There's another letter in the FAZ today, from Thomas Heinzow, whose work I've covered here before.
It's really rather simple, and the calculations are straight-forward, and to even make things simpler, let us use the numbers that are used by those arguing for the massive use of wind power.
The figure in question is the damage caused by each and every ton of excess CO2 produced now in the future: €70 per ton.
The current subsidy in Germany for wind power is €550 for each reduced ton of CO2 after you count the cost of manufacturing the wind mills.
The cost of cleaning up coal, in terms of reducing CO2 emissions, is €20.
So, let's work this one out: in order to save a future value of €70 (we won't get into the proper discount rate for that one...), German politicians, in their infinite wisdom, are going to spend €550 today for a technology that fails to fill the most basic energy infrastructure needs (availability and constancy), instead of spending €20 to clean up emissions from a dependable and local energy source (coal).
In other words, let's figure out what that really means. Let's set a goal of reducing 1 mn tons of CO2 emissions: the future damage that these cause is €70mn. The expenditure to subsidize is €550 mn; cleaning up the coal emissions would cost €20mn.
But what the heck, it's only tax money. Given 80 mn Germans, that works out to be only €6.88 per head. Price of a lunch. Save the world while you're doing it! But the reality is that you could achieve the same effect by spending 25 cents.
The difference doesn't end there: wind mills ruin the landscape, kill birds, etc.
The wind energy proponents claim that this subsidy will be ultimately not needed as economies of scale and "technological improvements" will bring down the cost to levels similar to other energy sources. Of course, that is what they have been saying for the last 20 years, but heck, who cares about that.
This is, of course, indicative of the absolute folly of any sort of "Green" energy production that disallows reality and enforces waste. The Greens are just as morally culpable of corruption and incompetence as any other party, despite their claims of being the only ones who really care about the environment.
They care just as long as the subsidies finance those who finance them. And don't try to pretend that it is anything else.
Donnerstag, November 08, 2007
Freitag, Oktober 26, 2007
What's Wrong and What's Right...and What Is Necessary
Reality has intruded quite a bit over the last several weeks, and I have been negligent in posting anything here.
Part of my sloth has been due to external factors, but my general disgust with the idiocies of modern life have also led me to be some recalcitrant in posting.
But today, whilst reading the FT, I came across this from Philip Stephens.
Sigh.
Time for a fisking...
George W. Bush warns that Iran's nuclear ambitions threaten world war three. Vice-president Dick Cheney speaks of "serious consequences" unless Tehran falls into line. Joe Lieberman, the independent Democrat, says we are already fighting world war four against Islamist radicalism. As someone in the Hollywood movie said, it is time for the rest of us to be afraid, very afraid.
Afraid, though, of what? Of Tehran's nuclear programme? Or of the possibility that Mr Bush, in the darkening twilight of his presidency, is preparing to launch a preventative military strike. The answer is both.
You see, this is where Mr. Stephens goes wrong from the beginning. What is not to be feared is the Iranian nuclear program: that in and of itself is merely a technical development. The nuclear genie is forever out of the bottle, and there is no way to put it back in.
If there is something to be afraid of, it is that Iran will finesse the international political scene in order to obtain and use nuclear weapons. The thing to be afraid of is terrorists with nukes; the thing to be afraid of is what the terrorists want.
The big story, you might think, should be the menace to regional and global security posed by Iran's development of the technology that would give it nuclear weapons. This, after all, is not a nice regime. You do not have to be an apologist for Washington to note that Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the Iranian president, has spoken of wiping Israel from the face of the globe. Nor to notice Tehran's unapologetic sponsorship of terrorism. The regime's human rights record is the wrong side of appalling.
Now, why isn't this the big story? Because of the effing liberals and useful idiots - those who were useful idiots during the Cold War are those who are just as useful to the enemies of the West in the War On Terrorism - that dominate the media and who refuse to make it The Big Story. The lack of focus on the real problem - that the regime in Iran brutally represses its own, is dominated by religious fanatics who want us all to live as if we were in the 7th century, and whose attitude towards women is nothing less than abysmal - is deliberate and with malice aforethought: if the problem isn't on the other side - and it is! - then the problem must be on our side.Which it isn't.
Yet the White House once again seems hell-bent on being outwitted in the court of global opinion; and, maybe, on making a strategic miscalculation that could make the war in Iraq look like a sideshow.
Oddly enough, here I am in partial agreement: the single largest failure of the Bush administration has been its inability to communicate.
On the other hand, it's not nearly that the White House is being outwitted: it's rather that it isn't bothering. This is a legitimate griping point, but not the one that Mr. Stephens is trying to make.The real point is that only one side is making propaganda and trying to fight for the minds of its own opponents: that is, in this case, the other side. The problem is that the press is so blind to its own inadequacies and incompetence that it takes obvious, self-serving propaganda at face value and gives it the veneer of respectability that leads the uninformed reader to accept propaganda as being something other than it is.
Speculation about a US-backed Israeli or a direct American attack on Iran's nuclear installations has ebbed and flowed for several years. In the immediate aftermath of the toppling of Saddam Hussein, "Iran next" was the stock refrain of the Washington hawks. The bellicose rhetoric was stilled for a time by Iraq's descent into chaos. But it has never gone away, even as some of the most ardent advocates of another war in the Middle East have left the administration. Only the other day I heard John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, say he was sure that Mr Bush would do "the right thing".
Of course it's not gone away: Iran was specifically - and quite correctly, too - on the "Axis of Evil" with its support of terrorism and its hidden programs for weapons of mass destruction. That's why "it has never gone away": Iran has not changed its tune.
The rising tempo of speculation is easily explained. The starting point is the political timetable. If Mr Bush does intend to act, he has to do so soon. The window of opportunity for an attack, the conventional wisdom has it, will close next summer. Even this president cannot take the nation into another war of choice once the 2008 election campaign is under way.
Conventional wisdom, dear Mr. Stephens, is, to put it bluntly, an ass. Conventional wisdom thinks that the War On Terrorism isn't really a war since it doesn't have a country to fight against, and "everyone" knows that you can only fight wars with another country. Oh how tiny and limited Conventional Wisdom is: it must be, to be conventional.
This ticking political clock coincides with a hardening view in Washington, and in one or two European capitals, that coercive diplomacy has done nothing to shake Iran's resolve to acquire the means to make the bomb.
Oh, and there are those who do not see reality, which is that there has been nothing that has shaken the Iranian government's resolve to acquire the means to make the bomb? It's not that coercive diplomacy hasn't worked, it's much more that NOTHING has worked: the Iranians smile and laugh to themselves about how dumb the West really is in not stopping Iran. There are things that can be done: no one has the stomach - except for the US - to actually do them.
What might they be? Things like what the US did today: declare the Revolutionary Guards to be a terrorist organization and treat them so, encouraging banks not to do business with them and isolating them. That is a clear and straight-forward start. Other things that can be done are trade embargoes: the Germans are so afraid of losing business that they won't go along with that, and the Russians apparently don't believe that the Iranian government has the intent that it so clearly lays out.The apparent demotion of Ali Larijani as Iran's chief nuclear negotiator seems to speak to the same conclusion. Mr Larijani has been as firm as any in Tehran about Iran's right to pursue nuclear enrichment, but he has also been willing to talk. Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, we might conclude, means it when he says the nuclear dossier is closed.
And? What does that mean to Mr. Stephens?
It means nothing: instead of seeing it as what it is (a clear demonstration of the contempt that the Iranian government has for the mere idea that it should even talk with the West about the issue) the problem is simply ignored.
Russia's Vladimir Putin's objections to further UN sanctions has likewise strengthened the hand of those who say that diplomacy has run its course. Earlier this year Iran outflanked the so-called European Union 3 – Britain, France and Germany – by opening direct talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Now Mr Putin is blocking another UN resolution.
The role of the Russians here is more complex than you might think: first, they obviously do not believe the rhetoric; second, it is of great usefulness for the Russians that the US bear the brunt and burden of confrontation (the Russians truly believe in zero-sum gaming); third the Russians, based on their disbelief of the rhetoric and the intentions, see wonderful business opportunities. Right now, the Russians are playing the role that Lenin thought the capitalists would play, of selling to the revolutionaries the rope that would be used to hang them when the revolution comes. The alternative is rather less appealing: that Russia is more than pleased to allow Iran to gain the upper hand in the region as a regional power, including the deliberate destruction of Israel, in order to do business with the regime.
Nervousness about US intentions, meanwhile, has been heightened by speculation that Mr Bush could treat Iran's support for Shia militias in Iraq as a casus belli. A Senate motion, co-sponsored by Mr Lieberman, calls for the Revolutionary Guards to be designated a terrorist organisation. That could provide the president with the political cover to bomb training camps within Iran.
At what point, Mr. Stephens, do you recognize a casus belli? When it comes up to your house and slaps you in the face whilst molesting your wife?
The Revolutionary Guards' is a material accessory to terror acts that have killed thousands. The Revolutionary Guards does nothing without the direction of the Iranian government, hence there is a direct involvement of Iran in the internal affairs of Iraq that have led to the deaths of thousands.
Mr. Stephens, Iran's support for Shia militias in Iraq is a casus belli. It's what Iran wants. Otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.The calculation, if you could call it that, would be that such attacks would destabilise Mr Ahmadi-Nejad and, in the best case, see him toppled. Logic suggests the reverse: an upsurge of nationalist sentiment would bolster support for the regime. For some people, though, logic does not count.
Now, Mr. Stephens, here is where you go terribly wrong: those that you see as not counting on logic is not President Bush, but rather the Iranians: they want the war. That is not logical, but is driven by a chiliastic religion that wants the apocalypse. Barring that, it wants to dominate the region.
The thing I find most striking in conversations with western officials is simply how little is known about Iran: about the power balance within the regime, the dynamics of the nuclear programme and, critically, how far that programme has progressed.
