Today is the Armistice Day - the day when World War I ended, or rather "The Great War" as it was once called. It resulted in millions of dead and wounded, and so much pain and suffering, and so many of the survivors fighting the war every day of the rest of their lives. But still, it is not totally clear to me what they fought for. I know about the shots in Sarajevo and all that, but what was the motivation for fighting the war - except for national pride and duty and a stupid scheme of mutually attack plans?

I fear that the WWI «just happened», not because anybody wanted it to, but because like a deck of cards, the world had - unconsciously - been stacked so that would happen. When the archduke and his wife were shot, the WWI could not but happen, like giving the first push to a huge boulder rolling down a slope. Had they not been shot, something else would have given that boulder a push.

In addition to the human cost of this war, there were other casualties: countries. Four empires crumbled: the Russian, the Ottoman, the German and the Austro-Hungarian. Two colonial powers were mortally wounded: England and France - they never really recovered from the war, and within 30 years, is was clear for all that their colonial empires had no future.

What is the lesson we can learn from WWI? First, there is no such thing as an easy war. The idea that the soldiers will be home before Christmas is - and always was - a lie. It is a lie they tell to make the war seem easy, playful and fun, but the truth is usually that by Christmas, the soldiers are bogged down, and need reinforcements.

The second thing we can learn, is that while you can plan how to start a war, the moment it is started, control is lost and nobody can undo them. The war must run its own course - like a huge river on a untouched plain, except that the river of war does not follow any sensible, physical laws.

The third thing we can learn, is that wars start even though nobody really wanted them to - because they do not so much start in the spectacular moment they are said to start. They are really started - or rather prepared - in the years and decades before, when the bureaucrats, politicians and diplomats increase the tension in the world order. The best way to decrease that tension is through good communication between people - which unfortunately there is no surplus of.

Climate change is coming

It's two different questions: are we seeing permanant climate change; and are human gases responsible for this climate change. Unfortunately, the debate usually mix the two, and end up in a discussion about CO2 and sun spots and what not. That gives the general impression that scientists don't agree about climate change and thus there might not be a climate change at all.

But, on the first question - are we seeing climate change - the answer is a clear yes. There is anecdotal evidence, there is statistical evidence, and is the telltale evidence of dead-enders desperately flocking around the few odd data points that might indicate otherwise (like more than average snow in Denver, or slightly lower than average temperatures in the desert in Northern California).

There is no denying that the climate is changing, the glaziers are melting, the polar caps are scrinking, the permafrost is tawing. We do not know where this will lead, and in the end (in a few centuries) it might not be all negative, but when climate is the subject, change is always bad news.

What are the worst-case scenarios? Firstly, the sea-level might raise 65 meters, but that is the maximum if all glaziers melt. Even just 2-3 meters would count as a true catastrophy. Secondly, there is a changing pattern of drought and rain. Yes, maybe the Sahara will blossom, but if it comes together with a prairy desert, then it hardly is an advantage. The point is, once the climate starts to change, we are not able to predict how it will change. We will only be able to explain it, after the fact, not to reliably predict it.

It does not matter whether it is created by humans or not, the climate change is coming. In fact, it is all the more scary if it is not crated by human activity, because then we have even less chance to counteract it. Currently, the prevailing attitude among neoconservatives is to ignore it because it may not be created by humans. That is an enormously different attitude compared to other bad things, where their gut reaction is to send in the marines.

However, I think this goes to the very core of the (neo)conservative thinking. They usually think in terms of money. If it's something good, they want a share. If it's something bad, the important thing is not to be connected to it. Don't read about global warming, that'll only make you a complicit the next time you start your car. It's much better to not know, so you can claim plausible deniability. That's why they are so focused on that shrinking possibility of a fraction of a percent that it's just a statistical oddity. If they start a factory, they demand the profit as a compensation for their investment, but if the factory pollutes, they demand that "society" steps in to clean up. Good things are theirs to keep, bad things are the duty of the society to rescue them from. And they have rightly concluded that climate change is bad, and their gut reaction is to stand far away when the shit hits the fan.

Only ... climate change affects the whole world, and you cannot really get very far away from it. There is nowhere to hide from it, and cleaning up will only become harder the longer we wait.

The key is trust

When Bush and Blair wanted to start a war, they said "Trust us, we know what we are doing, and we have better intelligence than you do, only we cannot show it, for security reasons.". And people trusted them ... and were fooled.

Trust is was bind together society. It makes you send your children to school to be taught by strangers, to accept small pieces of paper as valuables, to leave your apartment with only a puny lock, etc. Trust is what makes you give a bit of extra wiggling room to strangers, and trust sets a positive attitude instead of a mis-trusting and cynical negative attitude.

Trust is the grease that makes society work without too much friction. The erosion of trust carries a cost, and ultimately the cost of total erosion of trust is the collapse of society. Luckily, we'll never get there, but the cost of even partially erosion of trust may break the competitive edge of the society. It's like walking uphill instead of downhill - it's not a show-stopper, but it certainly cost-raiser and origin of inconvenience.

So, what erodes trust? Burglers do it when they rob you. Con men do it when they con you. They are capitalizing on (and eroding) the trust of the society, exchanging it for money and personal gain. At a grander scale, politicians do it when they lie to you - and they erode it even more when they don't show any remorse when caught red handed.

That is why it is so bad when Bush and Blair lie to get their way, to enrich their friends with money and themselves with power. They may get their way the first time or two. But sooner or later, the trust erodes, and people don't believe their elected leaders, even when they speak the truth about imminent dangers and important issues. And you cannot buy trust when you need it, it must be earned - incrementally - over time.

I guesstimate that at some point in the future, we will see Bush speak the truth in order to gather support, but he will not get it, due to the lack of trust in him, not due to the issue at hand. It will be the scrub that cried "wolf". Bush is going to blame the public for not trusting him, and he will be right about the lack of trust, and he will be wrong about where he puts the blame.

Theocracy here!? Naaah, won't happen ...

That's the usual attitude ... a theocracy is something 'they' have, and it'll never happen 'here'. But it has happened here, if by 'here' we mean the Western world. And it can easily happen again. There is even some merit to the argument that is currently happening 'here'.

