Rick Santorum, nearly pulled off an upset in Iowa at the GOP Primary there, coming within 8 votes of a former Governor(frontrunner and winner in Iowa, Mitt Romney). He gave a great ‘victory’ speech, managed to beat back Perry/Bachmann, but Santorum, like a lot of Catholics, seems to have a problem with sex. Going even further than most Evangelicals by saying sex shouldn’t be had for pleasure, not even between those who are married. As such he’s against the pill and, it seems, possibly even condoms. Here is an actual Rick Santorum quote:

“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.” And also, “Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

http://www.salon.com/2012/01/04/rick_santorum_is_coming_for_your_birth_control/singleton/?mobile.html

An unusual stance given the other definition of the word Santorum:

Santorum 1. The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.

http://www.spreadingsantorum.com

This guy makes Rick Perry look like a moderate. Although he does seem to be able to form longer sentences than Perry.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,000 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 50 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

“The economic policy of all countries in the European Union seems to be based on the plan that they give loans to each other and then live off the interest.”

h/t: Sly Capital 

This is how the average day proceeded: I’d arrive in the morning around 9-ish. The phone would soon start ringing—with calls for Hitchens. I’d tell the callers he was not yet available, and they would leave messages: “Tell him, that was a wonderful dinner last night.” Or, “Mick was so pleased to meet him.” Or, “We may all get together again this evening.” Within an hour or so, the nature of the messages would shift to cover plans for lunch that day: “Tell Christopher we’re all meeting at the Spanish place.”

About this time, Hitchens would saunter in. He’d say hello, turn to the pink slips I had placed on his desk, and return the calls. Did I say this was a small office? We each could hear everything the other said on the phone. He’d first phone his compatriots from the previous evening and review what had transpired. He then would talk to his lunch-mates for the day and arrange the details. Then it would be time … to leave for lunch.

While he was gone, calls would come in for him with invitations for afternoon drinks. (In those days, youngsters, late-afternoon drinks were practically obligatory in certain journalistic circles. Think of it as Manhattan teatime.) After a, shall we say, longish lunch, Hitchens would stop back in the office and return the calls regarding the pending drinks. Then it was, ta-ta, once again.

By now you are getting the picture. But I’m not done yet. After afternoon drinks, the general practice was to return to the office. Upon his arrival, Hitchens would sort through the latest pink slips with phone numbers from his friends, colleagues, and adversaries who had called about dinner plans and after-dinner drinks. (Yes, in those days, after-dinner drinks were a separate stop.)

Soon, it was time for Hitchens to head out to the dinner engagement. He would start packing up. About now, Elizabeth Pochoda, the literary editor of the magazine, would poke her head in the door. “Christopher, you’re going to have that review of the Disraeli biography for me tomorrow, right?”—a soft touch of menace in her voice.

“Oh, yes, of course.” And as soon as she had departed, he’d open his desk, rummage through a drawer, and pull out an 800-page biography of the British prime minister. It was clear to me that the book had yet to be opened. He’d tuck the volume into his bag and say goodnight.

By this point in the day, I knew all his plans for the evening, including the 11-ish rendezvous for cocktails. I wondered how he would be able to read this book and write a review by the next morning. But come the following day—after the calls about the previous night and the calls about the lunch to come had started—he’d trundle into the office, Pochoda would show up, and he’d hand her a 1,500-word essay. And it was—you know the punch line—brilliant. Did I mention this was in the days before computers? Next, it was off to lunch.l

I did learn much from Hitchens, but never how to function in quite this manner. What allowed him to live such a packed life was a trait that any of us would relish: He never forgot what he had ever read or learned. His mind was always expanding. That was a natural gift that few of us possess. He could not teach it. But observing Hitchens practice his craft and thrust and parry with intellectuals almost as sharp as him was as valuable an experience as I could have imagined.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2011/12/christopher_hitchens_death_david_corn_on_sharing_a_tiny_office_with_hitchens_.htm

The clock is ticking. Between now and 2014, upwards of 150,000 foreign troops and 30,000 contractors will start leaving Afghanistan. Donor aid is also declining. In the past year, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) budget has been cut in half. In other words, the war economy is unraveling.

While most of the $118 billion in foreign spending for this war economy is done outside the Afghan economy, the foreign spending inside the Afghanistan economy has created a large “bubble economy.” As this bubble economy starts to dry up, there will almost certainly be a large reduction in aggregate demand.

Given both the expected cuts in foreign spending in Afghanistan and the pace of the military drawdown between now and 2014, U.S. Treasury officials have come up with a range for the expected contraction of the Afghan economy.

• The best case scenario has the Afghan gross domestic product (GDP) falling by 13 percent, or about the same as occurred in the United States during the Great Depression.
• The worst case scenario has the GDP falling by 41 percent.

Anything inside this broad range of possibilities means unemployment in Afghanistan is likely to soar unless something is done to stem the tide.