Again, we have a failure of intelligence, in all manners of what that word means...the question is why? The reason is that the intelligence communities, such that they are, are all running amok, with their own agendas and own goals: the failure here is two-fold. On the one hand you do have a failure of leadership, which, however, is understandable, give the difficulties in cleaning house at a time of war, when you need the intelligence the most; on the other hand, the institutions - first and foremost the CIA, but also the FBI and the NSA - were pushed to be this way by President Bush's predecessor, who wanted it that way...
Welcome to the world of intelligence, where ten analysts have two dozen opinions. Why? Because HumInt continues to be very weak and underdeveloped. Again, this is not merely the fault of the intelligence communities, but also of the environment that they work in.
There is a similar lacuna of understanding of the political power balance. Take Mr Larijani's troubles. Do they signal that Mr Ahmadi-Nejad has won a struggle with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, over control of the nuclear dossier? Or has a visible backlash against the move – it now seems Mr Larijani will keep a place in the Iranian nuclear delegation – delineated the limits of Mr Ahmadi-Nejad's authority?
This is a corollary of the lack of intelligence on the technical side: understanding the Wiley Oriental Gentleman is an unpleasant task at best and trying to explain what the situation is to those profoundly uninterested - which are the usual decision makers - with all the nuances and distinctions is an academic exercise at best.
Diplomacy has not yet been exhausted. Russia's position is more subtle than it sounds. For all the pleasure he takes in discomfiting the US, Mr Putin has more to fear from a nuclear-armed Iran. In any event, the US decision to leave it to the EU3 to do all the talking with Tehran has ensured that real negotiations have never properly started.
I see: when the US acts unilaterally, it is condemned, but when the US requests that the EU3 talk, that means that the Iranian government doesn't need to take them seriously. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
The US has yet to play its highest card: an offer, comparable to that made to, and accepted by, North Korea, of a comprehensive refashioning of the strategic relationship between the US and Iran. Unless and until that bargain is explored, it will never be clear whether Tehran could be persuaded to eschew the nuclear course.
Sorry, that card has been played a number of times, both in private and in public: the US has never tired of saying that if Iran were to change its policies, then talks could start.
Iran is on the line here: the US has standing issues with Iran, starting with, but not ending there, the illegal and reprehensible hostage-taking of US diplomatic personnel. An apology from Tehran would work wonders here.
Mr Bush is not alone in framing a simple choice between Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons and war. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has said much the same. It is a false choice. Even putting aside the chaos that would ensue from Tehran's certain retaliation against any attack, the likely consequence of such thinking is war and a nuclear-armed Iran.
It's one possible consequence. If the US and France were to attack Iran seriously, Iran could be back in the 7th century as its leaders so dearly
desire. 100 days of unlimited air warfare aimed at minimizing civilian casualties with a maximum of infrastructure destruction would do the job, coupled with a concerted propaganda campaign to ensure that the Iranian population understands that this is done with great regret and that once the Religious government is deposed and put into jail/against the wall, that the US will be happy to help Iran rejoin the community of responsible nations and rebuild.
It's not that such actions are absolutely necessary or that they are even desirable: it's much more that they may become necessary to avoid a greater evil. We've seen that this has worked in Iraq: Saddam Hussein was, objectively, a greater evil than what the Iraqis have gone through since then, a fact that has been lost in merciless criticism that the occupation of Iraq has generated.
Last month, at a conference hosted by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation's Washington office, one of those present recalled being taught by Henry Kissinger at Harvard. China had just tested the bomb and a fellow student suggested that the answer was a pre-emptive strike against its nuclear installations. And just how frequently should the US repeat the exercise? Mr Kissinger asked in response. Mr Bush might ask himself the same question.
The proper answer to that question, sad to say, is "As often as is necessary". It was the proper answer back then and it is the proper answer now.Before y'all jump on me as some sort of warmonger: the question regarding China was as legitimate now as it was back then. The difference was that you had people judging the intent as well as the capabilities, and they came to the historically verified conclusion that the Chinese were rational actors and that their intent could be analyzed and measured.
Mittwoch, September 19, 2007
The Real Story...
What is going on in Peru? From this we can gather that it is only the beginning, a harbinger of things to come.
Interesting that there has been no mention of the tripod machines, the death rays and the like...
Which points, of course, to a massive cover-up and conspiracy.
I suppose that the real reason that the story hasn't broken is that there is no one in Peru who can speak like Orson Welles...
:-)
Interesting that there has been no mention of the tripod machines, the death rays and the like...
Which points, of course, to a massive cover-up and conspiracy.
I suppose that the real reason that the story hasn't broken is that there is no one in Peru who can speak like Orson Welles...
:-)
Dienstag, September 11, 2007
My only comment on September 11th, 6 years later...
This was published by John Stuart Mill in Fraser's Magazine during the American Civil War and remains for me the core of why we, the US, are doing what we do. The key is the very last paragraph in this work:
For these reasons I cannot join with those who cry Peace, peace. I
cannot wish that this war should not have been engaged in by the
North, or that being engaged in, it should be terminated on any
conditions but such as would retain the whole of the Territories as
free soil. I am not blind to the possibility that it may require a
long war to lower the arrogance and tame the aggressive ambition of
the slave-owners, to the point of either returning to the Union, or
consenting to remain out of it with their present limits. But war, in
a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer. War
is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and
degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing
worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human
instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service
and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people.
A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a
war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is
their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free
choice--is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has
nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more
about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature,
who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the
exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice
have not terminated their ever renewing fight for ascendancy in the
affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do
battle for the one against the other. I am far from saying that the
present struggle, on the part of the Northern Americans, is wholly of
this exalted character; that it has arrived at the stage of being
altogether a war for justice, a war of principle. But there was from
the beginning, and now is, a large infusion of that element in it; and
this is increasing, will increase, and if the war lasts, will in the
end predominate. Should that time come, not only will the greatest
enormity which still exists among mankind as an institution, receive
far earlier its coups de grâce than there has ever, until now,
appeared any probability of; but in effecting this the Free States
will have raised themselves to that elevated position in the scale of
morality and dignity, which is derived from great sacrifices
consciously made in a virtuous cause, and the sense of an inestimable
benefit to all future ages, brought about by their own voluntary
efforts.
Read and understand this, and you will understand how critical it is to fight the fight that the US is fighting, and how appalling the pacifists are. The common pacifist refrain is that we have been lied to, that we have been misled, that the common soldier is nothing more than a tool.
This is not the case. I won't go into the absurdity of that position - simply go and read what Bush has actually said, and you will see that there is no validity to that purpose - but suffice to say that those serving are anything but some sort of capitalist tool, exploited for venal profit and therefore pitiful.
My deepest respect to those serving to fight this fight, to those who have died doing so.
My greatest contempt for those who think it isn't worth it. May their children, living in slavery, curse the names of those who condemned them to ignorance and despair.
For these reasons I cannot join with those who cry Peace, peace. I
cannot wish that this war should not have been engaged in by the
North, or that being engaged in, it should be terminated on any
conditions but such as would retain the whole of the Territories as
free soil. I am not blind to the possibility that it may require a
long war to lower the arrogance and tame the aggressive ambition of
the slave-owners, to the point of either returning to the Union, or
consenting to remain out of it with their present limits. But war, in
a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer. War
is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and
degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing
worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human
instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service
and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people.
A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a
war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is
their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free
choice--is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has
nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more
about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature,
who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the
exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice
have not terminated their ever renewing fight for ascendancy in the
affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do
battle for the one against the other. I am far from saying that the
present struggle, on the part of the Northern Americans, is wholly of
this exalted character; that it has arrived at the stage of being
altogether a war for justice, a war of principle. But there was from
the beginning, and now is, a large infusion of that element in it; and
this is increasing, will increase, and if the war lasts, will in the
end predominate. Should that time come, not only will the greatest
enormity which still exists among mankind as an institution, receive
far earlier its coups de grâce than there has ever, until now,
appeared any probability of; but in effecting this the Free States
will have raised themselves to that elevated position in the scale of
morality and dignity, which is derived from great sacrifices
consciously made in a virtuous cause, and the sense of an inestimable
benefit to all future ages, brought about by their own voluntary
efforts.
Read and understand this, and you will understand how critical it is to fight the fight that the US is fighting, and how appalling the pacifists are. The common pacifist refrain is that we have been lied to, that we have been misled, that the common soldier is nothing more than a tool.
This is not the case. I won't go into the absurdity of that position - simply go and read what Bush has actually said, and you will see that there is no validity to that purpose - but suffice to say that those serving are anything but some sort of capitalist tool, exploited for venal profit and therefore pitiful.
My deepest respect to those serving to fight this fight, to those who have died doing so.
My greatest contempt for those who think it isn't worth it. May their children, living in slavery, curse the names of those who condemned them to ignorance and despair.
Montag, August 20, 2007
Someone whose eyes have opened...
Hat tip to Dr. Sanity.
Here are three links to read. They are a sweeping, damning indictment of political correctness and the sheer idiocy and futility of that particular breed of stupidity known as liberalism.
Oh, and the author is a leftist. In the Guardian as well.
For the leftist utopia to take place would require that people have the wisdom of the ages and the patience of saints: reality is a tad different. Were that the human costs be not so great and so devastating.
The corollary of being overly protective of "rights" is a glass bottle, broken and shoved into a 16-year old girl's face, disfiguring her for life. The corollary of "understanding" the problems of the poor means a 50% increase in crime, with 70% being unreported, with only 9% of robberies leading to a conviction and not even 5% of rapes.
Think of that for a moment: in the UK, not even 5% of the clearest crime against women are ever prosecuted to the point where the rapist is put behind bars.
This is worse than the worst of New York liberal's attempt to destroy the life of the average New Yorker by being soft on crime and oh-so-understanding, which led to apathy and indifference to crime, of withdrawal from society in order to avoid the deprivations of the lawless, of abandoning the commons to the most common criminal.