The Vatican is a theocracy by any definition of the term. Nowadays they are geographically a micro-state mainly without any subjects but their own priests, but until the unification of Italy in the nineteenth century, it was a sizable state and a theocracy.

European states have seldom been that blatantly theocracies, but nor have they been void of the influences of theocracy. In the northernly protestant part of Europe, the attraction of the reformation was partly the fact that the king eliminated a competitor for power: the church - by entering the double role as the worldly leader as well as the head of the church. This marrying of the state and the church is a prerequisite for a theocracy, and some state - at times - fell into that trap. Cromwell's England, Calvin's Geneve, The Netherlands under the reformation.

While in the Catholic part of Europe, politics and religion were always mixed, even though the state and the church formally were separated. The church was an active part in government, both before and after democratization. Was it teocracy? To the extent that the government was unwilling or unable to shield the influence of religion: possibly yes.

Even in America, theocracy was not unheard of. Maybe the separation of church and state after the revolution was à la mode for that time. But I cannot help but to wonder whether the Anglican church with the king as head was at least partly responsible for the confining religion to the private sphere. Still, the earliest European settlements in what became the USA were theocratic in their nature - cults or sects evading the persecution in Europe to set up their own ideal, religiously governed rule in the new continent. This has often continued into our times, creating states-within-the-state.

Therefore, theocracy has been rooted in the Western world before, and I think it can blossom again, because it was never thoroughly uprooted, just pruned and cut back. But we usually don't call it theocracy, because of our closeness and familiarity to the religion. - "That's not a theocratic law, what just a secular law based on the general culture of the land ... and ... well any similarity to religion is just a coincident coming from the fact that we live in a Christian culture." Yeah, right!

Blogging against theocracy

Some have started a series of "blogs against theocracy" April 6-8, and although I am not formally part of that, I'll add some comments of mine.

Let's first take the word itself, "theocracy" means god (theo) and rule (cracy), and although it literally means the the rule of god, in effect, it means the rule of the church or whatever religious denomination is the most widespread in the area. Theocracy is not - and can never be - compatible with democracy; which is the rule by the people. It cannot be in theory, because the god and the people are different, and it cannot be in reality, because the organized religion invariably is hierarchic and self-recruiting - both which collides with democracy. Theocracy means that you must do like I say, or rather: like my interpretation of some god's intent. That is not democracy!

The difficulty with religion, is that it's so difficult to criticize the bad parts without offending the well-meaning and honest (albeit naive) masses. One must differentiate between religion as an idea, the leadership of organized religion, and the masses of followers. (In this respect, it is very much like states, where one can differentiate between a nation, a state and the state's individual subjects.)

Being born and raised in a Christian culture, the church is what I know best, but all forms of religion that I know of seem to follow the same pattern of structural power-grabbing and mental oppression. Usually, there is some sort of initial idea, often of socially revolutionary character. But at some point - usually when the religious leaders have obtained power - it turns into the predictable patterns:

1. Sorry, no NEW revelations will come now. Religion is "frozen" for the foreseeable future. Seers and prophets are not welcome. Please move on ... nothing to see here ... and remember to practice your religion as usual.
   
2. No, you can NOT contact god directly ... but luckily for you, we have a set of priests (or whatever) that will act as your go-betweens (at a reasonable cost!) That is much better for all parties. And besides, god told us he wanted it organized like that.
   
3. Well, we USED to do that, but we don't do that anymore. Besides, it is not the correct theology, and the theology we are practicing now is the correct one, and it is eternal and irreplaceable, and it has always been so. It's just that earlier generations followed an incorrect practice. It don't happen anymore. Honestly!

At it's very worst, theocracy is the deliberate slowing down and even full stop of the development of a society, because nobody are allowed to surpass or threaten the religion. Nothing must over-shine religion. In the Western world, that total grip on the society broke down during the renaissance, and it never rebound other than temporally and locally (but not due to lack of effort!)

Today, we equate theocracy with Iran and the Islamic world. Perhaps it is more so there than elsewhere. But the US - that old shining lighthouse of democracy - is moving in the direction of a theocracy. The warning signs are there, but it is too early to say if the trend will be stopped, or even if it can be stopped. How sad it will be to see the US halt its progress and retreat into religious egocentrism, like twelfth century Bagdad or thirteenth century Spain.

I do have some respect for the idea of religion as a philosophy, and I have great respect for many religious people. But for the organized religion that tries to organize the lives of the people - both followers and non-followers ... I have no respect for that.

The Decline and Fall

I suppose that the most interesting book contrasting the current US history is Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. When I was watching the embarrassing video of MC Rove, the brief part of Bush was truly jaw-dropping. He was sitting there, literally presiding on the podium, looking down on the scene of Rove fighting the wild comedians, throwing sarcasms at him in his typical non-compassionate way. I was almost expecting him to turn the thumb down, or to put on a wreath of laurel or something. It so much reminded me of an evening in the Circus Maximus, and the decadent late Roman emperors of the Western Roman empire. Even his posture was half-laying.

I guesstimate that as the Democrats and the Reality are increasingly closing in on President Bush he will increasingly throw his friends and loyalists overboard to the wolfs to stay afloat himself. Anything that can keep him afloat for a little longer so he can survive until 20. January 2009. If it wasn't so tragic, it would be amusing - and the history of the Western Roman empire is the script ... at super-high speed.

The disappearance of the Stars and Stripes

I didn't notice until the other day, when I saw a person wearing a T-shirt with the Stars and Stripes on the street. It suddenly struck me: I hadn't seen the Stars and Stripes as a design element (i.e. outside the actual flag) for ages. And living in Europe, I haven't seen the Stars and Stripes itself for ages, either. Under the Clinton era, the US flag was a frequent element in lots of goods and company profiles, but now, that seems to be so "yesteryear".

It is as if the marketing-droids have decided that the Stars and Stripes will only add negative feelings to visual profile, so it is better to avoid it. I know this must be different in the US, but it is quite so here. It's not as if people show any active hostility towards the Stars and Stripes - nobody I know of is ripping it apart or burning it or anything like that. It's just that as a design element, it has become sufficiently connected to negative feelings, so it is to be avoided.

