How well do you know your commie/fascist/socialist/military/tyrant dictators?
A little history lesson: If you don't know the answer make your best guess. Answer all the questions before looking at the answers. Who said it?
1) "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."
A. Karl Marx
B. Adolph Hitler
C. Joseph Stalin
D. None of the above
2) "It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few...and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity."
A. Lenin
B. Mussolini
C. Idi Amin
D. None of the Above
3) "(We)...can't just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people."
A. Nikita Khrushev
B. Jose f Goebbels
C. Boris Yeltsin
D. None of the above
4) "We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own...in order to create this common ground."
A. Mao Tse Dung
B. Hugo Chavez
C. Kim Jong Il
D. None of the above
5) "I certainly think the free-market has failed."
A. Karl Marx
B. Lenin
C. Molotov
D. None of the above
6) "I think it's time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched."
A. Pinochet
B. Milosevic
C. Saddam Hussein
D. None of the above
Answers:
(1) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/29/2004
(2) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 5/29/2007
(3) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(4) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(5) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(6) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 9/2/2005
#1
Any time someone tells me that the government needs to get involved in alternative fuels (beyond some basic research), I make precisely this argument to them. The best solutions to changing economic bases and models are always market ones.
In the 1830's, Nantucket was the wealthiest town in the U.S. and one of the wealthiest in the world. By the 1850's, it was so poor that the town government didn't even bother to collect taxes. The difference? Petroleum, which displaced whale oil as a lamp fuel.
The oil ticks in the ME should take notice.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
10/13/2007 6:40 Comments ||
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#2
Hmmmm...in the 1850's the federal government wasn't telling hand owners what they could and could not do with their property. In the 1850's the federal government wasn't concerned about supporting a state religion to Gaia environmental 'issues'. In the 1850s the federal government didn't have the power or the treasury to subsidize a 'declining' industry through financial or regulatory means.
I think the key here is 'the government didn't have the power'. Regardless of what we would like, I doubt we'll get that genie back into the bottle.
#4
A while back I was amazed at the double breakthrough in Aerogel, making it both far less expensive and flexible, not brittle. Aerogel is a superb insulator, good from -130F to 1600F. If you had a few millimeters of Aerogel insulting your house, you would just need a tiny amount of cooling in summer and heating in winter to make your house comfortable.
Heat from your appliances and body might be enough to heat your house in the dead of winter. And one window air conditioner to cool an entire house in summer. The only significant heat exchange would be from cracks and opening doors.
#7
jds: If you use tinted double pane glass, with inside shades for summer, radiated heat in or out isn't that bad. The Aerogel insulation can also be used inside a refrigerator, and to insulate water pipes and ductwork.
With some clever home construction redesign it could either be used for permanence or pre-fab homes. Two inch thick walls could have ductwork, plumbing, electrical and communications built right in to them, yet be pretty soundproof and insulating.
#8
The problem with oil is not that we are going to run out of the stuff. The problem is we have very limited and highly questionable data on forward supply so the market has no means to properly price current and future supply.
Normally a market can tell us how much something will be worth next year or next decade and price currently supply appropriately. The market obviously can be wrong due to future uncertainties, but thats irrelevant, because in a functioning market replacements will be bid up to the point they become viable at the time they are required (with appropriate risk premiums).
Paradoxical as it might sound, the energy crisis could be solved at stroke by guaranteeing that all the world's major oilfields will turned into glassed nuclear parking lots at midnight on Dec 31, 2015. As this would achieve visibility of supply, allow the markets to work and of course force the politicians to get out of the way.
'Inconvenient Truth' To Continue Airing in Schools
The German government has come out in defense of former US Vice President Al Gore, who was named the 2007 Nobel Prize winner for his work on climate change education on Friday. Germany's Environment Ministry says a few errors in the film is no reason not to show it in schools.
The German government has given its blessing for schools to continue screening Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth."
Al Gore may have had a setback in a British high court this week, but following the announcement Friday that the former United States vice president had been named as the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel defended the use of the Oscar-winning climate change film "An Inconvenient Truth" in classrooms.
Gabriel praised Gore's film for presenting the dangers of climate change in an accessible way. Earlier this year, the Environment Ministry distributed 6,000 copies of the DVD of the documentary film to German schools.
