Posts by James Bremner
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
John Burns, an NYT reporter who has spent a long time in Iraq over the years has a very interesting article on Iraq on the 5th anniversary.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/weekinreview/16jburns.html?_r=1&ref=weekinreview&oref=slogin
Another interesting article by Jules Crittenden, it is from the Weekly Standard, but well worth a read.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/879jpiay.asp
As for reflecting on Halabja, that suggestion has nothing to do with one upmanship or whatever. It is worth reflecting on to keep at the front of our minds what a horrendous bastard Saddam was, and how the Iraqi people suffered under his rule. And still would be if he hadn’t been deposed. Facts that seem to get completely lost in the current debate on Iraq.
In 2008 the key question on Iraq is what to do now, in 2008 and beyond. Should the MNF stay or go? We don’t get to have a do over from 2003. Even the NYT as they were editorializing for a precipitous withdrawal earlier last year, stated that a precipitous withdrawal would most likely result in genocide on a massive scale, but who cares anyway it is not our problem. And the left/libs think of themselves as the good guys.
Lots of mistakes have been made over the last 5 years, but why make a mistake of that magnitude when Iraq is heading, however haltingly, in the right direction? An end is in sight, and the end result could be a stable, successful, wealthy society as peace with itself and a remarkable example of what could be, or rather should be, in the Middle East. Why throw that possibility away? Why hand a huge victory to a group of blood thirsty horrendous terrorists and insurgents, who have done most of the killing in Iraq? Why grab disaster from the jaws of possible success? How does that make any sense at all?
-
it's always been fairly ok in the Kurdish areas..since the 1990s
Now that is funny!! Unintentionally of course!
Maybe the US/UK enforced no fly zone might have had something to do with "things being fairly ok in the Kurdish areas .. since the 1990s". What do you think? Maybe, just maybe?
The Kurds were rid of the Saddam from 1992 onwards, 16 years ago. The rest of the country has only been rid of the bastard, one of the worst and most brutal dictators of last century, for 5 years. Give them some time. Now they have a chance, a good chance of becoming a decent prosperous nation. They didn't have a snowballs chance in hell before.
If you want to reflect on Iraqi anniversaries, make sure to reflect on the 20th anniversary of Hallabja, which was just the other day.
-
Ben & Sam,
Well, well, its your lucky day, the alternative universe arrives!! There are plenty of people in the US who share my views (and quite a few in other countries, such as the UK) but when I come back to NZ I am certainly a voice in the wilderness. I am amazed at the views of people who I would expect to think differently.
Oh well, it would be a boring world if we all thought and said the same.
Re Iraq, here is an interesting article about a recent poll in Iraq that shows good reason for optimism.
http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/story?id=4444000&page=1
I am at a conference and at the airport on the way here I picked up a Conde Nast Portfolio with the headline, "Boom! Business is thriving, oil deals are flowing, McMansions are rising ... in Iraq" It was about Kurdistan and is was pretty amazing. The model they are following there is Dubai. While the rest of Iraq is not like Kurdistan, as the article linked to above there is plenty of reason for optimism, if the US stays for a few more years and helps the Iraqis stand on their feet. If the US just ups and walks out too soon, that is a generally accepted recipe for disaster, which is why neither Obama and Clinton will do it if they are sworn in in 2009.
-
Well why let a fun thread die ...
Since we are into new descriptions of people with whom we disagree, just for fun, perhaps we can call those most devout believers in AGW "Climate Catastrophists"
This article ought to cause the catastrophists to clench their sphincter muscle tighter than it is already ....
http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wrong/article10973.htm
More pain ... Damn I am cruel today.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/03/the_epicycles_of_global_warmin.html
An interesting take on money on both sides of the AGW debate.
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/global-warming-payola/index.html?hp
There is plenty of money on the side of the AGW promoters, yet that is never cited as a reason to be skeptical of their conclusions, is it?
It is definitely interesting that over the last year or so there really seems to be in increase in the amount material and studies (not to mention actual temperatures and weather) that call into question AGW. Yet the screeches of “consensus” and “deniers” only seem to get louder.
I would take AGW more seriously if it wasn't for the name calling, the sure sign of a weak argument. If it wasn't for all the other bogus "we are all going to die" theories that have surfaced in my short lifetime. We had an ice age on the way in the 1970s, the world was going to run out of food and there was going to be worldwide famine by 1990. The world was going to run out of most resources by x date. Even today there is always some pinhead jumping up talking about peak oil, in spite of the fact that oil reserves continue to grow and we have only explored about 25% of the earth's surface. And I am sure that plenty of those batty predictions were peer reviewed and described as a consensus, the debate is over etc.
There was Eugenics in the 1920s and 1930s. When science gets politicized, as the global warming debate unquestionably has, things can really end up badly.
Then there are the predications and recommendations of the GW crowd themselves. According to their own models, if the recommendations of the Kyoto Treaty were to be fully implemented it would reduce the temperature of the earth by 0.6 of a degree in one hundred years time, but the earth would attain the additional 0.6 degrees 6 years later. And in the meantime the developed world would have been dramatically negatively impacted, but so much worse, God only knows how many people in the developing world would have died as a result of the unnecessary restrictions on energy generation and consumption. And that is the real beef, massive, negative, destructive change forced on the basis of speculative science predictions.
-
I don't quite understand how you could have "the acknowledged winner of the 08 polling season" by the first week of March 08. Wouldn't awarding that title have to wait until after the main event, the election in November 08, 8 months away?
