U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

From the New York Times:

The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.


The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.

The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.

Caravaggio - A Career Spanning Merely 15 Years & Lasting For Eternity

I worry sometimes that my posts are too heavy with doom and gloom.  I write often of these subjects because I want to see a better world for us all.  But, I also enjoy life and art and an article today in The Daily Beast caught my eye.  From the article:

400 Years after Caravaggio’s death, an incredible exhibition of the Italian master’s works shines in Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale.

The most perfect knee in the history of art appears in a painting by Caravaggio of St. John the Baptist, now in Kansas City. The top of the saint’s left knee, spot-lit and flushed a tender pink, punctuates the lower right quadrant of the painting, catching the eye below a sweep of frayed red drapery. If you look close enough, you can just make out scars in the canvas surrounding the knee, where Caravaggio used his palette knife to scrape off a dissatisfactory first attempt. You’re unlikely to get that near the painting, though, at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale, where the Kansas City Baptist appears alongside almost 30 other works by the master in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of his death. The galleries are thronged inside the former royal stables, and every 30 seconds or so an alarm goes off when a visitor gets too close to a painting. None of this matters. Seeing so many Caravaggios together is a revelation.

The exhibition, which closes Sunday, shows the painter reworking a key group of subjects, the evolution of his style echoing a brief and tumultuous life. Caravaggio began his Roman career in the service of the Cardinal del Monte, an aesthete with a taste for painting, music, and young men. An earlier John the Baptist, now at the Capitoline Museum, dates from this period. Twisting back from his embrace with a ram, the naked youth cheerfully greets the beholder. There’s no religious iconography here, just the sexy juxtaposition of skin, linen, and fur. The same ginger-haired model served Caravaggio for his Amor Vincit Omnia, where Cupid stands astride an unmade bed. Around him lie the trampled insignia of worldly accomplishment—armor and laurels, a quill and a lute. Cupid shows us the lives he’s overturned—our lives—and dares us not to smile back at him.

By the time Caravaggio painted his final John the Baptist, now in the Galleria Borghese, he’d murdered a man over a game of tennis, been sentenced to death, and led the peripatetic life of a refugee in Naples, Sicily, and Malta. This John is sickly and sallow, his body lacking plasticity. If his confrontational look is an invitation, it’s to a joyless encounter. Caravaggio died shortly after he painted this work, at the age of 38, having finally received permission to return to Rome. In a career spanning merely 15 years, he had changed the history of art—Rubens, Velázquez, and Rembrandt, to name just his immediate successors, are unthinkable without him.

Liberals and Libertarians Need Each Other

I read an interesting article today at Naked Capital - Liberals and Libertarians Need Each Other.  In it, the author Bob Goodwin raises a number of points which I have also addressed concerning ideological groupings (liberal/conservative, etc.).  He also raises the issue of the Corporatist elite - Big Oil, Too Big To Fail Finance, etc.  In the article he points out that:

Ideological groupings of the population are an interesting phenomenon. I believe they are caused by two human traits. People need a mental construct or shortcut to make sense of complex externalities, and likely overuse these constructs. More importantly people are social animals, and will use social settings (like NakedCapitalism) to refine and align their constructs.

It is part of our nature to define people within groups - she is a blond - he is tall - they are big.  It only become an issue when we loose our commonality because of perceived differences rather than finding the common ground.  As he points out in his article:

It can be very difficult to debate with someone of a different ideology, when your premise starts with a presumption not shared by your opponent. And due to human nature when the debate devolves into a disagreement on the fundamentals of an ideology it will quickly move to an accusation that there must be a flaw in the messenger. Every decent person I know agrees with my proof, so you must not be a decent person

So what can we do?  He has a few suggestions.

1. Agree on common ground. This common ground needs to be sufficient to justify collaboration.

2. Agree to disagree respectfully. For example, the border shooting is going to elicit different opinions. It is not a central fight. So disagree.

3. Try to use neutral language on collaborative topics.

4. Try to ignore opponent’s ideological language that is necessary to create cohesion within their ideology.

5. There must be demonstrable achievements to justify the discomfort.

It strikes me that in large part we have forgotten that it is okay to disagree with one another, without that meaning we are in some ways enemies.  When someone has a different viewpoint is doesn't make them (or you) wrong.  We have to forget our rigid concepts of right and wrong - things can be just different.  It is not all black and white, but lots of shades of grey.

