Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Iraq, Energy, Global Warming: All Interlinked






Withdrawing From Iraq

The idea is not to withdraw from Iraq and let that new state collapse. The idea is to withdraw in a way that every inch of military withdrawal is replaced by two inches of fervent political activity.

Obama Gameplan: Stable, Democratic Iraq

If withdrawal leads to some kind of a breakdown, that means going right back in, not abandoning. But I don't think there will be a breakdown. The US military leaving will mean the Al Qaeda's number one gripe will have disappeared. They will have lost wind.

Iraq will do just fine. Iraq will do better once the US military has left.

Energy Solution: Go Nuclear

Before the steam engine, we had wind energy: we called them sails. Steam became diesel. And now there is talk to go back to wind. Makes no sense. There is no going back, there is only going forward.

All countries on earth deserve to grow their economies. Imagine a 7% growth rate per year for every country on earth, especially the poor countries. And do the math on how much energy consumption that will mean. You very quickly realize the only option is nuclear.

The Energy Solution: Nuclear Energy

The Apollo project is not to set up wind farms across the country so that we can no longer see the sun during the day. The Apollo project is to speed up research so as to find ways to make good with the waste generated from the nuclear energy plants.

Global Warming Is Also Energy Solution

No one country can tackle global warming. That also happens to be true of the energy crisis. There is a need for a global effort, a global collaboration, global ground rules.

For example, you can not have 10,000 nuclear weapons, and keep doing research to build new ones and then go around the world telling others they may not have it. That is nuclear apartheid. The long term goal has to be total disarmament. Only within that clear commitment to that long term goal can the short term goal of nonproliferation be achieved.

The International Atomic Agency will have to be given much more teeth. All nuclear energy plants all over the world will have to come under the strict regime of that agency. The strictest safety regulations must be designed and enforced. And then peaceful use of nuclear energy must be encouraged across the world.

Economic growth is a legitimate goal of any sovereign country. Energy needs will dramatically rise over the next few decades as they should. And they have to be met with nuclear energy.

