Who is William Burns and Why is he talking to Iran?

Bush is sending Under Secretary of State William Burns, third in line at the State Department, to talks this weekend aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He is traveling to Geneva with the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, to talk to Iran’s main nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili. The move is reportedly fully supported by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The initiative includes plans by the US to post diplomats in Tehran for the first time since the revolution in the form of a US Interests Section - a move halfway to setting up an embassy, subject to approval by Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Iran already has such a section based in Washington.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JG19Ak02.html

Brecher is Back!

Drugs make WW II a lot easier to get. How did those huge armies fight so long and so hard, when people these days are so weak? Cuz, among other things, they were high, dude. In fact, I never understood how either side could have stood up to the misery of a battle like Stalingrad until I found out that every damn soldier on both sides was high on speed. Once you know that, Stalingrad is a whole lot easier to understand. If you’d given my construction-site boss Don a submachinegun and told him to hold our construction site to the death—and supplied him with enough meth for the duration—he’d have been all for it.

And that’s how the Eastern Front was fought: ten million insane speed freaks blasting each other at close range in frozen fields and blownup cities. I bet they didn’t even feel it when they were hit,

http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-this-is-your-war-on-drugs/

A new approach to political hypertext

http://www.nonesoblind.org/bookcubed/

I am intrigued, but I haven’t read enough to form an opinion yet.

no sunglasses for new wordpress site

This looks like it could be interesting!

The news and commentary site:

http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/

has launched a wordpress site:

http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/

Shadow Government Statistics Predicts Hyperinflation

HYPERINFLATION SPECIAL REPORT

Issue Number 41

April 8, 2008

__________

Inflationary Recession Is in Place

Banking Solvency Crisis Has Opened First Phase of Monetary Inflation

Hyperinflationary Depression Remains Likely As Early As 2010

__________

Overview

The U.S. economy is in an intensifying inflationary recession that eventually will evolve into a hyperinflationary great depression. Hyperinflation could be experienced as early as 2010, if not before, and likely no more than a decade down the road. The U.S. government and Federal Reserve already have committed the system to this course through the easy politics of a bottomless pocketbook, the servicing of big-moneyed special interests, and gross mismanagement.

http://www.shadowstats.com/article/292

Vizzini knows macroeconomics

http://macro-man.blogspot.com/2008/06/vizzini-takes-charge-of-fed.html

Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Vizzini takes charge of the Fed
There was a remarkable development at the start of the Federal Open Market Committee’s deliberations last night which somehow managed to stay out of the financial press. Fortunately, Macro Man has a mole in Washington who’s filled him in on what went down.

Shockingly, Ben Bernanke and the rest of the committee have abdicated responsibility for determining monetary policy this month. Fortunately, the policy vacuum has been filled by an incomparable intellect: Vizzini, the Sicilian of Princess Bride fame. Macro Man’s mole has provided him with a verbatim transcript of yesterday’s policy deliberation after a black-cloaked stranger walked into the Federal Reserve conference room:

Vizzini: So it is down to you, and it is down to me. If you wish the economy dead, by all means, keep moving forward.

Dread Pirate Inflation: Let me explain–

V: There is nothing to explain. You are trying to kill the consumer that I have rightfully supported.

DPI: Perhaps an arrangement can be reached?

V: There will be no arrangement, and you’re killing the consumer.

DPI: Well if there can be no arrangement, then we are at an impasse.

V: I’m afraid so. I can’t compete with you physically, and you’re no match for my brains.

DPI: You’re that smart?

V: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Bernanke, Greenspan, Volcker?

DPI: Yes.

V: Morons.

DPI: Really. [pause] In that case, I challenge you to a battle of wits.

V: For the economy? [DPI nods] To the death? [Pirate nods] I accept.

DPI: Good. Inhale this. [DPI pulls out a small vial and uncorks it.]

V: I smell a viscous, tarry substance.

DPI: What you smell is called petroleum. It powers the global economy, as well as the US consumer. And despite a drop in US vehicle miles traveled, its price continues to rise.

