Sunday, October 28, 2007

America Annexes Canada as 51st State

The Bush administration appears to have annexed a major Canadian landmark as part of a slick new campaign to promote U.S. tourism... A Disney-produced promotional video released last week by the departments of State and Homeland Security ...backed by a soaring orchestral soundtrack... [treats viewers] to the impressive sight and sound of water roaring over Niagara Falls. ...filmmakers, however, chose the Horseshoe Falls, the only one of Niagara's three waterfalls to lie almost entirely on the Canadian side of the border...
Don't blame me! I want to see NO Al Canook terrorism squads chasing after me with a hockey stick.

Actually, I think it's just part of Bush's Forward Strategy of Freedom. Be ready for some withering largesse to help all you folks from the Great White North rebuild from the next attack wave. I think the plan is to turn the Edmonton Mall into the Green Zone as we recruit Inuits for the counter-insurgency operations.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Canada.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Video Puts Canadian Part of Falls in US
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 28, 2007
Filed at 3:11 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Oh, Canada! The USA is closer than ever.

The Bush administration appears to have annexed a major Canadian landmark as part of a slick new campaign to promote U.S. tourism and welcome foreign visitors to America.

A Disney-produced promotional video released last week by the departments of State and Homeland Security highlights majestic American landscapes, from New England's colorful fall foliage and the Grand Canyon to the Rocky Mountains and Hawaii's pounding surf.

Backed by a soaring orchestral soundtrack, shots of those attractions are interspersed with the smiling images of people of all creeds and colors. The video, ''Welcome: Portraits of America,'' is to be played at select airports in the United States -- starting at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., and George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston -- and at U.S. embassies abroad.

About four minutes into the seven-minute production, viewers are treated to the impressive sight and sound of water roaring over Niagara Falls before the screen shifts to the Lincoln Memorial.

In showing the natural wonder, Disney's filmmakers, however, chose the Horseshoe Falls, the only one of Niagara's three waterfalls to lie almost entirely on the Canadian side of the border separating western New York state from southern Ontario province.

Making matters worse, a visitor to the U.S. would not even be able to get the same view of the falls in the video because the scene was shot from a vantage point in Canada, according to Paul Gromosiak, a Niagara Falls, N.Y., historian and author.

Also, he said the video leaves out the two cascades that actually are on U.S. territory, the American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls.

''This is not the United States, this is 100 percent Canada, shot from the Canadian side,'' Gromosiak said after reviewing the video at the request of The Associated Press. ''This is an insult.''

Although brief, the appearance of the Horseshoe Falls in a U.S. tourism promotion effort is likely to also vex Canadians, who long have fought to distinguish themselves from their larger and more powerful neighbor to the South.

The political boundary is not marked with a line through the Niagara River that divides the two countries and connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The distinction, however, is clear to most who have visited the Falls looking for a picture postcard photo to take home.

But it seems to have escaped the notice of the producers and those at the State Department and
Homeland Security Department's
Customs and Border Protection agency who presumably vetted the video before endorsing it and posting it to their Web sites.

In a separate ''making of'' video, Jay Rasulo, the chairman of Disney Parks and Resorts, speaks over the falls footage about the importance of showing would-be tourists ''the great sites, the great vistas that they dream about all their lives when they dream about America.''

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack could not speak to the scenery in the short film. But he stressed that Niagara Falls ''is a shared natural wonder, a gateway for both our countries and anyone looking at the video will understand how proud America is to share it with Canada.''
Karen Hughes, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, said in a posting to the department's blog Thursday that the production has the administration's blessing.

''This video clearly says: 'We want you to come to America, you will be most welcome,''' she said.

Hughes said she commissioned the work, which Disney shot and produced at no charge and donated, to overcome the pervasive post-Sept. 11 perception abroad that America is hostile to foreigners. She said the video is to be given maximum exposure.

''We have already sent the video and associated posters to embassies and consular offices across the world, where it will greet aspiring visitors long before they arrive on our shores,'' Hughes said.