JFK, Obama Parallels: Catholic, Black

In The News

Al Qaeda Strikes Back Foreign Affairs Decisively defeating al Qaeda will be more difficult now than it would have been a few years ago. ...... it will only be a matter of time before al Qaeda strikes the U.S. homeland again. ...... up to 60,000 Pakistani volunteers had served in the Taliban militia before 9/11, alongside dozens of active-duty Pakistani army advisers and even small Pakistani army commando units ......... For the next two years, al Qaeda focused on surviving -- and, with the Taliban, on building a new base of operations around Quetta, in the Baluchistan region of Pakistan. ....... Iraq, where it had little or no presence before 9/11. ....... al Qaeda in Iraq has continued to orchestrate massacres against Shiites in Baghdad. ...... suicide bombings and the use of improvised explosive devices, became commonplace in Afghanistan. Taliban attacks rose from 1,632 in 2005 to 5,388 in 2006, according to the U.S. military, and suicide operations grew from 27 in 2005 to 139 in 2006. ....... Al Qaeda has also developed closer ties to Kashmiri terrorist groups, such as and Lashkar-e-TaibaJaish-e-Muhammad. ....... the hijacking of an Indian airliner by Kashmiri terrorists -- an operation .... since correctly described as the "dress rehearsal" for 9/11. ....... the spectacular multiple bombings that rocked Mumbai last July had the marks of al Qaeda's modus operandi ........ beyond Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq ..... al Qaeda records most of its operations and transmits the gruesome coverage to jihadi Web sites all over the world ........ promising to bankrupt Washington in Afghanistan and Iraq ..... some 4,500 overtly jihadi Web sites ..... the growing breadth of its ambitions and its increasing reach throughout the Middle East ....... Muriel Degauque, a Belgian woman and a convert to Islam, who blew herself up in a car-bomb attack against a U.S. convoy in Iraq in November 2005 ...... Pakistan received 400,000 visits from British residents in 2004 ...... the United Kingdom has become a focal point of al Qaeda's activities in the West. ...... some 200 networks of Muslims of South Asian descent were being monitored in the United Kingdom ....... terrorist plots in the United Kingdom "often have links back to al Qaeda in Pakistan ....... Since 2001, these foot soldiers are suspected of having plotted 30 or so attacks on targets in the United Kingdom or aircraft leaving for the United States. ....... independent, copycat operation ..... Al Qaeda's growing connections to Europe have made the United States more vulnerable ....... the plot last August to destroy ten commercial airliners en route from the United Kingdom to the United States ...... cultivating stronger operational connections and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders' secure hideout in Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe .... expanding reach in Europe. Its leadership is intact. .... al Qaeda is well placed to threaten global security in the near future. .. thrives on failed and failing states ...... The Jihad Movement in Bangladesh was one of the original signatories of bin Laden's 1998 declaration of war on the West. ...... Somalia has been a failed state for almost two decades ..... In Algeria, meanwhile, al Qaeda is trying to revive the civil war that killed over 100,000 people in the 1990s. The Algerian Islamist movement the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by its French initials GSPC, swore allegiance to bin Laden last year, and he ordered that the group be renamed al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. It has since attacked oil targets and police stations, hoping that a spectacular series of assaults, especially on Western targets, could reignite the civil war. ......... he was eagerly looking forward to an American nuclear attack on Iran. ..... Al Qaeda would especially like a full-scale U.S. invasion and occupation of Iran, which would presumably oust the Shiite regime in Tehran, further antagonize Muslims worldwide, and expand al Qaeda's battlefield against the United States so that it extends from Anbar Province in the west to the Khyber Pass in the east. It understands that the U.S. military is already too overstretched to invade Iran, but it expects Washington to use nuclear weapons. ......... al Qaeda will deliberately provoke a war with a "false-flag" operation ...... it should not consider a military operation against Iran, as doing so would only strengthen al Qaeda's hand -- much as the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq have. ........ The organization is more diffuse, and its components operate more independently. Bin Laden continues to influence its direction and provide general guidance and, on occasion, specific instructions. But overall the movement is more loosely structured, which leaves more room for independent and copycat terrorist operations. .......... target al Qaeda's leaders ...... NATO should reach out to India as well: New Delhi has already provided half a billion dollars in aid for Afghanistan, and, having long been a target of Islamist terrorism, India has a national interest in defeating it. ...... Since 2001, the international community has delivered far less aid per capita to Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, than it has to recovering states such as Bosnia. ....... Musharraf .. his government has tolerated those who harbor bin Laden and his lieutenants, Taliban fighters and their Afghan fellow travelers, and Kashmiri terrorists. .... Many senior Pakistani politicians say privately that they believe Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) still has extensive links to bin Laden; some even claim it harbors him. ...... a systematic crackdown on all terrorists -- Arab, Afghan, and Kashmiri -- is critical ....... Pakistan should no longer be rewarded for its selective counterterrorism efforts. (Washington has already given it some $10 billion in aid since 9/11.) ....... If it makes sense to bring democracy to Afghanistan, then surely it makes sense to bring it to Pakistan. The prevailing theory that strongmen such as Musharraf make for better counterterrorism partners is a canard; Musharraf, for one, has not delivered the goods. ...... disengage from the civil war in Iraq, with a complete, orderly, and phased troop withdrawal ..... Al Qaeda's own propaganda indicates that it fears the Shiites' wrath after the United States' departure ......... the war of ideas. Washington must learn to develop more compelling narratives for its actions. ...... bring peace to Palestine and Kashmir ...... The president of the United States must get personally involved in brokering peace in both instances. ........ a failure to adjust U.S. strategy would increase the risk that al Qaeda will launch another "raid" on the United States, this time perhaps with a weapon of mass destruction. ....... According to Saudi officials, these public messages came with secret orders from bin Laden instructing cells to attack soft targets in Saudi Arabia. ....... The al Qaeda apparatus in the kingdom, which had been quiescent, exploded into action between 2003 and 2006 -- triggering the most serious and sustained domestic violence since the creation of modern Saudi Arabia in the early twentieth century. ........ The backbone of the al Qaeda movement in the kingdom was apparently broken. ..... (Zarqawi took credit for the plot but claimed that the Jordanian authorities fabricated the presence of chemical weapons; as he put it, if his group possessed such a device, "we would not hesitate one second to use it on Israeli cities.") ..... al Qaeda is still too weak to overthrow established governments equipped with effective security services; it needs failed states to thrive.

