In2 Support…

…of sovereignty matters.

It may seem kind of weird to say I support Honduran sovereignty in light of the coup,but all things considered it seems the right thing to say. I’m personally waiting to see what the average Honduran feels and thinks on the issue. All said and done though I hereby announce that this blog officially recognizes Roberto Micheletti as the president of Honduras.

In2 Ricardo is the man

THEY may not have heard of Ricardian equivalence but American consumers sure act like they do. US disposable incomes rose by 1.6% in May, the third largest monthly gain since May 2001. But they only increased their spending by 0.3%; the savings rate jumped from 5.6% to 6.9%.

In the long run, this may not be a problem. Americans haven’t been saving enough. But in the short run, this was a disappointment. Because the big jump in income was largely driven by a one-off social security payment of $250, part of the Obama stimulus package. Consumers held on to the bulk of that money, or used it to pay down debt, rather than spending it.

Ricardo reckoned that rational taxpayers would see a tax cut, if it occurred at a time of government deficit, as simply a sign that future taxes would have to rise. They would thus save the money so they can use it to meet a higher tax bill. Is this the chain of reasoning? (How many consumers actually know the size of the US budget deficit?) It may be that governments only hand out tax rebates in recessions, when consumers are cautious anyway. Nevertheless, Ricardo seems to be vindicated this time round (last year’s Bush tax cuts were also a bit of a damp squib for consumption). Economist

I’ve put into bold the points I am all about.

Some Thoughts:

On Ricardo

I didn’t know a damn thing about the economist of a time gone by and I imagine most regular folks don’t know about him and his ideas.

On Savings

So true. Americans need to save more for so many reasons. One being that SS is a goner baby and it’s really a necessity that people face that.

Checks,debt and Presidents

It has always been a kick in my crotch that people seem to embrace the Obama checks but boo- hooed the Bush checks. Same thing for the most part and a joke for the same reasons. People had debt to pay off which didn’t help the greater economy. Also folks like me (unknowing Ricardians I guess) put the money in the bank. Fortunately I put mine in the bank and not the market. Yippee !

Paying,saving and government

Let’s face it folks we have a huge bill coming due for every American for the rest of the time America exists. Democrats especially are never going to curb the insatiable beast that is government spending. TRUST ME ON THIS I’m from Massachusetts and have been handed one of if not the largest tax increase in the Commonwealths history.

The bureaucrats dream of the economy turning around and revenues returning. I got news for you folks a big chunk o’ cash is never coming back. We are looking for something to come back to our peril. We need to figure out what is potentially replacing what we’ve lost. The private sector has had to undergo a major adjustment. These companies will NOT return to the practices of the past. The ongoing assaults of continued globalization and government policy changes alone assures this. The companies,sectors,nations and entrepreneurs will need to think differently,act differently. It’s NOT GOING TO BE THE SAME!!!!!!!!!

My fellow Americans. Your taxes are going to go up. This isn’t a partisan threat it is reality.

The increases will not just be the fat cat millionaires and their lesser brethren the 200k plus earners. It will be you and me no matter what the One says.

Your utility bill is going up in answer to climate change measures from every level of government. . You will pay more for gas,coal and other heating sources as well as electricity charges for heating, cooling and charging the mythical electric car that is soon to grace your driveway. Rebates will not be long lasting if present at all.

Your driving needs of oil,gasoline,and diesel will all be on the rise due to taxes and the inevitable return of increases from the producing nations and transport and refining costs. The there are the excise taxes and tolls all up to levels that along with fuel costs will easily crush the hard working classes and small businesses.

If you own property your property taxes are always going to increase as a rule. This is abundantly clear to many even now where municipalities are forced to raise revenues no matter the recessions grip.

Your paycheck is due to experience some serious shrinking too. Your benefits will be taxed sooner than later as so called health care reform from either party looks to get the estimated $250 billion the insurance exemptions “costs” the government annually.

In2 Someone’s bloviating for sure…

The White House contended on Sunday that Iran’s president wasn’t in charge of his country’s foreign policy and said his criticism of Washington was little more than ”bloviations.” NYT

Is this anything more than obscene spin on behalf of the leader of the free world ? I don’t think so since he can’t be this fucking stupid. Then again maybe he is,or at least some of his lackeys anyway.

Although the mullahs have much juice it is generally accepted ,and very much so recently reported, that Ahmadinejad has indeed championed a foreign and domestic policy menu that has angered some of the highest clerics. Ahmadinejad epitomizes the foreign policy of the Republic and there are far too many cases to believe he is just some kind of sock puppet.

The West constantly misinterprets Iran and will always come up the loser in the game it falsely believes it controls unilaterally.

Did my master kill MJ?

Seeing as I know a thing or two about fluffing and fudging headlines at 1600, I had a doggie thought. Did my master have Michael Jackson whacked to keep cap-n-trade,and potential Gitmo policies off the cycle ?

In2 the Obama smoking bill. A lot of smoke

New packaging to deter new smokers ? Cuts in revenue streams secondary to advertising curbs. Cuts across the country on law enforcement and education programs and misappropriations of tobacco settlement $$. ALL SMOKE BABY !

The best thing about this if you lust for truth and reality ? The fiscal beating SCHIP will likely take due to this. Too freaking funny.

In2 Clarence Thomas really is a dickhead

Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented. He complained the ruling “grants judges sweeping authority to second guess the measures that these officials take to maintain discipline in their schools and ensure the health and safety of the students in their charge.”

That’s part of what he said as the lone dissenting voice in the Safford v Redding case. Redding being the teenage girl stripped down by school officials in search of ibuprofen.

In2the Mark Sanford Fray

I’ve seen a couple of the posts on the subject that are on offer on the WPPBA tag today. I have to say the only one I really like is Marcs at IOEOTO.

Anyway this is one of those stories that warrants me putting in my 2 cents so here goes.

I actually like Sanford and contrary to some I don’t find the hypocrisy factor so alarming. His condemnation of Bill Clinton back in the Lewinsky days and his stance on gay marriage are not the points of hypocrisy people want you to think they are. These are cloud cover talking points for people with bigger agendas. As governor of a very red state he has really no choice on the gay marriage controversy. If you think that isn’t true then you better hold the next governor of Massachusetts to the same thinking any number of issues. The personal will of the executive is not always the same as the governed. As for voting to impeach Clinton years ago. What ? Change to much to ask for ?

Let me tell you the truth.

Sanford should not resign.

He should resign himself that his future in SC politics is over but he should stay through his term. I think it is important he do so if for no other reason that he needs to play the bigger role for the future of the GOP if he’s up for it. He has a job to do and if the people of South Carolina don’t want him they need to step up and impeach him. Democracy isn’t about the easy way of doing something .

Sanford should Divorce

Yeah the fundamentalists aren’t going to love him if he does but he’s essentially done with them no matter. If he truly feels his marriage is what his words and actions indicate he should leave the marriage. This is also key to continuing to fight for a better GOP if he chooses to step up.

The GOP and Sanford

The GOP has a choice to make. They can throw Sanford under the bus if they want,or they can choose to try to get the Party in shape to win elections. A repentant Sanford is more than good enough to work with other leaders in the GOP to shape the Party future.

In2 Obama No Win Without Spin #2

North Korea.

Stop the ship or not ? Embargo ? That’s too funny. China going to help out ? If they do it’ll be both ways just like in the past.

That’s just a few of the reasons Barack Obama can’t win with North Korea. The North Koreans can float out empty ships and if they get stopped they look good. If they get caught doing something wrong they get to retaliate. Where does that leave us ?

In2 Obama No Win Without Spin 1

Obama No Win Without Spin #1

Iran

US President BH Obama is in a no win situation on Iran. There is room for some serious spin to make it seem like he’s the man but that’s just not reality.

Iran is calling the shots and holding all the cards. Iran doesn’t care about the USA and our attitudes,desires and plans. Iran has enough time and friends to go along on it’s own way. Sure many of them aren’t the big boys on the block,but clearly they have enough friends to make out.

Obama can’t take the hard line on Iran since that’ll play into the hands of the hardliners. Obama can’t go the soft road because the static he’ll take at home. When he takes the static at home you can be assured it’ll end up in the Iranian media.

Obama can’t win when it comes to Iran. I wonder how people feel about that ?

In2 STRATFOR and the Iranian Election #2

From STRATFOR. : Folks here is some of the better analysis of what’s happening over there. Bold parts are by me,so if you read nothing else check those.

The New Revolution ?

Successful revolutions have three phases. First, a strategically located single or limited segment of society begins vocally to express resentment, asserting itself in the streets of a major city, usually the capital. This segment is joined by other segments in the city and by segments elsewhere as the demonstration spreads to other cities and becomes more assertive, disruptive and potentially violent. As resistance to the regime spreads, the regime deploys its military and security forces. These forces, drawn from resisting social segments and isolated from the rest of society, turn on the regime, and stop following the regime’s orders. This is what happened to the Shah of Iran in 1979; it is also what happened in Russia in 1917 or in Romania in 1989.

Revolutions fail when no one joins the initial segment, meaning the initial demonstrators are the ones who find themselves socially isolated. When the demonstrations do not spread to other cities, the demonstrations either peter out or the regime brings in the security and military forces — who remain loyal to the regime and frequently personally hostile to the demonstrators — and use force to suppress the rising to the extent necessary. This is what happened in Tiananmen Square in China: The students who rose up were not joined by others. Military forces who were not only loyal to the regime but hostile to the students were brought in, and the students were crushed.

