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May 8, 2005
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U.S. doubts Iraq rebels can keep it up
Deadly weekend for U.S. troops in Iraq
Posted by: Nugget | May 8 2005 23:25 utc | 1
You know, if you showed those two headlines to the current administration, the sad irony would be lost on them.
But, of course, you couldn’t show that to them because Bush only allows his minions to read newspapers that are written in crayon and have pictures of birds, rainbows, and puppy dogs.
Posted by: ides | May 9 2005 0:26 utc | 2
Private England is ‘surprised’ at row over abuse photos
“….I thought it was odd, kind of weird, but, it was kind of like, if everyone else is doing it, you know, you’re doing it.”
Posted by: Nugget | May 9 2005 0:54 utc | 3
You know, if you showed those two headlines to the current administration, the sad irony would be lost on them.
Actually Ides, I think they would see one as proof of the other.
Posted by: Bubb Rubb | May 9 2005 1:34 utc | 4
Ability to track costs in Iraq may be difficult, report says
Auditors monitoring reconstruction funding in Iraq are concerned that the system for managing work there is so diffuse that the government may not be able to get an accurate estimate of how much its projects cost, according to an inspector general’s report set for release today.
Congress allocated $18.4 billion for Iraqi reconstruction in 2003, of which about a quarter had been spent as of April. The money was intended for programs aimed at restoring basic services to the Iraqis, such as electricity, water, health care and education after the U.S. invasion in spring 2003.
But auditors with the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction say the lack of accurate cost estimates raises the possibility that the government could be stuck without enough money to pay for reconstruction programs already begun. “That’s always a danger if you don’t know how much you’ve spent,” said James Mitchell, spokesman for special Inspector General Stuart W. Bowen Jr.
The report points to projects under an Army reconstruction program that were more than 90 percent complete and had cost more than 50 percent above the initial estimate. It also cites U.S Agency for International Development projects that are more than half complete and are on track to cost 85.5 percent more than estimated.
The report notes that security costs in particular have been higher than expected, as the Iraqi resistance continues to create a dangerous environment for workers….
…The State Department manages 6.4 percent of the money Congress appropriated. The Defense Department manages 70 percent and Marine Lt. Col. Rose Ann Lynch, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said in a written statement that her department also took issue with the report’s findings. Defense officials in Iraq, she said, have put in place “a comprehensive cost management plan to make sure they stay on top of cost data and have adequate funds to complete projects.”
The $18.4 billion in U.S. government funding was divided into different categories with targets for each, though the priorities have changed along the way. Most notably, nearly $3.5 billion was moved out of water, sanitation and electricity funds in September, with about half that total shifted to security.
The inspector general report released today cites a review of U.S. AID contracts that found that of $673.8 million spent, $70.8 million was committed to security. The share of security spending grew as time went on: From March 2003 to February 2004, it was 4.2 percent, before climbing to 22.3 percent for the rest of 2004.
An overall percentage of reconstruction funds being spent on security was not available….
Posted by: Nugget | May 9 2005 2:54 utc | 5
Homeland Security Technology offers GPS systems with Iraq street maps to U.S. armed forces
Posted by: Nugget | May 9 2005 3:57 utc | 6
I’m in debt for my depressing posts on “Lupin’s thread” today. So, here’s payback…
Has anybody heard of Salt Spring Island, British Columbia?? As I was poking around their news website, debating whether or not to link, I discovered that they have a link to both parts of Billmon’s Chicken & Egg. Any community w/a newsite this good probably contains the remnants of civilization.
Posted by: jj | May 9 2005 4:59 utc | 8
Bizarre post by Brad DeLong about GÜnter Grass piece in the NYT:
Crypto-Nazi scum?
Posted by: biklett | May 9 2005 6:02 utc | 9
From the sovereign, democratic Iraq:
Amidst doubts, CIA hangs on to control of Iraqi intelligence service
The CIA has so far refused to hand over control of Iraq’s intelligence service to the newly elected Iraqi government in a turf war that exposes serious doubts the Bush administration has over the ability of Iraqi leaders to fight the insurgency and worries about the new government’s close ties to Iran.
The director of Iraq’s secret police, a general who took part in a failed coup attempt against Saddam Hussein, was handpicked and funded by the U.S. government, and he still reports directly to the CIA, Iraqi politicians and intelligence officials in Baghdad said last week. Immediately after the elections in January, several Iraqi officials said, U.S. forces stashed the sensitive national intelligence archives of the past year inside American headquarters in Baghdad in order to keep them off-limits to the new government.
…
Many of the Shiite Muslims now in power seem beholden to Iran for the neighboring regime’s gifts of refuge and funding for their opposition parties during Saddam’s reign. Handing the files to an Iran-friendly Baghdad administration would be tantamount to passing the intelligence to Tehran, said three U.S. officials in Washington, who all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.
