.
A Certainty is President Obama is not a fool.
The GOP has done their best to deny him the funds required to put our nation into economic recovery.
Rational people know this. It is the meaning of the one percent.
Our congress does not stint the military.
We will leave Afghanistan this year.
The heavy equipment in Afghanistan will be abandoned in South Asia.
It is heavily worn and expensive both to transport and to return to serviceability.
Most of that equipment will be given to India.
Our long time ally Pakistan has proven to be unreliable.
This aid to India will support the parts industry in the U.S.
The dearth in the equipment budget of the national guard can be filled with new purchases.
These will provide work for the heavy industries of the upper mid west.
The crash of the financial industry driven by the implosion of European banking will not seem a disaster to the Democratic Party. The damage can be dealt with after the election if a Democratic congress is returned.
If a Republican victory occurs either we will have a new dark age or an outbreak of rationality.
I will not bet on Republican rationality.
There is too much guessing in this to depend on it.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
I miss the small contact I have had.
I like you in my life and will do what I can.
An effective tornado shelter is a trench in the ground.
It does not provide top shelter, protection from rain and hail.
Even a trailer park has rain and hail sheltered areas under the trailers.
CCA ply and 2X4 will shore the walls of such a trench for a decade or more.
When the tornado blows the trailer away the occupants and the treasured documents in a plastic bag, will be safe below ground level.
The debris born by the wind will be traveling nearly horizontally. The rain and hail have already passed on.
Shelter from a tornado does not cost more than three or four hours labor including materials.
Even a landlord can afford it.
I like you in my life and will do what I can.
An effective tornado shelter is a trench in the ground.
It does not provide top shelter, protection from rain and hail.
Even a trailer park has rain and hail sheltered areas under the trailers.
CCA ply and 2X4 will shore the walls of such a trench for a decade or more.
When the tornado blows the trailer away the occupants and the treasured documents in a plastic bag, will be safe below ground level.
The debris born by the wind will be traveling nearly horizontally. The rain and hail have already passed on.
Shelter from a tornado does not cost more than three or four hours labor including materials.
Even a landlord can afford it.
.
The question remains as to why reparations to Moscow are not part of the discussion of the behavior of the European Union. I cannot be unique on this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Germany
The German war reparations owed to the USSR impoverished the Soviet Zone of Occupation and severely weakened the East German economy. In the 1945–46 period, the Soviets confiscated and transported to the USSR approximately 33% of the industrial plant and by the early 1950s had extracted some 10 billion dollars in reparations in agricultural and industrial products.[27]
The poverty of East Germany induced by reparations provoked the Republikflucht ("flight from the republic") to West Germany, aggravating the emigration, continual since the 1940s, from the Soviet zone of Germany to the Western Allied zones, further weakening the GDR's economy. Western economic opportunities and lack of political freedom in East Germany induced a brain drain. In response, the GDR closed the Inner German Border, and on the night of August 12–13, 1961, East German soldiers began erecting the Berlin Wall which prevented anyone from escaping.[28]
Head of State: Erich Honecker (1971–89)In 1971, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had Ulbricht removed; Erich Honecker replaced him. While the Ulbricht government had experimented with liberal reform, the Honecker government increased controls upon the populace of the GDR. The new government introduced a new East German Constitution which defined the German Democratic Republic as a "republic of workers and peasants" and hardly mentioned the word "German".[29]
^ a b Norman M. Naimark. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Harvard University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-674-78405-7 pp. 167–9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Agreement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_reparations#Europe
In the end, war victims in many countries were compensated by the property of Germans that were expelled after World War II. Beginning even before the German surrender and continuing for the next two years, the United States pursued a vigorous program to harvest all technological and scientific know-how as well as all patents and many leading scientists in Germany (known as Operation Paperclip). Historian John Gimbel, in his book Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany, states that the "intellectual reparations" taken by the U.S. and the UK amounted to close to $10 billion.[5] German reparations were partly to be in the form of forced labor. By 1947, approximately 4,000,000 German POWs and civilians were used as forced labor (under various headings, such as "reparations labor" or "enforced labor") in the Soviet Union, France, the UK, Belgium and in Germany in U.S run "Military Labor Service Units".
