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Saturday, July 05, 2008
"Ich bin ein lightweight"?
Posted by: McQ
What in the world, other than glittering generalities and hopey changitude, will Barack Obama have to offer anyone in a speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate for heaven sake?
Barack Obama's planned European tour might make a major whistlestop in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The candidate's schedule isn't set, but a Berlin appearance before the end of July looks likely.
Plans for a visit by Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic candidate for President of the United States, have moved forward — slowly — in Berlin, where he may give a speech before the Brandenburg Gate this summer.
This is all about spectacle, not substance. This is show biz. And his handlers think they know where the audience he needs can be found.
The case of former San Diego Charger Steve Foley against the city of Coronado and officer Aaron Mansker is over. This week, the trial abruptly ended, and a sealed settlement was announced.
Except, not so fast on that whole "sealed" thing. California law makes sealing a settlement between a public entity and another party extremely difficult, if not impossible. So, yesterday, the city backed off on the demand to seal the settlement, and the terms will probably be announced Monday, once the city council approves it.
That's when the taxpayers of Coronado will find out how much money Aaron Mansker cost them.
Apparently, residents of the city feel that Foley is entitled to whatever he gets.
Coronado residents interviewed yesterday about the settlement said they want to know how their tax dollars are being spent. Last month, Coronado approved a general-fund budget of $36.7 million for fiscal 2008-09, which began Tuesday. The city has general-fund reserves of $38.9 million.
If insurance doesn't cover the entire settlement, the city could have to pay out of the general fund or reserves.
"I'd like to know what (the settlement) is, because we're probably going to have to pay for it," said Ted Braaten, 86, an 18-year resident of Coronado.
Braaten said he would prefer that "police just patrol Coronado and not get involved in other cases like that."
Others said Foley deserved the settlement and that Mansker, who remains employed with the Coronado Police Department, had overstepped his authority.
"I feel that Foley has the right to every dime he gets," said John Bonnett, 34, a 30-year Coronado resident.
Officer Mansker is still employed as a Coronado police officer.
Yeah, I know I bang this drum incessantly, but this is important stuff. We have a short time-frame in which to act in order to head off, or at least soften, the impact of future energy demand in this country. It is both an economic and national security necessity.
And it seems that everything to date which has been tried is exacerbating the problem, instead of helping it:
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.
The Guardian goes on to claim this report was withheld in order to keep from embarrassing George Bush - how original.
The fact remains, George Bush isn't pushing governments in Europe to turn food into biofuels. Nor is George Bush the author of the mandates now in effect for ethanol (although he signed the bill with those mandates).
Meanwhile, in Madrid, a little noticed announcement:
The Arctic holds 100 billion barrels of oil in unexplored fields, a government geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey said Monday at an international oil industry gathering in Spain.
"The Arctic is almost completely unexplored," said Donald Gautier at the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid. "There are 100 billion barrels of oil to be found in the Arctic."
Gautier said that throughout the world "our best guess is still that there is a 50-50 chance that there is an excess of 500 billion barrels of conventional recoverable oil in undisclosed fields as of now."
And on June 27th, Mr. Ray Leonard, a well known oil expert, reinterated his 2001 prediction to a group to whom he was speaking:
"By 2010, the production of the fuel that has driven the world's economy will start to rapidly decline. This will conflict with the steadily increasing demand for oil. The collision of these two trends will lead to shortages and increased prices, providing a strong incentive to shift to alternative fuel resources...Due to unequal distribution through the world of oil and gas supply and consumption, [the upcoming] transition will result in significant shifts in global power and wealth."
Of course nothing has been done in the interim to soften that prediction. I read somewhere that the average American consumes/uses 25 barrels of oil a year as a part of their lifestyle. People in India and China average 1 to 2 barrels. That latter number is changing dramatically, as we all know. By 2010 it isn't going to be lower. Consequently, as Leonard suggests, prices will be much higher as production peaks, flattens and possibly declines.
Which country's style of living is likely to be the most heavily impacted? The one that averages 25 barrels per citizen or the ones averageing 1 to 2 barrels a year?
Leonard predicts the oil industry, as it is now structured, will hit a 90 million barrel a day "wall" at the end of the decade.
Some of his reasons:
It's not the size of the tank but the size of the tap." World peak oil describes the level of world oil production. The level of production is not dependent on the level of reserves in much of the world, only on the portion which operates under free market conditions, which is becoming a smaller and smaller portion of the world market.
[...]
OPEC: The limitation on production from the Arabian Gulf is mostly due to politics, lack of motivation, investment level, and type of crude, not shortages of reserves. A rapid increase in production is not physically possible at this time. However, an additional five million barrels/day of production is possible within a decade. (In his further responses, Leonard seemed to indicate that 5 million additional barrels was more "technically possible" than likely.)
