Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Posted here Wednesday, April 07, 2004 at 4:07:39 PM     Each day brings to my eyes a new blog of real power. In this case, on the presidential race, with great side attention to Iraq and lots of detail. http://www.bopnews.com/archives/000516.html#516 and in the comments, some real condensed wisdom needing careful analysis. More: The sweeping religious revolution running like a fire through the oil region is catching on in Saudi Arabia and will spread to Egypt and is tied in with the struggle of the Palestinians....this whole mess is characteristic of a classic war for power, the vast and great power of oil and America is doomed to lose this battle for in the struggle of control, all one has to do is destroy the oil and this CAN and WILL happen if we get too crazy. The course we chose: destroy all Muslims while lying about this, is the one that will lead to "Apocalypse Now". Vietnam was us acting like morons, banging out heads on the table until we passed out. We really never had our hearts in it. THIS fight is a fight to the death so we can steal the world's oil reserves and resell it to the highest bidders so we can have a trade balance since we shipped all our industry to China. ********

Posted here Wednesday, April 07, 2004 at 12:25:26 PM     Very helpful article. Goes to the core of comparative risk analysis, and the problem of overblown self serving rhetoric. The war on terror misfired. Blame it all on the neocons The legitimate grievances of Muslims were never listened to by the west David Clark Wednesday April 7, 2004 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4896760-103550,00.html It was never going to be easy to keep a sense of perspective in the face of a terrorist campaign as violent as the one being waged by al-Qaida; some have found it harder than others. The claim by James Woolsey, the former CIA director, that we are in the process of fighting "world war three" stands out as a particularly silly example of the hyperbolic overdrive that has characterised much of the debate over the past two-and-a-half years. So does Tony Blair's assertion that the terrorist threat is "existential" in its scope. Islamist terrorism poses a threat to the physical existence of those who stand to be killed as a result of its actions, as yesterday's news of a plot to explode a chemical bomb in Britain reminded us. But it is not comparable to the threat posed to western democracy and European Jewry by Nazism in the 1930s and 1940s, let alone the prospect of nuclear annihilation during the cold war. Policy choices that proceed from that assumption are almost certain to be wrong. ********

Posted here Wednesday, April 07, 2004 at 10:21:24 AM     Update on walmart, and the tendency for super retail to replace the reconomy. In this case a hint at successful counter measures. WAL-MART UPDATE....Wal-Mart's plans to open 40 Supercenters in Southern California got off to a slow start yesterday: voters in Inglewood (former home of the Lakers) told them to get lost. By a huge margin they voted down an initiative that would have allowed Wal-Mart to open a "colossal retail and grocery center" without an environmental review or public hearings. Hey, why would anyone object to that? http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2579   ********