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Pastimes : Ask Mohan about the Market -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: robnhood who wrote (14198)	2/16/1998 9:36:00 PM
From: Zeev Hed	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18056

rrman, what is a Nagano <VBG> (Hoping to defuse the pugilistic decathelon) Zeev.

To: robnhood who wrote (14198)	2/17/1998 1:15:00 AM
From: Bearded One	Respond to of 18056

Gee I guess people can't say that the Soviet Union really isn't that bad anymore, so now they're sticking up for Saddam Hussein? Perhaps the headline "HUSSEIN INSANE" was not meant for you, but for people who already had some briefing on the subject. Feel free to decide if he's insane on your own. Myself, I think he's perfectly sane. Just murderous. As far as your insinuation of hypocrisy on the US's part by not eliminating our own weapons of mass destruction, well, last I checked, we did not use them to gas our own people. An Iranian friend of mine who was a soldier in the Iranian army saw the Iraqi gas victims of Hussein. Quote "He's crazy." Ok, perhaps you have to decide this for yourself. Go buy a ticket to Iraq, then. As far as the argument that we always need an enemy, the logic is straightforward: There's actually lots of enemies out there, we just lack the economic and military capacity to take them all on at the same time. So we pick and choose our fights, yes, sometimes based on self-interest. Unlike Canada, we have to make some pretty tough decisions.

To: robnhood who wrote (14198)	2/17/1998 1:23:00 AM
From: Bearded One	Respond to of 18056

If America became Isolationist: Here's some possibilities-- Within 5 years: Big war in the Middle East, Iraq vs its Southern neighbors. Iraq wins. China blockades Taiwan, leading to war. Japan rebuilds militarily to defend itself, prompting an arms race in the region. North Korea invades South Korea as a last gasp. India and Pakistan nuke it out. Several ex-Soviet Union countries keep and increase their nuclear capacities. Brazil and Chile border war. Brazil and Equador war. New War over Alsace-Lorraine (okay, maybe not this one)

To: robnhood who wrote (14198)	2/17/1998 8:22:00 AM
From: Liatris Spicata	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18056

russell- Your message is a bit much for me to respond to fully at this time- I will try to do so later. But I would like to extend my sincere condolences to the lady ice hockey players of the Frozen Norseland. Oh Canada! It sometimes amazes me that Canadians can be so ferocious on the ice, but when it comes to politics they always seem to want to wimp out a compromise! Now, more to the point. <<Russia had reached a pinnacle of pure capitalism IMO, in the end they had nothing to lose but their chains.>> I'm not sure to what time you are referring. Certainly in the 1990's Russia is a classic example of crony capitalism. Although Friends of Boris can do quite well with private ownership of the means of production a truly free market cannot be said to exist in Russia today. The payoffs to government and the refusal/inability of the government to reign in organized crime- a legitimate function of the state IMO- have worked enormously to the detriment of contemporary Russia's development. Add to that an archaic legal system still half mired in days of the commissars, and you don't have a very fertile ground for investment capital. <<Our land is very young and had not been depleted hundreds of years ago.>> I worry a great deal about irreversible ecological damage to the only planet we know of that sustains life. But the economic consequences of our destruction of the biosphere are not yet apparent to most of the world. I expect they will be in the next century. Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan are all sterling examples of old nations who have adapted remarkably well to capitalism and have achieved commensurate economic results. Hong Kong and Taiwan, BTW, are also places where human activity has for the most part crowded out all other forms of life. In the short run they profit from doing so. <<Most of us are now chained to a desk and monitor for the best part of our days>> The average person today in the developed world- and much of the developing world- has a material level of wealth that exceeds the dreams of the common man of one or two hundred years ago. I gotta get to work. Regards, Larry