A Question of Support

This is also what happened in Iran this week. The global media, obsessively focused on the initial demonstrators — who were supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s opponents — failed to notice that while large, the demonstrations primarily consisted of the same type of people demonstrating. Amid the breathless reporting on the demonstrations, reporters failed to notice that the uprising was not spreading to other classes and to other areas. In constantly interviewing English-speaking demonstrators, they failed to note just how many of the demonstrators spoke English and had smartphones. The media thus did not recognize these as the signs of a failing revolution.

Later, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke Friday and called out the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, they failed to understand that the troops — definitely not drawn from what we might call the “Twittering classes,” would remain loyal to the regime for ideological and social reasons. The troops had about as much sympathy for the demonstrators as a small-town boy from Alabama might have for a Harvard postdoc. Failing to understand the social tensions in Iran, the reporters deluded themselves into thinking they were witnessing a general uprising. But this was not St. Petersburg in 1917 or Bucharest in 1989 — it was Tiananmen Square.

In the global discussion last week outside Iran, there was a great deal of confusion about basic facts. For example, it is said that the urban-rural distinction in Iran is not critical any longer because according to the United Nations, 68 percent of Iranians are urbanized. This is an important point because it implies Iran is homogeneous and the demonstrators representative of the country. The problem is the Iranian definition of urban — and this is quite common around the world — includes very small communities (some with only a few thousand people) as “urban.” But the social difference between someone living in a town with 10,000 people and someone living in Tehran is the difference between someone living in Bastrop, Texas and someone living in New York. We can assure you that that difference is not only vast, but that most of the good people of Bastrop and the fine people of New York would probably not see the world the same way. The failure to understand the dramatic diversity of Iranian society led observers to assume that students at Iran’s elite university somehow spoke for the rest of the country.

Tehran proper has about 8 million inhabitants; its suburbs bring it to about 13 million people out of Iran’s total population of 70.5 million. Tehran accounts for about 20 percent of Iran, but as we know, the cab driver and the construction worker are not socially linked to students at elite universities. There are six cities with populations between 1 million and 2.4 million people and 11 with populations of about 500,000. Including Tehran proper, 15.5 million people live in cities with more than 1 million and 19.7 million in cities greater than 500,000. Iran has 80 cities with more than 100,000. But given that Waco, Texas, has more than 100,000 people, inferences of social similarities between cities with 100,000 and 5 million are tenuous. And with metro Oklahoma City having more than a million people, it becomes plain that urbanization has many faces.

Winning the Election With or Without Fraud

We continue to believe two things: that vote fraud occurred, and that Ahmadinejad likely would have won without it. Very little direct evidence has emerged to establish vote fraud, but several things seem suspect.

For example, the speed of the vote count has been taken as a sign of fraud, as it should have been impossible to count votes that fast. The polls originally were to have closed at 7 p.m. local time, but voting hours were extended until 10 p.m. because of the number of voters in line. By 11:45 p.m. about 20 percent of the vote had been counted. By 5:20 a.m. the next day, with almost all votes counted, the election commission declared Ahmadinejad the winner. The vote count thus took about seven hours. (Remember there were no senators, congressmen, city council members or school board members being counted — just the presidential race.) Intriguingly, this is about the same time in took in 2005, though reformists that claimed fraud back then did not stress the counting time in their allegations.

The counting mechanism is simple: Iran has 47,000 voting stations, plus 14,000 roaming stations that travel from tiny village to tiny village, staying there for a short time before moving on. That creates 61,000 ballot boxes designed to receive roughly the same number of votes. That would mean that each station would have been counting about 500 ballots, or about 70 votes per hour. With counting beginning at 10 p.m., concluding seven hours later does not necessarily indicate fraud or anything else. The Iranian presidential election system is designed for simplicity: one race to count in one time zone, and all counting beginning at the same time in all regions, we would expect the numbers to come in a somewhat linear fashion as rural and urban voting patterns would balance each other out — explaining why voting percentages didn’t change much during the night.

It has been pointed out that some of the candidates didn’t even carry their own provinces or districts. We remember that Al Gore didn’t carry Tennessee in 2000. We also remember Ralph Nader, who also didn’t carry his home precinct in part because people didn’t want to spend their vote on someone unlikely to win — an effect probably felt by the two smaller candidates in the Iranian election.

That Mousavi didn’t carry his own province is more interesting. Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett writing in Politico make some interesting points on this. As an ethnic Azeri, it was assumed that Mousavi would carry his Azeri-named and -dominated home province. But they also point out that Ahmadinejad also speaks Azeri, and made multiple campaign appearances in the district. They also point out that Khamenei is Azeri. In sum, winning that district was by no means certain for Mousavi, so losing it does not automatically signal fraud. It raised suspicions, but by no means was a smoking gun.

We do not doubt that fraud occurred during Iranian election. For example, 99.4 percent of potential voters voted in Mazandaran province, a mostly secular area home to the shah’s family. Ahmadinejad carried the province by a 2.2 to 1 ratio. That is one heck of a turnout and level of support for a province that lost everything when the mullahs took over 30 years ago. But even if you take all of the suspect cases and added them together, it would not have changed the outcome. The fact is that Ahmadinejad’s vote in 2009 was extremely close to his victory percentage in 2005. And while the Western media portrayed Ahmadinejad’s performance in the presidential debates ahead of the election as dismal, embarrassing and indicative of an imminent electoral defeat, many Iranians who viewed those debates — including some of the most hardcore Mousavi supporters — acknowledge that Ahmadinejad outperformed his opponents by a landslide.

Mousavi persuasively detailed his fraud claims Sunday, and they have yet to be rebutted. But if his claims of the extent of fraud were true, the protests should have spread rapidly by social segment and geography to the millions of people who even the central government asserts voted for him. Certainly, Mousavi supporters believed they would win the election based in part on highly flawed polls, and when they didn’t, they assumed they were robbed and took to the streets.

But critically, the protesters were not joined by any of the millions whose votes the protesters alleged were stolen. In a complete hijacking of the election by some 13 million votes by an extremely unpopular candidate, we would have expected to see the core of Mousavi’s supporters joined by others who had been disenfranchised. On last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, when the demonstrations were at their height, the millions of Mousavi voters should have made their appearance.They didn’t. We might assume that the security apparatus intimidated some, but surely more than just the Tehran professional and student classes posses civic courage. While appearing large, the demonstrations actually comprised a small fraction of society.

Tensions Among the Political Elite

All of this not to say there are not tremendous tensions within the Iranian political elite. That no revolution broke out does not mean there isn’t a crisis in the political elite, particularly among the clerics. But that crisis does not cut the way Western common sense would have it. Many of Iran’s religious leaders see Ahmadinejad as hostile to their interests, as threatening their financial prerogatives, and as taking international risks they don’t want to take. Ahmadinejad’s political popularity in fact rests on his populist hostility to what he sees as the corruption of the clerics and their families and his strong stand on Iranian national security issues.

The clerics are divided among themselves, but many wanted to see Ahmadinejad lose to protect their own interests. Khamenei, the supreme leader, faced a difficult choice last Friday. He could demand a major recount or even new elections, or he could validate what happened. Khamenei speaks for a sizable chunk of the ruling elite, but also has had to rule by consensus among both clerical and non-clerical forces. Many powerful clerics like Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani wanted Khamenei to reverse the election, and we suspect Khamenei wished he could have found a way to do it. But as the defender of the regime, he was afraid to. Mousavi supporters’ demonstrations would have been nothing compared to the firestorm among Ahmadinejad supporters — both voters and the security forces — had their candidate been denied. Khamenei wasn’t going to flirt with disaster, so he endorsed the outcome.

The Western media misunderstood this because they didn’t understand that Ahmadinejad does not speak for the clerics but against them, that many of the clerics were working for his defeat, and that Ahmadinejad has enormous pull in the country’s security apparatus. The reason Western media missed this is because they bought into the concept of the stolen election, therefore failing to see Ahmadinejad’s support and the widespread dissatisfaction with the old clerical elite. The Western media simply didn’t understand that the most traditional and pious segments of Iranian society support Ahmadinejad because he opposes the old ruling elite. Instead, they assumed this was like Prague or Budapest in 1989, with a broad-based uprising in favor of liberalism against an unpopular regime.

Tehran in 2009, however, was a struggle between two main factions, both of which supported the Islamic republic as it was. There were the clerics, who have dominated the regime since 1979 and had grown wealthy in the process. And there was Ahmadinejad, who felt the ruling clerical elite had betrayed the revolution with their personal excesses. And there also was the small faction the BBC and CNN kept focusing on — the demonstrators in the streets who want to dramatically liberalize the Islamic republic. This faction never stood a chance of taking power, whether by election or revolution. The two main factionsused the third smaller faction in various ways, however. Ahmadinejad used it to make his case that the clerics who supported them, like Rafsanjani, would risk the revolution and play into the hands of the Americans and British to protect their own wealth. Meanwhile, Rafsanjani argued behind the scenes that the unrest was the tip of the iceberg, and that Ahmadinejad had to be replaced. Khamenei, an astute politician, examined the data and supported Ahmadinejad.

