politically correct harassment

It appears our great spies knew about "the Nigerian" (is it just me, or does this sound like a movie title?) well in advance. They even knew his name. His father had gone to the US embassy and told them all about it. How much more of a hint do these James Bond characters need?

The reason why the Nigerian was not on the no-fly list is that his name is harder to spell than Edward Kennedy. Or maybe because, unlike Kennedy, he wasn't a liberal.

Given all that the appropriate response to the incident, as illustrated by news reports from Nigeria and the Netherlands, is to install full body scanners so security personnel can peek at people's privates on the job. Now I can understand the Dutch. They are quite into nakedness as is. The Nigerians probably had no choice, lest we bomb their country back into the stone age.

The appropriate US response is to go out of its way to prevent the impression of profiling. That is why TSA will step up its enforcement of putting liberal US Senators, congressmen and women, and other law abiding citizens on the no-fly list. TSA will also increase its efforts to pat down seniors, toddlers, babies, and expectant mothers. Our guardians will faithfully dump dangerous water bottles, peanut butter jars, and baby formula in an effort to keep us safer.

As part of that same effort our military will increase recruitment among muslims, and the President will no doubt go pray at a mosque pretty soon too.

The good thing is that all these efforts may well cause people to think twice about flying. And in that sense they make it easier for our country to abide by the Kyoto protocol and meet our carbon goals without enraging Republicans.

best wishes for 2010

When the shoe bomber, aka Richard Reid forced all of us to take off our footwear at the airport I joked with a friend, saying "underwear is next." Although I could stand up here and claim magic powers -with witnesses no less-, this one was so predictable I will refrain from saying, I told you so.

So now we will be forced to take off our underwear to pass through security, or submit to a machine that can do it for us. Here is one example of technological progress. But before we get too cynical, it is perhaps good to note that this technology advance may not a bad idea. Here is a chance for all perverts and pedophiles to get a legitimate job at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Hopefully this will be enough stimulation for them to keep them off the streets.

You may wonder what is in store for 2010? No just a new year, but a new decade. If the previous one was a disappointment, be prepared for more of the same. Some things are just too obvious.

-The recession isn't over yet. Another dip is coming. Don't believe the Wall Street hype. These guys have been wrong before.

That reminds me of the PBS interview I saw last night where the guest speaker said, the Wall Street guys think of themselves as survivors, not as people who were rescued. That much is true. But then he added something which is really quite funny. He said, survivors, like a cancer survivor. And there you have it folks. The disease is coming back. I am sure that is not what the speaker intended (or did he?) but it is a very fitting metaphor. A cancer survivor. Who survives cancer I would ask? Only those who haven't seen the end of their remission yet.

-Even if we recover, or I should say, especially if we recover, another banking crisis is bound to happen. This last crisis was bad enough, but what is even more shocking is that nobody did anything to prevent a recurrence:

-the WS boys think they survived, they think they are the chosen ones. The ones who know greed is good.

-the Obama administration did nothing. So much was expected given who paid for the campaign and the festivities. Obama talks tough, but there was no action.

-everyone is ready for a recovery, and by recovery they mean, a return to the good times. The times of unsustainable exuberance. Sometimes you get what you ask for.

-several bad things are bound to happen in this decade. We will run out of key resources. Pollution will skyrocket, and climate change effects will become very apparent. It is unlikely to affect the rich countries much within the next 10 years, but its effects will be seen and felt in the third world for sure.

-we are due for a major pandemic. This one is only a matter of when. We may have dodged H1N1, but something else will surely pop up.

-terrorism will continue unabated. Now that we declared a war on terror, we officially acknowledged there is no end to it.

-there will be great victories, much applause and much flag waving. Face it, everyone is ready for a shot in the arm. But the real problems will not be solved. They will just appear elsewhere and under a different name.

-a showdown with China is imminent.

more terror

We had another terror incident over the holiday. How many more will we need before people start seeing the obvious? The whole war on terror idea is hopelessly flawed. You can't fight wars on terror, or on drugs, or on cancer. It doesn't work. If anything, you will get the exact opposite results of what you are trying to achieve. All phony wars fail. That is what history shows.

Look at Mexico. The situation is a disaster. We won the drug war in Columbia and so it moved. Are there any less drugs? Ask any teen. And what is so bad about drugs anyways? It is not like we are drug free.

The solution to the war on drugs is quite simple. It consist of two steps that nobody wants to take: 1. make all drugs legal--that will save lives. 2. make access to weapons difficult--that will save even more lives. That is the solution. There is no drug problem, there is a gun problem in America today. Unfortunately, nobody wants to see it. Least of all the gun manufacturers.

