Any writing I do about Central Asia tends to the more historical and runs away from the contemporary political. Mostly for the reason that the reporting out of the region--I'm not talking about Afghanistan, here--tends to be so bad, so mis- and ill-informed. Take Reuters for example:

Analysts say long-defunct groups like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan are regaining force in the impoverished region where ethnic tensions have long simmered under the surface.

"They (militants) are preparing the ground for a long, sustained military campaign in Central Asia," said Ahmed Rashid, a leading Pakistan-based expert on Afghanistan and Central Asia.

And then they go on to give this example or 'terrorism:'

First alarm bells rang in Central Asia last year when Uzbek, Tajik and Kyrgyz troops fought gangs they described as terrorist -- around the time when the security situation in northern Afghanistan deteriorated sharply.

"It does not matter who exactly was behind those attacks. It still means instability, that something's going on," said one Western diplomat. "It is certainly something we are watching."

Of course they cite the defunct IMU of Juma Namangani--he who was killed in late 2001 by a US missile. And they raise the phantom of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a millenialist and anti-secular group who aims to reestablish an Islamic Caliphate by peaceful means. HT has never engaged in any form of violence, which is probably why the authorities in the region dislike them so much.

Of course the writer of the story really buries the lede:

"It is the Central Asian regimes that continue terrorising their people," said Taji Mustafa, [the HT] representative in London. "Since the declaration of the West's so-called 'war on terror', Central Asian governments have used it as a convenient umbrella to pursue, arrest and torture their political opponents."

Maybe the media ought to look into that angle?

Cross posted from Nourishing the Planet.

Madyo Couto has a tough job. He works under the Mozambique Ministry of Tourism to help manage the country’s Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs). These areas were initially established to help conserve and protect wildlife, but they’re now evolving to include other uses of land that aren’t specifically for conservation.

At the center of the current fiscal troubles in Greece, Spain, Portugal and elsewhere in Europe are the promises made by governments to fund union salary increases and pension plans. Unions in Europe are much stronger than they are in North America, and in many of Europe’s less-wealthy countries, governments have chosen over the years to appease union demands even though it meant driving fiscal deficits well beyond the level tolerated by EU rules. Now that these governments are finding it impossible to continue to borrow on global markets without firm evidence that these deficits are going to be brought down, proposals to cut union pay or benefits are being met with strikes by firefighters, police, teachers, farmers, and others.

Do not for a moment think that these problems are not to be found in the United States. The difference here is that the “appeasement”, such as it is, has been concentrated at the state and local level, though the federal government has its share of unfunded promises to workers. The 50 states last year ran up a combined deficit of around $180 billion – coincidentally about the same amount that the US has spent bailing out AIG. The federal government has also helped out the states during this fiscal crisis, by lending them money to continue paying normal as well as emergency employment benefits to laid off citizens. This has averted a real crisis, since states are constitutionally required to plug any annual deficits. The real problems will show up later this year and next when the federal loans run out.

THE DEPROLIFERATOR --

"Nuclear war must be the most carefully avoided topic of general significance in the contemporary world. People are not curious about the details. … almost everyone seems to feel adequately informed by reading one book about nuclear war."
-- Paul Brians, chronicler of nuclear imagery in literature and pop culture

Some of us are oblivious to the threat of nuclear war; others shrink from it in fear. Many operate under the assumption that there's no longer anything to worry about because we survived the Cold War intact. Besides, there's always deterrence. Like a trusty old shotgun in the corner, we try to reassure ourselves, it's served us well for 50 years.

CSM....inflation hit Monopoly-ville. As you pass Go, you do not collect $200. Instead, you earn $2 million.

Here is one by Peter Spiro:

Cause and Effect

Cause you are poor
You go to public school.
Cause public school is free
You get a lousy education.
Cause you get a lousy education
You are uneducated.
Cause you are uneducated
You are treated with contempt.
Cause you are treated with contempt
You are contemptuous of others.
Cause you are contemptuous of others
You do not abide by the rules.
Cause you do not abide by the rules
You do not have a job.
Cause you do not have a job
You steal.
Cause you steal
You go to prison.
Cause you go to prison
Your life is wasted.
Cause your life is wasted
You are angry.
Cause you are angry
You are dangerous.
Cause you are dangerous
You are a bad effect.

And you are destroyed.

Cause you were a bad effect
Cause you were dangerous
Cause you were angry
Cause your life was wasted
Cause you went to prison
Cause you stole
Cause you didn’t have a job
Cause you did not abide by the rules
Cause you were contemptuous of others
Cause you were treated with contempt
Cause you were uneducated
Cause you got a lousy education
Cause you went to public school
Cause you were poor.