[...]
FSU [Former Soviet Union] production increased from 7.5 million b/day in 1999 to 13 million b/day last year, providing 60% of world oil production growth during that period. Russian reserves were sufficient to continue growing Russian production (alone) to 14 million b/day by 2010 (117 billion barrels from the author's study vs. 79.8 billion from BP); however, politics and tax regimes initiated during 2003 have halted growth. Russia has simply decided that they will control production growth at 10 million b/day; they may well both be able to and decide to produce close to that level for a decade.
[...]
In Rest of World (excluding tar sands), the decline rate in existing fields is estimated at 7%/year. With the exception of Brazil (ultradeep water), major producing countries are at or past peak. Rapid declines in recent years from the North Sea, Mexico and USA have been temporarily halted by additions from the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. Overall ROW production peaked in 2003; an intensive effort is needed to minimize decline rates. New production from ultradeep development has masked decline of ROW, but within the next decade, this welcome new addition will pass and the subsequent decline will accelerate.
As Leonard points out, the world is really divided into three groups of producers - OPEC (which controls 73% of the reserves and produces 43% of the world's oil), FSU [Former Soviet Union] (which controls 13.1% of the reserves and produces 16% of the world's oil) and The Rest of the World (which controls 13.7% of the reserves and produces 41% of the world's oil). His point about "The Rest of the World" (above) is critical to understanding how precarious our energy situation is.
The sentence in bold is a statment of policy which must not only be understood, but aggressively implemented if we're to survive hitting the predicted production "wall" in the near future.
Yet, as Leonard notes, we're hardly in a position to do so:
In the USA, the intensive drilling needed is unlikely to receive environmental permits on the scale needed to have significant impact on domestic production. Probably maximum US production from unconventional oil would be less than 1 million b/day.
And, as it stands right now, I'd say he's pretty much right and we're pretty much screwed. I'll say again, I'd love to see viable alternatives which could be brought on-line to replace fossil fuel, but it simply isn't there and won't be for some time. So what's the alternative? One we've eschewed for 3 decades. And that head-in-the-sand policy is now going to bite us hard in a few years. We're only seeing the beginning of that trend with $4+ gas.
Had we been pursuing the exploitation of fossil fuel all these decades, we wouldn't be faced with such a stark future.
Unconventional oil production: in-place resources of bitumen, tar sands and oil shale are roughly 10 trillion barrels or equivalent. However, having the oil in place is very different from getting the oil out in the near term. Compared to an average recovery factor of 35% for conventional, the recovery of the unconventional resources averages 10% or less. The costs-monetary, manpower and environmental-to develop these resources are considerably higher. The three largest resources are at least in the western hemisphere: USA, Canada and USA.
As for those politicians who want to lay all of this off to oil company greed, speculators and waste, the International Energy Agency says nonsense:
The IEA said that annual non-Opec growth would slow to 0.5 per cent between 2008 and 2013, against demand growth of 1.6 per cent per year. The mismatch means the world economy would be more reliant on Opec, the oil cartel, and oil prices are likely to remain at record levels, analysts said.
"Structural demand growth in developing countries and ongoing supply constraints continue to paint a tight market picture over the medium-term," the IEA said in its Medium-Term Oil Market Report, released on Tuesday in Madrid.
"Poor supply-side performance since 2004, in the face of strong demand pressures from developing countries, has forced oil prices up sharply to curb demand," the watchdog added.
Even poorer energy policy by the government of the US exacerbated the impact of the poor "supply-side performance" well before 2004.
We have some very important decisions to make and we need to make them soon. Politicians who claim coal and oil "make us sick" need to find themselves faced with a new employment opportunities. Unless our energy policy is changed and changed quickly, we're going to be facing some radical changes in our lifestyle. And whoever is President at the time (and whichever party controls Congress at the time) is going to pay heavily at the ballot box, unless they've begun the necessary implementation of a sane energy policy for the US which will save, or at least soften, the impact of Leonard's predictions.
One week after Sen. Hillary Clinton made a public show of unity with Sen. Barack Obama, a new survey suggests supporters of the New York senator are increasingly less likely to follow her lead.
A growing number of Clinton supporters polled say they may stay home in November instead of casting their ballot for Obama, an indication the party has yet to coalesce around the Illinois senator four weeks after the most prolonged and at times divisive primary race in modern American history came to a close.
According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Friday, the number of Clinton supporters who plan to defect to Republican Sen. John McCain's camp is down from one month ago, but — in what could be an ominous sign for Obama as he seeks to unify the party — the number of them who say they plan to vote for Obama is also down, and a growing number say they may not vote at all.
