Say Anything Blog

Original article here.

President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that a unipolar world order cannot solve the mounting crises on the globe and Russia advocates a multipolar world.

Speaking after a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi in the southern resort of Sochi, Putin said that after the Cold War, “somebody had an illusion that the world is unipolar and all problems can be resolved from one center.”

“This is not so. The number of crises is mounting, and possibilities of their settlement are lessening,” he said, quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency.

Russia will independently determine its place in the world and seek a balanced and multipolar world order, Putin said.

Prodi, for his part, said there are many conflicts in the world that need to be settled, referring to tensions surrounding Iran, Iraq, the Middle East, Afghanistan and Somalia.

“There are a lot of open fronts in the world, and time has come to close at least one of them,” he said.

Source: Xinhua

My post on international relations a few weeks back seems almost pre-cognizant of Putin’s feelings. Maybe he was reading SA. What a ‘biter’ - he should at least give me some credit.

I was in New Jersey and New York City this weekend. It was cold! Here’s a few photos:

Manhattan as seen from Brooklyn heading north.

Looking east-northeast over Harlem from atop Morningside Park in the Columbia University vicinity.

The hole at ‘Ground Zero’ at night.

This book has been getting some attention since it was published and, well, that really bothers me for a few reasons. It was written by an nontenured lit professor and an Italian inmate and I feel its total bullshit, delusions of paranoid sci-fi influenced post-modernist libs. What follows is my refuting their basic ideas the best I can in three or four pages. ‘Empire’ and ‘society of control’ are used synonymously in the piece. Also ‘biopower’ is used as a kind of human-based mechanism whereby the empire can expand through a sort of homogenization (...or something - Its kinda difficult to deal with these kooks using their terminology). Also I apologize in advance for citing people like Foucault, who I know many or all of you take issue with, but one must meet and beat these bastards on their own playground. Enjoy.

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A ‘society of control’ does not characterize contemporary international politics. There are many things that seem to evidence the existence and spread of ‘Empire’; a transnational, decentralized, self-propagating entity of networks; but this evidence actually reinforces the traditional sovereign states model and traditional inter-state relations. While it is clear that some aspects of the ‘society of control’ idea are true; for example, we have seen a shift from the disciplinary, Cold War-style discrete social norms to more post-modern norms (Hart 178, Campbell 172, L. 12/7). Working against this is the current popularity of nationalism, reminiscent of the Cold War, which continues to reinforce state sovereignty. Furthermore, many states reject the idea of Empire and the proliferation of capitalism – many of these states are not isolated and interact in business and politics with states that would generally be tempting candidates for inclusion in the Empire. When these more powerful, ‘society of control’ states interact with anti-capitalist or more socialist states, the importance of the state status and sovereignty is reinforced through mutual recognition and the accompanying diplomatic protocols (Bull 263). Even transnational banks and businesses, entities that seem to be part of the key to extending the ‘Empire’, interact and do business only with and within sovereign states. It is the stability and presence of a traditional states-system that recognizes and allows the business or the bank access – in this way, phenomenon that can be perceived as the spread of the ‘Empire’ actually only can occur in the continued presence of the sovereign states-system (Bull 254, 262). If the ‘Empire’s’ prerogative to use force is based around the idea of maintaining a just outcome, the states-system must be recognized in order to determine the justness of any inter-regional relations, war, or exploitation (Hart 10, 18; L. 12/7). Ultimately, a ‘society of control’ is not desirable since it will remove the control from the populace (and its representatives) of any one region or country. While it is clear that under ‘Empire’ the entire globe obviously won’t have the same laws and cultural diversity will remain somewhat; a sacrifice of control, self-determination, and freedom would need to be made by the entire population of the ‘Empire’ – in short, it will be less just than the current international states-system, which is to say it will be a very grim result (L. 12/7). The question of the ‘Empire’s’ success will hinge on ideology and whether the ‘Empire’ has the ‘biopower’ required to instill widespread complacency in the global population (Hart 23).

(more...)

One of my paranoid friends made me aware of this. It is kinda bizarre. I don’t know what to make of it, but I thought some of you may find it interesting. Comments? Help me out here.

In international relations today the most powerful institution is balance of power (BOP). International law (IL) and diplomacy (D) have taken a back seat to the continual making and remaking of economic and political alliances to resist the dominant powers. BOP prevents weak states from being conquered or plundered by the strong (Brown 244). BOP’s goal is to allow states to survive and prevent the transformation of the global states system into an empire. This is similar to the goals of D and IL, institutions that also influence behavior between states, but D and IL are only able to become more influential in international relations when the most powerful states consent to IL, choose to engage in D, or are forced by a balance of power to recognize IL or to partake in D. Today, because powerful countries do not consent to IL or choose to engage in D, BOP is the default institution of international relations that keeps the most powerful countries in check and preserves the state system.