How can anyone seriously consider themselves a socialist when you can so clearly see how terribly, terribly things have gone wrong? How can anyone take the limousine liberals seriously?
The truly terrible thing is that things will have to get worse before they can get better: people will either start killing off the criminals themselves or they will give power to those who will do it for them.
This sort of social development leads not to the development of a better society, but to its destruction.
Read. The. Links.
Here are three links to read. They are a sweeping, damning indictment of political correctness and the sheer idiocy and futility of that particular breed of stupidity known as liberalism.
Oh, and the author is a leftist. In the Guardian as well.
For the leftist utopia to take place would require that people have the wisdom of the ages and the patience of saints: reality is a tad different. Were that the human costs be not so great and so devastating.
The corollary of being overly protective of "rights" is a glass bottle, broken and shoved into a 16-year old girl's face, disfiguring her for life. The corollary of "understanding" the problems of the poor means a 50% increase in crime, with 70% being unreported, with only 9% of robberies leading to a conviction and not even 5% of rapes.
Think of that for a moment: in the UK, not even 5% of the clearest crime against women are ever prosecuted to the point where the rapist is put behind bars.
This is worse than the worst of New York liberal's attempt to destroy the life of the average New Yorker by being soft on crime and oh-so-understanding, which led to apathy and indifference to crime, of withdrawal from society in order to avoid the deprivations of the lawless, of abandoning the commons to the most common criminal.
How can anyone seriously consider themselves a socialist when you can so clearly see how terribly, terribly things have gone wrong? How can anyone take the limousine liberals seriously?
The truly terrible thing is that things will have to get worse before they can get better: people will either start killing off the criminals themselves or they will give power to those who will do it for them.
This sort of social development leads not to the development of a better society, but to its destruction.
Read. The. Links.
Mittwoch, August 08, 2007
The Real Costs of Going Green...
There is a letter to the Editor in Today's FAZ - unfortunately behind their pay firewall - that covers the real costs of going Green in terms of what the Germans are doing with wind energy. It's from Thomas Heinzow, from the University of Hamburg, Research Department for Sustainable Ecological Development (Forschungsstelle Nachhaltige Umweltentwicklung).
I did find this, but it's only in German: I'll lay out the argument here, but won't do a translation.
Basically, energy policy in Germany, put into place by the Greens during their kingmaker role in their coalition with the SPD under Schröder, is a massive swindle that costs German consumers of electricity no less than around 90 billion Euros.
That's right, ninety billion Euros.
Germany is in the process of installing 45'000 MW of wind energy equipment, with 25'000 MW planned for the North Sea windfarms and 20'000 MW on land. The cost per KW - not MW - is €5'800 for land and €6'600 for sea; this is €58'000 and €66'000 per MW. Now, the real usage rate for land - empirical evidence, not guesswork - is that an average of 9'400 MW will be available at any given time from the North Sea, and around 3'000 MW from land installations, which is, what, an efficiency of 37,6% for sea and 15% for land.
Given the 20-year cycle of the machinery and necessary maintenance and repairs, the depreciation rate is between 6% and 9%.
All of this, calculated reflecting all appropriate parameters, you have a cost of avoiding carbon dioxide by using wind power of between €300 and €400/ton of carbon dioxide.
The same effect can be achieved by cleaning up coal and other fossil fuel energy users of around €40/ton.
Now, the windpark equipment has to be manufactured: given this, the construction needed, etc., and you get an additional carbon footprint of 30 mn tonnes over the life of the system - 20 years - and the need to subsidize the windpark operators with around €6mn/year.
All told, the installation of the windparks will cost around €90 bn. Who pays?
The German consumer of electricity pays, as the subsidies for wind energy are paid for by increasing the KWh price of electricity.
The only way that you get a break-even in comparison to coal, for instance, is if you make coal five times more expensive than it is today.
Now, this is not some back-of-the-envelope study: they got the data for windflows for the years 2000-2004 for the region where the windparks will be located in order to model the expected fluctuations in energy production; they were able to determine what sort of energy generation would be necessary to ensure that the base energy for the net would always be guaranteed (if you don't do this, you get blackouts when the wind power drops below what is needed for the net); they were able to calculate energy production from windparks to every 15 minutes (!) during each and every day of the year and so on. Serious study, in other words.
From their conclusion, my translation and summation:
The windparks can generate maximum of 26 GW, with extreme volatility of plus/minus 12GW/15 min and an average volatility of plus/minus 5GW/15 min. This volatility exceeds the technical limits for the existing electrical energy transportation system, and requires the acquisition of fast-reaction basis energy systems (must react within a 15 minute time period!), based either on gas turbines or pumped-reserviour water systems. This means that windpark energy generation, given the extreme costs and lack of real reduction of energy productions's carbon footprint, is not an appropriate energy policy, given that actual reduction via cleaning up current energy production mixes cost between €15 and €40/ton, instead of the price of between €300 and €420/ton for windparks. Energy from windparks can first become economically viable if other energy costs increase by 4 or 5 fold from current levels.
Investment in windparks would make sense only if current energy generation was running at maximum efficiency with optimum emission scrubbing equipment, as the ecological impact would then have greater effect. By failing to invest in this solution, the ecological impact of windfarms is severely reduced and makes little or no economic or ecological sense. The investment in windpower at the cost of increasing efficiencies means that the political goals of the project will not be adequately met and that the opportunity costs of the project are so great that any potential ecological benefits are largely lost.
Ouch.
That's why they call economics the dismal science. It pokes massive holes in pie-in-the-sky ideas.
The problem here is that the German consumers are paying for this ecological idiocy. I wonder how much money the windpark operators and machinery makers paid the Greens in Germany to get this on the table? The whole thing stinks to high heaven.
PS: this isn't a study done by an energy company, it's one that actually takes an objective look at how to realistically reduce the carbon footprint. They're right: putting up the windfarms is a massively bad idea. But hey, it's only taxpayer money, and we'll get the stupid consumers to pay in any case.
Yaaargh.
I did find this, but it's only in German: I'll lay out the argument here, but won't do a translation.
Basically, energy policy in Germany, put into place by the Greens during their kingmaker role in their coalition with the SPD under Schröder, is a massive swindle that costs German consumers of electricity no less than around 90 billion Euros.
That's right, ninety billion Euros.
Germany is in the process of installing 45'000 MW of wind energy equipment, with 25'000 MW planned for the North Sea windfarms and 20'000 MW on land. The cost per KW - not MW - is €5'800 for land and €6'600 for sea; this is €58'000 and €66'000 per MW. Now, the real usage rate for land - empirical evidence, not guesswork - is that an average of 9'400 MW will be available at any given time from the North Sea, and around 3'000 MW from land installations, which is, what, an efficiency of 37,6% for sea and 15% for land.
Given the 20-year cycle of the machinery and necessary maintenance and repairs, the depreciation rate is between 6% and 9%.
All of this, calculated reflecting all appropriate parameters, you have a cost of avoiding carbon dioxide by using wind power of between €300 and €400/ton of carbon dioxide.
The same effect can be achieved by cleaning up coal and other fossil fuel energy users of around €40/ton.
Now, the windpark equipment has to be manufactured: given this, the construction needed, etc., and you get an additional carbon footprint of 30 mn tonnes over the life of the system - 20 years - and the need to subsidize the windpark operators with around €6mn/year.
All told, the installation of the windparks will cost around €90 bn. Who pays?
The German consumer of electricity pays, as the subsidies for wind energy are paid for by increasing the KWh price of electricity.
The only way that you get a break-even in comparison to coal, for instance, is if you make coal five times more expensive than it is today.
Now, this is not some back-of-the-envelope study: they got the data for windflows for the years 2000-2004 for the region where the windparks will be located in order to model the expected fluctuations in energy production; they were able to determine what sort of energy generation would be necessary to ensure that the base energy for the net would always be guaranteed (if you don't do this, you get blackouts when the wind power drops below what is needed for the net); they were able to calculate energy production from windparks to every 15 minutes (!) during each and every day of the year and so on. Serious study, in other words.
From their conclusion, my translation and summation:
The windparks can generate maximum of 26 GW, with extreme volatility of plus/minus 12GW/15 min and an average volatility of plus/minus 5GW/15 min. This volatility exceeds the technical limits for the existing electrical energy transportation system, and requires the acquisition of fast-reaction basis energy systems (must react within a 15 minute time period!), based either on gas turbines or pumped-reserviour water systems. This means that windpark energy generation, given the extreme costs and lack of real reduction of energy productions's carbon footprint, is not an appropriate energy policy, given that actual reduction via cleaning up current energy production mixes cost between €15 and €40/ton, instead of the price of between €300 and €420/ton for windparks. Energy from windparks can first become economically viable if other energy costs increase by 4 or 5 fold from current levels.
Investment in windparks would make sense only if current energy generation was running at maximum efficiency with optimum emission scrubbing equipment, as the ecological impact would then have greater effect. By failing to invest in this solution, the ecological impact of windfarms is severely reduced and makes little or no economic or ecological sense. The investment in windpower at the cost of increasing efficiencies means that the political goals of the project will not be adequately met and that the opportunity costs of the project are so great that any potential ecological benefits are largely lost.
Ouch.
That's why they call economics the dismal science. It pokes massive holes in pie-in-the-sky ideas.
The problem here is that the German consumers are paying for this ecological idiocy. I wonder how much money the windpark operators and machinery makers paid the Greens in Germany to get this on the table? The whole thing stinks to high heaven.
PS: this isn't a study done by an energy company, it's one that actually takes an objective look at how to realistically reduce the carbon footprint. They're right: putting up the windfarms is a massively bad idea. But hey, it's only taxpayer money, and we'll get the stupid consumers to pay in any case.
Yaaargh.
Dienstag, August 07, 2007
If you don't understand this, then there is no hope for you...
I've posted here on what I've called the Culture of Deception.
