Accused 9/11 Mastermind to Face Civilian Trial in N.Y. - NYTimes.com

Accused 9/11 Mastermind to Face Civilian Trial in N.Y. - NYTimes.com

We got America back!

Op-Ed Columnist - Reclaiming America’s Soul - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Reclaiming America’s Soul - NYTimes.com

Finally!!

I am so proud of him...

According to the New York Times, President Bush came up with the current Plan for Victory in Iraq all by himself:

Bush said on "60 Minutes" that the only option besides boosting troop levels would be to withdraw -- a move supported by some Democrats but one he called tantamount to defeat.
"I began to think, well, if failure is not an option and we've got to succeed, how best to do so? And that's how I came up with the plan I did," Bush said.

Don't you think it is a bit scary that the President does this all by himself?

Chinese Growth: A Source of U.S. Export Opportunities - Poole Speech - St. Louis Fed

Chinese Growth: A Source of U.S. Export Opportunities - Poole Speech - St. Louis Fed

The President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis thinks that the tremendous growth in the Chinese economy means great opportunities for better paid jobs in the United States. I was encouraged by the headline, and then I found out what examples he gave for these better paid job. Of the universe of jobs that still exist in the United States, Mr. Poole was able to find two categories: workers engaged in making coal loading machineries and thoroughbred horse racing. Mr. Poole enthusiastically told us that "it is also possible that a number of Chinese will come to Kentucky to learn how to be trainers, exercise riders, jockeys, grooms and hot walkers." Right.

I am underwhelmed. I have no idea why Mr. Poole sees great future in the U.S. workers when the only encouraging examples are found in industries where less than 0.01% of all U.S. workers are employed. Perhaps all 1.5 billion Chinese will go to the races, so they need 100 million of us to get involved. I doubt it.

The fact of the matter is the Chinese holds today almost a trillion dollars that they earned from us mostly over the last 10 or so years. They bought our government debts because they found little else useful to buy. Yes, it is a big headache for them, as the purchase power of the U.S. dollar falls (the purchase power of the U.S. Dollar fell 40% relative to the Euro, in the last five years, for example), the Chinese are seeing their money evaporating at a relatively shocking pace. In the last two years we see them panickly trying to lose their U.S. dollars by buying up all the oil, gold, copper and other minerals in sight. That makes the Arabs and Canada happy, but it causes more pain for whatever industries that are left in the U.S. that also compete for these resources.

Many people think that our future is in information and ultra-highly skilled labor. They overlooked that the Chinese are turning out at least 10 times engineers and scientists than we are each and every year as far as any one can see. This is not the same situation when people were crying foul about our previous rivals from Japan and Korea. Then, I told people not to worry too much because Jopan and Korea need the U.S. market to continue their prosperity. This is not the case with the Chinese, in the long run. In a few years, the Chinese can do very well without the U.S. market. It was only 40 years ago that international trade accounts for less than 10% of the U.S. GDP and America was prosperous. The Chinese can do the same. Perhaps they can even afford to write off a couple trillion dollars of bad investment.

That is really scary.

It is possible that America will prosper in the rest of this century. But a few things must happen. First, we need folks who are not economic ignoramus to run the government and the central bank. Second, our people need to understand that prosperity in the U.S. is not a God-given right and adjust our expectations and focus our attention in policies that encorages formation of new industries (That means resumption and stepping up long term investments in basic research.) Third, the Chinese need to make some basic mistakes in their management of their economy, like the kinds we made right before the Great Depression, to allow us time to adjust.

I am not optimistic.

Rice Rejects Quick Fix in Mideast, Secretary of State Rice Rejects 'False Promise' of Quick Cease-Fire, Heading for Middle East - CBS News

Rice Rejects Quick Fix in Mideast, Secretary of State Rice Rejects 'False Promise' of Quick Cease-Fire, Heading for Middle East - CBS News

Hmmm... Does an immediate cease-fire prevent a long term peace? They may be stupid, but they are not THAT stupid.

What next?

Now that Hamden is handed down, and I am extremely pleased that 5 Justices have taken substantially the positions I set forth in my previous posts in the subject matter (you can still read them here). No more need to be said for now, until we see how the Republican Congress get Dick Cheney what he wants but so miserably bungled.

At any rate, I have been somewhat amused by the reactions around the country about the missile tests conducted by North Korea. There are people who think that the North Koreans are led by a bumbling idiot and the fact that their long range missile test "appeared to have failed" vindicates the administration's policy.

I am not convinced.

Let's review the history in sequence about what we know.

1. Some time after 2001, the President named North Korea, along with Iran and Iraq, a member of the Axis of Evil.

2. Some time at the height of our war-drumming against Iraq and before our invasion, the North Korean "let slipped" information about the existence of their nuclear arsenal and that they were going to get more raw material to increase it by reprocessing the spent fuel in a South Korea-financed nuclear reactor. To stop them from that behavior, the North Korean told us that we must promise not to move militarily against them.

