In greater depth:
With current food production we can support many more than we have currently. Nearly 30% and more of our crop goes to waste because of shipping issues or lack of demand. With hydroponics and other technologies we can support that many people with our current agricultural lands.
However....
Potable water is the main issue. You can't grow water or manufacture it. You can only collect or pump it from a well (and those are going dry from demand). Figuring out more efficient irrigation methods and waste disposal methods is key to supporting a greater population. Heck, even pulling in some icy comets to process several million cubic feet of water would be a great help. Figuring out desensitization that didn't increase the saltiness of the oceans would work too.
There are a lot of challenges to overcome to support that population but the human race has shown it can easily figure it out. Just as long as we are allowed to thrive and keep the goddamn greens off our backs.
[NYTimes] WHEN George Kennan wrote his famous “Long Telegram,” his 1946 letter to Secretary of State James F. Byrnes that laid the foundation for America’s containment policy against the Soviet Union, he mentioned Joseph Stalin just three times — despite the fact that, by then, the Russian leader ran his country like an emperor.
Seven decades on, Stalin’s current heir, Vladimir V. Putin, finds his name emblazoned on nearly every page of the myriad memos and papers struggling to understand the mind-set driving Russia’s strategic behavior. To understand Mr. Putin, the thinking goes, is to understand Russia. But is that quite right?
In the heady days of the Cold War, Americans tended to view Soviet decision making as a black box: You know what goes in, you know what comes out, but you are clueless about what is happening inside. Soviet policy was thus believed to be both enigmatic and strategic. There was little room for personality or personal philosophy; understanding the system was the only way.
According to Gleb Pavlovsky, Mr. Putin’s former spin doctor extraordinaire, these days the Kremlin is still enigmatic, but no longer strategic. For Mr. Pavlovsky, Kremlin policy is fashioned rather like the music of a jazz group; its continuing improvisation is an attempt to survive the latest crisis.
[Hurriyet Daily News] While President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... was addressing the heads of villages and neighborhoods at his presidential palace in Ankara, I watched him from live broadcasts on television and said, "This is through. We will hold early elections. He will not allow a coalition to be formed."
We can also assume he has already started his election campaign since he has started his palace gatherings again. He will again use the means of state to criticize everyone from the palace podium. He had already made it clear a day before that he would not allow the optimism that came from the Davutoglu-Kilicdaroglu meeting.
He said he would not extend the 45-day period to form a government because he did not have the authority to do so.
Actually, he has the power. The constitution says that in the case that a government is not formed in 45 days, the president consults the Speaker of Parliament and may decide to renew the elections. There is no requirement but if he thinks a government may be formed, he may extend this period.
But he will not do such a thing because, indeed, he does not want a coalition; he favors snap elections.
Actually, after the June 7 elections, he specifically waited some time before assigning the mandate because he did not want the time before the forming of the parliamentary council to be used for coalition negotiations.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2015 00:00 ||
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[FiveThirtyeight] Twelve years ago, in August 2003, Joe Lieberman led in most polls of the Democratic primary. Eight years ago, in August 2007, Rudy Giuliani maintained a clear lead in polls of Republicans, while Hillary Clinton led in polls of the Democratic nomination contest. Four years ago, in August 2011, Mitt Romney began with the lead in polls of Republican voters, but he would be surpassed by the end of the month by Rick Perry, the first of four Republican rivals who would at some point overtake Romney in national polling averages.
Lieberman, Clinton, Giuliani and Perry, as you've probably gathered, are not the faces atop Mount Rushmore. Only Clinton came close to winning the nomination.
But the problem isn't just that the national polls at this stage in the race lack empirical power to predict the nomination; it's also that they describe a fiction. I don't mean to suggest that Donald Trump's support in the polls is "fake." I have no doubt that some people really love him or that he'd be the favorite if you held a national, winner-take-all Republican primary tomorrow. However, the "election" these polls describe is hypothetical in at least five ways:
They contemplate a vote today, but we're currently 174 days from the Iowa caucuses.
They contemplate a national primary, but states vote one at a time or in small groups.
They contemplate a race with 17 candidates, but several candidates will drop out before Iowa and several more will drop out before the other states vote.
They contemplate a winner-take-all vote, but most states are not winner-take-all.
They contemplate a vote among all Republican-leaning registered voters or adults, but in fact only a small fraction of them will turn out for primaries and caucuses.
This is why it's exasperating that the mainstream media has become obsessed with how Trump is performing in these polls. More @ link
#1
Last time I checked, when someone hits paydirt or oil, lots of people figure to do the same thing. There's a rush to copy the success of the first guy. The amazing aspect of all of this is the response of the GOP establishment which is proving that it is fact a bunch of liberal oligarchs who don't give a damn other than you servilely showing up at the poll in November to keep them in the gravy and power solely because they want you to fear the 'other guy'. That would be the 'other guy' they continuously surrender more and more power to every day and never hold accountable for high crimes and misdemeanors. Oh, they'll have kabuki theater hearings and shows, but no action.