In his discussion about why Liberals and Libertarians Need Each Other, Mr. Goodwin raises the issue of the Corporatist elite and says that is an issue which should bring Liberals and Libertarians together. From the article:

We now have a common enemy: the Corporatist elite, who have corrupted both the free market and captured the regulatory apparatus of our government. Corporatists have power in *both* political parties, and this is where our common interests lie. The Tea party is disrupting the Republican Party (with some success) and the progressive movement has been successful in elections but unsuccessful in policy at undermining the entrenched corporate influence on the democratic side. The Corporatists have an interest to see their enemies divided and marginalized. But the combined power of these two movements is close enough to 50% of the population to overpower the Corporatist movement which has power far beyond its numbers.

Every day there is another article which shows the government-capture by big business.  Our entire system seems overrun by big business and their lobbyist.  It is Robin Hood in reverse.  So I agree with Mr. Goodwin and say that we all need common ground in order to "take back our Country" from the Corporatist elite.

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul.

The New York Times is reporting in an article, New York Plan Makes Fund Both Borrower and Lender, that Gov. David A. Paterson and legislative leaders have tentatively agreed to allow the state and municipalities to borrow nearly $6 billion to help them make their required annual payments to the state pension fund.  And, in classic budgetary sleight-of-hand, they will borrow the money to make the payments to the pension fund — from the same pension fund.

Under the plan, the state and municipalities would borrow the money to reduce their pension contributions for the next three years, in exchange for higher payments over the following decade. They would begin repaying what they borrowed, with interest, in 2013.

Another oddity of the plan is that the pension fund, which assumes its assets will earn 8 percent a year, would accept interest payments from the state that would probably be 4.5 percent to 5.5 percent.

When governments do stupid things like this, it is easy to understand why people are anti-government and why the Tea Party has so many followers.  This is political gamesmanship - kicking the can down the road. 

What Flavor of Tea (Party) Do You Like?

Do you have a preference as to what flavor of tea you like?  Probably so.  And what one person likes, another may not like at all.

The Washington Post has an article today about the lack of organization in the Tea Party and how that is hurting the movement.  It seems to me that much of the lack of organization is the nexus of the movement - a number of different ideological movements coalescing around the same name, the Tea Party.

What do I mean?  The members of the Tea Party movement seem to have one of three central themes, although within the members whether they support each one varies.  The three themes or ideologies include: (1) small government/anti-federal government/anti-tax movement; (2) strict or literal interpretation of the Constitution or a notion of reverting to the laws of the "founding fathers"; and (3) an ultra-conservative christian movement. 

The small government/anti-federal government/anti-tax movement is similar in many respects to the ideas of the current Libertarian party, Ron Paul and Rand Paul among its more recognizable figures.  In previous articles I have discussed Rand Paul and the general concepts of Libertarianism - see HERE and HERE.  The anti-tax and limited role of government has been one of the biggest selling points of the Tea Party movement, especially in these tough economic times.  One of the difficult aspects of the anti-tax movement has been to identify and agree upon which government programs are acceptable and which are not - the idea that I am against government programs except for the ones I am for (i.e., Medicare).

The strict constructionist are the ones we often see saying that "want their Country back."  It is often based upon a notion that things "use to be better" and that the Country is going in the wrong direction - a sense of becoming disenfranchised.  The difficulty I have with this element is that what the "strict constructionist" advocate is often not based upon a true historical analysis of our laws but upon their own notion of how they should be.

And the last element of defining our nation as a "christian nation" I find a little troubling.  By the very definition as a "Christian nation" you are excluding a vast number of Americans.  And as I have discussed before, our "founding fathers" were very leery of religion and went to great extents to separate church and state. 

So, to me, the difficulty which the Tea Party faces is trying to combine these disparate ideas into a single movement.

The Washington Post discusses it this way:

The national tea party movement has never had a central organization or single leader; in fact, it has boasted the opposite. But Tuesday's primary results provided fresh evidence of the amorphous network's struggle to convert activist anger and energy into winning results. Frustrated and lacking agreement on what to do next, self-identified tea party leaders say the movement may be in danger of breaking apart before it ever really comes together.

The polls hadn't even closed Tuesday when "tea party" activists in Nevada started sniping at one another over whether Sharron Angle, the soon-to-be Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, was the best candidate to bring down Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid.

In Virginia, tea partiers vented on blogs and to reporters about the movement's inability to coalesce around a single, strong candidate in two House races, resulting in the nomination of establishment candidates instead.

Trying to be too many things to too many people rarely works.  Until someone (Rand Paul? - Sarah Palin?) becomes of the "face" of the Tea Party, the members may continue to fight as to what flavor of tea is best to serve at the party.