The specter of an Afghan economic train wreck does not faze the optimists. They point to the military drawdown in Iraq which has gone relatively smoothly under the able direction of General Lloyd Austin. But the promising macroeconomic picture in Iraq is totally different than in embattled Afghanistan. In Iraq, the international oil companies are boosting oil production, which boosts GDP and counters downward economic pressure. Unfortunately, international oil companies are not rushing into Afghanistan anytime soon to fill the gap.

While no two situations are exactly alike, a better macroeconomic analogy for Afghanistan is East Timor. When peacekeepers left the country, there was no effort made to boost private or public investment. There was also no attempt to create rural banks. So money literally had to be carted around. A proposal to execute a public works program to rebuild the shattered infrastructure was rejected. United Nations (UN) peacekeepers opted to cut and run, which left rising unemployment and violence in their wake. A similar failure cannot be an option in Afghanistan.

How do we soften the blow in Afghanistan and avoid this violent East Timor-like scenario? Unfortunately, in Afghanistan there is no “shake and bake” solution. That said, there is reason for hope. The good news is that Afghanistan has lots of potential wealth. The bad news is that Afghanistan is struggling to turn potential wealth into actual wealth.

Afghanistan lacks what MIT Economist Walt Rostow used to call the preconditions for economic “take off.” Afghanistan is a landlocked country with inadequate infrastructure. Only 7 percent of its roads are paved, and there is no railway nearby to carry heavy minerals to regional or global markets. In other words, Afghanistan’s fatal flaw is poor market access. If products somehow get to the borders, bottlenecks cause them to get stuck there. As a result, farmers and miners have little incentive to increase productivity or boost output.

To achieve Rostow’s economic takeoff in Afghanistan, we need: a) a strategic vision; b) concrete projects to reach that vision; and, c) the political will and perseverance to make it all happen. A good historical example of the strategic vision that we need in Afghanistan appeared after World War II when Jean Monnet called for a European Coal and Steel Community. The Realists ridiculed Monnet for being hopelessly naïve and idealistic. Didn’t Monnet know that France and Germany hated each other and had fought each other for centuries?

But Monnet correctly argued that an alternative future was possible. If given a chance, French and German businessmen would bond. What was needed was a strategic vision and unwavering moral courage to execute a viable economic strategy and concrete economic plans for regional economic integration. Shared prosperity would outweigh security concerns. Before long, French and German businessmen would reduce the demand for violence. They would turn swords into ploughshares. As France and Germany began to see mutual economic benefit, enemies turned into friends.

Like Jean Monnet, Sham Bathija, President Karzai’s top economic advisor, understands that Afghanistan needs shared prosperity with other trade partners rather than economic nationalism. Therefore, Bathija proposed a new Silk Road Initiative (or regional transport, trade, and transit network) in a speech he gave at the RECCA (Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan) conference in Istanbul in November 2010. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton embraced a similar new Silk Road vision in a speech she gave in Chennai, India, on July 20, 2011, calling for a new Silk Road Initiative.

In addition, we need concrete development projects to reach the vision. Toward these ends, the U.S. Government has identified a number of economic development projects in the areas of transportation, mining, energy, and trade facilitation, which need to be completed as soon as possible in order to create critical preconditions for economic takeoff to occur in Afghanistan. By building more roads and railways and fostering trade facilitation, these development projects will help Afghan goods not only flow through Afghanistan, but from Afghanistan. Additionally, Afghanistan’s abundant mineral wealth and agricultural products would have access to regional and global markets.

In essence, these additional roads and railway system become strategic enablers (or a catalyst) that will jump start other U.S. policy pillars in Afghanistan. For instance, improving Afghanistan’s infrastructure creates jobs in the construction industry. Better roads also have a multiplier effect, stimulating job creation in the private sector as gas stations, restaurants, and motels spring up along these routes.

At the same time, the cost of completing the economic development projects is not just limited to the technical costs. If these projects are going to be sustainable, they need buy-in from the local stakeholders. The real costs of mining require a 360-degree approach that includes community outreach and education and training of the future workforce on the front end.

If local stakeholders see the benefits of the projects for themselves, they will encourage this shared prosperity. Just as French and German businessmen buried the hatchet when they saw mutual benefit, local stakeholders who previously saw violence as the only option, will now see a viable alternative. As peace breaks out around the projects, it will be possible to reduce the size of the Afghan police and military forces, thereby reducing the large budget deficit that the central government would otherwise have to shoulder. This net assessment shows how local and provincial progress can make things more affordable for the Afghan Government.

That said, getting buy-in from local stakeholders is not easy. For instance, mining projects require vast quantities of water. However, farmers also need water for irrigation, as well as energy officials who want to use water for hydropower. In other words, there are tradeoffs among the competing uses for water. Here is where the international community can help. In the United States, for instance, the states that compete for water benefit from the work of economists who can demonstrate their tradeoff analysis. They can show Afghan economists the diminishing returns when farmers go beyond trickle irrigation.

Finally, we need political will and perseverance to fend off the criticism from the skeptics who argue that the United States and Europe are virtually “broke” and cannot afford these new Silk Road projects. Why is it that President Abraham Lincoln could visualize a transcontinental railroad in the United States 150 years ago, but skeptics cannot imagine the same thing in Afghanistan today? Why is it that President Eisenhower could envision an interstate highway system in the 1950s, but skeptics cannot imagine the same thing in Afghanistan today?