''We're going to play it in waiting rooms and at embassy events -- and we hope it will inspire many who otherwise might not have thought about traveling to America to come and see it for themselves.'' she wrote.
Or maybe Canada.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Maritime Strategy Meets Mother Teresa

The decline in the warfighting ability of the U.S. -- which includes the will to fight -- is so precipitous under Bush (even though he didn't initiate it, just accelerated it) it is frightening.

"In the first major revision of U.S. naval strategy in two decades, maritime officials said Wednesday they plan to focus more on humanitarian missions and improving international cooperation as a way to prevent conflicts."

''Credible combat power will be continuously posted in
the Western Pacific and the Arabian Gulf/Indian Ocean to protect our vital interests, assure our friends ... and deter and dissuade potential adversaries,'' the strategy document said.

In what way is combat power "credible" when A.) the Navy is shrinking to the smallest number of ships since before WWII (something like 275 if memory serves me), and B.) every act of our government these days is to prove that our armed forces wouldn't attack a rubber duckie?
Defense Secretary Robert Gates hinted at the cooperative strategy during his recent five-country swing through Central and South America. Pointing to the recent tour of the Navy hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, which delivered medical care to people in 12 Latin American countries, Gates said such aid is critical to solidifying U.S. bonds with other nations.

Adm. Mike Mullen -- who just left his job as head of the Navy to
become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- has said he sees the Navy's humanitarian work as key to the effort to defeat terrorism by winning hearts and minds.
There was another story earlier this week from Gen. Sanchez (formerly leading the Iraq war) echoing similar tripe. Read the story below (it's short) and you'll see more of this idiocy. Truly, and I mean this, we need to make it death to the careers of general officers if they get degrees in international relations instead of in warfighting. Almost all these guys now get advanced degrees in peace-making nonsense from Ivy league schools to help their promotion chances. Time for it to end.

The basis for this story is a 16 page tract (attached) published by these wanna-bes who lay out their mission statement for saving the world with kindness. I figured it worth a look. That's the nature of forensic pathology.

(Apologies for the size of the attachment -- it takes the Department of Defense to turn a 16 page text document into a 1 megabyte PDF file. Do you know the definition of an elephant? A mouse built to government specifications. The elephant in this case is a lot of pictures of ships and planes and children and laughing people in foreign lands, all working in harmony with Our Guys. )

For instance, the conclusion of this mini-tome of bureaucratese and management jargon,
"The strategy focuses on opportunities - not threats; on optimism - not fear; and on confidence - not doubt. It recognizes the challenges imposed by the uncertain conditions in a time of rapid change and makes the case for the necessity of U.S. seapower in the 21st Century."
You get the idea. The upshot is that there's a lot of ocean out there, a lot of people nearby, and all the human suffering near the sea needs peace corp volunteers on Navy ships:
"Mass communications will highlight the drama of human suffering, and disadvantaged populations will be ever more painfully aware and less tolerant of their conditions. Extremist ideologies will become increasingly attractive to those in despair and bereft of opportunity. Criminal elements will also exploit this social instability."
Essentially, this policy statement is institutionalizing (well, it's one example of how it is being institutionalized) the notion that the *cause* of conflicts, like ours with countries of the Middle East or North Korea (don't forget how much grain and nuclear technology we have given the North, even as we let them devalue the dollar by printing billions every year in counterfeit currency), is unhappiness, suffering, misery, yadayada:
"A key to fostering such relationships is development of sufficient cultural, historical, and linguistic expertise among our Sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen to nurture effective interaction with diverse international partners."
Now I ask you, would you want these fools leading you into battle? That is, some graduate of a college for kindergarten teachers who puts "nurturing abilities" on a par with warfighting?
"Building and reinvigorating these relationships through Theater Security Cooperation requires an increased focus on capacity-building, humanitarian assistance, regional frameworks for improving maritime governance, and cooperation in enforcing the rule of law in the maritime domain."
I think that "capacity building" part is how we're training the Iraqi police and armed forces to be useful allies of Iran -- and think Somalia for the humanitarian assistance part. Come to think of it, recall the story yesterday about how piracy attacks off the coast of Somalia and other places (even several hundred miles at sea) surged to an all-time high this year. There's the "rule of law in the maritime domain" part of this mission statement. Our need to cooperate with the U.N. has left us paralyzed to actually deal with even a few tribesman in wooden boats. But Our Guys even have the gall to add,
"To this end, the Global Maritime Partnerships initiative seeks a cooperative approach to maritime security, promoting the rule of law by countering piracy, ..."
How's that working for you? Go ride a small ship or boat off the Horn of Africa sometime. You'll learn the "law of the sea", arrrhh. Shiver me timbers.

