tvashtarkatena

Tweakers of the world, unite! All you have to lose is your long chain molecules.

I'll get back to you on that. There's a bunch of wet Cubans at the door. So...is Mexico not 'economically free'? Last time I was there it was practically the Wild West. And last time I checked they seemed to be outnumbering the invading Cubans by a bit of a margin.

I had to make a Great Leap over your post. It was just too Long a March.

How would this do anything other than reinforce the graph's central point? It would in your mind because you never provided a definition of 'economic freedom'. Does that mean respect for private property? The three million displaced by the 3 Gorges Dam might not think so. Freedom of ownership, including foreign? Again, China fairs poorly. Tightly controlled joint ventures only, please. Fluidity of credit? Nope. Or does 'economic freedom' mean exactly what it needed to mean for the author of those pretty (generic) graphs to produce the desired conclusions? Inspite of China's lack of official economic freedom, and certainly a lack of personal freedom, China has kicked the world's ass in the past ten years in terms of economic growth, trade balance, market capture, and a whole range of other measures of economic success. And the kicker? They're still an autocratic communist country. It's intellectually dishonest to compare China today with the dismal failure of Maoism in its past. That's like comparing Lance Armstrong near death with cancer to Lance Armstrong on his 7th Tour victory and concluding "You know, cancer is bad for athletic performance." It tells you little about what training regimens produced his rise to prominence. No, you must compare China today with other competing nations today. One key to Chinese (and Russian) success is widespread corruption. Is corruption economic freedom? Another is precisely the kind of autocratic rule that you claim cannot produce economic success. It has built entire cities in China faster than we've been able to put up a monument on Ground Zero. Is that economic freedom? The biggest contributor to China's success is that they'll work for less. Ironically, Maoism effectively produced this precondition for their current success. And as for Cuba and the rest, the criteria for success of a society is unique to that society. It also changes with changing world conditions. Cuba has learned to live sustainably, we have not. It seems to me that such a success criteria is gaining importance these days. You should also compare Cuba with the other countries in its environment, the Caribbean. Not only is Cuba a rousing success compared to, say, St. Vincent, but it is also in a position to provide substantial foreign aid to its poorer neighbors. Your move.

Which bar represents China?

Chacaltaya's rebar T bar in action:

"Investement"? Is that the part of the bible where Jesus tells his followers that they deserve to be rich?

Based on an interview with the coroner, you don't want to see it.

Zee Chermans still have an edge in the pilsner, lager, weissbier department, but then again I'm not much of an ale man.

You haven't lived until you've skied the world's highest 'resort': Chakaltaya (Upchuckaltaya to those who've been there), Bolivia. If you survive the bald tired Blue Bird Bus ride up Wile E. Coyote canyon to its 'lodge' at 17,000 feet, you are greeted by toothless Qechua women selling nothing but urine yellow Inca Cola and coca tea. Drink the tea, you're going to need it. Once you've rented your 30 year old pair of K2s, you are issued a crooked length of rusty rebar on a short length of frayed rope with a T bar dowel on the end. This is your 'chair lift'. The idea is to hook the rebar on the rapidly moving steel cable driven by an ancient Volvo deisel on pulleys that are actually used semi wheel rims from probably the same truck. If you're successful, your next move is to keep your arms in their sockets as you're catapulted forward at 50 Gs over blue ice. You then must figure out how to straddle, and hopefully unstraddle, your personal T bar. If you don't figure out the latter, you'll enjoy a cable-eye tour of the chair lift's inner workings. To dismount, you let go of your rebar T bar, which proceeds to make its way through the machinery to the tune of a wrench that's been sucked into a turbojet. You'll be charged extra for this. Now it's time to ski. First and foremost, avoid the many unmarked crevasses. This might be difficult while trying to maintain an icy edge on skis that haven't been sharpened since C.A.R.E airdropped them here 30 years ago. Second, avoid barfing. Most skiers are unsuccessful in this department. Third, avoid skiers who are barfing. Semi-consciousness makes this particularly difficult, especially when you, too, are barfing. After one run with occasional stops to accomodate your dry heaves, it's time for a break in the lodge. Don't even think about warming yourself by the fire...it's unheated. Even so, few skiers venture back out onto the slope (there's only one) at this point. Most are now lying prone, blankly staring skyward, gasping for air. The lodge takes on the look of a triage ward after a nerve gas attack. Now all there is to do is count the hours before the bus takes you back down to the relative comfort of your 13,000 foot hotel room. Or not.

