The Unbearable Cost of Warsocialism

There are three broad aspects to the U.S. debt crisis. First, in the current fiscal year (2008) we are spending insane amounts of money on "defense" projects that bear no relation to the national security of the U.S. We are also keeping the income tax burdens on the richest segment of the population at strikingly low levels.

Second, we continue to believe that we can compensate for the accelerating erosion of our base and our loss of jobs to foreign countries through massive military expenditures -- "military Keynesianism" (which I discuss in detail in my book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic). By that, I mean the mistaken belief that public policies focused on frequent wars, huge expenditures on weapons and munitions, and large standing armies can indefinitely sustain a wealthy capitalist economy. The opposite is actually true.

Third, in our devotion to militarism (despite our limited resources), we are failing to invest in our social infrastructure and other requirements for the long-term health of the U.S. These are what economists call opportunity costs, things not done because we spent our money on something else. Our public education system has deteriorated alarmingly. We have failed to provide health care to all our citizens and neglected our responsibilities as the world's number one polluter. Most important, we have lost our competitiveness as a manufacturer for civilian needs, an infinitely more efficient use of scarce resources than arms manufacturing.

Chalmers Johnson in Le Monde.

Blessed Pascha

Today is Easter Sunday in the Orthodox Church. NPR did a story this morning on one of the most interesting and ethically futurist of my co-religionists whose way of life centers on reuse and recycling and participation in the global interpersonal communion.

The Zabbaleen (Egyptian Arabic: زبالين "garbage people") are an Egyptian community of mainly Coptic Christians who are employed in the city of Cairo to collect and dispose of much of the city's waste. The Zabbaleen generally perform this service very cheaply or for free, making a living by sorting the waste materials for reuse or recycling. Waste food is fed to livestock (most often pigs) or poultry. Other materials, such as steel, glass and plastic bottles, are sorted by hand and sold as raw materials. Other items are repaired or reused. Some material is burnt as fuel. Traditionally, donkey driven carts are used by males to collect waste from homes, which is sorted by female members of the family in zabbaleen homes. It is claimed that zabbaleen reuse or recycle 80-90% of the waste they collect (a figure that the most modern waste management systems in the world aspire to), however this must be put into context of the fact that the zabbaleen do not collect all the waste, and concentrate on wealthier areas.

Until the 1980s, there was no formal system of waste collection in Cairo. All collection was performed by zabbaleen. This informal garbage collection system is still a fundamental part of the city's solid waste management. The zabbaleen collect between a third and a half of the 6,500 tonnes of Municipal solid waste that Cairo produces every day, with half being collected by the city and private companies and the remaining 1,500 tonnes left uncollected, generally in the poorest areas. Any uncollected garbage that is burnt will severely exacerbate the air pollution problem in Cairo.

Department of PreCrime?

Last month we found out that Scotland Yard is at the bleeding edge where science meets fiction - in wanting to establish it's own social darwinian version of Pre-Crime law enforcement capability.

Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain's most senior police forensics expert.

Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five.

'If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large,' said Pugh. 'You could argue the younger the better. Criminologists say some people will grow out of crime; others won't. We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society.'

Comes now my man Big Don with real news you can use on exactly how the 8th largest nation (California) might actually go about implementing yet another intriguing part of this paradigm;

California will adopt the most aggressive approach in the nation to a controversial crime-fighting technique that uses DNA to try to identify elusive criminals through their relatives, state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown announced Friday.

Employing what is known as familial or "partial match" searching, the policy is aimed at identifying a suspect through DNA collected at a crime scene by looking for potential relatives in the state's genetic database of about a million felons. Once a relative is identified, police can use that person as a lead to trace the suspect.

Knowing (or believing as some of us do) that not only intelligence, but entire ranges of behavioral traits and proclivities can be ascertained from the genome, can't you already begin to see shape of things to come as genetic precogs scry the DNA runes to determine if you or your relatives have "tendencies", and, whether you or your relatives comprise "valid" investigative leads? Protect and serve indeed......,

How Hard? Real Hard!!!

Submariner looked out past that signpost up ahead and asked and answered one of the fundamental kwestins;

The United States currently faces the same challenge that Germany had in the Thirties. How does a state create an economy to support a military superpower yet meet fundamental human needs beyond physical security? The answer, of course, is that it can't and the ensuing scarcity management requires a Darwinian approach.

That red pill is helluva drug ain't it? But in the end, it's better to know and be in some position to deal - than to be taken by surprise. Once you've solved the equation for "what's going to happen" - you're free to examine the corollaries of "how it's going to happen" and you don't even need to sweat the "when" - because you know it's already work in progress.