What about the man in the Stars and Stripes T-shirt? Well, as I came closer to him, I saw that he looked shabby and unkept, and as I passed him, he oozed of alcohol. He'd probably got the T-shirt from the Salvation Army or some other organization that distributes the clothes that nobody wants among the needy. For those who identifies with the Stars and Stripes, I cannot help but feel a compassionate "ouch!"

The depressing state of the USA

It is interesting - though quite depressing - to watch the USA apparently do everything in its power to self-destruct. A presidency cannot truly be evaluated for decades, but the Bush-presidency is clearly among the worst. Here are some "high-lights":

1. Although is was during this presidency that the scale of the environmental catastrophe we are facing became clear, the Bush administration is not only ignoring it, but actively suppressing it, and they are helping to make the use of gas a statement of patriotism, and access to and dependence on oil a national priority (rather than to try to make the US independent of it).
   
2. In the economy, the policy has been to give to the rich, either through tax reductions or though expensive government contracts. This is not the problem per se, but the financing of it is a problem. Partly, it has been financed by Chinese money, which makes the US independence of China questionable - you don't hear the US complain about democracy in China these days, do you? And partly it is financed by the poorest having to use mortgage to finance their spending because of decreasing income. Neither of these can be extended forever, and at some point, it must be reversed and cleaned up - at enormous costs.
3. The US forces are bogged down in Iraq, wearing out the equipment at a high rate, demoralizing the forces due to the futility of the task, destroying their image in the eyes of the world, due to what they do. However, the most damaging from a US point of view, is that while posted in Iraq, the US does not have sufficient forces to project its power at will. While its armed forces are more than preoccupied in Iraq, it is militarily impotent elsewhere.
   
4. The US has openly despised diplomacy, preferring bilateral agreements to international organizations like the UN. They are going to have to pay for this with a huge "diplomatic friction" when they - sometime in the future - need diplomacy because sheer force will not do. You don't dis "everybody" for years and afterwards expect them to happily cooperate just because you suddenly need their cooperation.
   
5. The Bush administration has ignored their domestic opponents, and even abused them. That has created a deep divide in US politics - a divide I don't think is compatible with a super-power status. Either you pull together and you can achieve great things, or you fight between yourselves. You can disagree, but in the end you find compromises and seek consensus, but with the Republicans, there is only one possible way: their way. They cannot compromise - it's a dirty word for them - and in the long term, nothing good will come out of it.
   

I think the Bush years will become the "dark years" or the "lost years" or the "the needs-to-be-undone years", but it might already be too late to undo the damage done to the US. At best, it will take years, maybe decades. The Bush-administration destruction-from-within of the USA is a slow-motion version of what Mugabe has done to Zimbabwe.

How true may not the slogan of the American Enterprise Institute be: "A new American century". Not the the meaning of "Another century of American predominance", but in the meaning of "A century where the Americans have a new and less central role".

The stab-in-the-back theory

A new meme is spreading in right-wing US policy: the war in Iraq didn't fail because of any fault of the Bush administration, but because of lack of support. Lack of support from the 'coalition of the willing', lack of support from the US public, lack of support from the Democrats, etc. It's projecting, of course: blaming your opponents for your own failures, but at a higher level, there is a horrible truth to it.

The Iraq war did initially have popular support. Never mind that this support was engineered by the White House and their cohorts in the press - the US public did support the invasion and early war. The few US citizens that opposed it was hounded and suppressed. Only when the scale of the failure could not be hidden, when the monetary cost of war became evident, when the bulk of the body bags came back ... only then did the majority of the US public drop their support.

So, the Republicans feel betrayed, and with good reason: they started on this war, and the public supported it, based on vague promises of the spoils of war and in particular the oil and "democracy" (how can you force democracy on somebody?) it would bring. But when it got rough, the public turned.

At a perverse level, the US public in general is doubly morally corrupted. Not only did they support an obviously illegal war and all the crimes accompanying it, but they didn't even follow through on it. Not because it was a bad choice, an immoral choice, and an illegal choice - but because it was an expensive choice, an inconvenient choice, a choice obviously destined for failure, and a choice that required some commitment and sacrifice from them.

So, will the US public ever turn their support away from the war because it was immoral and illegal? Well, many people have done that, but they are and will remain a minority. Most do it because it turned out to be a failure and an expensive such. The US loves winners and hates losers. The true failure of George W Bush is not the morally corrupted choices he made, but the fact that they didn't turn out to the advantage of the US.

I guesstimate that the Republicans will blame the reluctance of the general US public on the few people that opposed the invasion all the time, and they will call it a stab-in-the-back - regardless of the chilling history of that word and meme. I guesstimate that the world will loose even more trust and respect for the US, because they have again shown that they no longer do the right thing, only the self-servering thing. I guesstimate that as the US increasingly maintain its international respect through fear, rather than through the strength of its arguments, support for it will be reluctant and half-hearted. I guesstimate that as the US increasingly act out of the motivation of self-serving rather that moral clarity, the threshold is lowered for other nations to turn the coat on the US.

I disagree!

Recently, there has been a campaign in left Blogostan to link to articles that are critical to Republicans that are seeking election. I do not support this tactics, because:

1. Even though the Republican did similar things in the past and today, we do not have to mimic their bad habits. Even though this campaign is open and lowkey (putting the links on one's own blog, in stead of spamming the comments of other blogs).
   
2. The effect of such a campaign is probably limited, because there are going to be a large number of sites on these people that will always get a very high score, for instance their own homepage using their name in the hostname, the wikipedia articles about them and so forth. This kind of Google bombing might technically work for topics where there are few or only a moderate number of web pages, but not for high profile politiciens.
   
3. Such a campaign is likely to create a reaction from the Republicans, who will use it to slander the Democrats, to excuse further Google bombing of their own, and as something they will never forget to remind us of in the future. It can also backfire if Google readjust their algorithms to counter such campaigns, giving lower Google exposure for all material in parts of left Blogostan.
   

So - it's unethical, inefficient, and can backfire. Just don't do it. Simply write about what is interesting, make good, quality content, and your articles (and the pages they point to) will raise to the top of the Google searches.