Republican White House Hopefuls Distance Themselves From Bush
FOX News
Rudy Giuliani Plans to Skip Important Republican Iowa Straw Poll LifeNews.com
Just One-Third of US Adults Would Vote for Barack Obama if He was ...
PR Newswire (press release)
Obama on 'quiet riot' among black poor Chicago Tribune a "quiet riot" of despair simmering in impoverished black neighborhoods across the country ...... one of the oldest and largest annual gatherings of African-American ministers. ...... an ominous portrait of hopelessness pervading many inner-city neighborhoods and its potential to erupt into uncontrolled violence ..... pockets of endemic poverty. ..... the street corners of ghettos around the country as gathering places for "young men and women without hope, without miracles and without a sense of destiny other than life on the edge -- the edge of the law, the edge of the economy, the edge of family structures and communities." ...... violence is "inexcusable and self-defeating." ....... many of the same frustrations continue to build in black America, stoked by poor schools, bad housing, and inadequate job opportunities. ...... when a sense of disconnect settles in and hope dissipates. Despair takes hold and young people ... believe that things are never going to get any better ...... an expansion of programs for visiting nurses to teach parenting skills to new and expectant low-income mothers, jobs programs for disadvantaged youths, more support for ex-offenders in finding employment after prison and better public transportation for residents of low-income areas.
Is US Safer Since 9/11? Clinton and Rivals Spar New York Times Mrs. Clinton also thought the war in Iraq had been a distraction from the fight against terrorism ..... three-quarters believed that the United States was losing the war on terror. ...... “It was an important distinction that emerged at the debate. Senator Obama has often made the point that as a result of the war in Iraq, the threat of terrorism has increased.”
Brazil, India Aim To Boost Trade Fourfold By 2010 Forbes
US agents thwart planned Laos coup plot
Christian Science Monitor
India, Brazil blame developed countries for climate change Gulf Times
‘The century of opportunity for India and Brazil’ Financial Express
Bush Says Russia Won't Attack Europe
Forbes
Gorbachev to US: Let's not repeat the Cold War CNN International
Blair promises to tackle Putin at G8 summit Times Online
Strong Cyclone Heading for Southern Iran
New York Times
'Deranged' man tries to grab hold of Pope Benedict's vehicle International Herald Tribune
China: Looming Beijing Olympics Cause Strains In Host Country RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty
US Navy fires on Somalia pirates NEWS.com.au
Google, Salesforce Deepen Ties
MSNBC citing its ultrafast development and simple design as paragons of Internet software ...... Salesforce's success--the company expects to grow 45% this year to at least $722 million in revenues--it isn't mature enough to absorb substantial acquisitions itself. ....... strengthen each company's hand as they prepare to battle Microsoft (MSFT), which is developing online versions of its sales management and other software ...... The companies have combined Salesforce.com with Google Maps to help sales staff find meetings. ....... Google's OneBox appliance server lets companies search data inside Salesforce's program. ...... Salesforce sells Google's Docs & Spreadsheets software through its AppExchange online store. ....... "We have a goal to make every Salesforce user an AdWords entrepreneur." ...... "Google's entry into the business software market could radically alter the competitive environment and make growth very difficult for incumbents like Microsoft" ...... a glut of venture capital-backed on-demand software companies, and the buyout wave sweeping the business software market could soon extend to them ...... Innovation Advisors, a technology-focused investment bank ....... Workday, the on-demand HR software startup founded by PeopleSoft founder David Duffield, which has raised $35 million in funding from Duffield and Greylock Partners ...... Salesforce earned $730,000 on $162.4 million in revenue and added 2,500 customers
Amitabh Bachchan challenges decision to quash transfer of land Apun Ka Choice
Bachchans had a blast at Roland Garros! Times of India
Dell follows HP's lead, delves more into services Blogging Stocks
Dell Sets Goal Of Becoming Greenest Technology Company Media Newswire (press release)
Harvard, MIT scientists report embryonic stem cell advances Boston Globe
Paris Hilton Reports to the Big House New York Times Paris Hilton, the hotel heiress everyone loves to hate and obsessively follow ....... separated from the general population but possibly sharing a cell with one other person ....... She’ll be allowed to leave the 12-by-8 foot room for at least an hour a day to shower, watch TV, take a stroll in the yard or make phone calls.





Tuesday, June 05, 2007

I Told You So





Mahayana Buddhist Temple, Chinatown, NYC
Times Square: Center Of The Known Universe: Happy New Year 2007
Rockefeller Center: Merry Christmas 2006

New poll shows Obama in a tie with Clinton among Democrats International Herald Tribune Obama had 30 percent, Clinton 29 percent
Clinton, Obama virtually tied in new poll MSNBC Obama "bests Clinton by a single percentage point, 30%-29%, if the contest includes former vice president Al Gore. Clinton bests Obama by a single point, 37%-36%, if it doesn't include Gore." ....... Among Democrats alone, Clinton leads Obama by 5 points, 34%-29%. That's a significant narrowing from the USA TODAY Poll taken in mid-May, when she led by 17 points. Among independents, Obama leads by 9 points, 31%-22%."

