Blessing in Disguise?

The headline out of the Washington Post begs the question: Can Swine Flu Shut Down the Internet? People staying home from work or school either suffering from or in fear of the new strain of flu that has so far killed fewer people internationally than regular strains of flu kills in this country alone are starting to strain internet networks in several communities. At present this is not a serious problem. The government, in a surprising twist, is doing what it is supposed to do and is planning for future disasters and is afraid that the strained networks will make it difficult if not impossible for government agencies to send out warnings and for e-commerce to survive.

The article says that the companies have several options from laying down new cable which takes too long and is expensive or can figure out a way to slow traffic down which might violate contracts. Sounds like a lose-lose situation right? Perhaps not.

Laying down new cable to deal with an emergency will be too slow if it is in response to a disaster and too expensive if the companies have to pay for it. Enter the stimulus bill.

We have already decided to give money to people for projects vital to communities. Very little of the money has actually been given out because planning such civic projects takes a long time. Laying down upgraded cables in many areas, and more in the rest, is a project that can be written up relatively quickly and paid for. This creates new jobs, promotes e-commerce, increases infrastructure, prevents unnecessary problems in security, and in all ways improves the economy.

So perhaps the swine flu epidemic can do something good for everyone after all. Perhaps if everyone has better access to better internet they can find out that 20-something active healthy males don't need a vaccine and they should let the pregnant women in front of them in line. Does the internet teach decency?

Annulment

To quote directly from Wikipedia, "Annulment is a legal procedure for declaring a marriage null and void. Unlike divorce, it is retroactive: an annulled marriage is considered never to have existed."

I agree fully with protecting the sanctity of marriage as a religious institution. I believe that it is written in the Christian Bible that marriage is a holy union between a man and a woman. I think that going to a justice of the peace and signing a marriage license and being declared married is not a religious ceremony and does not create a holy union and does not constitute a marriage.

I think that if two homosexuals want to go to a justice of the peace and be legally united with all benefits allowed therein the government should not say anything about it because it is a legal union of two individuals. To continue, if two adults, even if they are related, desire to join into a legal union they should not be stopped by any force of government or church. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's.

With a divorce rate at or beyond 50% and many celebrity marriages lasting a matter of days or weeks, it is difficult to argue that what is currently called marriage compares to the holy union many people think of when they use the word.

I think that if churches do not want to marry gays that is fine. If the Baptist church down the road doesn't agree with the practice that is well within their rights as an institution to decide. If the Episcopal church does agree with the practice then they should be allowed to unite any two people into sacred matrimony as they see fit without any interference. I believe that refers to the freedom of religion discussed in the first amendment of the Constitution.

I think that marriage is a sacred word which implies a religious ceremony and a religious union and should not have any impact on legal discussion in any case. If two people want to get married but don't want to be considered legally united, what's the problem? They want ceremony without benefit.

I think that legal unions imply a secular contract and should have no impact on religious discussion in any case. If two people want to be legally united without getting married, what's the problem? They want benefit without ceremony.

Some people have seen too many divorces in their lives and don't think that marriage is a beneficial union anymore. They might live with someone else, share bank accounts, share children, share mortgages, etc. They should be able to get legally joined for the purposes of tax breaks and hospital visitation rights and so on.

Some people just want to get married without all of the legal mumbo jumbo and want to express their love in a religious venue. They should be able to get married and wear their rings etc.

The government should not use the word marriage and the church should not be involved in creating contracts. Though most people would go to a courthouse and get a legal union and then go to a church and get married (or vice versa) there are plenty of outliers that would not to make such a separation beneficial to everyone.

Rather than force the government and the church to go through a painful divorce and try to figure out who gets which books, they should get an annulment and just go their separate ways.