Election scenarios

There are three main scenarios: 1) The Democrats win - like the polls are indicating, 2) the Republicans win, and 3) The result is confusing and the election is contended. I think scenario 2 will slip into scenario 3, unless Democrats hold back in order to save some sort off national unity, like Gore did six years ago.

If the Democrats win, Republicans are going to accuse them of cheating, but I doubt they can find significant proof for this - simply because I doubt that the Democrats are going to cheat. However, Republicans are also going to blame them for whatever bad things that are going to happen for the next two years. In this situation, the Democrats can do two things: try to cooperate, which will earn them a lot of verbal abuse, no significant influence, a whole lot of responsibility for festering fiascos, and the knowledge that they helped the Republicans tear down the country. However, if they do not cooperate, they will still get a whole lot of verbal abuse (in particular about partisanship) and they will be given the responsibility of whatever fails. But they will get more influence, and they will know that they did the right and honorable thing.

If the Republicans win, it will either be due to some huge October surprise, to some surprise turnout of their 'base' (which sounds like a cover-up for cheating), or it will be due to cheating. If there is cheating, it will be widespread, because there is no single point of cheating that will fix the whole election. You have to cheat in a number of states in parallel. Although the discussion after the elections in 2000 and 2004 was bad they will seem peaceful compared to parallel quarrels about cheating in multiple states. The only way around this, is to immediately paint the Democrats as sore losers, which is a strategy that worked in 2000 and 2004. However, then there were one principal loser, now there are potential dozens of them, and it is going to be a very chaotic and noisy affair.

Electronic voting is more widespread than before, and it is inherently untrustworthy - not because electronic voting is so bad, but because the US type of it to a large degree is based on methods and technology where it is impossible to verify a strange election result. That is: it is impossible to differ between an election stolen by cheating, and a strange election result.

If this happens, I think we are going to see demonstrations and riots. As they say, you can fool everyone for some time, and some people forever, but you cannot foot everyone forever. If there is widespread allegations about cheating, the fabric that the US is made of, and the trust that keeps it together will erode further.

On the other hand ... Bush now has eliminated the habeas corpus, the law they desperately needed to push through congress before the elections. Maybe that is their plan B? Maybe an exploding election scandal in the media is drowned in an attack on Iran? Oops! Not an October surprise to refocus the pre-election agenda, but a November surprise to refocus the post-election agenda away from allegations of cheating. That would be so Rove: make them expect the obvious, and do your cheating where they didn't anticipate it.

They hate us because ...

Bush divides the world in good and evil. When the attacks on the twin towers came, it was inconceivable that the reason could be anything but external. The searching for a 'why' after the attack ended up according to the Republican narrative, and here are four aspects of it:

1. The democracy-haters explanation claim that the reason behind the attack was: "'They' hate us and/or envies 'our' democracy (or its success), and wants to destroy us/it, and in the defense of the democracy, anything is allowed. Some infantile people let their envy blossom by destroying that which others own and they envy; but democracy is not a possession, and if copied, the original owner does not loose anything. There is no reason why Arabs should meddle with American democracy. After all, every democracy in existence today is merely an extended local democracy, and the US local democracy per se was not a treat to the Arabs (on the other hand, the government which is called the Democracy of USA may be regarded as a treat, but that is something else). If there is anyone who wants to restructure the way far-away countries are governed, it is the neo-cons in the Republican sfere, and I suggest that when this explanation is used, there is an element of projection.
2. The prophetic explanation mirrors some of the retorics of the Old Testament prophets, and goes something like this: "Sinners have tainted USA, and God sent us punishment through Osama, and the trials and bad times will continue until the sinners among us have mended their ways (or we have forced them to do so)." For the Christian right, it is a way to 'connect the dots' between the attack and their favorite hate-objects: the gays, liberals, evolution theory, pro-abortion, Democrats, foreigners, UN etc. And it serves two purposes: not only does it offer an easy explanation of the attack and puts the responsibility on their favorite hate object, but is also rationalize - by extrapolation - that the only way to prevent further attack is to attack, crush and eliminate these hated groups. It is a wonderful way to argue, because there is no room for compromises - which is the mechanism and material from which great societies are built. In their mind-set, even if they themselves could enter a compromise, the real judge is God - so to enter a compromise is to change side to the evil forces - and only acceptable as a short-term tactics where the long-term strategy is complete victory.
   

3. The devilish explanation does not externalize it to hated groups among oneself, but mystifies it: "They attacked us not because of anything we did or didn't do, but because they are the embodiment of pure evil, and this is impossible to understand: any attempt even to understand it is giving in to these forces, and we must fight them unconditionally." The logical consequence of this view is to wage total war on everyone and everything that does not 100% agree with this view. This is the stuff that eternal religious wars are made of.
   
4. The Apocalypse explanation focuses on the belief that this is the end of times, and everything that happens from now on is an exception. The reasoning behind is usually "Look! Everything fits (with some ancient and vague quasi-prediction)." None of the rules and concepts of the old order apply anymore, because everything changed with the cataclysmic event. The in this context, "9/11" and "everything has changed" are probably religious code-words for the apocalypse, and from now on there is a new set of rules (i.e. their rules). Predicting the end of times is nothing new, you find a good list of past and future predictions here.
   

These suggestions are not mutually exclusive, and to some extent, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of them, partly building on each of them. As we have seen from the Iraq war, they are not always consistent when explaining the reasons behind something. Apparently, some action is decided, and only afterwards, the reasoning behind it is sought.

Trust

Our society is built on trust. Without is, the complex structures would not be possible. Trust is a lagging entity - it is always trying to catch up with reality. Even when trust is no longer warranted, it is still upheld for some time, out of pure inertia. In pure economical and quite sickening terms, we may say that the lag time from when trust is broken, until the consequences appear, is an asset. As all assets it can be converted to money. In plain words, this means: get into a position of trust, lie and cheat, and get out with as much money and power as you can before the house of cards collapses.

But trust is also lagging when it is built up, just as it is lagging when it is torn down. Perhaps it is lagging more when it is built up than when it is torn down. Once you have torn down the trust that kept society together, it is so much more difficult to rebuild. That is the curse that will haunt USA for the next decades, and in particular the Republicans. That may prove to be a more efficient destroyer of the US society than any bomb of bin Laden.

