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Monday, January 24, 2005 |
Today, the 24th of January, is said to be the most depressing day of the year. Well, Dubya's inauguration day was worse.
"Exercise and bibliotherapy - reading a number of books to allow people to understand their own symptoms and how to control them, were initial treatments."
I suggest you start reading P.G. Wodehouse.
But doom is sinking in for the dollar.
FT: "Central banks are shifting reserves away from the US and towards the eurozone in a move that looks set to deepen the Bush administration's difficulties in financing its ballooning current account deficit.
In actions likely to undermine the dollar's value on currency markets, 70 per cent of central bank reserve managers said they had increased their exposure to the euro over the past two years. The majority thought eurozone money and debt markets were as attractive a destination for investment as the US."
Be prepared.
9:35:57 PM 
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I had hoped to be able to close the Dubya chapter of this blog by now. Unfortunately, circumstances do not allow that. I am sorry many of these postings are rather gloomy, but hey, we'd better do something about it; at least then we would not have to face the dire facts later (if we are successful).
Thomas Jefferson: "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
Anyway, this at least is good for a healthy laugh.
12:54:20 PM
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Independent: "The global warming danger threshold for the world is clearly marked for the first time in an international report to be published tomorrow - and the bad news is, the world has nearly reached it already."
I wonder what George WMD Bush is going to do about that.
PINR: "On January 13, the United States National Intelligence Council (N.I.C.) released the report of its '2020 Project', which is aimed at describing the possible configurations of world politics fifteen years from now. Its subtext is a sober and realistic warning to decision makers committed to a unipolar vision of the world, in which the U.S. is the arbiter of globalization through wielding preponderant military power or, at the extreme, the first global empire.
The relative decline of U.S. power is the most certain political trend identified by the report; it has an air of inevitability that places it beyond decisional control. Here the Council issues an implicit warning to Washington - attempts to assert U.S. world hegemony are doomed to failure and U.S. interests will be best served by policies of 'balancing' and 'reconciling' the conflicting interests of other great powers, and moving toward intelligent retrenchment."
The message is clear, the US will have to take a step back or it will collapse under the stress.
In the meantime the boys with their toys are playing soldier.
NY Times: "Somewhere in the shadows of the White House and the Capitol this week, a small group of super-secret commandos stood ready with state-of-the-art weaponry to swing into action to protect the presidency, a task that has never been fully revealed before."
MSNBC: "The Pentagon, expanding into the CIA's historic bailiwick, has created a new espionage arm and is reinterpreting U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad, according to interviews with participants and documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The previously undisclosed organization, called the Strategic Support Branch, arose from Rumsfeld's written order to end his 'near total dependence on CIA' for what is known as human intelligence. Designed to operate without detection and under the defense secretary's direct control, the Strategic Support Branch deploys small teams of case officers, linguists, interrogators and technical specialists alongside newly empowered special operations forces.
Pentagon officials said they established the Strategic Support Branch using 'reprogrammed' funds, without explicit congressional authority or appropriation."
The SSB seems to be a modern version of the Sicherheitsdienst (part of the SS).
12:32:28 PM
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