Our wannabe saints then ramble on in a state of Christian rapture suitable for Joan of Arc,
"When natural or manmade disasters strike, our maritime forces can provide humanitarian assistance and relief, joining with interagency and non-governmental partners."
You can see their eyes looking up to heaven past the brim of their service hats. Here's where they really start speaking in tongues:
"Building on relationships forged in times of calm, we will continue to mitigate human suffering as the vanguard of interagency and multinational efforts, both in a deliberate, proactive fashion and in response to crises. Human suffering
moves us to act, and the expeditionary character of maritime forces uniquely positions them to provide assistance."
Makes me ill to think these yahoos are supposed to defend us, but I really feel sorry for the poor devils under them.

They say that to be a saint you have to perform at least three (or five, depending on the time and storyteller) miracles. I'm thinking our Admirals and Generals who got promoted based on a warfighting philosophy of pacifism and Christian charity and kindness performed one miracle, but I don't see any more coming along. They better forget about preparing those acceptance speeches at the Vatican.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Maritime-Strategy.html
Preventing War Leads New Naval Strategy
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 17, 2007
Filed at 1:40 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the first major revision of U.S. naval strategy in two decades, maritime officials said Wednesday they plan to focus more on humanitarian missions and improving international cooperation as a way to prevent conflicts.

''We believe that preventing wars is as important as winning wars,'' said the new strategy announced by the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.

The strategy reflects a broader Defense Department effort to use aid, training and other cooperative efforts to encourage stability in fledgling democracies and create relationships around the globe that can be leveraged if a crisis does break out in a region.

''Although our forces can surge when necessary to respond to crises, trust and cooperation cannot be surged,'' says the 16-page document entitled ''A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.''

It also says forces will be concentrated ''where tensions are high or where we wish to demonstrate to our friends and allies our commitment to security'' -- something the U.S. did earlier this year in sending an additional aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf region as a show of force toward Iran.
''Credible combat power will be continuously posted in the Western Pacific and the Arabian Gulf/Indian Ocean to protect our vital interests, assure our friends ... and deter and dissuade potential adversaries,'' the strategy document said.

The strategy was unveiled before naval representatives of 100 countries who are attending an international symposium on the seas at the Naval War College in Rhode Island. It was described to them by Navy Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations; Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, and Adm. Thad W. Allen, commandant of the Coast Guard.

Roughead said the Navy completed a two-year study to create the new strategy.

''What came through was that our security and our prosperity is completely linked to the security and prosperity of other nations throughout the world,'' he said.

It represents the first time the Navy, the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard have collaborated on a single, common strategy for defending the U.S. homeland and protecting U.S. interests overseas.

The Sept. 11 terror attacks demonstrated how the Navy's last major strategy, released publicly in 1986, had become irrelevant, Navy Cmdr. Bryan McGrath said. Drafted during the Cold War, the old plan focused on countering Soviet naval power across the globe.

''It was a war plan at its heart,'' McGrath said. ''When the Soviet Union fell, there was a lack of a big blue competitor.''

Defense Secretary Robert Gates hinted at the cooperative strategy during his recent five-country swing through Central and South America. Pointing to the recent tour of the Navy hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, which delivered medical care to people in 12 Latin American countries, Gates said such aid is critical to solidifying U.S. bonds with other nations. The USS Peleliu amphibious ship recently returned from a four-month tour in the Pacific and the USS Fort McHenry is heading this week for a seven-month mission along the west coast of Africa.

Conway said the Marine Corps supported the strategy, but was more focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Marines now most closely resemble the Army, he said.

''We are an expeditionary force by our nature. We go down to the sea in ships, but right now, we are very much taking on a profile as a second land army,'' Conway said.

Adm. Mike Mullen -- who just left his job as head of the Navy to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- has said he sees the Navy's humanitarian work as key to the effort to defeat terrorism by winning hearts and minds.

