Posted in bush, doomsterism, geopolitics, iraq, politics, war on May 29, 2008 | No Comments »
As noted here time and again, Iran has nothing to lose by waiting out the end of George Bush’s term.
May 29, 2008 | 1944 GMT
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said May 29 that Iran thinks U.S. voters want to change the foreign policies of President George W. Bush, and he said that the present U.S. [...]
Posted in bush, geopolitics, iraq, politics, volatility, war on May 3, 2008 | No Comments »
The Times of London is known to be the sieve of choice for neoconservative news leaks. Given all the concentration of firepower in the Persian Gulf recently, as well as the crackdowns on al-Sadr, and the fact that Bush wants to scare Iran off to some extent before he leaves office, some kind of surgical [...]
Posted in bush, geopolitics, volatility, war on April 12, 2008 | No Comments »
Today marks the first mass explosion in an Iranian metropolitan area in over a year:
At least eight people have been killed and more than 50 wounded in an explosion in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, Iranian media reports say.
The blast occurred in a mosque in the city either during or after evening prayers, the [...]
Posted in bush, geopolitics, iraq, politics, volatility, war on March 28, 2008 | No Comments »
Right on cue …. via the Financial Times:
US aids Iraq security forces with air strikes
By By Steve Negus, Iraq correspondent, and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
Published: March 28 2008 18:20 | Last updated: March 28 2008 18:20
President George W. Bush on Friday called the Iraqi government offensive in Basra a “defining moment” as violence continued to [...]
Posted in bush, dawn to decadence, iraq, politics, war on January 21, 2008 | No Comments »
This is State’s “diplomatic surge,” I guess. The Iranians hate Petraeus, because Petraeus doesn’t want to give them Iraq on a silver platter. So, we should pack him off to the bureaucratic backwater that is NATO? WTF?
Pentagon weighs top Iraq general as Nato chief
By Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt
The Pentagon is considering General David [...]
Posted in bush, dawn to decadence, dollar, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, volatility on January 19, 2008 | No Comments »
As the usual suspects chorus with irresponsibly politicized Republicans and intellectually invincible academics on the urgent consensus in favor of monetary stimulus — the Fed Funds market probabilities for the Fed’s January 30 decision stand as follows:
Probability of 50bp cut in the Fed funds rate: 42 percent
Probability of 75bp cut in the Fed funds rate: [...]
Posted in bush, dawn to decadence, dollar, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, politics, volatility, wall street on January 18, 2008 | No Comments »
The financial information spectrum, from the utterly uninformed (Yahoo! financial ‘news’) to the well informed (i-banking institutional research and premium financial consultancies) are all lasering in on the nature of the Bush-Bernanke “stimulus package.” Bush, as usual, threw out the biggest number ($140 billion) because, well, when it comes to the federal budget Bush really [...]
Posted in bush, dawn to decadence, dollar, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, politics, shitigroup on January 17, 2008 | No Comments »
BLAARGH
Bush Nears Stimulus Plan With $1,600 Tax Rebates, People Say
By Matthew Benjamin
Jan. 17 (Bloomberg) — The Bush administration is close to completing an economic-stimulus proposal that will include $800 rebates for individuals and $1,600 for households as well as tax breaks for businesses, people familiar with the plan said.
The proposal is subject to revision [...]
Posted in bush, geopolitics, iraq, politics, volatility, war on January 17, 2008 | No Comments »
Hezbollah has an enormous presence in Bahrain, a majority-Shiite, Sunni-ruled oil sheikdom in the Persian Gulf. Pressuring the Bahrainian government via an ‘accidental’ car bomb or three is not hard for Teheran to do.
Which makes this story all the more intriguing:
MANAMA, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Bahrain’s Ahli United Bank, the kingdom’s largest lender by market [...]
Posted in bush, geopolitics, politics, volatility, war on January 6, 2008 | No Comments »
My favorite part about pseudonymous blogging is that I can say whatever I want. Even if I lose readership by postulating really “out there” explanations for global events, I won’t be professionally exposed as a loudmouthed conspiracy nut.
In that cheerful vein, I was struck by the sniping between various interests over whether the recent election [...]