According to the Paris Peace Treaties, 1947, Italy agreed to pay reparations of about US$125 million to Yugoslavia, US$105 million to Greece, US$100 million to the Soviet Union, US$25 million to Ethiopia, and US$5 million to Albania. Finland agreed to pay reparations of US$300 million to the Soviet Union; Finland also was the only country which fully paid its war reparations. Hungary agreed to pay reparations of US$200 million to the Soviet Union, US$100 million to Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Romania agreed to pay reparations of US$300 million to the Soviet Union. Bulgaria agreed to pay reparations of $50 million to Greece and $25 million to Yugoslavia. According to the articles of these treaties, the value of US$ was prescribed as 35 US dollars to one troy ounce of pure gold.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Marshall_Fund
This appears to end things.
I see no termination of the Potsdam reparations to Moscow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%BCning,_Heinrich
"He also joined the Centre Party and in 1924 he was elected to the Reichstag, representing Breslau. In parliament, Brüning quickly made a name for himself as a financial expert and managed to push though the "lex Brüning", which restricted the wage tax. He always insisted on a disciplined, thrifty approach towards money, criticizing both an increase of civil service salaries and the luxury of profiteers. Recognized for his expertise, this personal reserve and calmness hampered dealing with him on a personal level. From 1928 to 1930, he was a member of the Prussian parliament and, in 1929, he was elected chairman of the Centre Party's faction in the Reichstag."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Merkel
.
The question remains as to why reparations to Moscow are not part of the discussion of the behavior of the European Union. I cannot be unique on this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Germany
The German war reparations owed to the USSR impoverished the Soviet Zone of Occupation and severely weakened the East German economy. In the 1945–46 period, the Soviets confiscated and transported to the USSR approximately 33% of the industrial plant and by the early 1950s had extracted some 10 billion dollars in reparations in agricultural and industrial products.[27]
The poverty of East Germany induced by reparations provoked the Republikflucht ("flight from the republic") to West Germany, aggravating the emigration, continual since the 1940s, from the Soviet zone of Germany to the Western Allied zones, further weakening the GDR's economy. Western economic opportunities and lack of political freedom in East Germany induced a brain drain. In response, the GDR closed the Inner German Border, and on the night of August 12–13, 1961, East German soldiers began erecting the Berlin Wall which prevented anyone from escaping.[28]
^ a b Norman M. Naimark. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Harvard University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-674-78405-7 pp. 167–9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Agreement
This is really ugly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_reparations#Europe
World War II
[edit] Europe
Further information: German reparations for World War II
After World War II, according to the Potsdam conference held between July 17 and August 2, 1945, Germany was to pay the Allies US$23 billion mainly in machinery and manufacturing plants. Reparations to the Soviet Union stopped in 1953. In addition, in accordance with the agreed-upon policy of de-industrialisation and pastoralization of Germany, large numbers of civilian factories were dismantled for transport to France and the UK, or simply destroyed.[citation needed] Dismantling in the west stopped in 1950.In the end, war victims in many countries were compensated by the property of Germans that were expelled after World War II. Beginning even before the German surrender and continuing for the next two years, the United States pursued a vigorous program to harvest all technological and scientific know-how as well as all patents and many leading scientists in Germany (known as Operation Paperclip). Historian John Gimbel, in his book Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany, states that the "intellectual reparations" taken by the U.S. and the UK amounted to close to $10 billion.[5] German reparations were partly to be in the form of forced labor. By 1947, approximately 4,000,000 German POWs and civilians were used as forced labor (under various headings, such as "reparations labor" or "enforced labor") in the Soviet Union, France, the UK, Belgium and in Germany in U.S run "Military Labor Service Units".
