Jack's Potpourri Reaches 5000 Pageviews! - And on this Posting: Iranian Crack in the Door?, State of the Union Speech Reaction, Professors and Journalists as Opinion Makers and Keystone XL Pipeline Pro & Con

Look over on the right and a little bit down at the our "pageview" counter."  We have passed the 5000 mark!  That's the number of times someone in this country, or anywhere in the world, has accessed this blog since its inception in 2009.  (My own "hits," as I work on the blog, are not included in this count, so I cannot "fudge" the numbers.)  Let's see how long it takes for the counter to reach 10,000!

Iranian Door Open a Crack?

The posting of Tuesday, January 24 included a piece from Stratfor.com which hinted at a possible rapprochement with Iran.  All listeners to Tuesday’s State of the Union address will recall President Obama’s saying, “Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal,” but it should not be forgotten that he continued his remarks by adding “but a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.”  This is the direction in which Friedman’s piece in our last posting pointed, and his reasons for saying so should be noted.  If you skipped over that posting, check it out now. The door is open, even if no more than a crack.  I get the feeling that there is something going on which you won’t see on TV nor in the newspapers. But you may on this blog.

JL

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Reaction to the State of the Union Message

I received an Email from a friend who was elated after hearing the President’s State of the Union Message, constrasting it to the un-statesmanlike utterances of the aspirants for the Republican presidential nomination.  I cautioned him to be less optimistic in the following Email, reproduced below:

Many elections have been lost because candidates overestimated the intelligence of the voters. Obama should carry all 50 states easily, but he won't, and he may not even be re-elected. An enormous amount of education, and debunking of the lies the Citizens United decision will allow to be broadcast daily, must take place. You can start by trying to convince some of your unenlightened neighbors that the President was not born in Kenya, is not merely a mouthpiece for George Soros, is not a socialist, is not out to destroy the State of Israel and that he is not a Muslim. Then you will get an idea of the problem at hand right here and throughout the nation.

JL
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Ever write a "Letter to the Editor" of your local paper?   It's a great way of voicing your opinion.  The Florida campaign to re-elect Barack Obama makes it easy for you to do so and in view of the Republican primary here, suggests you give it a try.  Just go to http://fl.barackobama.com/Write-a-Letter and you're on your way!  And if you aren't interested in writing a letter in support of the President, the templates at the site can be used for any kind of letter you choose to write.  The site automatically forwards your letter to the paper of your choice.
JL

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Reporters and Professors – Makers of our Opinions?

I frequently hear complaints from conservatives saying that the opinions of those in the media and of academics should be taken with a grain of salt because those groups are traditionally liberal and hence, are not giving conservatives a fair shake.  With this complaint in mind, let’s look at how the media and the academic world approach things.

Professors are supposed to be objective.  That means that they should take in viewpoints and ideas and look at them from a logical viewpoint, adding up the facts, measuring the pros and cons, and come up with empirical decisions, factually based and not prejudiced by previous opinions.  Therefore, their conclusions based on facts and logic should be taken seriously.  

                                

My gut feeling is that conclusions drawn by academics are liberal 75% of the time. Some of this may be attributed to the idea that academics must maintain a mindset open to new ideas and that in itself is a liberal idea, but that does not mean that the other 25% of academics are any less objective in reaching their conclusions. All it means is that one should not generalize about academics and that there is room for disagreement as to whether they are always liberal or not. 

Similarly, professional journalists, in print, video and internet media, should be striving for objectivity in the same manner.  Bloggers and pseudo-journalists, and I admit that I am one of them, often are not so objective and should be distinguished from real journalists, and often ignored. 

                                      

Achieving objectivity is not an easy thing for a journalist since newspapers, television networks and electronic media often have an agenda to promote, and it is inevitable that such agendas hamper true objectivity to varying extents.  There also are sponsors paying the bill for media who must not be offended.  Even public radio and television find it difficult to always be objective since their non-commercial nature is in itself a statement as to where it stands in our otherwise commercial society.

Nevertheless, most journalists at least try to be objective, even if their doing so is no more than window dressing. Unfortunately, some are hopelessly opinionated and that is why a Sean Hannitty on the right and a Rachel Maddow on the left cannot be counted on to be objective, although each would stoutly maintain that they are.  But they are not. They spend too much time “preaching to the choir.”  Most journalists, more so in print than on TV, nevertheless try to be, as Fox TV claims it is, “fair and balanced.”  The very use of the word “balanced,” unfortunately, is a confession that what some journalists produce is indeed prejudiced and needs to be “balanced.”  

