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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (11599)	11/16/2006 3:12:25 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217815

the mess is just starting count on it let's watch

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (11599)	11/16/2006 4:46:07 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217815

Mary, I just had a washing repair bloke call around and while the machine did its thing, we chatted about things, such as where he's from. Which was a small town called Belfast near Christchurch [in NZ] and his family had a copper and a coal/wood range. He used to cut wood. They upgraded to a wringer washing machine and his mother thought they were really swanky. My wife's family also had a wood range and copper. As did my grandmother. My family, being rather avant garde, had a washing machine as long as I remember [they liked to spend what little hard-earned money they had on modern things]. <Compare on any measure to the lives of those in the ME, the 900mm peasants in China, the people in India, the people in Africa, the people in South America.> Using the measure "washing machines per capita", we are vastly much better off that in the past. The USA is also vastly better off than people in India and China, using that measure. I saw hutongs in China and slums in India which I would NOT want to be living in. Using the "comfortable rooms per capita" measure, the USA is also vastly better off. Also, using the "indoor clean toilets per capita" measure, the USA and NZ are excellent, by comparison. But chatting to the bloke fixing the washing machine, he and I agreed that despite our modern accoutrements, our happiness per capita seems to remain about the same. It's great to get the gadgets and one has a bubble of happiness swell around one as the benefits and enjoyment come onstream. But after a time, the latest things seem to become just another tool of life and its back to the drawing board and prosaic day to day this that and the other. One can even feel some nostalgia and loss with the old ways having gone. Sure, Hugh Hefner's latest floozy is a great catch. But, there's a certain je ne sais quoi about the tried and true, rough around the edges though it might be. What is the "contentment per capita" of the USA? "Happiness per square inch of forehead"? "Prozac per capita"? "Suicides per capita"? "Murders [the flip side of suicide] per capita"? A peculiar phenomenon I observed in India was a psychic peace, among the mayhem, which seemed to me to be a lot more than fatalism, nihilism, or lack of ambition. I discussed this with an Indian in Singapore and he was well aware of what I meant and explained it as a philosophical approach which is imbibed from infancy in stereotypical Indian lives. It would be great to have both - mobile cyberspace, with phragmented photons swishing through the aether from CDMA-powered cyberphone to ZenBu-enabled wifi notebook in an Airbus A380 over Greenland hooked up via Globalstar as well as the other good things such as happiness per capita/low Prozac per capita/low Ritalin per child/low obesity per adult, inter alia, etcetera. I don't see why we can't have it all. There are 3 million of the 300 million you mentioned who are so unhappy that they are going to end it all. Once they are out of the way, USA happiness per GDP will go up even further. Provided they aren't replaced faster than Islamic Jihad suicide bomber martyrs. Mqurice

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (11599)	11/16/2006 9:49:19 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217815

<<300mm plus of us in the USA. Compare on any measure to the lives of those in the ME>> ... you really do not have a clue, do you? By happiness quotient, the Filipinos has all beat. By nanny per capita, HK is way up there. By relishing-ly looking forward to bright future, China is coming on strong. What is it you think you got? cars to support? strip malls to cruise? taxes to pay? doctors to try and not see? Yet another way to package potato chips? or is it the bankrupting-ly sad affair at the airport, without shoes and belt, holding a quart bag of toiletries, all lined up, waiting to be fondled, each in turn, and losing jewelry and dropping laptops in the sorry process, only to be able to eat common fare having paid top prices, served by folks who just lost their pension. Do tell. You think an election that merely protests is going to change the trend to inevitability? when have you seen a divided government do great things? why do you think a majority govt made up of the spendthrift and the ignorant can create value? why to you think the recent past is an indication of the distant future? You do not even have habeas corpus any more; and no one is even remotely hinting that you will get it back. oops, didn't you realize that? Do you really think that USA was made great by the sort of folks it has in government now, believing in the sort of nonsense they do, and acting out the fantasies they do? Do you know American history? News flash: there is no entitlement and birthright. There is only one program of worth, comprised of hard work, thrift, family values, private property, education, and respect for others, including cultures and civilizations. Look into the dusty books and musty archives, and rediscover the truth.

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (11599)	11/17/2006 4:05:41 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217815

James Baker, had a three-hour dinner meeting in the New York home of Muhammad Javad Zarif, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations. A role for Iran in an Iraq exit strategy By Daniel Schorr WASHINGTON – Apparently despairing of resolving the Iraq conflict within Iraq alone, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group has begun exploring ways to enlist the influence of neighboring countries - Syria, and especially Iran, which has influence with the Shiites of Iraq. E-mail this story It has not been announced, but last month, the commission's chairman, James Baker, former Secretary of State and friend of both presidents Bush, had a three-hour dinner meeting in the New York home of Muhammad Javad Zarif, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations. The United States has no diplomatic relations with Iran; they are at loggerheads over Iran's nuclear program. But Mr. Baker, although he briefed the White House this past Monday, can claim not to represent the government in any official way. Baker has some experience in multilateral diplomacy. In 1991 as the senior President Bush's secretary of state, he organized, with Soviet support, a conference in Madrid attended by Israel and the neighboring states, thus launching the first ever direct talks between Israel and all its neighbors. The negotiations that resulted from the Madrid accord represented one of the high points in the peace process in recent years. But that was before there was an Iranian nuclear program that drew down American sanctions and international condemnation. Undoubtedly, Iran could be of service in trying to resolve the Sunni-Shiite sectarian war, which reached a bloody climax with brazen kidnappings on Tuesday. But Israel, for one, would be strenuously opposed to including Iran in any regional conference. It may be coincidental that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the leaders of the Iraq Study Group are in Washington simultaneously, discussing their overlapping problems with both Iraq and Iran. Little has been said about what ideas were discussed with the Iraq Study Group. What effect these consultations will have on the central American political problem - when the troops can come home - is hard to divine at this point. But clearly some move is under way to internationalize the Iraq problem by bringing together the countries of the region. Whether Iran will be involved is hard to say. • Daniel Schorr is a senior news analyst at National Public Radio.