without iron-clad assurances of future spending to maintain the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Couldn't Obama just blatantly and transparently lie to them about it? I mean, given their own record of respect for the truth, it 'd probably raise him in their estimation.
The Obama administration wants to ratify the treaty this year, while the Democratic caucus has 59 votes. At least eight Republican votes will be needed for the two-thirds threshold for ratification. The administration hopes for more votes than that, to give momentum to its future arms-control efforts.
Yeah, like the 80 votes for the stimulus, which ushered in a new era of bipartisanship.
Reading further, Obama has actually already promised to increase spending on nuclear weapons by $10 billion. And what do the Republicans want? More spending! It's defense spending, though, so it's going to be paid for by the increased revenue from the Bush tax cuts and the prohibition of certain National Science Foundation grants to social science research, I guess. Those Republicans are so fiscally responsible. They just know where the waste is and how to cut it, so we can focus on the essentials, like increasing our global nuclear supremacy in a world without coalitions of powerful nations armed against us.
1: I'm trying to think of a reason why not but nothing comes to mind. I mean, it's not like telling the truth has done him many favours with these nutters to date. This could be a stroke of genius.
He could say he didn't mean to lie - but that he had a sudden epiphany when praying, where the Virgin Mary told him to spend the money on the pure and defenseless babies.
I'm sure you could cook up a way to spend the money on supercomputers or lasers or something like that.
1,4: The main reason for Republican opposition is that they don't want to let the President have anything resembling any sort of win going into the midterms. If Obama promised to meet the spending demands, they'd find another reason to oppose ratification.
The main reason for Republican opposition is that they don't want to let the President have anything resembling any sort of win going into the midterms.
If its really about the midterms than this sounds like something that could get done in the lame duck session. I guess it depends on if Republicans just want to be huge assholes, or if they prefer to be mega-enormous assholes.
Where are all the commenters who lamented that they missed political posts?
I guess it depends on if Republicans just want to be huge assholes, or if they prefer to be mega-enormous assholes.
Pound to a pinch of shite I know which way that one is going to go ...
Obama should make the promise to increase spending on stockpile stewardship and the robust nuclear earth penetrator and the reliable replacement warhead up front, with a promise from the Republicans to vote for the treaty after the midterms. Then turn around and put all the money into supercomputing research on the grounds that simulation is vital before any hardware is built.
I can't imagine how anyone could think there's a higher priority than being able to destroy the world several times over.
It's a tangent to the post, but I find US assasination by drone plane pretty depressing, especially in light of the due process implications of articles like this
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/world/asia/04terror.html
pretty depressing.
On nuclear weapons, I thought that it was surprising that AQ Khan, who is responsible for the Pakistani bomb, has never been debriefed by the CIA.
I doubt the ironclad guarantees on nuclear weapons matter very much if they pass the treaty, since the treaty sets a limit on the warhead count. Upgrading the existing warheads is just not that big a deal, compared to the gains from reducing the the total number we have.
The real problem is that it seems entirely probable that Obama will give ironclad guarantees and then the Republicans will filibuster the treaty anyways, thus leaving us with a bunch of upgraded weapons and no reduction in the total number. (We would survive just fine if we didn't pass the treaty since the Russians are much happier with us now anyways, but it wouldn't be helpful to get taken by the Republicans on this.)
max
['Not so much gloom.']
13.last: Pakistan is not an ally of the US, regardless of the noises both countries make. The ISI is supporting the Taliban covertly, and the A. Q. Khan network has never been adequately investigated thanks to US deference to Pakistani nationalist sensibilities.
Viewing the world through a prism of weapons supplier, Pakistan is indeed a US ally.
Thanks to the increasing roll of advanced optics, weapons suppliers have the best prisms.
It's defense military spending, though.
Fixed that for ya. Ain't no defense in there, no how. (Not that I don't agree wholeheartedly with the rest of your comment.)
I actually re-watched Dr. Strangelove the other night. I hadn't remembered it as being so deeply, deeply sad.
Completely unrelated: Can anyone point me toward a plain-English explanation that would help me make sense of this?
This time, however, some wheat users see another reason for the rise [in wheat prices]: speculators in the commodity markets. According to Robb MacKie, president and CEO of the American Bakers Association, commodity index funds have entered the futures markets, buying up 400 percent of the available supplies of wheat. Commodity index funds purchase a large basket of commodities, perhaps to hedge against inflation or for other reasons.
N.b.:
1. I just barely what commodity markets are, and I have kinda sorta an educated guess about "the futures markets."
2. I have no idea what commodity index funds are, and am entirely confounded by how you can buy 400 percent of anything. Isn't that, like, ALL of it, four times over? How is that even possible?
