New Year, New Outlook

Happy New Year.

Yes, I know it's March. March and April have long been associated with New Year- new beginnings, new flowers and new life after a long grey/gray winter (grey with an "e" seems more dreary than with an "a"). Spring seems a more appropriate place for a new year than the Gregorian Calendar that places January 1 as the start of all new things...

I have always had more luck when the business of the new year began along with the rise of grass and green. Warm winds blow more favorably than the cold cutting damp knives of January.

As you noticed from my last post. I became disenchanted and frustrated with the NFL, the New England Patriots, our political tussling, the impending holidays and arrival of family from far and near. I was becoming a grouchy curmudgeon. Who would want to read that drivel.- even if I was right... I have tried hold to the advice that Thumper's Father gave him in the movie "Bambi"; "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."... We can all grinch, complain and gripe... My Grandfather used to say "A kicking mule can't pull"... I have decided to stop kicking... well at least as much events allow.

My Grandfather followed a mule plowing for most of his life. My Father graduated from high school during WWII. He could have had a farming deferment. Being young, energetic and having a hangover he spent one morning walking behind the mule watching it's rear end and decided he would rather go fight Germans... He was 20 years old at the Battle of the Bulge... As he aged he remembered the funny times during the war and tried to forget the horrors. He was among a group that liberated a concentration camp. "It was just a little one " my Aunt said... (Her husband spend the war at Fort Dix wrestling paperwork. We didn't spend much time around her. Stupidity might be contagious. We took no chances.)

It affected my Father when he would remember the horrors of what supposedly civilized people had done to others. He had a hard time sleeping for many years. He went from a small town in a corner of Georgia where most farming was still done the way it had been done for 100 years to the world of mechanized genocide. There was one Jewish family in the country. There were no Catholics. Nobody in his world had ever expressed that kind of hatred and evil... There was some bigotry towards blacks, but the depression had hammered the whole countryside. Everybody was broke. It's hard to hate when you're all in the same boat.

My father died in 1959 in a car wreck. That was long ago, far away and ancient history.

Except it's not. George Santayana is attributed to the misquote "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". History does seem to run in cycles. It does not run in ruts. Things are never exactly the same as they were before. We can learn something of the future by studying the past and looking for the reasons that people made decisions which led to known results. We do that by studying history. It seems we concentrate too much on battles, elections and personal lives of dictators, kings and royalty. We don't spend enough time looking at the common people. We look at the weapons and great buildings and not at the homes and daily lives of those who make the machinery of civilization work. Yet, when the great leaders need a war, they turn to these people for justification, fodder, support, sacrifice, and sacrifice. When we study businesses we do the same things. We look at the large enterprises, the leaders of these monster corporations... We don't study either the people who make the wheels turn, the paperwork move and the details attended. We don't study successful individuals and look for clues to what habits and traits made them so.

We like to think that we are wise. We are the "thinking ape ". But we are often blind to the people and changes around us. We make plans. We present them for approval, revision, alteration, amendment and finally funding. We give credit to ourselves for our success. When it fails we blame "bad luck " . I have yet to see a successful person attribute their position to "luck " Yet, we study their failures to avoid "bad luck " corrupting our plans... This all seems a bit arrogant to me.

We won WWII. We have no real idea what we did right. We did not have the best trained army. We didn't have the most modern and effective weapons. We were able to build and supply ourselves and our allies. We didn't get into a war of attrition in the traditional sense. We did not repeat the meat-grinders of WWI. The more books are written and the more detailed history is revealed, the more I read it as a very close run. We could have lost.

I think the defining difference between WWI and WWI was American leadership and the spirit of the American people. We were at war. We had been attacked. We struck back and then began the the search for allies, understanding the enemy and preparation to win. We faced an enemy that had attacked its neighbors, had enslaved its citizens and slaughtered thousands because they didn't fit some grand design. We faced an enemy that had wealth, intelligence, cunning, a ruthless disregard for human life be it their own forces or their enemies or the innocents. They were killers willing to use the most modern weapons and means to make the world into a better place for their kind. We had no illusions about their barbarism. We were clear in our commitment that their kind could not prevail or only be knocked down to return again stronger and more deadly.