This is what I like about Big Don. He knows what's coming and even though he's exposed a false ideas vulnerability - which leaves him vulnerable to certain nefarious forms of exploitation - I believe that from a practical perspective, the man is otherwise ready for the clampdown and is thus a natural ally in this dot connecting game we like to play. At the end of the day, the best we can do is to exchange information and ideas that help us each to discern the shape of what's happening and how best to respond for the wellbeing of our friends and families out here on what will be a systematic implementation of a very hard right Darwinian threshing floor.

Like Glasses for Not Sees....,

This interview underscored the extent to which ABC, Fox News, and conservative talk radio have functioned as agents of racial arson. From the outset, it was clear that this was a manufactured controversy, and one which exceeded the pale of hardball politics. The mainstream and corporate media enterprises responsible for the nakedly deceitful, exploitative, and propagandistic abuses of viral audio and video - now exposed by this interview - should have some explaining to do. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting....,

It is now an established fact that Baraka's candidacy is yielding a bounty of unintended consequences in its unprecedented capacity as a collective rorschachian emetic

Senate Passes Genetic Discrimination Bill

People learning through genetic testing that they might be susceptible to devastating diseases wouldn't also have to worry about losing their jobs or their health insurance under anti-discrimination legislation the Senate passed Thursday.

The 95-0 Senate vote sends the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act

The bill, described by Sen. Edward Kennedy as "the first major new civil rights bill of the new century," would bar health insurance companies from using genetic information to set premiums or determine enrollment eligibility. Similarly, employers could not use genetic information in hiring, firing or promotion decisions.

"For the first time we act to prevent discrimination before it has taken firm hold and that's why this legislation is unique and groundbreaking," said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who sponsored the Senate bill with Sens. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. back to the House, which could approve it early next week. President Bush supports the legislation.

Mapping the Individual - Cheaply

In yesterday's Guardian;

The cost of sequencing an individual genome is falling exponentially - just as the cost of hard disk space or transistors on a chip did when computing took off. Plotting the numbers on a graph suggests that by 2012 it will take a few hours and cost less than $100. A few years after that it will cost perhaps $10.

That's when you should expect an explosion in personal sequencing. Jason Bobe, the director of community for the Personal Genome Project, based at Harvard Medical School, writes the Personal Genome blog and reckons that by 2015, 50 million people will have had their own DNA sequenced. He says: "My rationale is simply to assume that the trend line for the personal sequencing market might look a lot like the one experienced in the personal computer market" - which grew from a few thousand units sold in 1975 to 50m in 1995. "If the personal genome sequencing market follows suit, we might say that 2007 for personal genome sequences was like 1979 for PCs, and we've just turned the corner into 1980 where units sold remains below 1m, but growth is noticeable."

The rapidly falling cost and time needed to map your DNA

2003
$437,000,000
13 years to map

2007
$10,000,000
4 years

2008
$100,000
4 weeks

2012
$100*
2 days

*Forecast

"How far down the cost [of sequencing] will go will be determined by the final size of the market and its applications." But if the whole population is sequenced from birth, and your DNA becomes your passport and benefit ID, that will expand the market - perhaps making it a self-fulfilling prediction.

Doomsday Police Units to Patrol City Subways

No, I didn't make that up, that's the tagline in today's New York Daily News. I'd actually be a little embarrassed to be that over the top, and mind you, I'm simply observing and briefly commenting on what I see.

NYPD cops armed with rifles, submachine guns, body armor and bomb-sniffing dogs will start patrolling the city's subways on Thursday - a first for mass transit in the United States.

Teams of six officers and a dog will patrol subway platforms and trains in 12-hour shifts.

The TORCH teams are being paid for by $151 million from the feds announced in February.

Similarly equipped NYPD units, known as Hercules teams, have patrolled Wall Street and other aboveground icons as part of the NYPD response to the World Trade Center attacks.

"The TORCH teams are Hercules teams with a MetroCard," a police source said.

As cinematic as this hypermilitarized policing is, it hasn't yet reached the top of what it takes to show patriotic tough love and really, really mean it. See, nothing says protect the homeland - and lets folks know you really mean it - like fixed bayonets or even swords.

It's a fist[sic] for mass transit in the United States. NYPD officers, armed with rifles, submachine guns, body armor and bomb sniffing dogs will begin patrolling the city's subway system thanks to a 50 percent increase in a homeland security grant.

Don't fret thinking that perhaps you've been left out. According to Secretary Chertoff:

Beefed Up Security A 'Model For Entire Country'

There, don't you feel safer already?

