Octogon, if you feel defensive about what you posted, that's fine. Can't you see what is wrong with it and how it plays into the deepest fears of the average man in the street and offers a simplistic solution of all the problems that confront America today? Blame the immigrants, blame the foreigners. Just because it's a little more dressed up than usual doesn't make it any different.

As I said, I was looking for someone to post why they think each of those points is wrong, that is why each of them is good for the country. I don't agree with everything there, and I expected someone to tear it to shreads in a reply, then we'd engage in an actual discussion on the topic.

Besides, the speech doesn't advocate "blaming the foreigners" although it does imply that they should be expected to assimilate.

Don't hold yer breath. While we don't agree on everything of course, many here think "discussion" means posting some silly cartoon or stating some personal edict. Es is better than most, though clearly not on this particular topic.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

Don't hold yer breath. While we don't agree on everything of course, many here think "discussion" means posting some silly cartoon or stating some personal edict. Es is better than most, though clearly not on this particular topic.

..and that was a cunning attempt to try and draw me back into the debate. Maybe later, maybe not, but I think a point by point discussion of Octagon's post is a diversion. It's all very well to construct an argument where each small step appears logical, but when you step back and see the whole picture you realise you've been led up the garden path. (Although in this case each step is not particularly logical).

For example, the suggestion that it is solely bilingualism that divides a country. Where does that leave places like Northern Ireland where they speak the same language? The examples cited where situations where one group has oppressed another. Surely that is more likely to lead to division than the fact that different languages are spoken.

Enough. The speech appeals to weakest part of human nature.

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Reality Internet Personality

..but I think a point by point discussion of Octagon's post is a diversion. It's all very well to construct an argument where each small step appears logical, but when you step back and see the whole picture you realise you've been led up the garden path. (Although in this case each step is not particularly logical).

For example, the suggestion that it is solely bilingualism that divides a country. Where does that leave places like Northern Ireland where they speak the same language? The examples cited where situations where one group has oppressed another. Surely that is more likely to lead to division than the fact that different languages are spoken.

Enough. The speech appeals to weakest part of human nature.

I have to agree Es.

It is easy to blame and scapegoat others for problems, particularly if blame is spread carte blanche against a whole sub-group or population. Implicit in this is that we are on the whole intelligent and have our critical faculties intact and they are Sinister Stupid Sheep.

Divide And Rule is the oldest political game in town; they cause us problems, it is ultimately their fault, and some vitriol can be reserved for those figures (usually politicians or activists or 'fellow travellers') for allowing them free reign.

I think it boils down to the kind of person one is and the kind of person one wants to be:

- Bitter and twisted with a chip on your shoulder the size of a sack of potatoes, always out for number one and sod everyone else, if someone else fails or gets the blame then that leaves more options for number one. Pork Barrellism and social divisions are a usual outcome.
- I Win, You Lose

- The best way to improve one's own life is if everyone's life is improved (admittedly easier said than done, but some things are worth it).
- I Win, You Win

(reminds me of Game theory)

Anyway, that's my thoughts on the matter.

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Join TeamACC

Sometimes I think we are alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we are not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.

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Account frozen...

I don't see how anyone is suggesting that bilingualism is SOLELY responsible for dividing a nation. Who says this??

Noone I know...and no commentator I've heard. This is a straw man argument. It's only ONE way to divide a nation and weaken it.

edit-sp

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Iran's defiance - The West has more options than just the extremes, attack or appease

By Patrick Clawson; deputy director for research of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is the author most recently of “Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos” (Palgrave Books; co-authored with Michael Rubin).

April 30, 2006

Given the fiasco over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, it is only natural that many people are suspicious about the crisis atmosphere around Iran's nuclear program. But the worries about what Iran is doing are based on U.N. inspections of what Iran proudly shows off to the world. Iran's “nuclear fuel cycle” facilities let it dig uranium ore out of the ground, “convert” it into a gas, and then “enrich” the uranium in centrifuges, increasing the proportion of the most weapons-usable type.