When Roughead succeeded Mullen at the Navy last week, he called in a speech for more international partnerships to make the Navy a ''force for good'' around the globe.

------
Associated Press reporter Lolita Baldor contributed to this report from Washington and reporter Ray Henry contributed from Newport, R.I.

Dot-com or bust

Anyone concerned about the little things affecting the economy, like the sub-prime mortgage crisis, the real estate crisis, the explosion in personal bankruptcies, the ballooning of federal spending, the decline in the dollar, the wild speculation in Chinese and Indian markets, the Japanese and Chinese exodus from the dollar, the potential for major wars in the world, and the like, might add to their list of things to consider the NYTimes story copied below:

This month, eBay conceded it had grossly overpaid for Skype by about $1.43 billion...“We are almost going back to year 2000 types of errors,” said Aaron Kessler, an Internet analyst at Piper Jaffray. Internet companies “are buying users instead of revenue and profitability,” he said. ...in the first dot-com gold rush, Internet companies did not have to make money to acquire serious investments dollars. Now that once again is true.

Twitter, a company in San Francisco that lets users alert friends to what they are doing at any given moment over their mobile phones, recently raised an undisclosed amount of financing. Its co-founder and creative director, Biz Stone, says that the company was not currently focused on making money and that no one in the company was even working on how to do so....

Mr. O’Kelley, formerly of Right Media, said other entrepreneurs had begun to think that the financing game is best played by avoiding actual revenues — since that only limits the imagination of investors. “It’s a screwed-up incentive structure, just like you had in the first bubble,” he said.

...Venture capitalists are flush with cash from institutional investors, eager for Internet-style returns on their money. “The upward valuations pressure is the result of decisions being made by people wearing suits in cities like New York and Boston who would never ever meet with start-ups,” Mr. Andreessen said in an interview. “If that ever goes away, it will have consequences. But it doesn’t look like they will change their minds.”

I go back to a hypothesis I've long had, that errors of this kind are philosophical in nature, but in particular, that a key middle-man in this madness has to be nonsense being taught in schools of business. A generation or two of graduates who neither understand nor care about the correct principles of valuation of a business has acquired the psychological traits of gamblers and witch doctors. (Not that in any generation there aren't plenty of investors with those traits, but there's got to be some percentage who know what they are doing to provide the necessary feedback for corrections to prevent a major crash.)

FYI, I'm not a doom-and-gloomer. There are positive trends, and there can be valid reasons for investing large amounts in companies with no immediate revenue, but it has to be based on real revenue projections based on realistic growth, not idle hope. There seems to be too little due diligence for many of these companies, and that puts the investment in the ranks of gambling and snake-healing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/business/media/17bubble.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
October 17, 2007
Silicon Valley Start-Ups Awash in Dollars, Again
By BRAD STONE and MATT RICHTEL

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 16 — Silicon Valley’s math is getting fuzzy again.
Internet companies with funny names, little revenue and few customers are commanding high prices. And investors, having seemingly forgotten the pain of the first dot-com bust, are displaying symptoms of the disorder known as irrational exuberance.

Consider Facebook, the popular but financially unproven social network, which is reportedly being valued by investors at up to $15 billion. That is nearly half the value of Yahoo, a company with 38 times the number of employees and, based on estimates of Facebook’s income, 32 times the revenue.

Google, which recently surged past $600 a share, is now worth more than I.B.M., a company with eight times the revenue.

More broadly, Internet start-ups are drawing investment based on their ability to build an audience, not bring in revenue — the very alchemy that many say led to the inflation and bursting of the dot-com bubble.
The surge in the perceived value of some start-ups has even surprised some entrepreneurs who are benefiting from it.

A year ago, Yahoo invested in Right Media, a New York-based company developing an online advertising network. Yahoo’s investment valued the firm at $200 million. Six months later, when Yahoo acquired Right Media outright, the purchase price had swelled to $850 million.

What changed? According to Right Media’s chief technology officer, Brian O’Kelley, very little, except that Yahoo’s rivals, Microsoft and Google, were writing billion-dollar checks to buy online advertising networks, and Yahoo thought it needed to pay any price to keep up.