Now, as we saw after Tiananmen Square, we will see a reshuffling among the elite. Those who backed Mousavi will be on the defensive. By contrast, those who supported Ahmadinejad are in a powerful position. There is a massive crisis in the elite, but this crisis has nothing to do with liberalization: It has to do with power and prerogatives among the elite. Having been forced by the election and Khamenei to live with Ahmadinejad, some will make deals while some will fight — but Ahmadinejad is well-positioned to win this battle.

In2 things I’d blog about if I had the time today

Iran protest math and cities.

It seems like Tehran is the place. it also seems that the protesters though brave fail to match up numbers wise to the votes cast.

Japan paying Brazilians to leave

Brazilian immigrants are being offered $3000. USD to leave. Currently there is some real controversy over the “no return” clause.

Sotomayor realities

Vetting is a good thing and time is a bitch. Her hearing represents a lot of things and I’ve got a few burning up some neurons I haven’t seen too much on.

Obama Pail recipients

Maxine Waters and Keith Olbermann. OMG! I can’t believe these folks.

Stimulus Waste,yeah from the Coburn report.

I don’t care what you say some of these line items are whacked

Sarko Burka Boom !

This would go under my Dhimmi? Dummy ? Thinker ! series header. So much there if you think about it.

Anyway I am absolutely buried today with real world issues and engagements. If anyone checks this out and has any interest let me know. Hope y’all have a great day

In2 Obama and the Economy Czars…

I saw this piece over at CityJournal and found this part more of an eye opener than the A.M. coffee.

Two events, more than a decade apart, illustrate this point. In 1985, then-Fed chairman Paul Volcker saw a new risk to the system: through junk-bond markets, “corporate raiders” could borrow liberally and use the money to launch corporate takeovers. This innovation usefully introduced new market pressures to sometimes sclerotic management teams and boards of directors. But without necessary regulatory checks, junk bonds eventually became a self-perpetuating speculative mania. As investors reaped huge profits from easy takeovers, junk-bond buyers saw less risk, so they financed deals even more readily. Easy money pushed stock values up (as well as bond values), not because the stocks were more valuable, but because everyone hoped to benefit from the next takeover of a publicly traded company. So Volcker reined in what he saw as excessive speculation by using the Fed’s ample discretion to apply existing principles to a new market. The Fed imposed Depression-era margin requirements—which restrict borrowing for securities purchases—on the corporate-takeover market.

More than a decade later, the Fed used its still-broad authority differenty. In 1998, the then-commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Brooksley Born, saw an acute threat to the system in unregulated derivatives—including what would grow to become the “credit-default-swap” market. Born warned fellow regulators, and Congress, that these derivatives posed “unknown risks to the U.S. economy and to financial stability around the world” because of their “lack of transparency” as well as “unlimited borrowing . . . like the unlimited borrowing on securities that contributed to the Great Depression.” She fought fiercely for jurisdiction to apply Depression-era borrowing limits to the new markets. This time, the Fed used its credibility, clout, and discretion to counsel against such power. Congress bowed to its judgment in 2000.

Do we need more government or just need the one we have to work better ?

In2 Iranian Elections: STRATFOR

The following is from STRATFOR. I have put in bold the parts I think are the most important.

In 1979, when we were still young and starry-eyed, a revolution took place in Iran. When I asked experts what would happen, they divided into two camps.

The first group of Iran experts argued that the Shah of Iran would certainly survive, that the unrest was simply a cyclical event readily manageable by his security, and that the Iranian people were united behind the Iranian monarch’s modernization program. These experts developed this view by talking to the same Iranian officials and businessmen they had been talking to for years — Iranians who had grown wealthy and powerful under the shah and who spoke English, since Iran experts frequently didn’t speak Farsi all that well.

The second group of Iran experts regarded the shah as a repressive brute, and saw the revolution as aimed at liberalizing the country. Their sources were the professionals and academics who supported the uprising — Iranians who knew what former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini believed, but didn’t think he had much popular support. They thought the revolution would result in an increase in human rights and liberty. The experts in this group spoke even less Farsi than those in the first group.

Misreading Sentiment in Iran

Limited to information on Iran from English-speaking opponents of the regime, both groups of Iran experts got a very misleading vision of where the revolution was heading — because the Iranian revolution was not brought about by the people who spoke English. It was made by merchants in city bazaars, by rural peasants, by the clergy — people Americans didn’t speak to because they couldn’t. This demographic was unsure of the virtues of modernization and not at all clear on the virtues of liberalism. From the time they were born, its members knew the virtue of Islam, and that the Iranian state must be an Islamic state.

Americans and Europeans have been misreading Iran for 30 years. Even after the shah fell, the myth has survived that a mass movement of people exists demanding liberalization — a movement that if encouraged by the West eventually would form a majority and rule the country. We call this outlook “iPod liberalism,” the idea that anyone who listens to rock ‘n’ roll on an iPod, writes blogs and knows what it means to Twitter must be an enthusiastic supporter of Western liberalism. Even more significantly, this outlook fails to recognize that iPod owners represent a small minority in Iran — a country that is poor, pious and content on the whole with the revolution forged 30 years ago.

There are undoubtedly people who want to liberalize the Iranian regime. They are to be found among the professional classes in Tehran, as well as among students. Many speak English, making them accessible to the touring journalists, diplomats and intelligence people who pass through. They are the ones who can speak to Westerners, and they are the ones willing to speak to Westerners. And these people give Westerners a wildly distorted view of Iran. They can create the impression that a fantastic liberalization is at hand — but not when you realize that iPod-owning Anglophones are not exactly the majority in Iran.

Last Friday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected with about two-thirds of the vote. Supporters of his opponent, both inside and outside Iran, were stunned. A poll revealed that former Iranian Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi was beating Ahmadinejad. It is, of course, interesting to meditate on how you could conduct a poll in a country where phones are not universal, and making a call once you have found a phone can be a trial. A poll therefore would probably reach people who had phones and lived in Tehran and other urban areas. Among those, Mousavi probably did win. But outside Tehran, and beyond persons easy to poll, the numbers turned out quite different.

Some still charge that Ahmadinejad cheated. That is certainly a possibility, but it is difficult to see how he could have stolen the election by such a large margin. Doing so would have required the involvement of an incredible number of people, and would have risked creating numbers that quite plainly did not jibe with sentiment in each precinct. Widespread fraud would mean that Ahmadinejad manufactured numbers in Tehran without any regard for the vote. But he has many powerful enemies who would quickly have spotted this and would have called him on it. Mousavi still insists he was robbed, and we must remain open to the possibility that he was, although it is hard to see the mechanics of this.

Ahmadinejad’s Popularity

It also misses a crucial point: Ahmadinejad enjoys widespread popularity. He doesn’t speak to the issues that matter to the urban professionals, namely, the economy and liberalization. But Ahmadinejad speaks to three fundamental issuesthat accord with the rest of the country.

First, Ahmadinejad speaks of piety. Among vast swathes of Iranian society, the willingness to speak unaffectedly about religion is crucial. Though it may be difficult for Americans and Europeans to believe, there are people in the world to whom economic progress is not of the essence; people who want to maintain their communities as they are and live the way their grandparents lived. These are people who see modernization — whether from the shah or Mousavi — as unattractive. They forgive Ahmadinejad his economic failures.

Second, Ahmadinejad speaks of corruption. There is a sense in the countryside that the ayatollahs — who enjoy enormous wealth and power, and often have lifestyles that reflect this — have corrupted the Islamic Revolution. Ahmadinejad is disliked by many of the religious elite precisely because he has systematically raised the corruption issue, which resonates in the countryside.

Third, Ahmadinejad is a spokesman for Iranian national security, a tremendously popular stance. It must always be remembered that Iran fought a war with Iraq in the 1980s that lasted eight years, cost untold lives and suffering, and effectively ended in its defeat. Iranians, particularly the poor, experienced this war on an intimate level. They fought in the war, and lost husbands and sons in it. As in other countries, memories of a lost war don’t necessarily delegitimize the regime. Rather, they can generate hopes for a resurgent Iran, thus validating the sacrifices made in that war — something Ahmadinejad taps into. By arguing that Iran should not back down but become a major power, he speaks to the veterans and their families, who want something positive to emerge from all their sacrifices in the war.

Perhaps the greatest factor in Ahmadinejad’s favor is that Mousavi spoke for the better districts of Tehran — something akin to running a U.S. presidential election as a spokesman for Georgetown and the Upper East Side. Such a base will get you hammered, and Mousavi got hammered. Fraud or not, Ahmadinejad won and he won significantly. That he won is not the mystery; the mystery is why others thought he wouldn’t win.

For a time on Friday, it seemed that Mousavi might be able to call for an uprising in Tehran. But the moment passed when Ahmadinejad’s security forces on motorcycles intervened. And that leaves the West with its worst-case scenario: a democratically elected anti-liberal.

Western democracies assume that publics will elect liberals who will protect their rights. In reality, it’s a more complicated world. Hitler is the classic example of someone who came to power constitutionally, and then proceeded to gut the constitution. Similarly, Ahmadinejad’s victory is a triumph of both democracy and repression.

The Road Ahead: More of the Same

The question now is what will happen next. Internally, we can expect Ahmadinejad to consolidate his position under the cover of anti-corruption. He wants to clean up the ayatollahs, many of whom are his enemies. He will need the support of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This election has made Ahmadinejad a powerful president, perhaps the most powerful in Iran since the revolution. Ahmadinejad does not want to challenge Khamenei, and we suspect that Khamenei will not want to challenge Ahmadinejad. A forced marriage is emerging, one which may place many other religious leaders in a difficult position.

