tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post2934327653844683352..comments2024-03-22T15:55:34.030-04:00Comments on Evo and Proud: 2012. A year of turbulence?Peter Frosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04303172060029254340noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-51591295578522333362011-12-23T02:26:46.183-05:002011-12-23T02:26:46.183-05:00Paul wouldn't attack Iran. The foreign policy ...Paul wouldn't attack Iran. The foreign policy establishment is inexorably moving toward an attack. <br />(Steven Walt <a href="http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/12/07/the_silent_war_with_iran" rel="nofollow">HERE</a> and <a href="http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/12/21/the_worst_case_for_war_with_iran" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>).<br />Romney's foreign policy team includes <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wurmser#Writings" rel="nofollow">David Wurmser</a>. Even if Obama gets re-elected the attack on Iran will likely come. It'll be a massive sustained airstrike, not an invasion.Seannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-26756798120929343402011-12-22T13:29:46.192-05:002011-12-22T13:29:46.192-05:00My guess is Michele Bachmann and others could be c...My guess is Michele Bachmann and others could be characterized as NEO-conservatives as opposed to traditional conservatives. Neo-conservatism is relatively new in American politics.Readernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-59551127231517659522011-12-22T13:14:39.159-05:002011-12-22T13:14:39.159-05:00Ben,
There is much controversy over Chief Seattle...Ben,<br /><br />There is much controversy over Chief Seattle's speech. See the Wikipedia account.<br /><br />As far as I know, traditional Inuit have no notion of "end time" (e.g., apocalypse, gotterdammerung, ragnarok, etc.). This is a notion that develops in agricultural societies, which seem to go through cycles of growth, decay, and destruction. This cycle is partly ecological in origin (overgrazing, salination, soil erosion, and/or soil exhaustion) and partly cultural/genetic (pacification and domestication leading to inability to resist barbarian outsiders).<br /><br />An Inuit woman born on November 5, 1877 made the following predictions. The last one seems to be a reference to a cure for AIDS:<br /><br />"I saw the orca, my brother the killer whale, when he came to me in a dream." <br /><br />"The orca says when the Pacific waters are at their coldest, when the winter sun shines like water, a mountain that men call The Mammoth will explode and hurl smoke and flame miles into the sky." <br /><br />"The mountains will bloom with fire, by and by, but very soon, before the winter snows melt and the orcas go back to the open sea." <br /><br />"A doctor with a foreign name will use plants like the 'Forget-Me-Not' to make cures for many diseases. Cancer and the flu will never kill people again. The wasting disease that first struck at man who love other men will be cured at last." <br /><br />http://www.ucan-online.org/legend.asp?legend=3912&category=1<br /><br />Stephen,<br /><br />I never could understand why traditional conservatives love Ron Paul. Why not support Michelle Bachmann? If I'm missing something, please educate me.Peter Frostnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-48168755317017216042011-12-21T19:57:32.527-05:002011-12-21T19:57:32.527-05:00I think Ron Paul has a good chance of becoming US ...I think Ron Paul has a good chance of becoming US president and this is something I would support. While all the media try to ignore him he is leading the primaries and if he can win the primaries he can win the election.<br /><br />There are other ways fair colors could of been selected. In the late Neolithic early bronze age there were allot of stone circles constructed which suggests a powerful solar cult. With hair the color of golden sun rays and eyes as blue as the sky it is possible blondes made up this priestly cast thus gaining access to plenty of food, wives and concubines rapidly spreading there genes across Europe.Stephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622298961270279noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-88942107397682839722011-12-21T14:15:23.040-05:002011-12-21T14:15:23.040-05:00Perceived direction of gaze from eyes with dark vs...<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21150679" rel="nofollow">Perceived direction of gaze from eyes with dark vs. light irises.</a> "The direction of monocular gaze from eyes that differ in the darkness of their irises is perceived differently, and, within the blue irises, small differences in pupil centration made surprisingly large differences in the perceived directions of gaze."Seannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-67004091447765208742011-12-21T13:47:33.474-05:002011-12-21T13:47:33.474-05:00You give the context, but not the tiny butterfly&#...You give the context, but not the tiny butterfly's movement that will shape the future. This of course, is unpredictible from using reason alone.