We were attacked again in 1993 and 2001. In 1993, we treated the attack as a police action. We investigated and found the bad guys. We arrested them and gave them civil rights of a citizen and protections that they would never have given us. Throughout the 1990's we were repeatedly attacked. We continued to treat it as a police issue. We'd fire off a few cruise missiles to blow up some tents, an aspirin factory and bluster about.... We weren't serious about responding militarily. We were afraid of actually facing a serious enemy. We long lived in a delusional world of peace-harmony and political answers to all questions. Our thought leaders were convinced that all evil of the world originated somewhere in America and we should be ashamed of our success. On September 11, 2001 we were attacked by an enemy using airplanes as missiles. Suddenly, we were at war. Our Thought Leaders could not wish away 3,000 dead and replace the vanished buildings.

We faced an enemy that possessed no national homeland, no national boundaries, no national infrastructure, no factories, no government agencies, no way that we could strike back by sending in bombers and cruise missiles. The nation state had dissolved. However, like our enemies from the past these monsters had attacked in many countries , had enslaved its citizens and slaughtered thousands because they didn't fit some grand design. We faced an enemy that had wealth, intelligence, cunning, a ruthless disregard for human life be it their own forces or their enemies or the innocents. They were killers willing to use the most modern weapons and means to make the world into a better place for their kind. They didn't covet our land, our wealth, or citizens, our peace or our prosperity. They hated us because we would be most likely to oppose their planes for world domination. Of all the nations in the world they chose America aas the toughest one to cow with threats and intimidation. They tested us with their 9/11 attack. They tested our newly elected President. Unfortunately, for them, this time they had a President who was willing to fight.

We went after their asylums in Afghanistan, the Philippines and South East Asia. We have had some successes. We have had a hard time convincing many nations and people that we face a united and organized enemy. Our intelligence and forecasts showed that Iraq, which had killed thousands of Iranians and Iraqi Kurds with poison gas, posed athreat. We went to the UN for sanctions and the authorization to use force to enforce the sanctions. WE asked and waited long months for answers to the future of those weapons of mass destruction. When we had no further choice we invaded and removed Saddam Hussein from power. We then engaged in helping the Iraqi people recover from 35 years of totalitarian dictatorship and subjection. It has been a rough process. We have adjusted and things are improving. The terrorists and criminal sectors of Iraqi society saw an opportunity to seize power. New generals, new tactics and the willingness of the Iraqi people to fight for their new lives have dramatically changed things over the past year. Our newspapers and TV media have chosen to ignore our victories. Our Thought Leaders still see America as the font of all evil in the world...

. Our own military has dubbed this "the long war". Like previous "long wars" this may take a long time. We Americans have become accustomed to wars of short duration. We have not fought a long war since our struggle fro independence. We had to convince many that our cause was just and our course correct then as well.

Our enemy hides among the citizens of the world. They are as much at home in the highrise towers and hallways of power and wealth of modern cities as they are in villages and mountain caves. They go by many names. They hide behind the words of religion. They find a cover in religious fervor but when they are at full rampage, they take drugs, rape, steal, murder and desecrate without any consideration of any religion or the laws of any god or nation. They are killers. We refer to them Islamofascists or terrorists . We really don't know what to call them because they are very clever at turning our own civil libertarian concerns against us.

We know that they wish to kill us. They wish to attack and slaughter as many of us as possible. This will weaken our resolve and frighten their enemies. They will be able to convert the weak and assume world supremacy and the fulfillment of some nebulous grand design. They seek and will use any weapon that can kill tens of thousands of us in multiple attacks.