The question now is not whether Republicans have betrayed the trust of the public, but whether it can be stopped and mended before the public trust falls to the same level as the Republican performance. If 'yes', this may be limited to a new Watergate - scandalous and deeply damaging, but not a show-stopper. If 'no', it may in effect be the end of the USA as we know it.

The Wall as a Recruiting Measure

Why are the republicans so hellbent on this wall between the US and Mexico? Maybe it's a recruiting measure, making some years of service in the US army seem like a attractive options compared to illegal immigration? The Romans didn't want the barbarians to come, but wanted them as slaves for the unattractive work, and actively recruited them for their army. That was a big mistake for the Romans.

Oil prices

In an earlier entry, I implied that there might be some string-pulling behind the current drop in oil prices. Let's look a bit closer at the implications.

First of all, there are two different ways in which string-pulling might be involved. First, somebody might have stockpiled a lot of oil and futures contracts, and releasing it now, in order to get the price down. Second, somebody might have canceled contracts for buying oil (real oil intended to be used) for the next months. In addition, both versions may be at play in parallel. In the first case, the price will probably stabilize in the short term on something between the current price and the former record price. In the second case, prices are going to go through the roof when all that oil has to be bought 'back' later.

Professor Pollkatz has a chart showing the correlation between the oil price and the approval rating of Bush. It is impressive. But to paraphrase John Adams: people are adaptable things. What is an acceptable price per gallon today, was horribly expensive just a few years ago. People adapt, and my guess is that there is no conceivable upper limit to it - provided that the rate is moderate. In addition, it would be convenient if it bounces up and down a bit, so people loose their sense of orientation, and get to experience that the gas price can also fall significantly.

So, how can I claim that there is no upper limit for the gas price? Well, several European countries have gas prices that is around $6 pr US gallon. A large portion of that are taxes, but that is beside the point. Having been acclimatized to that price, they complain just as much as the US citizens. Neither less nor more. Thus, what's driving (no pun intended) the discontent is the rate with which the price raises. Consequently, there is no upper limit for the price of gas. People will generally adapt.

The upper practical limit for the price of gas in the USA is not what the public feel and think about the price, but when the cost of energy slows the country down so much that society threatens to slide straight through a depression and into standstill and chaos. Although the birthplace of cars is Germany, USA is truly its adopted homeland. So much city planning, suburb construction, and infrastructure are based on the assumption of readily available gas that there is neither time nor resources for a structured redesign if that assumption no longer holds. Note that I did not say cheap gas, just readily available gas. The USA can survive (albeit in great pain) with a gas price of $5, even $10 or $20. Even at $20, it 'only' means cutting about 85% of all travel. Painful, but possible.

Thus, expensive gas is a pain but not a show-stopper for transportation, nor is heating (people just have to move closer together and wear more clothing). The real problem are the areas where it is impossible to downscale significantly, and where the added cost makes the economical model on which that area is base collapse. One such area may be food production. It has been claimed that for each calorie of food, seven calories of oil energy has been used to produce that food. Surely, grains can grow on the plains of Kansas without oil, but how is it going to be harvested? How is the pesticides to be distributed? How is the harvest to be transported to populated areas?

The MBTI of Bush

What is the MBTI of Bush? Well, that is a very interesting question, and one that may reveal a lot about him. My conclusion is that he is probably a ESFP that is trying to be a INTJ, and that may explain quite a few things.

• First, is he Extrovert or Introvert? As a president, he shuns away from press conferences and interviews, he hate parties and stays at home, he obviously hates speeches. On the other hand, all the old stories from his early days indicate a person that is extremely out-going, the center of any party, very vocal in a social setting. If I should type Bush's early days, I'd say 'E'. But his behavior in his presidency is more like an 'I' - but anyone who have seen him get the impression that there is an 'E' in there, but maybe 'I' seems more presidential. I'd say an 'E' behaving like an 'I' because he thinks that is the proper thing to do.

• Secondly, is he 'Sensing' or 'iNtuitive'? I'd pick 'S', because he seems to focus on what is the actual, current situation. In his younger days, he was famous for his jet-set way of life: drinking, women, partying, fast cars, money. On the other hand, he has never been a man of abstract thinking of the future and the possibilities that has not yet materialized. Still, when you listen to his pre-written speeches, they talk of the opposite, the abstract thoughts and the great ideas of the future. Even when he talks without a manuscript, he uses lots of those words, although the order and meaning is often somewhat mixed up. I think he has a case of envy of the opposite type here. He is a down-to-earth 'S' wanting to be an abstract 'N', maybe because that is what is posh in the neo-conservative environment of think-tanks and politics. An excellent example is his misuse of difficult words - words that is obviously outside his active vocabulary, but which he tries to use to impress and to appear more intellectual and sophisticated that he is. I'd say an 'S' longing to be an 'N'.

• Thirdly, is he a 'Feeler' or a 'Thinker'. This is somewhat difficult for me, but I think his early years betray him as an 'F'. He has always been easy and successful around people, always well liked by his surroundings. I suppose he favor personal communication to written, due to his dyslexia. That is close to favoring synchronous, interactive people-oriented communication in stead of the logic, lecture-type communication of a written text. He is said to have longed to be the commissioner for Baseball over everything else, even the presidency, and his dealing in baseball is typically for the out-going 'EF' and quite atypical for an observing and analytical 'IT'. However, regarding his presidential period, he repeatedly makes comments based on logic. The logic is neither consistent nor sophisticated - and often just repeated as if it makes it more true. His use of gut feelings for decision support betrays him as a 'F'. I think that he is an 'F', but has been convinced that in politics, you have to behave like a 'T', because it gives the air of rationality. The irony, is that 'F's are probably better in the great 'game' of politics. I'd say an 'F' convinced that sounding like a 'T' is more efficient and statesmanlike.