@biklett – DeLong must have off his meds when posting that pamphlet. Thank god the commentators stayed sane.
One of the interesting things about blogs is watching the writers spouting nonsense every so often. Steve Gilliard is great on all sorts of political stuff, but his writings on relationships are bizarre. Brad DeLong flies off the handle semi-regularly and rants like a loon. And then there’s b’s taste in music …
This makes me seriously angry:
Murdoch seeks help of EBRD to develop in Russia
and Murdoch targets Russian billboards
Rupert Murdoch is making an aggressive push into outdoor advertising, seeking to fund an acquisition spree in Russia with a £69m loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
News Outdoor Russia, a division of Mr Murdoch’s US media company, News Corporation, hopes to use the loan to help finance several takeovers and circumvent the crowded western European billboard market dominated by Clear Channel, Viacom and JC Decaux.
“The loan will be used to facilitate creation of a pan-regional outdoor advertising network spanning several former Soviet republics by the company through acquisition of several local outdoor operators,” according to bank documents reported by the Financial Times.
A public financed loan for Murdoch to monopolize the billboard markets in former Soviet republics. What the fuck are those European bankers thinking?
The Fall of Empires is not necessarily a bad thing. As Hari Seldon explains to Gal Dornick in Asimov’s FOUNDATION, it is necessary for the Empire to fall in order for something better to arise in its stead.
The Hindu paradigm of destruction and creation remains true: out of the ashes, etc. Our grandfathers lived through 1912 and 1922, the eve of destruction and the rebirth of the Annees Folles.
Posted by: Lupin | May 9 2005 11:01 utc | 14
A review of Truman Capote’s letters.
Link
Fun and funny.
Just trying to elevate the level of discourse here.
Posted by: Groucho | May 9 2005 12:30 utc | 15
From the Financial Times: US tourism ‘losing billions because of image’
The number of international visitors last year rose 12 per cent, compared to 2003, to 46.1m, according to the US Commerce Department. They spent $93.7bn, or 17 per cent more than their counterparts the previous year. However, US market share of foreign visitors is still down 38 per cent since 1992, according to the TIA. The number of global travellers has grown by 2 per cent to 770m since 2000, but US market share has not kept pace. “Our piece of the pie has shrunk by 5m visitors,” said Mr Dow.
The weak US dollar has boosted the number of international visitors, but given favourable currency rates for many foreigners, those numbers should be far higher.
Posted by: Fran | May 9 2005 13:56 utc | 16
I’m certainly put off travelling to the US. I’m struggling with myself to justify a trip to New York or New England before a regime change takes place.
Colman, bet we could set up a nice network of places for you to visit with nice people. Hell with the regime.
Posted by: beq | May 9 2005 15:36 utc | 18
Yes, I know, and it seems a bit silly to be avoiding a whole country for the behaviour of 50.3% or whatever, but it would mean dealing with your kooky security crowd and possibly even republicans. We were half thinking about a trip to New York before Christmas, but it looks like there’s a subsidised trip to Prague due about that time … eh, we’ll see how it goes.
Andy Xie of Morgan Stanley has an economic article today, which I could describe it as the most important piece on global economics I have read for many months.
…The large US trade deficit has increased the supply of dollars in the global economy. As China’s currency is pegged to the dollar, the increased dollar supply has triggered a property boom in China. The Chinese economy is experiencing overheating as a result, and this is attracting speculation in the currency. The hot money inflow has made the economy even more overheated and pushed up prices of raw materials further. The US trade deficit, hence, continues to expand. From China’s perspective, the best solution is for the US to raise interest rates to cool its consumption, which would end the inflow of hot money into China. This would be the best scenario for China to achieve a soft landing.
The US, however, is already worried about growth rates being too low and may be seeking to lower the trade deficit. A hard landing for China’s investment could serve this purpose nicely. If China’s investment were to crash, I estimate the lower import prices for the US could bring its trade deficit down by one-third. The inflationary pressure on the US economy would also likely dissipate. The dollar would strengthen, similar to what occurred during the Asian Financial Crisis. The Fed could cut interest rates, which would prolong the US housing bubble. In short, a hard landing for China would lower consumption costs for the US and boost its asset prices, similar to the impact of the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98 on the US economy.
It is in China’s interests for the US to raise interest rates, while it is in the interests of the US to see a hard landing from China’s investment boom. This pretty much summarizes the opposed interests of the two…
Posted by: Greco | May 9 2005 15:52 utc | 20
Colman, I have the same feelings about traveling to the US. I used to spend quite a bit of time there. But now I feel a great reluctance to go there. I do hope that a time will come when it will be a free and open feeling to travel to the US. Also to Florida – with their new self-defense law.