We have grown weary of the war. Our citizens have grown tired of the struggle. Our news media wants a different story. (They bore easily). Democracies have never had the long term will to face a tyrant. The longer we go without another attack, the easier it is to want to withdraw. have we not been attacked because of some plan or simply because we have been lucky, thus far.

Our new President will be tested. The Democrats have chosen to hold a race to withdraw from the major battlefield of this war. Altho, most recently they have decided that rather than remove the troops several hundred miles away they want garrison them inside large fortifications. They propose to fight a counterinsurgency war using the trench warfare tactics that created a meat grinder in "the war to end all wars" 90 years ago.

We are at war. Yet, our economy continues to grow and blossom. 95% of all workers are working. 96% of all mortgages are being paid on time. the revenues collected by the US govt are at all time highs. We do not have a draft to call up more military. Oil is expensive, but it is because the markets are uncertain about its availability 90 days from now. The oil speculators are chary of events in the oil producing regions of the world. There is no shortage of oil.

What the high oil prices have done is make alternatives economically viable. In 1977, I heard Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani speak. The first OPEC cartel price increases had shaken the world. Yamani had gone to school in America and knew us well. Like Admiral Yamamoto before him he knew that when they provoked America they "awoke a sleeping tiger". He feared that raising the prices too high or too quickly would prompt American ingenuity to find alternatives to their oil.

We are close to that point now. The high prices at the gas pump are prompting the govt., investors, inventors and entrepreneurs to seek alternatives. Ethanol and soy deisel now provide great farm subsidies but they pose long term problems. Wind and solar power are dependent upon the wind blowing and the sun shining. Improvements in solar power generation chips make it seem that we face another "Moore's Law" style revolution. If all these measures prove as promised what does that mean for the Middle East-?

Without oil wealth at the present level, will the world still scramble for access, control, possession-? If we only need oil as a lubricant, will the terrorists still get their funding-? Will terrorist states still fund their proxy wars-? What will the Islamofascists do when there is no more oil wealth-?

We must remain true to our American principles. We face many problems in the future. However the future is not carved in stone. We can still change the fates that our politicians say are aligned against us.

We cannot surrender to the fear mongers who would make us hide from the future. We cannot solve the problems of the future by retreating into the failed answers of the past. We cannot withdraw from the world. We cannot build walls and barriers to protect ourselves from everything. We are Americans. We are optimistic. We are inventive. We are creative. We are imaginative. We do not "muddle through", except when we are preparing to change the game...

We are the lucky beneficiaries of a grand experiment in participatory democracy. We are the first nation founded not by a tribe, a geographic boundary, race, religion or act of some government. We are founded on the philosophy that "all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator of certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"

From that premise, we hold that all humans have a right to life, liberty and the freedom to pursue happiness... This makes us very much at odds with any nation or person that would deny or restrict life, liberty or freedom to anyone else. We have struggled with this history within our own boundaries. We have not won all the battles. We have too many who would take and even more who would surrender their freedoms for the politicians promise of the better life as a slave. Too many who would exchange the freedom to pursue happiness as we each define it for the promise of safety, security, jobs, health, housing, education and old age assistance... That way lies the trap of slave master, the tyrant, the return to serfdom

Thanks to Wikipedia for the history links...

New England Hillarys

The Associated Press think they watched a football game. They seem to overlook the affects of "inevitability".

Like the Democrat Candidate whose only claim to fame is marrying well, the New England Patriots have convinced everyone that "They Will Win." There is no thought of not winning. There is no consideration of a universe where they do not hold the orb and wear the crown to their own magnificence.