- Peter Spiro

My son and I watched the landing of the Boeing 747-8 this afternoon at Paine Field, Everett, WA. The 747-8 is the latest Boeing product in the long line of 747 airframes. The first flight today was the freighter version.

Notice the new Boeing House Colors - the curved cheat line down the fuselage. It was surprisingly quiet as well.

The 747-8 can be configured for passenger service with 467 seats in a three cabin configuration. The plane has a range of 14,815 km (Intercontinental) and 8,130 km (Freighter). The plane is more efficient than the prior 747-400 and the only plane in the 400-500 seat market that fits existing airport infrastructure - unlike the Airbus A380.

QOTD:

This brings me to the second telling event of last week when President Obama said, kind of off-hand, apropos of the US economic situation, "You don't blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you're trying to save for college. You prioritize. You make tough choices." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (of Nevada) was all over Mr. Obama like a cheap suit for that. I'm sorry that the President didn't slam back the craven Mr. Reid and pull his upper lip over the top of his head. Fuck Las Vegas and fuck Nevada, and fuck all the casino operators in every pulsating gambling venue around this country. The last thing we need is to continue believing that it is possible to get something for nothing, or an industry based on that false principle. I'd go a lot further and shut down legalized gambling all over the USA, send it back to the margins, to the alleys, to the berm between the WalMart and the Target Store, to the basement boiler rooms, to the public bathrooms, to wherever it will be identified as indecent, shameful, and not healthy.

I've never been a gambler and opposed the legalization of gambling across the country for one key reason: it is a regressive tax. Those who can least afford it end up paying for it. So, if you want the lottery to fund your schools, as we did in Texas--and seriously, what the hell kind of mixed message do you we send out kids? Then you make the poor pay for it via lottery tickets.

Why bother getting everyone to pay for it fairly?

It's immoral and shameful.

Mexico is currently the #2 supplier of crude to the United States and Venezuela #3. But not for long.

Read and weep.

Like I said, the polarization continues. War will follow. It's just a matter of time.

All this gnashing of teeth about the Czar's inner circle is such old news. I wrote about this months ago. But it's certainly easier for Americans to blame the evil advisers of the Czar than accept the fact that the Czar shares their assumptions and ideas.

As I wrote then: "Seriously, this is a narrative trope straight out of Czarist Russia, when the peasants, long oppressed and over-taxed bemoan the fact that their Czar loves them, but is surrounded by evil ministers."

Occam's Razor, the Goodness of Fit, whatever you test you want to use, the bottom line is that Obama's advisers are a reflection of the man. Not the other way around.

Excellent piece by Ed Vulliamy in the Guardian UK. He's writing a book about Juarez and the Drug War there and tries to sum it all up:

... certain themes are inescapable: this brutality defines a war very much of its time, the first 21st-century war, because it is, in the end, about nothing. We have lived in a world where Arabs fight Jews, Hutus fight Tutsis, communists fight fascists, Serbs fight Croats, and British and American troops fight Islamist fundamentalists. They do so for a cause, faith or deeply etched tribal identity, however crazy.

But Mexico's war (some do not like calling it a war) has no such purpose. Mexicans are mutilating, decapitating, torturing and killing each other, ostensibly over money and the drug smuggling routes that provide it. But most of the ­violence revolves around the smaller profits of the domestic market and street corner. It is meted out for its own sake. Yes, there are regional and clan allegiances to the states of Tamaulipas, Michoacán or Sinaloa, but they are fluid and subject to far too many whimsical alliances and betrayals for the war to be compared to, say, tribal conflict in Rwanda.

The utter nihilism at the heart of Mexico's Drug War is shared by many young Americans today. Only our wealth and the insulation that our incredibly vigorous police state provide keep the lid on madness. And we can't afford to keep the clampdown on forever. Nor can we afford to provide gainful, meaningful employment to our young men.

And since the shared vision of our culture -- the "American Dream" of individual wealth with no responsibility to the larger community -- is utterly morally bankrupt, there is no mental barrier hold back evil. The Banksters who rule our society by shamelessly defrauding us all and then squandering the obscene profits on helicopters and high class prostitutes are just more polite versions of the killers in Juarez. They are in fact closer to the heart of the system that is producing the mega-violence in Mexico and profit from it via money laundering far more than any drug kingpin. When the "Masters of the Universe" of Wall Street are our highest vision of success it's just a matter of peeling back the mask to reveal the Death's Head behind the plastic surgery.

With no valid moral guidepost that is compatible with what we know to be true in 2010, we can expect nothing other than hedonism and selfishness, lust and greed and power and sexual violence to consume us all.