Sometimes there is a marriage of the academic and the journalistic such as Princeton professor and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.  Many think he is opinionated.  I am sure he feels that he is totally objective.  But so does another purported academic (my prejudices have just sneaked through), Newt Gingrich, feel that he is objective, basing his ideas on fact and logic.  One should not be the judge of one’s own objectivity.

By and large, however, if I have to make a judgment call, I must conclude that the opinion of an academic or a reporter is more likely to be based on facts and the result of logical thinking than the opinion of someone who is not an academic nor a reporter.  And more often than not, as I indicated above, academics end up on the liberal side of political and economic arguments and this, I suppose, applies to reporters as well.  That’s why conservatives often criticize the liberal media.  But don’t liberals similarly criticize Fox News? 

Does this mean that liberal answers are therefore the correct ones and that conservative ones are not?  Does it mean that conservative answers are not based on facts and logic?  Can the words “liberal” and “conservative” be reversed in the preceding two questions?  The answer to questions like these has to be “Maybe” or “Maybe Not.”  Think about this the next time you hear someone screaming about the liberal media or the head-in-the-clouds academic world, or the ideologues on Fox or MSNBC.  Learn the facts, if you can.  Apply some logic to them.  Form your own opinions.  (Send them to me for inclusion on Jack’s Potpourri.)  

And as an exercise in forming your own opinion, try to do so after reading the following article.

Jack Lippman

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Facts About the Keystone XL  Pipeline – Form Your Own Opinion

The following, which can be read in its entirety at http://debatepedia.idebate.org/en/index.php/Debate:_Keystone_XL_US-Canada_oil_pipeline  presents two sides of the arguments regarding the Keystone XL Pipeline, which the Administration is not authorizing at this point.  Included are the Pro and Con arguments concerning the Environment and Human Safety.  Check out the above site for still more information, including the sources of this pro and con information.  Form your own opinion.  Don’t leave it to the reporters and academics.  Let us know and we will include it on Jack’s Potpourri.

                                                                                                                                                                                                            