Being the "Inevitable Winner" makes all those who might be judging, who might ordinarily given an equal balance to both sides to put their thumbs on the scales of the inevitable. Watching the referee calls of the New England Hillary games supports my opinion. Reading the news from the NFL about how New England, who had no -NEED- to cheat was caught, was fined $250,000 and Coach Bellichek was fined $500,000 the ONE-AND-ONLY-TIME- they ever cheated. (Big fine for people who make millions and will get a big bonus for winning the Super-Duper-Bowl-Not)

Presidential Candidate and Presidential Wife Hillary and The New England Hillarys enjoy the benefits of being "the inevitable winner". If you get caught cheating, a pass will be given. Or small slap on the wrist. In the throes of the game, well, "if they're gonna win anyway: Why not let this slide? or Why hesitate to flag the other side?"

That the Ravens, losers of five straight, would test the Patriots so severely was stunning. Indeed, if not for untimely penalties and a fumble of an interception return by Ed Reed, the Ravens might have pulled off one of the biggest upsets in NFL history.

Baltimore got a brilliant effort from Willis McGahee, who rushed for 138 yards and a touchdown. Boller threw for two scores, and the Ravens managed three sacks.

But they couldn't manage to hang on.

That could/might be written about Presidential Candidate, Senator Obama

After all, the goal is NOT sportsmanship, democracy, fair play, or even honesty and truth. Nope, there is -BIG MONEY- at stake and the rubes must think they saw a fight between good and evil, between right and wrong, and of course the good guys -MUST WIN IN THE END-!!

And when the public gets turned off-? Well, the audience that's left will not be paying as close attention, won't know the rules, won't be as critical of the sloppy theft...

Am I talking about the NFL or the Elections in November-?

Dylan Again

After posting my most recent demi rant... I remembered that we had been told the answer to these and many other questions long, long ago....

Blowing In the Wind -Bob Dylan -1963
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

A Simple Request

I'd like to make a simple request to our Masters in Washington who continue to spend our money as tho it was not theirs or ours...

Following the bail Out of Chrysler, Long Term Capital Management, and now the -ENTIRE MORTGAGE INDUSTRY- and following the murder of the Savings and Loans ....

Can we get some adult supervision-?

I'd like to know what companies or industries are "Too Big To Fail"... We have read about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae... Their implicit govt guarantee has never been clarified or quantified. WILL the Congress step in to save them-? With several trillion dollars under their control- Are they Public or Private-?

When a company is "Too Big To Fail" can we get some special supervision-? Is GM or Ford worthy of watching-? What about Intel or Microsoft-? The healthy may need a bailout- What is our policy-? Who decides-? Who Watches them-?

SEC head and former Congressman Cox wants some help watching foreign (sovereign) investors buying into our financial companies and other strategic businesses... What industries and what companies should fall into this category...

Hillary says that Social Security is "Not A Problem".... The old will die off about the time the Boomers arrive en masse... When did that happen-? After hearing for the past 30 years that the worlds greatest Ponzi Scheme was facing a crisis- Hillary decides its all been solved.... When will she be called to explain how this all works-? Social Security went from a safety net to an entitlement. It has gone from a surplus large enough to lend to Congress and fund all sorts of give aways... Then it was going broke. It was a looming crisis... Then it was gone...

Can Congress be trusted to enact legislation that will protect our economy-?

They give small assurances that they care deeply about capitalism. Asked about Liassez Faire Capitalism and they chuckle at such a quaint idea... Yet, where do all those tax dollars come from-? Most Congress-People have never worried about meeting a payroll or even honoring a commitment to a customer. They are professionals who have spent their life spending our money.

Where are the adults-? Where are the people who make things happen-? The people who solve problems long before they become a crisis and never claim credit... They just move on to the next small problem confident that something they haven't thought of will come along any minute-either disaster or opportunity--- and comfortable that more opportunities for good come along over time.


The -RIGHT- side of the blog-O-sphere is less vociferous, prolificate and timely than our friends on the sinister side.... But we have to meet commitments and pay bills...

That's my story about the sparse postings these past few months... Sometimes ya-just-gotta go make a buck or two...

Drop a line-add a comment-say "Howdy" if you're passing thru...

The Times ARE Changing

Remember when we were the ones singing this... Please read all the lyrics.