Reading through the comment sections on a number of lefty blog I ran across quite a few commenters who claim they'll not be voting for Obama for various reasons. Kos even put out a post saying he wasn't going to reward "bad behavior" (i.e., Obama's move to the right) with a donation. And the latest thing which has put them off is the seeming softening of his stance on late term abortions.
Whether or not those commenters actually hold to what they're saying remains to be seen, of course, but at the moment they don't seem to be quite as happy with their "new" politician as they once were.
Anyway, the latest numbers:
In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey completed in early June before the New York senator ended her White House bid, 60 percent of Clinton backers polled said they planned on voting for Obama. In the latest poll, that number has dropped to 54 percent.
In early June, 22 percent of Clinton supporters polled said they would not vote at all if Obama were the party's nominee, now close to a third say they will stay home.
In another sign the wounds of the heated primary race have yet to heal, 43 percent of registered Democrats polled still say they would prefer Clinton to be the party's presidential nominee.
That number is significantly higher than it was in early June, when 35 percent of Democrats polled said they preferred Clinton to lead the party's presidential ticket.
You'd think that those numbers would begin to come down at this stage, instead of going up. It would seem the disappointment of a Clinton loss has been exacerbated by Obama's rather clumsy move toward the center. Clinton supporters reluctant to vote for Obama may be using that move to the right as further justification for not voting for Obama (as if Clinton wouldn't have tried the same maneuver).
While it is way too early to give this poll much credence, it is, still, a potential problem for an Obama candidacy. If a third of the Clinton supporters do indeed stay home and a decent number of them cross over and vote for McCain, it could spell real trouble for Obama. As he's finding out, unity doesn't become a reality just because you announce that to be the case in a town called Unity.
"Terrorism" by definition is an effort to use a few attacks to induce unwarranted and irrational fear across an entire population. The aim is get the terrorist's target to alter its policies, waste its resources, and change its way of life in an irrational response to an enemy without the resources for a more traditional war.
Surprisingly, it's not just the anti-war crowd that has been using this definition with some regularity since 9/11 and especially since the Coalition went to war in Iraq; even some who agree with our war aims have agreed with this idea of the terrorists' aims. But it's natural that anti-war individuals would accept that definition more often, since it's complementary with the opinions that (a) the threat of terrorism has been overinflated, so (b) the response is bound to be irrational. It seems like cold calculation on the part of the terrorists to perform spectacular attacks with the intent of drawing an expensive overreaction, and this throws a particularly bad light on those who are perceived to be cynically exploiting the natural fear of violence to push a pro-war agenda, which of course would play right into the hands of the terrorists. (As an aside, I would argue that we should not confuse achieving our aims with preventing the enemy from achieving his. Sometimes the enemy achieves a tactical goal to his strategic detriment.)
I won't argue against the proposition that al Qaeda wanted to draw the United States into an expensive and bloody war. I won't argue that the responses to terrorism, both by individuals and by all levels of government in the US, have all been rational and warranted. They haven't, and what's more, that fact shouldn't surprise anyone. And I agree wholeheartedly that al Qaeda intended to alter US (and Spanish, and British, etc.) government policies; they have repeatedly stated as much.
But is Balko giving us a good working definition of terrorism? I think not. In some places, it's sloppy; in other places, it's simply wrong.
When — not if — fear of terrorism becomes rational and warranted, will it still be terrorism to perform the next attack? I would submit that it is. Terror is the goal, whether rational or irrational.
Does terrorism require "a few" attacks? History shows that it does not, although that does amplify the signal. Tim McVeigh was a terrorist after one spectacular attack. And I would suggest that the credible threat of violence can substitute for an actual attack.
Is terrorism defined by attempts to change government policy? I would submit that it is not; al Qaeda, in addition to its attempts to change state policies, has also used terror as an instrument of its own governance, to change personal behavior and to destroy Western values. Other, more established states have instituted programs of terror against their own people — terror as policy, rather than as an attempt to change policy.
Is terrorism defined by attempts to get its target to waste resources? I would say not. The Madrid train bombings were not designed to draw Spain further into the war, but to dissuade them from continuing their support of the war. The same goes for the London tube train bombings. Many of the responses to terrorism thus far have been wasteful, and because it is strategically convenient in the current context it was part of the intent of al Qaeda, but this fact does not define terrorism. Does anyone doubt that if al Qaeda had the capability to inflict another attack on the United States, more spectacular than 9/11, whether or not it caused us to waste more resources, they would do it?
