Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Posted here Wednesday, April 21, 2004 at 9:12:22 PM     And, put this together with the previous two posts. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/22/education/22COLL.html?hp Over all, at the 42 most selective state universities, including the flagship campuses in California, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan and New York, 40 percent of this year's freshmen come from families making more than $100,000, up from about 32 percent in 1999, according to the Higher Education Research Institute. Nationwide, fewer than 20 percent of families make that much money. At Harvard, for instance, financial-aid forms suggest that the median family income is about $150,000. The increasing wealth on the nation's most prestigious campuses has gone largely unnoticed until recently ********

Posted here Wednesday, April 21, 2004 at 8:48:20 PM     Friedman in the Times on another war, another part of the picture. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/22/opinion/22FRIE.html The bottom line: we are actually in the middle of two struggles right now. One is against the Islamist terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere, and the other is a competitiveness-and-innovation struggle against India, China, Japan and their neighbors. And while we are all fixated on the former (I've been no exception), we are completely ignoring the latter. We have got to get our focus back in balance, not to mention our budget. We can't wage war on income taxes and terrorism and a war for innovation at the same time. And what is the Bush strategy? Let's go to Mars. Hello? Right now we should have a Manhattan Project to develop a hydrogen-based energy economy — it's within reach and would serve our economy, our environment and our foreign policy by diminishing our dependence on foreign oil. Instead, the Bush team says let's go to Mars. Where is Congress? Out to lunch — or, worse, obsessed with trying to keep Susie Smith's job at the local pillow factory that is moving to the Caribbean — without thinking about a national competitiveness strategy. And where is Wall Street? So many of the plutocrats there know that the Bush fiscal policy is a long-term disaster. They know it — but they won't say a word because they are too greedy or too gutless. The only crisis the U.S. thinks it's in today is the war on terrorism, Mr. Barrett said. "It's not."   ********

Posted here Wednesday, April 21, 2004 at 8:20:43 PM     Increasing infrastructure costs. (from free newsletter) STRATFOR INTELLIGENCE BRIEF Al Qaeda's Message: Corporations as Targets? Summary Embedded among the wider, Western-oriented message of the latest purported al Qaeda tape, the speaker mentions Western corporations. This reference could lead to heightened security in certain sectors, including weapons manufacturers, media organizations and firms involved in Iraqi reconstruction. The impact of increasing infrastructure costs for security are the kinds of things that break empires. Taiter, in The Collapse of Complex Societies makes these the prime cause of civilizational collapase. ********

Posted here Wednesday, April 21, 2004 at 5:35:33 PM     from http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/lind_4_21_04.htm In fact, in Iraq and in Fourth Generation war elsewhere, we are the weaker party. The most important reason this is so is time. For every other party, the distinguishing characteristic of the American intervention force is that it, and it alone, will go away. At some point, sooner or later, we will go home. Everyone else stays, because they live there. ********

Posted here Wednesday, April 21, 2004 at 3:13:33 PM     The major political problem is tone: violent stubborn or hopeful and developmental?  Bush, when pushed has no flexibility, and will take us down rather than give in. That is the current problem. The deeper problem is, how did we get here? How can a system work effectively yet create a leadership that is badly out of touch, and those outside the narrow inner circle cannot touch it? He probabaly does not see that he creates opposition, rather thinking,  "This is brining them out in the open so we can get 'em."   ********

Posted here Wednesday, April 21, 2004 at 3:00:14 PM     Culture shift, silent parties. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0422/p01s01-ussc.html ********