Once Iran's fuel cycle facilities are complete, making the actual bomb would take Iran only “a few months” in the informed estimate of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General and Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammed El Baradei. Right now, only a few countries have nuclear fuel cycle facilities, and most of them have nuclear weapons. El Baradei has proposed to “put a five-year hold on additional facilities for uranium enrichment.” Further, he argues “there is no compelling reason to build more of these facilities” anywhere in the world.

On top of which, Iran spent 18 years lying about what it was doing, instead of fully reporting its activities as required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The IEAE Board of Governors has condemned “Iran's many failures and breaches of its obligations” and requested additional information – a request that the U.N. Security Council backed up. This last week, Iran has defiantly refused to provide the requested information about its past and present nuclear activities, much less to freeze its program.

The discussion in the media on what to do next concentrates too much on the extreme solutions: either attack or appease. There is a wide range of intermediate policy options that hold much more promise.

The international community needs instruments of persuasion and dissuasion. Persuasion does not have to mean offers of direct negotiations, which would convert the dispute into a bilateral Iran-U.S. confrontation instead of a problem between Iran and the world, as well as feeding European suspicions we were undercutting the negotiating effort they have been leading. Better would be to offer security measures designed to counter the argument that Iran needs nuclear weapons for its defense. There are many confidence-and security-building measures and arms control measures that would provide gains for both Iran and the West, similar to the way such steps reduced tensions between the old Warsaw Pact and NATO during the Cold War. One example would be an agreement to reduce the risk of incidents at sea between the U.S. and Iranian navies.

As for instruments of dissuasion, they may not have much effect on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who seems to welcome even an attack on Iran as a means to rekindle the lost fervor of the early revolutionary days. While he represents a dangerous and growing element in the Iranian elite, the real power holder has been the Supreme Leader (who is exactly what the title suggests), Ayataollah Ali Khamenei. For the last 18 years, Khamenei has preferred low-level confrontation with the West – just enough to keep the revolutionary spirit alive, but not enough to risk open hostilities. For now, Khamenei seems to think that the West for all its rhetoric will do nothing to stop Ahmadinejad, so why not let him push ahead.

Our task is to show Khamenei and others in the revolutionary institutions that hold power in Iran, behind the facade of the elected president, that Iran is paying a high price for Ahmadinejad's intransigence. There has been some real progress to this end. The Bush administration has been able to forge a broad international coalition that Iran's program is a bad thing; no mean feat, given that the Europeans and Russians spent the entire 1990s laughing at U.S. complaints about Iran's nuclear program. But getting that coalition to do anything about the Iranian program is a time-consuming process that may in the end fail. In the meantime, many things can be done on our own or with our best friends. To show the Iranian elite that they are paying a price for their nuclear activities, we have to step up the pressure on three fronts:

Economic pressure. While we await a U.N. decision on formal international sanctions, we and our friends can apply “de facto sanctions.” For instance, strict U.S. Treasury application of existing rules to prevent transfer of funds to terrorists led the two largest Swiss banks to decide recently that Iran was just not an attractive place to do business, so they closed up shop there.

Security pressure. Iran has felt emboldened by its nuclear progress to step up its threats against its neighbors and the West. We need to show Iran's military, especially the powerful Revolutionary Guards, that this is a dangerous tack. Since Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf through which one-fourth of the world's oil flows, we should conduct military exercises there to show we can and will deter any Iranian aggression.

Political pressure. Iran's reformers and student groups have spoken out in favor of freezing Iran's nuclear program, contrary to the myth that all Iranians support the program. We need to do what little we can to help them. The Bush administration has proposed $75 million for more Voice of America broadcasts and Internet programs in Persian, scholarships for Iranian students and support for human rights and civil society groups. Such modest measures hardly deserve the hysterical reaction of those who claim Bush's real goal is “regime change.” In fact, the Bush proposals are all building on earlier European initiatives in each of these areas.