Scroll all the way down for the Latest Bit of Deliciously Ironic News

The Times They Are A Changing -Bob Dylan (1963)

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Senator Obama tells FOX NEWS:

'I think there's no doubt that we represent the kind of change that Senator Clinton can't deliver on and part of it is generational. Senator Clinton and others, they've been fighting some of the same fights since the '60's and it makes it very difficult for them to bring the country together to get things done.' Developing... From Drudge...

The funny parts are just beginning..... Maybe-just maybe- he's right and the boomers have stayed around too long to ever resolve the Vietnam War-?

UPDATE: Obama says Hillary is fighting same fight she has been fighting for decades. This is the video link. I think this is a theme that may have some legs... It also plays very strongly with those who believe that Iraq is not another Vietnam. He shoots and scores against his enemies and finds new supporters...

Here We Go Again

Not the first shot, not the last... Just one that made the news.... When Jay Rosen and the Professionals of Establishment Media speak about/defend their "HARDWORKING" professional reporting, think of the PR flacks who first drafted it and the PR Committee that approved it long before the story was ever released...

Hillary as President will be the most media controlling person to ever hold the office. Josh Green was the author assigned by GQ to do the story...

Green was not a particular favorite of the Clinton campaign, however. He took the assignment from GQ not long after finishing an unflattering 13,000-word profile in the November 2006 Atlantic Monthly, which concluded that the junior Senator from New York is, more or less, a timid, calculating pol.

“Today Clinton offers no big ideas, no crusading causes — by her own tacit admission, no evidence of bravery in the service of a larger ideal. Instead, her Senate record is an assemblage of many, many small gains. Her real accomplishment in the Senate has been to rehabilitate the image and political career of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Impressive though that has been in its particulars, it makes for a rather thin claim on the presidency. Senator Clinton has plenty to talk about, but she doesn’t have much to say,” he wrote.

Early this summer, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign for president learned that the men’s magazine GQ was working on a story the campaign was sure to hate: an account of infighting in Hillaryland.

So Clinton’s aides pulled a page from the book of Hollywood publicists and offered GQ a stark choice: Kill the piece, or lose access to planned celebrity coverboy Bill Clinton.

There’s nothing unusual about providing extra access to candidates to reporters seen as sympathetic, and cutting off those seen as hostile to a campaign.

The 2004 Bush campaign banned a New York Times reporter from Vice President Dick Cheney’s jet, and Sen. Barack Obama threatened to bar Fox News reporters from campaign travel.

But a retreat of the sort GQ is alleged to have made is unusual, particularly as part of what sources described as a barely veiled transaction of editorial leverage for access.

The Clinton campaign is unique in its ability to provide cash value to the media, and particularly the celebrity-driven precincts of television and magazines. Bill Clinton is a favorite cover figure, because his face is viewed within the magazine industry as one that can move product. (Indeed, Green’s own magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, ran as its October cover story “Bill Clinton’s campaign to save the world.”)

The Clinton campaign has more sway with television networks than any rival. At the time Clinton launched her campaign, the networks’ hunger for interviews had her all over the morning and evening news broadcasts of every network — after her aides negotiated agreements limiting producers’ abilities to edit the interviews. This past weekend, she pulled off another rare feat — sitting for interviews with all the major Sunday talk shows. In most cases, the Sunday shows will reject guests who have appeared on competing shows. (The offices she set-up in the Summer of 2000 on "M" street are perfect location for an easy walk to all the studios, except Fox. It wasn't a consideration at the time-Andy)

Saunders, the Syracuse novelist who is writing the Clinton story for GQ, declined to discuss his story, citing GQ policy.

He told the Syracuse Post-Standard in July that he was planning to travel with the former president to tour Clinton Foundation projects in Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi and South Africa and said he’d voted for Bill Clinton twice.