This is the WSJ online underscores my thesis, that Anti-Americanism is by far less the result of American policies as much more the result of concerted action aimed at isolating the US and making US foreign policy as difficult as possible.
It's not that the world hates us: it doesn't. The world is filed with countries who keep their citizens, by one way or another, under control (not necessarily police states: look at Brazilian overregulation of businesses, for example, or Italian taxation policies), while the US remains the land of opportunity.
Not guarantee, but opportunity. There are simply too many success stories to deny this: it's not the mythical dishwasher-to-millionaire story, but rather the ambitious immigrant who ends up with the two-car garage and kids in college. The American middle-class life style is the most subversive, the most dangerous life style in the world to those who seek to control and manipulate.
That's what drives Anti-Americanism today, after the collapse of the facade of communism and its inevitability of history. It's always been about control and manipulation, always: be it Chavez in Venezuala, Castro in Cuba, or Putin in Russia. The mindset of the old KGB and its modern-day successors and wanna-bes lives on.
The real tragedy is that you have an entire generation of politicians in the US who also subscribe to this, people who have betrayed their own history and see the world as something to be controlled and manipulated to prevent opportunity, preferring instead to inculcate ignorance and systematic denial of what makes America great.
They're called Democrats.
Here are two quotes from someone who knows what the story really is, from the link given above:
Sowing the seeds of anti-Americanism by discrediting the American president was one of the main tasks of the Soviet-bloc intelligence community during the years I worked at its top levels. This same strategy is at work today, but it is regarded as bad manners to point out the Soviet parallels. For communists, only the leader counted, no matter the country, friend or foe. At home, they deified their own ruler--as to a certain extent still holds true in Russia. Abroad, they asserted that a fish starts smelling from the head, and they did everything in their power to make the head of the Free World stink.
and:
Unfortunately, partisans today have taken a page from the old Soviet playbook. At the 2004 Democratic National Convention, for example, Bush critics continued our mud-slinging at America's commander in chief. One speaker, Martin O'Malley, now governor of Maryland, had earlier in the summer stated he was more worried about the actions of the Bush administration than about al Qaeda. On another occasion, retired four-star general Wesley Clark gave Michael Moore a platform to denounce the American commander in chief as a "deserter." And visitors to the national chairman of the Democratic Party had to step across a doormat depicting the American president surrounded by the words, "Give Bush the Boot."
Now, the point is this: that the war in Iraq is America's war, not that of Bush or the "Neocons". Ignore this at your peril: if you do not understand that, then there is no hope for you.
Oh, and a PS: that the Left wants to inculcate ignorance is the only way to understand modern education, with its emphasis on feel-good issues and a lack of training in hard sciences and reasoning.
This is the WSJ online underscores my thesis, that Anti-Americanism is by far less the result of American policies as much more the result of concerted action aimed at isolating the US and making US foreign policy as difficult as possible.
It's not that the world hates us: it doesn't. The world is filed with countries who keep their citizens, by one way or another, under control (not necessarily police states: look at Brazilian overregulation of businesses, for example, or Italian taxation policies), while the US remains the land of opportunity.
Not guarantee, but opportunity. There are simply too many success stories to deny this: it's not the mythical dishwasher-to-millionaire story, but rather the ambitious immigrant who ends up with the two-car garage and kids in college. The American middle-class life style is the most subversive, the most dangerous life style in the world to those who seek to control and manipulate.
That's what drives Anti-Americanism today, after the collapse of the facade of communism and its inevitability of history. It's always been about control and manipulation, always: be it Chavez in Venezuala, Castro in Cuba, or Putin in Russia. The mindset of the old KGB and its modern-day successors and wanna-bes lives on.
The real tragedy is that you have an entire generation of politicians in the US who also subscribe to this, people who have betrayed their own history and see the world as something to be controlled and manipulated to prevent opportunity, preferring instead to inculcate ignorance and systematic denial of what makes America great.
They're called Democrats.
Here are two quotes from someone who knows what the story really is, from the link given above:
Sowing the seeds of anti-Americanism by discrediting the American president was one of the main tasks of the Soviet-bloc intelligence community during the years I worked at its top levels. This same strategy is at work today, but it is regarded as bad manners to point out the Soviet parallels. For communists, only the leader counted, no matter the country, friend or foe. At home, they deified their own ruler--as to a certain extent still holds true in Russia. Abroad, they asserted that a fish starts smelling from the head, and they did everything in their power to make the head of the Free World stink.
and:
Unfortunately, partisans today have taken a page from the old Soviet playbook. At the 2004 Democratic National Convention, for example, Bush critics continued our mud-slinging at America's commander in chief. One speaker, Martin O'Malley, now governor of Maryland, had earlier in the summer stated he was more worried about the actions of the Bush administration than about al Qaeda. On another occasion, retired four-star general Wesley Clark gave Michael Moore a platform to denounce the American commander in chief as a "deserter." And visitors to the national chairman of the Democratic Party had to step across a doormat depicting the American president surrounded by the words, "Give Bush the Boot."
Now, the point is this: that the war in Iraq is America's war, not that of Bush or the "Neocons". Ignore this at your peril: if you do not understand that, then there is no hope for you.
Oh, and a PS: that the Left wants to inculcate ignorance is the only way to understand modern education, with its emphasis on feel-good issues and a lack of training in hard sciences and reasoning.
Freitag, August 03, 2007
Utter Stupidity, or German Politicians...
Sorry for the paucity of blogging, been back at work and have been furiously writing up a storm there, not much time left for this.
But this came up today in the Handelsblatt (roughly speaking, the German equivalent of the WSJ).
The Ministry of Finances is planning on introducing a new tax: for German companies investing overseas, they will be taxed on the profits that should result from moving operations out-of-country or should result from expanding operations out-of-country instead of in Germany.
You read that right: if a German company decides to open up operations elsewhere, they should be punitively taxed for doing that instead of doing it in Germany.
The mind boggles.
Not only that, but this is a deliberate thing: the goal is to prevent German companies from doing their R&D in Germany and then opening up operations in, say, Poland, in order to maximize their profits. The taxes are designed to make this unattractive: we're not talking any sort of punitive taxes as punishment, but rather to tax German companies so heavily that they will find it cheaper to produce elsewhere...
But they've forgotten something: that countries where German companies operate, say Poland, tax profits as well: the German proposition is that the companies involved pay their taxes in Germany instead and then use those tax liabilities to compensate for the local tax liabilities.
Right.
Me, I want some of what these folks are smoking.
First of all: the idea that the tax authorities in, say, the US will accept that a German company operating in the US will avoid paying US taxes because they pay German taxes is not merely fantasy, it can only be explained as a drug-induced hallucination.
Second of all: the reason that German companies produce out-of-country is not merely that you can hire productive labor elsewhere for less (indeed this is the case...), but more critically it's the way that being a player in global markets works successfully. If you want to be a big international player in your field, then you don't make widgets in Germany and then export them: rather you become the local widget maker that happens to be owned by Germans and that can produce the best damn widgets for that country.
Third of all: this is not a tax on current profits, but rather a tax on expected future profits. If they were to tax German companies on repatriated profits after local authorities taxed them, fine: that's what they do now. But noooooo, this is to punish companies for behaving like they actually want to make money and satsify their client's needs.
The best thing that could happen to Germany would be to fire half of the bureaucrats and to massively downsize government. No one can tell me that a country whose Bureau of Labor spends more money, time and employees on managing itself rather than finding unemployed people new jobs can't slim down.
This idiocy, this utter stupidity, can be clearly laid at the feet of the German socialists, by the way: the Finance Minister in charge is Peer Steinbrück from the SPD, the German socialist party.
This is the kind of stupidity that starts economic and financial crises, the modern-day equivalent of Smoot-Hawley or similar idiocies.
Of course the trade groups and associations are up in arms about this, and there is little chance that it will actually come to this.
But it does serve as a reminder of why Big Government - and oh boy do the Germans loooooove Big Government - is A Bad Thing.
But this came up today in the Handelsblatt (roughly speaking, the German equivalent of the WSJ).
The Ministry of Finances is planning on introducing a new tax: for German companies investing overseas, they will be taxed on the profits that should result from moving operations out-of-country or should result from expanding operations out-of-country instead of in Germany.
You read that right: if a German company decides to open up operations elsewhere, they should be punitively taxed for doing that instead of doing it in Germany.
The mind boggles.
Not only that, but this is a deliberate thing: the goal is to prevent German companies from doing their R&D in Germany and then opening up operations in, say, Poland, in order to maximize their profits. The taxes are designed to make this unattractive: we're not talking any sort of punitive taxes as punishment, but rather to tax German companies so heavily that they will find it cheaper to produce elsewhere...
But they've forgotten something: that countries where German companies operate, say Poland, tax profits as well: the German proposition is that the companies involved pay their taxes in Germany instead and then use those tax liabilities to compensate for the local tax liabilities.
Right.
Me, I want some of what these folks are smoking.
First of all: the idea that the tax authorities in, say, the US will accept that a German company operating in the US will avoid paying US taxes because they pay German taxes is not merely fantasy, it can only be explained as a drug-induced hallucination.
Second of all: the reason that German companies produce out-of-country is not merely that you can hire productive labor elsewhere for less (indeed this is the case...), but more critically it's the way that being a player in global markets works successfully. If you want to be a big international player in your field, then you don't make widgets in Germany and then export them: rather you become the local widget maker that happens to be owned by Germans and that can produce the best damn widgets for that country.
Third of all: this is not a tax on current profits, but rather a tax on expected future profits. If they were to tax German companies on repatriated profits after local authorities taxed them, fine: that's what they do now. But noooooo, this is to punish companies for behaving like they actually want to make money and satsify their client's needs.
The best thing that could happen to Germany would be to fire half of the bureaucrats and to massively downsize government. No one can tell me that a country whose Bureau of Labor spends more money, time and employees on managing itself rather than finding unemployed people new jobs can't slim down.