Is it necessary that terrorism be carried out by the more poorly-funded party to a conflict? To agree would be to argue that states do not make use of terror, or that it isn't terrorism if the victim has fewer resources than the attacker. Though the overwhelming economic and conventional military dominance of the United States (and its allies) has contributed to the rise of modern, international terrorism — by funneling would-be violent challengers into unconventional violence and particularly against noncombatants, whose security is vital to the legitimacy of our states — that is a circumstance and not a necessarily defining aspect of terrorism. The better-funded can engage in terrorism too.
Is terrorism defined by attempts to get the target to change their way of life? This hits closest to the mark.
Terrorism is the pursuit of political goals through the use of violence against noncombatants in order to dissuade them from doing what they have a lawful right to do [Emphasis his]. This definition puts the goals of terrorism back into the picture by linking strategic means (attacks on civilians) with legal ends (the deterrence of lawful action). (p. 352)
I would add the credible threat of violence rather than just the use of violence, but I think Bobbitt's definition has much greater clarity and thereby much greater practical value than Balko's. Using Bobbitt's proposed definition, if Balko and I basically agree on rights, my terrorist will not be his freedom fighter, so to speak. And while Bobbitt's definition must be understood as extremely broad — I don't doubt for a minute that Balko would apply this definition to certain American institutions — it is nonetheless useful. Over the course of 546 pages and almost 100 pages of notes, Bobbitt explains in great detail why this understanding of terrorism will be crucial to the legitimacy of our states, our institutions, and our way of life (so to speak). He explains why the concept of a "war against terror" is a perfectly legitimate one.
There's a lot more implied by "lawful right" than I can do justice to here, but suffice it to say,
In the case of al Qaeda, the goal of the terror network is the destruction of Western values in any area where these can have an impact on Muslims. Rendering persons too frightened to act lawfully on their basic values is both a means and an end, for such a situation of terror, of terrified people in a terrified society too fearful to freely choose their actions (and thus manifest their values) is an end roughly equivalent to the total destruction of Western values. (p. 357)
There's a strong flavor of negative rights, of creating a civic peace with political freedom, in Bobbitt's argument.
And I should point out that far from being an enthusiastic apologist for the Bush administration and its prosecution of the war thus far, Bobbitt takes plenty of opportunities to rake the Bush administration over the coals — on everything from Iraq to Katrina to, yes, torture — but he's able to do so without falling victim to conveniently complementary ideas of just what it is we're facing.
For all its warts and carbuncles, I'd still not want to live anywhere else.
That's because there's still a will, in this great nation, to do what is right.
And while we may disagree on what that is and how to go about it, that freedom to dissent, to argue, to rant and rave is more precious that you can imagine. Never do I go to bed at night concerned there will be a knock on my door and I'll be taken away for something I've said or written.
I spent my youth in other countries as my father, a career Army officer, did his job. I saw first-hand what poverty really looks like. I got to see what the suppression of freedoms we take for granted entailed. I learned at an early age to appreciate what we have here and how important it is to work toward keeping us free. And certainly, I have my concerns and take the opportunity on this blog to voice them. But again, the simple act of doing that without fear is a blessing beyond reach for many in this world.
There's an innate spirit that still lives in most Americans (and needs to be constantly nurtured) that says we can and will overcome all obstacles in our path and do it while we continue to live free. There are those among us who cynically denigrate any appeals to patriotism and would have us believe that being patriotic is more like a disease than a matter of pride in one's country and its accomplishments. But the proof of their ignorance on the subject is found in the irony of their freedom to say such things without fear.
I find that most people who can't muster pride in where they live and what it stands for have no pride in much of anything. I feel sorry for them.
That said, I've never felt patriotism meant "my country right or wrong". Instead it meant trying to shorten that phrase to "my country - right" and working very hard to make that happen.
We're independent today because a group of patriots pledged their "lives, fortunes and sacred honor" toward achieving a goal. It is and was a very noble goal. Today's patriot needs to remember those original goals and ideals of our independence and renew the effort to keep them in the forefront of the political discussion. We are free today because of those ideals and goals, and we should never forget that.
"I've always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability. That assessment has not changed," he said. "And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I'm sure I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies."
Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.
And that plan was made without consulting a single commander on the ground.
What we have here is the beginning of the "Iraq crawl".
That's where Obama denies having said what he has said and when confronted with his own words, such as those from his website, describes them as "inartful" and pretends they were just to put pressure on the Iraqi government (and they succeeded!).
Oh, and don't forget, this is on his website as of this very moment:
The Surge: The goal of the surge was to create space for Iraq's political leaders to reach an agreement to end Iraq's civil war. At great cost, our troops have helped reduce violence in some areas of Iraq, but even those reductions do not get us below the unsustainable levels of violence of mid-2006. Moreover, Iraq's political leaders have made no progress in resolving the political differences at the heart of their civil war.
