Category Archives: Politics

This is for general news.

Losing The Mandate From Heaven?

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From the Times….

The worst drought in half a century has parched fields across eight provinces in northern China and left nearly four million people without proper drinking water.

Not a drop of rain has fallen on Beijing for more than 100 days, the longest dry spell for 38 years in a city known for its arid climate.

And from later on in the article….

The drought could hardly have come at a worse time for the leadership, which is already gearing for possible social instability with some 20 million rural migrants now out of work after losing their jobs in coastal factories and in cities. Many have returned to work their farms while they wait for the economic climate to improve but may now find they are unable to grow a harvest with no water for irrigation.

“The duration, scope and impact of the drought are rare,” said Zheng Guoguang, chief of the China Meteorological Administration.

Among the worst hit provinces is central Henan, the most populous in China and source of the highest number of migrant workers. No rain has fallen in the province for 105 days, state media said today.

If you don’t know what the Mandate From Heaven is read about it here. Drought was one of the tradtional ways in which it became apparent that the Mandate From Heaven was lost. But I will bet that economic depressions help the idea along as well.

If I was a Chinese ruler I would be on my best behavior just in case. It has a better chance of working than their weather control technology.

I guess he won't be getting a job anytime soon

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From Abu Muqawama…..

General Jim Jones offered Zinni the Baghdad post. But a week later, Zinni was still twisting in the wind. We now know he was passed over in favor of Christopher Hill, leading the New Republic to describe the final exchange thusly:

an Obama appointment gone awry, which concludes with a respected general suggesting the national security advisor perform an anatomically difficult feat.

Not very nice perhaps. But we have to agree with Charlie. That was a good euphemism.

Shock!

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From US News…

Media reports suggest Senate Republicans have become a key focus of stimulus talks, an acknowledgement that they appear to hold the balance of power in that chamber despite having only 41 seats to the Democrats’ 58. The Washington Post reports on the front page that Senate Democratic leaders “conceded yesterday that they do not have the votes to pass the stimulus bill as currently written and said that to gain bipartisan support, they will seek to cut provisions that would not provide an immediate boost to the economy.” Moderate Republicans are “trying to trim the bill by as much as $200 billion.”

This is not really a Republican vs Democratic thing. Rather it is an east and west coast against middle American thing. Still, I am surprised that Democrats could not hold together long enough to pass this law.

Edit: If this is true, Obama may just be using the Republicans as a stick to clean up some of the junk he does not like in the bill. (h/t The Common Room)

They have moved from blowing up trucks to blowing up bridges

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From the New York Times…

Supplies intended for NATO forces in Afghanistan were suspended Tuesday after Taliban militants blew up a highway bridge in the Khyber Pass region, a lawless northwestern tribal area straddling the border with Afghanistan.

Hidayatullah Khan, a government official in the region, was quoted by Reuters as saying that the 30-yard-long iron bridge was located 15 miles northwest of Peshawar, the capital of the restive North-West Frontier Province.

Pakistani officials said they were assessing the damage and teams had been sent to repair the bridge. But it was not immediately clear how soon the trucks carrying crucial supplies for NATO forces would be able to travel through the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan.

The Taliban is getting better at this shutting down supply lines thing. The official word is that this is no big deal because other routes can handle the load. But if this becomes a habit there are going to be problems.

Edit: America’s supply problems are not going to be helped by this either.

Fear, Panic, and Chaos

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We will start off easy….

The ruble slumped to its weakest level against the dollar in 11 years as investors speculated Russia will be forced to give up its currency defense after draining reserves.

One should note that Russia has not drained its reserves yet. The market is just beginning to anticipate that they will be drained. Then what?

Now it is time to panic…..

Every week it gets worse and worse and worse. Today it was Japan….

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN DATA THIS BAD FOR ANY MAJOR ECONOMY – EVEN IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION. December industrial production came in down 9.6%, worse than the METI forecast. It is now down almost 21% year over year. METI forecasts a further 4.7% decline in February. The inventory to production ratio soared again. Maybe METI will be correct.

If it is, Japan industrial production will have fallen 28% (non annualized) in four months. It will have fallen by a third in about a year. Nothing in the history of major nations compares. A 28% decline in four months would be more than half of the entire decline in U.S. industrial production over the 3 years and nine months of the U.S. Great Depression.

As far as the chaos goes, this will have to do….

Relativity minor so far, but this kind of thing is going to grow as economic problems get worse. It is going to test the EU’s ability to hold together.

As far as these particular strikes are concerned, they are going to get a lot worse in the week ahead. A story to watch.

12 inches of snow shut down a nation

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From the Telegraph….

Large swaths of Britain came to a standstill in the grip of the worst snowstorms for 18 years.

Despite five days of severe weather warnings, transport bosses still appeared to have been completely caught out as up to a foot of snow fell across the country, bringing rail, air and road networks to a halt.

From later on in the article…..

But David Frost, the director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said the collapse of the transport network was unacceptable.

He said: “People of my generation saw much worse winters than this in the 1960s and 1970s, yet things kept going. Why can’t we cope now?

You should keep this mind when ever someone tries to tell you that we should drive vehicles more like the ones they drive in Europe. A fuel efficient vehicle is one that is light. And a light vehicle is one that can’t get traction in the snow. It is a simple matter of physics.

For Real?

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From the Telegraph….

The protests, which began on Dec 14, rapidly took on a political hue and Mr Putin, who is intolerant of dissent, ordered the Kremlin’s top officials in the far east to use force next time. But senior adminstrators refused to intervene and a week later the government was forced to send a special detachment of riot police from Moscow to break up a second protest in Valdivostok.

Furious that he had again been disobeyed, Mr Putin directed Vladislav Surkov, his top ideologue, to sack the newly appointed head of internal affairs in Primorye, the region surrounding Vladivostok.

But the official, Maj Gen Andrei Nikolayev, flatly refused to leave his post. Sources say he threatened to expose corruption linked to the Kremln in the Russian far east if Mr Putin pressed ahead.

Such a gesture of defiance is almost unheard of in Russia. Gen Nikolayev was supposed to be the man entrusted by the Kremlin to keep regional officials under control.

But he quickly found a powerful champion in the form of President Dmitry Medvedev, who is said to have countermanded his dismissal. “The fight between Medvedev and Putin started over this issue and has been getting worse ever since,” the source close to the Kremlin said.

If this is true I don’t think that Medvedev has long to live. I am pretty sure that the men who know how to kill are still loyal Putin.