This idiocy, this utter stupidity, can be clearly laid at the feet of the German socialists, by the way: the Finance Minister in charge is Peer Steinbrück from the SPD, the German socialist party.
This is the kind of stupidity that starts economic and financial crises, the modern-day equivalent of Smoot-Hawley or similar idiocies.
Of course the trade groups and associations are up in arms about this, and there is little chance that it will actually come to this.
But it does serve as a reminder of why Big Government - and oh boy do the Germans loooooove Big Government - is A Bad Thing.
Donnerstag, Juli 19, 2007
Ouch ...
Been in London the last week, hence the paucity of posting.
To tide everyone over until I get back into the swing of things, there is this.
Global warming is now the official equivalent of discussing your gall bladder operation, which group is better and what your mileage is: you can do it, but it's best not done in polite company.
Rather devastating take-down of the True Believers. But I won't bore you with discussing it...
To tide everyone over until I get back into the swing of things, there is this.
Global warming is now the official equivalent of discussing your gall bladder operation, which group is better and what your mileage is: you can do it, but it's best not done in polite company.
Rather devastating take-down of the True Believers. But I won't bore you with discussing it...
Sonntag, Juli 08, 2007
Tetzel Function
As an economist, I am always trying to understand human behavior as it applies to dealing with a world of limited goods and hard choices to be made about using them, which is fundamentally what economics is all about.
I've come up with a new function, and thought I'd put it up here:
The Tetzel Function
The Tetzel Function is named after Johann Tetzel. He's the monk who basically came up with the idea of selling foregiveness and salvation in order to pay for the construction of St. Paul's Cathedral in Rome. The basis for this concept came from the recognition of some aspects of human nature, that sin must be compensated for, and what better way to ensure that, for instance, your dead father's soul would enter heaven if you, basically, paid for that to happen. This is what is called an indulgence, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia:
The word indulgence (Latin indulgentia, from indulgeo, to be kind or tender) originally meant kindness or favor; in post-classic Latin it came to mean the remission of a tax or debt. In Roman law and in the Vulgate of the Old Testament (Isaiah 61:1) it was used to express release from captivity or punishment. In theological language also the word is sometimes employed in its primary sense to signify the kindness and mercy of God. But in the special sense in which it is here considered, an indulgence is a remission of the temporal punishment due to sin, the guilt of which has been forgiven. Among the equivalent terms used in antiquity were pax, remissio, donatio, condonatio.
Tetzel got into the business of selling indulgences, not merely for the living, but also for the dead. Indulgences remain, but are no longer for sale: they remain part of Catholic theology (note: I'm not Catholic, but Protestant, but have no quarrels with Catholics) and there is a clear rejection of the idea of selling them. Now while the Catholic church sees the historical role of indulgencies with a bit of bias - it was one of the major reasons for Luther to call for the Reformation and was thesis #82, if I remember correctly (I do) - indulgencies remain.
Now, I'm interested not in indulgencies as such, but much more the role that Tetzel played.
He basically offered the rich the ability to use their financial abilities to avoid going through actual penance and spiritual compensation for their sins: while this may or may not have started as a kind of indulgence on his part - in the sense of choosing a way for a sinner to make true spiritual recompense for his or her sins - it rapidly became corrupted and venal. It became wide-spread and was a major, major source of dissatisfaction of those who did actual spiritual recompense for their personal sins, as they saw the wealthy not only believe that they were able to buy their way into heaven, but the church being corrupted in doing so.
Hence my Tetzel Function: it describes the mechanism that a group uses to avoid facing unpleasant truths about themselves, buying compensation/indulgences for their sins. Tetzel was, at the end of the day, merely the one who took the practice to its logical, mortal, sinful conclusion.
Now, modern society remains heavily based on many conflicts that have their sources in the Middle Ages: the contradiction between public duties and private desires, for instance, is one of the driving forces behind the controversy, for instance, about homosexual marriages. The state and the church have a public duty to support the family and ensure that it has a protected status, as the best possible way of ensuring the continuation of the state and society. The private desire of homosexual couples to exchange vows as if they were not homosexuals is in direct conflict with this public duty, as the natural function of a homosexual relation is that there are no children and they do not, in this sense, ensure the continuation of state and society. I am not making any argument, simply stating that the nature of the conflict between public and private is not new, but rather ancient.
That said, what is the Tetzel Function exactly?
The Tetzel Function says that when economic conditions develop such that hard decisions must be made that will place large numbers of the members of the economy in jeopardy, that someone will find a way to monetarize the nature of these decisions in such a way that wealthy members of that economic group will avoid having to make those choices.
In other words, if it is necessary to massively reduce the emission of carbon dioxide from industrial societies, then someone will find a way of monetarizing contradictory behavior in such a manner that it appears to be non-contradictory. The larger the desire to not change behavior, the greater the willingness to spend money to avoid the change in behavior.
If we all were to take the purposed problem with carbon dioxide seriously, then massive changes in behavior are neccessary: airline flights would need to be heavily restricted, mass transit necessary and private transportation heavily controlled, industrial activity curbed, non-renewable energy use also heavily curbed, and past emissions of carbon dioxide compensated for via carbon sequestering.
This would me for many a severe change in life style: no major trips, inflexible transportation, reduced economic compensation and a life with few of the current creature comforts, all enforced by the State. This would mean quite a bit of suffering, of penance, as it were, for the sins of the fathers (and mothers) and an acceptance that humans have sinned against nature. I dare say that there are few outside of the environmental movement that would be prepared to voluntarily impose such a regime, but that is exactly what the environmental movement is actually largely all about.
Now not everyone will be willing to go along with that, and that is where the Tetzel Function comes into play: those with the means to do so will be able to purchase indulgencies so that they do not have to change their behavior. This, of course, will be explained as something good and proper.
Hence the current systems of "carbon compensation" fulfill the Tetzel Function for the environmental movement.
Let's parameterize the function:
Let F equal the Tetzel Function, x the amount of necessary privation (determined by legislation!), y the monetary amount available to compensate and z is the non-monetary compensation (i.e. the acceptance of privation). We then get a function like this:
F= x - (z + y)
In other words, the privation can be minimized by throwing money at it. Let's do a simple check:
Person A has $1'000 for carbon offsets, Person B has $200 and Person C has $5'000.
If we set the F to be 0 (i.e. neutral), then if x is legislated at, say, 1500, then
A: 1500 - (1300+200) for a F of 0
B: 1500 - (500+1000 for a F of 0
C: 1500 - (-3500+5000) for a F of 0
which means that those with the least ability to pay will suffer the greatest deprivation, and as long as the ability to pay for carbon offsets is greater than the cost of the carbon offsets, the impact of being able to purchase indulgencies in the form of carbon offsets is actually positive, i.e. those with the ability to pay will not only not suffer any deprivation, but rather they will enjoy additional benefits, such as reduced congestion, smaller or non-existent lines for airplanes, etc.
In other words, this is a regressive tax.
That's how the Tetzel Function works. Of course, this is very simplistic, tossed together on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Anyone wanting to do real work on it is welcome to, with one caveat: I "discovered" it, and the name remains the same... :-)
I've come up with a new function, and thought I'd put it up here:
The Tetzel Function
The Tetzel Function is named after Johann Tetzel. He's the monk who basically came up with the idea of selling foregiveness and salvation in order to pay for the construction of St. Paul's Cathedral in Rome. The basis for this concept came from the recognition of some aspects of human nature, that sin must be compensated for, and what better way to ensure that, for instance, your dead father's soul would enter heaven if you, basically, paid for that to happen. This is what is called an indulgence, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia:
The word indulgence (Latin indulgentia, from indulgeo, to be kind or tender) originally meant kindness or favor; in post-classic Latin it came to mean the remission of a tax or debt. In Roman law and in the Vulgate of the Old Testament (Isaiah 61:1) it was used to express release from captivity or punishment. In theological language also the word is sometimes employed in its primary sense to signify the kindness and mercy of God. But in the special sense in which it is here considered, an indulgence is a remission of the temporal punishment due to sin, the guilt of which has been forgiven. Among the equivalent terms used in antiquity were pax, remissio, donatio, condonatio.
Tetzel got into the business of selling indulgences, not merely for the living, but also for the dead. Indulgences remain, but are no longer for sale: they remain part of Catholic theology (note: I'm not Catholic, but Protestant, but have no quarrels with Catholics) and there is a clear rejection of the idea of selling them. Now while the Catholic church sees the historical role of indulgencies with a bit of bias - it was one of the major reasons for Luther to call for the Reformation and was thesis #82, if I remember correctly (I do) - indulgencies remain.
Now, I'm interested not in indulgencies as such, but much more the role that Tetzel played.
He basically offered the rich the ability to use their financial abilities to avoid going through actual penance and spiritual compensation for their sins: while this may or may not have started as a kind of indulgence on his part - in the sense of choosing a way for a sinner to make true spiritual recompense for his or her sins - it rapidly became corrupted and venal. It became wide-spread and was a major, major source of dissatisfaction of those who did actual spiritual recompense for their personal sins, as they saw the wealthy not only believe that they were able to buy their way into heaven, but the church being corrupted in doing so.
Hence my Tetzel Function: it describes the mechanism that a group uses to avoid facing unpleasant truths about themselves, buying compensation/indulgences for their sins. Tetzel was, at the end of the day, merely the one who took the practice to its logical, mortal, sinful conclusion.
Now, modern society remains heavily based on many conflicts that have their sources in the Middle Ages: the contradiction between public duties and private desires, for instance, is one of the driving forces behind the controversy, for instance, about homosexual marriages. The state and the church have a public duty to support the family and ensure that it has a protected status, as the best possible way of ensuring the continuation of the state and society. The private desire of homosexual couples to exchange vows as if they were not homosexuals is in direct conflict with this public duty, as the natural function of a homosexual relation is that there are no children and they do not, in this sense, ensure the continuation of state and society. I am not making any argument, simply stating that the nature of the conflict between public and private is not new, but rather ancient.