• Then, at last, is he 'Judging' or 'Perceiving'? If we look at his later years, a 'J' almost seems self evident. He follows a strict time schedule, he is often described as incurious, and seldom looks for opinions and new evidence once he have decided. He is famous for letting his gut feeling decide, and never give an inch on something that he have once decided. He is quick to draw conclusions, and he is infamous for his 'either you're with us, or you're against us' dichotonomies. He likes order. All this points strongly towards a 'J'. Still, the pre-born-again Bush was somewhat different. He is often described as uncertain, fuzzy, undecided. I have no good explanation, but to me, he appears to be a more like a 'P' in his young days. That would explain why he is such an inflexible 'J' today, because if he permanently closed his open perception, in order to act like a 'J', one should expect him to become an extreme and inflexible 'J' - just like we observe. The conservative type of Christianity is clearly 'J', and it might be that he connects his fuzzy playboy days to his 'P' personality, and shut it down together with his drinking and old lifestyle. Thus, now he functions on a weakly developed 'J' personality, which is what we observe. That would make him a 'P' that forced himself to become a 'J' by denying his 'P' typology.

To closet a type in order to appear the opposite is a recipe for personal disaster and psychological problems. If my analysis is correct, Bush has done that, to different degrees, with all four typologies.

ESFP are the merry boys of life. Outwards, they are at the very center of every party, inside, they can have severe problems and can easily feel hurt, although they will never want to openly acknowledge it. They are allergic to bad atmosphere, and will seek to deny it, cover it up, or wipe it under the carpet. Life is something to be enjoyed today, if necessary at gun-point (figuratively speaking). They are extreme here-and-now types, and hardly plans for the future ... which for them is a foggy thingy, filled with happy days, miraculously appearing manna from heaven, and the absence of conflict. In work, they generally are situation-driven, and need something to respond to, preferably a crisis in which they can be the superhero that saves the day. They would hate an office job, but would love a job that is customer-driven, synchronous, ad hoc, ever-changing, response-focused and allows a lot of interaction. Sometimes, they prefer talking about the task or problem at hand, rather than to start doing something about it. They have a large repertoire of jokes, imitations, stories, anecdotes, and if given an audience, they can go on forever. Long range planning is just boring, and is probably postponed forever, a fact that is rationalized away by claims that it's somehow better, simpler, and cheaper to wait. They are extremely good at trading services, and will maintain a large network, on which they draw favors, even to the extent that they might talk others into doing their jobs, which they may not have the capacity to do themselves because they might be busy maintaining their network and doing return favors. They'll call this delegation, but it's not the formal type where you delegate to subordinaries, but an ad hoc informal where the abilities and resources of friends and acquaintances are drawn upon. They tend to adjust the goals retrospectively according to which resources they managed to procure ad hoc as the deadline for the goal came up. They are loyal to the extreme towards those that are loyal to them. They seek physical satisfaction rather than intellectual. They are never finishers, seldom starters, but rather responders, or even status quo'ers and talkers. They often have a want for cool things to show off, which is often a way to remain in the lime-light - which is of high priority to them.

Is this Bush? Well, I think part of is resembles him, but there are parts where I simply don't know enough about him to decide. In addition, we have the reversal of the 'P' to 'J', which I think is the only true reversal of an MBTI type for Bush, the other reversals are probably just make-believe and posing.

Now, let's try to see what else this analysis can explain. Much has been written about the careful selection of audiences for his appearences. If I'm correct, this is not so much to protect Bush as a bad debater from his audience, but to protect the audience from an exploding Bush if someone destroys the good atmosfere by provocations. Thus an irritated (and to the surroundings: irrational) response is common for ESFPs if they cannot desolve the provovation by maintaining an easy and light atmosfere. I suspect Bush to have an extremely short fuse in this respect, due to his 'J'-ness, and to let him loose among the general public would be begging for embarrasing videos where he explodes. Just remember how hard he fought to contain himself during the first debate with Kerry.

It also explains the long vacations. An ESFP can only respond to what is real and current. What is in the future does not exist, and is to be handled when and if it occurs. For an ESFP to handle something in the future, it has to be projected to the present. Thus, if there is no perceived problems lurking, the obvious is to take some time off. It's not lazyness.

Don't plan for failure!

There is a story in USNews, referred to by Billmon that Bush has no plans for what to do if the Democrats win the majority in Congres, and this frustrates others in the White House. I think this news-item gives us a peek into the mentality of Bush.

First of all, Bush has never needed to do continguency planning, because if he messes up things, somebody is going to come and help him out and make it look like a success on the surface. Bush has no failures, so he don't need to plan for them. Of course, as he rose to power, it became increasingly difficult for his dad and his dads friends to come and save him from the failures he consistently created. Maybe he believes God will help him out this time?

Secondly, Bush and his administration appear to value positive thinking over realistic thinking. There is a saying that goes something like 'Don't plan for failure', and the idea is this is vasting resources and time on thinking on the negative sides i.e. avoiding failure - time and resources better spent focusing on the positiv side, the how-to-achieve-the-goal-side. Besides, once you have planned for failure, the idea of failure has become a thinkable option, and it may become a tempting and easy way out.

However, thinking like this, a ship's captain should throw out the life boats, because they are planning for failure, it's much better to make sure the ship doesn't sink. Thinking like that, the soccer coach should remove the keeper from the team, and rather focus on scoring. Thinking like that, the invader should throw away the plans for what-if-they-make-resistance, and rather focus on being met with cheering crowds and flowers when he ... oh well, never mind.

One have to strike a balance. Overly focusing on the negative can paralyze any progress, but overly focusing on the positive sides makes you volnerable to failures that you haven't planned how to handle. If you get used to being saved in the last minute, you can develop a false sense of involnerability. Although you may have few problems out of pure luck for some time, usually you encounter the brutal reality sooner or later.

Bush doesn't strike me as a 'parallel person', he seems to be a person who like to focus on one thing at a time, to reduce the great questions of life down to a 'yes' or a 'no', or to a 'for' or an 'aginst'. He is a doer (that is, when he's not a vacationeer), rather than a planner. He'd probably rather be campaigning than to worry about possible future problems. He'd rather attack todays obvious problems than to theorize about tomorrows may-or-may-not-be problems.