See also: Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union, POW labor in the Soviet Union, and World War II reparations towards Yugoslavia
Germany paid Israel 450 million DM in Holocaust reparations, and paid 3 billion DM to the World Jewish Congress to compensate survivors in other countries. No reparations were paid to the Romanies who were killed during the Holocaust.[6]According to the Paris Peace Treaties, 1947, Italy agreed to pay reparations of about US$125 million to Yugoslavia, US$105 million to Greece, US$100 million to the Soviet Union, US$25 million to Ethiopia, and US$5 million to Albania. Finland agreed to pay reparations of US$300 million to the Soviet Union; Finland also was the only country which fully paid its war reparations. Hungary agreed to pay reparations of US$200 million to the Soviet Union, US$100 million to Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Romania agreed to pay reparations of US$300 million to the Soviet Union. Bulgaria agreed to pay reparations of $50 million to Greece and $25 million to Yugoslavia. According to the articles of these treaties, the value of US$ was prescribed as 35 US dollars to one troy ounce of pure gold.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Marshall_Fund
There appears to be no Russian equivalent of the Marshall fund.
| http://en.wikipedia.org |
|---|
| /wiki/Treaty_on_the_Final_Settlement_with_Respect_to_Germany |
|---|
| Signed | 12 September 1990 |
|---|---|
| Location | Moscow, USSR |
| Effective | 15 March 1991 |
This appears to end things.
I see no termination of the Potsdam reparations to Moscow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%BCning,_Heinrich
"He also joined the Centre Party and in 1924 he was elected to the Reichstag, representing Breslau. In parliament, Brüning quickly made a name for himself as a financial expert and managed to push though the "lex Brüning", which restricted the wage tax. He always insisted on a disciplined, thrifty approach towards money, criticizing both an increase of civil service salaries and the luxury of profiteers. Recognized for his expertise, this personal reserve and calmness hampered dealing with him on a personal level. From 1928 to 1930, he was a member of the Prussian parliament and, in 1929, he was elected chairman of the Centre Party's faction in the Reichstag."
Brüning's foreign policy
In the international theatre, Brüning tried to alleviate the burden of reparation payments and to achieve German equality in the rearmament question. In 1930, he replied to Aristide Briand's initiative to form a "United States of Europe" by demanding full equality for Germany. In 1931 plans for a customs union between Germany and Austria were shattered by French opposition. In the same year, the Hoover memorandum postponed reparation payments and in summer 1932, after Brüning's resignation, his successors could reap the fruits of his policy at the Lausanne conference, which reduced German reparations to a final installment of 3 billion marks. Negotiations over rearmament failed at the 1932 Geneva Conference shortly before his resignation, but in December the "Five powers agreement" accepted Germany's military equality."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Merkel
.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Bittman!
Colin Spencer, whom Germaine Greer once called “the greatest living food writer,” turns 80 next year, and shows no signs of slowing down. His latest book, “From Microliths to Microwaves,” a history of food in Britain from pre-historic times to the present, is the work of a scholar. (In it he argues, in a way that’s reminiscent of Jared Diamond, that agriculture — or at least agriculture as it’s practiced now — is one of the great tragedies of the human race.)
Yet Spencer’s scholarship is only one of his many achievements. Indeed, he’s as close to a Renaissance man as you can get, an accomplished artist, novelist, analyst, activist, playwright and journalist.
Mark BittmanColin SpencerAnd cookbook writer. (Also, needless to say, cook.) Which was my excuse for looking him up in England a couple of weeks ago. We’d never met, but I’ve admired his work for 30 years, since he began writing a column in The Guardian. This had followed his publication of a vegetarian cookbook, and was ostensibly a vegetarian column. “But what I tried to do right from the beginning,” he told me, “was to make the column political. I was supposed to be talking about food, but you can’t talk about food without being political.”
People have, of course — even Spencer has managed to, producing more apolitical cookbooks than you can easily count — but the point is a good one.
Spencer lives in the modest south coast town of Seaford, and spends most of his time painting, writing his autobiography, cooking, gardening and wandering the meadows that lead to the area’s dramatic limestone cliffs.