3. I'm assuming "basket" is a figure of speech here, but what does "to hedge against inflation" mean in this context? All of the words are English but put together they hold no meaning for me.
I just barely understand. I have no idea where that missing word went.
So Republicans filibuster military spending that's not big enough, and filibuster any other spending whatsoever. And yet Democratic senators are still publicly arguing that the filibuster is a good idea?
Few things are infuriating me these days as much as the discussion surrounding the Bush tax cuts. The goddamn Senate can't seem to find time in their calendar for any serious business, but oh, tax cuts for the wealthy?, let's do it. And as far as I can tell, it's not even being bargained away. It's not "we'll give you your tax cuts if you'll give us [fill in the blank]", it's just "sure, fine, tax cuts." I'm sure the Republicans will cooperate more once we make this one final concession. I mean, Republicans want this badly. (It's very nearly the only thing they want.) There's not anything you can imagine asking for in exchange?
Remind me to vote for the Green Party next time, okay?
Options allow you to buy or sell insurance on something you do not own. There is no limit on the number of insurance policies that can be written against a single ton of wheat. That's 400%. No, finance "reform" did not really fix this problem. Commodity index funds can effectively sell insurance on something they do not own, some but not all details in the prospectus fine print.
Consider a German in 1921. Holding gold, copper, or coal would be much preferable to holding RM. Paper securities equivalent to copper or wheat allow you to maintain some worth when currency values decline. Roughly speaking, that's a hedge, a way to lose less than does a more single-minded investor.
I don't know how it works now, but wheat futures are, like, the original futures market (US version)*. Frank Norris covers them in The Pit, which, of course, I haven't read except for some excerpts.
Back then I think the idea was that you guess what wheat's going to sell for later, then you sell it to someone at that price with a promise to deliver at that time, but you don't actually have the wheat in your hands. Then through some maneuvering you manage to buy it at a lower price before handing it over.
The history of commodity futures is how you end up with the congressional agriculture committees being involved with financial reform.
*Probably not actually the original one.
Also, given the other things that could have been corrected in my comment 3, I find the earnestness of the correction in 19 kind of amusing.
24: Also that if you have some wheat growing in your field you can sell some of it now and avoid the risk that prices will be lower at harvest time, or vice-versa if you're in the bread business.
Also, if you get the DeLorean up to 88 mph, you can go back in time and buy wheat for cheaper. Haven't you seen Back to the Futures?
It feels so medieval to be worrying about grain reserves.
Also, and I don't really know where to share this, but I have to tell someone (DISCLAIMER: DO NOT READ THE REST IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH ABOUT MEAT)....the slab bacon I was using tonight came with skin on it (fairly normal so far). What was less normal, and slight squick, was that the skin also contained nipples. Ack.
That's the least professional bacon I've ever heard of.
30: You expect pasties on your pig nipples?
At least it tastes good. And I think that's what I get for adding bacon to my day of vegetarian eating.
What an opportune time for a positive customer service letter:
Dear BaconCo.,
Today I opened a package of your Specialty Bacon product. I knew upon first glands, it was going to be a BLT I'd never forget. And boy was I ever right.
Thanks for the mammaries,
()
33: It's from a local pork..uh..rancher? farmer? raiser? - I bet they'd get a kick out of that.
While I'm nattering on about food, I'd like to ask why no one has ever clued me into the wonders of mascarpone cheese before. I'd like to sit down with a spoon and eat it directly out of the container (but I won't, because that would be bad. Instead, it went in polenta with fresh corn).
You expect pasties on your pig nipples?
I don't even expect pig nipples in my pasties.
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I thought of Witt* when I saw this via Atrios on Camden closing its library system. Let them buy Kindles.
*Even though I remain unclear on her relationship to libraries (and not that I need to know).
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36: Ah, that's so &$(!!^!$(!*$$#@ depressing I couldn't even bring myself to click on the headline when I saw it earlier.
Pennsylvania looks to be getting $600M of the budgeted-for $850M in FMAP funding; that's semi-good news overall but likely to mean even more cuts specifically. Statewide, library funding took a huge hit already. The last rally I went to, I pulled out the trusty old "Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries" for my sign.
Bah. The whole thing is beyond disheartening, especially because libraries in lousy neighborhoods become de facto afterschool care, especially in the absence of municipal rec centers (already closing due to budget cuts).
Shortsighted does not begin to describe this policy decision. Sometimes I fantasize about electing state legislators to ten-year, one-term seats. It wouldn't remove the problem of them strategizing for plum jobs after the term, of course.
Some non-gloom. Apparently the worst-case scenarios about the condition of the Macondo well bore have not materialized. In fact I was very surprised they got it shut down from the top before the relief well hit. Also a bit surprised about how quickly it became a non-story.