ZacTheEnginerd

Been a while

2008-09-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

this has turned into a ronin of a blog. ive completely neglected it. no real time or effort for it. and it turns out im not a huge fan of the blogspot interface...i miss the days of xanga-dom (ie High School hahaha) that was before facebook even! can you imagine a world without facebook!?

War Made Easy

2008-02-24T22:32:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to write this entry for a while. It's one of the main reasons I've decided to support Obama over Hillary and is, I believe, a *gasp* SUBSTANTIVE DIFFERENCE! (Obama & substance...say wha?)

"COERCIVE DIPLOMACY"

"I believe in coercive diplomacy. I think that you try to figure out how to move bad actors in a direction that you'd prefer in order to avoid more dire consequences. And what -- if you took it on the face of it and if you took it on the basis of what we hope would happen with the inspectors going in, that in and of itself was a policy that we've used before. We have used the threat of force to try to make somebody try to change their behavior." --Hillary Clinton, Jan. 31 2008

"We bombed (Iraq) for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein threw out inspectors." --HRC, same debate

not quite it seems. Even I recall we were pissed at the Iraqi Republican Army for flaking our planes in the no-fly zone so we bombed them back. UN inspectors, not wanting to be killed by the Americans, promptly left.

http://www.juancole.com/2008/02/iraq-in-democratic-debate.html

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:kNKuqCbN-qoJ:www.fair.org/activism/iraq-myths.html+myth+saddam+kicked+out+inspectors+1998&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

"And I have disagreed with Senator Clinton on, for example, meeting with Iran. I think -- and the National Intelligence Estimate, the last report suggested that if we are meeting with them, talking to them, and offering them both carrots and sticks, they are more likely to change their behavior, and we can do so in a way that does not ultimately cost billions of dollars, thousands of lives, and hurt our reputation around the world." --Barack Obama, same debate

The argument the Clinton campaign makes against this sort of diplomacy is that she believes the meeting would be used for "propaganda purposes" and that diplomacy is a "step-by-step process." (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19933710/)

Obama's Response:

"Obviously, there is a difference between pre-conditions and preparation. Pre-conditions, which was what the question was in that debate, means that we won’t meet with people unless they’ve already agreed to the very things that we expect to be meeting with them about. And obviously, when we say to Iran, “We won’t meet with you until you’ve agreed to all the terms that we’ve laid out,” from their perspective that’s not a negotiation, that’s not a meeting. Preparation means that we are sitting down ahead of time, various lower-level diplomats and envoys, are sorting out what’s the agenda going to be? Nuclear weapons has to be on the table. The issue of terrorism needs to be on the table. Incursions into Iraq that are affecting the safety of our troops, that needs to be on the table. Joining the World Trade Organization, that needs to be on the table. Once those items are on the table, then, yes, I would be willing to have a meeting to see if we can make progress on these fronts." --Meet The Press, Nov 11, 2007

Obama's used this to his advantage, claiming he is the more diplomatic of the two candidates. Hillary fired back a few weeks ago on ABC:

CLINTON: Senator Obama consistently misstates what I had said and really tries to gloss over his answer to a question in an early debate.
The question was very specific -- would you, without precondition, meet with five of the worst dictators, including Ahmadinejad from Iran and others, without precondition, personally, as president? He said yes, I said no.

That has nothing to do with whether or not we would have diplomatic efforts with all of the countries. I've been a longtime advocate of having diplomatic processes with Iran and Syria.

QUESTION: So you're open to direct contact with all those countries.

CLINTON: I think it's imperative...with Iran and Syria, most certainly. I have said that. But it would be at low level diplomatic efforts between our ambassadors and between our diplomats, because I don't think a president should put the prestige of the United States on the line to meet with these people unless you have some idea of what is going to happen...

I really hope that Senator Obama will quit deliberately misstating what I said in order to avoid scrutiny for what he says.

TPM media's take (slight lean towards Hillary): http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/hillary_obama_consistently_mis.php

Some other random probama blogger:
http://lots-o-thoughts.blogspot.com/2008/02/clinton-on-obama-and-preconditions.html

My thoughts: Teddy Roosevelt said, "Speak softly, but carry a big stick." Obama would leave the club at the door. The Clinton policy is one of, in her own words, "coercive diplomacy" and "use of threat of force" in diplomatic negotiation.

My preference should be obvious.

BOMB BOMB IRAN?

Last September, Sen. Kyl and Sen. Lieberman authored and submitted their ammendmend to a Defense spending bill, labeled "To express the Sense of the senate regarding Iran."