JL

Environment: Is the Keystone XL pipeline tolerable for the environment?
Pro    Keystone XL will not appreciably add to global emissions. A 2010 assessment of a US Energy Department study found that Keystone XL would "not appreciably increase" global life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions. These findings were reinforced by the final Environmental Impact Statement from the State Department in August of 2011. Overall, it will simply be a drop in the bucket relative to global supply.[2]    Climate targets could still be met with oil sands. Brad Carson, the director of the National Energy Policy Institute, said to Living on Earth in June of 2011: "I have no doubt that if you look at the amount of resources that are talked about with the tar sands, or around the world, if we were simply to burn all of these oil reserves, we could probably still meet some of the climate targets of two degrees or three degrees Celsius. You know, scientists say that we can release only another 500 billion tons of carbon, and if you look at natural gas or oil, we can probably burn through most of that and still meet those numbers. We can’t do that plus burn all the coal in the world, of course."[3]    Keystone pipeline important as long as economy depends on oil. Brad Carson, the director of the National Energy Policy Institute, said to Living on Earth in June of 2011: "The larger debate [...] is whether we need to wean ourselves off of oil in the near term, period. And that is a debate worth having. But so long as we’re an oil addicted economy, the tar sands I think can play an important role in the world oil market."[4]	Con    Keystone XL will significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions Russell K. Girling, TransCanada Corporation. "The proposed Keystone XL pipeline will be built responsibly." The Hill. July 13th, 2011: "a new report from Canada’s environmental ministry shows how great the impact of the tar sands will be in the coming years, even with cleaner production methods. It projects that Canada will double its current tar sands production over the next decade to more than 1.8 million barrels a day. That rate will mean cutting down some 740,000 acres of boreal forest — a natural carbon reservoir. Extracting oil from tar sands is also much more complicated than pumping conventional crude oil out of the ground. It requires steam-heating the sands to produce a petroleum slurry, then further dilution. One result of this process, the ministry says, is that greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector as a whole will rise by nearly one-third from 2005 to 2020 — even as other sectors are reducing emissions."    Keystone taps Alberta tar sands, the world's dirtiest fuel. "Keystone XL Pipeline." Friends of the Earth: "Pollution from tar sands oil greatly eclipses that of conventional oil. During tar sands oil production alone, levels of carbon dioxide emissions are three times higher than those of conventional oil, due to more energy-intensive extraction and refining processes. The Keystone XL pipeline would carry 900,000 barrels of dirty tar sands oil into the United States daily, doubling our country's reliance on it and resulting in climate-damaging emissions equal to adding more than six million new cars to U.S. roads."    Keystone XL will emit more than other oil production    Investing in tars sands delays transition to clean energy    Refining tar sands oil is more polluting to air quality    Keystone XL taps water-wasting tar sands
Safety: Is the Keystone XL pipeline safe for human communities?
Pro    Pipelines are the safest mode of transportation. Russell K. Girling. "The proposed Keystone XL pipeline will be built responsibly." TransCanada Corporation. July 13th, 2011: "Pipelines remain the safest method of transporting oil – safer than tankers, trucks or rail. Each day in the U.S., more than 200,000 miles of pipelines move oil and other energy products safely to where they are needed. That’s enough pipe to circle the earth eight times."    Pipeline spills are uncommon. Russell K. Girling. "The proposed Keystone XL pipeline will be built responsibly." TransCanada Corporation. July 13th, 2011: "National pipeline statistics indicate that pipeline accidents are uncommon and that leaks tend to be small; most pipeline leaks involve three barrels or less, 80 percent of spills involve less than 50 barrels and less than 0.5 percent of spills total more than 10,000 barrels."   Keystone XL would be one of the safest pipelines ever. Russell K. Girling. "The proposed Keystone XL pipeline will be built responsibly." TransCanada Corporation. July 13th, 2011: "Using the most advanced technology, the pipeline will be monitored 24 hours a day through a centralized control centre. 16,000 sensors embedded in the pipeline provide data via satellite every five seconds. If the slightest drop in pipeline pressure is detected, remote valves are automatically closed, shutting off the flow of oil within minutes. Our pipeline would cross Montana’s Yellowstone River. As Governor Brian Schweitzer (D) pointed out, Keystone XL will use the most advanced construction techniques, including horizontal directional drilling that allows us to drill under the river a minimum of 25 feet. The pipe will be built with thicker steel, operate at a lower pressure and use advanced coatings to protect the surface from abrasion – all in an effort to further improve safety. To ensure the integrity of our pipelines longer term, they are cathodically protected, which means a low-voltage electric current runs through the pipeline, inhibiting external corrosion."	Con   Keystone XL pipeline contains significant risk of spills. "Keystone XL Pipeline." Friends of the Earth: "TransCanada already attempted to cut corners by seeking a safety waiver to build the pipeline with thinner-than-normal steel and to pump oil at higher-than-normal pressures. Thanks to the pressure exerted by Friends of the Earth and allies, the company withdrew its safety waiver application in August 2010. The threat of spills remains. In summer 2010, a million gallons of tar sands oil poured into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan from a pipeline run by another Canadian company, Enbridge. The spill exposed residents to toxic chemicals, coated wildlife and has caused long-term damage to the local economy and ecosystem. Heightening concerns, TransCanada's Keystone I pipeline has spilled a dozen times in less than a year of operation, prompting a corrective action order from the Department of Transportation. Experts warn that the more acidic and corrosive consistency of the type of tar sands oil being piped into the U.S. makes spills more likely, and have joined the EPA in calling on the State Department to conduct a thorough study of these risks. The Keystone XL pipeline would traverse six U.S. states and cross major rivers, including the Missouri River, Yellowstone, and Red Rivers, as well as key sources of drinking and agricultural water, such as the Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies two million Americans."   Keystone XL crosses and jeopardizes sensitive environment. Mark Bittman. "Profits before environment." The New York Times. August 30th, 2011: "XL is right: the 36-inch-wide pipeline, which will stretch from the Alberta tar sands across the Great Plains to the Gulf Coast, will cost $7 billion and run for 1,711 miles — more than twice as long as the Alaska pipeline. It will cross nearly 2,000 rivers, the huge wetlands ecosystem called the Nebraska Sandhills and the Ogallala aquifer, the country’s biggest underground freshwater supply."

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Most readers of this blog are alerted by Email every time a new posting appears.  If you wish to be added to that Email list, just let me know by contacting me at Riart1@aol.com.  

