In the corporate/financial world Iraq is without meaning or consequence. Trouble in the third world, doesn’t mean a thing. If the worlds 3 billion poorest people disappeared tomorrow that wouldn’t mean a thing either, unless it was understood to be bullish, which is certainly would be.

The fact is that the world of nations, modern and ancient, doesn’t have such a great record either. States, nations, have been the basic human organizing model since civilization arose, near Baghdad strangely. I maintain the corporations are seeking to become the main human organizational model. The tricky thing is that corporations are the creations of states, created by their laws.

The way it seems to be working is that corporations co opt as much as possible those aspects of government which effect them most directly. Everything else modern governments do is being abandoned. It remains to be seen if social stability can . be maintained under such circumstances.

———————–

In the eighties there were dozens of those post apocalyptic sort of movies like Blade Runner imagining a world where barely contained anarchy reigned for the majority while the elite, and it always seemed to be implicity a corporate elite, live above it all. Those movies have strangely disappeared.

Did tweety ask her how a small contingent of U.S. troops were going to interfere with the mortar-training exercises directed at out “embassy” in the green zone?

No american enclave can exist in Baghdad without enough of our troops there to at least inhibit the insurgents attacks.

Bush is attempting to put the place into lockdown, as we speak, and we see how THAT’S working, with tens of thousands of american troops, allied (loosely speaking…) with Iraqi “security” forces.

AND; now that Hillary is full-on into her antiwar personna, did tweety ask her what HER timetable is for bailing out of those expensive permanent bases?

Because, if he didn’t, then maybe there was an agreement that the tough questions would not be asked. :o) :o) :o)

Some Good news.

Per my reading of this past week, the energy stored in Thorium
reserves exceeds that available from all fossil and nuclear fuels. In
principle, Thorium could cover the world’s energy needs for centuries.

According to this article http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1341
Norway has made the commitment to proceed with the development of
Thorium reactors. And according to this site
http://www.thoriumenergy.blogspot.com, in contrast to Uranium, Thorium:

– requires no refinement or processing.

– is three times more abundant than isotopes of Uranium combined.

– is readily available from friendly countries; Australia, India,
Norway, U.S., and Candada have the world’s largest reserves (in
that order).

– is clean burning, producing between 0.01% to 0.1% as much
by-product.

– has by-products having much shorted half-lives.

– is unsuitable for weapons production.

– can be used to incinerate Plutonium weapons and waste.

In addition, Thorium:

– works at very high temperatures, allowing for very efficient
production of electrictiy and/or hydrogen.

– can supplement the fissile fuels in a conventional reactor.

– can support a self-sustaining reaction in molten-salt reactors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor, which are
particularly economical and safe.

Sounds interesting. What is the downside?

jayt @ 51

HRC being questioned by Tweety on MSNBC.

She says “no permanent bases, no permanent occupation”. A few troops left behind, with very specific missions, to protect our interests (embassy, e.g.)

That doesn’t exactly square with something Matt Yglesias heard – that she was saying we’d be there for years and years.

Maybe Jon Stewart can do a split-screen video of before & after, like he did with Tony Snow.

Don’t these candidates know we’re recording what they say?

wigwam @ 28

Joe sort of moderated a bit after Katrina. What bee is in his bonnet now?

“Morning Joe” says the Blogeesphere is “driving” the Democratic candidates to the “left”. Also the Blogeesphere is not scared enough of the terrorists who want to kill us.

How scared does he want us to be? BTW, how does he know how scared we are now?

So, somebody blew up some buildings in New York (buildings the owners wanted blown up) and somebody blew up part of the Pentagon (just where a new extra hardened blast-proof section had been installed).

Somehow I’m not scared of that nearly as much as I am of Bush & Co.

TiredFed @ 112

doncha just love Jane?

Jane was probably on her treo reading comments while on the panel. ;)

lol

let that be a lesson to lurkers – folks here really DO listen. come on in. the water’s fine.

Siun @ 110

what draws traffic?

Bowers – comprehensive polling analysis

Willis – brash opinionated tomfoolery

Jane – we listen to the people in our comments section

Stoller – focus

doncha just love Jane?

Jane was probably on her treo reading comments while on the panel. ;)

what draws traffic?

Bowers – comprehensive polling analysis

Willis – brash opinionated tomfoolery

Jane – we listen to the people in our comments section

Stoller – focus

doncha just love Jane?