<br />The Mayan set 2012 as the end of the present cycle, the nordic myths have Ragnarok, christianity has the Revelation, Chef Seatle gave a quasi prophetic discourse (below).... what about the northern Inuits, anything their chamans predict? <br /><br />"...A few more moons, a few more winters, and not one of the descendants of the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn over the graves of a people once more powerful and hopeful than yours. But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see. ..." http://www.kyphilom.com/www/seattle.htmlBen10noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-9616070419129624402011-12-21T10:20:15.275-05:002011-12-21T10:20:15.275-05:00Sean,
In theory, the European Union could continu...Sean,<br /><br />In theory, the European Union could continue, just as the Japanese economy has managed to continue. The political reality, however, is that the EU is destined to collapse. Even the elites are losing faith in the EU.<br /><br />Your point about iris color is interesting.<br /><br />Sykes,<br /><br />Automation, in itself, does not reduce a country's wealth per capita. The cost savings are either passed on to consumers or invested in new lines of products.<br /><br />With globalization, however, developed countries undergo a reduction in their wealth per capita. On the one hand, wealth creation is transferred to lower-wage countries. On the other, labor is imported from lower-wage countries to expand the pool of workers and consumers.<br /><br />You might argue, of course, that automation facilitates globalization. Yet the opposite is what we actually see. When agri-business imports farm workers, it's under less pressure to introduce automated harvesting methods. In the U.S., elder care is heavily dependent on foreign labor. In Japan, robots are being put to use.<br /><br />Anon,<br /><br />There is no economic law that says service industries cannot pay decent wages. If they didn't have access to cheap labor, they would have to pay the going rate. Or go under. That's the way our economy is supposed to work.<br /><br />Anon,<br /><br />The common denominator is that the business community wants access to wealth creation under conditions that would be impossible (and often illegal) in the developed world. What's good for General Motors is not necessarily good for the USA. There is a divergence of interests.<br /><br />Gayle,<br /><br />Be careful about what you wish for. You just might get it!<br /><br />Insightful,<br /><br />If Romney is chosen, he'll probably beat Obama. If Gingrich is chosen, the election will be too close to call.<br /><br />Frankly I don't care who wins. Romney, Gingrich, and Obama differ more in image than in substance. It's not just that they face the same hordes of lobbyists. There's also the indirect lobbying of those who manufacture the ideological environment and set the limits of acceptable discourse. That kind of lobbying is far more insidious.<br /><br />It's not for nothing that the business community invests in think tanks and buys up influence in academia and the media.Peter Frostnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-79908597580704171072011-12-20T01:47:01.709-05:002011-12-20T01:47:01.709-05:00I just want Obama OUT!I just want Obama OUT!gaylenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-44218477896605698302011-12-18T20:21:14.204-05:002011-12-18T20:21:14.204-05:00Finally, we are facing a globalization crisis. On ...<i>Finally, we are facing a globalization crisis. On the one hand, jobs are being outsourced to lower-wage countries. On the other, lower-wage labor is being insourced. The result? A steady downward leveling of incomes throughout the Western World, except for the very rich. The latter now have access to labor under conditions not seen since the days of Charles Dickens.</i><br /><br />Today’s globalization is much like the Enclosure movement in England from the 16th through 18th centuries. The enclosers carved out the land for themselves, displacing labor from the land and its traditional means of support, and herding it into the cities. Although today’s globalization is bringing manufactures to many developing countries, and also goes hand in hand with a great rural exodus to huge overgrown cities, it is in many ways a relapse back into pre-capitalist economic forms.<br /><br />Industry throughout the world has been taken over by the financial sector. What the global corporations want from these countries is not primarily their labor. What global investors want is the land, along with other natural resources such as mineral rights, and natural monopolies, that is, public utilities. They want the railroads and airline systems now in place, created largely by governments running deeply into foreign debt.