At the end of the day, diplomacy may not be enough. The best explanation about why force has to remain an option on the table comes from Nobel Peace Prize winner ElBaradei, who recently said, “Diplomacy has to be backed up by pressure and, in extreme case, by force. We have rules. We have to do everything possible to uphold the rules through conviction. If not, then you impose them. Of course, this has to be the last resort, but sometimes you have to do it.”

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me@rescam.org

Gas prices soar: Markets or manipulation?

By Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren. Taylor is a senior fellow at the CATO Institute in Washington. Van Doren is a senior fellow at CATO and editor of the quarterly journal Regulation.

April 30, 2006

So why are gasoline prices soaring into the stratosphere? One explanation is that oil companies are exercising their market power (enhanced as it was by the wave of mergers and acquisitions that hit the oil industry during the 1990s) and are manipulating the market to gouge consumers. Another is that gasoline costs more today than yesterday because the cost of crude oil and various fuel additives such as ethanol have been on the rise.

Both conspiratorial and cost-based supply explanations are unsatisfactory because they ignore demand. Gasoline prices are high because consumers have decided that it's still a “good deal” given the alternative. Until that changes – or until new supplies are offered – prices will remain high indefinitely.

A good analogy to what's going on in the gasoline market can be found in the housing market. Home prices are not dictated by construction costs or by back-room meetings of real estate executives. They are established by auction. Prospective buyers rarely think about how much houses cost to build.

Instead, they think only about whether a house is worth more to the buyer than the price asked by the seller.

In gasoline markets, prices are likewise established by auction. Those auctions occur in a multitude of regional spot markets. Oil companies generally sell gasoline to their franchised service stations at the spot price plus transportation and various business-related costs. Service station owners then post whatever price they like, but given competition, they can rarely charge much beyond their acquisition costs.

A few observations follow from this analysis. First, “Big Oil” cannot manipulate wholesale oil and gasoline spot markets. Accordingly, the prices we're seeing at the pump are untarnished by corporate collusion or price-fixing – the conclusion of literally dozens of governmental and academic investigations of oil markets since the 1970s.

Second, production costs enter into the equation but only in the sense that producers are loathe to sell at a loss. Beyond that all bets are off. Producers sell at what consumers in spot markets are willing to pay regardless of how much it costs to lift that oil from the ground or refine it into gasoline. Third, there isn't an economist alive who would argue that pricing via auction is a bad economic idea. Gasoline – like houses – is not unlimited. Allocating scarce goods and services to those who value them most is the very definition of economic efficiency.

And generally, people do not view pricing via auction (in essence, pricing based on willingness to pay) as unfair. Sure, we all need gasoline, but we all need food, housing and lots of other stuff, too. Why do we rail against “price-gouging” oil executives – who are simply charging auction prices – but not against price-gouging home owners or greedy eBay merchandisers?

One might reply that the difference is that we might all take our turn playing the role of “gouger” in housing markets but that we'll never have that opportunity in oil markets. But that's not strictly true. There is no person walking around with the first name “Exxon” and the last name “Mobil.” ExxonMobil is simply a collection of stockholders. If you want to join their party, buy stock and feed your inner greed-merchant. Or start a new oil company.

If you do, however, you'll find that the grass isn't nearly as green on that side of the economic fence as you probably thought. Despite the arresting raw earnings figures, profits in the fourth quarter of 2005 (the most recent quarter for which data is available) haven't been all that impressive for the denizens of “Big Oil,” ranging from 6.8 percent at British Petroleum to 10.7 percent at ExxonMobil. Goldman Sachs reports that return on investment capital in the oil business from 1970-2003 were less than the U.S. industrial average.

But let's get back to price in the here and now. Why have consumers bid up the price of gasoline to a national average of $2.90 for a gallon of regular today but not last year? First, refineries have to at least cover their crude oil costs. Crude oil spot prices are higher this year (47 cents per gallon) than last, even though inventories are well above their average because buyers of oil fear future disruptions. In short, some people in the market are bidding up the price of oil and stockpiling it because they fear future prices will be even worse.