Certainly, hopes that a new political leadership would cut back on Iran’s nuclear program have been dashed. The champion of that program has won, in part because he championed the program. We still see Iran as far from developing a deliverable nuclear weapon, but certainly the Obama administration’s hopes that Ahmadinejad would either be replaced — or at least weakened and forced to be more conciliatory — have been crushed. Interestingly, Ahmadinejad sent congratulations to U.S. President Barack Obama on his inauguration. We would expect Obama to reciprocate under his opening policy, which U.S. Vice President Joe Biden appears to have affirmed, assuming he was speaking for Obama. Once the vote fraud issue settles, we will have a better idea of whether Obama’s policies will continue. (We expect they will.)

What we have now are two presidents in a politically secure position, something that normally forms a basis for negotiations. The problem is that it is not clear what the Iranians are prepared to negotiate on, nor is it clear what the Americans are prepared to give the Iranians to induce them to negotiate. Iran wants greater influence in Iraq and its role as a regional leader acknowledged, something the United States doesn’t want to give them. The United States wants an end to the Iranian nuclear program, which Iran doesn’t want to give.

On the surface, this would seem to open the door for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Former U.S. President George W. Bush did not — and Obama does not — have any appetite for such an attack. Both presidents blocked the Israelis from attacking, assuming the Israelis ever actually wanted to attack.

For the moment, the election appears to have frozen the status quo in place. Neither the United States nor Iran seem prepared to move significantly, and there are no third parties that want to get involved in the issue beyond the occasional European diplomatic mission or Russian threat to sell something to Iran. In the end, this shows what we have long known: This game is locked in place, and goes on.

In2 Go West Young Man…

Unless you’re looking for a job. the West goes to 10% unemployment and California leads the charge. Questions ? Oh Yeah !

What there hasn’t been any stimulus money sent out west ?

Well that’s not the case. Can we expect the same in other parts of the country ? Yes!

Arnold’s climate policies not producing a plethora of green jobs ?

Green jobs don’t happen overnight or because a politician says so. We probably ought to take the wake up call from California. Again the rest of the country offers up some proof that the green job revolution isn’t actually getting out of the starting gate in good order.I know in Mass. the governor aka Obama Lite has introduced some policies that are going to take a bite out of the wallet o’ many with little good coming from it.

Illegal immigration not affecting the economy ?

Well I’m not gonna harp on the greater issue. I will say that California is considering cleaning out it’s prisons of illegals in a cost saving effort. The plan calls for turning people over to the feds for deportation. Wow!

In2 Over a Billion not served…

Don’t get mad Ronald it’s not trademark infringement.

One billion people throughout the world suffer from hunger, a figure which has increased by 100 million because of the global financial crisis, says the UN.

BBC

In2 theBoxer Fray

I know I’m late to the dance but I had to jump in. What a piece of work this bitch is.

In2 Short People

Anybody else noticing a common theme in our international problems lately ????

Kim Jong Il :North Korea

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad :Iran

Dmitry Medvedev: Russia

Hu Jintao : China

In2 Channelling Mondale

I’ll freely admit that amidst the speak of Barack Obama being Kennedy or FDR I was one in the Carter camp. Yes yes I thought BHO would be a fizzle. In a weird twist he has chosen to channel Walter Mondale instead.

I paraphrase of course but in his healthcare speech to the AMA this is the meat.

Employers will have to pay more

Doctors will have to do more for less

Citizens will pay more and get less

I do believe that rates right up there with “I will raise your taxes.” Sure the Obamabots and assorted love struck tools will claim he is honest and daring. I say he’s a scared rabbit spending his capital in five months like a nervous school boy shoots his first wad in the backseat. Way to go moron,see ya in 2012.

In2 Green Shoots?

Yippee gasoline is up to the $2.60’s in my neighborhood and that’s without cap and trade schemes and national healthcare.

I hear that this is a sign of the economy improving. Hate to be a cynic but if you buy that you’re,well, running on empty.

In2 Iran Elections and the fallout…

Although I have serious doubts regards the whole coup angle, and also question the legitimacy of Western media preachings of the election I do find this interesting.

The media is definitely experiencing blackouts. Tehran Times has not been updated,PressTV server is overloaded or can’t be found,and IRIB/english won’t come up.

AlJazeera reports:

Al Jazeera’s Teymoor Nabili, reporting from Tehran, said that it had become increasingly difficult for the media to operate in Iran since the elections results were announced on Saturday.

“Day-by-day our ability to access any information has been slowly whittled away,” he said.

“I now stand in a position where I am no longer allowed to take a camera out onto the streets, I am not even sure if I can walk out onto the streets with a mobile phone without getting into trouble. AJ

Definitely interesting.

In2 Beacon Hill Cowards…

There is a lot of buzz here in the Bay State about the recent tragic death of a 4 year old girl. She was on a scooter in a crosswalk,with her family and was struck by an elderly driver.

The Bay State has a very poor and in my opinion indefensible position on elderly drivers. The denial of medical reality and the impact it has on one’s ability to operate a couple of tons of steel is crazy. Other states require retests and shorter periods of validity for licenses issued to older folks. It is past time for the cowards on Beacon Hill to do something.

Local talk radio host Michael Graham is all over this issue and I share his ire embodied in this statement.

Actually, it’s even more pathetic because it’s Massachusetts.  Democrat legislators have a 90%+ likelihood of re-election no matter what they do.  Most of them didn’t even have opponents last year.  There’s about a 1% chance that passing an elderly driver law would impact their political careers.  But your legislator is such a craven coward he won’t even take that 1% chance.

No, he’d rather see a four-year-old lying in a puddle of blood on his street than see a handful of angry AARPers on his doorstep. Here

In2 the socialists will not be deterred

Heard a sound bite and hunted down the news story of the Bell Helicopter strike. The major sticking points is the elimination via outsourcing of  44 janitorial positions. That isn’t the real point I want to get out but keep that one in mind for later.

The biggie is healthcare changes that would increase the employees out of pocket cost. The mantra that will now surely come to our ears is that if we get Obamacare we can avoid these strikes and economy crushing angst.

Bullshit !!!!!!!!!

news story

In2 Obama singlehandedly improves NYT circulation

Excellent piece at POLITICO looking at the new relationship between 1600 Penn. Ave and the folks at 620 8th Ave.

My take leans towards the right wing schiz stance. I truly believe the Obama Administration needs and desires the elitist crowd to move his agenda as much if not more than his YouTube Twitter minions. The former have more money and actual power. the latter gives him energy and noise but outside of the campaign are fairly useless if only for the danger of unpredictability.

So NYT penners are getting incredible access to the One and that clearly improves their circulation. Not paper sales, I mean they are all pitching wood from the ego Viagra that it all is. They feel important and empowered again. Refreshed from the barren days of the W administration. Unfortunately the elitist twits fail to see how they are pawns. The Obama administration is using them in what is otherwise viewed as a mutually beneficial relationship. I think O is solidly the biggest beneficiary.

Dhimmi ? Dummy ? Thinker ! Luton UK

Fear and hatred on the streets of Luton

When troops returning from Iraq marched through Luton, all hell broke loose. Muslims protested, white residents rioted and the Sikh mayor was viciously attacked. Can this multicultural community ever find peace — or is this eruption of long-simmering tensions a sign of even worse to come?

That’s the header on a Times piece that actually resembles journalism on the matter. I invite people to read it HERE

In2 Boing

I think the most interesting thing about this editorial toon is where I found it. The Saudi online source Arab News.

No matter where you found it…it’s TRUE

Plugging one hole often leads to untoward effects

In2 North Korea: STFU!!!!!!

On Saturday, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry threatened war on any country that dared to stop its ships on the high seas under the new sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council on Friday as punishment for the North’s latest nuclear test.

I am so done with these tree bark eating fucks. If North Korea is so demented to think they can wage a nuclear war on the World so be it. Let’s irradiate these stupid fucks and be done with it.

Seriously though. We cannot tolerate being held up to any degree by the Pyongyang gang. My heart goes out to the diminished and demoralized masses of NK. These people are lost though to generations of isolation and propaganda. If the world is not willing to liberate and attempt to rehabilitate the North via a Kim assassination then we must be willing to bring peace to the peninsula via the glowing mushroom. You decide.

Some quick facts for the North korea crowd:

• The USA does NOT have 1000 nukes in South Korea.
• You cannot reach any of the nations that are going to stand tall on the sanctions.
• North Korea will cease to exist after 3 or 4 warheads hit your country. That’s half a Trident D5. You’ll get the bonus plan baby.

In2 Danny does the dance

Nicaragua’s president Ortega has hit the news assailing US president Barack Obama’s decision to shut off $60 million in aid to his country.

I, unlike some on the right am more than willing to visit the past sins and indecencies of Uncle Sam in the “backyard” but I also have to reserve the right to cry bullshit whence it is on the table.

It’s funny how it was Bush that ponied up the 60m and was still vilified by the re-surging leftist governments of LA. It’s funny how Yankee gringo imperialistic interventionism is called out yet “if you want to send a check that’s cool.” is supposedly all good?!?

I don’t like aid being used as the carrot on the end  of the diplomacy stick. Likewise though I don’t get how people can demand/expect aid and think it comes with no attachments. No nation on earth provides aid without some reciprocal requirements. That includes the benevolent Hugo,the Russians and the Chinese. The myth that the USA is the only nation bribing,exhorting “love” from others is bullshit.

