one suspects that she likes to give the bedsprings a healthy workout. But she’s also strongly engaged with the right ordering of society, viz. her concern with the potential pitfalls of the idea of “the New Woman” despite the fact that she embodies it in more than one sense. This isn’t the hypocrisy that I’m sure feminist critics have charged her with, but rather a genuine concern for what changing sex norms mean for society, and that she’s particularly aware that the trend to which she’s obviously closest in fact (if not allegiance) may have serious costs, even as she (guiltily?) enjoys its benefits. So her marriage may be the single most important symbol in the book.

But that’s not the sole dimension of the book—and if it were, it’d be as lame and reductivist as the bozo critics—and the contemporary Romantic Vampire genre—are. Dracula is southern/eastern Europe, nobility of the old blood-and-sword caste, sensuality, backwardness, and irrationality. The heroes of the book—Mina, the Englishwoman, three Englishmen, a Dutchman, and an American*—are northern Europe; educated modern professionals, gentry, a New Woman, and a cowboy; social and technological progress (remember, it was the equivalent of a techno-thriller); and rationality—both religious and scientific.

It’s on these vertiginous oppositions that the whole book teeters—mostly successfully, I think. And—one more digression—it’s where Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula totally breaks down. He split Mina’s allegiance between the zero that is Keanu Reeves’ Harker and Gary Oldman’s swanky Dracula, since she’s supposed to be the latter’s reincarnated lost love, and in the end she helps redeem the Count as he’s destroyed. This is incredibly unsatisfying narratively, as it blows up the whole tension of the original book in which Dracula—embodying all these dark, spooky forces Victorians thought they’d banished to the margins of society—is actually a massive and terrible threat metastasizing in London and is destroyed only by brave men (and a woman) risking their lives. And even then, it’s a close-run thing. Instead, FFC’s BS’s D is a third-rate love triangle. Coppola wants it both ways: Dracula as loathsome monster, and romantic hero. I suspect this is the post-modern love of “complexity” getting in the way of coherent storytelling. Mina once explicitly sympathizes with Dracula as a pitiable hunted thing—though it’s arguable that this is because of Dracula’s telepathic link with her, though it’s certainly a rather Victorian sentiment.

Mina must feel the illicit pull of the vampire but if she gives her self over to it, what’s the point? The whole narrative falls apart. (Credit where it’s due, though: Coppola actually does more, more successfully, with the erotic elements of Dracula than most filmmakers, but he unsurprisingly tends to go too far. Lucy & Mina gallivanting in their night dresses? Ok, sure, fine, but their big ol’ sexy kiss? In the rain? Awesome soft porn, but ludicrous within the world of the novel. That said—Drac’s very sexy harem? Drac as wolfman getting in on with Lucy on a tomb? Lucy’s more-than-vaguely orgasmic reaction to a vampire visit? Not out of bounds within the implied world of the novel and modern standards of sex on screen.)

That’s why Dracula still holds up, I think. It’s about sex, and science, and thought—civilization, really, and its voracious, insidious, devious, powerful enemies. It’s a second-rate novel artistically, but a first-rate thriller with some pretty great subtexts.

For a pretty good modern vamp novel, let me point you to this review of The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.

*Unless you believe the very clever revisionist argument that Quincey Morris is actually secretly in league with the Count.

The Final Four

Crossroads for Pakistan

Pakistan has been at a crossroads for her entire existence. As soon as she makes one turn, she finds herself at another.

Today, in the otherwise amiable city of Lahore, 11 (or more) people were killed and almost 100 injured after an eight-hour ordeal in which terrorists brazenly attacked a police academy. No one is safe anywhere.

Pakistan finds herself at another crossroads that threatens her very survival. Militants “seem to be able to attack at will across the country,” making this the sixth attack for Lahore alone in the last 14 months, and is another in a recent string of brutal and blatant terrorist acts in Pakistan, including an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team, the bombing of a mosque, and more. Pakistan may truly be the most dangerous place on earth, and will likely become the focus of world’s attention in the next few years. It is that serious.

How did Pakistan get here? What happened? Who is behind this?

The last question is the most complicated to analyze, but in some ways shares the same answer with the previous questions. Pakistan has variously blamed the Taliban, Waziri separatists, the United States, and India. Some in the US Government blame al-Qâ'ida (or as your Volgi might say, القاعدة). There can truly be any number of groups behind this, since there is no shortage of competing violent forces in Pakistan.

What happened? The problem is not easy to define under normal thinking. The easiest way for your Czar to understand the county of Pakistan is to divest yourself of any sense that Pakistan is actually a country. Pakistan has, more or less, borders and a name. But a single entity it is not. Hell, even the name Pakistan is a bit a giveaway: Punjab, Afghania, Kashimir, Sindh, and Blochistan were punned together by Choudhary Rahmat Ali in 1934 to make a bit of word play on the Urdu word “pure land” (پاکستان). Pakistan is an incorporation.

How did it get here? The region started modern life as near-academic construct of post-World War II generosity, and it has not looked back. Neither has it looked forward. Like Iraq, Palestine, Yugoslavia, and other countries of convenience created by distant lands carving up post-war maps, it suffers from ancient tribal hatreds and prejudices all forced to work and play together. And this causes three problems, the sum of which result in violence and bloodshed.

The first is simply the resulting lack of government control. On top of ancient and deep hatreds and mistrust, Pakistan’s official government does not function as such: instead, the country is divided between a fully public yet impotent administration at severe odds with the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, known as the ISI. The ISI, which is part junta and part business, once provided (in theory) a military intelligence function to the country. However, as its powers broadened, so did its interests. The US helped strengthen the ISI’s foreign entanglements during the Soviets’s invasion of Afghanistan, in which the ISI learned to leverage heavily on the mujahidin while funneling American cash and weaponry. When the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, the ISI lost its best client when the US curtailed funding. However, the mujahidin continued in other forms, splitting into factions of public servants, businessmen, al-Qâ'ida frontrunners, and of course the Taliban. These were good business partners for the ISI, who continued to manage and fund these forces profitably.

Up until September of 2001, that is, when Pervez Musharraf (then President of Pakistan but once Chief of Army Staff) read the writing on the wall correctly and backed the US rather than face annihilation (yes, another crossroad moment). Musharraf, while not the biggest friend the ISI ever had, wielded enough power and collateral that the ISI began to switch sides somewhat (the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the 2008 dissolution of the ISI political party). The ISI is presently racked with corruption, and many of its nefarious deeds are being exposed to the public, but the ISI maintains a powerful grip on the daily functioning of Pakistan.