I know I do.....,

Nontarget Effects of Genetic Manipulation

Having gotten the energy and economic casserole bubbling along nicely this morning, I'd best turn my attention to grating some of that funky genetic engineering cheese to sprinkle on top. You know, the totally random technological variable on which our future prospects quite possibly depend? (that, and our possible psychological evolution.....,)

Putting the matter plainly: when foreign genes are introduced into an organism, creating a transgenic organism (commonly called a genetically modified or genetically engineered organism), the results for the organism and its environment are almost always unpredictable. The intended result may or may not be achieved in any given case, but the one almost sure thing is that unintended results - nontarget effects - will also be achieved.

These facts have been, and are being, widely reported in the scientific literature. While they are correcting our understanding in important ways, they are not at all controversial. And they bear directly upon the wisdom of virtually all the current genetic engineering practices. If there has been limited reportage of nontarget effects in the popular press, it may be because the facts are often buried in technical scientific articles. And within genetic engineering research itself, scientists are mainly concerned with achieving targeted effects and not with investigating beyond the range of their own intentions and reporting unexpected effects. But when they do investigate, there is usually plenty to see.

While I remain bullish as ever about the imperative necessity of the deepest possible interrogation of the biotic realit - this reference site is furnished persuant to the subrealist ethos of providing fair and balanced coverage of the fringes of consensus reality.

Oil Rules

or The End of the World as You Know It …and the Rise of the New Energy World Order. Having now reviewed the underlying shape and motive forces of the world as you know it, Michael Klare presents a pithy synoptic preview of the new world order aborning - and it's quite different from what the normative political narrative (consensus reality) would lead to you to think that it is. This should be borne in mind as the pure comedy gold of the current presidential election cycle plays itself out while our existing socio-economic order disintegrates with shocking rapidity.

It's strange that the business and geopolitics of energy takes up so little space on American front pages -- or that we could conduct an oil war in Iraq with hardly a mention of the words "oil" and "war" in the same paragraph in those same papers over the years. Strange indeed. And yet, oil rules our world and energy lies behind so many of the headlines that might seem to be about other matters entirely.

Take the food riots now spreading across the planet because the prices of staples are soaring, while stocks of basics are falling. In the last year, wheat (think flour) has risen by 130%, rice by 74%, soya by 87%, and corn by 31%, while there are now only eight to 12 weeks of cereal stocks left globally. Governments across the planetary map are shuddering. This is a fast growing horror story and, though the cry in the streets of Cairo and Port au Prince might be for bread, this, too, turns out to be a tale largely ruled by energy:

I believe Maclean's incentive for formulating the notion of the TEP comes into play here;

My notion of the TEP was stimulated by an undergraduate research paper in which I sought to prove the truth of Norman Angell's claim, viz., that imperialism failed to contribute to the wealth of imperial powers. For example, I observed that the most impressive economic growth in 19th century Europe had occurred in countries that either had no colonies, or else, had them for a short time or had small colonial empires.

Maclean's Trans-European Project

We frequently use the acronym TPTB (the powers that be) in discussion of that trans-national polity whose activities play themselves out on the global scene and are rationalized to the public via a collection of conventional narratives. Easily the most sweeping and illuminating account of this polity that I have encountered here-to-date is James R. Maclean's Trans-European Project.

This series of posts is intended to introduce the concept of the Trans-European Project (TEP), a quasi-national entity that comprises Western Europe, North America, and some various settlements elsewhere in the world. The TEP in some respects can be described as a space of intra-colonial activities, in which the various empires of the past would constantly ebb and flow, like eras of glaciation.

Given that we are now in the midst of a period of historically unprecedented glacial flux, (at least in terms of scale and speed), it may prove helpful to have an encompassing map of the existing structures that will be melting down and flowing before our very eyes. Please read the TEP in its entirety.

Phoenix Lights 8-21-08

At approximately 8:20 PM Arizona time 4 bright red lights hovered in the night sky. The lights moved creating several different shapes for around 7-8 minutes before 1 by 1 disappearing. The last light left much slower than the others moving upward until it was gone. Here's some really good, steady, home video of the phenomenon. Here's a youtube of local coverage and too much time on the hands of a windows moviemaker auteur

Globalization's Twilight

In light of real trouble in the world, the tone of this article seems a little "extra", until you stop and think about what it means when a wealthy country's economic clout is meaningles in the face of an actual, underlying commodity shortage;

While soaring food prices have triggered rioting among the starving millions of the third world, in wealthy Japan they have forced a pampered population to contemplate the shocking possibility of a long-term — perhaps permanent — reduction in the quality and quantity of its food.