In2 Fright at the Museum

Sorry for the title. I am going with the “in for a penny in for a pound (£)” thing here. I have done a virtual friend a disservice and am trying to make myself clear. The friend being Marc at In One Ear out the Other. He has a very quick post on the shooting/shooter at the Holocaust Museum in the US capital today. (post here)

I made an off the cuff comment of :

When I saw the news I was like “Look at all the homeland security funds being wasted for a minor shooting”

You see I’ve recently acquired Verizon FiOS so the nauseating news cycling is still new to me. I saw some CNN and MSNBC feed of the 911 response on scene outside the place. My god folks ! It was a minor shooting. There were probably 2-3 people somewhere else in the District bleeding from crime related wounds and I’m doubting the response was comparable.

I have a 911 past and this incident highlights one of those things that pisses me off about our culture today.

The media reports the stories based on “if it bleeds it leads” . The subtext being if it’s white,blonde, etc. it’s even better. The media will leg hump this story unless something else comes up.

The people fall all along a wide spectrum. There are those that gleefully or at least willingly talk to the media. Others exposed to it come out with opinions and concerns and feed on the sensationalism of it. Then still others will scream for gun control,anti-Semitism and tourism concerns amongst a litany of other items. Blah !

The responders. Folks we’re supposed to be professionals. We should gage and react to incidents in real time and on the footing that every call is a unique call. And by all means when you discover a geriatric nutter assailant and a couple of victims you stand down and call off the show. Patients are transported,suspects arrested and transported and any investigation undertaken by a defined cadre of professionals. Pouring in multiple agencies to log in your usefulness to mankind come budget time isn’t the reason you pin on a badge.

So there it is. My confession that news is annoying and that the cloud that impending “man made disasters” lurk everywhere is something that hasn’t changed. Just the names and faces.

In2 600,000 potholes on the road to recovery

Those new jobs coming this summer giving you a warm feeling ? Smooth rolling right ? Right !

Since January the country,the economy has lost nearly 3 MILLION jobs. Those jobs are like holes on game board  that you’d place ;say a marble. The people are the marbles. We’ve got 14.5 MILLION marbles without holes. The 3 mil I spoke of, are holes that are gone. They’re off the board. Forever ?!? Perhaps.

Now let’s look at the 600,000 new holes Obama is trying to sell us all on. These are temporary holes. Some holes that don’t need filling. Other holes that just needed some cash so a marble could be dropped in it. All in all though these are not new holes.

Of the holes that are not new holes but in fact mostly existing government type holes that 600 k marbles are gonna roll into. Ummm how many of those holes are basically getting filled by a marble that is just going hole to hole. You know what I mean ? You’re lucky I’m losing myself. Seriously though. At what point is someone with any brain matter between the ears supposed to think that ALL the asphalt spreading people in America,their vendors,bosses and designers are all booked up. That we’re looking at say 125k NEW asphalt spreaders etc. BULLSHIT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

600 ,000 marbles. That’s not even good enough to change the margin in the next election,especially when you count the cost.

In2 Right Wing Inanity…

 Picking your fights is important in war,life and politics. Fighting for the sake of fighting is stupid no matter the setting. If you’re going to fight-fight right. Don’t waste anything;time, effort, and credibility being the three that comes to my mind regards politics.

Over the past few days we saw how so many of the ultra Right rabble rants came to be shown as utter bullshit. Don’t kid yourself Obama and his supporters love this. The folks on the right have so much egg on their face with the added beauty of having been the ones to smash them there. meanwhile those struggling to make legitimate points are overshadowed by the inanity and if given the chance to be heard are instantly degraded and denounced as being aligned with the eggy nutters. What happens then? Well the O and his allies just keep stepping.

Let’s look at a few:

Obama accepts gift from Saudi King.

Yes yes that was some serious bling but he didn’t get it because he bowed. Much like Bush got a sword gift giving seems to be a thing with the Riyadh crowd. If you really wanted to say something on this perhaps you could’ve looked at the OPEC price increases or Saudi Arabia’s pro Western actions in the Lebanese elections.

Dresden Apology.

I didn’t hear or see an apology. I saw a little humanism fluff. Dresdeners reportedly feel slighted by the actual O visit. You see he apparently stopped by,said “Hi” to Merkel without giving her a back rub and went to Buchenwald. In fact it looks like Dresden was really only chosen not due to it’s place in history of US/German relations but it’s proximity to the former concentration camp.

Keeping vets from Normandy

This was BS from the word “go”. No crow for me on this one. 

GPA at Harvard

Although I get the idea that the “most transparent” is actually pretty opaque on a number of things I don’t get this one. What is the point of knowing any POTUS’s GPA,IQ, or other scholastic stat ? The energy expended on this one seemed misplaced and surely devolved into juvenile not far out of the gate. There are certain facts on the subject that nobody can credibly refute. He went,got “honors”,wrote “the least cited HLR entry”. Those are three things a vast majority of the Right and Left have failed to do.

about the image. it is from WWII which I hope is obvious. it holds true to today and the subject of this post though. waste does indeed help the enemy.

In2 DB Hannity and wrong wing insanity…

Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right,” -Hugo Chavez

That’s the money quote many on the Right are holding up as important. Surfing the recently acquired FiOS spectrum I had the displeasure of actually seeing Hannity screeching from his cage. My previous exposure to him has always been bites and glimpses via guest gigs at someone that seemed alright.His troop support and wounded servicemen things all seemed cool. But then I saw this.  To say with a straight face that such a credible source as Hugo Chavez is enlightening us all on the evils of Obamanism is just too much.

Hugo ,who has given Caracas 60% min. stake in EVERYTHING is somehow to be seen as Right of Obama’s policies. I wouldn’t care but how can you credibly attack the very failed policies Obama has going on if you open the discussion with bullshit ?

In2 Georgia on my mind…

GPA,perceived apologies to everyone and accepting a gift from the King of Saudi Arabia are all the buzz for the foes of President Barack Hussein Obama. Well my right wing friends your stance sucks on all of those and I invite you to give reality a chance.

Georgia on my mind

Georgia, as in Dixie not the once upon a time Soviet republic. Still under the cloud of the remedies for Jim Crow Georgia is subject to federal reaming regards election law. The state came up with a plan to satisfy the D.C. whim of the day and got sued for it. now the Holder DoJ is dictating that Georgia must fix the problem.

The really effed up part of this is that the squabble is over requiring voters to be properly identified. Illegal immigrant supporters and the anti American ACLU lead the charge. To be honest their claims were not unfounded unfortunately as database screw ups kept some folks from voting. The flip side is though that a third of those affected are still sitting on unclear citizenship status. 

I don’t know about anybody else but the US election system is a joke. That said allowing people to vote because you think it’s a right regardless of citizenship is absolutely unAmerican.

Voting is a privilege,a blessing,and it belongs solely to the citizens of this nation.

My call ?

Let’s end ALL of the Jim Crow shit. The crimes,the so called remedies etc. etc. Let’s start fresh and honest. For crying out loud let’s get over it ,get together and get going.

Let’s require every voter in every state (all 57 of them) to provide positive and verifiable government issued identification before they  are allowed to vote. And I mean vote not just register. You don’t get to step in the box without proving you should be standing in the country let alone the polling place !

Keep an eye on Holder. this is exactly the kind of thing saner folks were concerned about with his appointment. To hell with little Cuban boys this is a real issue as I noted before. In2 Hold on Holder Jan 09

Article on story

In2 it isn’t a helping hand folks…

Sharing a link to an Economist article I recently read regarding aid from authoritarian governments. 

Aid is a big issue with me in that I’ve seen how it is almost NEVER a helping hand kind of thing. It’s always more of a leash grip and sometimes a grasp at the throat. it doesn’t matter if it’s a western democracy,a long time NGO, or the aspiring power merchants of the likes of Iran,China or Venezuela.

There have been some great stories especially out of  Africa how aid has actually helped hobble develop and left the people in suffering ways.

All in all we the regular folks need to be vigilant where we send our money. It doesn’t matter if it is via taxes or donations. We cannot remain blind to the end results of the “gift”.

More in line with the Economist piece though one can see that the world is awash in a war. This one is more like a very aggressive pillow fight. Soft power diplomacy of aid (read bribes,extortion etc) is being waged by countries like China,Iran and Venezuela. The motives are clear and in varying lengths we all need to wake up a bit on this one. The Chinese especially are acting in an overt manner that tells me the pillow is getting some coin rolls tossed in. That’s a meaningful whack to the side of the head. I dig how people take the view America has been far from kind and benevolent. We’ve sucked in many many cases.

Changing the player doesn’t make the game better.

Much of their aid is overtly political. Iran’s offer of free electricity to Shia parts of Iraq is one example, Venezuela’s bankrolling of Cuba another. Most is steered towards a few friendly regimes, or (in China’s case) places with natural resources. China has pledged $600m to Cambodia, more than ten times as much as America. It has given Myanmar $400m in the past five years; American aid to the country is worth about $12m a year.

 Naturally, help from harsh regimes is rarely encumbered with pesky demands for good governance. This makes it welcome to corrupt officials and even to those merely sick of being lectured by Westerners. Alas, it can encourage bad governance. China, the report says, is training 1,000 Central Asian policemen and judicial officials “most of whom could be classified as working in anti-democratic enterprises”. The report concludes that authoritarian regimes are using aid to boost their soft power. If so, the spread of authoritarian aid is a challenge to more than just Western ideas of the right sort of giving. Economist

Wake up folks !