The second problem with Pakistan is the sheer lack of governmental discipline. As the Arab News states well, Pakistan cannot simply expect additional military rules, curfews, and martialism to prevail over terrorist actions. “Draconian security measures might in the short term make life more difficult for [the terrorists], but in the longer term it would be playing into their hands, because it would be undermining the constitutional democracy on which Pakistan is built.” The editorial adds that the entire world expects Pakistan to protect its nuclear arsenal from ever-approaching terrorists, but only she can rise to the challenge. The US, the UN, and the Arab world cannot help her much here. Indeed, it is time for Pakistan to take its position seriously, and discpline herself as a democracy and not as an unchaperoned schoolyard.

A third problem is the loss of secular wisdom. Sharia is spreading like a fever: Pakistan recently caved to Taliban forces demanding a suspension of secular law. Eager to end the Taliban violence, the government elected not to negotiate with terrorists, but simply hand them a wrapped gift: the Taliban have returned to power. As history repeatedly shows, giving the Taliban what they want has never pacified them, but has only enraged them. Either the Pakistani government is shockingly ignorant, or they are very much in favor of ditching secularism for sharia. The latter is too horrific to consider. Already executions have begun, and women immediately enslaved. Pakistan has shown a lack of faith in permitting this travesty of Islamic belief (and common sense) to continue. As Dinesh D'Souza wrote in What’s So Great About America, Islam is only truly successful in an American-style democracy, for Islam requires voluntary submission: sharia, when force-fed by the Taliban overlords, is not Islam, but brutal oppression. It assumes a failure of faith, and requires the whip.

Perhaps no other crossroad is as critical for Pakistan as the one at which she now stands. Even in the darkest hours of her struggles with India has she been so close to losing everything. The internal threats that openly terrorize her people are doing more damage to Pakistan—and by nuclear extension the world—than any that have come before.

The motto of Pakistan is simple. اتحاد، تنظيم، يقين محکم. Unity. Discipline. Faith. The government of Pakistan should look to that motto and realize, right now, they have none of these. And it is threatening all of us.

And So It Is Complete

Indeed, this was close up until a few moments ago!

The great Billy Jack held on dearly, and as you know, has heretofore survived being shot several hundred times. Many of us believed that this tin soldier would ride away with a clear victory against the Second Amendment. But as this picture shows, even Sir William Jack of the Freedom School liked him his gunz. And that, friends, was enough to force him to remove his shoes once again.
Plus, how freakin’ cool is a monkey with a 9mm submachine gun? This shows that the Second Amendment is not limited to homo sapiens sapientis, but even a langur can get into full auto awesomeness.

And thus, the Czar’s brackets are complete. The Second Amendment triumphs! And it may be its only post-Heller victory for a long time.

And Men Fighting To Be Warm

Steel-Eyed Death

Observation of the Day

Please to excuse the untoward language. Squirrels scare the !%$*& out of 'Puter.

What I Always Thought

I'm going to tie together a few seemingly unrelated threads today. First, we have this study that finds that toddlers "neither plan for the future nor live completely in the present. Instead, they call up the past as they need it." It's interesting after having witnessed several events like this with my own children. Of course, it's generally a little stricter in the GorT household where failure to obey is met with the lasers from the eyes, wiping out of the Capitol, etc.

Second, we have this report from Reuters explaining how less dustier air may be a significant factor behind warming the Atlantic and driving stronger hurricane seasons.  The study suggests that up to 70% of the warming of the Atlantic could be driven by particulates in the air, largely blown from North Africa.

Last, we have this paper published by Q.B. Lu from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, Canada in which he shows that there is a 11-year cycle of cosmic rays that bombard the Earth.  Now, with reliable satellite data from 1980 onwards, he shows a direct correlation between the cosimc rays and the ozone layer "health."  Remember the late 1980s when we had to ban Clorofluorocarbons (CFCs)?  Hair spray, aerosols, etc??  Why?  Because, Big Environment back then believed that it was creating a hole in our Ozone layer over Antarctica.  There were models developed for the grave crises culminating in a total loss of the ozone layer.  43 Countries signed onto the "Montreal Protocol" (hint, hint, remind you of another "city" protocol as of late?)  As recent as 2 years ago, we had statements like,

"The Montreal Protocol is working, and ozone depletion due to human effects is expected to start decreasing in the next 10 years. Observations show that levels of ozone depleting gases at a maximum now and are beginning to decline (Newchurch et. al., 2003). Provided the Montreal Protocol is followed, the Antarctic ozone hole is expected to disappear by 2050."

 Well, according to Mr. Lu's study, we'll see another growth in the Ozone "hole" in 2019-2020 and this won't "disappear" unless we do something about the cosimc rays (Shields up!).

I have two beliefs in why we have hysterical reactions (i.e. the impending Global Ice Age that was predicted in the mid-1970's, the Ozone depletion in the 1980's and Global Warming of the late 90's and early 2000's.   First, there is the drive to be the first.  The first to publish, the first to discover, the first to do something about some perceived crisis in order to get credit.  I'll fault the scientists if the intention was there to short their research, but I generally think that they are putting out reports as studies continue.  The fault with them lie in not caveating the fact that there is so much complexity in the global ecosystem that we know so little.  Deriving a conclusion is problematic at best.  However, the politicians and media reporters are largely at the center here as it drives their "success."  Second, I think there are people out there who are, for illustrative purposes here, grown up toddlers.  They can be told that facts exist ("it's cold outside") and that certain actions are inappropriate or appropriate ("put a jacket on") and they just file it away for recall as they need it later.  Do you see where I'm going?  Many of us have heard or even entertained debates with liberals and it appears that they shun facts and logical conclusions and until it really smacks them in the face, they refuse to believe it.  Where are they now with the "new ice age" that should be upon us?  What happens when we reach 2019 and the progress toawrds the $235B effort for banning CFCs where we're supposedly seeing progress is reversed?  Will we then acknowledge that larger forces could be at play here?  We're seeing the same act-first, think-later approach with CFLs and we are allowing this behavior to permeate into society.  This needs to stop.  We need to allow science and studies to continue following the Scientific Method and work from there.

Tubby Luvvin'

Thanks, Fox! Now there's hope for 'Puter and all his tubby friends.