<br /><br />Global investors want the telephone and communications monopolies, the TV stations – and the electromagnetic spectrum that goes with it – electrical power monopolies, oil and gas. They want the monopoly rights possessed by these industries, to buy it at distress prices, and then to privatize labor’s social security savings to bid up prices for shares in these companies.<br /><br />Most of all, they want the land and real estate. Even in highly industrialized economies such as the United States and Japan, it is the land that is the largest asset. And the most valuable land is urban land – the value of urban real estate in New York City alone exceeds the depreciated value of all the industrial machinery and equipment in the United States.<br /><br />Global investors do not necessarily want to bring development to the developing countries. Their objective and historical role is not to create new capital. What they want is the capital that already is in place.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-72466562440023078682011-12-18T16:47:33.802-05:002011-12-18T16:47:33.802-05:00Every manufacturing economy is losing jobs due to ...<i><br />Every manufacturing economy is losing jobs due to automation, including China's.<br /><br />Manufacturing is undergoing the same transition agriculture did a century ago. In the US, agricultural employment is less than 2% of the work force. In a few decades, manufacturing employment will approach those levels.<br /></i><br /><br />And of course, those who lose their jobs will move into the service industries, won't they?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-74460804646997796812011-12-18T16:45:20.258-05:002011-12-18T16:45:20.258-05:00I saw a black man on a street corner in Silicon Va...I saw a black man on a street corner in Silicon Valley today begging for money.<br /><br />His placard (piece of cardboard) asked whether or not the cheap labor and the gegaws were worth it.<br /><br />Said something was the tip of the iceberg.<br /><br />Perhaps he too reads Evo and Proud.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-35237810906741324062011-12-18T07:37:25.132-05:002011-12-18T07:37:25.132-05:00You have missed the real economic trend. Outsourci...You have missed the real economic trend. Outsourcing is a minor part of Western (or at least American) job loss. The big job killer is automation. Over the last 20-30 years, American INDUSTRIAL/MANUFACTURING output has tripled, but employment in the sector has only doubled. American remains the largest manufacturing economy in the world. America's manufacturing economy is larger than Germany's whole economy.<br /><br />Every manufacturing economy is losing jobs due to automation, including China's.<br /><br />Manufacturing is undergoing the same transition agriculture did a century ago. In the US, agricultural employment is less than 2% of the work force. In a few decades, manufacturing employment will approach those levels.<br /><br />Manufacturing output will increase.sykes.1https://www.blogger.com/profile/10954672321945289871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-49652469933311792742011-12-17T13:54:22.750-05:002011-12-17T13:54:22.750-05:00"In contrast, the Western World is very fract...<b>"In contrast, the Western World is very fractious, as seen by the bickering within the European Union. These social and political divisions will probably abort the recovery long before the possibilities for debt financing and money printing have been completely exhausted. And so much the better."</b><br /><br />International aid is part of the USA's pursuit of a global strategy. America has long required northern Europe to lend to bad risks (eg Germany to continue shore up the economies of southern Europe). Whether Germany is going to continue to do as they're told is anybody's guess. The EU single currency functions as a export promoter for German manufacturers and is backed by the elite and their political cats paws. Ordinary Germans, who are the ones paying for the strategy, do not have much influence on their country's policies as far as I can see. <br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v20/n1/full/scientificamericanmind0510-36sp.html" rel="nofollow"> Illusion</a> (Scroll down about 60%)<br /><br />"In the normal photograph of Humphrey Bogart (left), the actor appears to be looking to his left, but in the photo negative (right) he appears to be looking in the opposite direction. Yet Bogart's face does not look backward; only the eyes are reversed. Why? The answer is that we have specialized modules in our brain that determine gaze direction by comparing the dark parts of the eyes (the irises and pupils) with the whites. When the face is negative, the whites and irises appear to swap position. Our knowledge that irises are light rather than dark in a negative does not change our perception of this illusion"<br /><br />Is this a secondary reason why a light colored iris will attract and hold attention? If it is more difficult to determine the direction of the gaze of a light eyed person then the viewer's attention may be on it for longer .Seannoreply@blogger.com