“It seems like [Clinton’s] gift, one of his gifts, is everybody likes him and knows him, so he can get people in a room and make things happen,” Saunders told the Syracuse paper. “I just like the idea that at this elderly stage of life, you can go and get your doors blown off.”

Asked by Politico if he was interested in hearing how his access to Clinton was procured, he demurred.

“I don’t think I want to know,” he said.

Read the whole thing.... It'll turn your stomach.... Unless of course, it makes you feel good.. John Hawkins on Explaining Liberal Thinking In A Single Column.

Liberals love to think of themselves as intellectual and nuanced, but liberalism is incredibly simplistic. It's nothing more than "childlike emotionalism applied to adult issues." Very seldom does any issue that doesn't involve pandering to their supporters boil down at its core level to more than feeling "nice" or "mean" to liberals. This makes liberals ill equipped to deal with complex issues.

Since liberals tend to support or oppose policies based on how those policies make them feel about themselves, they do very little intellectual examination of whether the policies they advocate work or not. That's because it doesn't matter to them whether the policy is effective or not; it matters whether advocating the policy makes them feel "good" or "bad," "compassionate" or "stingy," "nice" or "mean."

That's why, for example, you may see ferocious debates on the right side of the blogosphere about the war, illegal immigration, or spending. But, with the netroots, the debates almost always revolve around the best strategy to get more liberals elected. The issues are not really up for debate, other than debate over how to get them enacted.

This same thinking leads to very little criticism of liberals by other liberals. Liberals will ferociously defend and even happily echo the lies of other liberals. Liberal feminists will defend Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy. Liberals who pride themselves on being tolerant of other races will support Robert Byrd. Why? Because even if they're wrong, they're still fellow liberals -- which must mean they’re nice people. What this leads to is an attitude that can be summed up like so: "The only things that a liberal can do wrong is to be insufficiently liberal, to question an important plank of the liberal agenda, or to do something politically that aids conservatives."

Please follow the link to read more.... You'll learn how to tell a Liberal, but you'll never tell them much. (Hat Tip Gail at Rubicon3)


Captain Ed has some interesting notes about the lack of historical knowledge at Columbia University.

Would A Columbia Appearance Have Avoided WWII?

One of the sillier defenses of yesterday's appearance by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University came from the man who initiated the Ahmadinejad speech. Over the weekend, John Coatsworth, acting dean of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, suggested that had Columbia invited Adolf Hitler to Columbia in 1939, he would not have underestimated the will of the American people and would have avoided declaring war on the US. Bret Stephens addresses this in today's OpinionJournal

These what-if games can be a lot of fun and offer all sorts of debatable outcomes. This, however, doesn't to anyone with any sense of what Hitler was doing in 1939, 1938, or pretty much since the reoccupation of the Rhineland. Stephens addresses the contemporaneous response to Hitler from Academia and Literaria, so let's remind people of the other historical realities.

Hitler spent the years before the war making speeches intended for outside consumption. He talked about the German desire for peace; he reminded foreign audiences incessantly of all Germany had lost during the previous war. Germany had no desire to bleed all over again, Hitler insisted, but it wanted its proper status in the community of nations recognized.

The more Hitler talked like this, the more appeasement minded the West became. They talked about his reasonable attitude and the unfairness of the Versailles shackles, while ignoring both his manifesto in Mein Kampf and his domestic rhetoric. Hitler had done more than just talk, too, by 1939. He had rearmed in violation of treaties, he had conducted an Anschluss in his annexation of Austria, and he had already dismembered Czechoslovakia in direct opposition to his promises at Munich in 1938.

And let's not forget that by 1939, both the Nuremberg racial laws and Krystallnacht were historical facts.

An invitation to Columbia in 1939 would have only perpetuated the fraud that Hitler had worn almost threadbare in Europe by that time. It would not have convinced Hitler to deviate from war, but would have assured him that America was just as spineless as the democracies he detested in Europe. And in any event, Hitler declared war on the US to honor his treaty obligations to Japan, which Coatsworth seems to have forgotten.

