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Saturday, April 23, 2005

ECONOMICS DISCUSSION

Here is a discussion here on the export of jobs from the US to China, the effect this has on the power relationships between them & the effects on employment.

I am pretty firmly on the free trade side of this & in fact believe that the last 200 years have shown that economic success & growth is actually easier for the richest countries & that when China grows faster than us it is because they are trying much harder (when Ireland only put a relatively small effort into growth they did nearly as well as China). On the other hand this not the common view which is that when we grow slower it is because the foreigners are inevitably catching up on us - a doctrine particularly popular among leaders of failing rich countries.

This is my contribution primarily about the effects of military power. This may be one of the more optimistic developments since, if war is no longer a paying proposition there is likely to be less of it. Jerry's reply about the value of exterminating/expelling a nationality is unfortunately true (this is what we did in Krajina & what Israel sort of did within their own borders & didn't do in the West Bank. Unfortunately war, as a means not of benefiting yourself but merely of weakening other growing powers remains a powerful option (I would argue that this was Hitler's aim in invading Russia & was certainly the aim of a suggested Soviet attack on China in the 70s).

My contribution
"Gold cannot get you good soldiers, but good soldiers can always get you gold."

I do not believe this is still true. I have on occasion used a variant of this: "Gold cannot get you good science, but good science will always get you gold" which I believe is now true.

Since the industrial revolution the most effective way for a country to grow has been by growing its economy. A couple of years at 6% growth is worth more than Alsace Lorraine. This option was not open in Machiavelli's time. Nowadays Porto Rico, Kosovo, Armagh, Chechnya & Iraq are a net loss.

Having "the world's best military machine" (Albright) still leaves you with the advantage of doing more harm to the other side than you do to yourself, which makes it useful for blackmail, but it isn't a paying proposition. In fact China, by not matching US military expenditure & investing the money instead is doing more to make China a Great Power.

The US could default & the Chinese couldn't send the bailiffs in but then Zaire has done this already & it doesn't make you richer.

Neil Craig

I make no doubt that if we put out minds to it we can find ways to make conquest pay. If there aren't any inhabitants of an area there won't be anyone to interfere with extracting oil, will there? Think neutron bombs. As co-author of The Strategy of Technology I am not likely to disagree that part of having good soldiers involves having appropriate military technology, and that the Technological War is decisive: but there is more to technological war than science. Having knowledge isn't the same as having decisive weapons; and having decisive weapons isn't the same as decisively using them. As we may or may not be learning.


Tuesday, April 19, 2005

NO ONE EXPECTS THE GERMAN INQUISITION

: Despite the crimes committed by Pavelic, Hitler, and Archbishop Stepinac, in particular, plus the Vatican in general, Stepinac dared to speak most gloriously about this murderous campaign of genocide against entire populations, man, woman, and child. But, lest you think that the Roman Catholic Church has changed, the Pope is preparing for another genocidal campaign during the coming New World Order of Antichrist. The New World Order Plan has named the Pope as the top Religious leader in their new global religion {Read NEWS1052 for full details}.

Further, Pope John Paul II reinstated the old Office of the Inquisition in 1983, led by Cardinal Ratzinger

Monday, April 18, 2005

HITLER & STALIN WERE AMATEURS COMPARED TO GREENPEACE & FOE

We used DDT to eliminate malaria in the United States. Now environmental activists can afford to rail against pesticide use in Africa, while they enjoy all the comforts that our high-tech, malaria-free society bestows upon them. Meanwhile, 2 million Africans die every year from this dreaded disease. Over 200 million get so sick each year they can't work, go to school, care for their families or tend their fields for weeks or months on end. Millions are so weakened from malaria that they succumb to AIDS and other serial killers that stalk these impoverished lands.



Why? Because Greenpeace, the Pesticide Action Network, Sierra Club, World Health Organization, and even the US Agency for International Development do all they can to prevent this miracle pesticide's use. Instead, they promote drugs and insecticide-treated bed nets. Hollywood elites and big donor groups like the Ford, Pew, MacArthur and Schumann foundations support these callous groups with tens of millions of dollars a year.