Hypocrite of the Day - Me??

Pretty cool graphic from the Guardian in the UK. It helps to explain why the Brits think we Yanks are being less than honest with ourselves regarding our anger at BP.

The Brits have had a rather interesting response to the American Outrage over the GoM spill: With less than 5% of the world’s population, the US consumes 25% of the world’s oil production.

They believe we are being hypocritical in our outrage — if we were all that concerned, argues the Brits, we would not have been so profligate in our consumption, love affair with the SUV, and refusal to enact Pigou taxes on fuel consumption.

They raise a valid point.

I am not looking to exonerate BP; I have no doubt they were reckless and irresponsible in how they proceeded to drill in the Gulf of Mexico with Deepwater Horizon.


However, they were trying to fulfill our own reckless and irresponsible demands for cheap and plentiful energy. Anyone who is an energy consumer cannot ignore their contribution to what happened.

We can be a bit hypocritical in the US of A. We have $50k earners who bought $750k houses, then complained about Goldman Sachs; Walmart shoppers who buy 12 packs of tighty whiteys for $2.99 — then complains about job losses. Or the non voters (the majority of us) who complain about Congress. We energy consumers ought to realize that it is our demand that led to drilling in the GoM.

Personally, I try not to be hypocritical about my enormous carbon footprint (Denying global warming, ignoring the impact consumption has). I haven’t shown much willingness to change, but I won’t pretend there is no damage from my addiction to Horsepower.

Its sure is much easier to blame BP, than to accept resposibility for our own role in the spill…

Biocentrism - The Meaning of Life - The Eternal Maze

What is Biocentrism?  Biocentrism tells us space and time aren't objects -- they're the mind's tools for putting everything together.

We all want to know what happens when we die.  We all also wonder what if time is truly elastic and if we are simply in one particular spot based on our own consciousness.  Can we bend time?

I once studied a pattern on the carpet of the Soho Grand after smoking a particularly good joint. I thought I had discovered the maze of life. The un-ending interlocking pattern of eternity.  I called it the eternal maze.  I wrote on a napkin while stoned, "You have recognized the eternal maze, before you recognized the ‘e’ within the maze."  A new film trailer for the movie "Inception" uses this famous graphic in its film title.

So when I saw this pattern used in the graphics of Inception, it really caught my attention.  See the film trailer HERE.

I have been anticipating this film more than any other in years.   The first trailer released about 6 months ago (trailer) got me thinking it might be about biocentrism and dreams.

In an article by Robert Lanza at Huffington Post he asks:

What happens when we die? Do we rot into the ground, or do we go to heaven (or hell, if we've been bad)? Experiments suggest the answer is simpler than anyone thought. Without the glue of consciousness, time essentially reboots.

The mystery of life and death can't be examined by visiting the Galapagos or looking through a microscope. It lies deeper. It involves our very selves. We wake and find ourselves in the present. There are stairs below us, which we seem to have climbed; there are stairs above us, which go upward into the unknown future. But the mind stands at the door by which we entered and gives us the memories by which we go about our day. Everything is ordered and predictable. We're like cuckoo birds who appear through a door each morning. We fancy there's a clockwork set in motion at the beginning of time.

But if you remove everything from space, what's left? Nothing. The same applies for time -- you can't put it in a jar. You can't see through the bone surrounding your brain (everything you experience is information in your mind). Biocentrism tells us space and time aren't objects -- they're the mind's tools for putting everything together.

Before he died, Einstein said "Now Besso [an old friend] has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us ... know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." In fact, it was Einstein's theory of relativity that showed that space and time are indeed relative to the observer. Quantum theory ended the classical view that particles exist if we don't perceive them. But if the world is observer-created, we shouldn't be surprised that it's destroyed with each of us. Nor should we be surprised that space and time vanish, and with them all Newtonian conceptions of order and prediction.

It's here at last, where we approach the imagined border of ourselves, the wooded boundary where in the old fairy tale the fox and the hare say goodnight to each other. At death, we all know, consciousness is gone, and so too the continuity in the connection of times and places. Where then, do we find ourselves? On stairs that can be intercalated anywhere, like those that Hermes won with the dice of the moon, that Osiris might be born. We think that the past is past and the future the future. But as Einstein realized, this simply isn't the case.

Without consciousness, space and time are nothing; in reality you can take any time -- whether past or future -− as your new frame of reference. Death is a reboot that leads to all potentialities.