The BOP within the states system is an institution or set of norms and structures and not a specific administration – it is based on, and results from, the assumption that international law has no final global authority. BOP must be objective; it must actually exist, in addition to being subjective, or being perceived as existing by the people (Bull 99). A simple BOP between two states requires that the two states be fairly evenly matched in power, while a complex BOP can involve many inequities in power. Multiple lesser states can align to balance out a disproportionately large, powerful state – complex BOP is seen as being more stable than a simple two state BOP (98). When BOP is an institution used in international relations, it can allow D and IL to develop and gain power in the global states system. BOP can be seen as a default means to preserve the global states system when D and IL have failed. While peace might be a goal of IL or D, BOP’s goal is not peace as war is often required to maintain BOP. Naturally, BOP tends to operate in the favor of the great powers because preponderant states are not restricted from violating the rights of other states by IL or D (99-104). (more...)

I think this must be fallout from Whistler’s ‘global cooling’ or maybe it was just a bunch of socialists climbing around in the arctic with chisels, setting into motion their plan for world domination… /sarcasm
Orig here.

TORONTO, Ontario (AP)—A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada’s Arctic, scientists said.

The mass of ice broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 800 kilometers (497 miles) south of the North Pole, but no one was present to see it in Canada’s remote north.

Scientists using satellite images later noticed that it became a newly formed ice island in just an hour and left a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake. (Watch the satellite images that clued in ice watchers)

Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, traveled to the newly formed ice island and could not believe what he saw.

“This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years. We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead,” Vincent said Thursday.

In 10 years of working in the region he has never seen such a dramatic loss of sea ice, he said.

The collapse was so powerful that earthquake monitors 250 kilometers (155 miles) away picked up tremors from it.

I heard soon they will be offering ‘super-a/c’ in the new Hummers. Thank god. Then I can go from my refrigerated suit into my super-cooled Hummer with ease and comfort.

Orig here.

WASHINGTON - In his speech to the American nation yesterday, President George W. Bush issued a warning to Iran and Syria, accusing them of taking deliberate action against U.S. forces in Iraq and enabling aid transfers to insurgents.

Bush said the U.S. intends to take action against Iranian proxies in Iraq, and vowed to find and destroy the networks supplying these groups with weapons and training.

Now, I might be wrong, but might this have been a good goal from the beginning? This guy is a real 4th of July firecracker eh? I am reminded of Beavis (of Beavis and Butt-head) when he gets an idea and the little, flickering, buzzing light bulb above his head pulses a few times and breaks.

On top of that… was it just me or did anyone else notice how robot-like Bush seemed last night during his speach? It seemed like the lights were on but nobody was home. What’s going on with this guy? Does he have one of those little scars on the back of his neck where someone was meddling with his pons or brainstem like all my military friends have?

South Beach, looking north in the afternoon

So I was in Miami from Dec 20 until this morning around 9:15am when the plane crossed into Georgia, headed north. The weather was incredible, generally around 80 or 85 degrees everyday with a few spotty rain showers that didn't muck up the fun (I was actually in the hospital during most of the rain - more next paragraph). On Dec 24th I went to a real Latin-style 'Noche Buena'... whole pig with apple in mouth on a spit over a pit, yucca, plantains, big leg of aged & oiled ham from Spain, Manchego cheese, rice and frijoles negros, lots of beautiful Cuban women, Johnny Walker, loud music, et cetera. New Years eve was also a blast - pieia (saffron rice with lobster tails, mussels, shrimp, other various seafoods, veggies, a shitload of Red Stripe beer, and seasoning cooked in one of those round, shallow 3 foot wide pans out back), more loud music, girls, and Johnny Walker. I was out in the Redlands for NYE, a neighborhood in Homestead (S. Miami) that abuts a large agricultural area, and I guess its also very popular out there to shoot machine guns in the air on NYE from 11pm-1am... We didn't, but from the sounds of it all the neighbors did so we spent that time inside in order to avoid the light showers of .223 bullets.


Lechon, half eaten at the 'Noche Buena' party.