Barack's Primary Opponents
Barack, The Comeback Kid
I Watch Politics, World Cup Soccer, And The Olympics
Barack, You Can Do Debates
One National Primary, Monthly National Debates, Videoblogged
Debates Matter: The Election Is On
Barack Lost The South Carolina Debate


In The News

New poll shows Obama in a tie with Clinton among Democrats International Herald Tribune Obama had 30 percent, Clinton 29 percent .... An ABC News-Washington Post survey released two days earlier showed Clinton leading Obama by a dozen points .... Obama's support in the USA Today/Gallup poll was not significantly different from that survey's results in May, when it found Clinton had a nine-point advantage. Clinton's support dropped 6 percentage points since then.
Poll shows Clinton, Obama tied ImediNews, Georgia
New poll shows Obama in a tie with Clinton among Democrats
PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung), Austria
USA Today/Gallup Poll: Obama Tied With Hillary
NewsMax.com, FL
Clinton, Obama virtually tied in new poll
MSNBC
Obama now virtually tied with Clinton, poll shows
USA Today
Hillary and Obama tied!
Politics on the Hudson, NY

Poll shows Clinton, Obama tied Earthtimes.org
Clinton, Obama virtually tied in new poll MSNBC Obama "bests Clinton by a single percentage point, 30%-29%, if the contest includes former vice president Al Gore. Clinton bests Obama by a single point, 37%-36%, if it doesn't include Gore." ....... Among Democrats alone, Clinton leads Obama by 5 points, 34%-29%. That's a significant narrowing from the USA TODAY Poll taken in mid-May, when she led by 17 points. Among independents, Obama leads by 9 points, 31%-22%."
Obama is tied with Clinton in new Gallup Poll Deseret News
White women may prove Clinton swing bloc
Politico Support from women is propelling Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) ahead of her Democratic challengers ..... Clinton holds a lead even among minority women of more than 25 percentage points ...... But Clinton's standing among female voters within the wider electorate so far does not suggest that women would give her an advantage over a Republican in the general election. ...... surveys consistently have shown as her unpopularity among men ...... The Clinton campaign said it would give special attention to white married working women, a group Democratic strategists have treated as the pivotal voting bloc in recent elections. "They are a challenge for any Democrat," says Ann Lewis, who heads Clinton's outreach to women. ....... early indications are that, like Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Al Gore before her, Clinton has not made significant inroads with white women, despite her celebrity and the historic nature of her campaign. White women have not favored a Democrat since 1996. ......... Both Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani poll ahead of Clinton in a head-to-head race among white women, as well as with the electorate overall ....... the primary contest, where the New York senator currently splits men and maintains a strong lead among women ....... support tied to gender is likely to remain more constant than malleable perceptions like electability and character ..... the gender gap in Clinton's favor in the Democratic contest crosses racial lines, despite Obama's African-American status ....... the problem for Senator Obama: He's not well-known. ..... Clinton also leads Obama by more than 10 percent among white Democratic women ...... Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina .... Clinton's popularity with liberal-leaning women remains large ...... Women make up 55 percent to 60 percent of likely Democratic primary voters. ....... Clinton's strongest female support comes from those 18 to 34 as well as women over 70 ....... Clinton polls stronger with single women than with married women. ..... women without four-year college degrees are more likely to support Clinton than are those with college degrees ...... in every subgroup.. Clinton leads the Democratic field in female support. ....... Clinton's gender appears to be an asset only in the primaries ..... Giuliani defeats Clinton among white women, 51 percent to 38 percent. ...... Clinton wins less than a third of white men against both McCain and Giuliani
Live by the Cold War, Die by the Cold War Washington Post
Why Apple's iPhone is Not the Next iPod
WBOC TV 16
Lawyer: Hilton Well After Night in Jail
ABC News
Edwards, Clinton and Obama Describe Journeys of Faith