The parallels between the 1939 hypothetical of Coatsworth and the appearance of Ahmadinejad yesterday do seem striking -- and they refute any defense of Columbia's staging of Iranian propaganda.

Emphasis added, follow both links.... Stephens is good.... Captain Ed adds some desperately perspective to this conversation... Columbia would have been right for insisting that it was educational, if they had not taken so many steps to stifle free speech among students, faculty and choice of visitors for so many years. Perhaps, the national and international spotlight will shine brightly and their foolish antics will die off... One can hope.


Or we can all go get a Second Life and live forever.... Jonathan V. Last has the story in the coming issue of Weekly Standard.

The online computer game Second Life has garnered more attention in the last 24 months than any other bit of technology. Heralded everywhere from the Wall Street Journal to the Hollywood Reporter to Scientific American, it has been variously proclaimed a revolutionary communication tool, the future of the Internet, the next great business frontier, and a giant, looming social hub that will make MySpace and Facebook obsolete. One technology research group predicts that by 2011, 80 percent of Internet users will be in Second Life or something like it.

What is Second Life? Technically, it is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), the geek term for an Internet portal where large numbers of people interact in a virtual world. But during the last couple of years observers have begun debating whether it is a game at all, or rather something different, a new kind of virtual space. What is certain is that millions of people have signed up for Second Life. Almost 900 of them--up from 450 last year--gathered in late August at a hotel by Lake Michigan for the third annual Second Life Community Convention. They came from across the country as well as from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan, and from all walks of life. One of them, an attractive older woman named "LaraZ Allen," is a former college professor who was at loose ends after retirement. Then she found Second Life and began playing for roughly six hours a day. The longest she has ever gone is 12 hours. "It takes the place of work" she says.

Second Life was developed in 2003 by the San Francisco tech company Linden Lab. Players (Linden Lab calls them "residents") download a program to their computer that allows them to log into Second Life and create a character they control, an avatar. They customize the avatar's physical appearance, making it look like anything from an Asian woman to a white man to a giant animal resembling a college football mascot. And then they appear in the Second Life world.

This world looks like a cartoon rendering of the real world, or, more accurately, a cartoon rendering of Malibu. The real world infrastructure of Second Life is a farm of computer servers. Each hosts a small virtual region, which is rendered as a 65,536 square meter island. These islands feature animated beaches and waterfalls, shopping malls and dance clubs, houses and office buildings. Altogether they form a vast archipelago (which is itself subdivided into three minicontinents). If the virtual land inside Second Life were made real today, there would be 780 square kilometers of it, more than a fourth of the size of Rhode Island. All of this land belongs to the residents. Linden Lab sells it to them; an island costs $1,675 and then $295 a month in maintenance fees. (Linden Lab has gone far in guaranteeing residents real property rights. Unlike most MMORPGs, Second Life allows residents to own the virtual space and the objects within it.) Once you buy your island, you can develop and use it however you wish: Some residents have even created scale versions of downtown Dublin and Amsterdam.

Read the whole story.....

Demographics is Destiny

An open question... Please tell me what you see....

I am curious about what you see around you... Arizona is filled with boomers who retired and moved to the warmth, the relatively cheap housing, the golf courses etc... But they also moved away from family, friends and sociel structures. They have money and buy classic cars, hot rods, new go-fastre-mobiles... They spend a lot of time golfing and going to meetings to act like they are still vital. The wives shop, lunch and plan dinner reservations. Both men and women drink a lot. The widowers get busted for hiring hookers. The widows stay out of the newspaper... They have steady income and healthcare for life... all they face is the effort to continue breathing... at age 55 they probably ave 20-30+ years ahead... Daughter calls them "Kids who don't go to class" like she saw at college...