My fiance was due to go under the knife on Dec 27th (she has a doc down there who teaches everyone how to do this particular type of surgery), but her pain became too overwhelming on Christmas so we went to the hospital and had her admitted. I slept for like an hour that night and the next night, in one of those shitty doesn't-fold-down-all-the-way non-chair-non-bed things they give to visitors who stay the night. They bumped her operation up to the 26th and she had a couple days of extreme pain immediately pre and post-op where I stressed out and asked, 'is there anything I can do?' too many times even though there wasn't. It was unnerving for me let alone her. However, I am proud to report that at this time she is 100% pain-free and, with the appropriate medication regimens for the next 6 months and 6 months three years from now, should be for the rest of our lives. I somehow managed to drive us out of there the 27th, having slept for a total of three hours since 6 am on the 25th, and, upon arriving back at her mom's house, she got a call from UPenn law school. She got in. A perfect ending to the only few crummy days of the trip.

For some continuity in the travel posts, inspired by Carol:
American Airlines arena - Home of the Miami Heat

I hope y'all had a good holiday and that any crumminess was balanced out somehow.

Yea.

Sorry I’ve been absent of late. I’ll be back - the exigencies of the holidays have demanded more attention this year and my girl is having surgery on the 27th so the onslaught is culminating to time in the hospital biting my nails when I should be home next to the wood stove, stuffed full of food. I am going to Miami for a couple weeks, so I can at least store up some 2nd-half-of-the-winter momentum in my photo-voltaic reserves.

At any rate… Happy Holidays… however it manifests itself. Congrats to Rob! Stay warm - love and food.

Ok… my Christmas present for you guys…

This little radio ad was aired in rural Vermont during the 2004 Fed House race between Bernie Sanders the socialist and Republican Greg Parke. Its anti-Bernie and very, very amusing. It can be found here. I couldn’t think of how else to let you guys hear it so I hope it downloads well. Enjoy Parke’s rendition of the Dating Game featuring Bernie, the lovable socialist!

On the face of it, it’s only funny.  The sight of a constipated-looking Man of God standing with a microphone before a group of people, and saying with a straight face that homosexuality is a “mental illness” and it can be “cured”—what’s not funny about that?

Read the whole thing.

Another gem from the freaks at Brainsturbator.com

Ah…
Democracy in the Middle East - its soooo sweet. With our military presence in Iraq, regional elections are tending to go to the jihadis. In an exclusive interview conducted by Sparkie Arbuckle yesterday after work at Starbucks, Hamas leaders said, “Vote jihadis at home and for Bush in the US ... and I love these maple-frosted scones.”.

Its a pretty simple phenomenon to understand. Imagine how well the Republicans would do if Canada was being overrun by Islamists who wanted to install their preferred type of government by means of force. All the GOP would really have to do is write a bunch of speeches condemning the jihadis and they would win by a landslide.

The US plan to use democracy to install terrorists into every government in the ME has been a total success so far.

Article here.

Manama: Islamist societies swept to victory in Bahraini parliamentary elections while leading liberals will have to wait until next Saturday’s run-off to find a place in the new parliament, according to official results announced yesterday.
....
“I am glad that Islamists have won massively because I strongly believe that they are the ones best placed to uphold ethical values,” Al Mouawda told Gulf News.

Al Wefaq Society leader Shaikh Ali Salman, who with 85 per cent received one of the highest vote numbers, is expected to play a major role in the new-look parliament, with many observers tipping him to be the likely speaker of the Council of Representatives.
....
Analysts attribute the Islamists’ victory ... to the impact of their religious message and its strong appeal to the masses with the sectarian developments in Iraq as background. Disappointment with the overall performance of the outgoing council, the first in three decades, coupled with a strong desire to influence local governance and politics have spurred voters to cast ballots in favour of the Islamist societies rather than secular liberals.

This post is the result of a disagreement I had with Rob, Bat One, and 2hotel9 about the legitimacy of Iraq’s ‘democracy’ and its constitution. If they didn’t test me I wouldn’t have gone through any trouble, but I know my goddamn Poli Sci and I wasn’t going to take it sitting down. As 2Hotel9 puts it: “sparkle pacifist is gonna pee it’s panties”.

Rob said the following:

Of course, the government representatives elected by the people are all asking for the U.S. to stay.

and

The people of Iraq have their own sovereign government now.

and I replied

We left out the Sunnis. Anyone who knows anything about this stuff knows that a consociational or power-sharing government is the only option in an ethnically and religiously charged situation like Iraq. Its clear stability was not our goal when you take that into account.

See the original spat here. What I said is true. What we have over there IS technically a democracy, but the Sunni minority has been excluded and much of the recent political history there can quickly explain why we will continue to see lots of violence in this ‘democracy’ until the Sunnis are included and all the citizens can be represented not only in the government, but also in the constitution.