I'd be pretty uncomfortable voting for Chavez, unless the alternative was a fucking moron who likes to start wars based on lies and bizarre pet theories that are completely divorced from reality, but that would be pretty unlikely, wouldn't it? One, I don't trust any leader who is too enamored by his own cult of personality, as Chavez clearly is. Two, Chavism aims to help the poor through a program of entitlements that do not necessarily demand much from them in return. It smacks of being a populists giveaway to further support the notion that everything good must come from Daddy Chavez. It's unclear at this point whether or not these policies will move people out of poverty in a systemic way verses giving them some short term chump change while oil prices remain high. Three, Hugo's price controls, and central control in general, seem to be inflationary over the long term, and so could easily wipe out the social gains he's attempting to make and the economic expansion that has occured over the three years. Four, his threats against the free press are telling in a very bad way. I do agree with his anti-imperialist philosophy (would anyone with truly democratic principles not?), his attempts to create a self reliant Latin America, and his apparent concern for improving the lot of Venezuela's substantial poor population. As for Chavism's respect for private property, here's a cute but certainly not unique little story from our own private property worshipping nation: former Enron executive Lou Pai left the company with over $250 million of other people's hard earned money to become the second largest land owner in Colorado. He was never indicted. Fuck private property.

In terms of being an agent of nuclear proliferation, Bush makes AQ Kahn look like a boy scout. Thanks, buddy. I've been missing all those duck and cover drills we used to have back in the good old days.

I stopped trying to figure out the Israelis a long time ago. If Iranian nukes were to have any effect on this conflict, I'd guess it would be to make the Israelis even more paranoid and hardline towards all threats, Palestinians included. Since the political cost of Israeli aggression against the Palestinians is lower than, say, against Hezbollah, the former would likely bare the brunt of increased Israeli paranoia. Iranian nukes might lead to mutual security guarantees (backed by credible threats) between Israel and Iran, similar the US/Soviet relations during the cold war. Then again, it might also lead to an increasingly volatile relationship between the two, as exists between India and Pakistan. In the Middle East, anything can happen at this point.

Crossed tips sink lips.

'We' meaning Iran and the US. I'm not sure much of the American public gives a shit anymore. From everything I've read, Iran's nuclear capabilities are scattered, hidden, and probably well protected from air attack. Our current non-nuclear capabilities limit us to penetrating through several feet of concrete (damn laws of physics!), making such facilities fairly easy to defend. Anything more hardened that that requires 'bunker busting nukes', but even those are ineffective against diligently buried targets. I'm not sure what poll you're referring to, but there will always be a portion of the public that naively believes that military strikes are the magic bullet in situations like this. After N Korea's little fireworks show, scads of folks were writing into the NYT calling for the US to bitchslap them. It's a simpleton's argument that works only in a world without politics or consequences. The Middle East is embroiled in three major conflicts right now. We're not going to threaten our oil supply further by starting another. The only option that has a prayer of working in the real world is to drop the axis of evil bullshit (which worked so well on N Korea), and figure out how to guarantee Iran's security and buy them off to the point where their nuke program no longer makes sense for them. Personally, I think Iran will have their nukes, and this administration knows it.