[DAWN] AT long last, and with one resounding voice, the representatives of the Pak people have spoken for the minorities of this country. In so doing, they may have taken a historic step towards a course correction for Pakistain's future. On Tuesday, the National Assembly passed a resolution demanding that the views of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah about the status of minorities in Pakistain, as articulated in his famous speech of Aug 11, 1947, be "regarded as a road map" in the years ahead. Moved by Kamran Michael, minister for ports and shipping, the resolution referred to Mr Jinnah's speech as "a beacon of light". Portions of that address, which were suppressed by some of the right-wing governments that followed, were recalled in the assembly including the unequivocal assurance by the nation's founder: "You may belong to any caste or creed -- that has nothing to do with the business of the state." The resolution also reiterated the minorities' status as equal citizens.
In countries with a different past, the resolution may read like an assertion of the obvious; in Pakistain it is difficult to overplay its significance, both from the point of view of content and timing. After independence, contrary to Mr Jinnah's words, the state lost little time in recasting faith -- specifically the faith of the majority -- as its raison d'être, and later, as the cornerstone of its foreign policy. A triumphalist narrative, especially from the '80s onwards, was deliberately nurtured through means both subtle and overt, and the minds of entire generations poisoned for short-sighted objectives. The fallout within the country has been devastating, as witnessed in the lynching of blasphemy suspects, sectarian killings, the sacking of localities with minority populations, and the bombing of religious processions and places of worship, etc. Although religious extremism has disproportionately affected minority communities, it has over time morphed into the bedrock of a vast terrorist network that the state is now battling to destroy. Efforts are being made to rein in some of the more reactionary elements in society. The parliamentarians, to their credit, have taken the cue to push through the much-needed endorsement of Jinnah's speech from 68 years ago. The lack of opposition by members of religious parties in the assembly to what was clearly promotion of a secular point of view -- unthinkable even a year ago -- indicates that they too have picked up on the prevailing mood.
Nevertheless, for Aug 11, 2015 to be a defining moment, the resolution must form the basis for action. Politicians and the establishment need to take a far more categorical stand against religious Death Eaters of all shades. For enduring change, school curricula should be purged of divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... , prejudiced material, the country's pluralistic heritage celebrated, and the blasphemy law revisited. Only then perhaps will the words spoken by the founder of this nation so many years ago have any meaning.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2015 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] IMRAN Khan has been outed. What was suspected for some time has been confirmed: Imran is a closet Marxist.
It is clear that Imran follows not the doctrinaire ideology of Karl Marx but the ambivalence of the comedian Groucho Marx, who wrote to his club: "Please accept my resignation. I don't care to belong to any club that will accept me as a member." Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who is the lightweight's lightweight... 's prevarication regarding his membership of our National Assembly echoes Groucho Marx's ambiguous remonstrance.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2015 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] EITHER we are approaching some sort of tipping point in the city, or the theatre is about to get a little more absurd. Until the resignations given by the MQM are formally accepted by the speaker of the Assembly and chairman Senate, we will have a situation where there is a parliament of 342 members with 56 having submitted their resignations. How long can they keep going like this? And how many more resignations will come before the next general elections?
In any case, there is palpable fear in the business community in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , particularly amongst manufacturers who fear that a time of great uncertainty is coming. What exactly is the MQM's game here, people are asking. Have they resigned as a sign of weakness, to signal to the establishment that they are willing to withdraw from the game in return for some assurance that they will not be targeted any more? Or are they gearing up to fight back in the streets?
If it is the former, we would probably not have seen the kind of combative rhetoric like we saw coming from Farooq Sattar's presser outside the National Assembly. We also would not have heard the increasingly roundedAltaf Hussain ..The head of MQM in Pakistain, who has lived in London and hasn't laid eyes on Pakistain since Caesar made corporal. Judging from the size of him,he may be a Hutt... tell Hamid Mir that the country has to choose, "who is going to be on top, parliament or the military?"
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2015 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya] The U.S. Army's outgoing chief of staff warned Wednesday that reconciliation between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq is becoming harder and that partitioning the country "might be the only solution."
General Raymond Odierno, who once served as the top U.S. commander in Iraq and retires Friday after nearly 40 years in uniform, said the U.S. focus for now should be on defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the militant group that has seized large portions of the country.
But in a valedictory news conference he took a pessimistic view about the underlying conflict between Shiites and Sunnis that brought the two communities to brink of civil war in 2006.
Asked if he saw any possibility of reconciliation between the two, Odierno said "It's becoming more difficult by the day" and pointed to a future in which "Iraq might not look like it did in the past."