V: Hmmmm.

DPI: [Turns away from Vizzini, then turns back and places two pieces of paper on the table.] All right. Which is the appropriate monetary policy statement? The battle of wits has begun. You must choose whether to turn hawkish in the face of high and rising headline inflation, or to remain dovish in the face of significant consumer distress. It ends when you have made your decision, and we find out who is right….and who is dead.

V: But it’s so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of problem that will respond well to a tightening of domestic monetary policy that will not kill the consumer? Now, an endogenous inflation problem will respond to reduced demand and a slackening of labour markets, so I can clearly not choose the dovish policy in front of me. But only a great fool would think that US consumer demand is driving the price of oil. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the hawkish policy in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the policy in front of me.

DPI: You’ve made your decision then?

V: Not remotely. Because oil comes from the GCC and Russia, as everyone knows, and the GCC and Russia are entirely peopled by currency piss-takers who would be bailed out of their piss-taking by tighter US monetary policy, so I can clearly not choose the policy in front of you.

DPI: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

V: WAIT TILL I GET GOING! Where was I?

DPI: The oil producers.

V: Yes, the oil producers. You must have suspected I would have known petroleum’s origin, so I can clearly not choose the policy in front of me.

DPI: You’re just stalling now.

V: You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? You’ve beaten my jawboning, which means you’re exceptionally strong, so you could trust in your ability to overcome a moderate policy tightening, so I can clearly not choose the policy in front of you. But you’ve also bested my econometric models, which means that you’ve studied, and in studying you must have learned that the sacrifice ratio has risen, so you would have put the suboptimal policy as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the policy in front of me.

DPI: You’re trying to trick me into giving away something.

V: IT HAS WORKED! YOU’VE GIVEN EVERYTHING AWAY! I KNOW WHAT THE OPTIMAL POLICY IS!

DPI: Then make your choice.

V: I will, and I choose– holy cow, how bad is that confidence data? [Vizzini points at the chart below. Inflation turns and looks.]

DPI: What? Where?

V: Well, I- I could have sworn I saw something. No matter. [Vizzini smirks.]

DPI: What’s so funny?

V: I’ll tell you in a minute. First, let’s announce policy. I’ll use this statement in front of me.

DPI: You chose the wrong policy.

V: You only think I chose wrong! That’s what’s so funny! I switched policies when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never offer more than one policy choice to a two-handed economist! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha–

[Vizzini stops suddenly, as the US consumer falls dead to the ground.]

Vizzini: Who are you?

Dread Pirate Inflation: I am no one to be trifled with. That is all you ever need know.

Vizzini: And to think, all that time the suboptimal policy was in front of you.

Dread Pirate Inflation: They were both suboptimal. I’ve spent the last few years getting ready to bugger the Western consumer.

Rejoice in the Lind

[tenor] For the flowers are great blessings, for the flowers are great blessings….[/tenor]

William S. Lind has not one but TWO posts at antiwar.com:

http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?articleid=13048

http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?articleid=13038

Bloomberg reports political obstacles to free trade

(Bloomberg) — After six decades of ever-expanding international commerce, the high tide of free trade is ebbing.

As tens of thousands of South Koreans protest U.S. beef imports, rising commodity prices push nations to keep more food for domestic consumption and the U.S. chooses a new president who might be less supportive of free trade than his immediate predecessors, the world may be facing the end of a cycle that began in the immediate aftermath of World War II.

The liberalization of global trade has come “to a screeching halt,” said Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “It’ll take years to rebuild the foundations of free-trade policy.”

The cause is more political than economic. “This is a challenging time to be in the pro-trade wing of any party in virtually any country,” U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said June 12 at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “It’s hard to be for open trade, whether you are in India or the European Union or in China.”

Fueling the backlash is a convergence of trade-related anxieties: national-security concerns, worries about food safety and sufficiency, the desire to protect local jobs and the environment. In addition, the benefits of trade are often widely dispersed — think low prices at Wal-Mart — and entail high adjustment costs, including the loss of manufacturing jobs.