As for Iraq, the only thing we are doing there apart from fighting a war over oil, is to enrage muslims and make it more likely people will try terror attacks against us and against US targets abroad. Afghanistan is pretty much the same idea. Here too the object is energy (gas pipelines), and unfortunately, here too we are on the wrong side of a civil war.

Once again the solutions are trivial. Get out of Iraq and get out of Afghanistan. There is no dependence on foreign oil. We don't need foreign oil. We can just cut back on our waste and the problem will be solved. If we all drove sensible cars we would not have to import oil. If the military stopped wasting 1 million gallons a day in Iraq and another million in Afghanistan, there would be less global warming.

The issue is not dependence on foreign oil. The issue is that some people want to control oil and gas. All oil and gas, anywhere, whether we need it or not. Why? Because they make money doing it.

And what about the terrorists? It does not take Al Qaeda or Osama or anyone else to blow up a plane. All you need is some high school chemistry and a cool head. It is easy and it is cheap. The ingredients can be found anywhere and they are dirt cheap too. You don't need training camps, or manuals. You don't need supporters. It is nothing new, people blow up stuff all the time. If Timothy McVeigh could do it, then anyone else can too.

We should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan because all we are doing is riling up tempers and creating more instability. Let's kill two birds with one stone. We could buy the opium from Afghanistan and sell it legally in America. How's that for a solution?

one trillion gallons

Every year one trillion gallons of sewage goes into surface lakes and waterways. Those are the lakes we use to supply drinking water. Why does this happen? Because in most places storm drains and sewage drains are one and the same system. During heavy rainstorms, which are predicted to increase as global warming continues, the drains overflow and sewage mixed with rainwater rises to the surface.

And there is other good news: the members of AAA really want to have a car with zero emissions. It is their number one wish. How is that for being environmentally aware? Of course they don't want to drive a small sensible car, or drive less. That would be asking too much of our dear citizens. What they want is a huge powerful monster truck with zero emissions instead. Because above all, we have to impress the neighbors.

And one final thought in the season of waste. All those billions of cards that you sent, the tons of wrapping paper that is now stuffed in your garbage can, the presents that will soon follow and land in the garbage before summer and all the trees that were cut down to celebrate, I hope you enjoyed it because it really created a big mesh that will eventually swallow us whole.

Copenhagen

The Climate summit in Copenhagen is almost over. The result is sadly not unexpected. When it comes to taking effective measures nobody is willing to step forward. Talk about leadership or absence thereof. Change we can believe in? The Romans had it right when they said nil novi sub sole. There is (never) anything new under the sun.

Copenhagen is just the most recent example of human stupidity. Here we have a chance to use reason to avoid a potential disaster in the very near future, yet nobody wants to take the first step. We would rather spend time arguing as to whether climate change is real (it is), whether we caused it (we did, but it doesn't really matter as long as we try to stop it), and other inane hoopla.

Naysayers are quick to point out how much it is going to cost us, or why we should do anything at all until we are absolutely certain that bad things will happen. How is that for reasonable?

The Economist makes several good points: 1. climate change may not necessarily lead to the disasters that we envision, but if there is even at slight chance that it might, we ought to act and act now. 2. the cost of acting now is minimal, at best a 1-2% drop in GDP. 3. Rescuing the financial system from collapse, cost 5% of GDP, yet nobody was too upset about that.

It is clear that the cost is not the problem. The problem is that some individuals and businesses, some very powerful individuals and businesses would see their profits shrink. Overall that would be offset by other businesses growing, but that does nothing to comfort these very powerful individuals. Even though they would probably manage to step in and take over those growing businesses, that part is uncertain and even that little uncertainty is enough for them to boycott all efforts.

Greed, laziness and stupidity are the only roadblocks. Greed on the part of those making profits from the carbon economy, laziness on the part of a subset of general the public, who are too busy to properly inform themselves about the dangers, and stupidity on part of the majority, who will just swallow whole whatever it is the consumerist media feed them.

oil for war, war for oil

I already knew that the oil driven agriculture is unsustainable, using almost 10 calories of oil for every food calorie it produces, but now I found out -by reading the Economist of all rags- that our warfare apparatus is equally unsustainable. The thrifty British use 7 gallons of fuel to bring one gallon of the precious liquid to theater in Afghanistan. One can only wonder how much more the far-less-thrifty Americans use. Only three gallons more and we could grow Roundup-ready corn in the Afghan desert! Time to buy Monsanto stock!

Our esteemed military uses in excess of 1 million gallons of fuel per day in Afghanistan, and a similar amount in Iraq. At least that is what the Economist reports. In the very same article the Economist points out that modern warfare would be impossible without oil. War with oil in a war for oil.

No wonder then that our military leaders are looking into solar power! Something will be needed to keep all those generators going so our troops can stay warm in winter, and cool in summer.

Some more numbers while we are at it. An armored humvee apparently gets four miles to gallon, while the famed Abrams tank uses four gallons to the mile. Now here is a cash for clunkers program that would make a difference.