“I have to say I giggled,” Mr. O’Kelley, 30, said of the deal that earned him millions. He has since left Right Media and is starting another company.

“There is no way we quadrupled the value of the company in six months.”
The trend is described as a return to madness (by skeptics) or as a rational approach to unlimited opportunities presented by the Internet (by true believers). Greed, fear and a desperate rush to pick the next big winner are all adding fuel to the fire that is Silicon Valley’s resurgence.

“There’s definitely a lot of betting going on, and it’s not rational,” said Tim O’Reilly, a technology conference promoter and book publisher.

Mr. O’Reilly is credited with coining the phrase “Web 2.0,” which refers to a new generation of Web sites that encourage users to contribute material. His Web 2.0 conference, which begins Wednesday in San Francisco, has become a nexus for the optimism around the latest set of society-changing online tools. But that has not stopped Mr. O’Reilly from worrying that the industry is minting too many copycat companies, half-baked business plans and overpriced buyouts.

When the bubble inevitably pops, he said, “there are going to be a lot of people out of work again.”

Putting a value on start-ups has always been a mix of science and speculation. But as in the first dot-com boom and the recent surge in housing, seasoned financial professionals are seeming to indulge in some strange instinct to turn away from the science and lean instead on the speculation.

This time around, people indulging in that optimistic thinking are not mom-and-pop investors or day traders but venture capitalists whose coffers are overflowing with money from university endowments and hedge funds. Many of those financial professionals say that this time, everything is different.

More than 1.3 billion people around the world use the Internet, many with speedy broadband connections and a willingness to immerse themselves in digital culture. The flood of advertising dollars to the Web has become an indomitable trend and a proven way for these start-ups to make money, while the revenue models of the dot-coms of yesteryear were often little more than sleight of hand.

“The environmental factors are much different than they were eight years ago,” said Roelof Botha, a partner at Sequoia Capital and an early backer of YouTube. “The cost of doing business has declined dramatically, and traditional media companies have also woken up to the opportunities of the Web.

“That does open up the aperture for a different outcome this time,” he said.
Some trace the start of the new bubble to eBay’s $3.1 billion acquisition of the Internet telephone start-up Skype in 2005. EBay’s chief executive, Meg Whitman, reportedly outbid Google for the company. This month, eBay conceded it had grossly overpaid for Skype by about $1.43 billion, and announced that Niklas Zennstrom, a Skype co-founder, had left the company.

Google’s acquisition of YouTube last year for $1.65 billion, under similarly competitive bidding, might have accelerated the transition to loftier values. Google executives and many analysts argued that YouTube was well worth the price tag if it became the next entertainment juggernaut.

It still might. More than 205 million people visit YouTube each month, according to the research firm comScore. Still, Citigroup estimated that YouTube would bring in $135 million in revenue next year. At that rate, YouTube would have to grow considerably to account for just 5 percent of Google’s annual revenue of nearly $12 billion.

“We are almost going back to year 2000 types of errors,” said Aaron Kessler, an Internet analyst at Piper Jaffray. Internet companies “are buying users instead of revenue and profitability,” he said.

The Skype and YouTube windfalls helped to give the newest batch of Internet entrepreneurs dreams of improbable wealth. They also brought back practices that had seemingly been discredited during the first boom. For example, in the first dot-com gold rush, Internet companies did not have to make money to acquire serious investments dollars. Now that once again is true.

Twitter, a company in San Francisco that lets users alert friends to what they are doing at any given moment over their mobile phones, recently raised an undisclosed amount of financing. Its co-founder and creative director, Biz Stone, says that the company was not currently focused on making money and that no one in the company was even working on how to do so.

“At the moment, we’re focused on growing our network and our user experience,” he said. “When you have a lot of traffic, there’s always a clear business model.”

That is not necessarily illogical in the current climate. A European competitor, Jaiku, which is similarly devoid of a mature business model, was acquired last week by Google for an undisclosed sum. With the competitive logic that prevails at the major Internet companies, the deal might have further raised Twitter’s appeal to Google’s rivals.