For a bit of background, here's Joe Lieberman's sense of what we should do about Iran: http://youtube.com/watch?v=pBu40kp6Y8g

You can find a bunch of other vids on Youtube of Joe Lieberman essentially saying the same thing

So if Joe Lieberman asks me to support his sense of Iran, that's my cue to run the other way.

ThinkProgress has a good timeline on this:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/25/kyl-iran-fox/
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/25/webb-kyl-lieb-iran/
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/26/breaking-lieberman-kyls-iran-amendment-passes/

Although the most damning language was removed, the bill lacked one essential line that MUST be included in any legislation regarding Iran:

"Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of Armed Forces against Iran."

Oops. Nevertheless, Clinton voted FOR this ammendment. Double oops.

She since signed on to co-sponsor Jim Webb's ammendment from last March which states that the President much seek express authorization from Congress before going to War with Iran. But still, as the saying goes: "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

Due to some mix-up, Obama was in NH at the time of the vote. When told he missed it, he was shocked and dismayed and got right to work correcting the mistake by authoring Senate Joint Resolution 23 which states

"the use of force against Iran is not authorized by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq, any resolution previously adopted, or any other provision of law." (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=sj110-23)

He also wrote an op-ed in a NH paper concerning his view:

I strongly differ with Sen. Hillary Clinton, who was the only Democratic presidential candidate to support this reckless amendment. We do need to tighten sanctions on the Iranian regime, particularly on Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which sponsors terrorism far beyond Iran's borders. But this must be done separately from any unnecessary saber-rattling about checking Iranian influence with our "military presence in Iraq." Above all, it must be done through tough and direct diplomacy with Iran, which I have supported, and which Sen. Clinton has called "naive and irresponsible."

http://hubpages.com/hub/Presidential-Race--Hillarys-Misstep-on-Iran

Clinton calls Obama "Naive and Irresponsible" on Iran: http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2007/07/24/news/local/doc46a635f210af5541045687.txt

"Naive and irresponsible" eh? Loosening the leash on Bush regarding Iran on the terms of some of the most hawkish members of Congress...what do you call that?

Dear Sen. Clinton: it IS important to be ready on day one. But it's even more imporant to be RIGHT on Day One. Unfortunately, voting 'Yea' on this garbage was a huge lapse in judgement and, at least for a moment, you sided with these people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAzBxFaio1I

For more reading, here's Dodd, Edwards, and Obama's FP adviser weighing in: http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2007/10/going_after_clinton_over_iran.html

Finally, as a side note: Seymour Hersh who, in 2006, called out the Bush admin on trumping up charges against Iran and predicted 2007 NIE, asserts that Cheney and the CIA is supporting jihadist groups to combat Iran.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/19/hersh-iran-agent/
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/25/hersh-qaeda/

Very serious s*%# indeed.

CLUSTER BOMBS

"Sec. 8109. No funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act my be obligated or expended to acquire, utilize, sell, or transfer any cluster munition unless the rules of engagement applicable to the cluster munition ensure that the cluster munition will not be used in or near any concentrated population of civilians, whether permanent or temporary, including inhabited parts of cities or villages, camps or columns of refugees or evacuees, or camps or groups of nomads."

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:SP4882:

Easy enough, right?

Over 150 nations have signed the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. It pains me that our great nation has not. But in the autumn of 2006, there was a chance to take a step in the right direction: Senate Amendment No. 4882, an amendment to a Pentagon appropriations bill that would have banned the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas.

Senator Obama of Illinois voted IN FAVOR of the ban.

Senator Clinton of New York voted AGAINST the ban.

...
As is so often the case, there was no political cost to doing the wrong thing. And there was no political reward for doing the right thing.

But Senator Obama did the right thing.

...of the two remaining Democratic candidates, one decided her vote on Amendment No. 4882 according to a political calculation. The other used a moral calculation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-rees/clinton-obama-and-clust_b_84811.html

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00232
"THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW..."

Back in August, Barack took lots of heat for this little tibit:

"As President, I would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional, and I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan.

I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will." --http://www.barackobama.com/2007/08/01/the_war_we_need_to_win.php

The media spun this to mean: "Obama wants to INVADE PAKISTAN!"

The political world said: "You can't say that! That's outrageous! Silly Obama."