What could possibly go wrong with a show that's set up to make fun of fat people trying to get lucky?

'Puter's pitching a proposal for a Bachelor style show for the retarded/developmentally disabled/differently-abled/whatever PC name we call these folks today.

Race you to the bottom!

H/t Drudge.

Evil Gypboard?

Seriously, do you have any idea how cheap drywall is?

Does one really need to save money by using Chinese imported gypsum wallboard? Evidently, it contains mystical abilities to destroy copper wiring from a distance, smells like sulfuric dioxide, and turn dreams into nightmares.

Whether or not these claims are true does not matter to the Czar. The fact that a home builder is trying to save pennies on a job by using Chinese drywall...actually the Czar cannot even finish typing this without interrupting himself with shouts of “Come on!”

No one will believe you’ve seen the winner of the Volgi’s bracket!

You could have cleaned up in Vegas, had you bet on them.

Re: Việt Nam

The kind words of the Czar notwithstanding, your Volgi is decidedly not a historian of Southeast Asia or the Vietnam War. And he's in agreement with the Czar’s argument, in general, though he’d quibble with the word futile, given that it implies pointlessness, but agree completely with, say, doomed, given the framework the Czar describes.

Also, he’d mention the Kennedy Administration’s too-clever and too-cold green-lighting of the 1962 ARVN generals’ coup d’état against President Ngô Đình Diệm which resulted in the latter’s assssination. In some respects, this was America’s initial and perhaps fatal mistake in Vietnam by permanently destabilizing—and delegitimizing—the government of South Vietnam, providing apparent (though untjustified) credence to the North’s (and the Soviets’) propaganda as the Republic of Vietnam as a U.S. puppet-state colony. The Kennedy Administration’s Cold War gamesmanship seems, at times, to have been too much game, too little statesmanship.

It also shows, as your Volgi has noted elsewhere (see the last ¶), what a dangerous ally the U.S. can—lamentably—be.

Re: Việt Nam

The Czar would like to compliment and complement your Volgi’s superb post that clarifies some key points in your Czar’s concern about using buzzwords in lieu of warfighting.

The Czar does not maintain that the war was unwinnable nor that the war was pointless (the Czar agrees with the Volgi’s analysis), but that the effort may have been futile from the start only because the support structures were not in place to maintain any objective.

Three Presidents fought the war for three very different reasons, of course. The reasons herein are grossly over-simplified, but reduce mostly down to:

• Kennedy never foresaw Vietnam, and probably dismissed it initially as anything of importance. This is understandable in context, since it was not nearly as initially complicated as it later became. Kennedy, however, saw Vietnam as an opportunity to win one against Communism...not so much a refutation of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, but a continuation of Berlin and the Cuban missile crisis. For him, it was became a symbol that America was against communism no matter how cold or hot the war. Beyond this, we see, Kennedy did not really emphasize any effort to change a backsliding of the country into a pro-communist regime that pre-dated his own administration. Like coming into a poker game late, after your hand is dealt, and paying more attention to the sandwich tray than the betting...you probably will not win.
• Johnson clearly saw Vietnam as a battleground, and if he did not do so immediately, Tonkin changed his outlook. However, LBJ was more than pulled by many competing but related factors: his goal for a limited, colder effort, the Viet Cong’s gambit for a protracted war, the public expectation that their lives would not be disrupted as with previous wars—thereby requiring a shortening of military resources—committment to stopping Soviet and Chinese aims, and his heartache over his villification by protestors. All these factors diverted LBJ from picking one military strategy and maintaining it (although Rolling Thunder is not given nearly the credit it deserves in punishing the North). As with any effort to make everyone happy, there is risk for major catastrophe. Johnson could have won the war, but his inability to make a specific, tough stand doomed his efforts.
• Of course, Nixon saw the war as a political opportunity. The war was a reason to re-engage with the Chinese, put in political roadblocks to stymie the Soviets, rebuild American prestige worldwide, and get America herself refocused on more important domestic issues. The war was also a great lever to oust the once glorious Democrats from office, which Nixon readily did with his not-entirely-secret plan. Ironically, Nixon was most suited to actually win the war, for he saw it as something more than a political show of power, and certainly understood the need to use military effort, rather than busines process redesign, to get there. Unfortunately, this should have been in place almost ten years sooner: Nixon had little chance of recapturing all that had been lost to date.

Neither Nixon nor Kissinger subscribed to the largely Democratic-party domino theory by 1969 (Dallek, 115), for although Laos officially became Communist in 1975, it was effectively overrun with communists since the 1950s. In some respects, it was already a Communist wasteland that happened to have a monarchy in power. Further, Cambodia was also suffering under a growing Communist cancer (just as badly as Vietnam, really) at the same time. A domino theory of course assumes that each topples the next in order in an uncontrolled chain reaction: the plain truth was that Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were imploding together.

Rather, the real fear was that Thailand would be next, with potentially the British colonies (Singapore, Hong Kong, India, etc.) following soon after. As we know today, that did not happen although some nail-biting was justified (particularly in the case of India).

Your Czar never knows if the Volgi, our resident historian (and much better trained), will agree or disagree with these addenda (and his reasons for doing so will always be sharp), but felt the record should be clear on the Czar’s analysis.

God Is Pro-Choice

'Puter's going to get a little theological here for a minute.  Sitting at Mass with the 'Puter family last evening, 'Puter got to thinking about God and society.  'Puter promises he won't get all religious on you readers too often.

We often hear that serious practicing Catholics are less enlightened than liberal America because our Church forces us to accept unmodern positions on issues (see, e.g., abortion, women, etc.). It is claimed that Catholics are unfree to choose, locked in by a tyrannical hierarchy.  And it bugs 'Puter to be thought of as a unthinking adherent of an anachronistic faith.  This is what started running through 'Puter's mind as it wandered from the soporific homilist.

After reflection, 'Puter realized that nothing could be further from the truth (or Truth, for that matter).  Catholics (and Christians generally) believe that God gave mankind free will, so that each person could choose for himself whether to follow Him or not.  God did not and does not compel creation to believe in Him.  The Catholic Church accepts man's free will is a gift of God and a fundamental part of what being human is.  Catholics, like everyone else, are free to accept or reject God as they see fit.  Most practicing Catholics, including the tremendously flawed 'Puter, have reviewed the teachings of the Church, weighed them carefully and determined for themselves to believe.  You may think that 'Puter is wrong in his beliefs, but 'Puter freely chose them.  These beliefs were in no manner imposed on 'Puter by God or by man, and to say otherwise is an insult. 