Second, the supply of gasoline is less than last year. Gasoline production in April averaged 450,000 barrels a day less than the year before because of production capacity still off line from Hurricane Katrina and postponed refinery maintenance. The switch from MTBE to ethanol is constraining supply as well. The net result is that gasoline supplies are tighter this spring than would ordinarily be the case.

Accordingly, if you want gasoline, the price you'll have to pay in spot markets to get it is higher than it was before. It's a simple story to tell. But unfortunately, it's not one many politicians want to tell: Don't like today's gasoline prices? Then cut back on how much you buy. It's the only sure way to reduce prices – at least until a new wave of supply hits the market.

Will consumers respond? To some extent, they already have. Consumption has been actually declining of late and sales of gas-guzzling SUVs are sharply down from where they were a year before. The contention that motorists have no choice but to buy gasoline no matter what the price is nonsense. Consumers can buy more fuel-efficient cars, cut back on non-essential trips, car-pool to work, abandon cars for buses and commuter trains, or move closer to mass transit stations or place of work if necessary. They can even ride bikes.

Will producers respond to today's (relatively) fat profit margins with new supply? If past is prologue, they almost certainly will. Oil markets – like most commodity markets – move in distinct boom-and-bust cycles. During booms, oil prices increase dramatically until investments in new supply flood the market. Oil prices then crash and only modest investments in new supply occur over the next decade or two as producers draw down the excess production capacity produced from the last boom. Once excess production capacity is worked out of the market, prices increase, investors respond by pouring money into new supply in order to capture profits, and the entire process is repeated anew.

The current oil price spiral should be seen in the context of past oil price spirals. The present price spiral is occurring right on schedule – 25 years since the peak of the last price spiral, which occurred in 1981. And past does indeed appear to be prologue on the supply front as well. Analysts at Cambridge Energy Research Associates calculate that investments in oil production now in the economic pipeline will increase world crude oil production by 25 percent by 2015 and even more thereafter; the largest increase in world crude oil production in both nominal and percentage terms in history.

It may take some time, but high prices will almost certainly induce more supply and conservation at less cost than any conceivable governmentally imposed “energy plan.” The danger isn't that Congress won't take our word for it. The danger is that by doing everything in their power to force prices down regardless of the underlying market realities, politicians will make matter worse than they already are.

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me@rescam.org

Don't hold yer breath. While we don't agree on everything of course, many here think "discussion" means posting some silly cartoon or stating some personal edict. Es is better than most, though clearly not on this particular topic.

For example, the suggestion that it is solely bilingualism that divides a country. Where does that leave places like Northern Ireland where they speak the same language? The examples cited where situations where one group has oppressed another. Surely that is more likely to lead to division than the fact that different languages are spoken.

As was mentioned already, no one said that being bilingual is the only way to divide a nation. Northern Ireland's different groups self-identify as being different sects of Christianity. Your argument goes something like this:

A: Decapitation kills people.
B: I knew this woman who died of a heart attack. She never had her head cut off, and the heart attack didn't even happen in her head. Saying that decapitation kills people is such a baseless assertion.

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

This is NOT ... emphatically NOT ... intended to start a flame war! ... But it is intended to provoke some sort of RATIONAL reaction .....

Does Israel have Nuclear weapons?
Does Israel have a Nuclear programme?

Answer those two questions and you will answer why Iran sees fit to hoist two fingers at all who try to prevent them from being on an equal footing.

I have absolutely NO doubt at all, that WERE Iran to be a US compliant Country - as in, were the Shah to still be in power - there would be zilch problem ...