In2 Oops Don’t tell the phobes this…

“We are Muslims, we pray regularly and read the Koran. We don’t want them, they have to go,” resident Samiullah Khan said by telephone. “Attacking a mosque is not Islam. They’re not Muslim.”

 

Seems the Taliban blew up a mosque in Pakistan and the locals are taking exception. The villagers formed a group of around 500 and hunted down the T-Ban elements. They destroyed houses they hid in and killed some of them.

People that want to see change in Islam are wasting their time. People that want to see changes in how regular folks are stepping up against extremists, jihadists as some say-well you need too open up your eyes.

 

Yahoo Reuters

In2 Economy Fail-GM,Obama and Us…

ok folks help me out with my major deja vu/ seizure activity.

Chinese companies were not to acquire US assets.

Now one owns Hummer

The bailout was supposed to help GM.

They’re bankrupt

Bankruptcy was bad. Romney was an asshole for mentioning it.

They’re bankrupt.

Workers needed to stay on the job to help the overall economy. “Too big to fail” ! Factories closing,lines shattered and stock delisted from the stock exchange.

All this and the taxpayer and American driving public are still supposed to expect a return on our investment. If you’re buying that I’ve got a car I want to sell you it’s got….

In2 Blimey ! Will the expense scandals help the Tories

Plain and simple post here folks from a curious Yank.

Is this the final nail in the Brown/Labour coffin ?

Cabinet reshuffle coming,expense accounts excesses in a bad economy,and assorted other pratfalls from Gordon & Company has got to find Cameron smiling.

In2 the Tiller & Naps report Fray

Back on 15 April I said this in a post titled In2 DHS Can’t fly without wings…

I have reached the tipping point on the issue of the DHS report on right wing extremism. News outlets and bloggers alike have jumped all over this story and have made it into something it never should’ve had the potential to be. For those especially that are either crying foul from the right or smugly claiming victory from the left I just have to say I think you’re both wrong.

I have to reiterate it today but this time in context of the buzz over the killing of Dr. Tiller,and the applauds being sent Napolitano’s way.

This isn’t to detract from my previous support of two good posts over at In One Ear…

here and here

In2 Franken my Dear Citizen I don’t give a damn

“Twelve thousand citizens who made good-faith efforts to vote were disenfranchised, with a variety of reasons,” Friedberg said.

Franken attorney Marc Elias argued that Coleman’s team had failed to show specific voters were disenfranchised.

“This isn’t evidence, this is an argument,” Elias said. Yahoo/AP

Is the party that supposedly cares about voters rights getting a little pissy over adding to 312 votes ? Is the party that once wanted the country to be able to move on now refusing to move on?

I don’t know which hypocrisy is more aggravating. 

I’m not from Mn. and had previously thought Coleman should just chill out and step aside. Now I’m thinking he should keep fighting. Was that the plan ?

In2 STRATFOR : Greece,Muslims,Extremism…

Analysis

Protests arranged by Muslim migrants along with migrant advocacy groups, which began in Athens on May 29 and have the potential to last throughout the weekend, bear close watching. The demonstration follows similar protests by around 2,000 Muslim immigrants, mainly from South Asian and Middle Eastern countries and in their 20s and 30s, last week in response to allegations that a Greek policeman intentionally damaged a Koran during an identity check of migrants. The demonstrations turned violent, with an estimated 100 protesters tussling with the police, who dispersed the crowd with tear gas and eventually arrested 40 of the demonstrators. 



While turnout for the fresh batch of demonstrations planned to last throughout the weekend could match or exceed numbers seen last week, STRATFOR does not expect these protests to draw the significantly expanded numbers of Muslim demonstrators anticipated by some media outlets. This can be attributed to the diversity of Greece’s Muslim community. Still, various left- and right-wing Greek groups could use the Muslim protests as cause to restart their battle against one another. Already, a radical right-wing group has staged counterdemonstrations to mark the May 29, 1453, fall of Constantinople to the Turks.

At slightly more than 800,000, Muslims make up nearly 10 percent of Greece’s population. Muslims in Greece fall into three broad categories: Albanian migrants (the largest subgroup at nearly 450,000), Thracian Muslims of varying ethnicities (numbering around 150,000 and mainly concentrated in the Thrace region of northeastern Greece near the Turkish border), and migrant Muslims from South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa (whose numbers are unknown, as many are undocumented). The Albanian migrants have been coming to Greece from Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo since the geopolitical shifts in the region of the early 1990s. The Thracian Muslims are of Turkish, Slavic or Roma ethnicity, and were left behind after population exchanges between Turkey and Greece following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1922.

 It is the third group, many of whose members are illegal immigrants, that is staging the current protests.

While the Albanian and Thracian Muslims certainly have grievances of their own against Athens, they are unlikely to join with migrant Muslims to express them. The Albanian minority in Greece (along with Albanians in general) for the most part define themselves by their ethnicity, culture and unique language; only rarely (and tangentially) do Albanians use Islam as a key identifier. Meanwhile, Thracian Muslims are either of Turkic, Slavic or Roma descent and therefore are culturally and ethnically (not to mention geographically, Thrace being far removed from Athens where most migrant Muslims live) disconnected from the protesters. It is highly unlikely that the first two groups will risk being equated by the general Greek population with radical Islam by joining protests spearheaded by the migrant Muslim population. Therefore, numbers cited in media reports of up to 700,000 Muslims in Athens protesting come May 29-31 are almost certainly blown out of proportion by conflating Albanian and Thracian Muslims with Greece’s very different migrant Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Syria and Somalia. 



The planned protests should therefore not be compared with rioting by Muslims in France, like the periodic outbursts of violence and social angst in the predominately Muslim banlieues of France. Though these Muslim-dominated French communities resemble the Athens demonstrators in that they are often disenfranchised youths, more often then not the French protesters have lived in France for years — often generations — and are French citizens. The Greek protests are more likely to resemble the protests that sprang across of Europe during the Danish cartoon controversy, where recent Muslim immigrants lashed out in response to what they perceived to be a cultural and religious discrimination.


While Greece already has faced numerous protests triggered by a December 2008 police shooting of a 15-year-old Greek youth, the underlying cause of those riots was the global economic recession and anti-government sentiment, especially by the radical left-wing and anarchist elements. Since then, left-wing, right-wing and anarchist groups have taken turns sowing violence in Greece, either through targeted attacks against each other or by various bombings against banking (a favorite target of anarchist groups) and migrant (a favorite target of the radical right groups) centers. These ideological groups represent the key social division in Greece, and while Muslims migrants may find sympathy from some left-wing groups, this is likely to be only temporary (and as a result of the left’s search for a lever to use against its right-wing opponents). If violence continues, intensifying and spreading, this most likely will be because it coalesces into right-left conflict and loses its “Muslim” character. 



A final element to consider is the potential geographic diffusion of protests, a quintessentially European phenomenon, into broader demonstrations and violence across Europe. As Europe enters a “summer of rage,” the protests could set off counter demonstrations, particularly from radical right-wing groups, not just in Greece but across the region. This is especially a possibility in countries that have only recently become migrant destinations, like Greece, Italy, or Central European states like Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. These states do not have the institutional history and experience dealing with high numbers of migrants, nor with targeted xenophobic violence that West European states — which lived through waves of anti-immigrant violence throughout the post-World War II period — have.

STRATFOR will closely monitor the situation as it develops. The key aspect to watch is whether these demonstrations coalesce into larger or more violent protests, not involving the other two Muslim subgroups in Greece, but by right- and left-wing groups — particularly radical right-wing anti-immigrant groups — in what is already a tense economic and social climate.

In2 the Economist had this…

and it’s pretty revealing if you read into it all the truth around it.

As the crisis has deepened, American bankers have tempered their opposition to the idea of new rules that reduce the chances of another blow-up. “Would I accept regulation that slows innovation a bit and knocks three percentage points off my returns if it promised greater stability? Absolutely,” says the head of one large bank.

For some, more stringent regulation even has a silver lining. With tougher mortgage rules, banks will no longer have to lower their standards to compete with the industry’s unregulated parts. The survivors could also benefit from higher barriers to entry.

Number 1.

The financial sector is in the business of making money. Propelled essentially by greed the sector needs to assure it’s future and that’s actually good for a lot of people. That said the statement I put in bold is pretty clear cut. A big bank looking to get bigger will logically enjoy a bit of regulation since it is far more likely to be capable of dealing with it as opposed to it’s smaller competitors.

Number 2

This is the biggie. Without having to deal with pirate brokers and the likes of Barney Frank et al the banks and lending agencies will make moves that’ll help the economy. The economy it helps though will be redefined backwards. This of course will provide fodder for those that champion class warfare and general racism.

Am I right or wrong ?

Well I’m biased of course but I’m going with right.

International regulations weaving their way through the tapestry that is the global financial industry is hardly a boon for the common man. Rich people will stay rich and pretty much be assured to get richer. The poor will stay poor but hey we all knew that. The folks in the middle ground will be the ones that feel this the most,as always.

The middle will experience slower pension growths as less risk is undertaken to appease grey area regulation. The little guy investments in instruments such as mutual funds are important and stunting them isn’t a good thing. I hope here I’m being pessimistic as opposed to visionary. In focus on the USA our wretched record of personal savings will surely be furthered in the wrong direction.