That said, what is the Tetzel Function exactly?
The Tetzel Function says that when economic conditions develop such that hard decisions must be made that will place large numbers of the members of the economy in jeopardy, that someone will find a way to monetarize the nature of these decisions in such a way that wealthy members of that economic group will avoid having to make those choices.
In other words, if it is necessary to massively reduce the emission of carbon dioxide from industrial societies, then someone will find a way of monetarizing contradictory behavior in such a manner that it appears to be non-contradictory. The larger the desire to not change behavior, the greater the willingness to spend money to avoid the change in behavior.
If we all were to take the purposed problem with carbon dioxide seriously, then massive changes in behavior are neccessary: airline flights would need to be heavily restricted, mass transit necessary and private transportation heavily controlled, industrial activity curbed, non-renewable energy use also heavily curbed, and past emissions of carbon dioxide compensated for via carbon sequestering.
This would me for many a severe change in life style: no major trips, inflexible transportation, reduced economic compensation and a life with few of the current creature comforts, all enforced by the State. This would mean quite a bit of suffering, of penance, as it were, for the sins of the fathers (and mothers) and an acceptance that humans have sinned against nature. I dare say that there are few outside of the environmental movement that would be prepared to voluntarily impose such a regime, but that is exactly what the environmental movement is actually largely all about.
Now not everyone will be willing to go along with that, and that is where the Tetzel Function comes into play: those with the means to do so will be able to purchase indulgencies so that they do not have to change their behavior. This, of course, will be explained as something good and proper.
Hence the current systems of "carbon compensation" fulfill the Tetzel Function for the environmental movement.
Let's parameterize the function:
Let F equal the Tetzel Function, x the amount of necessary privation (determined by legislation!), y the monetary amount available to compensate and z is the non-monetary compensation (i.e. the acceptance of privation). We then get a function like this:
F= x - (z + y)
In other words, the privation can be minimized by throwing money at it. Let's do a simple check:
Person A has $1'000 for carbon offsets, Person B has $200 and Person C has $5'000.
If we set the F to be 0 (i.e. neutral), then if x is legislated at, say, 1500, then
A: 1500 - (1300+200) for a F of 0
B: 1500 - (500+1000 for a F of 0
C: 1500 - (-3500+5000) for a F of 0
which means that those with the least ability to pay will suffer the greatest deprivation, and as long as the ability to pay for carbon offsets is greater than the cost of the carbon offsets, the impact of being able to purchase indulgencies in the form of carbon offsets is actually positive, i.e. those with the ability to pay will not only not suffer any deprivation, but rather they will enjoy additional benefits, such as reduced congestion, smaller or non-existent lines for airplanes, etc.
In other words, this is a regressive tax.
That's how the Tetzel Function works. Of course, this is very simplistic, tossed together on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Anyone wanting to do real work on it is welcome to, with one caveat: I "discovered" it, and the name remains the same... :-)
Mittwoch, Juli 04, 2007
Postmodernism, Dishonesty and Its Effects...
This is a very interesting article on the effects of postmodernism on history. The arguments therein are underscored by this commentary.
What really struck me is that postmodernism, which in this case clearly has become dishonest and unscholarly in its apparently deliberate misrepresentation of the past to fit its preconcieved notions of what must have happened, rather than what actually, empirically, happened, is the cause of much of the culture of deception that we see today (search on my blog for what I mean by that...).
You see, this is, for me, the telling quote:
This boils post-modernism down to its fundamentals: that there is no longer any truth. I learned in my first semester of philosophy how fallacious this is, that the statement itself, if true, contradicts what it states, making it false. It is the result, at best, of wanting to avoid making students actually learn how to think, and, at worst (and it usually is at worst), it is a deliberate relativism out of intellectual dishonesty.
Now let's step away for a moment, and understand what at least one of the effects is. If we say, collectively as the West, that there are no truths, that everything is relative, then we are also saying that we have no beliefs, that our beliefs are not per se any better than any one else's. That is all very noble and high-minded, but it is also an intellectual attempt at dodging the bullet of doing the hard work and making judgements about others, be it societies, economic systems or belief structures. This is the sort of relativism, relativism perversely in the name of academic objectivity, that led during the cold war many to believe, truly believe, that the economic system of Communism was just as good as that of the West in meeting the needs of the population and that if it wasn't working, then it was because of external factors.
It is the same kind of thinking that sets the West up for being targeted by terrorists.
In one perverse sense, the West is responsible for the kind of terrorism that we have seen over the last years: we invite it, as it were, by failing to make it clear that we are not even capable of judging between right and wrong, and that if someone attacks us, it is because of something we did.
Which, when you place yourself, as Gedankenexperiment, in the mind of someone who fervently believes in what he or she does, then for someone to say that what they believe is no better or worse than what others believe is an invitation to force those to change their beliefs. After all, under the conditions of post-modernism, being a Muslim is no different, fundamentally, than being an Anglican or being a Catholic. Hence a radical Islamicist cannot be blamed for thinking that Europe, for instance, is a overly ripe fruit, there for the plucking, and that since the Europeans don't "believe" in anything, that they can damn well better become Muslims. All it should take is a little bit of violence, much like the tenet of Islam that if a wife becomes uppity, the husband is perfectly justified in slapping or beating her to bring her back to her place in society: I think that this is a decent metaphor for how the Islamicists view the West, as something that properly belongs to them, that shows no beliefs of its own, that should serve their interests and subjugate its own to those of the Islamicists.
Now do you see the absurdity of post-modernist thought, its fundamental dishonesty and its effects?
Post-modernist thought should be thoroughly debunked and disgraced. Post-modernist history, at least in Australia, has been shown to be fundamentally dishonest, falsifying the historical record or simply making it up. It can only be hoped that this can be changed and that the discipline can regain its objectivity, its historical accuracy.
Were that the effects could be so simply changed as well.
What really struck me is that postmodernism, which in this case clearly has become dishonest and unscholarly in its apparently deliberate misrepresentation of the past to fit its preconcieved notions of what must have happened, rather than what actually, empirically, happened, is the cause of much of the culture of deception that we see today (search on my blog for what I mean by that...).
You see, this is, for me, the telling quote:
I'll start with the postmodernist view of historical truth and quote one of its advocates, the Manning Clark Professor of History at the Australian National University, Anne Curthoys, who has written:
This is from the first link ut supra.Many academics in the humanities and social sciences … now reject … the notion that one can objectively know the facts. The processes of knowing, and the production of an object that is known, are seen as intertwined. Many take this even further, and argue that knowledge is entirely an effect of power, that we can no longer have any concept of truth at all.
This boils post-modernism down to its fundamentals: that there is no longer any truth. I learned in my first semester of philosophy how fallacious this is, that the statement itself, if true, contradicts what it states, making it false. It is the result, at best, of wanting to avoid making students actually learn how to think, and, at worst (and it usually is at worst), it is a deliberate relativism out of intellectual dishonesty.
Now let's step away for a moment, and understand what at least one of the effects is. If we say, collectively as the West, that there are no truths, that everything is relative, then we are also saying that we have no beliefs, that our beliefs are not per se any better than any one else's. That is all very noble and high-minded, but it is also an intellectual attempt at dodging the bullet of doing the hard work and making judgements about others, be it societies, economic systems or belief structures. This is the sort of relativism, relativism perversely in the name of academic objectivity, that led during the cold war many to believe, truly believe, that the economic system of Communism was just as good as that of the West in meeting the needs of the population and that if it wasn't working, then it was because of external factors.
It is the same kind of thinking that sets the West up for being targeted by terrorists.
In one perverse sense, the West is responsible for the kind of terrorism that we have seen over the last years: we invite it, as it were, by failing to make it clear that we are not even capable of judging between right and wrong, and that if someone attacks us, it is because of something we did.
Which, when you place yourself, as Gedankenexperiment, in the mind of someone who fervently believes in what he or she does, then for someone to say that what they believe is no better or worse than what others believe is an invitation to force those to change their beliefs. After all, under the conditions of post-modernism, being a Muslim is no different, fundamentally, than being an Anglican or being a Catholic. Hence a radical Islamicist cannot be blamed for thinking that Europe, for instance, is a overly ripe fruit, there for the plucking, and that since the Europeans don't "believe" in anything, that they can damn well better become Muslims. All it should take is a little bit of violence, much like the tenet of Islam that if a wife becomes uppity, the husband is perfectly justified in slapping or beating her to bring her back to her place in society: I think that this is a decent metaphor for how the Islamicists view the West, as something that properly belongs to them, that shows no beliefs of its own, that should serve their interests and subjugate its own to those of the Islamicists.
Now do you see the absurdity of post-modernist thought, its fundamental dishonesty and its effects?
Post-modernist thought should be thoroughly debunked and disgraced. Post-modernist history, at least in Australia, has been shown to be fundamentally dishonest, falsifying the historical record or simply making it up. It can only be hoped that this can be changed and that the discipline can regain its objectivity, its historical accuracy.
Were that the effects could be so simply changed as well.
Dienstag, Juli 03, 2007
From the Horses' mouth...
So, for all of you who think that radical Islamists are blowback from US/UK/Western foreign policy: you're wrong.
How can I say that?
Because there is a radical Islamist who has abandoned his radicalism and talks about how they laugh in joy at Western media's gullibility in accepting the enemy's propaganda as "truth": it's here in the Daily Mail.
This is how it starts:
When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network - a series of British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology - I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.
He also states clearly the real reason for the violence: radical Islamic theology that has divided the world into two parts, the believers, for whom Islamic justice is necessary world-wide, and the unbelievers, who if they do not convert must be subjugated or die.
It really is that simple: it really is black and white.
How can I say that?
Because there is a radical Islamist who has abandoned his radicalism and talks about how they laugh in joy at Western media's gullibility in accepting the enemy's propaganda as "truth": it's here in the Daily Mail.
This is how it starts:
When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network - a series of British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology - I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.