BUSH: I certainly don't know what he believes in. The only foreign policy thing I remember he said was he's going to attack Pakistan and embrace Ahmadinejad (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/350/)

One politician did come to Obama's rescue on this one a few weeks after his speech, while the media was tearing him apart. Although she wasn't American:

BHUTTO: Well, I wouldn't like the United States to violate Pakistan's sovereignty with unauthorized military operations. But the issue that I would like to stress is that Barack Obama also said, if Pakistan won't act. And that's the critical issue, that the government has to act. And the government has to act to protect Pakistan's own serenity and integrity, its own respect, and to understand that if it creates a vacuum, then others aren't going to just twiddle their thumbs while militants freely move across the border.

I think General Musharraf did the right thing recently in admitting that militants are using our soil, but he said the army has nothing to do with it. But nonetheless, the issue for me is that we cannot cede parts of Pakistani territory to anybody; not just the Taliban, to anybody. That in Pakistan we have one army, one police, one constitution, one government. We cannot allow parallel armies, parallel militias, parallel laws and parallel command structures. Today it's not just the intelligence services, who were previously called a state within a state. Today it's the militants who are becoming yet another little state within the state, and this is leading some people to say that Pakistan is on the slippery slope of being called a failed state. But this is a crisis for Pakistan, that unless we deal with the extremists and the terrorists, our entire state could founder.

http://www.cfr.org/publication/14041/

Clinton had an interesting perspective on this issue:

SEN. CLINTON: You can think big but remember you shouldn't always say everything you think when you're running for president because it could have consequences across the world and we don't need that right now. (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/08/sparks-fly-over.html)

To me, Hillary implies that she would deliberately keep such plans obscured from the world and her constituents. That is until the operation has already been executed and reported by the media. Kind a like what happened on January 31, 2008:

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Abu Laith al-Libi, a wanted al Qaeda terrorist, was killed in Pakistan by a CIA airstrike, three U.S. officials told CNN Thursday."

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/01/31/alqaeda.death/index.html

So the status quo is calling up Musharraf at 9:30am on Monday and saying "Hey Mushy! Can i call ya Mushy? Hey I hope ya had a nice weekend. I'm just callin to let you know that we're gonna start bombing your border-region in about, oh say 30 minutes ago. I knew ya wouldn't mind! Have a nice week!"

That's the way its been done in the past, thats the way its being done now. Barack Obama was truthful, honest, and forthright about it. That's CHANGE I can believe in.

This vid sums it up quite nicely from the AFL-CIO debate last year: http://youtube.com/watch?v=v0tgxVmVQpw

OBAMA: Well, look, I find it amusing that those who helped to
authorize and engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster in our
generation are now criticizing me for making sure that we are on the right battlefield and not
the wrong battlefield in the war against terrorism.

But the fact of the matter is that when we don't talk to the
American people -- we're debating the most important foreign policy
issues that we face, and the American people have the right to know.
It is not just Washington insiders that are part of the debate that has to take place with respect to how we're going to shift our foreign policy.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/08/sweet_dem_aflcio_forum_special_4.html

Anyone who knows me has some idea of what a political/historical/economic junkie I am. It's a hobby. One day, maybe even a career. But for now, I'm just a citizen and when it comes to the debate in Washington on the future of Foreign Policy: I want in!

Obama 08

That's it! I'm done with the Clintons!

2008-01-25T13:14:00.000-08:00

With emphasis added to the shear stupidity:

(CNN) — Days after she was the only major presidential candidate to appear on Michigan’s Democratic primary ballot, and four days before Florida’s voters head to the polls, Hillary Clinton has released a statement calling on her party to seat both states’ delegates at the national convention this summer.

Both Florida and Michigan had lost that privilege because of penalties arising from their decision to schedule their primaries in January, in violation of national party instructions.

“I hear all the time from people in Florida and Michigan that they want their voices heard in selecting the Democratic nominee,” Clinton said in a statement released by her campaign.

“I believe our nominee will need the enthusiastic support of Democrats in these states to win the general election, and so I will ask my Democratic convention delegates to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan,” she added.

“I know not all of my delegates will do so and I fully respect that decision. But I hope to be President of all 50 states and U.S. territories, and that we have all 50 states represented and counted at the Democratic convention.”

The major candidates, including Clinton and rivals Barack Obama and John Edwards, had promised not to campaign in either state following the Democratic National Committee’s decision, and Obama and Edwards did not appear on Michigan’s primary ballot. Despite calls from her opponents to remove her name from the ballot, Clinton did not follow suit, and she won the state’s primary January 15, with 55 percent of the vote.