Last week, a British high court ruled that Gore's film could only be screened in classrooms with a warning message that the documentary contains nine factual errors. Scientists have criticized a chart in the film that shows the correllation between carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and global temperatures over the past 650,000 years. Gore's conclusion that a higher concentration of CO2 will also trigger a rise in temperatures is incorrect, his critics maintain. At the end of the last ice ages, for example, temperature rises were not caused by increases in CO2 levels. In the film, Gore said the chart demonstrated an "exact fit" showing that rising CO2 leads to rising temperatures. The judge said that while there may be general scientific agreement that there is a connection, "the two graphs do not establish what Mr. Gore asserts."
Nevertheless, the German government said it sees no reason to include any warning message when screening the documentary in classrooms. "A couple of errors in detail are no reason to disparage an entire film," an Environment Ministry source said. "We assume that teachers will encourage their students to view (the film) with a critical eye."
Gore is planning to make his next appearance in Germany at the end of October, when he is scheduled to speak at a climate conference organized by the Baden-Württemburg based ultility company EnBW, which is paying the Oscar and Emmy award winner 180,000 ($255,000) for his appearance. A similar Gore climate change event was planned for Hamburg, but it's organizers cancelled without providing any reason.
#1
"A couple of errors in detail are no reason to disparage an entire film," an Environment Ministry source said. "We assume that teachers will encourage their students to view (the film) with a critical eye."
Hah, hah, hah, hah, hah....stop it you're killing me.
The Turkish government is furious about a vote in the House International Relations Committee condemning as genocide the killing of some 1.5 million Armenians by the Turks in 1915.
The issue is an old and vexing one, and I confess to not being entirely in sympathy with either side. The Turks, for a start, are absurdly worked up about a mere piece of paper condemning actions taken not by the current government of Turkey or by its immediate predecessors but by another entity entirelythe Ottoman Empire, which ceased to exist in 1922 when it was replaced by a new Turkish state headed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The massacres of 1915 (which were indeed an attempted genocidesee Samantha Powers powerful book, A Problem from Hell) were carried out by the Young Turks. Therefore, the current government in Ankara could very easily say: Yes, there were terrible acts committed by the Ottoman Empire in its waning days and we regret and disavow them. Now we want to work cooperatively with Armenians living in Armenia itself and in the Diaspora, and as a humanitarian gesture make some restitution where appropriate.
That would cost Turkey little and gain it much international support. But it does not seem emotionally possible given how high feelings run in Turkey over this issue. Instead, should this resolution go through, the Erdogan government is again threatening all sorts of dire consequences for the Turkish-American alliance. Since we need Turkish cooperation in all sorts of areas, especially in Iraq, we must tread lightly. My own view is that Congress should avoid passing a symbolic resolution that will do little or nothing to help Armenian victims or their descendants, but that will hurt vital American interests.
Thats not, of course, the way Armenians see it, and they form a powerful lobbying group that donates a lot of money to politicians especially in states like New Jersey, Michigan, and California. (It is no coincidence that legislators from those states are leading the push for the Armenian genocide resolution.)
While I disagree with them on the merits of this legislation, I sympathize with their grievances and respect their right to seek redress in Washington. Thats the way our political system works. Its common, and completely innocuous, for various ethnic groups to get involved in lobbying. Its only a scandal, it seems, when the lobbyists in question are Jewish. In that case, their activities are denounced in odious anti-Semitic tracts, most of them published by groups like the John Birch Society, the Lyndon Larouchites, and the Ku Klux Klan, but some of which appear bearing the imprimatur of supposedly prestigious institutions like Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/13/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
I certainly don't respect their seeking redress in Washington, nor do I think it a right. They should be Americans and neither they nor America has a grievance about what happened a century ago in a far away medieval empire. They should assimilate and do what they think is best for America, not use America as a tool to fight their grandparents old world battles. Let's suppose we had a sizable Turkish immigrant population, Would we want them wasting oxygen in extending this pointless debate? More to the point, for better or worse, we have a lot of former Mexicans in America. How active do we want the American government to be involved in domestic Mexican political issues of no interest to the US on behalf of its formerly Mexican citizens?
Sticky issue. Bad time to be making principled, entirely justified semantic arguments about the events of 90 years ago. Especially considering the nature of many regimes past and present with which, for purposes of expediency in matters of more imminent concern, we have associated ourselves. Advice to Congress: Drop it. Listen to Holocaust survivor/resolution backer Lantos, the committee chairman, when he counseled against jeopardizing U.S. interests on a point of history at this particular point in history, before his emotions or something got the better of him and he voted for it. The point is made. Find some quiet ways to lean on Turkey. Tomorrow's another day.