God set up system wherein man can choose for himself.  And man is free to choose good or evil on his own.  Therefore, God is the original pro-choice practitioner, in the best sense of the word.

Region Completed

Since other Gormogons are going for the obscure presentation in foreign languages and old typesets, I figured I'd throw a little Latin into the mix.

A Really Inconvienent Truth

So we've all bought in on CFL's (compact fluorescent lightbulbs), right? Maybe we're like the Zuerchers in San Francisco (amazingly reported in the NY Times). See, they listened to Al Gore's movie, bought into the Big Environment movement and replaced nearly every bulb in their house with CFLs. Sure it cost them a little more, but it'll save them on their energy bills - of course, that's only true if the government doesn't allow energy companies to compensate energy costs for these energy-saving methods.

Do a little searching on the internet and you'll see that the Zuerchers aren't the only ones having problems like having 4 out of the 16 bulbs they bought failed earlier than what they thought. So in the rush by Big Environment and Big Government they didn't think out the issues. For example, those 4 bulbs now need to be disposed via approved EPA procedures (note that the Zuerchers live in California where they average 1 disposal facility per county). At this rate, what's the recovery costs? And don't forget that CFL's cost more to manufacture. And all of this while we're facing an economic downturn? Maybe there are better alternatives?

How to Win Friends, Etc.

Says FoxNews’ Major “Captain” Garrett:

Obama will [send] civilian State Department and personnel from other US agencies to improve Afghanistan’s ability to govern itself—a tacit acknowledgement that the government led by President Hamid Karzai has failed to win Obama’s full confidence.

Ouch, says your Czar. If that comment is true, that POTUS Obama is unimpressed with POAFG Karzai’s inability to solve 20 years of war and bloody tyranny in less time than it took Ross to date Rachel, we need to fix that. The Czar of Muscovy, who has ruled for a time with an iron hand, is pretty sure he knows what Karzai should do to reverse this damage.

First, get on Leno. Be ready to discuss your NCAA brackets as well, because the appearance of you having fun relaxes the public better than you accomplishing things.

Give him a demeaning gift from the presidential gift shop, like a dead goat, or something he cannot possibly play in a DVD player, such as a dead goat.

Instead of wasting time dismantling the support structure of the warlords that make your country such a horrific σκαταhole, you could consider offering to sit down down and give them respect and validation, even while they openly mock you. Like the new sixth-grade teacher that, in lieu of punishment, suggests being friends with the ten kids that just set the class aquarium on fire by chucking sodium chunks into it. You know, reverse psychology and all that.

Offer to pick up the tab for everything. That’ll be a big plus in getting people to like you. Try sending some money to doomed businesses too big to fail, such as your country’s poppy growers. They can put it to good use, such as building a library on opium topics. But get really ticked off if, perchance, they blow it all on something stupid like themselves. But be prepared to accept that, too, if it turns out that indeed it was constitutional for them to do so.

Never forget the people that got you to where you are: your military. Hey, face it: being a soldier loyal to Karzai has been for years a freaking suicide mission. Now, the Afghan military is getting pretty darn tough, and taking on some major bad guys on your behalf. Best way to reward them? Tell them you no longer want them hanging around your place. They’ll grow up faster once they get their own places, right? Gotta cut the old apron strings, eh? They’ll never really respect you if you just mommy them all the time.

You can do all this. POTUS got this far in less than four months, and you’ve had, what, years? The bottom line is this: no matter how tough your job is, no matter how vitally historic your role is, no matter how critically important are the delicate balances between tragedy and freedom in the world, if the BO don’t like you, you’re nothing. You really ought to view him as a role model. Find out what he wants, and what he needs, Hamid. After all, it can’t always be about you, can it?

Shocking upsets in the Volgi’s bracket

Click to enlarge.

Việt Nam

While heartily endorsing the Czar's point here that technocratic methods lose wars, your Volgi will respectfully disagree with the Czar's account of the Vietnam War, in that his readings seem to indicate that not only was the war winnable—Gen. Creighton Abrams’ clear-and-hold strategy degraded the North’s warfighting capability and trained up the South to the point that they were winning (e.g., crushing the NVA’s Easter Offensive), until, in one of the most shameful acts in American political history, the Watergate Congress cut off all aid to our ally, the Republic of Vietnam, so that they literally ran out of ammo to fire—but it was also worthwhile—not least for the sake of the tens of thousands of South Vietnamese killed or made refugees by the imposition of the Hà Nội dictatorship, and the millions more who had (and have) to live under its despotic rule.

And dominos did fall. Laos became a Vietnamese-Soviet client state, and with Maoist backing, Cambodia became the infernal, murderous nightmare of “Democratic Kampuchea.” As the Czar notes, this was not in itself a strategic catastrophe, but it was a regional débâcle—which led to a strategic catastrophe.

Losing the war (or forfeiting the war) rather than fighting it in the first place led to a catastrophic loss of confidence in American foreign policy, a massive, poisonous surge of domestic anti-Americanism on the left, and an engraved invitation for the Soviet (and to a lesser degree, Chinese) adventurism and imperialism which so roiled the globe in the ’70s.

And like the Czar, your Volgi is inclined to lay this firmly at the feet of Robert McNamara and his Whiz Kids, Lyndon Johnson, William Westmoreland, Nixon, Kissinger, et al., many of whom were good and decent men who simply made terrible, costly mistakes (many of which came out of scientistic hubris).

When it comes to Afghanistan, your Volgi is optimistic about the Obama Administration’s plan. One never knows, but it appears to be driven by empirical analysis and experience rather than ideology. As the Czar says, it is very worrisome to see the word “metrics” show up; one hopes it is simply a poor expression of the idea of tangible, concrete tactical and strategic goals.

Systems Failure

In reading over POTUS Obama’s plan for Afghanistan, the Czar was disturbed by this quote:

But the plan also for the first time sets benchmarks—or, as the president preferred to call them, “metrics”—for US involvement in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, suggesting the military engagement is not open-ended and that both the Afghan and Pakistani governments must deliver on particular objectives.

Fighting a war on benchmarks and metrics, or perhaps more bluntly, fighting a war based on business school buzzwords, is not without precedent.

Hearken back to Robert McNamara’s concept of fighting a war based on “systems analysis,” a term so vilified that it was euphemized into “policy analysis.”