Another wise voice is that of the writer Cecilia Ballí, whose ancestors were once great ranchers around Matamoros and what is now Brownsville, Texas. "People say this is all about money," she says, "but it's about money and something beyond money; it's a social performance, a performance of power, of very male power. It's about being someone, a performance in a place and a country where that was not supposed to be possible."

The clock is ticking. Our turn is coming.

As analogies go, it's decent, but I don't think it's a snug fit:

What we’re getting instead is less a tragedy than a deadly farce. Instead of fraying under the strain of imperial overstretch, we’re paralyzed by procedure. Instead of re-enacting the decline and fall of Rome, we’re re-enacting the dissolution of 18th-century Poland.

A brief history lesson: In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Polish legislature, the Sejm, operated on the unanimity principle: any member could nullify legislation by shouting “I do not allow!” This made the nation largely ungovernable, and neighboring regimes began hacking off pieces of its territory. By 1795 Poland had disappeared, not to re-emerge for more than a century.

Actually, I think our situation is much more analogous to that of ancient Athens. But that's just me.

Bank of America Looks Like First of Many

Michael Collins

"This merger (Bank of America and Merrill Lynch) is a classic example of how the actions of our nation’s largest financial institutions led to the near-collapse of our financial system," said Attorney General Cuomo. "Bank of America, through its top management, engaged in a concerted effort to deceive shareholders and American taxpayers at large. This was an arrogant scheme hatched by the bank’s top executives who believed they could play by their own set of rules. In the end, they committed an enormous fraud and American taxpayers ended up paying billions for Bank of America’s misdeeds."(Image)

New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo

Andrew Cuomo's complaint filed in the New York Supreme Court, County of New York against the Bank of America and two former top executives has the potential to push that too big to fail entity off the edge of a very steep cliff. The charges of massive fraud are based on a compelling and exhaustive filing on February 4.

A trial will likely involve testimony by the current Bank of America CEO and President Brian Moynihan against defendants Kenneth Lewis, the bank's former CEO and board chairman, former chief financial officer (CFO) Joseph L. Price, and the bank itself. Price is currently in charge of BofA's credit card division.

Back in the good ol' days of the Cold War we were treated to arguments by Milton Friedman like

In his view, voluntary character of all transactions in a free market economy and wide diversity that it permits are fundamental threats to repressive political leaders and greatly diminish power to coerce. Through elimination of centralized control of economic activities, economic power is separated from political power, and the one can serve as counterbalance to the other. Friedman feels that competitive capitalism is especially important to minority groups, since impersonal market forces protect people from discrimination in their economic activities for reasons unrelated to their productivity.

Congratulations New Orleans to a championship well earned! And to fans who, after 42 years of futility, finally got what they most deserved!

Good piece in The Hill from Eileen M. O’Connor of the American Committee for Democracy and Justice in Pakistan. She points out that the Zardari administration, for all its own issues, is threatened by both the military and the Pakistani Supreme Court:

the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the NRO also upheld a controversial article of Pakistan’s constitution, much to the dismay of some of the brave lawyers who took to the streets to defend the court’s judicial independence and integrity last year. Article 62 was conceived in 1985 by General Zia-ul-Haq and declares that members of parliament (which includes the currently elected president, Asif Ali Zardari, and all ministers of the Cabinet) are disqualified from serving if they are not of “good character,” if they violate “Islamic injunctions,” do not practice “teachings and practices, obligatory duties prescribed by Islam,” and if they are not “sagacious, righteous and non-profligate.” Non-Muslims must have “a good moral reputation.”

Relying in any way on such entirely subjective and political standards, such as “Islamic injunctions” and “good moral reputation,” increases polarization in the country and brings into question the political independence of the Pakistani Supreme Court, which those lawyers bravely defended on the streets as critical to the rule of law.

This is a very interesting conversation bu up-and-comers in political science and geopolitics. It's from the Five Rupees blog in Pakistan, which I find to be first rate and also witty. Posted by Ahsan at 9:20 PM, February 7

---------------
Over the last couple of days, I've had the pleasure of exchanging emails with two Political Science scholars of South Asia. Vipin Narang is a PhD candidate in the Department of Government at Harvard University, and a research fellow at the Belfer Center at Harvard University. Next year, he will be joining the faculty at the Department of Political Science at M.I.T. His area of focus is nuclear security in South Asia.

Peanuts:

An alarming new study shows that health care costs increased last year at the fastest rate in more than a half century.

Health care spending rose to an estimated $2.5 trillion in 2009, or $8,047 per person -- and is now projected to nearly double by 2019. If we don't act, this growing burden will mean more lost jobs, more families pushed into bankruptcy, and more crushing debt for our nation.