A 130% rise in the global cost of wheat in the past year, caused partly by surging demand from China and India and a huge injection of speculative funds into wheat futures, has forced the Government to hit flour millers with three rounds of stiff mark-ups. The latest — a 30% increase this month — has given rise to speculation that Japan, which relies on imports for 90% of its annual wheat consumption, is no longer on the brink of a food crisis, but has fallen off the cliff.

According to one government poll, 80% of Japanese are frightened about what the future holds for their food supply.

Last week, as the prices of wheat and barley continued their relentless climb, the Japanese Government discovered it had exhausted its ¥230 billion ($A2.37 billion) budget for the grains with two months remaining. It was forced to call on an emergency ¥55 billion reserve to ensure it could continue feeding the nation.

"This was the first time the Government has had to take such drastic action since the war," said Akio Shibata, an expert on food imports, who warned the Agriculture Ministry two years ago that Japan would have to cut back drastically on its sophisticated diet if it did not become more self-sufficient.

Japan's hunger becomes a dire warning for other nations

America's Role in Haiti's Hunger Riots

Haiti used to be the lushest island in the region; rice and coffee were major exports. But political turmoil, mismanagement, lack of planning, deforestation, and natural disasters have taken their toll. Today, less than 2 percent of the country is forested.

"Thirty years ago, Haiti raised nearly all the rice it needed. What happened?

In 1986, after the expulsion of Haitian dictator Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loaned Haiti $24.6 million in desperately needed funds (Baby Doc had raided the treasury on the way out). But, in order to get the IMF loan, Haiti was required to reduce tariff protections for Haitian rice and other agricultural products and some industries, to open up the country's markets to
competition from outside countries. The US has by far the largest voice in decisions of the IMF.

Doctor Paul Farmer was in Haiti then and saw what happened. "Within less than two years, it became impossible for Haitian farmers to compete with what they called 'Miami rice.' The whole local rice market in Haiti fell apart as cheap, US subsidized rice, some of it in the form of 'food aid,' flooded the market. There was violence ... 'rice wars,' and lives were lost.""

With the vast majority of Haiti's 8.5 million trying to survive on just $2 a day, eking out even an extra penny is as difficult as the government's challenge of providing electricity – or potable water, inaccessible to 75 percent of the population. It is the poorest country in the hemisphere.

Out of Touch

Most people believe oil is running out and governments need to find another fuel, but Americans are alone in thinking their leaders are out of touch with reality on this issue, an international poll said on Sunday.

On average, 70 percent of respondents in 15 countries and the Palestinian territories said they thought oil supplies had peaked. Only 22 percent of the nearly 15,000 respondents in nations ranging from China to Mexico believed enough new oil would be found to keep it a primary fuel source.The current tightening of the oil market is not temporary but will continue and the price of oil will rise substantially, most respondents said.

"They think it's just going to keep going higher and a fundamental adaptation is necessary," Kull said in a telephone interview.

In the United States, the world's biggest oil consumer and among the biggest emitters of climate-warming pollution from fossil fuel use, 76 percent of respondents said oil is running out, but most believed the U.S. government mistakenly assumes there would be enough to keep oil a main source of fuel.

U.S. GOVERNMENT "NOT FACING REALITY"

Cornucopian Political and Economic Delusions

Over at Bookerrising blogspot, I just now saw the single most ignorant, preposterous and delusional comment I think I've ever seen online;

The new US geological survey of the Bakken reserve in North Dakota together with the technological advancements that allow for horizontal drilling, provided the anti-capitalist environmentalists (as opposed to true ecologists) don't stop the drilling, will increase known US reserves by a factor of almost 5, from 174 billion barrels of known economically recoverable barrels of oil, not including ANWR or outer continental shelf oil, to nearly 1 trillion barrels of economically recoverable oil, roughly equivalent to half of the proved reserves in Saudi Arabia.

There is no possibility of running out of oil in 500 years with economic growth projections double what we've experienced over the last 50 years.

This type of ludicrous nonsense underscores the dizzying challenge facing any politician confronted by the challenge of attempting to communicate the actual terror of the situation by which we are now faced. This commenter is quite clearly a denizen of an entirely different reality than the fact based version in which the rest of us are obliged to reside.

Democracy, Governance, and War in Oil Exporting Nations

So I've got Crude Awakening playing in the background and one of the recurring interviewees is Prof. Terry Lynn Karl. Professor Karl is bringing a perspective on the political dimensions of fin d'siecle black gold unlike any I've previously heard. She's taking names and dropping science.