Posted in bush, dollar, inflation, politics on January 4, 2008 | 3 Comments »
to Iowa Democrats, who probably freed the national Democratic Party from slavery to the Clintons tonight.
The NH primaries take place on Tuesday. Independents can vote. They will disproportionately help Obama.
Obama is significantly to Hillary’s left, in my opinion. I am very far right, but I still think an Obama presidency will be much healthier for [...]
Posted in bush, geopolitics, politics, war on December 25, 2007 | No Comments »
According to the BBC,
More than 30 people have been killed and scores injured in suicide bombings in northern Iraq.
A car bomber killed more than 20 people when he was stopped by police and local militias in Baiji, about 250km (155 miles) north of Baghdad.
Later, a suicide bomber killed 10 people in Baquba, at [...]
Posted in bush, geopolitics, iraq, politics, war on December 25, 2007 | 11 Comments »
I hope this Robert Novak article puts the final nail in the coffin of Stratfor’s “the NIE was all part of a Bush geopolitical master plan” theory. (Another discussion thread, of varying degrees of quality, can be found here.)
If Friedman doesn’t change his line on the NIE pretty soon, we will have to start marking [...]
Posted in bush, geopolitics, iraq, politics, war on December 23, 2007 | 3 Comments »
Frequent commenter and self-described USMC junior officer Jay recently pointed to an influential anti-neocon policy piece, which painstakingly details some of the errors of neoconservative misjudgments with regards to Iraq. As a civilian I am obviously not qualified to debate on Jay’s level of first-hand knowledge about the article’s (Col. Patrick Lang’s ‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’) [...]
Posted in bush, politics, ron paul on December 20, 2007 | No Comments »
The following is a political rant.
==========
Fred Thompson’s campaign [sic] symbolizes how dysfunctional, incompetent, and willfully clueless the Republican Party’s governing institutions have become.
The Politico is a very biased politics news outlet, but even after cutting through the oozing contempt to the actual facts in the Politico’s article, the sheer laziness and incompetence of the Thompson [...]
Posted in bush, geopolitics, iraq, politics on December 19, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Iran: Wielding its Regained Nuclear Leverage
December 18, 2007 17 25 GMT
Summary
While the United States tries to downplay Russia’s Dec. 17 announcement that nuclear fuel had been delivered to Iran’s Bushehr nuclear facility, Iran is brimming with confidence and making announcements about domestic uranium enrichment activity and the construction of a second nuclear power plant. [...]
Posted in bush, geopolitics, russia, war on December 17, 2007 | 2 Comments »
The Bush brilliant strategic pivot/ unconditional surrender signing ceremony:
US President George W. Bush said on Monday he supported Russian shipments of nuclear fuel to Iran for civilian power, saying they proved that Teheran has no need to enrich uranium.
“If the Russians are willing to do that, which I support, then the Iranians do [...]
Posted in bush, federal reserve, iraq, monetary policy, politics, ron paul on December 17, 2007 | No Comments »
I have been hearing and reading buzz about how Mike Huckabee, the simpleton Arkansas governor who probably still doesn’t know what the NIE is, is the biggest threat to the GOP power-broking elite since Pat Buchanan.
That’s bogus. Huckabee just represents all the votes Fred Thompson could have gotten, had Thompson ever learned how to work [...]
Posted in bush, geopolitics, iraq, politics, war on December 16, 2007 | No Comments »
Way to go, Fingar et alia.
Published: Saturday, December 15, 2007 | 11:17 AM ET
Canadian Press: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM - In Israel’s harshest criticism yet of a U.S. intelligence report that Iran is no longer developing nuclear arms, a senior minister warned Saturday that the assessment could lead to a regional war that would threaten the [...]
Posted in bush, dollar, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, politics, wall street on December 13, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Today’s blistering inflation numbers were a cold shower for expected future commodities prices and a classic demonstration of market-wide “buy the rumor [of inflation], sell the fact.” They had the unintended consequence of mocking yesterday’s frenzied fanfare over the “global assault on the credit crunch.” The Financial Times’ misplaced jubilation was a case in point [...]
 | RG on The mystery of the Iranian oil… |
 | a Duoist on US regulators drive more specu… |
| a Duoist on Same script, different day: th… |
| a Duoist on Huh? |
 | NYT front page slobb… on Academic malpractice |