The conclusion is clear: This isn't a problem we can kick down the road for another decade -- or even another year. We need to pass health reform now.

We're incredibly close. But too many in Washington are now saying that we should delay or give up on reform entirely. So we need to make it crystal clear that Americans understand the stakes for our economy and our lives, and that we want action.

There is two feet of new snow in my yard right now. This might not sound like much to northerners (like me, originally from Rochester, NY), but for Baltimore this is a millennial blizzard. There were thirty inches in some areas here since yesterday, I heard. It took me an hour to shovel a narrow path from my door to the driveway. The roads are deserted. Even if you can shovel out your car, where are you going to drive? Walking – like having a manual typewriter in the deep woods – reassumes its superiority.

One of the great things about snowstorms, for me, is that they free us of routines from which we lack the will (or sometimes the option) to free ourselves: errands, stores, reporting to jobs, reporting to school, deciding when to be at home and when not to be. All of a sudden, there is no place to go other than places you can reach on your own two feet while swathed in 10 pounds of clothing. Must-do's become expendable. There is no gotta-be-there thing that simply can't wait (unless you're talking hospital emergency rooms). You've got the gift of enforced open time and space, no thanks to yourself, but courtesy of an act of the Universe. Pretty cool.

I remember the early days of the coffee boom, late eighties early nineties when Seattle grunge and the coffee shop atmosphere was all the rage. In San Antonio and Houston a few hip coffee shops popped up. Candlelight in SA and a nice place in the Museum District in Houston. Of course, there was no wifi yet, so they were nice places to order a cup of Joe and curl up with a good book. Or play a video game on my oversized, underpowered laptop with about as much free memory as a gnats brain.

But within a few short years Starbucks stores were popping up on every corner and all the little independent coffee shops were put out of business. The honeymoon with Starbucks actually lasted a long time, considering. But today, I sense the reverse happening. As if there is a large cultural backlash against the mega-corp, no matter how much good they claim to do.

I'm in San Antonio for the day. I pulled up Yelp to see if there were any independents in town. San Antonio is kind of a cultural laggard, but also somewhat of a bell-weather, in the sense that when something happens in San Antonio, it's already happened everywhere else. (I don't notice these things in Austin, as Austin is usually years ahead of San Antonio.) And so, I was very surprised to see a long list of independent coffee houses here. I'm sitting in a pretty classy joint right now. The wifi is free--unlike Starbucks--and the coffee is good. It's a clean, modern looking place, in a kind of anti-Starbucks vein. It's nice to see.

Anyone else notice this happening in your town?

From I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay.:

This is how it’s supposed to work. A well-run bank is a machine for making money. The basic principle of banking is to pay a low rate of interest to the people who lend money and charge a higher rate to the people who borrow it. The bank borrows at 3 percent (say), and lends at 6 percent, and as long as it keeps the two amounts in line and makes sure that it lends money only to people who will be able to pay it back, it will reliably make money forever.

Reliably make money forever! Instead the banksters got greedy, decided that a return on equity of anything less than 25% per annum was unacceptable began their binge of serial acquisitions and soon we all crashed headlong into a crisis.

Me? I'd rather make money reliably forever. Boring is good. Singles win championships and all that. But hey, I'm not a greedy, megalomaniacal, ego-centered fucktard.

From my blog.

Reading Strauss and Howe's excellent book, The Fourth Turning reinforced something I already knew at gut level, have known for over thirty years: there will be in the lifetime of my generation, another major world war. Furthermore, I think the US will be knocked from its postion of prominence as a result of that war.

But before hostilities erupt, a polarization must take place, is taking place, as countries unite in a struggle over diminishing natural resources.

Arrest warrants requested.

Excerpted from Redress

Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, USA, has filed a complaint with the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague against US citizens George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice and Alberto Gonzales (the “Accused”) for their criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition” perpetrated upon about 100 human beings.

“Extraordinary rendition” is a euphemism for the enforced disappearance of persons and their consequent torture. This criminal policy and practice by the Accused constitutes crimes against humanity in violation of the Rome Statute establishing the ICC.

From tonight's Nelson Report:

SUMMARY: preceding the President's talk to US business persons about the pressing need for China to allow the RMB to be revalued, Treasury Secretary Geithner called his Chinese counterpart, Wang Qishen.

Content of the call? Two versions: from the US, Geithner warned Wang that patience here has expired, and that if China does not launch a solid move toward rebalancing by the end of March, Obama will authorize Treasury to "cite" the PRC for currency manipulation in the twice-annual report to Congress, first due in April.

Chinese version: Wang told Geithner where he could put it, and seemingly threatened a pullback on T-bill purchases, and retaliation on US exports to China.

Discussion, below.

More after the jump.