Advice to Turkey. Grow up.
You like to consider yourself a modern nation. You want to be considered a European nation. In fits and starts, a little academic discussion is allowed, and then trials are held for "offending Turkishness" and critics are murdered. Considering the record, "offending Turkishness" starts to look more like a virtue than a crime. Turkey could change that in a moment. The Armenian genocide as an act of mass killing by the Turkish state is in fact well-established and indisputable. A quick summation of the above here.
Turkey can join the company of modern nations such as Germany, which has faced up to its wretched, murderous past. Such as the United States, which has going back decades now has recognized and attempted to atone in word, deed, law and government funds for the abuses of the past. Bent over backwards. So many others, impossible to name them all. Some have done a better job than others acknowledging and acting on the past. But they all have histories. Britain, France and Belgium. Australia. Italy. Spain. Russia. Rwanda. Erstwhile Turkish colony Serbia, whose mass slaughter is barely in the rearview but eager to shed its pariah status, has taken some token steps toward cooperation with war crimes prosecutors. Japan, still arguing over the details. Maybe not quite so vociferously as Turkey. Pakistan and India, both with tortured, bloody intertwined histories they aren't quite done sorting out. The list is just too long. Burma, Indonesia, big, active issues. Among those most actively pressing their agendas, Sudan, Iran, China probably stand out as the greatest example of nations still headed in the wrong direction, re history. That's a sordid list. Get off it.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/13/2007 00:00 ||
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Interest groups have been promoting this resolution for 40 years. Anyone care to guess why the Dems are pursuing this now?
By Matthew Levitt, New Republic Online, October 12, 2007
Scholars beware: A wave of libel lawsuits threatens to stifle open and honest discussion of issues related to the financing of terrorism. Instead of competing on the battlefield of ideas, where facts speak louder than rhetoric, several individuals and organizations have sued scholars researching the financing of terrorist groups.
I know firsthand. I was sued, stood my ground, defended my research, and won. To their immense credit, my campaign to defend my free speech and academic rigor enjoyed the full and unconditional support of both my employer, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and my publisher, Yale University Press.
These cases are part of a disturbing trend of lawsuits targeting scholars that appear to be an effort to intimidate authors and suppress free speech. Such suits threaten to have a chilling effect on scholars conducting serious, careful, and peer-reviewed research into critical and sometimes contentious policy debates.
Posted by: 3dc ||
10/13/2007 11:02 ||
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#1
Which calls for a counter-wave of lawfare against the saudis, persians and their apologists and fellow travellers including a variety of academics, journalists and celebrities.
via Don Surber - "Mwalimu Daudi"'s comment becomes a great post:
How Albert Gore impressed the Nobel committee enough to win remains a mystery. To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Gore has never slaughtered innocent civilians like previous Nobel Peace prize winner Arafat did. Its true that his anti-technology crusade against global warming is likely to lead to deaths, but is it fair to the rest of the candidates for the Nobel committee to give Mr. Gore credit for future genocides?
Nor can Mr. Gore credibly claim to be a psychopathic dictator like North Vietnamese president Le Duc Tho, another Nobel Peace prize winner. To become a psychopathic dictator you must first become a dictator, and Mr. Gore failed miserably in his efforts in 2000 to steal a simple election. How embarrassing!
Impressing the committee by theft and corruption is probably also out of the question, but since Kofi Annan and the UN (more Nobel Peace prize winners) are the undisputed champions in this regard, perhaps the comparison is unfair. Nor can Mr. Gore credibly claim to be an efficient murdering and raping machine like the UN peacekeepers (yet another Nobel Peace prize winner). Competition for the Peace prize is stiff indeed!
Its true that Mother Teresa and others like her have also won the Nobel Peace prize, but thankfully the Nobel committee has discarded such Jewish neocon garbage such as human rights, freedom, and peace. At least no one seriously believes that Mr. Gore can be accused of these heinous crimes!
I suspect that in the end Mr. Gore must have followed the path that Rigoberta Menchu traveled to claim her Nobel Peace prize - outright lying. That must be it!