Also, be aware that www.Jackspotpourri.com is now available on your mobile devices in a modified, easy-to-read, format.

Our family of websites now includes www.politicaldrek.com, www.sportsdrek.com, www.healthdrek.com,  www.computerdrek.com  as well as  www.jackspotpourri.com.

Check all of them out, find out what “drek” really means and feel free to submit your thoughts and articles for publication on these sites, which, while still “under construction,” already contain some interesting content.

Jack Lippman

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To send this posting to a friend, or enemy for that matter, whom you think might be interested in it, just click on the envelope with the arrow on the "Comments" line directly below.

Iran, a Biological - Political Connection and a New Poem

A poem, a fascinating article on how biology might determine your politics, a new picture to identify and an insightful article on Iran.  That's today's Jack's Potpourri.  Send in your work and it will be published.
JL

  

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The following is reprinted from www.stratfor.com.  Stratfor is a privately run intelligence service which provides information to businesses, media and indirectly to our government, some believe.  Its founder, George Friedman, is an eminent believer in geopolitics.  The recent hacking of his site by parties unknown recently made the headlines.  His book, The Next Hundred Years, makes some very interesting predictions as to the direction history will follow.  

Throughout his writings, Friedman has often made the point that sooner or later, the United States and Iran will end up working together.  Of course, Turkey and Saudi Arabia and the entire Middle East figure into his thinking.  I personally suspected that there was more to the Iranian President's recent visit to Latin America than was announced and that "something" was in the offing.  That is why this article is important.  It is reproduced here giving full credit to Stratfor, on whose web site it appeared.
Jack Lippman

Considering a U.S.-Iranian Deal

January 24, 2012

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By George Friedman

Last week, I wrote on the strategic challenge Iran faces in its bid to shape a sphere of influence stretching from western Afghanistan to Beirut on the eastern Mediterranean coast. I also pointed out the limited options available to the United States and other Western powers to counter Iran.

One was increased efforts to block Iranian influence in Syria. The other was to consider a strategy of negotiation with Iran. In the past few days, we have seen hints of both.

Rebel Gains in Syria

The city of Zabadani in southwestern Syria reportedly has fallen into the hands of anti-regime forces. Though the city does not have much tactical value for the rebels, and the regime could well retake it, the event could have real significance. Up to this point, apart from media attention, the resistance to the regime of President Bashar al Assad has not proven particularly effective. It was certainly not able to take and hold territory, which is critical for any insurgency to have significance.

Now that the rebels have taken Zabadani amid much fanfare -- even though it is not clear to what extent the city was ceded to their control, much less whether they will be able to hold it against Syrian military action -- a small bit of Syria now appears to be under rebel control. The longer they can hold it, the weaker al Assad will look and the more likely it becomes that regime opponents can create a provisional government on Syrian soil to rally around.

Zabadani also gives outside powers something to help defend, should they choose to do so. Intervening in a civil war against weak and diffused rebels is one thing. Attacking Syrian tanks moving to retake Zabadani is quite another. There are no indications that this is under consideration, but for the first time, there is the potential for a militarily viable target set for outside players acting on behalf of the rebels. The existence of that possibility might change the dynamic in Syria. When we take into account the atmospherics of the Arab League demands for a provisional government, some meaningful pressure might actually emerge.

From the Iranian point of view, this raises the risk that the sphere of influence Tehran is pursuing will be blocked by the fall of the al Assad regime. This would not pose a fundamental challenge to Iran, so long as its influence in Iraq remains intact, but it would represent a potential high-water mark in Iranian ambitions. It could open the door to recalculations in Tehran as to the limits of Iranian influence and the threat to their national security. I must not overstate this: Events in Syria have not gone that far, and Iran is hardly backed into a corner. Still, it is a reminder to Tehran that all might not go the Iranians' way.

A Possibility of Negotiations

It is in this context that the possibility of negotiations has arisen. The Iranians have claimed that the letter the U.S. administration sent to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that defined Iran's threats to Strait of Hormuz as a red line contained a second paragraph offering direct talks with Iran. After hesitation, the United States denied the offer of talks, but it did not deny it had sent a message to the Iranian leadership. The Iranians then claimed such an offer was made verbally to Tehran and not in the letter. Washington again was not categorical in its denial. On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a meeting with the German foreign minister, "We do not seek conflict. We strongly believe the people of Iran deserve a better future. They can have that future, the country can be reintegrated into the global community ... when their government definitively turns away from pursuing nuclear weapons."