Drugs and bed nets help. But they are expensive, hard to get and often don't work. They mean hundreds of thousands of children and parents die every year who would live, if their countries could also use DDT -- spraying it in tiny quantities on the inside walls of homes, just once or twice a year, to repel, incapacitate and exterminate mosquitoes.



Fifi Kobusingye ran into one of these activists in the Kampala, Uganda airport this past November. "You don't have malaria," she told the woman, "because you used DDT." The woman replied, "But we lost our birds" -- referring to erroneous claims by Rachel Carson and others that DDT had killed birds and thinned eggshells.



"Well, I lost my son and nephew, and my friend lost her daughter," Ms. Kobusingye responded. "Don't talk to me about birds."



Biotechnology could fortify plants with vitamins, to reduce malnutrition and blindness, replace crops devastated by disease and drought, and reduce the need to cultivate so much wildlife habitat and use so many pesticides. It could also help developing countries compete with European and American farmers who get over $300 billion a year in subsidies. But eco radicals oppose this technology too -- and piously call themselves ethical and socially responsible.



"I appreciate ethical concerns," comments Kenyan plant biologist Florence Wambugu, "but anything that doesn't feed our children is unethical." We wouldn't stop using penicillin just because it causes allergic reactions in a few people, she notes, and we shouldn't ban genetically engineered crops, just because noisy activists raise speculative safety concerns.



More

Sunday, April 17, 2005

MICHAEL JACKSON - THE OTHER TRIAL OF THE CENTURY

The trial of Michael Jackson grinds on. It is obvious that Jackson, who is much more fragile than Milosevic is close to a breakdown. On the other hand it provides a career making opportunity to the prosecution, publicity for the mother & other witnesses that they can parlay into lots more money & a story that provides them with gainful employment without having to look for it.

Michael Jackson is obviously innocent of anything that even less discriminating people than Bill Clinton could describe as sex. I am actually quite amazed that, having brought into court people who have repeatedly deliberately lied, the prosecution have been unable to produce any witnesses who claim to have seen him doing anything penetrative < ? >, or doing a black mass with space aliens. The prosecution quite obviously know they do not have evidence that would convict in any normal trial but so what. I would like to see Jackson sue the prosecutor personally, as well as California, CNN & all the rest for $1billion (inc punitive damages) - I think that would be less career enhancing.

It's all showbiz - when Liberace died the coroner launched a police chase to grab his body so that he could get on TV. This sort of stuff makes the McCarthy Commission look decent - at least there people only lost their careers. Here we have the chance that he will, & a number of innocent but less well known people have, been sent to jail for a very long time.

I believe that he is not only innocent but that he is Innocent - a man who wants to live in a childlike manner. I do not believe that there is any evil whatsoever in his behaviour - a lack of cynicism & a refusal to kow tow to the hypocrisy demanded by the media of all stars, politicians, popes etc but no evil. The Victorians are sometimes ridiculed for their obsession with sex & with respectability but they don't hold a candle to us. They produced Alice in Wonderland & we are destroying Neverland.

There were new rules now & every man knew them.

Don't smile at a child on the street, unless with you're with your wife. Don't ever touch a strange child. Don't ever be alone with someone else's child, even for a moment. If a child invites you into his or her room, don't go unless another adult, preferably a woman, is also present. At a party, don't let a little girl sit on your lap. If she tries, gently push her aside. If you ever have occasion to see a naked boy or girl look quickly away. Better yet, leave.

And it was prudent to be careful around your own children, too, because if your marriage went sour, your wife might accuse you. And then your past conduct would be reviewed in an unfavourable light: "Well, he was always such an affectionate father - perhaps a little too affectionate" ......... If Susan saw a child crying on the street, she picked the kid up. She did it automatically, without thinking. Sanders would never dare. Not these days
from Disclosure by Michael Crichton 1994 - fortunately things arn't that bad here but we're working on it. A society where half the population are legally prevented from showing affection to a child is a sick society.

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