That is why they sent in the troops in Iraq without worrying about how to organize things when the war was won - deal with it if and when it becomes a problem. That is probably why the warnings of 911 was ignored: he'd rather respond to a real situation than to try to avert something that may happen somewhere sometime in the future. That is why he'd rather work on the current problem of securing oil supplies to USA, rather than making USA independent of forreign supplies in the future when the price raises. And that is why he don't care about what to do if the Democrats win the Congres - deal with it if and when it happens.

Where is the October surprise?

An October surprise is something that happens just before an election, and which changes 'everything' and refocuses the political agenda. What is the October Surprise this year? Foley? Probably not. Some other possibilities:

• Something to do with North-Korea? I doubt it, because Bush has actively been ignoring that topic forever. Oh yes, he speaks of North-Korea, but when it comes to doing, nothing happens. Negotiations? Didn't show up, really. Troops? Desperately needed in Iraq. If the White House hasn't done anything before, it's unlikely they'll start now. Besides, not they've got nuclear arms. On the other hand, maybe Kim will stage his own October Surprise, just like he tested ballistic rockets on July 4th.
  

• Something to do with Iraq? Not likely if Bush can prevent it. Everything coming out from that country is bad news for him and the USA in general, and there is no way they can 'forge' good news without getting caught. It's really better to not focus on what's festering.
  

• Maybe it's the oil prices? Yes, that's possible, and in fact, maybe we are already seeing the October Surprise in this area. The price of oil has fallen significantly, but there has also been news stories of price fixing. How do you fix the price in a free marked? First of all, maybe the oil marked isn't that free? Secondly, oil producers still make a nice profit at $50, and maybe even down to $20 per barrel. Maybe Bush's friends are lowering the prices, not at a loss, but at a temporary lowering of profit. One may wonder what they'll get in return. Thirdly, if enough buyers of crude oil sells or cancels their contracts for the next six months, the price is bound to drop. The downside of this, is that after China has bought all that cheap oil, the USA must buy back the oil it needed but sold to lower the oil price. That is not going to be cheap! There's a fourth angle to this too, because it was said that the strategic oil reserve of the USA was at its highest ever during this summer - so maybe it's the other way around: maybe the price was high because somebody bought out a lot of oil, only to release it before the elections to make the price fall?
  

• Perhaps it's Iran? There were originally three countries in the 'Axis of Evil' The one that had a phony nuclear program was invaded, the one that has produced the bomb is apparently left alone, but the third country, Iran, is producing the bomb, but doesn't have it yet. Of course, the US has no significant number of troops to commit to an invasion of Iran, so an attack must be confined to rockets and bomber planes, and maybe a few commando raids. News reports claim that navel forces are gathering in the Persian Gulf. What would happen in such an attack? Firstly, Iran would try to block the Hormuz, something it is excellently positioned to do, and it is not clear that the US can keep it open to allow the oil to flow in and out of the Persian Gulf. Secondly, and following from the first point, the price of oil would explode - which makes this a very bad choice for an October Surprise. Thirdly, if the Iranians are really stupid, they will try to invade Southern Iraq, which will allow the US army (or rather the British forces in and around Basra) to meet a conventional army. This is what they are trained for, and as long as the US is not tempted to follow the retreating Iranians back into Iran, this will only strengthen USA. As for air raids, Iran will win the media war, as they control the journalists on the ground, and there is bound to be lots of horrible scenes to show them. Think Sou\thern Lebanon.
  

• Then there is Venezuela, or another country that is largely out of the news: Cuba? Peru? Sudan? Let's analyze: Venezuela is a bad choice, because Chavez may rant as much as he wants, as long as he keeps the oil flowing. Stop the oil, and the US comes down like a piano on his head. Invading Venezuela will stop the oil, and thus, it creates more problems than it solves. Cuba is a bad choice, because it is so much easier wait until that country is weakened by internal strife over who shall succeed Castro. Peru? What is it to win there ... better to re-invade Grenada! Sudan, no you do not want to go there, think Somalia and Iraq. It is a very bad idea to have multiple fronts in the Arabian world.
  

• Then maybe it is something in domestic politics? Probably not, because it is so obvious that it was created to be the October Surprise.

• And then, maybe there isn't any October surprise this year? After all, Bush is not up for election, and when did he become 'passionate' for the well-being of others? Well, the others are the Republican Congress, and if the Democrats take the majority, Bush is in for a very rough ride the next two years.

I think Iran might be it, but it must be done very close to the election, in order to make the wave of oil price hikes not sweep in before the election. On the other hand, then it will be obvious that it's an October Surprise. Navel forces have gathered there before without anything happening.

Leopold and the indictment of Rove

Jason Leopold announced that Rove would be indicted, but except for a limited number of bloggers referring to the item, nobody else has repeated this. Why? After all, this is strange, because the Plame-affair has rolled on for years, and a number of well-connected journalists are on the case. An indictment of Rove is highly news-worthy, so if unreported, it is not out of lack of interest. One possible explanation is that Leopold was tricked by a counter-attack from Rove. There are several scenarios.

I've always believed that the best way to trap leakers would be a particular kind of steganography. Spread some false but somewhat credible document, but ensure that each copy is slightly different from the others - maybe just in punctuation. When the document is leaked, look for how it differs from all the others, and check who got that particular copy.

So, maybe Rove and his friends are themselves the origin of the false news, and their motivation is to smoke out leakers? The problem is, however, that Leopold claims to have verified this with more than two sources. It is hardly credible that they spread this news in a way so that Leopold got multiple verifications of it, while all other journalist noticed the trap.

This leaves us with the another possibility: That Leopold was the target of a pointed disinformation campaign, designed to discredit him as well as to taint any information that he might sit on. In this scenario, the motivation is to make Leopold look really bad, unprofessional, and untrustworthy - but the deeper goal would be to render useless other stories that he might sit on: if Leopold is not trustworthy, then his stories are not trustworthy either.

If this is the case, then the method would be to feed him with small pieces of correct but rather worthless information to cultivate him to trust his sources. Then he is fed the misinformation which will discredit him, and let him have a day or two to thoroughly attach himself to what is easily shown to be a lie. If this is correct, much of the leaking from this administration may in fact be the administrations cultivation of journalists, not vice versa! We have seen it with other journalists - who have been given information from people who one would think were above leaks.