Violence is down to 2004 levels, no one is talking about a "civil war", the Sunnis have rejoined the Iraqi government, 15 of 18 benchmarks are satisfactory and everyone but the lefty "defeatist" dead-enders have admitted the surge has worked.
It is always nice to get a little perspective on a problem, because it is human nature to think what you are suffering is always the worst that has been suffered.
I remember the high gas prices of the '80s very well. Of course then, there was some slack in the system as we were only a few years into our self-imposed drilling moratorium and supply was still plentiful, even if OPEC was playing with the spigot a bit.
There is no slack in the system now, but still, as a percentage of our disposable income, we have a way to go to match Jimmy Carter era gas prices. However, if we don't start doing something now, we'll be there soon enough (10 years?) with no relief in sight.
A tip of the hat to the Columbian army and the successful ruse they used to free 15 hostages, to include a former Columbian presidential candidate and 3 Americans from the terrorist group FARC.
Apparently the army members posed as aid workers and offered to fly the hostages to a meeting with a rebel leader.
Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told reporters earlier in the day that the rescue mission had been made possible by "a special intelligence" operation that had penetrated the highest reaches of the FARC, including the group's seven-man directorate and one of the rings of specialized rebel units entrusted with guarding hostages. Santos said that ring, commanded by a rebel known by the alias Cesar, was tricked into believing that the FARC's leader had called for the hostages to be brought to him.
Yesterday, two white helicopters arrived in a jungle clearing where the hostages were being held. The men in the helicopters looked like guerrillas, Betancourt later said, describing details of the rescue at the military airport.
"Absolutely surreal," she said, noting that some of the men who got off the helicopter wore T-shirts emblazoned with the iconic image of the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. "I thought this was the FARC," she said.
Their hands bound, the hostages were forced aboard the helicopters, wondering where they would be taken next in their long ordeal. But once aboard, Betancourt said, Cesar and another guerrilla were overpowered and the crewmen announced that the passengers were now free. "The chief of the operation said: 'We're the national army. You're free,' " she said. "The helicopter almost fell from the sky because we were jumping up and down, yelling, crying, hugging one another. We couldn't believe it."
Heh ... Loved the "Che" T-shirt touch.
"This was an operation without precedent that will pass into history for its audacity and effectiveness," Santos said. "Fifteen hostages were rescued without firing a single shot."
Tremendous. And well done.
Seems to me, with all the recent desertions and defections, FARC may be in deep trouble. A fact, I'm sure, that will sorely irritate Hugo Chavez. And given the recent actions and capabilities of the Columbian army, I'd also suggest it isn't an entity with which his route-step military would want to tangle.
The government is attempting to build a 25 gigawatt wind farm by 2020. But researchers have found wind variability to be a big problem:
One of the most frequent criticisms levelled at wind power is variability. That is, when the wind drops (or blows too hard) the windmills stop spinning and you get no power. To begin with, Oswald simulates the output rises and falls that might result from a lot of windfarms distributed around the UK by using Met Office archived data from different points up and down the land. Many wind advocates have argued that with enough windfarms, widely enough distributed, you would get more reliable power output as some windmills would always have wind.
Oswald's analysis says this isn't true, with calm conditions across pretty much all the UK being fairly regular events.
Analysis from 1996 to 2005 shows similar results: large, rapid, and frequent changes of power output being common occurrences ... any national power system has to manage under the worst case conditions likely to occur ... These are not extreme cases, whose frequency is so low as to render the events negligible. Rather, these are representative ...
If the government succeeds in building its mighty 25 gigawatts of wind base by 2020, according to Oswald's Met Office data-based model its output will dip to pretty much nothing fairly routinely.
In fact, they've found 3 day events with no wind at all to be fairly common, and occasionally 5 day events with 10 day becalming, while rare, certainly something which happens.
It's hard to power a grid when your generating mechanism is sitting idle. So that means that you have to have a backup.
That backup is gas turbine technology.
In his view, all this means that - certainly in a 2020 timeframe - the only feasible backup for the planned 25-gig wind base will be good old gas turbines. These would have to be built even if pumped storage existed, to deal with long-duration calms; and the expense of a triplefold wind, gas and pumped storage solution would be ridiculous. At present, gas turbine installations provide much of the grid's ability to deal with demand changes through the day.
The trouble is, according to Oswald, that human demand variance is predictable and smooth compared to wind output variance. Coping with the sudden ups and downs of wind is going to mean a lot more gas turbines - ones which will be thrashed especially hard as wind output surges up and down, and which will be fired up for less of the time.
So the result will be a hybrid system that is probably not the most efficient and certainly a producer of CO2.
