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This is NOT good news
Putin Says Russia Working on New Nuclear Systems
He said research and successful testing of new nuclear-missile systems technology was being conducted. “I am sure that in the near future weapons will appear … which other nuclear powers do not and will not possess.”
The dollar, the euro, and the deficit
Brad deLong, who has forgotten more about economics than I ever knew, has a post about the effects of the deficit on the general decline in strength of the dollar. If I’m reading him correctly (numbers give me a headache), he’s predicting a slow decline of the dollar’s buying power as we rely on other countries to hold our national debt. People in the administration are claiming that the deficit is actually a sign of economic strength, but I don’t buy that, and I don’t think deLong does either.
Of course, just this morning I see that the dollar has fallen to a record low against the Euro. According to that BBC account, Treasury Secretary John Snow is again citing the deficit as a sign of economic strength, while pledging to cut it back (if it’s a sign of strength, why bother?). He also says other nations have a “shared responsibility” to help resolve our deficit problems, though I’m not sure why he thinks that. I suppose they could solve the problem by not buying any more of our bonds, thereby halting growth of the deficit entirely. But it’s hard to imagine that Snow would want that. The reporter seems to think that Snow is lying, and the administration is actually happy with a slightly weaker dollar. I have no idea if that’s true, but lying is certainly a hallmark of this administration.
UPDATE: And over at the WashPost, Samuelson chimes in with some worries of his own over where the dollar is headed.
George Bush hasn’t much discussed what could be his biggest economic problem. It’s not budget deficits or jobs. It’s the possible crash of the dollar on foreign exchange markets. Even if Bush understood it, he would be hard-pressed to explain it to the public. Worse, there are no obvious ways to prevent it. Nor is it certain how big the threat is. Little wonder Bush hasn’t said much. If John Kerry had won, the situation would have been the same. But a dollar crash, if it occurred, could trigger a terrifying global slump.
In the middle of all this horror
I read a weblog called A View From a Broad. It’s written by a woman serving in Iraq. She calls herself ginmar and she writes with a lot of attitude, about all kinds of stuff.
Today she wrote a post about seeing the humanity in the Iraqi people, bouncing off memories of her own family. It’s a classic, and it’s heart-breaking.
This is such an ancient country. Parts of it along the rivers seem almost primeieval, with the ten foot rushes and the fan-shaped palm trees. You expect to see a dinosaur, especially at sunset, when the earth is black and the sky is gold. Long stretches of it are lush, and then abruptly it changes to dry sand and dust. Fields of garbage pass by the windows in multi-colored heaps, and there’s always a few stray dogs or people picking hopefully through them. …
Gradually, something else dawned on me, too. We were being waved at. I’m a waving fool. Hey, every little gesture. The kids always wave. But as we got further and further south, it was adults who lifted their hands first, and smiled. And what smiles! They smiled as if they were fond of us, as if we were old friends. Men, women, all the kids—it was like we were neighbors back from a visit that had kept us away too long. Young men, old men, women in full abbayas, women in chic outfits and without veils—-they all waved and smiled at us. When we smiled and waved back, it felt a little bit like euphoria. …
Every time I see a soldier here, I feel a brief burst of…what do you call it? Brotherhood? They’re a reminder of home, of shared struggle. Doesn’t matter if they’re Polish, Bulgarian, what have you. The Poles have taken some hits for us, and when I think of the Bulgarians, I think of their prime minister, a man who was so overcome by being inducted into NATO that he had tears streaming down his face. I won’t quote from Henvy V, but every time I see some soldier, I think, “Ah, somebody who understands what there is to bitch about.”
Yesterday I felt that pretty much for everyone. …
Read the whole thing. It’s inspiring.
Soldiers dying too
Yes, things in Iraq are going very well indeed.
November already is second deadliest month for U.S. troops in Iraq
We’ve been there now since March, 2003. Twenty months and they’re dying as fast as ever. The worst month was April, 2004. I guess it’s no surprise they’re having so much trouble getting the active reserve to show up.
Shooting innocents
Apparently a video has surfaced which shows the shooting death of Margaret Hassan. This is a woman who, although she was a British citizen, had lived in Iraq most of her life, and had spent most of her life in service to the people of Iraq. I don’t even know what to say about such barbarism.
Just as Iraqi deaths fuel the fury of Iraqi insurgents, so do these barbaric acts fuel the fury of the U.S. and its citizens. It’s important to remember that most Iraqi people are not terrorists. It’s impossible to feel sympathy for anyone who would behave in such a way.
Shooting prisoners
I understand, as well as a civilian can anyway, that war creates psychological problems that may never heal. I’m sure these troubles are particularly acute in an occupation like the one we are conducting in Iraq, where insurgents and terrorists hide among the civilian population and you never really know where death hides. Plus our fighting forces are poorly trained and over-burdened, and this can be laid directly at the feet of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld.
But shooting wounded men who are no threat is a war crime. If it’s true that the incident caught on tape by Kevin Sites was only one in a series of such shootings, then we need to make sure the prosecution goes as far as it needs to, and put a firm stop to these incidents. Seeing an unarmed Muslim man shot in the head, in a mosque, is only going to fuel Iraqi hatred of the occupying forces, and feed the insurgency we’re trying to quell.
Forced commercials!
If this new law really gets rammed through in this lame duck session, not only will it undo fair use of copyrighted materials, you’ll be a criminal if you use your TiVO to skip any commercial material at all! Write your Congresspersons.
UPDATE: Boy, I’m having a hard time looking at this lighthearted post sitting here surrounded by death and destruction. But I can’t think about death and destruction all the time; I couldn’t continue if I did.
U.S. using “torture flights”
The London Times has received confidential logs showing that the United States may be using an executive jet to shuttle suspected terrorists to countries which will use torture to interrogate them. The U.S. denies these charges of “torture by proxy”.
Witnesses described seeing the prisoners handed to US agents whose faces were masked by hoods. The clothes of the handcuffed prisoners were cut off and they were dressed in nappies covered by orange overalls before being forcibly given sedatives by suppository.
The Gulfstream flew them to Egypt, where both prisoners claimed they were beaten and tortured with electric shocks to their genitals. Despite liberal Swedish laws on freedom of information, diplomatic telegrams on the case released to the media were edited to conceal the complaints of torture.
Hamida Shalaby, Agiza
Euro over dollar as next world currency?
While the U.S. dollar weakens due to increasing debt and trade deficits, the Euro is growing stronger. Some think the Euro will replace the dollar as the cornerstone of world currency. If it does, that will be one more sign of failing U.S. influence in the world at large.
Oh, and inflation took a surprising jump last month as well.