Another Major Taliban Attack

This time, on a landmark Kabul hotel, in which 21 were killed, including the 9 insurgents.  In a previous post, I spoke about how, a decade after the initial invasion of their country, the Taliban are still coordinating these skillful attacks against the coalition forces.  While all of the attackers were killed, they left behind a trail of venomous carnage.  Stories like this remind me of my reading on the Vietnam War, and lessons that we should have learned from that, such as that you can win virtually every battle and still lose to an opponent via a sheer force of will and a willingness to sacrifice anything and everything. 

It also reminded me of something that someone said, I forget where I saw or read this.  This person was speaking of 9/11 and said that the total budget for the plotting and implementation of the attack ran something like $500,000.  He then contrasted that with U.S. government spending in response to 9/11, which numbers in the trillions.  I don't think it requires much imagination to see where repeated instances of this would lead, to a country that spends itself into oblivion.  Assuming that Bin Laden was the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks, he said that he wanted to engage the U.S. in economic warfare.  Well, I think the end result was beyond his wildest dreams, and he might be well on his way to see his wish, albeit posthumously.  Just think of how much it cost to train those NATO troops and Afghan soldiers who engaged in combat with the Taliban, as well as the helicopter and the weaponry that was used in this fight.  

To close, a quote from one of Hamid Karzai's senior aides brings back memories.  He referred to the attackers as "cowards", as Bush and many others did of the 9/11 attackers.  As Bill Maher famously pointed out, risking your own life, no matter how fucked up the objectives, is not exactly cowardly.  Many other things (depraved, demented, whether synonym you prefer), but not cowardly, in my book.

Crazy Israel Court Sentences Dog to Death by Stoning

Proof that the Muslims aren't the only crazy religious faction in the Middle East:

A Jerusalem rabbinical court condemned to death by stoning a dog it suspects is the reincarnation of a secular lawyer who insulted the court's judges 20 years ago, Ynet website reported Friday.

Westboro Baptist to Protest in Joplin

I cannot believe how long these people have been doing this without getting their teeth knocked down their throats.  BTW, the Westboro Baptists are the religious nuts who protest at military funerals and other gatherings, with signs praising the deaths as God's retribution against the relative tolerance of the U.S. towards homosexuals.  Now, they are planning to picket in Joplin, where 125 people died in the tornado this past week. 

A View Of Our Political Future

I saw a good video interview with Niall Ferguson, and there were comments.  One of these was very good, and the person outlined a series of phases surrounding electoral systems of countries around the world in the wake of austerity measures and bailouts.  It ends with the realization amongst the voting masses that their unhappiness at their circumstances is really unrelated to which party happens to be governing.  It's a fundamental problem of overpopulation and resource limits that no one in government can hope to solve. 

Phase1:
Huge swings in votes, due to the dissatisfaction of the population.
Countries move sharply to opposite political spectrum.

Phase2:
Population discovers that the recently elected political opposite spectrum is unable to solve what makes them dissatisfied at the first place. Most obvious country: USA.

Phase3:
Population will refuse to vote for traditional political parties. Population will search out unusual third parties. Countries: USA: Tea Party, Finland: True Finns.

Phase4:
Population will realize that unusual third party political forces are unable to govern or being hijacked by traditional political parties, as a front.

Phase5:
It becomes obvious, that the fundamental reasons of dissatisfaction is not a matter of which party governs.

No one in politics can solve the collision course of the following trends:

1) Resources are finite - while all the current econo-political systems are based on the assumption of unlimited resources.

2) Population is increasing *globally* - which is on collision course with the fact of limited resources.

3) While population is growing, less and less people are needed to run the economy.
Unemployment goes global, from structural unemployment ("these jobs are not coming back, there there will be new industries, which will provide new jobs to everyone" to "overpopulation unemployment".

But population is declining in many European countries, how come Spain has over 20% unemployment? True, however "Overpopulation unemployment" is a global trend, shifting work to cheaper labor cost centers (Asia currently) does not negate it. This trend is fully exploited by current leaders in economy, to increase profit, while also say to "expensive" US, European labor to take a cue at the Asian wages. None of this is solving the long-term collision course: it is profitable exploitation financially and empty political rhetoric.

4) While wages have been declining, they can never decline fast and deep enough. The solution is stepping up innovation to deploy more and more technology. In the focus of every single innovation is the desire to get something done with less human intervention. This is of course further eroding the need for labor.

Phase6:
After moving from unsuccessful and ever more expensive bailouts to bailouts, from North America, to Europe, then to Asia, there is less and less appetite for austerity measures. It will become obvious that austerity measures and all bailout packages are not designed and they are unable to solve the long term collision course trends, described above.

This realization will lead to complete political and economical collapse.

It will force to find solution how to deal with the growing population, the acknowledgement that we need socio-political economy that is built on resource-based economy, the complete radical re-thinking of how human labor, wealth creation and distribution can be ft in the world, where there are almost unlimited labor, while the need for labor is steadily decreasing - without any sign that the current models of economies and societies can create a balance of supply and demand.

Since this balance can not, will not be restored - society will have to figure out a complete reset, how humans will exist using the resources most efficiently.

It will not be market economy, as the framework of market economy offers labor market as the solution for human participation in creating and distributing goods and services, but free market economy can no longer provide a supply/demand in this field. Without it the entire system is useless, collapsing, as we are experiencing it now.

Funny & Informative Rap/News Video

There is a site out there called The Juice Media, that is making these rap/news hybrid videos that are both informative and utterly hilarious.  I have only seen this latest one, on the killing of Bin Laden, and it is a must-watch.  I'll be sure to watch the others, which talk about personalities like the Tea Party and Julian Assange (founder of Wikileaks). 

Exploding Watermelons

This sounds like something I'd see in a comic or a video game, but it really happened.  In China, farmers applied a chemical called forchlorfenuron, which is a growth accelerator, to their watermelons.  The melons ended up exploding.  Forchlorfenuron can increase a crop's growth time by up to 2 weeks and can make them bigger, bringing a higher price when it comes time to sell.  It doesn't work so well with watermelons though, judging from what happened here.

This should be looked upon as tying in to population growth and the constant pressure to increase food output.  I know that the main concern from many reading this article would be "is this safe to eat"*, but it's deeper than that.  Byproducts of oil (which is what fertilizer is, and I'm sure this chemical was, at least on some level) are being used to expand food production as the population continues to increase.  As oil becomes more expensive and scarce, tricks and shortcuts such as this one designed to grow more food will become tougher and tougher to implement.



* Although, this is a legitimate and fair question.  The article also states that many farmers in China (and I'm presuming, many other places) grow their own food seperately from their chemical brethren.  

U.S. Credit Card Maxed Out

The government has hit its $14.3 trillion debt limit, and a vote on raising our debt ceiling is needed by August 2.  In the meantime, Geithner is starting to raid government pension funds in order to keep everyday operations of the government afloat.  To make things even more dicey, House Republicans say they won't vote to raise the ceiling unless there are spending cuts that are greater than the debt increase to go along with it.  Oh, and I don't think those pension funds involve our congresspeople, either.