Home ownership will experience a widening gap. Depending on how the locals choose to address this will dictate how positive or negative that shakes out. For example smaller homes making up tighter knit communities address sprawl and crime issues only if handled properly. Fail to handle it and sprawl continues,demographics shift and tax bases fail.

Consumerism will continue and in America especially it will likely be empty spending at Walmart as opposed to savings and investment for our future. Regulations do cost money and may very well prove too much for some. Big banks will get bigger and smaller banks will continue to be overlooked by the masses. 

Economist

 

In2 77 ways the Left will lose

White House advisers add that Obama will be pushed only so far to the left, and with good reason. Only 19 percent of Americans, after all, identify themselves as liberal, compared with 36 percent who say they are moderate and 41 percent who say they are conservative, according to the latest poll by Democracy Corps, a Democratic think tank.

I don’t know how that fits the bill regards the Obama is a Marxist crowd but I do like those numbers. The group that produced those digits have amongst it’s founders James Carville. I have to say that since the site for Democracy Corps. shows a malware warning on my computer so I obviously have no linkage for you. Go go Google to your hearts delight though.

The point is though any group he’d be home at has some credibility when it comes to admitting the 41% conservative number. I imagine the 36% moderate portion is something some on the Left would take solace from but I’m not buying it. 77% is a good pool to find resistance over the next couple of years and is a tell to exactly how Obama will suffer in the centrist mire and be 4 and out if he’s not artful and honest.

The Left has a big wish list and for the most part it’s a list that a majority of common sense common man Americans are not comfortable with. the dragons on the list won’t be easy for Obama to fight and as the days,yes days not months tick away he’s losing the chance to lance any let alone many of said dragons. These dragons will take some hits in the short run though and the change that brings to America may or may not be good. Sadly many times in politics minor successes are over hyped and folks move on to the next thing. The problem being of course the first thing isn’t finished and viola you get crapped on.

Oh well folks looks like the ride is going to stat to get rougher.

In2 the news 5.31.09 v 1

So there’s a Catholic priest,Father Cutie (I kid you not), who has left the Church and signed on with the Episcopalians.

His sin being the scandal caused by getting caught on camera kissing a girlfriend.

You’d think the Catholic Church would be thankful he was kissing a woman.

Whether the news cycle will morph this into a wider public repudiation and or reinvigorated reexamination of the Catholic Church is yet to be see. The truth is the Church isn’t a democracy so the constant haranguing of the system by the masses are pathetic. Linking the story to other social commentary such as gay marriage is foreseeable and equally stupid.

Well there it is and one of the many source stories can be found here

In2 Duncan’s Donut…

Duncan being Dept. of Education Secretary Arne Duncan and the donut being the 0 amount of cash states will get if they don’t treat charter schools better.

 I likie ! 

Two bits o’ quotes from the web

“States like that would not be helping their chances, I can say that,” Duncan told The Associated Press during a visit to a high school in the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Va

But the federal stimulus law gives Obama a powerful incentive to push the expansion of charter schools. The law set up a $5 billion fund to reward states and school districts that adopt innovations the administration supports. The fund is part of $100 billion for education over the next two years.

In2the Colin Powell Quote…

I’ve seen it in a lot of places and it’s all the rage with the right.

At a recent conference, Powell stated, “Americans do want to pay taxes for services.” He also continued that “Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less.”

Help me out folks with some FULL CONTEXT !!!!!!!!!

In2 STRATFOR: WHTI

No it’s not a radio station. The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Is it a good thing ? A bad thing ? What what what ????

Read on

In2 a Sotomayor question

La Raza is to America as ___________ is to ________________

In2 STRATFOR and North Korea

The following is STRATFOR’s analysis on the recent North Korea missile launchings. I offer up for minimal consumption the part about Legacy,Peer and Bargaining Programs. (Highlighted in red)

Dhimmi ? Dummy ? Thinker ! Schools Out !

Interesting piece on girls schools in Afghanistan getting threatened by the Taliban. The article (see link below) on Spiegel has a number of interesting layers to it. Let me explain.

Sickness of the threats

The sickening nature of the threats and the actions that happen to back them up are things that have been widely reported yet not resoundingly heard. The Taliban exhibit every bit of the nature that is why they need to be defeated. (see quote below)

Ineffective Intervention

The German army is in charge of the area that the article looks at. The troop strength of 600+ in such a wide area is useless. This is made pretty clear;however, the article fails to look at how the pussy mandate the Germans operate under goes a long way in making sure they (German troops) are attacked and that the Taliban feels free to attack school girls.

Angst

The article captures the goodness of the parents and others in the region,that even though they too are Muslims, they believe in girls going to school. Sitting in a home in the West for the most part ill prepares one for wrapping your head around that concept. The people in these areas in Afghanistan are truly victims. Nothing they do helps them. If they stand up, they die. If they turn to NATO, they die. Let’s be honest here. If they submit they eventually will still do something that’ll get them killed or at least brutally punished.

From the article:

Another threat letter depicts a schoolgirl at the gallows. “We have warned you,” reads the message. “If we now kill schoolgirls, you shouldn’t be surprised.”

Halimi is open in his description of the precarious situation the schools find themselves in. “There is no police there and even the army is afraid to go there,” he says. “What should I do, as a civilian, against the Taliban?”

And this:

Still, the news isn’t all bad. At the girls’ school in Qosh Tappeh, likewise near Kunduz, the school director, a veteran of the mujahedeen, took things into his own hands. When the Taliban showed up to his school for the second time to present their threats, he found a uniquely Afghan solution to the problem. He told his visitors that, when it comes to fighting to the death, he is much more experienced than they. Should they like to find out for sure, he offered, he would be happy to accommodate them.

His threat seemed to have worked. The girls in Qosh Tappeh continue to attend school.

Spiegel

In2 Shut Up or I’m gonna swan you…

A man grabbed a live swan by the neck and used it as a weapon to attack his opponent during an altercation by the bank of a river in Munich.

Speigel

I’m sorry animal lovers but that is funny.

In2 A question set ANY phobe should be able and willing to answer

Inspired,broken up and numbered for simplicity from the original found in the 100+ range of the comment thread here

1) So why did Mohamamed marry a 6 year old girl,

2) consummate the marriage at 9,

3) take slaves,

4) behead people,

5) steal other people’s property

6) and treat non muslims as 2nd class citizens at best.

7) And why do muslims consider him. “The perfect man”

In2 Abortion: an open thread

A haircut you regret an barbaric medical procedure or something in between. I’m curious what people have to offer…. Jump in2thefray

In2 Colin Powell,GOP & Alfie…

I’ve been critical of Colin Powell in the past and I’ve been given cause to revisit two previous posts to verify that truth.

From In2 Colin Powell 10.19.08

I don’t say he should have any Party loyalty. I am not voting for McCain, so how could I ? I just don’t like to see a degree of dishonesty on his behalf. I vividly remember his live interview from Jordan when some hack lackey cut off the visual after a hand grenade of a question was tossed. You could hear the S of S demanding the camera be brought back. That is something I’ll always admire of him. It is that honesty I’d have expected regarding any type of endorsement.

Who knows though. Perhaps Powell the valiant has only been thrust upon the sword again. He was sent to suffer before the world by W via the UN show. Perhaps his non campaigning endorsement is just another example of his naivety towards politicians.

and from Dear Democrats, Republicans, Americans… 10.24.08

In reverse order I think the RINO’s should be of no comfort to anyone. I don’t know if RINO’s have a comparable counter in the Dems “Blue Dogs” but I do know the one’s that have gone seem to be media whores. I know people will take exception to Powell being called a whore but I doubt his honesty now so it fits.

That was then and this is now ?

I don’t know. I know I’m insanely concerned about there being at least two party government in America so I think we all need the GOP to sort itself out. I see Powell being called out by the likes of Rove and Cheney and Powell standing up for himself. I see the likes of Newt Gingrich coming to Powells side and all in all I see a good thing. Does anyone else see that ?

Who said on “Meet the Press” that “I don’t want to pick a fight with Dick Cheney, but the fact is, the Republican party has to be a broad party that appeals across the country,” adding, “To be a national party, you have to have a big enough tent that you inevitably have fights inside the tent.” Newt via Politico

The Politico piece also touches on the whole Cheney v. Powell thing. I don’t know folks but this dust up may be far more important than the press cycle may present.

In2 take off your jammies and wake up…

Saw a link to a David Steinberg piece on Pajamas Media blog. The entry is titled If Terrorists Misinterpret Islam.

It opens with a salvo at classic liberalism and then delves into  defining all ills on the Earth as Islamic or at least totalitarian in nature. It closes out that classic liberals are essentially pathetic and that Iran must be stopped.

That’s my interpretation anyway,you can click the link and decide for yourself.

Three interesting points I found from the author are as follows:

Classic liberalism was clearly defined initially by it’s laissez faire foreign policy and currently by it’s interventionist policy. The blurs and overlaps of modern American liberalism (socialism) and conservatism are cryptically interwoven in the PJ piece and seems to ignore the history of this imo.

The  dangerous nations list in the piece is a good one.It seems to be presented in a manner focused on the thesis of the author though. I guess that is proper.  I like this one I found at the UK Telegraph better. The range of nations in the Telegraph presentation speaks volumes that any intelligent viewer can appreciate. The citizens and the proponents of the listed nations may not concur,but then again the truth hurts.