How could we be in a position to 'hand over' Iraq to Iran, whatever that means, if we have not even been able to hand over Iraq to Iraq? The US has, at this point, very little control over what will transpire politically in Iraq. That should be obvious by now to even the most casual observer. Our leadership doesn't even really understand what is happening in Iraq right now, so how could they come up with an effective strategy? What we had to offer Iraq became a failed reconstruction effort. Our military presence is now a purposeless series of quickie patrols through certain parts of Baghdad and a few other areas that remain barely stable enough to allow such operations, raid campaigns that only raise the level of violence, training of Iraqis with questionable loyalties, and weapons giveaways to the insurgency. Iraq may or may not partition itself; we will not decide that. Nor will we decide what kind of alliance forms between Iraq and Iran. The continued presence of our troops will, at best, only delay such a political outcome. But continued deployment is becoming a very unpopular philosophy for anyone facing election these days. Given the political pressures within our own country, we will likely pull out of Iraq soon, and Iraq and Iran will do what they are going to do without us, and they both know it. Similarly, we have little to offer Iran and less to threaten them with. They are a rich country that has clearly shown that they don't need anything we have to offer. Our only military option, at this point, would be the kind of limited air strike that has little effect on a strong willed adversary. Such an adventure would certainly be fantastically unpopular here at home. The only interest we share is for a stabilized Iraq. We should work from there, and that will require talking.

Not really what has been proposed is the US meet with Syria and Iran on ways to bring peace to the region. Iran has long held itself out as the protector of the Shia. (Germany held itself as protector of the Germans stranded in a country that resulted in a breakup of the multi-cultural empire.) Proposals have been made that we speak directly to the Iranians - bypassing the Iraqis themselves. After getting into a mess many seem to more than willing to effectively hand over Iraq to Iran. Your analogy is all the more ludricrous considering that the US, not Iran or Syria, was the clear aggressor in Iraq. Iraq is not now, nor has it every been, ours to 'hand over' to the Iranians or anyone else. Who, exactly, plays the role of Hitler here? Iran and Syria have a national interest in stabilizing their borders and thus, Iraq. They are also, however, funding the attempted rise to power of their constituents within Iraq through military and other means. Given their heavy involvment and interest in the conflict (as well as Iran's nuclear ambitions), and our complete responsibility for it, it makes perfect sense for the US to open a dialogue with them. We should have done so soon after 911 when these nations were making sympathetic gestures towards us. Our own arrogance brought us to the unfortunate and desperate point where all we have left to negotiate with is a little stick in one hand and a limp carrot in the other.

It's definitely not a civil war. It seems pretty uncivil, at this point. At what point to we get to call our occupation a 'peace keeping mission'? Or perhaps we need a new term: Strategic Undertaking Involving Coordinated Indigenous Defense Entities (SUICIDE) Frequent Urban Combat Targeting Unidentified Personnel (FUCTUP) Global Warfare Bringing Unopposed Strategic Hegemony (GWBUSH)

but he MEANT to say 'not really winning'.

and do any of you Bush loving cretins realize how many housecats have died in Iraq's downward spiral of violence?

Quite a few Venezuelans apparently think that he is. Oh well, that's democracy for you. No passport, no vote.

The advent of the 'gun phone'.

Maybe then we'll finally fund the building of an atomic dog.

Drop the 'we' in that statement, pal. Never has the U.S. had MORE information about a target of invasion than we had about Iraq. We'd already invaded once. We'd been bombing the shit out of them for 12 straight years. We had copious amounts of information from weapons inspectors, academics, journalists and our own intelligence. We had them under a fucking microscope, and the information was widely and publicly available. The only folks in the US who didn't know there were no WMDs or didn't realize what a fiasco the invasion would inevitably become were either asleep, dishonest, deluding themselves, or outright morons. Which category were you? Add this to your apparently long list. There never WAS a job to do in Iraq: it was a fundamentally flawed project from the beginning. Bush never asked for sacrifice because fully half of us were completely against the invasion every step of the way. And if you think $8 billion a month is 'on the cheap', your sense of scale is as poor as your sense of history:

The Alimentary Canal's finest waterfront dining experience.