Even though the hardware will be cheap and tough, it will break often under such treatment; meaning increased maintenance costs and a need for even more backup plants to cover busted backup plants. Thus, the scheme overall will be more expensive than the current gas sector. And since people won't want to thrash expensive, efficient combined-cycle kit like this, less fuel-efficient gear will be used - emitting more carbon than people now assume.
And that brings us to the bottom-line of present "windfarm" technology:
In essence, wind plans aren't actually wind plans, according to Oswald. They're gas plans with windfarms used to reduce the amount of gas actually burned in the plants. But he thinks the assumptions now made on costs and emissions reductions to be anticipated are unduly optimistic.
And, of course, such estimates always are.
Obviously wind has some future in the "alternative" or "renewable" energy field. But it certainly isn't a panacea and it has some rather large technological hurdles to overcome before it is a large contributor to the energy demands around the world.
There is an unexpected air of normalcy prevailing in Baghdad these days, with consumption flourishing and confidence in the government growing. The progress is astonishing, but can it last?
Of course the obligatory last line is to be expected. They can't quite see themselves going "all in" just yet. But they can no longer ignore the progress.
The EU "right" of health care - this should be fun to watch
Posted by: McQ
Bogged down with a failing health care system with huge waiting times, Brits are sure they've been saved by a new EU directive:
Patients will be able to escape NHS queues by demanding treatment anywhere in the European Union without the prior approval of a doctor, under proposals to guarantee health rights unveiled today in Brussels.
The NHS would then be duty bound to refund the British cost of the procedure under the new rules for cross-border healthcare.
Today's proposed EU directive will give patients in all 27 member states the same rights to treatment on the NHS as British patients. It also guarantees that the full cost of treatment abroad will be refunded when an NHS professional has agreed that it is necessary for the patient to go overseas.
We here in the US call this "the Canadian Plan".
The happy, cheery Health Commissioner said:
"Patients will be able to receive treatment in any member state, which will be reimbursed at home up to the level of the same or similar treatment in their health system," said Androula Vassiliou, the Health Commissioner.
"They will not need prior authorisation. However, if unpredictable cross-border healthcare becomes a problem, the system could put into place a system of prior authorisation to safeguard the system."
What "system" is being talked about here? Given this directive, the "system" is the "EU system" in its entirety. However, what Vassiliou seems to be saying is they reserve the right to reject (through requiring prior authorization) patients should they deem the other country's "system" to be in jeopardy. And that seems to be a bit of a contradiction doesn't it?
But that doesn't stop the happy talk, does it?
She added: "Patients from any country will enjoy equal treatment with the nationals of the country in which they are being treated and cannot be discriminated against."
This means that in countries with long waiting lists, patients from abroad will have to join the queue.
She added: "It will allow excessive demand from one country to be met by excessive capacity in another country. This is the essence of the co-operation."
It also means having to pay private providers as well.
You wait until eastern European patients start flooding western European medical facilities. Or Brits head into France and Germany while the UK's NHS pulls a US Medicare trick and refuses to reimburse French and German medical institutions at the rate they require.
My guess is a system of "authorization" will be in place so fast it will make your head swim ("I'm sorry, we don't take NHS patients").
And since, in Europe, health care is a "right" now, how about this?
Dr Terry John, chairman of the British Medical Association's International Committee, said: "We believe patients are entitled to safe, high-quality healthcare. Usually they want to be treated as close to home as possible, but it is understandable why some people want to seek treatment abroad.
"However, these proposals must not be allowed to erode the fundamental values of universality, accessibility and equality that should underlie healthcare. Patient mobility must not just be for the wealthy and educated.
Yes friends, if you want to escape those queues in the UK you have to pay your own travel and accommodation costs.
So, as I'm sure we'll see argued, this ruling is mostly for the rich! And yes, you're right - you can see it coming a mile off - travel and accommodation costs for medical care will soon be a "right" as well.
One of the commenters to the article says:
What an excellent idea! I live in Germany and only wish that my family back in the UK could experience the great healthcare that is available here.
Diana Taylor, Augsburg, Germany
Oh, not to worry Ms. Taylor - they and half of Britain will most likely be on your doorstep "experiencing" it before you know what hit you.
Ah, the law of unintended consequences is licking its chops on this one.
Reid and the Dems have no plan for future energy needs
Posted by: McQ
Investor's Business Daily brings us the latest from probably the worst Majority Leader the Senate has seen in a very long time:
The Dr. No of the drill-nothing Congress tried to deflect the issue of rising gas prices Monday by telling Fox Business News that there are costs we should worry about besides those stemming from Democratic inaction. Our guilt is supposed to replace our anger. "Coal makes us sick," Reid said, "oil makes us sick, it's global warming, it's ruining our country, it's ruining our world, we've got to stop using fossil fuel . . . ."