3. The administration scoffed, told them to pound sand or talk to China.

4. We invaded Iraq to disarm Saddam Hussein.

5. The North Korean went forward to reprocess the spent fuel.

6. The Administration scoffed, told them to pound sand or talk to China.

7. The Iraqi war was getting a little quadmirish for us.

8. The North Korean tested a medium-range missile that fell a little short of Japan.

9. The Administration scoffed, told them to pound sand or talk to China, Japan, S. Korea and a couple of others.

10. The Iraqi war was really getting quadmirish for us.

11. The North Korean met the guys we told them to meet, talked, smoked cigars, made nice and went home.

12. The North Koreans complained that they were getting nowhere without the U.S. promise not beat them up militarily.

13. The Administration scoff, told them to pound sand or talk to China, Japan, S. Korea and a couple of others.

12. The North Koreans said, been there, done that, and fired 7 missiles, "unsuccessfully."

14. The Administration scoffed, told them to pound sand or talk to China, Japan, S. Korea and a couple of others.

I think this has become so entirely predictable.

So, my question is, "Are we stupid or are they stupid?"

Here's my version of Evil North Koreans:

1. In 2002-2003, they saw what our fearless leader was determined to do to Iraq. They knew they were next if our fearless leader was successful in Iraq. They saw that our fearless leader was determined to change the regime of their dearest leader, regardless of whether or not they have weapons of mass destruction, or whether or not they have done any kind (and they have done quite a few) of dasdardly deeds. The U.S. can strong-arm the world to make other countries form "coalitions of the willing."


2. They also observed that, with our fearless leader, if they got the U.S. to commit to a position -- even a ridiculously mistaken position -- they could make the U.S. stuck in that position. Our fearless leader cannot do wrong.

3. When we went over the cliff of no-return on Iraq (after Powell's fateful speech on February 5, 2003), the North Koreans saw a window of opportunity -- a chance to turn nuclear before the U.S. completes its tour of Iraq. They correctly observed that they would be safe militarily for at least a couple years. They concluded that our fearless leader could invade Iraq willy-nilly precisely because Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction (Iran concluded the same). (How could anybody believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? They were the most scrutinized country by the U.S. ever since the Gulf War. They couldn't bake a cake without the U.S. spy agencies write reports about the recipe and where they get the sugar from.)

4. While the military option was not available to the U.S., they took a gamble. They told the world about their nuclear ambition. The gamble was that our fearless leader would want to keep up his tough guy image and not negotiate -- and thereby give them time to actually obtain the nuclear capability -- or if the U.S. called their bluff and actually negotiated, the ensuing concilatory atmosphere would make it impossible for the U.S. to invade, and perhaps the not-so-outside chance of bringing a billion or two dollars of foreign aid that the S. Koreans and the Japanese would gladly chip in. Things could go wrong, of course. But the monumental golden opportunity does not come very often and the risk was minimal.

5. The gamble paid off, and the formula worked like a charm: to keep the game going, the North Koreans would do something measuredly naughty from time to time -- "measuredly" because they don't really want to the other guys in the region, including their friends in China, to react too strongly, but enought to get the U.S. President (Condi Rice, we love her face) to run into high gear on "we won't reward bad behavior", thereby giving the North Koreans another six months or so of world handwringing, while they make further headway to develop their weapon. Without these periodical naughtiness, somebody else may actually suggest a practical alternative solution to the "crisis". This game can go on indefinitely, so long as the North Korean can keep up a credible but not dead serious threat and our fearless leader doesn't have another born-again experience to make him repent of his ways.

So, was the long-range missile test a failure, as our Defense Department says in public?

I don't know, and it is irrelevant, so far as the North Koreans are concerned, according to this conspiracy theory: once the last rocket of this multistage missile is fired, Newton's laws would take over to decide where the missile would land. You only need to know where it is at the end of the last stage rocket firing to know if it works or not. They had 47 seconds worth of data before they aborted. That should be just enough time to test a few things except the last stage rocket firing. But the last stage rocket firing must not happen. If the last stage is fired, the world will know the real capability of the Korean missile. If it is good, regardless of what Dick Cheney may say, we will not be able to tell them to pound sand any more, some people may find fault when they see that our policy could not actually stop bad behaviors. It would be too apparent that sometimes ignoring bad behaviors may not lead to good results. In other words, such a result would ruin the game the Koreans were playing. If the missile test is allowed to go its course and failed, that is not good either. The North Korean will be much less credible going forward. We may actually think about disarming them when the U.S. brings it troops back and needed something to distract the people from the obvious defeat. Therefore, the North Koreans must design its missile to fail before firing the last stage rocket, whether or not the last stage firing actually might fail.

I think the North Korean government is led by an idiot, but it is not run by idiots.

U.S. Indicts Padilla After 3 Years in Pentagon Custody - New York Times

Finally, the AG does the right thing. We now let the courts to perform the job given to them by the Constitution.

The fact that the Grand Jury did not return an indictment based on the "dirty bomb" charge may suggest that Ashcroft never really had the goods to back up his public pronouncements. At last, the public will see how dangerous (or not) Padilla and his kind really are.

Whatever are the AG's real motives, this is a step in the right direction.