The high value placed on many start-ups and minimal requirements for financial performance are raising expectations of other entrepreneurs. Sharon Wienbar, managing director of Scale Ventures Partners, an investment firm, cited the $100 million valuation that investors gave to the Internet genealogy site Geni.com, founded last year in Los Angeles by a veteran of PayPal.

“Now every entrepreneur thinks he should get that,” Ms. Wienbar said. “I have a feeling a lot of entrepreneurs are secretly meeting for beers on the Peninsula, saying, ‘Hey, look what I got.’”

Mr. O’Kelley, formerly of Right Media, said other entrepreneurs had begun to think that the financing game is best played by avoiding actual revenues — since that only limits the imagination of investors. “It’s a screwed-up incentive structure, just like you had in the first bubble,” he said.

Another company benefiting from the exuberance is Ning, which allows users to create their own MySpace-style ad-supported social networks. It was recently valued by investors at more than $200 million, mainly because its main backer and founder, Marc Andreessen, has a successful history with the Internet hits Netscape and Opsware.

Mr. Andreessen argues on his blog that there is no bubble and that the high prices represent a rational desire to stake a claim in the potentially huge markets of the future. But he acknowledges that a seemingly inexhaustible flood of capital into Silicon Valley is helping to power the boom. Venture capitalists are flush with cash from institutional investors, eager for Internet-style returns on their money.

“The upward valuations pressure is the result of decisions being made by people wearing suits in cities like New York and Boston who would never ever meet with start-ups,” Mr. Andreessen said in an interview. “If that ever goes away, it will have consequences. But it doesn’t look like they will change their minds.”

Monday, October 15, 2007

Food for gumming

State-run health care at its best. Where will it end next? People taking out their own appendi? Self-help books on performing open heart surgery on family members? Brain surgery for dummies?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071015/wl_uk_afp/britainhealthdentists

English 'pull own teeth' as dental service decays
Mon Oct 15, 7:19 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - Falling numbers of state dentists in England has led to some people taking extreme measures, including extracting their own teeth, according to a new study released Monday.

Falling numbers of state dentists in England has led to some people taking extreme measures, including extracting their own teeth, according to a new study released Monday.

Others have used superglue to stick crowns back on, rather than stumping up for private treatment, said the study. One person spoke of carrying out 14 separate extractions on himself with pliers.

More typically, a lack of publicly-funded dentists means that growing numbers go private: 78 percent of private patients said they were there because they could not find a National Health Service (NHS) dentist, and only 15 percent because of better treatment.

"This is an uncomfortable read for all of us, and poses serious questions to politicians from patients," said Sharon Grant of the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health.

Overall, six percent of patients had resorted to self-treatment, according to the survey of 5,000 patients in England, which found that one in five had decided against dental work because of the cost.

One researcher involved in compiling the study -- carried out by members of England's Patient and Public Involvement Forums -- came across three people in one morning who had pulled out teeth themselves.

Dentists are also concerned about the trend.

Fifty-eight percent said new dentists' contracts introduced last year had made the quality of care worse, while 84 percent thought they had failed to make it easier for patients to find care.

Almost half of all dentists -- 45 percent -- said they no longer take NHS patients, while 41 percent said they had an "excessive" workload. Twenty-nine percent said their clinic had problems recruiting or retaining dentists.
"These findings indicate that the NHS dental system is letting many patients down very badly," said Grant.

"It appears many are being forced to go private because they don't want to lose their current trusted and respected dentist or because they just can't find a local NHS dentist."

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Ahmadinejad and Islam - Things don't look good

I've noticed that a lot of "senior statesmen", back in January (Kissinger, Schultz, Perry, Nunn, etc), predated Obama's call (yesterday's news) for eliminating all nukes in the U.S. arsenal. (He wants everybody to give up their nukes, actually, but this sort of foreign policy would leave the U.S. the main one standing in this game of musical chairs.)
"In setting a goal of eliminating nuclear weapons in the world, Mr. Obama is endorsing a call for “urgent new actions” to prevent a new nuclear era that was laid out in January in a commentary in The Wall Street Journal written by several former government officials. The authors of the article were George P. Shultz, secretary of state in the Reagan administration; Henry Kissinger, secretary of state in the Nixon and Ford administrations; William J. Perry, secretary of defense in the Clinton administration; and Sam Nunn, a former chairman of the Senate Armed Services
Committee. "
Have you noticed that when a lot of people get older they often renounce the opinions of their "youth" and decide they want to get on a moral soapbox embracing stupid ideas? There for you is the ultimate resolution between the philosophy of pragmatism and the morality of altruism. The pragmatists, unable to morally defend their philosophy (or even identify it as such), even over such a "minor" thing as defending the nation, choose to embrace the lunacy of ideas such as pacifism. It is scary.