Effectively, the goal was measuring the real progress of the war in purely statistical terms, counting everything from manpower to bullets fired, and comparing these statistics against political or military objectives. If your plan is working, you see American body count go down and Communist body count go up; you see fewer bullets fired, and less damage to equipment, and so on. If results are not favorable, you tweak the objective and see what changes in a cozy game of what-if scenario playing completely disconnected from the actual death and horror attached to it.

Of course, all statistics suffer from contamination by gathering. Much of the information the Systems Analysis Office obtained was from (largely) Vietnamese officers looking to please the Americans: and as a result, critical decisions were being made thousands of miles away based on numbers produced by intentionally bad data. This is what happens when you expect that foreign players “must deliver on particular objectives.”

McNamara, who lacked any prior military experience but maintained a business information technology background, wrote in his book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam that this systems analysis method was one of eleven mistakes his group made that eventually tanked popular support, and what could have been clearer success, in the Vietnam War.

Of course, today, we have the hindsight to know that Vietnam may have been a futile effort from the get-go. The fall of Saigon did not result in a domino-chain of Communism spreading to Thailand, Singapore, or India as feared. Lives were wasted for nothing, as the end results were just as bad as doing nothing. Again, that is an easy statement to make in hindsight.

Here is an easy statement to make in foresight: Afghanistan is indeed one of the most dangerous places in the world. We already have seen what happens when it falls into the wrong hands: the fall of South Vietnam did not result in a Tet Offensive fought in New York, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania; the fall of Afghanistan brought foreign death to America for the first time on a shocking scale. Let us be very, very sure—beyond all statistical doubt—that we do not make this mistake again. That is something you can benchmark.

Bracket update

In a close game, the Pontiff conceded to Technology Savings Us All as he had better things to do guiding his flock to the ever-after. In the other bracket, Bond clearly has a super car, so "there's no such thing of Supercar" was outclassed from the start. Click to see the expansion.

Dance With The One What Brung You

'Puter's not particularly smart. Or handsome, either, for that matter. But it seems to 'Puter, sitting smack in the middle of this financial crisis, that America hasn't given capitalism a chance to work yet.

Capitalism assumes that there will be swift and certain repercussions for corporate acts, both good and bad. That is, where a company performs exceptionally well, shareholders are richly rewarded. Where a company flames out, shareholders see their investments disappear. These consequences provide a self-regulating mechanism that keeps markets honest. Good businesses succeed, bad ones fail.  And, perhaps most importantly, investors bear the consequences of their choices.

In the last year, we have seen the government become more and more involved in the private sector. The government claims to want to prevent some of the sharper edges of capitalism from "harming" Americans, and by extension, the world. A noble sounding cause, but one that will ultimately cause more harm to America than it prevents. The harm results from preventing capitalism from completing its cycle: destroying bad businesses (and investors) so that good ones may rise and thrive.

The Obama Administration's intervention in the market is a misguided attempt to remove risk and its consequences from the capitalist system. But risk is the sine qua non of capitalism. Without risk, there is no downside to investors, no possibility of total loss of their investment. Thus investors are not dissuaded from making foolish investments by fear of loss. In fact, government intervention reducing natural risk encourages riskier investment, as investors know the government will make them whole. Economists call this moral hazard, and it destroys capitalism.

Preventing businesses from failing (AIG, Citigroup, Bear Stearns, etc.) only rewards incompetence and penalizes success. JPMorganChase by all accounts did a great job in running its business. Yet how is JPMorganChase supposed to fairly compete with a government subsidized Citigroup? It can't do so, over the long haul. Americans would be justifiably outraged were European nations propping up their industries at our expense (cough, AIRBUS, cough). But here, there is little outcry when our government is picking winners and losers among our businesses.

Our extant American capitalist system has numerous mechanisms to resolve this crisis left untried. For example, allow companies to fail and work through the bankruptcy system to restructure or liquidate. This would have saved taxpayers billions of dollars it will never recover from GM and Chrysler.  Shareholders also hold significant corporate powers including control over the board of directors and thereby the bylaws.  Shareholders could use their powers to band together and limit executive compensation without the need for government interference.  Also, regulatory agencies already have significant powers to prevent the regulated from engaging in risky business transactions.  For example, government regulators could have prevented (through rulemaking) insurance companies from being involved in any manner with non-traditional investments such derivatives, credit default swaps, interest rate hedges, etc.  This would have prevented AIG's financial products unit from dragging the insurance unit down with it when the house of cards finally fell.

'Puter understands the government's argument that without its intervention late in the Bush Administration and continuing full throttle into the Obama Administration, there may have been a worldwide financial collapse. However, is it not also plausible that permitting the market to work itself out would have gotten us through this ungodly mess more quickly, and without the necessity of creeping nationalization of our financial sector?  'Puter thinks our fear, willfully encouraged by both Bush and Obama, got the best of our intellect.

'Puter's not certain the Bush and Obama Administrations did not proceed correctly. They certainly had many rational bases for their actions. However, it seems to 'Puter, that the Bush and Obama Administrations cannot be certain either that letting the capitalist system work would not have worked out at least as well in the long run.  

We'll never know because our government never gave capitalism a chance to work out its excess. Instead, our leaders abandoned capitalism, determining that interventionism and its accompanying moral hazard was a better course.

Say a prayer for this man.

Seriously, Mr. Matthews needs help.  Take a read through this online article and then let's revisit the facts.

One, an estimated 78% of people in this country identify themselves as Christian.  One would think that being Christian includes the belief in praying but apparently when a republican invokes the thought of praying for help, guidance or intervention, it is ballyhooed by the liberals.  Even the Catholic university, Notre Dame is heading this way as they invite President Obama to speak under the defense that it is part of encouraging "civil dialogue" and "religious pluralism."  Please, have some backbone and stand up for what you believe in or state that you disagree with the Church and deal with the repercussions.

Two, is the crew at Hardball oblivious to the politicans on the other side of the aisle?  From our current President to former President Clinton and Sen. Joe Lieberman (both shown as examples in the post), there are plenty of prominent democrats (or independents) that embrace religion.

Maybe Mr. Matthews should have this discussion at home and with some of the communities (his Roman Catholic family, his Catholic high school, his Catholic college [College of the Holy Cross]), he and his familiy participates in and maybe he'll realize that those of us praying are normal.

Then again, maybe it's just his pure bias coming thru his bully media pulpit.

