Open Thread - 3 December, 2102

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Comments

[Al Spafford]

Pandering!
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/12/america-and-israel-are-in-it-together-clinton-declares-and-not-a-word-about-settlements.html

Ahhh....getting the Zionist $$ backers in line for the 2016 Prez run?

[Al Spafford]

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/12/hillary-is-running-a-dispatch-from-the-saban-forum.html?mobify=0

Any doubt that Hilary is positioning herself for a Prz run in 2016?

[Fred]

No surprise but it looks like HRC is running 4 years early:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/12/hillary-is-running-a-dispatch-from-the-saban-forum.html

[Al Arabist]

The owl signals foreboding in Arabic. But Yet those Durers were a sign of culture for ivy leagued gentlemen I grew up with. So here's my cultural omen: now's the time to learn survival skills from syrians and soldiers. how can i explain to my kid that folks did just fine without the internet for 2 whole days?

[Anonymous]

Maybe the end of times is coming indeed. Seeing Harley Davidsons round here has become quite common, but the horror I saw today was too much. I'm still shaking. A damn ugly thing enmeshed in leather fringes passing like it was a cousin Itt meets hurricane Sandy moment. And the driver was nonchalance personified, as if he was Cold War Zoomie in Scotland on his Bandit with his forged license glued on the top of the helmet! I understand that few have the good taste, sophistication and pure badassessness to ride a 97 yellow Ducati 900SS, but to choose the offspring of Medusa and a portuguese man-o-war is too much. It should be altogether prohibited. It's supposed to be a motorcycle, ferchrissake, not a shihtzu on wheels!

[JohnH]

Questions about the hyped success of Iron Dome: "Regarding the Israeli Iron Dome System: "There are few demonstrable examples of incoming rockets intercepted by Iron Dome and showing the sort of telltale damage that would be obvious if they have been blasted by the spray of rod-like pellets from an Iron Dome’s warhead," according to Tesla missile systems expert Richard Lloyd.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/success-of-israels-iron-dome-defensive-shield-questioned/article5830196/

As the article points out, "there is great value in the strategic deception." And a lucrative future revenue stream for suppliers.

But, of course, the media gladly accepts Israeli reports at face value, along with any other hasbara that comes there way.

[DH]

The owl of Minerva flies at dusk.

[trooper]

This is a good question-hopefully we will see some real data come in before too many other states purchase the technology!

[William R. Cumming]

The Presidential race in 2016 will have a far different context for all as opposed to what seems foreseeable or even likely or unlikley!

First the EU and Eurozone will need a major bailout from taxpayers of the USA. The 21st Century will unfold with the USA dithering and then helping the EU and Eurozone much as in WWI and WWII! Some will ask why this is so and why not USA concentrating on Western Hemisphere only? History and psychology. This despite death of Castro Brothers and Cuba becoming huge domestic issue for USA.

Second, Mexican and USA may become a new drive sprocket for the 21st Century. The reality of North American merger will start to form and be complete by 22nd Century!

Russia and Germany will forge new links beyond the economic ties currently hidden but huge.

The Chinese Condominium will look more likely with Mongolian future tied to China!

Foreign policy will be the driver in 2016 election! HRC may not become President but her choices will determine who does.

[Fred]

The EU and the Eurozone need no further bail out from US taxpayers. They need to jail the bankers who created this fraud riven situation just like Iceland did. Why should I keep paying taxes for foreigners while hedge fund billionaires enrich themselves with the proceeds and pay less taxes than I do – not to mention those with tax havened millions – like Romney & family?

Why will Cuba be any issue for the US, other than for South Florida Cuban Americans who will no longer have their favorite whipping boy to use in keeping an electoral hold on political office? The folks in Miami should have foreseen the Castro's would leave - either by old age or political reform - a long time ago and planned accordingly. There is certainly no political will to have these émigrés return to power in Cuba once the Castro's are gone. Maybe somebody is dreaming of a bailout to make everyone happy in Havana?

[William R. Cumming]

Well FRED hear my answers! Between the FEDERAL RESERVE and the US Treasury some estimate up to 1/2 of the up to $27 Trillion that went out to the banks under both the Bush and Obama Administrations [this is the real reason that Ron Paul and his audit the FED oratory lost traction to the powers that be] and it still might not have been enough. The funding and loans between Central Banks and how and where they use their funds is completely opaque and unknown and perhaps unknowable.