Among the "reformed" one might include the loons who "get religion" in their later years. Bush and a zillion other formerly debauched who embrace Jesus and turn the other cheek. I might include today's obsession with non-violence towards civilians in enemy countries. But now we're broadening this small observation into including all the loony manifestations of altruism, self-sacrifice and sacrifice as such as methods of non-accounting of values. (That is, accountants measure earthly values relative to net gain; sacrifice demands you measure value against a non-earthly standard, so all the earthly values come out as net losses.)
Robb

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/us/politics/02obama.html?ei=5090&en=4a51a9a9cb0279f0&ex=1348977600&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
October 2, 2007
Obama to Urge Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
By JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — Senator Barack Obama will propose on Tuesday setting a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world, saying the United States should greatly reduce its stockpiles to lower the threat of nuclear terrorism, aides say.

In a speech at DePaul University in Chicago, Mr. Obama will add his voice to a plan endorsed earlier this year by a bipartisan group of former government officials from the cold war era who say the United States must begin building a global consensus to reverse a reliance on nuclear weapons that have become “increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.”
Mr. Obama, according to details provided by his campaign Monday, also will call for pursuing vigorous diplomatic efforts aimed at a global ban on the development, production and deployment of intermediate-range missiles.

“In 2009, we will have a window of opportunity to renew our global leadership and bring our nation together,” Mr. Obama is planning to say, according to an excerpt of remarks provided by his aides. “If we don’t seize that moment, we may not get another.”

His speech was to come one day after an announcement by the Bush administration that it had tripled the rate of dismantling nuclear weapons over the last year, putting the United States on track to reducing its stockpile of weapons by half by 2012.

The exact number of weapons being dismantled, like the overall stockpile, is secret, but officials said Monday that with the planned reductions, the total number of American nuclear weapons would be at the lowest levels since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president.

Under a 2002 treaty, the United States and Russia agreed to limit the number of operational nuclear weapons in their arsenals to between 1,700 and 2,200 by 2012, though that agreement did not address weapons in reserve stockpiles.

Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, is seeking to draw attention to his foreign policy views with the approach of the fifth anniversary of the Congressional vote authorizing military action in Iraq. He is highlighting his early opposition to the war, which he argues is a sign of judgment that is more important than the number of years served in Washington.

Mr. Obama, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, often tells voters that the Iraq war has consumed American foreign policy to the detriment of its ability to address other threats facing the nation. In his speech on Tuesday, aides said, Mr. Obama will assert, as he has before, that the United States should not threaten terrorist training camps with nuclear weapons.

If elected, Mr. Obama plans to say, he will lead a global effort to secure nuclear weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years. He also will pledge to end production of fissile material for weapons, agree not to build new weapons and remove any remaining nuclear weapons from hair-trigger alert.

In his speech, according to a campaign briefing paper, Mr. Obama also will call for using a combination of diplomacy and pressure to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. Aides did not say what Mr. Obama intended to do if diplomacy and sanctions failed.

In setting a goal of eliminating nuclear weapons in the world, Mr. Obama is endorsing a call for “urgent new actions” to prevent a new nuclear era that was laid out in January in a commentary in The Wall Street Journal written by several former government officials. The authors of the article were George P. Shultz, secretary of state in the Reagan administration; Henry Kissinger, secretary of state in the Nixon and Ford administrations; William J. Perry, secretary of defense in the Clinton administration; and Sam Nunn, a former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

David E. Sanger and Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Bush Dismantles Nuclear Arsenal

Note that while the pace of dismantling U.S. nuclear warheads is going three times faster than planned,
"The House stripped away money for the replacement warhead program from the Energy Department's upcoming budget, while the Senate agreed to only partially fund the program. A final budget has yet to be approved in Congress."
In other words, George "Woodrow Wilson" Bush could well be leaving the U.S. with few warheads at all if there are no replacements authorized by the Dems, who must love this.