From our perspective, this is a critical idea. As we have said for several years, we do not see Iran as close to having a nuclear weapon. They may be close to being able to test a crude nuclear device under controlled circumstances (and we don't know this either), but the development of a deliverable nuclear weapon poses major challenges for Iran.

Moreover, while the Iranians may aspire to a deterrent via a viable nuclear weapons capability, we do not believe the Iranians see nuclear weapons as militarily useful. A few such weapons could devastate Israel, but Iran would be annihilated in retaliation. While the Iranians talk aggressively, historically they have acted cautiously. For Iran, nuclear weapons are far more valuable as a notional threat and bargaining chip than as something to be deployed. Indeed, the ideal situation is not quite having a weapon, and therefore not forcing anyone to act against them, but seeming close enough to be taken seriously. They certainly have achieved that.

The important question, therefore, is this: What would the United States offer if Iran made meaningful concessions on its nuclear program, and what would Iran want in return? In other words, forgetting the nuclear part of the equation, what did Hillary Clinton mean when she said that Iran can be reintegrated into the international community, and what would Iran actually want?

Recall that in our view, nuclear weapons never have been the issue. Instead, the issue has been the development of an Iranian sphere of influence following the withdrawal of the United States from Iraq, and the pressure Iran could place on oil-producing states on the Arabian Peninsula. Iran has long felt that its natural role as leader in the Persian Gulf has been thwarted, first by the Ottomans, then the British and now by the Americans, and they have wanted to create what they regard as the natural state of things.

The United States and its allies do not want Iran to get nuclear weapons. But more than that, they do not want to see Iran as the dominant conventional force in the area able to use its influence to undermine the Saudis. With or without nuclear weapons, the United States must contain the Iranians to protect their Saudi allies. But the problem is that Iran is not contained in Syria yet, and even were it contained in Syria, it is not contained in Iraq. Iran has broken out of its containment in a decisive fashion, and its ability to exert pressure in Arabia is substantial.

Assume for the moment that Iran was willing to abandon its nuclear program. What would the United States give in return? Obviously, Clinton would like to offer an end to the sanctions. But the sanctions on Iran are simply not that onerous with the Russians and Chinese not cooperating and the United States being forced to allow the Japanese and others not to participate fully. But it goes deeper.

Iran's Historic Opportunity

This is a historic opportunity for Iran. It is the first moment in which no outside power is in a direct position to block Iran militarily or politically. Whatever the pain of sanctions, trading that moment for lifting the sanctions would not be rational. The threat of Iranian influence is the problem, and Iran would not trade that influence for an end to sanctions. So assuming the nuclear issue was to go away, what exactly is the United States prepared to offer?

The United States has assured access to oil from the Persian Gulf -- not only for itself, but also for the global industrial world -- since World War II. It does not want to face a potential interruption of oil for any reason, like the one that occurred in 1973. Certainly, as Iran expands its influence, the possibility of conflict increases, along with the possibility that the United States would intervene to protect its allies in Arabia from Iranian-sponsored subversion or even direct attack. The United States does not want to intervene in the region. It does not want an interruption of oil. It also does not want an extension of Iranian power. It is not clear that Washington can have all three.

Iran wants three things, too.

First, it wants the United States to reduce its presence in the Persian Gulf dramatically. Having seen two U.S. interventions against Iraq and one against Afghanistan, Iran is aware of U.S. power and the way American political sentiment can shift. It experienced the shift from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan, so it knows how fast things can change. Tehran sees the United States in the Persian Gulf coupled with U.S. and Israeli covert operations and destabilization campaigns as an unpredictable danger to Iranian national security.

Second, the Iranians want to be recognized as the leading power in the region. This does not mean they intend to occupy any nation directly. It does mean that Iran doesn't want Saudi Arabia, for example, to pose a military threat against it.

Third, Iran wants a restructuring of oil revenue in the region. How this is formally achieved -- whether by allowing Iranian investment in Arabian oil companies (possibly financed by the host country) or some other means -- is unimportant. What does matter is that the Iranians want a bigger share of the region's vast financial resources.