Just dropped in to the Huffington Post and don’t know yet what to make of it. But I found the following, which sounds interessting. I let those of you, who know more about the oil business, be the judge of this scenario. This is from a new book to come out this month:
HUFFINGTON POST EXCLUSIVE: EMBARGOED BOOK CLAIMS SAUDI OIL INFRASTRUCTURE RIGGED FOR CATASTROPHIC SELF-DESTRUCTION
Bestselling author Gerald Posner lays out this “doomsday scenario” in his forthcoming “Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Saudi-US Connection” (Random House).
According to the book, which will be released to the public on May 17, based on National Security Agency electronic intercepts, the Saudi Arabian government has in place a nationwide, self-destruction explosive system composed of conventional explosives and dirty bombs strategically placed at the Kingdom’s key oil ports, pipelines, pumping stations, storage tanks, offshore platforms, and backup facilities. If activated, the bombs would destroy the infrastructure of the world’s largest oil supplier, and leave the country a contaminated nuclear wasteland ensuring that the Kingdom’s oil would be unusable to anyone. The NSA file is dubbed internally Petro SE, for petroleum scorched earth.
To make certain that the damaged facilities cannot be rebuilt, the Saudis have deployed crude Radioactive Dispersal Devices (RDDs) throughout the Kingdom. Built covertly over several years, these dirty bombs are in place at — among other locations — all eight of the Kingdom’s refineries, sections of the world’s largest oil field at Ghawar, and at three of the ten indispensable processing towers at the largest-ever processing complex at Abqaiq.
Posted by: Fran | May 9 2005 16:27 utc | 21
Go to New York and New England, Colman. Rally the troops. They need all the help they can get.
Posted by: alabama | May 9 2005 17:18 utc | 22
Global Gas Prices
Netherlands Amsterdam $6.48
Norway Oslo $6.27
Italy Milan $5.96
Denmark Copenhagen $5.93
Belgium Brussels $5.91
Sweden Stockholm $5.80
United Kingdom London $5.79
Germany Frankfurt $5.57
France Paris $5.54
Portugal Lisbon $5.35
Hungary Budapest $4.94
Luxembourg $4.82
Croatia Zagreb $4.81
Ireland Dublin $4.78
Switzerland Geneva $4.74
Spain Madrid $4.55
Japan Tokyo $4.24
Czech Republic Prague $4.19
Romania Bucharest $4.09
Andorra $4.08
Estonia Tallinn $3.62
Bulgaria Sofia $3.52
Brazil Brasilia $3.12
Cuba Havana $3.03
Taiwan Taipei $2.84
Lebanon Beirut $2.63
South Africa Johannesburg $2.62
Nicaragua Managua $2.61
Panama Panama City $2.19
Russia Moscow $2.10
Puerto Rico San Juan $1.74
Saudi Arabia Riyadh $0.91
Kuwait Kuwait City $0.78
Egypt Cairo $0.65
Nigeria Lagos $0.38
Venezuela Caracas $0.12
JJ, Salt Spring Island is possibly the best place on earth.
Allen
Posted by: Anonymous | May 9 2005 19:53 utc | 24
saltssprings island has come to my attention in the last few months o my search for the deal life. and i’m not the only one. i was recently at a dinnr party in the bay area and a woman on a similar search said the same thing. supposedly the best climate in canada both culturally and otherwise. i’ve been checking out the real estate there.
Posted by: annie | May 9 2005 21:09 utc | 25
i meant the ideal life, my keyboard is a little off, like me.
Posted by: annie | May 9 2005 21:10 utc | 26
I noticed an interesting paragraph in one of the recent IEA statements. They pretty much ordered the EU not to reduce fuel taxes as a way of taking the sting out of petrol price rises.
Wow, Thanks, Allen & Annie, glad I posted that link!
Here’s a Portrait of the Enemy, at least to anyone who had to rush a loved one to the hospital to save their life after a back alley abortion. (And for RGiap Poetry Food.) We knew these anti-abortion nuts are often sadistic, male homosexuals and women haters of all stripes, but we forgot to addBESTIALITY fanciers No wonder they’re so scared of their sexual impulses!!
Just thought you’d want to know. Anybody want to photoshop this??? Billmon, just once, could you do something that has to do w/the welfare of women??
Posted by: jj | May 10 2005 2:13 utc | 29
Culture is not the culprit in Arab poverty
….The US census data should prompt soul-searching in many quarters. Cultural determinists may want to revise their theories of Arab backwardness. Arab leaders should be ashamed when they see their emigrants prospering in the US while their own people are miserable. Europeans, too, should consider why their Arab immigrants lag so far behind those in America. Finally, Americans need to ponder if the changes instituted after the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 will make future generations of Arab immigrants look more like their disadvantaged European compatriots than like today’s successful Arab-Americans.