BRIC Building

In economics, BRIC (typically rendered as "the BRICs" or "the BRICcountries") is an acronym that refers to the fast-growing developing economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The acronym was first coined and prominently used by Goldman Sachs in 2001.^[1][2] Goldman Sachs argued that, since they are developing rapidly, by 2050 the combined economies of the BRICs could eclipse the combined economies of the current richest countries of the world. The four countries, combined, currently account for more than a quarter of the world's land area and more than 40% of the world's population.^[3][4]

Goldman Sachs did not argue that the BRICs would organize themselves into an economic bloc, or a formal trading association, as the European Union has done.^[5] However, there are strong indications that the "four BRIC countries have been seeking to form a 'political club' or 'alliance'", and thereby converting "their growing economic power into greater geopolitical clout".^[6][7] On June 16, 2009, the leaders of the BRIC countries held their first summit in Yekaterinburg, and issued a declaration calling for the establishment of a multipolar world order.^[8]

The numbers came from Wikipedia. I don't normally like using their stuff but in this case they have some really good sources and it's far better than a summary I would have written. Do check the articles they linked to for some more background reading to this post. I've already written an article about Russian foreign policy and about Chinese fiscal policy, but I have quiet till now about Brazil or about the BRIC as a whole. In light of the recent pick of Rio de Janeiro as the location of the 2016 Olympic Summer games I'd like to change that.

Back in July, there was a G8 summit to discuss the global financial situation, which I suppose is the only thing that the G8 does (the G8 is a group of the leaders of the 8 largest economies in the world) but I didn't want to make that such a short sentence. Brazil, China, and Russia went and said that they wanted to shift the global currency away from the US Dollar. No real alternative was given and discussion on the topic wasn't even really held. The thought of ending the United States' financial dominance, however, was out in the open. According to Forbes shortly after,

A possible BRIC replacement for the dollar has more to do with a political and economic power struggle than with getting a stronger currency as the world reserve. "[The BRICs] 'have to' if they want to be able to exert their desire to be taken more seriously and seen as real economic powerhouses on the world's economic stage," says Stephen Roseman, manager at Thesis Capital.

If you actually look at that link don't give me any guff about the titles being similar, I hadn't read that article since July. China is especially wary of the dollar's current dominance in the markets. They have been trading for a lot of dollars and they are now the US' largest lender. What this means for China's economy is that if the bottom falls out of the dollar and it becomes worthless, so does the yuan. Rather than buying fewer dollars and allowing for less risk China has been buying more dollars and looking for more profit. They are in almost no position to jockey for becoming the next major currency. As TIME put it, "Don't expect to change those greenbacks for redbacks anytime soon."

Barack Obama tried to hit the big reset button with Dmitri Medvedev, the President of Russia, in an attempt to warm the re-cooling feelings between the two nations. Russia invaded a smaller country during last year's Olympics, has quietly supported Iran's nuclear program, and has been knocking heads with the United States over plans for missile defense shields across Europe. Russia left Georgia and has presented evidence that they were provoked. Iran is finding support from many more places than just Russia. We aren't putting our missiles in Europe. It seems that Russia has won three major battles. However not everything in life is what it seems. During Obama's visit in Russia, he and President Medvedev agreed to cut each nations nuclear arsenal by almost a quarter in seven years. Russia is going to allow us to fly planes through Russian airspace en route to Afghanistan, a move that helps both countries. The missile defense shields were really only ploys by George W. Bush to upset Russia in the first place so they were easy to give up.

Russia has even begun to lessen its support for Iran's nuclear program. Part of this may come from Ahmadinajed's widely-thought rigged election and increasingly anti-Semitic tone, and part of it may come from the previously mentioned nuclear agreement with the United States. This is incredibly important for more reasons than the preservation of Israel, which I won't discuss any further here. I personally buy into the Samuel Huntington theory of the Clash of Civilizations to a point. I think that Iran, formerly part of the Soviet Union, has enjoyed support from Russia for a long time and with that has been much more comfortable going against our wishes. Since Russia maintains a permanent seat on the Security Council at the UN, they are able to veto any meaningful action against Iran. However, with Russia starting to question that support, Iran might find that a decision to turn a peaceful energy source into the most powerful weapon in history would be the opposite of desirable. I had mentioned that there are other reasons for Russia to put pressure on Iran than to prevent 'the bomb.' Iran controls a major portion of the world's oil supply. While the popular media in this country would like to make us think so, we are not the only country in the world that requires oil from the Middle East.