On Monday, Clinton’s campaign condemned Barack Obama for running an ad on national cable news networks, including CNN, saying that the spot would air in Florida and violate the no-campaign pact agreed to by most of the Democratic field.

In Friday’s statement, Clinton called on her fellow nominees to join her – but said she would continue to abide by that pledge, and expected the rest of the presidential field to, as well.

The Obama campaign released a statement from campaign manager David Plouffe criticizing the move.

“When Sen. Clinton was campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire, she made it clear that states like Michigan and Florida that wouldn’t produce any delegates, ‘don’t count for anything,'" he said.

He said Clinton was trying to "assign meaning to a contest that awards zero delegates and where no campaigning has occurred. Sen. Clinton’s own campaign has repeatedly said that this is a ‘contest for delegates,’ and Florida is a contest that offers zero."

This is the worst case of double-speak I have heard in a VERY long time. God dammit Hillary! I'm not an idiot!! Stop treating me like one!

You're gonna blame Obama because CNN happens to broadcast in Florida?! Oh noes!

god dammit... >_<

America Endorses Hillary Clinton!

2008-01-17T22:12:00.000-08:00

No really, I'm serious:

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20172241,00.html?xid=rss-fullcontentcnn

The Audacity of Hope

2008-01-10T17:38:00.000-08:00

I wasn't alive when Kennedy challenged the country to "ask not", or when Dr. King inspired our parents to stand up for justice, or when Roosevelt assured the Greatest Generation they have "Nothing to Fear but Fear itself," but it must have felt something like this: here and now being asked to believe that we can change the face of politics, that we can change our country, that each of us can change the world.

The generations that came before us were up to the challenge. And now its our turn. So lets give it our best shot, shall we?

Let's go change the world ;)

Nuklear Energy

2007-12-18T10:06:00.000-08:00

From a collection of webposts that didn't make it (ex. i reconsidered posting due to ranting/relevance/harshness)
---------------------------------------------------
GE claims they can build a reactor in 3 years. I've seen lifetimes range from 30-60 years.
http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/nuclear_energy/en/new_reactors/esbwr.htm
http://www.eurekalert.org/features/doe/2003-12/danl-nr031804.php
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6344.html

"Nuclear power will figure into our energy strategy"

I definitely think so too. Our energy strategy will be comprehensive and broad, which I don't think is a concept a lot of people understand.

This is Shell's prediction back in 1997:
http://www.t21.ca/energy/shell7.gif
from
http://t21.ca/energy/index.htm

Its all REALLY old data (I got it from my Solar Cells class), but still an interesting read.But as I travel across the internet reading sweet articles on Solar, Biomass, Wind, etc. a comment I constantly see it "Great, but it won't solve our energy problem." I really hate that. If they're waiting for Cold Fusion, they're gonna be waiting a looooong time...

just throwin this out there...

2007-12-14T13:23:00.000-08:00

http://www.jetprogramme.org/

http://www.ewb-usa.org/index.php

http://www.peacecorps.gov/

We All Live on a Prime Submarine

2007-12-09T22:18:00.001-08:00

So its 1:15AM Monday morning, I've gotta get up for work at 7:30 and have finals to study for this week. BUT some interesting stuff came up in a forum tonight and so it shall be written.

Tonights topic: The Subprime Mortgage Fiasco

It's all a big, convoluted mess and my knowledge is definitely limited but I'll try to break it down. (Disclaimer: i'm not an expert or professional, just an amateur with a bizarre obsession for this kinda thing and i'm probably not telling the whole story or telling it exactly right either...)

1st: a Subprime Mortgage is one that is granted to someone with bad credit

Why would anyone in their right mind to that? Simple: to make money.

It seems this trend started back in the 80s around the time of the Savings and Loan scandals (another topic for further research). Some "brilliant" investors thought "Hey, if we can get all these loans together and sell off the debt, we'll be rich!" Thus the Collateralized Mortgage Obligation was born.

You can buy and sell these things on financial markets, sorta like a stock, but instead they are homeowners' debt packaged together. They floated around for about 20 years and then 9/11 happened. In response to the financial ruin, the Fed pumped up liquidity by a large margin. Seeing an opportunity, investment firms gave the green light to mortgage brokers to "lend money to anyone who could fog a mirror", meaning anyone no matter how much they suck at life and paying off loans.