                             

The United States doesn't want a conflict with Iran. Iran doesn't want one with the United States. Neither can be sure how such a conflict would play out. The Iranians want to sell oil. The Americans want the West to be able to buy oil. The issue really comes down to whether the United States wants to guarantee the flow of oil militarily or via a political accommodation with the country that could disrupt the flow of oil -- namely, Iran. That in turn raises two questions. First, could the United States trust Iran? And second, could it live with withdrawing the American protectorate on the Arabian Peninsula, casting old allies adrift?

When we listen to the rhetoric of American and Iranian politicians, it is difficult to imagine trust between them. But when we recall the U.S. alliance with Stalin and Mao or the Islamic republic's collaboration with the Soviet Union, we find rhetoric is a very poor guide. Nations pursue their national interest, and while those interests are never eternal, they can be substantial. From a purely rhetorical point of view it is not always easy to tell which sides' politicians are more colorful. It will be difficult to sell an alliance between the Great Satan and a founding member of the Axis of Evil to the respective public of each country, but harder things have been managed.

Iran's ultimate interest is security against the United States and the ability to sell oil at a more substantial profit. (This would entail an easing of sanctions and a redefinition of how oil revenues in the region are distributed.) The United States' ultimate interest is access to oil and manageable prices that do not require American military intervention. On that basis, Iranian and American interests are not that far apart.

The Arabian Factor and a Possible Accommodation

The key point in this scenario is the future of U.S. relations with the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. Any deal between Iran and the United States affects them two ways. First, the reduction of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf requires them to reach an accommodation with the Iranians, something difficult and potentially destabilizing for them. Second, the shift in the financial flow will hurt them and probably will not be the final deal. Over time, the Iranians will use their strengthened position in the region to continue pushing for additional concessions from them.

There is always danger in abandoning allies. Other allies might be made uncomfortable, for example. But these things have happened before. Abandoning old allies for the national interest is not something the United States invented. The idea that the United States should find money flowing to the Saudis inherently more attractive than money flowing to the Iranians is not obvious.

The main question for the United States is how Iran might be contained. The flow of money will strengthen Iran, and it might seek to extend its power beyond what is tolerable to the United States. There are potential answers. First, the United States can always return to the region. The Iranians do not see the Americans as weak, but rather as unpredictable. Challenging the United States after Iran has achieved its historic goal is not likely. Second, no matter how Iran grows, it is far behind Turkey by every measure. Turkey is not ready to play an active role balancing Iran now, but in the time it takes Iran to consolidate its position, Turkey will be a force that will balance and eventually contain Iran. In the end, a deal will come down to one that profits both sides and clearly defines the limits of Iranian power -- limits that it is in Iran's interest to respect given that it is profiting mightily from the deal.

Geopolitics leads in one direction. Ideology leads in another direction. The ability to trust one another is yet a third. At the same time, the Iranians cannot be sure of what the United States is prepared to do. The Americans do not want to go to war with Iran. Both want oil flowing, and neither cares about nuclear weapons as much as they pretend. Finally, no one else really matters in this deal. The Israelis are not as hardline on Iran as they appear, nor will the United States listen to Israel on a matter fundamental to the global economy. In the end, absent nuclear weapons, Israel does not have that much of a problem with Iran.

It would not surprise me to find out that the United States offered direct talks, nor to discover that Clinton's comments could not be extended to a more extensive accommodation. Nor do I think that Iran would miss a chance for an historic transformation of its strategic and financial position in favor of ideology. They are much too cynical for that. The great losers would be the Saudis, but even they could come around to a deal that, while less satisfactory than they have now, is still quite satisfactory.

There are many blocks in the way of such a deal, from ideology to distrust to domestic politics. But given the knot that is being tied in the region, rumors that negotiations are being floated come as no surprise. Syria might not go the way Iran wants, and Iraq is certainly not going the way the United States wants. Marriages have been built on less.

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Scalia Defends Citizens United Decision  

Supreme Court Associate Justice Scalia, when questioned the other day about the impact of the Citizens United decision, a topic discussed at length on this blog's most recent posting, commented that those that don’t want to see the advertising made possible by the decision can either switch channels on their TV set or shut it off.  No one is forcing them to watch these messages.   

He then pointed out that the Court’s role is only to determine the legality or Constitutionality of a law, and not to change it.  That, he went on to point out, is the job of the appropriate legislative body, in this case the United States Congress.  Hence, it appears that the Supreme Court has joined Congress in contributing to the stagnation so prevalent in our government.  Their excuse, at least according to Scalia, is the separation of powers inherent in our governmental structure. 

JL

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Old Man’s Dream…or Memory? 

