Global Ideologing

Re Op-Ed Columnist: It's Too Late for Later by Thomas L. Friedman in today's NY Times:

Once again, Tom strikes out. Tom was a big advocate of invading Iraq. Tom is a big advocate of globalization. Tom's new big issue is "global warming". Why quotes? Because Tom uses newspeak instead of saying "global warming created by mankind". That, after all, is what the "global warming" cultists mean when they speak of "global warming".

Remember: no one even knows if we are in a warming phase, since geological time is so long compared to the duration of fads, or the lives of humans. And, if the earth is in a warming phase, we do not know why.

One of the ironies in Tom's stupid column is that Tom is now blaming globalization for global warming. Tom has no shame! "Indeed, today’s global economy has become like a monster truck with the gas pedal stuck, and we’ve lost the key — so no one can stop it from wiping out more and more of the natural world, no matter what the global plan."

Now, if Tom really cares about preserving forests and biodiversity (forget about his blather about global warming), then he should advocate a new world policeman (not the U.S., thank you) to give Jakarta an ultimatum: stop deforestation, or we (the World Police) will bomb you.

Iranian National Intelligence Estimate of America

Re Op-Ed Columnist: Intercepting Iran's Take on America by Thomas L. Friedman in today's NY Times:

Mr. Friedman wrote a faux report from the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, which he described as the "Iranian National Intelligence Estimate of America". In it he explains why the Iranians have nothing to worry about, since America is basically not following Tom's latest prescriptions. He singles out a few culprits whom he disagrees with, such as Lou Dobbs and Giuliani, but he fails to mention his advocacy of the Iraq invasion, and his many columns calling for nation-building in the Middle East and Afghanistan. (He also fails to mention the financial costs of those blunders: about $2 trillion.)

But I will agree with him on the stupidity of our ethanol subsidies. Ethanol is a waste of money, since it takes so much oil just to produce and distribute it, and to modify automobile engines to run on it.

I also agree that we need a Manhattan Project "to achieve energy independence". But this is where Tom wimps out. (I suspect he has an early record of opposing nuclear power.) He does not specifically call for R&D on nuclear fusion technology to produce electricity, nor does he call for more nuclear fission power plants.

Sicko Saudi Arabia

Re Op-Ed Columnist: The Case for Illegal Mingling by Thomas L. Friedman in today's NY Times:

The government of Saudi Arabia "affirmed the sentence of 200 lashes for a 19-year-old Shiite girl who was sitting in a car with a male acquaintance last year when they were attacked by seven men who gang-raped both of them.

"The Saudi Justice Ministry said the young woman deserved 200 lashes and six months in prison, even though she had been raped, because she was guilty of “illegal mingling” — sitting in a car with a man who was not related to her."

What is the ideology which drives such barbarism? It has a name - Islam!

Now, Tom Friedman is Mr. Politically Correct, so what really galls him about this barbarism? "Two hundred lashes for a woman who was raped, under any circumstances in even the most traditional country, is barbaric — period." So far, so good. "But what also keeps tripping off my tongue is this phrase “illegal mingling.” It seems to me that if the Middle East could use more of anything these days it is more mingling — if not between the sexes then at least between the sects." So, he spends the rest of his column arguing for more "mingling". Too bad he doesn't have the courage to write what he no doubt is thinking: Islam is a barbaric ideology.

Tom quotes a report from Agence France-Presse: "“The Mahdi Army murdered and tortured and kidnapped people under Sharia law,” the police statement said. “They are the cause of the deaths of hundreds of people.”" Now, what the heck is Sharia? Islamic law! Yet, Tom is still focused on the sectarian strife.

The rationale behind Tom's thinking is then made plain: "The reason these events are important is that Iraq has become center stage for the struggle between a more moderate, modernizing Islamic outlook, advanced by the United States and some of its Iraqi allies, and another outlook, advanced by the Mahdi Army and Al Qaeda, that wants to “purify” the Muslim world of “the other.”