I like the Bay Area where there is lots of new businesses popping up. Opportunities to invest, mentor, are talk with people who are living on the edge of either bankruptcy or phenomenal wealth... The cost of living keeps everyone living the Law of the Serengeti (Everyone wakes up running. Either to catch your meal or to avoid being a meal)

North Florida has lots and lots of gated communities, resorts. Similar phenomena as Arizona with rich kids not going to class... They drive down and return to visit families up north more often. But they still wander around lost....

77 million retired boomers by 2012 is a lot of kids not going to class. My kids report that they are seeing boomers hanging on past retirement age. The problem is that 1) they clog up the promotion path for the young and 2) they quit working. They come in and read the paper. Plan lunch. Come back from lunch and doze... Some don't even turn on their computers. Office managers have taken to monitoring whether the machines are powered up. They monitor the work and examine whether it has been done or if stuff has been merely sat on for 1-2-3-4 days and returned...

I foresee problems ahead. Idle minds and idle hands get into mischief. Resentment by the young. Decline in efficiencies of the enterprise. Aged does not equate to wise. That makes them fodder for sharks, weasels, and crooks...

IOW... To me its a potential problem for all of us as a society. The new generation has a very different set of skills and abilities. They are not boomers-but-better... They are different. I find many who are incredibly naive. They are much more innocent than we were at the same age. I also find they go into rage much faster. When they think they have been cheated or had their rights have been trespassed upon they are ready for lawsuits, violence, and have a ard time controlling themselves. Women are as guilty as men. The women are a surprise, but having grown up in a world of single Moms and a steady diet of womens rights it's understandable... They also seem oblivious to effects of the casual sexual flirtation and invitations that they toss off. I know that I'm old. I also accept the world as changing.

It is a different world aborning... What does it look like where you are? Is it just me watching the parade in small towns, big cities and airports I visit-? There is much good coming but danger also lurks unchecked and unchallenged.

The WSJ Economics Blog reports with more details and specifics about the economic changes they see;

The graying of the world’s industrialized countries poses severe challenges to fiscal health, and more needs to be done to address the situation, according to a new Standard & Poor’s report.

The study, titled “What a Change a Year Makes: Standard & Poor’s 2007 Global Graying Progress Report,” says that progress has been made in the last 12 months through structural fiscal consolidation, but cautions that the net debt burden could be overpowering by 2050.

“Almost all [the nations] in the sample will face a very significant deterioration in public finances over the next half-century as a result of demographic change, unless a countervailing fiscal adjustment is put in place or social security and other age-related spending programs are reformed,” S&P credit analyst Moritz Kraemer said.

Proposing overhauls to social security programs may not be popular, but change is essential to achieve long-term stability, Mr. Kraemer said.

“What is needed is to unerringly make the case with a reluctant electorate that the road to the long-term stability of public finances, and therefore social security systems, is still steep, long, and stony,” he said. –Phil Izzo

Please read the comments... scroll down

From the research recap report on the S&P report:

Its initial gentle decline would accelerate by 2015 and continue until the mid-2030s, by which time the vast majority of countries would display fiscal characteristics that today are associated with speculative-grade sovereigns.

All hope is not lost, however. The ongoing reform debate is mildly encouraging., S&P says. Most of the action seems to be focused on reforming pension systems. This focus is politically appealing, as the sacrifices are often in the distant future and are not easily understood by the electorate. Technically, tackling social security is also relatively “easy,” compared with health care reform, which has to address more immediately felt and ethically charged issues. The value of government surpluses for the long-term sustainability of public finances is also becoming increasingly appreciated.

In the past, governments often tended to downplay the relevance of today’s deficits, which, they alleged, were needed to stimulate growth, ignoring the point that high deficits and high growth hardly ever go hand in hand. The economic outturn, however, has led all governments to at least pay lip service to the merits of short-term fiscal consolidation, S&P says.

The full report, 2007 Global Graying Progress Report, can be purchased here

Drop a line and tell me what you think and see in your part of the world.