By blaming the Government for our actions, those who pushed this "Blair's bombs" line did our propaganda work for us.
He also states clearly the real reason for the violence: radical Islamic theology that has divided the world into two parts, the believers, for whom Islamic justice is necessary world-wide, and the unbelievers, who if they do not convert must be subjugated or die.
It really is that simple: it really is black and white.
Sonntag, Juli 01, 2007
Chilling...
I've been reading one of the only independent journalists out in the field in Iraq, going to where the stories actually are, instead of being used as tool of the propagandists.
His name is Michael Yon and his web site is here.
This is his most recent post. It is not for the faint-hearted or those easily disturbed.
It's also reality. Welcome to it: let Iraq go, and it will be repeated like the Killing Fields.
Go read it. And dare then to say that it's all our fault: nothing like this is anything but sheer unmitigated brutality, the return of barbarism.
And go put something in his tip jar to enable him to keep on doing a righteous job. He's just about the only journalist out there that does credit and not shame to his profession.
His name is Michael Yon and his web site is here.
This is his most recent post. It is not for the faint-hearted or those easily disturbed.
It's also reality. Welcome to it: let Iraq go, and it will be repeated like the Killing Fields.
Go read it. And dare then to say that it's all our fault: nothing like this is anything but sheer unmitigated brutality, the return of barbarism.
And go put something in his tip jar to enable him to keep on doing a righteous job. He's just about the only journalist out there that does credit and not shame to his profession.
Freitag, Juni 29, 2007
Why the Democrats aren't ready for the White House...
I've met Robert Reich a few times and he's one of the sharper folks out there, even if he is a Democrat.
He's got an excellent commentary in today's FT, unfortunately behind their subscription firewall, but here's the link to the begin of what he says.
Fundamentally, the Democrats aren't ready for the White House: they continue to not understand how the economy works and what role the President can play in setting up the parameters for long-term, sustained growth.
Reich properly takes the Democrats under Clinton to task for failing to invest in US infrastructure, lambasting Bush as well, but also goes the further step of showing that the current gaggle of presidential candidates fails miserably in understanding what needs to be done.
Fundamentally, infrastructure investments are both critical and unloved. They cost real money, tie down real resources, and those that benefit include everyone, but most importantly business profits from good infrastructure. We're talking things like streets, pipelines, rail, ports, transportation centers, etc.
Now, there is a good argument to be made that this isn't the job of the government, but rather of private businesses to do so (basically Bush's position: let companies make more money and they will invest where it is needed. The problem is that what a company might need isn't necessarily what we all need, and there is the problem of the commons, i.e. there are investments that benefit everyone, but no single person will invest, as they cannot recoup their investment).
Getting back to Robert Reich's point: the Democratic contenders for 2008 don't understand that a budget deficit is not necessarily a bad thing. This is completely strange and bizarre, as it was the Democrats who back when larded Reagan's budget up with civilian pork. Reagan was happy to do so, since he understood that the SovUnion was at the breaking point, and he was more than happy to throw money at the problem, which solved the Cold War by breaking the SovUnion once and for all.
Running a budget deficit responsibly means investing the difference between revenues and outlays: the German constitution, as a matter of fact, requires this, something that the last several German administrations have chosen to ignore and is quietly accepted because to expose it would mean, fundamentally, declaring the German government to be in violation of the German constitution (actually, it's called the Basic Law).
Running a budget deficit purely for consumption purposes makes only sense when you are using the government to spend the economy out of a recession: Roosevelt II understood that.
Now the Democratic contenders are talking about having to balance the budget, the absolute need to balance the budget: there is no such thing. They fear that the Republicans will use the tax & spend Democrat argument against them, rightfully so. But the reason that the Republicans can use that argument so tellingly against Democrats is that the Democrats have been, in the past, currently and will continue to do so in the future, fiscally irresponsible, as they have fundamentally not understood that political pork projects, the kind that bought Democratic acquiescence to Bush's policies in his first term, isn't the same as infrastructure renewal and investment projects that are needed to ensure stable and solid long-term growth.
And that is why the Democrats aren't ready for the White House. I'm not saying that the Republicans are either: the idea that the private sector will invest where needed for their own growth does not address the problem of the commons.
He's got an excellent commentary in today's FT, unfortunately behind their subscription firewall, but here's the link to the begin of what he says.
Fundamentally, the Democrats aren't ready for the White House: they continue to not understand how the economy works and what role the President can play in setting up the parameters for long-term, sustained growth.
Reich properly takes the Democrats under Clinton to task for failing to invest in US infrastructure, lambasting Bush as well, but also goes the further step of showing that the current gaggle of presidential candidates fails miserably in understanding what needs to be done.
Fundamentally, infrastructure investments are both critical and unloved. They cost real money, tie down real resources, and those that benefit include everyone, but most importantly business profits from good infrastructure. We're talking things like streets, pipelines, rail, ports, transportation centers, etc.
Now, there is a good argument to be made that this isn't the job of the government, but rather of private businesses to do so (basically Bush's position: let companies make more money and they will invest where it is needed. The problem is that what a company might need isn't necessarily what we all need, and there is the problem of the commons, i.e. there are investments that benefit everyone, but no single person will invest, as they cannot recoup their investment).
Getting back to Robert Reich's point: the Democratic contenders for 2008 don't understand that a budget deficit is not necessarily a bad thing. This is completely strange and bizarre, as it was the Democrats who back when larded Reagan's budget up with civilian pork. Reagan was happy to do so, since he understood that the SovUnion was at the breaking point, and he was more than happy to throw money at the problem, which solved the Cold War by breaking the SovUnion once and for all.
Running a budget deficit responsibly means investing the difference between revenues and outlays: the German constitution, as a matter of fact, requires this, something that the last several German administrations have chosen to ignore and is quietly accepted because to expose it would mean, fundamentally, declaring the German government to be in violation of the German constitution (actually, it's called the Basic Law).
Running a budget deficit purely for consumption purposes makes only sense when you are using the government to spend the economy out of a recession: Roosevelt II understood that.
Now the Democratic contenders are talking about having to balance the budget, the absolute need to balance the budget: there is no such thing. They fear that the Republicans will use the tax & spend Democrat argument against them, rightfully so. But the reason that the Republicans can use that argument so tellingly against Democrats is that the Democrats have been, in the past, currently and will continue to do so in the future, fiscally irresponsible, as they have fundamentally not understood that political pork projects, the kind that bought Democratic acquiescence to Bush's policies in his first term, isn't the same as infrastructure renewal and investment projects that are needed to ensure stable and solid long-term growth.
And that is why the Democrats aren't ready for the White House. I'm not saying that the Republicans are either: the idea that the private sector will invest where needed for their own growth does not address the problem of the commons.
Making it clear...
This is one of the best posts I've seen yet on what assimilation really means: it means letting go.
One of the truly great things about the US is the fact that anyone can come and become an American: you don't have to be born there, you don't have to accept a state religion, you don't have to do anything except try to realize the American dream.
What is that? Simply put, to make the best out of your life, put the bad behind and go forth into the future. Make the future yours, not what someone else wants it to be for you.
This is the key quote:
You start as the Outsider and wind up the Insider, or at least being viewed as such by the newest Outsiders. We are a nation of still-startling social fluidity. Anyone can become "American," but they have to want to first.
That's about as clear as anyone can make it.
And it's also the problem with the illegals: they're not here to become Americans, they're here for the money.
If you want to become an American, you have to want it: you have to accept the obligations with the rights and privileges. Illegals don't: they refuse the obligations, wanting something for nothing, refusing to give up the old for the new.
Meaning, as well, that they'll never become Americans. They've already become a secondary society, apart, resistant and rejecting of the American dream.
And there are people want to make them citizens? Who want to give them amnesty?
That'd be a lovely gesture. But political suicide.
One of the truly great things about the US is the fact that anyone can come and become an American: you don't have to be born there, you don't have to accept a state religion, you don't have to do anything except try to realize the American dream.
What is that? Simply put, to make the best out of your life, put the bad behind and go forth into the future. Make the future yours, not what someone else wants it to be for you.
This is the key quote:
You start as the Outsider and wind up the Insider, or at least being viewed as such by the newest Outsiders. We are a nation of still-startling social fluidity. Anyone can become "American," but they have to want to first.
That's about as clear as anyone can make it.
And it's also the problem with the illegals: they're not here to become Americans, they're here for the money.
If you want to become an American, you have to want it: you have to accept the obligations with the rights and privileges. Illegals don't: they refuse the obligations, wanting something for nothing, refusing to give up the old for the new.
Meaning, as well, that they'll never become Americans. They've already become a secondary society, apart, resistant and rejecting of the American dream.
And there are people want to make them citizens? Who want to give them amnesty?
That'd be a lovely gesture. But political suicide.
For my European readers...
I've mentioned my old friend Udo Ulfkotte more than a few times here. He's now involved in setting up an anti-Islamist demonstration in Bruxelles:
http://akteislam.de/tinc?key=23GXUoY4
But calling it anti-Islamist is the wrong word: it's a pro-European demonstration.
Long-time readers know that I am not always the keenest fan of European politics. There's more than one reason why: as a long-term resident here I see the problems that people have here and the absolute disregard that their politicians hold for the average Joe and Jane here, let alone their real-world, day-to-day problems.
What Udo is doing has nothing to do with right-wing nationalism. As a matter of fact, right-wing nationalist groups are explicitly barred from this demonstration in Bruxelles: it is a NOT a demonstation against Islam, but against the mindless post-modernist, multi-cultural politic of appeasement and cowardice that dominates European politics of today.
If you have the time on 11 Sep 2007 and are of mind to show that there are those who don't agree with the faceless technocrats that are running Europe into the ground, then by all means click on the above list and let Udo and his friends know that you will come.