This seems to be a very one-sided question ... and PRIMA FACIE - a two-faced US attitude. For IF Israel has a Nuclear capability, then there is NO logical reason why the rest of the Middle East should not be allowed to strive for the same ends. Blind Freddie knows that the US will defend Israel (because if it did not, US-Jewish interests could and would) ... shut down America in an instant. So why the need for Israel to have its own deterrant? Far from being a deterrant, the US attitude in allowing Israel to Nuclear-arm itself ... is at the very heart of the present problem ...

Well ... that is my view. I am in my bunker, with my tin-foil hat on and waiting for the shout of "INCOMING!!!!!!!!"
;-)))))))

This is NOT ... emphatically NOT ... intended to start a flame war! ... But it is intended to provoke some sort of RATIONAL reaction .....

Does Israel have Nuclear weapons?
Does Israel have a Nuclear programme?



Well ... that is my view. I am in my bunker, with my tin-foil hat on and waiting for the shout of "INCOMING!!!!!!!!"
;-)))))))

Yes Bodley Isreal Has Nukes. But Isreal has not vowed to destroy Iran with nukes
but Iran has alredy threatend to wipe out Isreal.

So if Iran continues to proceed. I wouldn't want to be in range...
MMMM Bodley OMG Your in Range...

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This is NOT ... emphatically NOT ... intended to start a flame war! ... But it is intended to provoke some sort of RATIONAL reaction .....
Does Israel have Nuclear weapons?
Does Israel have a Nuclear programme?
Well ... that is my view. I am in my bunker, with my tin-foil hat on and waiting for the shout of "INCOMING!!!!!!!!"
;-)))))))

Yes Bodley Isreal Has Nukes. But Isreal has not vowed to destroy Iran with nukes
but Iran has alredy threatend to wipe out Isreal.
So if Iran continues to proceed. I wouldn't want to be in range...
MMMM Bodley OMG Your in Range...

With respect, CA, that is only a very partial (and, might I say, tongue-in-cheek) answer. You MUST address the WHOLE if you are to come to a rational conclusion. Just because Israel has not declared it will not use Nuclear, means nothing. It has already been pointed out by Israel that it will consider pre-emptive attacks on ANY nation which threatens its existence. (Indeed ... it has already carried out this threat several times). As such ... Israel is a FAR worse risk than Iran is today!
I have NO wish to be in a World where the finger on the button is an Israeli one !!!
(Nor an Iranian one ... nor even an American one, thank you very much! I believe that NONE of them are to be relied upon to do the right thing - as the Invasion of Iraq reminds us every waking day! This one devastating act has convinced me that America is NOT to be trusted to do the right thing - in the best interests of the World at large.)
Tell me in all seriousness and sincerity ... Do you REALLY trust Shrub to do the right thing?
I am being serious here ...

This is NOT ... emphatically NOT ... intended to start a flame war! ... But it is intended to provoke some sort of RATIONAL reaction .....

Does Israel have Nuclear weapons?
Does Israel have a Nuclear programme?



Well ... that is my view. I am in my bunker, with my tin-foil hat on and waiting for the shout of "INCOMING!!!!!!!!"
;-)))))))

Yes Bodley Isreal Has Nukes. But Isreal has not vowed to destroy Iran with nukes
but Iran has alredy threatend to wipe out Isreal.

There is one small, annoying point that the Isreal-is-no-better-than-Iran argument misses: Israel didn't sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and Iran did. Israel never signed anything giving up its "right" to those weapons, whereas Iran did in exchange for civilian nuclear technology.

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

(Nor an Iranian one ... nor even an American one, thank you very much! I believe that NONE of them are to be relied upon to do the right thing - as the Invasion of Iraq reminds us every waking day! This one devastating act has convinced me that America is NOT to be trusted to do the right thing - in the best interests of the World at large.)
Tell me in all seriousness and sincerity ... Do you REALLY trust Shrub to do the right thing?
I am being serious here ...

Might I remind you that there is a British finger on that button too.. Your argument needs to go a few steps further. None of the present day Nuclear powers consider tactical nuclear powered weapons as anything but conventional. Yet they have not been used.