In this case, he's partially right - we all know that in a perfect world, we'd be using something else - an alternative. But this isn't a perfect world and our energy needs aren't going to stand still as we try to develop alternatives. So we have to deal with and use what is available now and exploit it.
The problem is, "Dr. No" isn't just against petroleum and coal, but he's also against the use of very clean nuclear energy.
Instead Reid is invested in using "vapor ware" and convinced that our problem is we haven't thrown enough money at it. And, of course, once we do, everything will by hunky dory.
Even if we tripled our current output from wind, solar and geothermal, they'd produce just 2.2% of our current energy needs.
But even if we had the technology and it could fulfill the need, Reid forgets about the movement he and others have supported over the years:
The irony here is that it's environmentalists and Democrats who often stand in the way of alternative energy. Reid needs to talk to Ted Kennedy and John Kerry about their opposition to a wind farm off Cape Cod because it might spoil their view.
A 500-megawatt, 20,000-acre wind farm scheduled for Valley County, Mont., was stopped by environmentalists who complained that 400-foot turbines would disturb a nearby wilderness area.
The Sunrise Powerlink solar-energy project in Southern California is being fought because of a 150-mile, $1.5 billion high-voltage line connecting desert-based solar panels with the urban customers of San Diego Gas & Electric.
Not only have nuclear power plants, drilling and petroleum refineries been stopped by the environmental movement, so-called clean energy projects have been stopped in their tracks as well - aided and abetted by the likes off Harry Reid. He has no solutions, only road-blocks. And the candidate he supports is no better:
Agreeing with Reid is his party's presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama. In a primary debate in Nevada, Obama pledged: "I will end the notion of Yucca Mountain because it has not been based on the sort of sound science that can assure the people of Nevada that they're going to be safe."
If you're concerned with the future of our energy supply, you need to consider the fact that the present Congressional leadership hasn't a clue nor a desire to do what is necessary to ensure our energy supply in the near future. Couple that with an Obama presidency and we're looking at a lack of foresight that will economically effect us for decades to come.
This is a critical aspect of the coming election and people need to really dig into the plans on each side and make this a major issue for the voter. They need to demand specifics which will ensure the energy supply, even if that means coal and petroleum short-term with nuclear coming on-line and then the integration of alternative sources as they become technologically available and viable.
Sales of new cars and trucks plunged to their lowest level in more than a decade in June, as high gas prices and a weak economy kept American consumers away from dealer showrooms.
With the drop last month of more than 18 percent, automakers now expect to sell well below 15 million new vehicles this year, far fewer than the norm this decade of more than 16 million vehicles a year.
Detroit automakers were hit hard. Ford Motor was down 28 percent in June, General Motors was off 18 percent, and Chrysler dropped 36 percent.
Despite its sharp decline, G.M's results were better than expected, which industry analysts attributed to a sales blitz with offers of zero-interest, long-term financing deals. The cut-rate loans helped G.M. retain its historic position as the top-selling United States automaker over Toyota, whose sales fell 21 percent.
People are delaying buying large ticket items as they wait to see how the housing situation and the job situation settle out. You don't have to be an economist to understand that high fuel prices are going to effect everything, and as the economy adjusts to the situation, there is going to be turmoil. That turmoil is going to come in the form of cuts in headcount, cuts in output and increases in costs and prices.
As for the car manufacturers, if they haven't already given up on the large, inefficient vehicles and begun emphasizing smaller more fuel efficient vehicles, someone needs to take them to the woodshed. And that someone will - the consumer - by rewarding those who figure out the trend and act on it.
So if sales continue to fall for some manufacturers and begin to pick up for others, shed no tears for those who are losing out - it will be because they didn't heed the signs and weren't adaptable enough to take advantage of them.
The consumer shift toward smaller vehicles reflects their broad concerns about gas prices and the overall economy, said James Lentz, Toyota's top sales executive in the United States.
"There are so many things weighing on the consumer's mind today," Mr. Lentz said. "It has driven consumer confidence down to a low we haven't seen since the oil embargo in 1973."
I'll be interested to see if American manufacturers learned their lesson then and are actually consumer driven this time rather than manufacturing driven.
Iraq's main Sunni Muslim political bloc is on the verge of rejoining the Shiite-led government after a nearly year-long boycott, a step widely seen as vital to reconciliation after years of sectarian conflict.
Why?
Sunni leaders now say the government has done enough to address their core conditions, including passing an amnesty law that has freed thousands of Sunni detainees this year. The leaders said they were also encouraged by the government's efforts in tackling Shiite militias, especially the Mahdi Army of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
"We feel that a great deal of them have been fulfilled," said Salim Abdullah al-Jubori, a spokesmen for the Sunni bloc, referring to the conditions.