However, there was an acknowledged winner of the 04 and 06 polling seasons and that was Rasmussen. Currently he has the Dems winning the electoral college 284 to 229, with 25 a toss up, a similar result to Survey USA..
Michael Baronne had a very interesting article the other day about how the red / blue electoral college map that we have been used to for the last 10 years or so may well change significantly as some voters for whom religion is important swap places with some moderates and independents. He wrote it prior to last Tuesday so he tends to focus on Obama v McCain, but his points are still valid.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/throw_out_the_maps_in_2008.html
In many ways you can't blame Hillary for keeping at it, after all the Clintons are the ultimate survivors. If Michigan and Florida revote, as is seeming increasingly likely, she will most likely close the gap a bit more to a point where she can plausibly say "the elected delegates are more or less a tie and I won the big states, and key states like Florida and Ohio (no matter how the electoral college changes, these 2 states will still be critical)".
That is a reasonable argument. Especially if Obama is impacted by the Resko trial. And it won’t take much for the Resko trial to impact Obama as the whole premise of his campaign is "a new kind of politics". If voters see that he is in fact just another grubby politician, he will be damaged significantly.
You have to question Obama's judgment running the kind of campaign he has, knowing that the Resko trial was coming and that he and Resko go back 17 years. He could have taken a different tack and still been very successful.
-
Maybe this is why Hillary looks quite confident and assured after her victories the other night, inspite of the delegate math.
With the Resko trial just getting started, there is plenty of time for this stuff to come out before the Dem convention in Denver.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/03/obamas_iraqi_oil_for_food_conn.html
The media do appear to have changed their attitude toward Obama over the last week or 10 days and appear more willing to ask Obama some sticky questions, which is something they haven't done much at all until now.
Now as to whether this Resko stuff is true or not, that has never been of the slightest concern to the Clintons.
This really could get quite nasty before it is all over, which reduces the chance of a joint ticket.
-
Another article indicating caution might be a better approach rather than rushing headlong into climate change policy with significant economic consequences.
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=d7c7fcce-d248-4e97-ab72-1adbdbb1d0d0
The issue about climate modeling is a significant one. If you can't forecast the climate accurately, you don't have a basis for creating policy. I would have thought that a demonstrated record of accurate predictions for a significant period of time, a decade, probably longer, would be a minimum for placing any kind of reliance on a climate model. I don't think we are there yet or anything like it.
The reference to sunspot activity or the recent lack thereof has been the subject of several articles I have read. Apparently there are 2 well known and documented sun spot cycles, one on a cycle of decades and the other on a cycle of centuries and the last time they coincided was the little ice age of a couple of hundred years ago. The recent lack of sunspot activity suggests that we might be approaching a "Maunder minimum" with global cooling as a consequence.
Anytime anyone has to stoop to using smears like "deniers" to try to shut off discussion on a subject strongly suggests that their arguments aren't very strong. Likewise the “Exxon gave them money” smear. As if there isn’t enough money, prestige and junkets to be had on the GW bandwagon.
-
It seems Mr Romm hasn't caught up with this, rather solid looking data. Doesn't fit in too well with his rather definitive statements that the world is warming up.
Maybe instead of whining about all those nasty "deniers" he should be out picking up a few winter woolies?
Honestly, who the f%$k knows what is, or is not, happening with the climate? I think anyone who claims to have a complete handle on it and is able to forecast with any degree of precision into the future is fooling themselves or trying to fool others.
-
Looks like Hillary is in for another good old fashioned hiding tomorrow. She is down double digits in VA and an Hispanic leader in TX just endorsed Obama, so her Texas / Ohio firewall strategy isn't looking so good at the moment (just ask Guilani about firewall strategies!!).
Watching Hillary implode is like watching a train wreck in slow motion, you just can't look away.
I don't see how the super delegates will be able to give their votes to Hillary over Obama's higher delegate total, no matter how hard the Clinton machine twists their arms and threatens to kneecap them. -
So now Romney is out and the first takes I am reading on McCain's crucial speech (arguably the most important of his political career) at CPAC are that he hit the right notes and it went over okay, so perhaps the great conservative meltdown of 2008 is not as imminent as some project.
McCain could be quite good in some regards as a candidate and as a president, but he has a long history of being hotheaded and a grumpy and cantankerous old bastard, which is not so good for building the various coalitions required to get things done. But he sure would give those nasty little fuckers in Teheran many (well justified) sleepless nights, and for that alone he deserves my first vote in a US Presidential election.
Webweaver, yes the $ situation is even worse for Hillary when compared to Obama's $ and the number of donors he has that aren't even close to being maxed out. He can go back to those wells again and again and again.
After always being pretty much convinced that Hillary was a walk to the Dem nomination, I really think she is in big trouble. Momentum and the perception of momentum are everything in politics, and now the cat is out of the bag about Hillary having money problems; it will only exacerbate the problem for her. If she can’t stop Obama's momentum in the next few weeks I really can't see how she can win. In US politics, money is like petrol to a car. If you ain't got none, you ain't going far.
Now exactly how it all plays out will be amazing to watch, most probably Hillary will limp into the first brokered convention in 50 years. Will Queen Hillary be able to accept the VP slot (if it is offered)? Will Obama be forced to offer it to her? (it would totally undercut everything his run is supposed to be about).
You can say many things about US politics, many of them negative, but you can’t say it is dull.