Or how about riding bicycles? The added benefit would be that a group of dispersed bikers make a far less appealing target than a humvee loaded with GI's and goodies. Killing a cyclist never makes the evening news and we all know how media hungry these modern terrorists are. Plus, our soldiers would get their much deserved workout patrolling the streets.

Although we are told on a nearly daily basis how our police officers learn from the anti-terrorist tactics developed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so are able to make our streets safer, maybe it is time for some common sense (and a lot less petroleum waste). It is obvious that street violence is much easier to control by having police officers walk the beat. Everybody knows that cops in a car are easy to spot and even easier to avoid. Luckily our local gang members prefer to avoid police cars rather than resort to IED's -at least for now.

Patrolling neighborhoods by car (or humvee) is the most ineffective way to control street violence (to say nothing of the greenhouse gases produced).

Here is something America could learn. From Iraq we learn that the best way to control violence is to take guns and ammunition away. We all understand that and I guess nobody would complain if we violated the Iraqi's second amendment rights to carry arms. Oh, wait a minute, Iraqi's don't have second amendment rights!

From our inner cities we learn that the best way to control neighborhoods is to have people walk the streets.

Ergo, if we took the guns away in America, and we patrolled the streets in Iraq, we could have less violence in both places, and a lot less greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. Now there is an idea that has legs.

the lure of war

President Obama, the man who consistently voted against the Iraq war, is now going out on a venture of his own. Perhaps he tried to stay true to his word that the real war was in Afghanistan, but if so, he surely lost track of the context and timing. It was true that the 9/11 masterminds were, at one point, hiding in Afghanistan, and that the Bush administration could have found them there if they had been serious about their quest. At this point however, it matters very little.

It seems obvious that Bush was never interested in Bin Laden. Finding Bin Laden would have created nasty problems for the man who is close friends with the Saudi leadership. Dragging the lost son of a prominent Saudi family in front of blood thirsty revenge seeking crowds and eager news media was a scene George and Dick preferred to forgo. Angry as they may have been at the insult hurled at America, these men were first and foremost practical schemers, who were much more interested in using this great opportunity as a way to get control over Iraqi oil reserves. So after a token action in Afghanistan they quickly turned their attention to what they saw as the real prize, Iraq.

Obama may have been right trying to point this out to America, even at a time when doing so was distinctly unpopular. So unpopular in fact that veteran politician Hillary Clinton decided to go along with the majority and "fight the terrorists in Iraq." However right Obama may have been -or maybe he was just trying to distance himself from George and the Republicans- he is doubly wrong today. That is, if he is really in control, which I doubt very much.

Today's fight is, lest anyone forget, is not about Bin Laden, or 9/11, or terrorism, or any such eye catching headlines. The fight in Afghanistan is and has always been about TAP or some similar plan, or scheme to access the riches of the Caspian gas fields. In that sense it is no different from Iraq. Once again America feels it would be better to have more direct control over an important energy resource. Just as Bush would not trust Saddam after his invasion of Kuwait, so the current power mongers no longer trust the Taliban after their support for Al Qaeda.

In both cases, we are talking about a relationship gone sour. Cheney made many visits to Saddam and as long as the dictator was in our camp, we eagerly and anxiously supported his every move. That included "killing his own people." When he became a threat however we wanted to remove him as quickly as possible. Bush Sr. may have been smart to stay out of the Iraqi quagmire and stop short of Baghdad, but that never sat well with the real oilmen who wanted Saddam over with.

The same applied to the Taliban. While we were never so intimate and cozy with those wild natives, Bush did invite the Taliban leadership to his Texas spread to show them our goodwill and support. Although Afghanistan does not have its own oil, it is an important transit point. Its support for a key American venture, the Trans-Afghan Pipeline or TAP is worth the effort. When the Taliban leadership openly defied Bush after 9/11, he had to teach them a lesson and he quickly did. But as soon as Karzai was installed, Bush and Cheney turned their attention to more important unfinished business. George and Dick quickly forgot about the Afghan natives and focused on Saddam instead.

Now Obama is left to clean up after George Jr. just like George Jr. was left to clean up after George Sr. The Taliban have regrouped and they are threatening the frail Afghan puppet government of our buddy Karzai so something needs to be done to ensure TAP will fly. The energy hawks are fuming and Obama may well be president, but he isn't the one calling the shots here.

So it is that America is once again getting mired in a civil war with no clear outcome. This one, unlike Iraq, has all the trappings of a second Vietnam. In the end, there is no other solution for Afghanistan than the Taliban. The irony however, is that this time around the infamous domino theory may well apply. If we are not careful, Pakistan could fall as a result of our Afghan venture. But that will be something for the next administration to worry about.