Beggar-Thy-Neighbor

The modern era of trade dates to the late 1940s, when the U.S. and United Kingdom pushed for the establishment of a global organization to avoid the beggar-thy-neighbor policies often blamed for exacerbating the Great Depression.

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, established in 1948, succeeded in cutting industrial duties in developed countries from an average of 40 percent to about 4 percent over six decades.

Now known as the World Trade Organization, it is stuck in negotiations that began in 2001 over U.S. and European agricultural subsidies. The Doha Round, as the talks are called, has also been held up by disagreements between rich and poor countries about how much to reduce import taxes.

“The Doha Round isn’t dead yet, but it’s being pushed around a nursing home,” said Doug Goudie, director for international trade at the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington.

Why do they call it “free trade” when nobody can buy slaves, mortars, or uranium at the corner five-and-dime store?

Bread Riots

link

Jun 08, 2008 15:57 EST

Thousands of demonstrators fought with police after a protest over flour rations in a town on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, a security official and state media said Sunday.

The state-owned daily Al-Ahram said some 8,000 protesters sealed off the main Cairo-Mediterranean highway for seven hours Saturday and burnt tires to stop traffic. Police fired tear gas and arrested dozens to disperse the crowd,

A security official said police were questioning 87 suspects.

The protesters were angered by the decision of authorities in Burullus to stop distributing subsidized flour directly to residents and instead deliver it exclusively to bakeries, the official said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to give statements.

Fishermen in Burullus prefer to bake a type of bread suited to long fishing voyages instead of buying the standard subsidized bread from bakeries.

There have also been accusations by the government that people are selling the subsidized flour on the black market for a profit, leading to shortages.

Like much of the rest of the world, Egypt has been wracked by rising food prices and stagnant wages, resulting in protests and demonstrations.

There has also been a shortage of the subsidized bread relied on by vast segments of this impoverished country of 76.5 million.

Some 10 people were reported killed since the beginning of the year after scuffles in bread lines.

2006 story re-linked from Anglosphere

English-speakers all over the world were shocked in June, 2008, to discover that non-English-speakers were writing stories like the following:

15.09.2006

ZURICH – 2973 humans died with the attacks of 9/11. “Bin Laden” and “Al Qaida”, the Bush clan cried. Die Welt believed him. In the meantime even scientists doubt the Bush version. Also Swiss university University of Albert A. Stahel (63) and Daniele Ganser (34) place now hot questions.

“Something is correct not”, says strategy expert Stahel in the “world week” and refers to the “incomplete” official 9/11-Report of the US Government of 2004.

In relation to VIEW the university professor confirms the criticism:

Osama Ben Laden cannot be “the large godfather” behind the attacks. It did not have enough means of communication.

Stahel doubts that a passenger airline crashed in the Pentagon: “For flight beginners it is actually impossible to meet the building so exactly.”

Seven hours after the twin Towers beside it the World Trade Center 7 collapsed. The official version: It burned for a long time. Stahel: “Nothing at all is clear.”

Still as Stahel historian Daniele Ganser, its colleague at the University of Zurich continues to go. Also it calls the official US version “a conspiracy theory”: “There are 3 theories, which we should treat equally”:

# “Surprise theory” Bin Laden and Al Qaida implemented the attacks.

# “Let it intentionally happen” parts of the US Government knew the Al Qaida plans. They did not react, in order to legitimize a series from wars to.

# “Lead it intentionally out” the attacks by the Pentagon and/or secret services were implemented. The being shop videos are falsified. 3000 humans were sacrificed for strategic interests.

Ganser: “The more we research, the we doubt more Bush’s version.” For it is conceivable that the Bush government was responsible. “Bush lied already so much! And already 1962 gave it in the Pentagon a plan to sacrifice innocent US citizens for own interests.” As far as Ganser Stahel does not go: “I place only questions.”

Via:
babelfish