Radical Reengineering - Boo-shoot Rhizomes

Comes now Big Don making a locally showcased donation to the collective offering plate of radical reengineering solutions. This is actually pretty cool in the context of who'da thunk type initiatives.

Before tissue culture, it wasn't feasible to farm bamboo on large-scale plantations because it was hard to find enough seed or divisions to plant. Despite their invasive reputation, bamboos are in short supply because most species flower and produce seed only once every 60 to 120 years, and propagation by division is labor intensive and iffy.

That all changed with the advent of cloned bamboo.

"We've never had a true supply of bamboo," Heinricher says. "We don't know how big the market will be." Boo-Shoot is the main commercial player in America, successfully cloning bamboo types that can be used for horticulture, agriculture, industry and carbon mitigation. A Belgian company, Oprins, clones mostly landscape bamboo. This winter, Heinricher retrofitted her greenhouses, enabling her company to produce 4 million plants a year.

Heinricher sees bamboo as an alternate lumber and source of pulp for paper, a way to ease pressure on trees. Bamboo plantations on unused agricultural land could be sustainably harvested while simultaneously functioning as carbon sinks. And, she asks, what about highway plantings for erosion control and noise reduction?

Cracking the code to 'the perfect plant' opens a path to saving the planet Since the primary up-front challenge has been met, this now sounds like a business with low-capital cost franchise opportunities written all over it. It's been my experience that picking up the phone or dropping an email is typically all that's required to get a good-faith bidnis dialogue spun up in earnest. Sounds like this one has at least some of the benefits of hemp cultivation with none of the associated social stigma and legal downside risk.

Pimp Hand Strong....,

OPEC member Venezuela, under President Hugo Chavez, has spearheaded a global trend towards resource-holders seeking to maximise their returns from their energy wealth.

International firms have found themselves faced with tougher terms and shut out of the best energy territory.

During the 1970s, the international oil companies controlled nearly three-quarters of global oil reserves and 80 percent of production, Scaroni said.

Now, they control 6 percent of oil and 20 percent of gas reserves, and 24 percent of oil and 35 percent of gas production, he said. National oil companies hold the rest.

There is little sign the trend will reverse. "The relative positions of international energy companies and national energy companies are changing -- and not in our favour," Paolo Scaroni, chief executive of Italian oil and gas company Eni said in a speech at the opening of the International Energy Forum (IEF). Reuters report yesterday via Forbes.com

Orlov's Reinventing Collapse

Media theorist Marshall McLuhan was wont to say:

We don't know who discovered water, but we know it wasn't the fish.

Apropos the most recent commentary with Bros. Makheru and Submariner in which I expressed my view of the permissible limits of public questioning to the former - and the utility of unconstrained private questioning to the latter - participants in a culture are not the best ones to uncover widely held assumptions.

Amanda Kovattana goes straight to the heart of Orlov's treatment of our predicament, uncovering at least one of the fundamental assumptions inherent to being a fish in these American waters;

Along the way, he reveals pithy insights to explain how the American system works in contrast with the Russian one. For instance the story of the classless society is exemplified by the concept of a middle class — something Americans have proudly espoused — which he points out is held together by the common denominator of everyone owning a car. That's right, not education, not equal opportunity, or equal rights but the one-ton behemoth that we must have to get around the wasteful geography created by suburbia.

We know about this waste from the film The End of Suburbia and James Kunstler's Geography of Nowhere and all the other peak oil fellows, but Orlov points out that because we are so identified with owning a car as part of this American middle class identity we will be hard put to let it go. And when we are forced to (due to diminishing and increasingly expensive gasoline supplies) so will go the myth of the middle class. In turn he explains how the Russians lost faith in the classless worker's paradise because they could clearly see that there was an elite strutting around in cool Armani threads. Meanwhile the lack of consumer goods and trendy fashions meant that a good life for all never became a reality.

And because our ideologically indoctrinated minds are so closed to such deep seated change and so invested in our "can do" innovation, we will, like Napoleon, be unable to retreat from the overextended, oil fueled, debt based economy which is poised to come crashing down, financed as it is by foreign investment that will eventually decide that we are not a good credit risk.

And there it is in a nutshell. Few national politicians dare give voice to what's just beyond the signpost up ahead. Being unwilling and unable to discuss reality, how then could they ever go about proposing, much less implementing, any of the radical engineering redesigns required to genuinely rebuild along viable and sustainable lines? The patient is as yet utterly unwilling to hear an objective and accurate diagnosis. With no diagnosis, how can she participate in her own treatment, much less get on board with the radical measures required to effect an actual cure?