Iran recently re-elected President Ahmadinajed in what many called a rigged election. The opposition rioted in the streets and was beaten back, literally, by state forces. I was asked by a very good friend about my opinion on the matter and I am afraid I did not provide a very good perspective on the matter. I would like to fix that now. 30 years ago the United States put the current Supreme Leader into power by supplying him with weapons and money secretly so that they could fight off who? Islamic extremists and Russian influence. Oops. I stated that doing the same with the new uprising would hardly be prudent because of past failure and probable renewed failure. I was correct, but that is hardly helpful to the conversation. What should happen in Iran is Russia should use its considerable influence and limit nuclear desire and help international agencies make sure that the next election is open and fair. Russia has certainly had its own trouble with fair elections but maybe working to make Iran more democratic will help it look in the mirror.

Ok, I've covered China's economics and Russia's diplomatics. Familiar territory for many writers and especially this one. Let's delve into some less familiar space on the atlas.

Another former colony of Britain, India is an up-and-coming player in world economics and politics. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. India is another country that has dealt with terrorist attacks in recent years. Attacks on a hotel in Mumbai came from Pakistan and, according to Forbes, funded and armed by China. India is dealing with the growing pains of industrialization and moving into post-industrialization. The location of many outsourced technical support jobs and the homeland of many foreign students and doctors, India is now starting to outsource its own tech jobs and as the education debate rages on in this country it is also the home of ideas for better teaching. India is also the home of new companies that are making smaller cars and cheaper laptops. As these new technologies come out of the largest democracy on the planet, the middle class will boom and their growing economy will continue to grow and we might soon start asking them for the loans that China can no longer afford to give.

Lastly: Brazil. Home of Rio de Janeiro and the 2016 Summer Olympic games, Brazil is perhaps the country I'm most interested in that I don't hear enough about. A couple years ago they found oil just off of their coast and as soon as that oil hits the market not only will the price go down but the economy of Brazil will explode. A side note: gas prices should go down when it hits the market because we will have an option for oil imports that isn't Iran or Venezuela. It should not be taken at face value that Rio was 'awarded' the Olympics. Rio is a beautiful city with a vast population but that is not the only reason they were picked. Rio is the first city in the southern hemisphere to host the summer games as well as the first city in South America. (NOTE: Thanks to one of our dedicated readers I have learned that part of that statement is false. Australia hosted the summer games in 1856 and 2000. I heard that statistic on television and didn't bother to check the facts and I apologize.) The games have been in America, Japan, and Europe before. I don't think that the choice was a move against Obama but a move for Brazil. Obama should publicly embrace the choice and speak proudly of Brazil as an American brother. This could be a very important friendship in a continent, and a world, where our list of friends is somewhat shorter than it used to be.

Each of these four nations still has a little growing up to do. I have listed them in a very particular order: China, Russia, India, Brazil. I don't think they are quite ready to be the foundation, or BRIC, for the world yet because they are still each in their own CRIB.

China needs to bring its poor into the 21st century and make the middle class vastly more independent economically. Russia needs to stop playing Cold War politics and realize that we are in a new world with new problems and they can't keep blaming us for everything while their people starve. India needs to find its own voice and become the kind of regional and global leader that its economy and population allow. Brazil needs to grow out of its former corrupt shell and also lead South America towards freedom from fear and foreign influence.

Once they have each done that they may become the BRIC that we can stand upon to find our own place in a world where we aren't the only superpower and where we must rely on others for survival.

Nancy Pelosi is Killing Old People

See? I can use strong language that isn't completely true but isn't completely false too!

Nancy Pelosi has now said that co-ops will not be in any form of a House bill that goes to the President. Last week she said that there would not be any 'trigger' language written in, meaning that a public option would only be enacted if the private insurance firms don't provide cheaper rates etc.

Moderate and conservative Democrats and all Republicans in both the House and Senate have said that either of those options must be in anything that they approve. Barack Obama hasn't exactly said it, but everyone knows that he will sign anything that actually gets put on his desk.

Here's the problem: Nancy Pelosi and liberal Democrats only control about 20 percent of the seats in the House and a couple seats in the Senate. That minority controls all of the leadership of both and has a choke hold on the legislature.

The President is catching flack for being too liberal on healthcare and the Democrats are being accused of quelling filibuster when actually the party is much too fractured for that and the President doesn't have as much of a voice in the argument as everyone assumes. If the President had said during his speech to Congress that the public option was a sliver of the overall pie Nancy Pelosi would have stood up behind him and slapped the back of his head.

Barack Obama doesn't want to raise taxes and he doesn't want to infringe on care and he doesn't want to kill old people: Nancy Pelosi does.