I've read elsewhere that the nuclear weapon reduction, even with replacements, is supposed to leave the U.S. with only 2000 warheads. (At the peak of the Cold War, we had 27,000 warheads.) Israel itself is reported to have at least 1000 warheads. How many does China have now? How many will they have in 10 years? I do think there is negotiating power in relative numbers, and if you're the U.S. with many less than China, or an alliance of convenience of China, Iran, Soviet Union, you look weak.

Now, granted that we wouldn't likely use even 2000 warheads in a major war. There is still deterrent value in more of them, and you certainly have to anticipate a lot of losses in a first strike -- nuclear storage bunkers and subs are likely high priority targets, especially since we no longer fly nukes. (The brouhaha a couple weeks ago about a B-52 transporting SRAMs for dismantling proves that.) Subs are not nearly so stealthy a deterrent as they used to be (I've heard the Chinese and Russians can track our Trident's reasonably well), and Bush has also been converting Trident missile subs (probably our best deterrent in the cold war, and even in a future conflict with China, even if they can be tracked) to carry conventional warheads.


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Nuclear-Warheads.html
U.S. Makes Gains in Dismantling Warheads
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 1, 2007
Filed at 12:09 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. is dismantling unneeded nuclear warheads at a faster pace than forecast as it substantially reduces its atomic arsenal under terms of an arms control treaty with Russia, government officials said Sunday.

The Bush administration planned to announce Monday that it has taken apart three times as many reserve warheads in the just-completed budget year than it had projected and expects the rapid pace of dismantlement to continue.

At the same time, a report by an independent science advisory group has concluded that ''substantial work remains'' before a new generation of warheads will be fit for certification without underground nuclear testing.
The findings are expected to provide congressional opponents of the warhead program with additional reasons to hold back money for the project. The administration views development of the replacement warhead as essential for keeping a secure and more easily maintained nuclear stockpile as warheads age.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, part of the Energy Department, reports a 146 percent increase in dismantled nuclear warheads during the 2007 budget year, which ended Sunday. That is triple the agency's original goal.

The agency is believed to be dismantling thousands of warheads, taking out their plutonium, uranium and non-nuclear high explosive components. The agency did not said how many warheads it had taken apart, nor how many remain to be worked on because the numbers are classified.

The progress ''sends a clear message to the world that this administration remains committed to reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the U.S. nuclear stockpile,'' said the agency's administrator, Thomas D'Agostino.
The government will not provide any numbers on the overall size of the nuclear stockpile, but there are believed to be nearly 6,000 warheads that either are deployed or in active reserve.

Under the 2002 treaty with Russia, the U.S. is committed to reducing the number of deployed warheads to between 1,700 and 2200 by 2012.
Three years ago, President Bush said he wanted the overall stockpile reduced to half of what it was in the 1950s, or to a level of about one-quarter of its size at the end of the Cold War.

The group of scientists who regularly advise the government on nuclear weapons matters has told Congress that the proposed replacement warhead will require further development and experiments to assure against possible failure, absent actual underground testing.

''Substantial work remains on the physical understanding'' of the mechanisms involved to assure the warhead will perform reliably, according to a report to Congress on Friday.

Officials at the nuclear agency said they were gratified that the report supported the idea that the replacement warhead can be developed without actually detonating a device in an underground test. That has been an important criteria for moving forward with the program if Congress provides money.

D'Agostino says the warhead is necessary to make the nuclear arsenal more secure, safer and reliable in the future.

''We embrace the ideas of continued study and peer review,'' he said in a statement in response to the report.

Last May, the agency chose a research effort at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California for the replacement warhead. The administration hopes to develop a clearer timetable and cost estimate for the project in the next year, but so far some members of Congress have been skeptical about the program.

The House stripped away money for the replacement warhead program from the Energy Department's upcoming budget, while the Senate agreed to only partially fund the program. A final budget has yet to be approved in Congress.

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On the Net:
National Nuclear Security Administration: http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/