As Czar As The Eye Can See

Hah! Destiny draws ever near.

Need bigger? You have two choices: click on it, or face the wrath of the Cossacks. Your Czar recommends the clicking.

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That

Breaking with their sister state of Massachusetts, North Dakota has taken to arresting lesbians for consummating their relationships. Heck, even a CNN reporter, apparently lesbian, was caught up in the sting.

Peace Garden State, 'Puter's foot.

Either that, or 'Puter completely misread the headline and didn't bother to read any further.

In That Case, Let's Go For Earth Year

Evidently, Earth Hour is widely endorsed by the United Nations...so much so, they will turn off the lights at the United Nations building for one hour this weekend.

The UN claims this will save them $24,300 in operating costs.

The Czar, if he does his math right, can save the UN $213,013,800.00 by shutting them down for an entire year.

We can call “Earth Year,” and wind up with real observable progress to boot. On a true global level!

The Czar, as much as he favors dark skies for astronomy, will not be participating in much this Saturday that does not involve alcohol.

Updated: Well, now, as the Czar has long suspected, math is not much of a UN strong point. Turns out when they said $24,300, they forgot to carry the one and round it, so it’s actually $102 they will save. Even so, the Czar can still save them $894,132.00 like that. Interested?

The United States Economy

There is no such thing as the United States economy, if by that one means (as the Obama Administration apparently does) an economy that belongs to the United States.

The United States economy is a collection of single companies, investment vehicles, businesses, etc. existing within the boundaries of the United States. All these entities are either individuals (d/b/as, partnerships) or owned by individuals (limited liability companies, corporations). The United States government has no claim to any of it. The economy as such is simply a measure of the health and productivity of these commercial entities existing within the borders of the United States, nothing more.

Given that the United States economy is not actually the United States' economy, what, then, is the role of the United States in relation to the business entities situated within its borders? It is simply (easily enough said) to enforce the rule of law, providing a stable environment for all participants, with know rules and consequences. This contribution of the United States has made it the foremost incubator of successful business in the world.

Americans used to understand the role of government and the role of business. Government creates and enforces a stable set of rules by which businesses can operate. Businesses choose their enterprise and pursue it aggressively within the rules, and investors choose which business to bet on.

The Obama Administration, abetted by Congress, has abandoned its role in providing a stable business climate (and in fact is actively creating confusion as to the rules of the game), leaving businesses uncertain as to how best proceed. This business uncertainty created by government intervention will likely prolong and exacerbate this financial crisis.

There's still time for President Obama to correct course, but the point of no return is rapidly approaching.

Well, if you want it all high-falootin’ and, like, well-written…

I suppose you should buy the book under review here. On the other hand, you've already heard this argument made chez Gormogon recently.

In a brilliant chapter on the history of science, Hart paints a very different picture, one that argues (quite convincingly) that pagan religious and metaphysical assumptions (which are invariably intertwined) made it impossible for the ancient world to develop the mode of inquiry we associate with modern science. The utter lack of motion and change were, for religious and metaphysical reasons, thought to be the highest (and thus natural) state of reality. As a result, it was not possible to formulate the law of the conservation of energy.

As Hart shows with wonderful detail and concision, the radical transformation of metaphysics required by Christian convictions about God and creation led to the possibility for the Copernican revolution in astronomy, a revolution thrown into powerful theoretical form by Isaac Newton.

Thus, if we return to the usual Western Civ lecture hall cliché—ancient science was somehow stymied by dogmatic Christians, only to be recovered and given new life by Renaissance free thinkers—then we can see that it is a hopelessly inaccurate cartoon. As Hart points out, “The birth of modern physics and cosmology was achieved by Galileo, Kepler, and Newton breaking free not from the close confining prison of faith (all three were believing Christians, of one sort or another) but from the enormous burden of the millennial authority of Aristotelian science. The scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not a revival of Hellenistic science but its final defeat.”

And we didn’t charge you a thing.

Two Presidents

Are these guys are 180° apart? Or 360° apart?

Sometimes two men can be so similar that their similarities can be unfathomable. The opposite, of course, is also true.

The Czar is surprised, recently, by the odd similarities and contrasts between President Barack Obama and President Andrew Jackson.

If we were to describe a man with little political pedigree who hit the US Senate seemingly from nowhere, performed nothing noteworthy as a senator but almost immediately became the talk of the nation as a man who could well become President (however unlikely his background), and openly appointed supporters and friends (as well as some former or future adversaries) in key political positions, you would wonder which man your Czar meant.

You might also be confused by a discussion of the same man’s rise to power on a message of change; of ending years of domination by the opposing political party, of a reformation of the Democratic party, and ultimately of dependence on greater public consumption of image over substance. We are discussing a man who could appear engaging yet insensitive, calculating yet physically adept, attractive yet reckless. Rumors exist that his legal education was less than complete, but was admitted to the bar anyway. Give up?

Yet Andrew Jackson can at times be seen as an antithesis to Barack Obama. Jackson was a brawler, who killed a man in a duel, was wounded in several others, and fought aggressively in war. He despised the concept of federal control over banks, and was determined to return banking to a purely capitalist system of success or failure. Jackson despised blacks and Indians, and had no shortage of serious problems with the women in his life. Jackson was, perhaps as a result of his military experiences, ferociously expansionist with American influence and power: he would rather push than concede, and was ruthless rather than coy when it came to foreign policy. Jackson was almost libertarian in his defense of individual liberty, and did not encourage community dependence and government assistance. These elements make him vastly different from our President.

Some factors seem different at first, but become uncomfortably similar upon deeper thought. Jackson was portrayed as a powerful figure, a military action figure with powerful chest and a commanding stature; however, he was in truth a thin, frail man who vomited blood and suffered in agony over his many military and private battles. Initially, this sounds the opposite of Obama, but the similiarity is that Jackson was not the man the media and party manufactured him to be. He was quite different, and the more people talked about Jackson (or talk about Obama) in glowing, heroic terms, the less likely the speaker seems to know the man.

Jackson was elected on a message of eliminating bureaucracy, destroying blatant corruption of elected officials, and instituting a rotating staff so that no secretary, advisor, or other staff member would be too comfortable, take their roles for granted, or become career politicians. Obama, by total contrast, was elected on a message of restoring America’s prestige, ending a global war, and repairing GOP damage to foreign and domestic policy. Yet, by total similarity, both seem opposed to the promises. Jackson surrounded himself with loyal cronies, and made very certain that party favorites were put into position (he rotated very few out: about as much as any president changes staff), and grew the government and subsequent corruption. Obama, as can be seen throughout our website, has emboldened our adversaries, insulted or ignored our friends, continued the war, and is in process of shredding the world and American economies.