Posted by: Nugget | May 10 2005 2:43 utc | 30
Nugget:
Well the Carnegie study tends to support the proposition that Arab culture is not the culprit. However, someone else’s culture just may be. Hmm…. I wonder which culture that is.
Posted by: Bubb Rubb | May 10 2005 3:03 utc | 31
JJ, as a follow up on Salt Spring, there was an article in Atlantic Monthly about 2 1/2 years ago about locals against a logging operation. It gives some sense of the island’s nuance. You might find it interesting, but try to keep it a secret.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 10 2005 4:19 utc | 32
Yes, perhaps I shouldn’t have posted. Looked like Mendocino North!! I hope the locals won the crucial logging battle, and my lips shall remain sealed.
RGiap & Lupin, especially, pls. take note:
Wanted to share something else worthwhile I just found. Michael Berube – Prof. of Lit. & Cultural Studies @Penn State, who is new to me, has a review of a magnificent live performance he just saw in Philly. Says the DVD of it is a Must-Get…film is copy of original film The Passion of Joan of Arc by Carl Dreyer, found stashed in Danish Mental Hospital in ’81. “Set to” Richard Einhorn’s “Voices of Light”:
Voices of Light, heard by itself, is a beautiful, moving piece of work; much of it is written in the style of “early” music (medieval chant, the first fumblings at polyphony, motets; there’s even a viola da gamba in there, and last night I learned all about the gamba), but it never sounds merely neo- or citational. The libretto is composed of texts written by female mystics of the period (St. Hildegard von Bingen, Marguerite d’Oingt, St. Umiltà of Faenza, Blessed Angela of Foligno, among others, and the nonmystic protofeminist Christine de Pizan as well) as well as the letters Joan (illiterate herself) dictated, all of which are sung in the original languages (Latin, Old and Middle French, Italian). It’s quite overwhelming in and of itself.
But together with The Passion of Joan of Arc, the effect is stunning. Einhorn’s music is not exactly a “score”; although it’s coordinated with the film, in fifteen movements—and Einhorn even took along a portable DAT recorder to get the sound of the church bells in Joan’s home town of Domremy, and the chiming of the bells occurs at key moments in the film—it’s more like a parallel text than a score.
Posted by: jj | May 10 2005 5:01 utc | 33
A great Monbiot piece in todays Guardian: Junk science he traces and proves how some idiotic numbers on climate change showed up in the magazine Science.
A typo…
And this would be the problem with Monbiot:
If man-made climate change is happening, as the great majority of the world’s climatologists claim, it could destroy the conditions that allow human beings to remain on the planet
For small values of “could”.
@DM add to that An ethical blank cheque
British and US mythology about the second world war ignores our own crimes and legitimises Anglo-American warmaking
Jesus Christ in Legal Battle in W.Va.
Described by his attorney as a white-haired businessman in his mid-50s, Christ is moving to West Virginia to enjoy a slower lifestyle. He bought property near Lost River, about 100 miles west of Washington…..
Posted by: dan of steele | May 10 2005 19:26 utc | 39
Pastor quit – guess he’ll be sent off to a course on PC for Theocrats & be given another congregation – after all, his sentiments were Obviously in the right place!! Just a bit gauche about it. So uncool, dahling.
Pls. notice that “Atrios is away” at same time as “Billmon’s” not posting. Aside from the fact that they are both Philly bloggers w/econ. degrees… Everyone laughs when I note that they are one & the same person…
But whoever he puts in over there, it continues to avoid dealing w/the Pirates Declaration of War on us. This is the Biggest Story today, and the first of what will be a domino effect, (I think that’s why they downgraded GM to junk now)… possibly spreading to even the State Pension Funds.
A Reagan appointed Bankruptcy Judge has allowed United Air Lines to dump their pension plan. Oh, and all the Retirement Millions for executives is in a lock box and can’t be touched by the bankruptcy court. Strike, baby, Strike
Posted by: jj | May 11 2005 5:35 utc | 42
y-a-w-n!!
We knew it was coming…Now that the Pirates have shipped all our technology & jobs to China, the Neo-Cons weigh in – June Atlantic for subscribers, but here’s the start…
How We Would Fight China
The Middle East is just a blip. The American military contest with China in the Pacific will define the twenty-first century. And China will be a more formidable adversary than Russia ever was
by Robert D. Kaplan
…
So many enemies…wowww, hard-ons forever…
Sounds like the start of an updated version of that old labor ditty “Solidarity Forever”
Posted by: jj | May 11 2005 6:24 utc | 43
hmm! I think if the US were to stretch themselves far enough for a conflict with China, they’d maybe end up fighting on the shores of Califonia rather than far-flung lands. I doubt that they are stupid enough to push the envelope much further. Iran and North Korea are fading visions, and the sooner America fades into a provincial backwater, the better for everyone.
Posted by: DM | May 11 2005 6:50 utc | 44