Cooking, as it happens, took up almost none of our conversation, which quickly turned to the history of the relationship between “heretical” eating — which is how Spencer referred to vegetarianism in his history “The Heretic’s Feast” — and other “heretical” behavior, like homosexuality. (Spencer has “always” been bisexual, and has written authoritatively about sexual issues, especially in his 1995 work, “Homosexuality in History.”) Although the right to eat in any style one likes has not been a much-discussed issue, at least in huge public forums, vegetarians — along with people whose eating styles differed from the norm for religious reasons — were long treated as a minority, especially, notes Spencer, since the advent of Christianity.
He’s written that the story has long been one of “persecution, suppression and ridicule,” because vegetarianism is “not simply a criticism of meat-eating but a criticism of power … Not to eat meat, or to frown on the captivity and killing of animals, went to the heart of society.”
The conversation ranged from rights for those with non-heterosexual gender behavior to those with conscious or ethical eating habits to those for animals. He recalled routine beatings of homosexuals by police in his youth, and wandered in his memory through the last 50 years or so, as it gradually became respectable rather than illegal or ridiculous to “be gay,” just as it’s recently become respectable rather than foolish or eccentric to adopt an ethical diet.
It was an encouraging conversation, reminding both of us that despite what seem like constant steps backward, there has been progress in many arenas since the end of World War II. He asked rhetorically, “It’s partly the decline of religion, isn’t it? Society no longer believes that the Bible is the arbiter of morals.”
I asked how he became an ethical eater (he isn’t a strict vegetarian: “I’m much too fond of all the fleshly delights to be a Spartan”), knowing that at least partly it was because his sexuality already put him on the outside looking in. “It was in the ‘70s, about 1975. It was the horror of factory farming. The other issue was the fact of the ecology.”
In our conversation he continually linked rights for those deprived of them — for the most part, that means minorities, regardless of the type of minority — with rights for animals.
I mentioned to him that he’d once written, “In order for humans to allow natural rights to animals, they must first find them for themselves,” and asked whether you could fill in almost any minority for the word “animals” and track the same path. The optimistic supporters of animal rights believe that in 50 years we’ll be amazed at the way we once treated animals, just as supporters of human rights are now amazed at the way we treat … well, fill in the blank. That what amounts to mass enslavement and torture of animals without conscience will end before too long.
But it is not just about ethics or animal rights, he reiterated, it’s also the cost to the environment and indeed humanity. There is the issue of sustainability, he reminded me — by some estimates it takes 30 times as much land to raise animals industrially as it does to raise vegetables — compounded by the fact that we’ll soon need to grow more food for ourselves rather than feeding it to animals. And, he said, “The thought of the developing world and malnutrition and hunger — it’s a hard call that we use that food for animals. Certainly, by the end of this century, industrial livestock will be a thing of the past.”"
Industrial livestock will endure. High profit trumps most things.
.
A Visit With ‘The Greatest Living Food Writer’
By MARK BITTMANColin Spencer, whom Germaine Greer once called “the greatest living food writer,” turns 80 next year, and shows no signs of slowing down. His latest book, “From Microliths to Microwaves,” a history of food in Britain from pre-historic times to the present, is the work of a scholar. (In it he argues, in a way that’s reminiscent of Jared Diamond, that agriculture — or at least agriculture as it’s practiced now — is one of the great tragedies of the human race.)
Yet Spencer’s scholarship is only one of his many achievements. Indeed, he’s as close to a Renaissance man as you can get, an accomplished artist, novelist, analyst, activist, playwright and journalist.
Mark BittmanColin SpencerPeople have, of course — even Spencer has managed to, producing more apolitical cookbooks than you can easily count — but the point is a good one.
Spencer lives in the modest south coast town of Seaford, and spends most of his time painting, writing his autobiography, cooking, gardening and wandering the meadows that lead to the area’s dramatic limestone cliffs.