Lastly there was a set of questions I took to be directed at the classic liberals who seem to be of such offense to the author.

Do societies ever turn to terroristic, totalitarian behavior solely because of outside oppression, or do the movements arise from within?

 The answer is BOTH. Classic liberalism has a long record on this. Hayeks Road to Serfdom comes to mind and speaks loudly to the latter. For the former there are any number of revolutions and revolts that would seem to supply examples.

Is Islam as it is practiced by terrorists and aggressive Islamic countries a new phenomenon? Or does it predate contact with the West?

Sadly the use of any number of ideologies throughout time for the benefit of leaders is part of our collective history. Religious tenets applied to society are very powerful and are not new phenoms borne from Islam. Islam and Sharia etc. as practiced by “aggressive Islamic countries” is a great example of an ideology finding it’s place as a source of control. I venture to say though that the power it holds could’ve been used for good or bad depending on those wielding it.

 Is it possible for one religion/culture to be more worthwhile to humanity as a whole than another?

 The key word being more. It’s undeniably subjective though. One’s judgement is automatically skewed from the start. A Christian westerner can’t truly relate to what anything may mean to a Mongolian herdsman. Any thoughts,feelings etc. are tinged with the viewers prejudice. 

Is it racist to think Islam is inherently violent?

No. No matter your definition of Ummah a faith isn’t a race. Over generalizations are never helpful in an honest argument/dialog. Is it a truthful fact that of the worlds religions Islam is currently connected to international acts of violence ?  It is in my opinion and I dare say any sane and honest person of any faith would agree with me. And that is where it must begin. Much like how the Pakistani army has finally arrived into the Swat valley to confront the Taliban, people of all faiths,especially Islam must confront that which threatens us all. 

PJ Link

In2 the North Korea fray…

So many aspects of this story drives me crazy.

#1. Actually saw some place today that at least the Sotomayor appointment would move NK of the headlines.

Holy crap ! What we can’t have more than one hot item ?

#2. France and others want tougher sanctions on NK. mmmm The people are like freakin robots and are starving. Eating tree bark and stuff like that. Sanctions ???? What are they gonna do ?

#3. The world is united and NK is isolated. That’s the US/UN party line via Susan Rice, the Obamabot at the UN. Yet they are still launching rockets and missiles. And we say what ??

#4. North Korea is like a two year old having a tantrum. Look at me ! Give me what I want  ! Or I’ll launch a missile. That’s funny. I’m loving how this will help me win my Asian arms race bet.

In2 the Sotomayor fray…

Yeah the Right is drooling at this and I’m getting my bib too. I concede she’s a logical pick on many academic grounds but is still an identity politics choice. I’ll also tow the right party line that she has some scary quote ghosts in her past.

Sotomayor also referred to the cardinal duty of judges to be impartial as a mere “aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others.” And she suggested that “inherent physiological or cultural differences” may help explain why “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”   NJ

Like it or not the SCOTUS will not be moving away from it’s current trends. Perhaps the next pick will make that difference. I will say this though. Sotomayor exemplifies what is wrong with identity politics and the hypocrisy of it.

In2 Sarah Palin still an idiot…

“Today, we have a friend in RNC Chairman Michael Steele, and his bold and courageous speech defines his leadership goals that will guide us all through this most difficult time for our nation.”

 

That was the Alaskan governors contribution to the RNC Michael Steele love fest. It wasn’t actually a love fest but it captures how pathetic some of the hard core conservatives are lost in the woods as they are.

I will give her this though. Her word choices are consistent and that’s what makes her an idiot.

In2 Some Elric Housecleaning

I asked the question first. Not playing your little games Fray

 

Which is why during my blog “housecleaning” today Elric will start to magically disappear and won’t return without answering.
You see Elric commenting is a privilege not a right. You’ve been given a lot of latitude and now deserve to be seen as nothing but an ignorant spammer. Take care.

 

Is torture EVER acceptable?

by Free to think, Free to believe

I’ve been spending my time doing that dangerous thing called reading… but to start with let’s begin with a common argument -

The Ticking Bomb; this is where somebody in custody is thought [for whatever reasons] to have planted a bomb and that if the forces of Law and Order don’t find out where it is in time then Innocents will Die…

It is claimed, from time to time, that this is the only argument which would justify torturing the fellow suspected of planting the bomb. I am going to go around the subject but rest assured I will get back to this…

In media torture is sometimes given an importance or romantic idea that it should not have. I’ve just watched the last of the third season of The West Wing and towards the end of that season there is a move based on the information given by an ally from the use of torture [Well, it is supposed to be from torture... and so that's the way I'm going to use it.] the trouble with this is that given the info it is basically something that the torturers would want to hear. In 24 there is a case where a terrorist is apprehended and then their son is threatenned to be shot if they do not reply in a forthright and honest way…

Unfortunately both examples do not show anything useful. Let me explain – in the episode from the West Wing the only thing the President can rely on is that the torturers were satisfied when they heard what they wanted to hear and in ‘24′ the suspect breaks down – unfortunately the example they give is one they might have based on actual facts and the case they recreated it did not actually work…

I’ve been reading whilst I’ve been away and one of the books I read was a torturously thorough examination of this topic – Torture and Democracy by Darius Rejali… The person they threatened that he reported who was confronted by this choice – his son or the truth, did not actually then break… and then they did shoot his offspring.

Indeed memory is one of the first things to go when tortured. Who was one’s childhood sweet heart at school is fine – it will remain sot but and this is the thing – the memories of recent events will deteriate. What Bomb? Which Street? Maybe this one, or was it that, no it was another… Is there a bomb?

These are the things that torture will wipe out. Making torture of someone with a ticking bomb useless. There are various reasons for this and if you are really interested I would recommend the book in its entirety to you, Dear Reader.

If torture is useless regarding the Ticking Bomb then what use has it in other spheres of questioning – none is the somewhat bitter answer. The reason why I think it a bitter truth is that for folk to be so harmed and for no good reason seems an even worse fate than if there was a good reason…

In Northern Ireland folk who were named as dangers to the population at large were hauled off and stuck in camps/prisons – much like Gmo Bay… What this achieved was that folk wrongly fingered were then made actively sympathetic to the cause they were swept up in… In short the camps did not work then and I don’t think Gmo Bay worked yesterday…

To return to the media and how it represents torture the most accurate view of torture on screen that I can remember is that to be found within Lethal Weapon where both of the dogged and heroic detectives are tortured despite their claims of ignorance. Indeed if they could have made stuff up – they would have. How would that have been satisfactory for their torturers? Well, bluntly the same for their torturers and torturers in the real world everywhere.

In ‘Democracy and Torture’ the one film that is examined is The Battle of Algiers where Rejali takes apart the entire dependency that is sometimes shown therein and shows how mistaken the film’s claims are regarding torture. Rejali also shows how much information is extracted by having informants, which are not [needless to say] tortured, and by good detective practices.

Basically, even if you have someone you are torturing who then claims there is a bomb – you would be a better manager of time by stopping the torture and then going out and looking for the bomb, which might not actually exist… The Ticking Bomb justification may make for a good argument for torturing someone but it does not mean you have any chance of finding the bomb by carrying on the torture…

As a postsript regarding a certain practice – waterboarding, if carried out for long enough it will drown the fellow being given this treatment. Alfie’s earlier comment during a post that it was not that bad when he had it done unto him brings to light the way folk learn how they then, given direct orders or other reasons (such as a CO saying ‘Get me that info and I don’t care how you do it!’) those who turn to tortures remember what has been done to them and then replicate such practices… or remember from other fields of operations what other folk have done and then do those…

Those merely undergoing SERE [Survival Evasion Resistance Escape] training (although I admit I may have got that slightly wrong) are trained so that they don’t talk are also as an unforeseen byproduct given a beginner’s course in How To Torture… without even thinking what that would do to them. Chip Frederickson, as championed by Zimbardo, was one who was unlucky enough to be compromised by the system and tried to perform to those he percieved as having authority over his operations and his story is a lesson to us all.

In the end we should say that torture is not, ever, acceptable and the costs that that inflicts – those on the torturers, the tortured and those in the wider world who look on – are not worth it and it is more worthwhile to resist such practices.

In2 Bibi’s visit. Analysis by STRATFOR

Just in a sharing kind of mood. One could read this and compare it to the press post tete a tete

In2 No Nukes ?

Well I guess it would actually be less nukes.

Saw a news report on multiple wires about the diplomats working out the pre meet work on further nuke reductions between the USA and Russia. The two nations are currently already under a treaty (SORT) for reductions to be completed by 2012. The Obama Administration is flirting (as well as others)) with further reductions.

I find this a real fluffy kind of story. Lefties are probably getting the warm and fuzzies and Righties are probably getting ready to start screaming about the destruction of our defenses etc.

All in all it’s a bullshit kind of thing since the arsenal will still be in the thousands for some time. I dare say both sides will fudge the reductions one way or the other with upgrades.

On a side note many of the stories just had to plug the BHO crew with credit for getting 189 countries signing onto refreshing the Non Proliferation Treaty. Although this is nice headline candy ,especially given the diplo-circus that is the Iran nuke issue this too is BS methinks.

Out of the 189 countries how many could actually build,deploy and use a nuke ?

Fluff. Good on a sandwich,sucks on a headline.