Wednesday, February 12, 2003
“It's the economy, stupid!”
Although completely suppressed in the U.S. media, the answer to the Iraq enigma is simple yet shocking—it is an oil currency war. The real reason for this upcoming war is this administration's goal of preventing further Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) momentum towards the euro as an oil transaction currency standard. However, in order to pre-empt OPEC, they need to gain geo-strategic control of Iraq along with its 2nd largest proven oil reserves. This lengthy essay will discuss the macroeconomics of the “petro-dollar” and the unpublicized but real threat to U.S. economic hegemony from the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency.
Via Robot Wisdom, The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War With Iraq: A Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth
Interesting take on the reasons we're so gung-ho to go into Iraq. It seems that the Caspian Sea oil fields aren't quite as big or as pure as first thought so the oil pipe through Afghanistan isn't economically viable at this time. And the Iraqi switching from dollars to the euro in November of 2000 is certainly interesting (I suppose to piss off the newly (non?) elected President). So our little excursion into Iraq may not only be for the oil, but to save our economy as we know it.
Nice …
What do you mean turning students into inmates? They already are!
A simple solution would avert the budget disaster facing California's schools: We should declare every public school to be a prison. The kids would understand.
Details need to be worked out, but I want every child in California to be given a 13-year prison sentence at age 5, with the possibility of a four-year extension.
That way, the $7,000 the state spends per student each year could immediately be raised to $27,000—what the state spends on each inmate annually. And our criminally under-funded schools would qualify for the only category in the governor's proposed budget that's slated to get more money this year.
Via Flutterby, Raising the Bars Complete sentences: Turning students into prison inmates
And why not? My old highschool looked and felt like a minimum-security facility when I was attending, and now it looks more like your standard prison, what with the concentric rings of fencing around it and what look to be guard towers along the building. Schools are already prisons of a sort, so this is just calling a spade a spade.