Cooking, as it happens, took up almost none of our conversation, which quickly turned to the history of the relationship between “heretical” eating — which is how Spencer referred to vegetarianism in his history “The Heretic’s Feast” — and other “heretical” behavior, like homosexuality. (Spencer has “always” been bisexual, and has written authoritatively about sexual issues, especially in his 1995 work, “Homosexuality in History.”) Although the right to eat in any style one likes has not been a much-discussed issue, at least in huge public forums, vegetarians — along with people whose eating styles differed from the norm for religious reasons — were long treated as a minority, especially, notes Spencer, since the advent of Christianity.
He’s written that the story has long been one of “persecution, suppression and ridicule,” because vegetarianism is “not simply a criticism of meat-eating but a criticism of power … Not to eat meat, or to frown on the captivity and killing of animals, went to the heart of society.”
The conversation ranged from rights for those with non-heterosexual gender behavior to those with conscious or ethical eating habits to those for animals. He recalled routine beatings of homosexuals by police in his youth, and wandered in his memory through the last 50 years or so, as it gradually became respectable rather than illegal or ridiculous to “be gay,” just as it’s recently become respectable rather than foolish or eccentric to adopt an ethical diet.
It was an encouraging conversation, reminding both of us that despite what seem like constant steps backward, there has been progress in many arenas since the end of World War II. He asked rhetorically, “It’s partly the decline of religion, isn’t it? Society no longer believes that the Bible is the arbiter of morals.”
I asked how he became an ethical eater (he isn’t a strict vegetarian: “I’m much too fond of all the fleshly delights to be a Spartan”), knowing that at least partly it was because his sexuality already put him on the outside looking in. “It was in the ‘70s, about 1975. It was the horror of factory farming. The other issue was the fact of the ecology.”
In our conversation he continually linked rights for those deprived of them — for the most part, that means minorities, regardless of the type of minority — with rights for animals.
I mentioned to him that he’d once written, “In order for humans to allow natural rights to animals, they must first find them for themselves,” and asked whether you could fill in almost any minority for the word “animals” and track the same path. The optimistic supporters of animal rights believe that in 50 years we’ll be amazed at the way we once treated animals, just as supporters of human rights are now amazed at the way we treat … well, fill in the blank. That what amounts to mass enslavement and torture of animals without conscience will end before too long.
But it is not just about ethics or animal rights, he reiterated, it’s also the cost to the environment and indeed humanity. There is the issue of sustainability, he reminded me — by some estimates it takes 30 times as much land to raise animals industrially as it does to raise vegetables — compounded by the fact that we’ll soon need to grow more food for ourselves rather than feeding it to animals. And, he said, “The thought of the developing world and malnutrition and hunger — it’s a hard call that we use that food for animals. Certainly, by the end of this century, industrial livestock will be a thing of the past.”"
Industrial livestock will endure. High profit trumps most things.
.
- - - 4/17/12
http://politics.salon.com/2012/04/15/economy_killers_inequality_and_gop_ignorance/singleton/
"The tradition continues through the years. In 2005 the right-wing magazine Human Events listed Keynes’s “General Theory” among the 10 most harmful books of the 19th and 20th centuries, right up there with “Mein Kampf” and “Das Kapital.”
Why such animus against a book with a “moderately conservative” message? Part of the answer seems to be that even though the government intervention called for by Keynesian economics is modest and targeted, conservatives have always seen it as the thin edge of the wedge: concede that the government can play a useful role in fighting slumps, and the next thing you know we’ll be living under socialism. The rhetorical amalgamation of Keynesianism with central planning and radical redistribution — although explicitly denied by Keynes himself, who declared that “there are valuable human activities which require the motive of money-making and the environment of private wealth-ownership for their full fruition” — is almost universal on the right.
There is also the motive suggested by Keynes’s contemporary Michał Kalecki in a classic 1943 essay:
The "confidence" argument is a Field of Dreams confection.
"If you build it, they will come." is the logic of faith. It mistakes causality.
Goods do not command purchase no mater how clever advertisers become.
Demand leads supply.
Providing supply where there is no demand is a quick road to bankruptcy.
Advertising works hard to convert potential demand to real demand.
I thought I sent this off long ago.