Asked about partition, he said: "I think that is for the region and politicians to figure out, diplomats to figure out how to work this, but that is something that could happen.
"It might be the only solution but I'm not ready to say that yet."
[Telegraph] How have we come to believe that tacky sentiments or lazy quotes inked indelibly into a man's skin are the sign of a profound and interesting person, asks Bill Borrows.
It is, of course, extraordinarily difficult to write this piece without sounding like a middle-aged, reactionary old git. Luckily, I'm completely happy with at least three of these four labels because 1) It's almost impossible to argue with them, and 2) I know I'm not reactionary in any way -- apart from when it comes to the behaviour of young people between the ages of 13 and 21 and most socio-economic and popular cultural developments since 1998. Not that tattoos are a new development in any sense.
As the more defensive members of the over-inked community will recite with Pavlovian inevitability: 'Tattoos have been here since before Jesus Christ.' Indeed they have. Well before Jesus Christ, actually. And so have drought, war and pestilence. Your point is? 'It's about self-expression.' No it isn't, it's specifically about your personal inability to express yourself married to a pathetic and fundamental predilection for inaction masked as a dramatic statement of intent or personality.
#6
When my son was in the Marines, he got his girlfriend's name tattooed on his back. I pointed out that I had been married to his mother for 30 years, and that MAYBE in 15-20 years, when I was sure that it was going to last, I would get her name tattooed on my shoulder.
After he got out, his girlfriend dumped him. Then he met his wife, who has a different name ...
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/13/2015 11:37 Comments ||
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[Breitbart] Wednesday on Fox News Channel's "Your World," former Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, a candidate for the 2016 Republican nomination, sounded off on Planned Parenthood, as the so-called women's health organization has been under fire in recent weeks for a series of videos suggesting they were open to selling aborted fetal tissue for profit.
Carson referred to the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger and her position on eugenics, particularly as it pertained to blacks, which he said may not allow for him to be objective when it comes to Planned Parenthood.
"Well, maybe I'm not objective when it comes to Planned Parenthood. But you know, I know who Margaret Sanger is, and I know that she believed in eugenics, and that she was not particularly enamored with black people," Carson said. "And one of the reasons that you find most of their clinics in black neighborhoods is so that you can find way to control that population. And I think people should go back and read about Margaret Sanger, who founded this place -- a woman who Hillary Clinton by the say says she admires. Look and see what many people in Nazi Germany thought about her."
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.
[DAWN] AT long last, and with one resounding voice, the representatives of the Pak people have spoken for the minorities of this country. In so doing, they may have taken a historic step towards a course correction for Pakistain's future. On Tuesday, the National Assembly passed a resolution demanding that the views of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah about the status of minorities in Pakistain, as articulated in his famous speech of Aug 11, 1947, be "regarded as a road map" in the years ahead. Moved by Kamran Michael, minister for ports and shipping, the resolution referred to Mr Jinnah's speech as "a beacon of light". Portions of that address, which were suppressed by some of the right-wing governments that followed, were recalled in the assembly including the unequivocal assurance by the nation's founder: "You may belong to any caste or creed -- that has nothing to do with the business of the state." The resolution also reiterated the minorities' status as equal citizens.
In countries with a different past, the resolution may read like an assertion of the obvious; in Pakistain it is difficult to overplay its significance, both from the point of view of content and timing. After independence, contrary to Mr Jinnah's words, the state lost little time in recasting faith -- specifically the faith of the majority -- as its raison d'être, and later, as the cornerstone of its foreign policy. A triumphalist narrative, especially from the '80s onwards, was deliberately nurtured through means both subtle and overt, and the minds of entire generations poisoned for short-sighted objectives. The fallout within the country has been devastating, as witnessed in the lynching of blasphemy suspects, sectarian killings, the sacking of localities with minority populations, and the bombing of religious processions and places of worship, etc. Although religious extremism has disproportionately affected minority communities, it has over time morphed into the bedrock of a vast terrorist network that the state is now battling to destroy. Efforts are being made to rein in some of the more reactionary elements in society. The parliamentarians, to their credit, have taken the cue to push through the much-needed endorsement of Jinnah's speech from 68 years ago. The lack of opposition by members of religious parties in the assembly to what was clearly promotion of a secular point of view -- unthinkable even a year ago -- indicates that they too have picked up on the prevailing mood.
[DAWN] IMRAN Khan has been outed. What was suspected for some time has been confirmed: Imran is a closet Marxist.
[DAWN] EITHER we are approaching some sort of tipping point in the city, or the theatre is about to get a little more absurd. Until the resignations given by the MQM are formally accepted by the speaker of the Assembly and chairman Senate, we will have a situation where there is a parliament of 342 members with 56 having submitted their resignations. How long can they keep going like this? And how many more resignations will come before the next general elections?