As to Cuber! Despite the appearance of the Castro brothers Cuba in 1959 was at least 80-85% black by USA cultural standards [racism?]! Of those fleeing Cuba since 1959 85% of those entering the USA legally or illegally could pass for white under USA cultural norms.Do you really think the largely black population of Cuber wants white overseers back? Yet the white Cuber refugee population now citizens of the USA [or resident aliens--i.e. Greencard] want their Cuban property back and the largest energy companies have long memories. Note that little is written about exactly what happens after Castro. Ownership of the future MLB Havanna franchise would be of interest, and perhaps Santiago also. Consider this only a start of an answer on Cuba.

[Fred]

I’m not sure if this is ingenuity or sacrilege, but I’m sure it’s better than wonderbread:
http://www.bbc.com/travel/blog/20111117-a-baguette-from-the-wall

[Fred]

Yes the supporters of Felgencio Bastista and his regime would like their property – and their power – back when they return to Cuba. The third generation immigrants? Most of them with no connection to Cuba but distant parental memories. No, the Cubans who never left would not like these foreigners to come to town, buy up everything and then tell them how to run the country to boot.

Whose army would these returning immigrants use to use to return to power those who lost it half a century ago? Why should 300,000,000 Americans outside of the beltway or Miami have any reason to support them? Cuba won’t be an issue outside the rapidly waning power base of the Cuban American National Foundation.

[fatsamurai]

Iran claims to have hacked another US drone, a scaneagle and have a video showing the captured drone.

[DH]

"The EU and the Eurozone need no further bail out from US taxpayers. They need to jail the bankers who created this fraud riven situation just like Iceland did. Why should I keep paying taxes for foreigners while hedge fund billionaires enrich themselves with the proceeds and pay less taxes than I do – not to mention those with tax havened millions – like Romney & family?"

For which see Ecclesiastes.

Also, http://www.the-american-interest.com/article-bd.cfm?piece=907

[DH]

"Second, Mexican and USA may become a new drive sprocket for the 21st Century. The reality of North American merger will start to form and be complete by 22nd Century!"

We'll need a name.

[Al Spafford]

Ahhh, MLB in Havana!!! Would I ever love that, but the summer season with tropical storms blowing across the island would play havoc with schedules. Hey, maybe Ozzie Guillien (sp?) the fired Miami mng,could redeem himself down there.
I have a son that flew over from Cancun on Mexican Air, spend a week in Havana, took a room in private home that the govt allows Cubans now to do a bit of private enterprise with. He found Havana much safer to walk around in at night (it is a "police state") than any major USA city.

[Charles I]

The folks in Miami should have foreseen the Castro's would leave - either by old age or political reform - a long time ago and planned accordingly.

They have, but like other coddled exiles, they expect to be liberators, not irrelevant. Hopefully well paid liberators of the Chalabi ilk. Imagine what Miami politics will look like.

[Charles I]

sign of the end times

[Charles I]

Space buffs ahoy:

Voyager 1 finds a surprise at the edge of the solar system

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-voyager-solar-system-edge-20121204,0,6171988.story

[Fred]

They should have talked W into invading Cuba like Reagan invaded Grenada. At least we would have had less corruption and lots of troops who could speak the language and understand the religion of the locals. Now they've managed to fill allot of bank accounts - probably not to many of theirs - and Cuba still has a Castro in charge. Who said God doesn't have a sense of humor?

[Fred]

Tyler Cowen has a rather 'unique' take on economics:" Income inequality will likely continue to rise and we will search in vain for the appropriate political remedies for our underlying problems."

Right, were just 'can't' do anything! Very libertarian of him to excuse the manipulation of financial markets to the detreiment of society because we just can't figure out how to "the appropriate political remedies for our underlying problems."

I reccomend you read some of Brad Delong as a counterpoint. He's taken Tyler to task a few times for bad economics. I won't even mention the immorality of Tyler's position. "Got mine" seems to sum it up.

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/11/brad-delong-three-dimensions-of-inequality-global-educationaltechnological-and-plutocratic.html

[Clifford Kiracofe]

Fascinating analysis on higher education admissions in the US:

"In the last generation or two, the funnel of opportunity in American society has drastically narrowed, with a greater and greater proportion of our financial, media, business, and political elites being drawn from a relatively small number of our leading universities, together with their professional schools. ..."
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/

[Fred]

Heard about this on NPR. Interesting about the magnetic fields out that far.

[Charles I]

I'm fairly certain that surprises will continue into the future of human consciousness. I don't think we'll ever run out of undiscovered, unperceived, and some un-perceiveable spectra and phenomena because I don't believe human evolution, technical ability and a bit of computing power will ever be sufficient for humans ultimately divine Creation.

Thank heavens! It'd be so boring to know everything!