Asking whether or not the U.S. Government and its allies can afford to fund these economic development projects is the wrong question. For starters, the reason the projects are incomplete often has nothing to do with money. Case in point is the Ring Road inside Afghanistan. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has the money to finish the road. The showstopper has been an indemnity issue. The ADB wanted to be able to sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers if something went wrong.

Admittedly, much more money is needed to complete other Afghan projects. While the U.S. Government would like to see other governments boost their economic support to the Afghan Government, the lion’s share of the money needed to complete the larger projects needs to come from foreign investors. Foreign investors have trillions of dollars sitting idle on Wall Street and in Dubai. They all agree that Afghanistan is the last frontier in mineral wealth. Curiously enough, physical security is not the showstopper.

Then why have foreign investors stayed on the sidelines? To begin with, foreign investment is a voluntary act among consenting adults. Foreign investors will put money into Afghanistan if they see an attractive enabling environment. At a minimum, the Afghan political economy needs to be what the World Bank calls market friendly.

• A market friendly economy is not laissez-faire. Markets require a robust legal and regulatory framework that only the Afghan Government can provide. In addition, the Afghan Government must do more to improve education, health care, and the environment.
• However, the Afghan Government needs to do less on the shop floor in the production of goods. Competitive markets are the best way yet found for efficiently organizing the production and distribution of goods. Domestic and external competition provides incentives that unleash local entrepreneurship.

In other words, foreign investors want to see the Afghan Government and the market strike the right balance that will complement each other. The Afghan Government must support rather than supplant competitive markets. Kabul should only intervene in the marketplace where and when markets prove inadequate or fail.

The Way Ahead.

As we approach the regional conference on Afghanistan in Istanbul in early November 2011 and the global conference on Afghanistan in Bonn in early December 2011, foreign investors want to see clear signs that the international community is steadfast in its economic and political commitment to Afghanistan. They want concrete signs that the United States and the rest of the international community will not abandon the country, as happened after the Soviets left Afghanistan. Most of all, foreign investors want no replay of the East Timor scenario when UN peacekeepers cut and ran, leaving rising unemployment and violence in their wake. A similar failure cannot be an option in Afghanistan.

Thankfully, Assistant Secretary of State Marc Grossman has internalized Jean Monnet’s vision of shared prosperity that can outweigh the demand for violence. Foreign investors are delighted to see that Ambassador Grossman is now leading the U.S. interagency charge for a viable U.S. economic strategy for Afghanistan. To counter the economic contraction from the fall in foreign military spending and donor aid, the U.S. Government is orchestrating a new Silk Road strategy, which in turn will get Afghanistan a lot closer to market access and the other preconditions for its economic takeoff.

*****

The views expressed in this Of Interest piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. This piece is cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

*****

hattip: Economonitor

via Business Insider.

President Obama has signaled that he will give the United States Commerce Department the authority over a proposed national cybersecurity measure that would involve giving each American a unique online identity. Other candidates mentioned previously to head up the new system have included the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security, but the announcement that the Commerce Department will take the job should please groups that have raised concerns over security agencies doing double duty in police and intelligence work. So anyway, what about this unique ID we’ll all be getting? Well, though details are still pretty scant, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, speaking at an event at the Stanford Institute, stressed that the new system would not be akin to a national ID card, or a government controlled system, but that it would enhance security and reduce the need for people to memorize dozens of passwords online. Sorry, Locke, sounds like a national ID system to us. Anyway, the Obama administration is currently drafting what it’s dubbed the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which is expected at the Department of Commerce in a few months. We’ll keep you posted if anything terrifying or cool happens.

They will just ensure that the unique ID is only linked to your gmail, facebook, twitter and myspace; of course for better security. And its not like facebook knows everything about you right?

LINK

4. C GDP figures are ‘man-made’ and therefore unreliable, Li said. When evaluating Liaoning’s economy, he focuses on three figures: 1 electricity consumption, which was up 10 percent in Liaoning last year; 2 volume of rail cargo, which is fairly accurate because fees are charged for each unit of weight; and 3 amount of loans disbursed, which also tends to be accurate given the interest fees charged. By looking at these three figures, Li said he can measure with relative accuracy the speed of economic growth. All other figures, especially GDP statistics, are ‘for reference only,’ he said smiling.

via Cable Viewer.

“Coders hate having to rush code out the door before it’s ready. They also hate it when the customer starts making unreasonable demands. What they hate even more is when the customer reverse engineers the product and starts selling their own inferior product. But what really ticks them off is when that buggy, knockoff product might be used by targeting systems in military unmanned drone attacks, and the bugs introduce location errors of up to 13 meters. That’s what purportedly happened to software developer IISi, based on an ongoing boardroom/courtroom drama that will leave any hard-pressed coder appreciating just how much worse his job could get. The saddest part? The CIA assumed the bug was a feature. The tinfoil-hat-inducing part? The alleged perpetrators just got bought by IBM.”

Tell it to those who see the drones on regular basis.

tip: Slashdot