Say! Its never too early to speculate on who will win next years Nobel Peace prize. Some of the names that I have seen floated are OJ Simpson, the Janjaweed militia of Darfur, the Hutu Power leaders who led the Rwandan genocide, and (of course) Osama bin Laden. Remember its an election year in the US and that will weight heavily in the Nobel committees decision.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/13/2007 11:27 ||
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I'm sure he will fly on his private jet to accept the award. This grant is part of the Euro agenda: work for an American regime that aids and abets crippling Euro style bureaucracies.
Reason: Should we acknowledge that organized religion has sometimes sparked precisely the kinds of emancipation movements that could lift Islam into modern times? Slavery in the United States ended in part because of opposition by prominent church members and the communities they galvanized. The Polish Catholic Church helped defeat the Jaruzelski puppet regime. Do you think Islam could bring about similar social and political changes?
Hirsi Ali: Only if Islam is defeated. Because right now, the political side of Islam, the power-hungry expansionist side of Islam, has become superior to the Sufis and the Ismailis and the peace-seeking Muslims.
Reason: Dont you mean defeating radical Islam?
Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once its defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. Its very difficult to even talk about peace now. Theyre not interested in peace.
Reason: We have to crush the worlds 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, defeat Islam?
Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And theres no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and theyre the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, This is a warning. We wont accept this anymore. There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.
Reason: Militarily?
Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you dont do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.
Reason: Are we really heading toward anything so ominous?
Hirsi Ali: I think thats where were heading. Were heading there because the West has been in denial for a long time. It did not respond to the signals that were smaller and easier to take care of. Now we have some choices to make. This is a dilemma: Western civilization is a celebration of lifeeverybodys life, even your enemys life. So how can you be true to that morality and at the same time defend yourself against a very powerful enemy that seeks to destroy you?
Reason: George Bush, not the most conciliatory person in the world, has said on plenty of occasions that we are not at war with Islam.
Hirsi Ali: If the most powerful man in the West talks like that, then, without intending to, hes making radical Muslims think theyve already won. There is no moderate Islam. There are Muslims who are passive, who dont all follow the rules of Islam, but theres really only one Islam, defined as submission to the will of God. Theres nothing moderate about it.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble ||
10/13/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
REALCLEARPOLITICS > HALF THE WORLD - AN UNPRECENDENTED MUSLIM CALL/APPEAL TO CHRISTIANS FOR WORLD PEACE. Article - The world faces certain disaster and destruction iff its roughly Muslim 1/2 + ditto Christian 1/2 can't find common ground for peace and unity.
#2
"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death..." Revelation 6:8 Islam
This is predetermined. Without as deep a response, fanatical to say the least, Islam will not be destroyed. That counter fanaticism does not exist in this generation.
Revelation is an edifice that refers to the past and tries to extrapolate to he future. Warning? Sure. Predetermination? Nope. You would need to know the range of events that it draws from to understand its message.
As for our current problem... You can consider civilizatios as organisms, composed from its indvidual cultural bearers. Islam, with its viral character (or rather combination of viral and parasitical traits), after some dormancy, is again on the attack. I believe that our young will see it in time for what it is, despite indoctrination that is going on, and erect not only defences but also find the way to destroy it.
Of course, it requires that we, their parents, would not hesitate to call the infection by its proper name and get them familiar with its pathology.
It may be that events would hit us with sudeness and we old farts would have to lead the fight.
Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once its defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. Its very difficult to even talk about peace now. Theyre not interested in peace.
There is no moderate Islam.
This is who should have won the Nobel Peace Prize.
His father, the late prime minister of Lebanon and the man who rebuilt Beirut, Rafiq Hariri, was assassinated in March 2005. The prime ministers death spurred Lebanese to take to the streets in daily protests until Syria, thought to be behind the killing, withdrew its troops from the country.
More recently, the March 14 Movement, led by Hariri's son, 37-year-old Saad Hariri, has also been the target of mysterious assassins. In the last two and a half years, six parliamenntarians in the coalition have been killed. With a presidential election due next month, Hariri and his allies are locked in a stalemate with the pro-Syria opposition, and their majority in parliament is fast dwindling. Last week Hariri spoke with Lally Weymouth in New York.
Interview at the link...
This article starring:
Rafiq Hariri
Posted by: Fred ||
10/13/2007 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
His father, the late prime minister of Lebanon and the man who rebuilt Beirut, 