Jackson and Obama were elected during very different crises. Jackson had to deal with the increasingly turbulent and fractious South, which he promised required immediate action rather than delay. Obama, as we know, took office intent on ending the so-called failure of American forces in Iraq and the growing violence in Afghanistan caused by GOP incompetence. Yet, as time passed, Jackson did nothing to address the South’s aggression or the issue of slavery beyond threaten South Carolina with a futile promise of military force—he wound up taking the Whig position of avoidance of conflict. Likewise, we find Obama infuriating his supporters by continuing the GOP strategy in Iraq as well as Afghanistan, in total contrast to his campaign promises. Now these are broad generalizations to force a comparison, as Jackson did make State’s right suffer with his response to the Nullification Crisis, and indeed Obama is endangering American progress with the release of Gitmo detainees, offering to talk with the Taliban, initially threatening but then patronizing Pakistan, and putting pressure on US forces to downsize Iraq and throw tired soldiers right into Afghanistan, but the Czar is just a tour guide here, not one of the featured artists.

There are many comparisons between Obama and Carter; but the latter is not the only parallel we see. The differences between Obama and Jackson are extreme, yes, but the similarities disturbing.

Pretty cool

Unfortunately, I've missed the opportunity to try to catch the ISS & Shuttle as they fly overhead since the deployment of the new trusses.  The ISS will be the brightest object in the night sky (apart from the Moon) once the trusses are complete.  An astrophotographer, Ralf Vandebergh, caught the image on the left from the ground using a 25cm telescope and a video camera (click for a larger version).  Augmentations to the picture courtesy of Discover online.

I'd encourage everyone to take a minute and find out when it's passing over your area and then go out, bring the kids and take a look.  If you've got binoculars, use them for an even better.

Obama's Foreign Failures

In continuation of the post below with regards to Obama's failed foreign policies, here is a link to a great article summarizing them to date from the New York Post (h/t GorT, Sr.)  Mr. Peters is really channeling the threads here.

Greece vs. Babylon

Instead of the heartless faces of despots, the marble statue of a young girl playing knucklebones.

The always-compelling Roger Sandall via Arts & Letters Daily.

Is this the new image Obamanities pulled the lever for? [Updated]

The President of the E.U., Mirek Topolanek (currently the PM of the Czech Republic - the E.U. presidency rotates among member nations), called the direction that the Obama Administration is taking with the economy the "road to hell."  This is a week before President Obama makes his first European visit as president, including a stop in Prague.  "All of these steps, these combinations and permanency, is the road to hell," Topolanek said. "The United States did not take the right path."  In addition to Topolanek, Germany and some other nations are resisting (unlike the Congress here) the encouragment by our administration to spend more on the recovery believing that they would lead to increased debts and inflation.  Juncker, Luxembourg's PM and head of the coordinating body of euro-using countries, said there was "no question" that the EU would reject requests from Obama to spend more.

So if there are Obama supporters reading this, is this the kind of change to our foreign policy that you defended in the fall claiming to improve our image in the international community?  I doubt it.  For the rest of us, "I told you so" seems accurate but a tad hollow.  Here's a hint: the word for the button this time is "nová sazba."

Update: The Topolánek government fell yesterday, another victim of the economic downturn. The Social Democrats will allow them to complete the EU presidency, but it's not clear what such a lame-duck status will mean. Also, I'd put RESETOVAT on the tlačítko. —ŒV

BLACKWATERSHIP DOWN!

HOLY FRICKIN’ CRAP. This is completely insane. Also, it may be leading off the Gormogon Film Festival. Who knows. This is either completely appalling or the most incredible thing ever. Alas, it's Japanese, so we’ll never be able to decide as it baffles us the rest of our days. But seriously. Check out Apocalypse Meow.



Matt Ufford at Warming Glow has the story. And if Harō Kiti makes a cameo as the mysterious black-ops commando, Ghettoputer will explode.

DP-J on Iran

A-yup.

Whoever drafted President Obama’s public appeal to Iran has little or no idea about the way minds work out there. This gust of hot air spouting from the president of the United States was disconnected from reality, and so more than enough to make the heart sink. Obama invited Iran to “take its rightful place in the community of nations.” This, he went on, “cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization.”

Oh yes it can. The ayatollahs are certain that terror and arms will advance the greatness of Iran better than anything else. History, culture, daily experience, assures them that this is a fact of life, and that peaceful action is only for the weak. Centuries of fighting, much of it unsuccessful, have formed their identity, and now they believe that they are on a winning streak, with a victorious Islam for inspiration. What need have they of the ruins of Persepolis or the poetry of Saadi and Rumi when they are developing nuclear bombs and missile-delivery systems? Appeals like Obama’s merely sound patronizing. Who the devil is he to be burbling at them about their rightful place and true greatness?

The patronization is not the worst of the damage, however. Here is the president of the United States, occupying the position hitherto openly acknowledged as speaking for the West, turning himself of his own free will into a petitioner. The ayatollahs are bound to treat this approach as a humiliation for Obama, and broad evidence that victory is in their grasp. Over and above that, Obama has shown that he is willing to pay a price to come to terms with Iran, and naturally they will want to find out how much more he might be forced to pay. They will therefore scorn any element of good will, and continually raise the stakes to test out how far to go in cashing in on their perception of American weakness and humiliation. And sure enough, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei lost no time at all brushing aside Obama’s appeal as a mere slogan, while a crowd of tens of thousands were out in the streets chanting their well-practised refrain of “Death to America.” Many epithets are applicable to the ayatollahs ruling Tehran, but naïve and sentimental are not among them.

Epic Fail, Parts I and II

First, President Obama's budget plan to deficit spend our way to prosperity ran into a bit of a problem today. The Brits couldn't find buyers for its entire bond offering this morning. Then this afternoon, a Fed bond auction attracted unexpectedly weak demand. In a nutshell, this means that the United States is going to have to offer more attractive interest rates on its bonds to attract buyers. And since President Obama's budget is heavy on the borrowing, it will cost significantly more to finance, causing an increase in out year deficits. 'Puter can't wait to see the revised CBO impact projections.