Don't know if I can make it (that's in the middle of my forecast round for 2007Q3) or whether I should (I'm an American, a guest in Europe: it's one thing for me to complain and bitch here, it's another thing to demonstrate against politicians that I neither elected, nor could elect...or would). But I may go with my wife, who is Austrian and dead-set against the slimy post-modernist, multi-culture politics of appeasement that her elected officials support.
Like I said, click and see how you can help.
http://akteislam.de/tinc?key
But calling it anti-Islamist is the wrong word: it's a pro-European demonstration.
Long-time readers know that I am not always the keenest fan of European politics. There's more than one reason why: as a long-term resident here I see the problems that people have here and the absolute disregard that their politicians hold for the average Joe and Jane here, let alone their real-world, day-to-day problems.
What Udo is doing has nothing to do with right-wing nationalism. As a matter of fact, right-wing nationalist groups are explicitly barred from this demonstration in Bruxelles: it is a NOT a demonstation against Islam, but against the mindless post-modernist, multi-cultural politic of appeasement and cowardice that dominates European politics of today.
If you have the time on 11 Sep 2007 and are of mind to show that there are those who don't agree with the faceless technocrats that are running Europe into the ground, then by all means click on the above list and let Udo and his friends know that you will come.
Don't know if I can make it (that's in the middle of my forecast round for 2007Q3) or whether I should (I'm an American, a guest in Europe: it's one thing for me to complain and bitch here, it's another thing to demonstrate against politicians that I neither elected, nor could elect...or would). But I may go with my wife, who is Austrian and dead-set against the slimy post-modernist, multi-culture politics of appeasement that her elected officials support.
Like I said, click and see how you can help.
Donnerstag, Juni 21, 2007
Truly appalling...
So, let's get this one right.
Gerhard Schroeder, former German chancellor, is under severe criticism from at least some corners for cutting a deal at the very end of his term of office (after losing the election that he should have, by all rights, probably won) with GazProm to build a pipeline, including loan guarantees.
After leaving office, scarcely after unpacking his bags and waiting for the dust to settle, he all of a sudden, magically, becomes a member of the board of the company that will build the pipeline.
Now, if that wasn't enough to turn your stomach, then look what he is doing now: he's accepting an honorary degree from the University of Damascus. This from the country which is actively involved in destabilizing Lebanon, where a German prosecutor - oh irony of history - put together the case that the Syrian government basically orders the assassination of anyone in their way.
Hat Tip to David's Medienkritik for coining the phrase "Gerhard Carter": this sort of behavior is truly, truly appalling.
But not entirely surprising...
Gerhard Schroeder, former German chancellor, is under severe criticism from at least some corners for cutting a deal at the very end of his term of office (after losing the election that he should have, by all rights, probably won) with GazProm to build a pipeline, including loan guarantees.
After leaving office, scarcely after unpacking his bags and waiting for the dust to settle, he all of a sudden, magically, becomes a member of the board of the company that will build the pipeline.
Now, if that wasn't enough to turn your stomach, then look what he is doing now: he's accepting an honorary degree from the University of Damascus. This from the country which is actively involved in destabilizing Lebanon, where a German prosecutor - oh irony of history - put together the case that the Syrian government basically orders the assassination of anyone in their way.
Hat Tip to David's Medienkritik for coining the phrase "Gerhard Carter": this sort of behavior is truly, truly appalling.
But not entirely surprising...
Mittwoch, Juni 20, 2007
Why Hamas Won and Why It Matters...
Ralph Peters is someone who I've quoted more than once.
He has a new piece up which wraps up the problem better than anyone else.
What we are seeing in the Middle East is basically no different than what went on during the Thirty Years' War: it's a religious war, which is fought with no holds barred and a clear willingness to die for your cause, which, given the secular nature of the opposition, means that you only need a few fanatics to take over Gaza.
Only 0,3% of the population in Gaza was involved in the fighting, and if you applied the usual military calculus, Hamas should have been destroyed. The difference is that Hamas was willing to die for its cause and the secular Fatah was not.
That's key to understanding the whole problem, that and the fact that conflict resolution must include the underlying conflicts, resolve them, rather than being conflict postponement or conflict avoidance. Such wars are like earthquakes: once the tension along fault lines starts to build up, it is either released gradually in a series of small shocks until the tension is relieved, or there is a major earthquake that realigns the entire region until the tensions start building up again.
In this case, the Middle East is a legacy of the conflicts in the Cold War, where the Soviets financed and trained many, many frustrated and angry young men who are now leading the various political-religious splinter groups into chaos.
The question becomes whether one can merely wait out the smaller shocks or whether they are less indicative of a release of tension as more indicative that the tension continues to build.
PS: I found this here with someone who was there and saw how Hamas won. They won because Fatah didn't fight...
He has a new piece up which wraps up the problem better than anyone else.
What we are seeing in the Middle East is basically no different than what went on during the Thirty Years' War: it's a religious war, which is fought with no holds barred and a clear willingness to die for your cause, which, given the secular nature of the opposition, means that you only need a few fanatics to take over Gaza.
Only 0,3% of the population in Gaza was involved in the fighting, and if you applied the usual military calculus, Hamas should have been destroyed. The difference is that Hamas was willing to die for its cause and the secular Fatah was not.
That's key to understanding the whole problem, that and the fact that conflict resolution must include the underlying conflicts, resolve them, rather than being conflict postponement or conflict avoidance. Such wars are like earthquakes: once the tension along fault lines starts to build up, it is either released gradually in a series of small shocks until the tension is relieved, or there is a major earthquake that realigns the entire region until the tensions start building up again.
In this case, the Middle East is a legacy of the conflicts in the Cold War, where the Soviets financed and trained many, many frustrated and angry young men who are now leading the various political-religious splinter groups into chaos.
The question becomes whether one can merely wait out the smaller shocks or whether they are less indicative of a release of tension as more indicative that the tension continues to build.
PS: I found this here with someone who was there and saw how Hamas won. They won because Fatah didn't fight...
Still Not Understanding It...redux
The FT once again doesn't get it.
In one of today's editorials, here, they lament the deaths of children in Afghanistan and make it the fault of the US - well, the West - for this happening. Hearts and minds, after all.
But do they take even a nanosecond to consider why this is happening?
It's not because the West fails to discriminate and simply kills everyone on sight. Even the FT says that new rules of engagement aren't needed: they call, instead for a "sharper" sense of deciding to kill Talibans with the risk of civilian casualties or to let them get away, and that the decision is one that should be made throughout the military chain of command.
What I don't understand is why it's our fault: the Taliban chooses to hide amongst civilians, avoiding open combat (which they know they cannot win). What the coalition in Afghanistan needs to make clear is that civilians need to know this as well: if you let the Taliban hide amongst you, your children may die because we will go after them.
That is the recipe for winning hearts and minds, not abdicating the battle space to the Taliban by allowing them to hide in civilians. When civilians die, the West needs to have its people there telling the rest of the population that this is regrettable, that this is not what we wanted to do, the cowards that are the Taliban are responsible because they chose to hide amongst you, and if you let us know where they are, help us find them, we'll keep you out of the line of fire and destroy them without hurting you.
Fail to do that, and the civilian casualties will continue, because the Taliban aren't dumb: they know that the West doesn't want to kill civilians.
Which is exactly why they hide amongst them.
Change the population's willingness to hide them, and their game is over. That is the solution.
Instead, the editoriall writer of the FT wants the coalition there to, basically, allow the Taliban to continue to use civilians as shields - I scarcely must say that this is, of course, contrary to the Geneva Conventions - because civilians might be killed if the coalition goes after them.
Who do they want to win over there?
That is not entirely a rhetorical question.
In one of today's editorials, here, they lament the deaths of children in Afghanistan and make it the fault of the US - well, the West - for this happening. Hearts and minds, after all.
But do they take even a nanosecond to consider why this is happening?
It's not because the West fails to discriminate and simply kills everyone on sight. Even the FT says that new rules of engagement aren't needed: they call, instead for a "sharper" sense of deciding to kill Talibans with the risk of civilian casualties or to let them get away, and that the decision is one that should be made throughout the military chain of command.
What I don't understand is why it's our fault: the Taliban chooses to hide amongst civilians, avoiding open combat (which they know they cannot win). What the coalition in Afghanistan needs to make clear is that civilians need to know this as well: if you let the Taliban hide amongst you, your children may die because we will go after them.
That is the recipe for winning hearts and minds, not abdicating the battle space to the Taliban by allowing them to hide in civilians. When civilians die, the West needs to have its people there telling the rest of the population that this is regrettable, that this is not what we wanted to do, the cowards that are the Taliban are responsible because they chose to hide amongst you, and if you let us know where they are, help us find them, we'll keep you out of the line of fire and destroy them without hurting you.
Fail to do that, and the civilian casualties will continue, because the Taliban aren't dumb: they know that the West doesn't want to kill civilians.
Which is exactly why they hide amongst them.
Change the population's willingness to hide them, and their game is over. That is the solution.
Instead, the editoriall writer of the FT wants the coalition there to, basically, allow the Taliban to continue to use civilians as shields - I scarcely must say that this is, of course, contrary to the Geneva Conventions - because civilians might be killed if the coalition goes after them.
Who do they want to win over there?
That is not entirely a rhetorical question.
Understand...
This is a must-read post from someone over there, who has been over there for quite a while, and who is walking the walk. Read it.
Read it and understand what it means. Churchill is right: we, the US, usually make a muddle of everything before we figure out what to do and then do it right. And it looks like we are going to set it right.
Our only real danger is to take counsel of our fears, as manifested by defeatists, those who fear so desperately what will happen when we win that they vastly prefer that we lose.
PS: Go donate to Michael Yon. I just did.
Read it and understand what it means. Churchill is right: we, the US, usually make a muddle of everything before we figure out what to do and then do it right. And it looks like we are going to set it right.
Our only real danger is to take counsel of our fears, as manifested by defeatists, those who fear so desperately what will happen when we win that they vastly prefer that we lose.
PS: Go donate to Michael Yon. I just did.
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