Fast forward 5 years later to 2006. The housing market begins to slooooooow. It's been a buyers market for about 2 years now if not longer (meaning its really hard to sell a house). Combining this with a ton of borrower defaults (no surprise for people with horrible credit ratings), the the value of these CMOs began to tank. But it was too late. Everyone had them. From banks to mutual funds. Which means, anyone who's been planning to retire lost money on this (albeit just a little as its spread out over millions of funds).

But whenever something like this happens, its important to look at who gained.

In this case: Goldman-Sachs.

Mortgate firms and lenders started to go under en masse and declare bankruptcy in February of this year. The likes of Citigroup posts a $9 billion loss for the year. The fit hit the shan this summer and the panic alarm really went off in August. But somehow, Goldman still managed to gain by 79% in Q3 over last year.

An op-ed in the NYTimes had an interesting take on this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/business/02every.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Basically, its making the allegation that Goldman-Sachs is selling-short on the financial market.

Selling Short is best defined by example. Have you ever seen Casino Royale? The bad guy in the movie tries to make a ton of money by "Selling Short." He does this buy borrowing stock from MegaPlaneCompany for 3 months. He says "I'll sell this stock for you, and then at the end of three months I'll pay you back at whatever market price the stock is at the end of those three months." So if he borrows 10 shares valued at $10 each, sells them immediately and at the end of three months each stock is work $0, he pays MegaPlaneComany nothing and is $100 richer. BUT, if MegaPlaneCompany does something super-mega-awesome and the stock price RISES to $20 a share, then the bad guy has to pay MegaPlaneCompany $200 and loses 100 bux.

To ensure that he would make money, the bad guy arranges to blow up MegaPlaneCompany's new super-mega-awesome airplane. This would have investors reeling, thinking "Holy shit! This company's cursed!" and the value of the stock would plummet, mwahahahaha!

Luckily, James Bond comes to the rescue and FOILS the terrorist attack! The Plane debuts, people love it, the stock price goes up, the bad guy is millions of dollars in the hole, and the plot continues from there...

BACK IN THE REAL WORLD:

Replace the "badguy" with "Goldman-Sachs", "MegaPlaneCompany" with "Sub-prime Mortgages", and "James Bond" with no one. Kind despressing isn't it?

Things are bleak for a lot of people. Even if the poor borrower with bad credit didn't default, their mortgage is now shit cause it was bundled with everyone elses and sold on a market that is now totally busted. A few people have even begun to lose their houses, with many more to follow (Jim Cramer lamented this back in October, he advocated freezing debts temporarily and bailing out homeowners in danger; something President Bush has recently proposed as well).

And so we're now left with a piss poor housing market, a financial meltdown (a lotta companies going under or losing a lot of money), a credit crunch (now everyone's afraid to loan money), and an economic slowdown (a recession? <--to be considered in a later blog post)

But its not all bad news: The possible recession ahead of us may very well be balanced out by the decline of the dollar on the Foreign Exchange market (FoRex). But I'll save that for another post.

On that note, have a good night ;)

For further reading on this issue, here are some of my sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_crisis_impact_timeline
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cmo.asp
http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/?p=1147
http://investment.suite101.com/blog.cfm/subprime_meltdown_advice
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/7/44952/8234
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/goldman-sachs-q3-profit-rise/story.aspx?guid=%7B8A7CBFA1-BD49-40A0-86E0-B640650190F2%7D&dist=dist_smartbrief&dist=dist_smartbrief

If you could change anything in the Constitution, what would it be?

2007-12-09T11:14:00.000-08:00

I was bored so wrote this in response to that question in a forum:

Article VIII Section 1 Clause 1 actually reads:
"It is of our wise decree, that in the year 2000, complete control of the United States, or whatever form it has taken heretofore, shall be ceded to Zac Lochner, originally of Buffalo, NY."

Therefore most of the government -as it now stands-is utterly unconstitutional. The Founding Fathers never intended for anyone else to guide the country into the 21st century.

I have a theory that a small group of men, led by the notorious John Adams, orchestrated events so that Gouverneur Morris' coffee spilled on the last page of his work before it could be ratified by the Constitutional Convention.

The likes of Washington and Jefferson were totally bummed that their greatest idea was ruined, but didn't feel like rewriting the whole thing themselves (Morris had refused to do so and was quoted as saying, "Awww f*ck you John Adams! I stayed up all night workin on that! No, I won't write you a new one!")

Although Adams claimed it was just a "practical joke" and "all in good fun", he was demoted to the lowly position of vice-president over the next eight years for his stupidity, and single-handedly ruining the Constitution, the United States, and my rightful claim to the Presidency.

"F*ck you John Adams!" indeed.