"The jihadists know that if they can defeat America — in the heart of their world — it would influence the whole region."

In other words, Tom is still trying to justify our insane invasion of Iraq, which he advocated. Still, he has learned a bit: "Attention: These pro-minglers are not Jeffersonian Democrats. But they do represent relatively more moderate strands of Sunnism and Shiism." Oh, I guess supporting the "moderate" Muslims is the reason why we are pouring blood and treasure into Iraq.

Finally, Tom ends with "Most Americans would still like to see us salvage something decent in Iraq — if it can be done at a reasonable cost."

Tom, nothing that can happen in Iraq will ever be worth the steep cost in blood and money that we have paid and have yet to pay. Those of us who have read your column for years have only one request of you: admit you were catastrophically wrong about Iraq, and stop pandering to the foreign Muslims. Until they turn Osama bin Laden over to us, they remain our mortal enemy.

Good Column By Friedman

Finally, a column by Tom Friedman that I can agree with. In today's NY Times, Op-Ed Columnist: Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda argues for a dollar per gallon gasoline tax. This happens to be an idea I suggested many years ago, for the same reasons: we would send less money to our adversaries overseas, we would have a better energy policy, and a great source of government revenue.

Of course, I would like to see some of the revenue used for nuclear fusion R&D and building more nuclear fission power plants. (I would also like to see the United States exit the World Trade Organization and put tariffs on goods and services of nations which do not trade fairly with us, such as China, but that is a different - though related - issue.)

The gasoline tax would be similar to a tariff, and that is good, because American tariffs add to our federal treasury, as opposed to the treasuries of the countries we import from. The latter still make a lot of money off the American consumer, but tariffs would also favor American producers of goods and services.

A quote from Friedman's column:

“Think about it,” says Phil Verleger, an energy economist. “We could have replaced the current payroll tax with a gasoline tax. Middle-class consumers would have seen increased take-home pay of between six and nine percent, even though they would have had to pay more at the pump.

End quote.

That is another idea I favor. I have often called for eliminating the payroll tax and making the federal income tax more progressive. The payroll tax is the opposite of progressive: it is regressive; it hurts the middle and lower classes more than the upper class. This would not be "class warfare"; class warfare is what we have now, with the upper class waging war on the rest of America.

I like to call a spade a spade. So today, I applaud Tom Friedman's column.

The Friedman Twist

It is so much fun to watch Tom Friedman twist in the wind. In his column in today's NY Times ( Op-Ed Columnist: Democracy's Root: Diversity ) he writes "A senior French official suggested to me that maybe we in the West, rather than trying to promote democracy in the Middle East — a notion tainted by its association with the very Western powers that once colonized the region — should be focusing on promoting diversity, which has historical roots in the area." Of course, he fails to mention that he was at the front of the media herd agitating that the United States install democracy in the Middle East, and that is why he supported Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Now democracy is to Islam as oil is to water, so Tom has to contort himself a bit while he tries to sneak in the notion that maybe what the Islamic countries really need is a little diversity. Duh!

I think Tom's next book should be about all the things he got terribly wrong since he started his op-ed column. There is certainly a lot of material to work with.

Wars, Global Warming, and Tom Friedman

Re Op-Ed Columnist: Did We Do That? by Thomas L. Friedman in today's NY Times:

There he goes again, trying to hype a problem that he may be more responsible for than the average American.

Let me stipulate (just for the sake of argument) that there is a global warming phenomenon, that it is bad, and that it is caused mainly by human behavior. That is really what Tom's column is about.

Well, I wish someone could tell us what percent of human-produced greenhouse gases, notably CO2, are produced by wars, and then break that down to show the contribution of our War on Iraq. After all, militaries burn a lot of fossil fuels during wartime, besides the gases released during explosions.

What does this have to do with Friedman? Well, he was an early and ardent advocate for invading Iraq. As his colleague Maureen Dowd would say, Q.E.D.