First, I was right and you three were all wrong. Now the substance:

Iraq gained independence from Britain in 1932, and was claimed a Republic in 1958, even though it was nothing more than a series of military strongmen, the latest who was Saddam Hussein (Israeli, 6). Saddam Hussein represented the Sunni Muslim minority, a population which constitutes only 32% compared to the 65% of the Shiite majority, or the 15-20% comprised of the Kurdish minority (CIA Iraq, 3). Saddam Hussein’s regime was dismantled, not due to preventive negotiations like South Africa, but because the United States ousted Hussein’s regime over acclaimed non-compliance with the United Nations Security Council (Israeli, 7).

Following this, a Constitutional Drafting Committee was formed, and it was expected that they would finish the constitutional draft in time for the referendum on October 15, 2005( Morrow, 9). Unfortunately, in August, the Committee was scrapped and a Leadership Council was formed with the Sunni representatives excluded from the negotiations. The draft was completed by the projected due date, and was put up to a national referendum on October 15, just as planned. The most contentious issues regarding issues like women’s rights, or how much power the regions should have, were left out of the negotiations (Phillips, 156). The draft would be nullified if two-thirds of three provinces voted against it becoming the permanent constitution (Harvard, 1205). So the Sunnis were excluded from the drafting of the constitution and then the majority (again excluding the Sunnis) voted it in.

As one might expect following Sunni exclusion from the Constitutional negotiations, the three provinces that heavily voted against it were Sunni dominated (1206). Two of the provinces, Salahudain and Anbar, voted 82% and 97% respectively against it. The third province, Ninevan, had a 55% vote against passing the draft, just barely missing the three provinces, two-third majority requirement. Even though this requirement was barely missed, Sunni opposition to the new constitutional framework was already beginning to show.

On December 15, 2005, the first parliamentary elections were held for the National Assembly. 128 seats out of 275 were won by the Shiites, the Sunnis took 44 and the Kurds 53 seats. The final constitutional framework that was passed, set up the institution of the legislature as divided into the Council of Representatives and the Council of Unions (Iraq Constitution 9-12). The Council of Representatives is elected by proportional representation for a four year term, and has the responsibility of electing the President, Prime Minister and Deputy President, by an absolute majority vote. Decisions on passing legislation are also made by the Council of Representatives, and only a simple majority vote is required. The Council of Unions is made up of representatives from the 18 provinces, and is responsible for looking over legislation that is directly pertinent to the provinces, but they have no veto power to stop legislation from passing (13). The Iraqi Central Bank, Financial Inspection Office, and the Media and Communications Agency are all responsible directly to the Council of Representatives (17).

The Iraq Constitution also mandates revenue sharing of all future profits made from oil, since oil and gas, under the new constitution, is seen as the property of all the Iraqi people (19). Revenues are to be distributed fairly all over the country. Each province is to have their own President and National Council, which are to be directly elected, but in reality, the total amount of power each province has amounts to basically nothing more than jurisdiction over their police forces. Iraq’s Constitution calls for a majoritarian system for passing legislation and electing a President, which will have dire consequences on the minority population of the Sunnis. (more...)

Now all he needs to do is stop thinking… I can smell the toast burning from here.

...those dark eyes, those luscious lips. original article here.

AMSTERDAM—The Dutch government said yesterday that it would outlaw full-length veils such as the Muslim burqa and other face-concealing apparel in public places, marking this once-tolerant nation’s latest about-face on questions of culture and assimilation in Europe.

A stoned local playing pocket pool said, “I think it’s great. There’s nothing like taking a break from smoking weed and doing hookers to stand in the street and watch the ‘uncovered meat’ walk by. Islamic chicks are wicked hot and when they blush from exposing their face it just makes my ‘blood flow’… you know what I mean?”

The Netherlands, once considered one of Europe’s most welcoming nations for immigrants and asylum seekers, is deeply divided over government moves to stem the tide of new arrivals and compel them to adopt Dutch ways.

Ayhan Tonca, who heads a Dutch Muslim organization, denounced the proposal as “a big law for a small problem,” and said as few as 30 women wear burqas in the Netherlands. Amsterdam’s mayor said giving the issue too much attention could backfire.

Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk said the ban was to promote security. “The Cabinet finds it undesirable that face-covering clothing—including the burqa—is worn in public places for reasons of public order, security, and protection of citizens,” Verdonk said in a statement.

“From a security standpoint, people should always be recognizable, and from the standpoint of integration, we think people should be able to communicate with one another,” Verdonk told national broadcaster NOS.

She said the ban would include not only the tent-like burqa, but full-face helmets and ski masks.