I believe much will depend on what happens in the next few days. If he was mislead, Leopold has said he will publish who confirmed the indictment. That will be interesting. Further, I would like to know what else Leopold knows, what other stories does he have, that makes it necessary to discredit him?

It's just a movie ...

I look forward to watch how the US public react to the Turkish film "Valley of the Wolves, Iraq". Hollywood has forever presented US actions in a nice light (or at least in an understandable light or a light that allows for empathy), while foreigners often have been presented unfavorable, as strangers, evil and people that behave erratic and who cannot be understood. One such film was the Midnight express, which showed Turkey and Turkish people without exception in very unfavorable light.

This time, it is a Turkish movie showing US troops and personnel in very unfavorable light. I wonder what the US reactions will be? It is my impression that the US public is usually somewhere between uninterested and "It's just a movie, get over it!" - that is, when a US movie have shown other nations in a unfavorable or racist situation. Somehow, I have a suspicion that this time - with the roles inverted - the reaction will be either ignorant ("Never heard of that movie") or angry ("They are lying and damaging the reputation of our troops, they should be forced to stop it").

Just to be clear .... it is just a movie, and if upset, the US public should get over it. A comparison can be drawn with the Danish drawings of Mohammed, which were upsetting - to say the least - to many in the Muslim world, but which the West defended as free speech. It was perhaps bad taste, but even bad taste is protected by free speech; and I agree. However, it will be interesting to see if the principle of free speech is held in the same high esteem when it is a Turkish film depicting US troops in a racist and prejudice fashion.

I fear that US politics will not get back on the right track before there is a third party. Of course, creating that third party that is a serious challenger is close to impossible given the current election system. There are only two possibilities: either if one of the parties fails and leaves a vacuum for another party to fill, or for a third party to grow itself big and strong outside the centers of power before it can seriously threaten the two major parties.

Neither is likely. The Republicans were the last to succeeded with the former strategy in the 1850's, and numerous small parties of all denominations have unsuccessful tried the latter strategy for decades. It simply does not work, so why bother? Well, I think there is a very good reason for trying.

The biggest reason why it is so difficult to jump-start a new political party is that when an established party is challenged, it will yield, calibrate, focus and bend in order not to loose to many voters. If unchallenged, they continue to slide in the direction of complacency, moral corruption, arrogance etc, but if challenged, they clean up - at least enough so they don't loose their position.

An example was the Greens in 2000, who stood no chance of winning, but forced the Democrats to respond to the challenge. Although I have no proofs or indications, I am pretty sure that the Democrats campaigned on a more Green-ish platform than they otherwise would have done. Many megabytes have been spent over whether the Democrats would have won or not if the Greens had backed off. Valid arguments points in both directions.

This leads us to the core question: Should you vote for the politician with whom you agree the most, or the one that you think can win (electability). That is a gruesome choice to put to the voters, a choice that has no correct answers, and a choice they need to take on an incomplete basis. US voters meet this choice both in the primaries and the "reel" elections.

I think is an unnecessary choice, and there is another way. To take the presidential election as an example. The easiest is to have several rounds of elections. In the first round every candidate can run. In the second round, only those candidates that got the most votes, and that in sum got more than fifty percent can running. This is continued until a single candidate has more than fifty percent of the vote. In such a system, you would at each round vote for the remaining candidate that is closest to you own political view. A vote for one candidate, is not a wasted vote, because it is at the same time a vote 'against' all the other candidates: even if you cast your vote for a totally irrelevant candidate, every other candidate needs an additional vote to offset your vote and reach fifty percent. In each round, you can safely vote for the candidate that you like the best. The issue of electability is taken care of when weeding out candidates for the next round.

Is it a perfect system? No, and there are some other and more complex systems that addresses the shortcomings of this system. However, it would allow a third party to develop, create real competition between not just two, but a larger number of parties.

For some strange reason, 'competition' is a dirty word when it comes to US party politics, where a duopoly is supposed to be the natural order of things.

It's "hard work"

One of George W Bush' oft-repeated and revealing quips is that he is doing "hard work" - in particular when he speaks without a manuscript. Well, shouldn't being a presidency be hard work? If he wasn't prepared for it, why did he run for presidency? It's not as if he didn't know, for he was a governor himself, and his father was a vice president and president for twelve years.

His obsession with "hard work" betrays his management style, which is to delegate the work and retain the fun. That is a recipe for disaster, because delegation is not a technique for evading work, it's a technique for doing more work than is possible for one single person.

You can delegate a task, and details of its specific execution is off your hands, but when you delegate a responsibility you don't loose any responsibility yourself. To put it another way: delegation of a task or an action is to move it to somebody else; but delegation of a responsibility is to copy it to somebody else - it still remains with you. Tasks and responsibilities often comes in pairs. You can delegate both, but the responsibility remains with you.

His style is to delegate responsibility as if it were action: delegate and forget. When everything is delegated, he feels that he deserves a long vacation - of which he has taken more than any modern US president before him. He calls that the CEO-style presidency. That is as much a mocking of hardworking CEOs, as his complaining of hard work is a mocking of all Americans who work two jobs and still can't get enough pay to live a decent life. He was appointed captain of the ship, but he has transformed himself into the figurehead- splendid, foremost, apparantly leading, and the pride of the ship; but also immobile, frozen, non-functional, and out-of-the-loop.

His style of management is to take the glory and the fun, the vacations, the rides on Air Force 1 and photo-ops - and to 'delegate' the rest to somebody else. This has apparently been his management style from the the very start, and when it predictably failed, his family was there to bail him out, straighten out the problems and present him with a new and often even more challenging position.

It is great for him to have such a "supportive family", but not having to face the consequences of your bad choices means that there is little opportunity for learning and improvement. It means that the bad and dysfunctional habits get marked as success and get burned into the brain. And on a perverted level, isn't it a kind of success? After all, he raises up in status, power and responsibility at each cycle?

He's now in a position so elevated that his family and friends can't bail him out if he fails on a grand scale. We'll just have to endure him, try to survive as best as we can, and clean up afterwards.