New York Times her husband’s infidelity, “I’m not sure I would have gotten through it without my faith.” ....... The event was organized by a liberal evangelical group, Sojourners, and televised by CNN. ...... “I’ve been through a faith journey in my life,” he said, adding that prayer “played a huge role in my survival” in those difficult moments. ...... Mrs. Clinton, who appeared comfortable chatting on stage with the CNN interviewer, Soledad O’Brien, and later roaming the stage while addressing the audience, drew the most rounds of applause. There were moments on stage that had an almost confessional quality for her. ...... Clinton said she took her faith “very seriously and very personally” but went on to say she came from a faith tradition, Methodism, that is “perhaps a little too suspicious of people who wear their faiths on their sleeves.” ........ She admitted that talking about her faith in public “doesn’t come naturally to me,” saying she often flashed back to “the Pharisees and all of the Sunday school lessons and readings I had as a child.” ....... “prayer warriors” who “sustained me through a very difficult time.” ...... “I am very grateful I had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought” ...... “Sometimes, I say, ‘Oh Lord, why can’t you help me lose weight.’ ” ...... He promised to build alliances across partisan lines to improve early childhood education, children’s nutrition, workers’ pay and efforts to put criminal offenders on a better path. ....... “The notion that we take away education programs in prisons, to be tough on crime, makes absolutely no sense,” Mr. Obama said. ...... Mara Vanderslice, director of religious outreach for the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004, said it would have been almost unimaginable for Democratic candidates to have participated in such an event in 2004. ..... Ms. Vanderslice recalled how difficult it was to nudge Mr. Kerry to talk about his Roman Catholic faith in a substantive way during the campaign.
Clinton, Edwards and Obama Discuss Their Faith at Forum Washington Post
What's new: Clinton says faith helped her cope USA Today
White women may prove Clinton swing bloc
Politico
Why Hillary Clinton Was the Winner of the Democratic Debate Huffington Post I said that Hillary Clinton was the winner of the Democratic debate. ...... She came across as more comfortable in her own skin, and more natural and less programmed than in the past. And she exhibited an effortless charm that those close to her often rave about but that the public rarely sees. She even scored two of the biggest laughs of the night with her zinger about Dick Cheney's diplomatic skills, and her use of Barry Goldwater's "shoot straight" line about gays in the military. ......... her campaign's foremost objective: blurring the differences between her and her opponents on Iraq ...... He could have raised substantive points, undermining her claims without in any way tarnishing his "new kind of politics" patina. ...... she had voted against an amendment put forth by Carl Levin that would have required Bush to exhaust all diplomatic approaches before invading Iraq ......... why Clinton had voted to authorize the war without reading the full National Intelligence Estimate ...... let Clinton get away with making the astounding claim that "we are safer than we were" before 9/11 -- something that is simply not true ....... the fact that Bush's policies at home and abroad have left us less safe will certainly be a key line of attack for any Democratic campaign that hopes to succeed in 2008. ....... the over-hyped arrest of a near-indigent loner who dreamed of blowing up JFK ....... Iraq is Hillary's Achilles heel. ..... The point isn't just how Clinton voted in 2002, but how she is thinking in 2007. If she really believes that we are safer now than we were before Bush invaded Iraq, she is seriously misguided -- and is on the wrong side of the national security debate that will undoubtedly be at the heart of the 2008 election. ....... The Obama campaign issued a press release Monday afternoon, "America is not safer since 9/11." ..... Recent studies by the U.S. State Department and the Council on Global Terrorism confirm that the war in Iraq has accelerated the spread of terrorism and increased the threat of attacks. .... number 1 finding -- "Five Year Assessment: As of Now, West is in a Worsening Position in Struggle Against Radical Islam." The report issued a D+ for "Combating Islamic Extremist Terrorism," saying, "there is every sign that radicalization in the Muslim world is spreading rather than shrinking." ..... threats to the U.S. at home and abroad will become more diverse and that could lead to increasing attacks worldwide ...... a 29% increase in terrorism worldwide from 2005 to 2006(much of that gain took place in Iraq and Afghanistan). The new statistics record a rise in terrorist attacks on nonmilitary targets globally to 14,338 in 2006 from 11,153 in 2005, with an increase in deaths to 20,498 from 14,618. ...... al Qaeda has trained up to 60,000 jihadists in Afghanistan
Al Qaeda Strikes Back Foreign Affairs By rushing into Iraq instead of finishing off the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Washington has unwittingly helped its enemies: al Qaeda has more bases, more partners, and more followers today than it did on the eve of 9/11. Now the group is working to set up networks in the Middle East and Africa -- and may even try to lure the United States into a war with Iran. Washington must focus on attacking al Qaeda's leaders and ideas and altering the local conditions in which they thrive.