Second, apparently Secretary Geithner, the brains behind President Obama's economic rescue plan (and deeply involved in President Bush's as well), almost single-handedly cratered the Indonesian economy during the Asian Crisis in the late 1990s.

This does not bode well for the future.

Carbon Scoring

Your Czar normally detests the Chicago Tribue as a dessicated synopsis rag masquerading as a once great paper, but a front page article caught his eye on Sunday about Chicago. Specifically, it was a discussion of whether the City of Chicago, Inc., (urbs in whorto) is making good on its pro-environmental stance.

The Mayor’s office prides itself on making Chicago the greenest city in the world, to the extent that official representatives from other cities have visited Chicago on learning how the miracle may be repeated. Certainly, anyone who works in commercial construction within Chicago would be inclined to believe the claim, with the miles of green code requirements and LEED stipulations to put in low energy components, reduce waste, and seek alternative designs favoring natural light often at enormous cost to the project. The plethora of grass-and-tree-lined rooftops downtown certainly fosters this belief.

In a move to attract positive attention for his white-whale obsession with the 2016 Olympics, Mayor Daley made a series of public promises in 2006 to green the city above and beyond what he has already done. For example, to combat the City’s apparently sizeable contribution to global warming, the Mayor assured that the City would purchase no less than 20 percent of its electricity from wind power and geothermal sources.

However, efforts to improve the City’s efforts have not been as promising; in fact, they have backslid about as badly as the evidence for global warming.

In order to offset this lack of progress, The City began buying carbon credits in 2007, allegedly enough to eliminate 35,000 tons of carbon dioxide. The Czar is bemused by this, because a metric ton of any gas is a challenge to measure. Think of it as a metric ton of frozen carbon dioxide, which would be a helluva fun party to attend.

But what is a carbon credit, and why would the City want to buy one, let alone 35,000 worth?

For this, we have to go back to 1992. Remember that goofy thing from that year that seemed to be reasonable at the time but wound up being bad for business? The Czar hears some of you shouting things like “Healthcare reform,” “Clintonian foreign policy,” and “The Maastricht Treaty,” all of which are great answers (especially the last one), but the correct answer should have been “The Kyoto Protocol,”

Yes, the Czar knows that this was proven to be an unfeasible feel-good piece of non-science nonsense, but the hippies who became boomers really like it, and insist we use as much of it as possible, even if it jams a stick into the spokes of real environmental reform. Okay, part of that Protocol involved the use of carbon credits.

The theory is that only so much CO₂ can be released into the air each year, as determined by a group you did not elect who has no scientific or business recognition. Like shares of stock, you can buy credits to help release the gas. One credit is worth one ton of frozen carbon dioxide. If you eliminate a ton of carbon dioxide“by planting trees, burping soda, or one would assume freezing it, you are given a carbon credit by this same group you neither elected nor recognize as a scientific or business organization. If you produce a ton of carbon dioxide (as all living things do eventually), you need to purchase a carbon credit for whatever the market price is at that moment. That price is also determined by the same group you know little about.

Fortunately, to make things easier for you, you can use carbon brokers, who will buy your earned credits if you remove and sell you others back if you produce. Buying and selling. Like stocks. In fact, that’s part of the whole idea: companies who neither remove nor produce carbon dioxide are welcome to buy and sell credits to make profits off them. This is critical, because the more companies buy credits, the more the value inflates. Eventually, the price to produce carbon dioxide (identical to the price of purchasing credits) becomes so high that it becomes cheaper for you to stop production and switch to greener alternatives.

Evidently, some folks believe that this is how life works: if the price of carbon credits goes up, production eventually stops. Think about that: if the carbon credit concept is structured to treat CO₂ like a precious stock commodity, how does that work? That is of course the same as saying “Let’s keep buying and selling stocks until the market goes up so high that eventually we stop producing profitable stock!” Believe it or not, a lot of the same people who favor the Kyoto Protocol would be all right with that type of collapse of capitalism.

Now, if you buy a carbon credit, the money supposedly goes to anyone who is being green, remember. Tree planters in theory, but in reality it usually goes to “alternative energy” producers: startups getting going in wind, solar, and geothermal. And something called biomass. We will come to that in a bit.

But back to Chicago. Mayor Daley, who must remind us he is still a loyal Kyoto Democrat, sought to fix the lack of environmental progress by buying 35,000 carbon credits to the tune of $294,049. And 97% of that carbon credit money goes to biomass producers, with the rest distributed among other technologies.

So what is biomass? In the City’s case, 87 percent of those carbon credits purchased by the City goes to a single wood-waste burning power plant in North Carolina. Why? Wood waste is considered a renewable energy: it qualifies, with a little work, as a biomass facility; however, one of the purposes of carbon credits is to assist in the opening of new, greener power generation facilities, whereas the wood-waste burning plant has been turning a profit since it opened in 1990, long before carbon credits.

And is there value to using an existing facility, rather than investing in a new greener one? Heck, yeah: the wood-burning plant produces a lot of electricity; the alternative, new plants could never power a monster-city like Chicago. And the environmental value of investing in an established
facility? One expert cited in the Trib article laughed it off as wildly theoretical, since burning wood and calling it biomass is hardly green, compared to real profit/loss analysis of a startup wind facility.

For the record, in 2008, only 1% of the City’s electricity was offset by carbon credits. The rest? Well, non-green, dirty brown power.

As Loyola University Chicago history professor Harold Platt said,
Not surprising, as this is par for the course with credits: the Chicago as greenest city claim is a “total public relations fraud.”

No surprise here. Even the slightest serious investigation reveals that the concept of carbon credits is itself a farce, ranging from carbon credits handed out to those who do nothing to reduce CO₂ emissions to rip-offs by brokers, to the whole “Who Are These Guys Anyway?” question about the authorities handing out the credits and assessing the market values.

Why is the City of Chicago buying into the credits scam rather than implementing real environmental changes? Because Mayor Daley is not an idiot. He knows full well that the Kyoto Protocol, and its regulations and limitations and assessments, is disastrous to the business engine that drives his city and keeps him employed. The more you try to enforce good environmental practices, the worse it becomes. The more you leave it alone, the better it thrives. But the Democratic party, aging hippies for the most part, luv them their Al Gore and his green eggs and ham philosophies (especially seeing as how much he profited from carbon credits in particular), and Daley will play along. To the public, he avows that he will make Chicago obey the Kyoto Protocol, while behind closed doors, he runs as far as he can from it.