Sid Bolotin                 

Being three-years-old

In his crib

Sucking his thumb

In great distress

Plopped down by

The angry babysitter

Images arising

He is like Tarzan

Leading an army

Of trusted animals

Punishing all bad people

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Is Your Political Leaning Biologically Based?

The following article, seen on Huffinton Post, is by Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Senior Writer, where it first appeared. (Published: 01/22/2012 07:36 PM EST on LiveScience)  It was recommended to us by one of our regular followers.  It is not news to this blog that conservatives are generally more negative than liberals, who I find to be more positive.  Well, now "science" has proven it.  Sort of.  I guess.

JL

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If you walk away from holiday dinners fuming that conservative Uncle Morton just can't see your point of view, or that liberal Aunt Betty just doesn't get it, a new finding may make it easier to cool your jets. According to the study, conservatives and liberals pay attention to their environments differently, meaning the two sides of the political spectrum quite literally don't see eye-to-eye.

Conservatives pay more attention to negative stimuli compared with liberals, the study found.  "They're essentially monitoring things that make them feel uncomfortable, which does feel fairly consistent with conservative policies, actually," study researcher Mike Dodd, a psychologist at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, told LiveScience. "They tend to confront things head-on that they view as threats, things like immigration and so on." 

Dodd was quick to note that the kind of stimuli a person pays more attention to does not make them better or worse than someone of another political persuasion. But the findings could suggest a biological basis for political views.

"Based on your biology, you might be experiencing and processing something in a fundamentally different way from someone else," Dodd said.

  

The idea that a person's innate biology might play into how they vote is relatively new. But researchers at the University of Nebraska and elsewhere have been uncovering a series of clues suggesting that political preference is somewhat influenced by biology. Conservatives are more squeamish than liberals, these scientists have found, while liberals pay more attention to the eye movements of others compared with conservatives.

These differences are at the level of reflexes and rely on extremely basic brain processes such as attention. Although the researchers can't prove that biology influences political beliefs and not the other way around, Dodd said there's good reason to believe that biology comes first and beliefs second.

"It's quite unlikely that just because you've adopted some sort of political temperament, that's going to change basic cognition," Dodd said. "I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying it makes more sense the other way around."

In the new study, Dodd and his colleagues had 48 adults who were strongly conservative or strongly liberal look at a series of 33 pictures. Some of the pictures were pleasant, such as that of a fluffy bunny. Others, including a picture of a maggot-infested wound and another of a man with a spider on his face, were downright disgusting.

While the participants looked at the photos, researchers monitored their skin conductance, a measure of minute changes in sweating that reveals how excited and emotional someone feels, in this case, about a given image. They found that, consistent with other studies, conservatives responded more strongly to the negative images.

In a second experiment, the researchers repeated the procedure with images of polarizing politicians, including Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Again, they found a political difference: Conservatives responded more strongly to politicians they disagreed with, such as Clinton, than they did to politicians they liked. Liberals, on the other hand, had a stronger physiological reaction to politicians they agreed with than they did to politicians they disliked.

But knowing that someone has a strong reaction to something tells you little about what they do about that reaction. It's possible that conservatives might look away from things that disgust them, Dodd said. Or they might pay more attention to disgusting things because they're cuing into potential threats. To find out, the researchers created collages of positive and negative images and set up an eye-tracking device to follow where participants' gazes fell. They then had 76 college students look at the collages. 

"Conservatives would orient to those negative things pretty much twice as fast, and they would spend quite a lot longer looking at them relative to the liberals, who preferred more positive things," Dodd said. He and his colleagues reported the findings today (Jan. 22) in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

The findings provide extra evidence that basic biology may play a role in political choices, Dodd said. Of course, not every country has a liberal-conservative split like the United States. Most likely, Dodd said, you'd see a similar difference between more right-wing and more left-wing people, but the size of that difference might be smaller.

"I'm Canadian, and I would say that our right is actually fairly liberal in many regards," Dodd said. "So I think you would still expect to find some differences there, but I think it's a question of what the magnitude of those differences are."

Biology isn't destiny, Dodd added, and basic brain processes certainly interact with experiences and culture to influence politics. Nonetheless, he hopes the study will help cool political tempers.

"What we're showing here is that people just don't see things the same, even if it's the same thing," Dodd said. "I do think there's a nice potential here to move beyond stereotypes."
                                                   
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