Friedman Still Confused About Iraq

This post refers to Thomas Friedman's column Op-Ed Columnist: Remember Iraq in today's NY Times.

Tom has a strain of the "Blame America First" infection. Today's symptom is the variation known as "Credit America Last". So even though we are pouring blood and treasure into Iraq, Tom is forced to write "To the extent that the surge has worked militarily, it is largely because of what Iraqis have done by themselves for themselves".

This is outrageous. Friedman was screaming for us to invade Iraq, then, after many years of agony there, he can't even credit our troops for doing the near impossible under the worst of circumstances.

We need to get our troops out of Iraq now, not when the likes of Friedman say it is OK. Then, we will all see what the Iraqis can do "by themselves for themselves". No doubt, if the Iraqis fail, Friedman will revert to the original strain: blame America first.

Another Stupid Friedman Idea

I know I should stop reading Thomas Friedman's column in the NY Times, but I am incorrigible and, besides, his column is often a convenient example of the muddled thinking which leads to stupid policies. That said, see The Green-Collar Solution in today's paper.

The basic premise (from activist Van Jones) is to use boatloads of taxpayer money to train and hire disadvantaged youth in "weatherizing millions of buildings, putting up solar panels, constructing wind farms". In other words, spend a lot of dough on "do nothing" jobs.

We don't need all that "green" stuff. We should design and build more efficient products, but mostly we need to design and build thermonuclear reactors. We should spend taxpayer dollars on R&D for fusion power, not on training youth to do construction work. Besides, a large part of the construction industry labor comes from illegal aliens, which implies that disadvantaged youth don't want to do that kind of work anyway.

(The best advice today for helping "disadvantaged youth" can be found in "Come on, people : on the path from victims to victors" by Bill Cosby and Alvin F. Poussaint.)

Recall that Friedman was one of the biggest cheerleaders for Bush's War on Iraq. We have already spent about $400-$600 billion on Iraq, and will probably spend double that in Iraq before we come to our senses. What a waste. Our military should have had plans to crush Al Qaida after their first series of attacks on us in the 1990's, and we should have had a president on 9/11 who was prepared to execute such plans. Instead, we invade Iraq!

The same mindset was at play in the 1960's and 70's when we invaded Vietnam. Had we instead invested the money in R&D, we would already have had decades of cheap energy, saved a trillion dollars from going to Arab countries for buying oil and funding terrorism, and there would never have been a "Gulf War" in 1991, nor a 9/11 attack on the US, nor an invasion and occupation of Iraq in the 2000's.

But at least we were able to feed the egos of our "war presidents".

Thanks, Tom. I feel better now.

Tom Friedman Again

I admire NY Times columnist Tom Friedman. He always seems to write about topics I am interested in. I just wish he were more careful about his prescriptions.

Take today's column (Who Will Succeed Al Gore?). Unlike last week, at least today he wishes Bush had done something to "reverse our coming Social Security deficit". This implies he knows that Social Security is not in deficit today. I just wish he were more humble and not assume that there will be a deficit, but at least characterize it as a likely deficit. But only God knows if there will be a SS deficit.

The unasked question is, why is Al Gore not running for president? My guess is that the Clintons promised him their combined support to run for president in 2016, as long as he did not challenge Hillary for the 2008 Democratic nomination, and he accepted that deal.

I agree with Mr. Friedman that we need "greener" technology and industry. But when he uses "distributed solar power" for the army as an example, I disagree.

The most important thing we can do to strengthen our military and ensure that it stays the most technologically advanced fighting machine on the planet is simply to keep it out of stupid wars (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq) and use the money saved to research and develop nuclear fusion power generation and/or thousands of nuclear fission power plants across the nation. Then, we will starve our enemies of today of the funds which they are using to threaten and terrorize us, and our GDP will grow so far and so fast that we could increase R&D throughout all of our industries and government. In such a setting, our military could not help but to become smarter and more powerful, since a strong economy generates more government revenue, and that revenue can in turn purchase more R&D for the military and more technology for fighting future defensive wars.