How easy would it be to simply launch a few Tactical Nukes into the Afgan mountains and be done with it?

Furthermore I am far more concerned with the IRAQ, IRANS, and ISREALS of the world then I am of any of big 6 nuclear powers. At least Isreal has a sheild between it and that button. Iraq did not and neither does Iran, Pakistan, India, or North Korea.. All of which have actually threatened to launch against it's enemies. Isreal threat has never actually been with a pre-emptive nuclear attack as far as I aware.

There is one small, annoying point that the Isreal-is-no-better-than-Iran argument misses: Israel didn't sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and Iran did. Israel never signed anything giving up its "right" to those weapons, whereas Iran did in exchange for civilian nuclear technology.

So that makes it OK for Israel to have Nuclear Weapons?
What about North Korea then ... is it ok in that case also?

There is one small, annoying point that the Isreal-is-no-better-than-Iran argument misses: Israel didn't sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and Iran did. Israel never signed anything giving up its "right" to those weapons, whereas Iran did in exchange for civilian nuclear technology.

So that makes it OK for Israel to have Nuclear Weapons?
What about North Korea then ... is it ok in that case also?

It is not OK for anyone to have Nuclear Weapons!!

There is one small, annoying point that the Isreal-is-no-better-than-Iran argument misses: Israel didn't sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and Iran did. Israel never signed anything giving up its "right" to those weapons, whereas Iran did in exchange for civilian nuclear technology.

So that makes it OK for Israel to have Nuclear Weapons?
What about North Korea then ... is it ok in that case also?

North Korea also signed the NPT. It then announced that it 'withdrew' from the treaty after it had developed weapons in violation of that treaty. I'm not sure the treaty even had a mechanism for withdrawal, but that doesn't alter the underlying fact that North Korea blatantly violated the spirit and letter of the treaty.

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

It is not OK for anyone to have Nuclear Weapons!!

CW ... I commend you for your neat sidestepping around the argument.
That is the problem with US diplomacy in the World ... it is so very transparent.
The US should meet the problem head on and not obfuscate. Israel has one of the worst records in the World when it comes to repression. The US stands by and uses its veto in the UN when resolutions are passed against Israel.
Who does the US think it is kidding?
And from that ... Why is there a problem in the middle East ... when the man who pushed the button for the Iraq war has never understood the Middle-Eastern psyche? A man who wanted to bring Democracy to Iraq .... what a laugh! ... when even his own country does not have a Democracy!!! (... and if it DID ... he himself would not be in power!!!)

I think I now resile from this argument ... I know that it will get nowhere ... !!!

Bodley, I don't know whether to praise you or curse you

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

It is not OK for anyone to have Nuclear Weapons!!

CW ... I commend you for your neat sidestepping around the argument.
That is the problem with US diplomacy in the World ... it is so very transparent.
The US should meet the problem head on and not obfuscate. Israel has one of the worst records in the World when it comes to repression. The US stands by and uses its veto in the UN when resolutions are passed against Israel.
Who does the US think it is kidding?
And from that ... Why is there a problem in the middle East ... when the man who pushed the button for the Iraq war has never understood the Middle-Eastern psyche? A man who wanted to bring Democracy to Iraq .... what a laugh! ... when even his own country does not have a Democracy!!! (... and if it DID ... he himself would not be in power!!!)

I think I now resile from this argument ... I know that it will get nowhere ... !!!

You are right you will get nowhere.. You seem to think the US is the only nation that supports what is happening in all of the Middle East. I have yet to see you acknowledge your own country's involvement.. It's easy to blame someone else isn't it.

I do not like the US policy on Nuclear weapons anymore then you do, but as long as France, Russia, China and the UK refuse to step up to the plate beyond a placating agreement I will stand by the US. SALT and SALT II were nothing more then the other powers placating in the US. If it had real teeth then no one would have nukes today..

Clean up your own house before you demand that I clean up mine!!!