Sounds like progress where I come from.
And the newest report, even though the usual suspects are scoffing at it, say 15 of the 18 benchmarks are satisfactory.
The fact that it hasn't happened in the arbitrary timeframe which critics preferred seems to be their main gripe.
Said to be Limbaugh's most lucrative deal ever by far, the new agreement runs through 2016 and includes a previously unheard-of nine figure signing bonus. For those of you in Rio Linda, that means more than $100 million, upfront.
This could be the target of a "windfall" profits tax in the truest sense of the word, couldn't it?
Iran's senior diplomat said Tuesday that Tehran was seriously considering a new offer from six world powers to resolve the dispute over its nuclear program, and he praised the package as "constructive."
The unusually positive remarks by Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki to a small group of reporters raised hope that a negotiated solution can be found to defuse the crisis.
That's because the threat against them is considered by them to be real and not rhetoric regardless of the public spin they put out there:
During a 90-minute luncheon at Iran's United Nations mission, Mottaki dismissed the growing speculation that Israel or the United States will strike at Iran's nuclear facilities during President Bush's last six months in office.
He described news reports to that effect as part of a long-running campaign of "psychological warfare."
The chance that Israel will attack Iran "is almost nil," Mottaki said. As for a U.S. strike, he said there was little public support in this country for a new conflict. "The consequences of such an attack cannot be predicted," he said.
But, of course, he and Iran's leadership know it isn't "almost nil" and, in fact, not only is the capability there, but, as Iraq has proven to the Iranians, the will is there.
Of course there is little doubt that Israel will attack those facilities and they recently demonstrated their capability to do so as well.
That threat of the use of force has caused Iran to reconsider its intransigent position.
Yet there are signs of intensified debate within Iran's leadership about its nuclear program. Iran has long said that it has an inalienable right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. But Mottaki declined three opportunities to reiterate that position Tuesday, indicating that Iran is weighing its options.
"We are seriously and carefully examining" the proposal, Mottaki said.
In a rather simple terms this illustrates perfectly why, when in negotiations with an enemy, both carrots and sticks are put on the table and left there. And anyway, with North Korea bowing out and Saddam gone, its getting lonely at the "Axis of Evil" table.
UPDATE: Anthony Lake, an Obama advisor, talks about how Obama would deal with Iran:
On Iran: Reiterates an Obama administration would sit down with negotiators without precondition. "Do you believe that simply sanctioning them can drive them into concessions before you talk..."
No Mr. Lake - apparently you have to blatantly threaten them as well.
Well, I did it last year. Now, it looks like others are joining me.
Long associated with counterculture, risk and rebellion, the motorcycle is being embraced by a growing contingent of Washington area drivers for, of all things, its practical benefits: high gas mileage and a speedier commute courtesy of the region's HOV lanes.
They're such riders as Chris Watson, an information technology worker from Alexandria who commutes by motorcycle to his job at a D.C. nonprofit organization.
"As soon as [gas] hit about $3.50, it was no longer really affordable," said Watson, 27, who recently bought a 2002 Kawasaki KLR650 for $2,600, took a rider training course and started commuting via motorcycle two weeks ago. He gets to work in as little as 15 minutes, compared with the hour it could take in his 17-miles-per-gallon Jeep Liberty, thanks to the HOV lanes on Interstate 395. His bike gets about 50 mpg.
"I love it," Watson said.
He'd love it a lot more if he was commuting on one of these:
By the way, I did the racing stripes myself.
I do expect to see a lot more of this, especially among people who aren't traditional motorcyclists. Even my bike, which is hardly an econo-cruiser like a KLR650, gets more than 40 MPG. (Well, at least it would if I didn't ride it the way I do. I encourage everyone to rode within their limits, of course.)
Motorcycle manufacturers are noticing. There are a number of new scooter models out, such as the Honda Silver Wing models, and the popular Burgman 650 from Suzuki.
They eliminate the tedious clutching and shifting in stop and go traffic with automatic transmissions. They have roomy seats, have fairly copious storage space, allowing you to take tools or whatever to work and back. Plus, with the Burgman, you've got an engine powerful enough to attract tickets, as well as save time and fuel.
A few weeks ago, on the FJR forum, one of the members told about riding into work one morning, and seeing some cat's-eye headlights coming up in his rear-view mirror. Wondering what Sportbike was about to pass he looked over in time to see a guy on a Burgman blow past him, doing 90.
I'm seeing a lot more of them here in Southern California, too. When you see them coming at you, they even give you the wave, just like a real biker.
As prices rise, there's going to be a serious untapped market that is going to start looking for something other than the trucks a
