SAR #11046

One generally does not want an insurance policy to pay off.

On The Budget & The Deficit: If a proposal, no mater who makes it, does not address ways to reduce health care costs and cut defense spending (in real terms), it is a hypocritical sham. Ignore the noise.

Evidence, Evidently: Gen. Petraeus has been telling everyone that his troops have been phenomenally successful in reducing the capabilities of the intelligence officials to accurately report a significant increase in Taliban strength of the Taliban in 2010. Garbage in, garbage out.

Role Reversal: The US State Department, which is openly sending tweets to Iranians urging mass protests against the state, accused Iran of hypocrisy for supporting the anti-government revolt in Egypt but seeking to prevent anti-government demonstrations in Iran.

Parse and explicate: "An American jihadist who set up the terrorist training camp where the leader of the 2005 London suicide bombers learned how to manufacture explosives, has been quietly released after serving only four and a half years of a possible 70-year sentence." Discuss the possibility that he had been a US intelligence asset before the bombing. Usual prizes.

Hire Education: Get that degree, they say. Folks with degrees get the jobs the others don't, they say. What they don't say is that 26% of college grads who are not seeking advanced degrees are unemployed... and deeply in debt.

How Dry I Am: Columbia, using Chinese money and expertise, plans to build a “dry” canal to ship containerized freight by rail across the isthmus in competition with the Panama Canal.

How Good Is Greed Capitalism ? If it's all about profit, then shouldn't the proper CEO devote much of his effort trying to erect regulatory barriers to competition and to begging for bailouts and subsidies for his company while denying them to others,? The ideal would be an entrenched, government supported monopoly, no?

Yes, But: “In a better world, politicians would talk to voters as if they were adults.” True, but in an even better world, the voters would be adults. I'd even push for honest politicians, but there are limits.

Dishonest Broker: The US can no longer claim to be an honest broker in the search for peace. Egypt proved that our leaders see freedom as a question of strategy, not principle. For example, according to a 2009 diplomatic cable, the US views President Teodoro Obiang, dictator of Equatorial Guinea for over 30 years, as one of “the good guys” the US should strengthen, even though Obiang’s regime has either killed or forced into exile a third of the country’s population. The country is a prime supplier of petroleum to the US.

Here and There: I plan on retiring in about 5 years. My retirement plan includes an entry “Return on Investments Yet To Be Made.” I got the idea from the oil industry, which plans to meet future increases in demand with “Crude oil fields yet to be found.” I'm looking to buy a car – yet to be designed - that will run on petroleum yet to be found.

Best Headline: “Spin, Wishful Thinking, and Delusion” – on the housing situation.

Porn O'Graph: No defense for Defense.