"The tradition continues through the years. In 2005 the right-wing magazine Human Events listed Keynes’s “General Theory” among the 10 most harmful books of the 19th and 20th centuries, right up there with “Mein Kampf” and “Das Kapital.”
Why such animus against a book with a “moderately conservative” message? Part of the answer seems to be that even though the government intervention called for by Keynesian economics is modest and targeted, conservatives have always seen it as the thin edge of the wedge: concede that the government can play a useful role in fighting slumps, and the next thing you know we’ll be living under socialism. The rhetorical amalgamation of Keynesianism with central planning and radical redistribution — although explicitly denied by Keynes himself, who declared that “there are valuable human activities which require the motive of money-making and the environment of private wealth-ownership for their full fruition” — is almost universal on the right.
There is also the motive suggested by Keynes’s contemporary Michał Kalecki in a classic 1943 essay:
We shall deal first with the reluctance of the “captains of industry” to accept government intervention in the matter of employment. Every widening of state activity is looked upon by business with suspicion, but the creation of employment by government spending has a special aspect which makes the opposition particularly intense. Under a laissez-faire system the level of employment depends to a great extent on the so-called state of confidence. If this deteriorates, private investment declines, which results in a fall of output and employment (both directly and through the secondary effect of the fall in incomes upon consumption and investment). This gives the capitalists a powerful indirect control over government policy: everything which may shake the state of confidence must be carefully avoided because it would cause an economic crisis. But once the government learns the trick of increasing employment by its own purchases, this powerful controlling device loses its effectiveness. Hence budget deficits necessary to carry out government intervention must be regarded as perilous. The social function of the doctrine of “sound finance” is to make the level of employment dependent on the state of confidence.This sounded a bit extreme to us the first time we read it, but it now seems all too plausible. These days you can see the “confidence” argument being deployed all the time. For example, here is how Mort Zuckerman began a 2010 op-ed in the Financial Times, aimed at dissuading President Obama from taking any kind of populist line:
The growing tension between the Obama administration and business is a cause for national concern. The president has lost the confidence of employers, whose worries over taxes and the increased costs of new regulation are holding back investment and growth. The government must appreciate that confidence is an imperative if business is to invest, take risks and put the millions of unemployed back to productive work.There was and is, in fact, no evidence that “worries over taxes and the increased costs of new regulation” are playing any significant role in holding the economy back. Kalecki’s point, however, was that arguments like this would fall completely flat if there was widespread public acceptance of the notion that Keynesian policies could create jobs. So there is a special animus against direct government job-creation policies, above and beyond the generalized fear that Keynesian ideas might legitimize government intervention in general."
The "confidence" argument is a Field of Dreams confection.
"If you build it, they will come." is the logic of faith. It mistakes causality.
Goods do not command purchase no mater how clever advertisers become.
Demand leads supply.
Providing supply where there is no demand is a quick road to bankruptcy.
Advertising works hard to convert potential demand to real demand.
I thought I sent this off long ago.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
@15:00, 04/16/12 4
.
I agree that phone apps are congenitally handicapped.
They are a salable product.
I think the smart phone is a fashion accessory.
Work requires a more graceful interface than can be crowded into a jeans pocket.
Google Glasses may have a place in the world after all.
Mousing around with a light is going to look very strange.
Sharing a screen will be a project. The roll up keyboard exists.
A virtual keyboard could be pressure activated lights on the operators fingers.
The keys are on the glasses. A flash in the key space types the letter.
Touch typing goes virtual.
I would still rather not try to multitask.
444444444444444444444444444444444
.
I agree that phone apps are congenitally handicapped.
They are a salable product.
I think the smart phone is a fashion accessory.
Work requires a more graceful interface than can be crowded into a jeans pocket.
Google Glasses may have a place in the world after all.
Mousing around with a light is going to look very strange.
Sharing a screen will be a project. The roll up keyboard exists.
A virtual keyboard could be pressure activated lights on the operators fingers.
The keys are on the glasses. A flash in the key space types the letter.
Touch typing goes virtual.
I would still rather not try to multitask.
444444444444444444444444444444444
.
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