Here’s the scoop, jackass
NH Ballots

“The turnout’s been great, the way it’s going i’d estimate a 55 to 60 percent turnout at this rate,” Bergeron said as he drove toward Broad Street Elementary School, the Ward 1 polling place.

Should even that supply run low, Bergeron has it covered. “I had 9,000 more ballots printed up this morning in-house, 4,500 for each party,” he said. “They’re sort of my backup for the backup.”

Comment by RUCerious — January 8, 2008 @ 3:51 pm

Perhaps…it is a gamble. It seems like the Awakening along with the Al Mahdi ceasefire were needed to reduce the violence, and without that reduction there is NO chance for recouncilliation.

And my comment is that by arming the Sunni Awakening Councils, no matter what the reason, you make political reconciliation that much harder in the long run.

Wow – the crowd goes wild! I feel smarter for just having read that.

Comment by Keltoi — January 8, 2008 @ 1:06 pm

Well, I’m not really sure that there’s a real need to “retool” Communism as the REAL Communist theory as proposed by Marx and Engels was NEVER realized. Marx and Engels proposed that INDUSTRIAL workers (the proletariat) rise up against the owners (the bourgeoisie) as a counter-reaction to the harshness of most capitalists, especially the “robber baron” capitalists. Marx’s theories were, after all, published in a book titled Das Kapital, or “Capital” (as in money). Just to reiterate, INDUSTRIAL–as in WESTERN Europe (England, France, the German Rhineland states). Lenin, when he established the first “Communist” nation, did so in a heavily rural, agrarian society with little to no significant industry. Until the end of WWII, the only other Communist nation was Mongolia (another highly agrarian nation with the barest minimum of “industry”). Even after WWII, the spread of Communism was confined largely to other agrarian, industry-light nations (even in Eastern Europe, agriculture was the main “industry” until following Communist control). Once established in these agrarian states, the Communists forced rapid industrialization on these societies to “catch up” with the Western industrial nations.
Also, Marx hadn’t really anticipated the type of military might that came along in the 20th Century which made his idea of the proletariat struggle a bit more difficult. It’s harder to fight when your opponents can call out an air force which can bomb you into non-existence. One could even infer that Marx’s call for struggle might have been supplanted by union-style striking.

Is that a Lewinsky moment or what?

Comment by RUCerious — January 8, 2008 @ 2:32 pm

I did, but it isn’t what the article you posted was about. We are co-opting slightly radical Sunnis to go kill WAY radical AQ Sunnis. I agree, there is no tangible sign of Sunni-Shiite recouncilliation except that their more vicious extremes seem to have decided to stand down, for the moment at least. AQ is in a category by itself, there is no recounciliation with them.

Comment by Keltoi — January 8, 2008 @ 1:00 pm

That’s all fine and dandy, but my issue was with reconciliation between SUNNI and SHIITE. And you knew that.

Comment by Ret. Col. Jack Ripper — January 8, 2008 @ 12:50 pm

The irony of this situation is incredible. You have a capitalist government organ protesting workers in another country making more money – which is the whole point of capitalism. At the same time, you have a communist government which has to date not allowed unionization, when supposedly the point of Communism is Worker’s Rights!

There are times I think we should scrap all the old econmomic assumptions and definitions and retool them for the 21st century. Add that to Obama’s to do list.

BTW, I have mixed feelings on NAFTA and Free Trade – good in theory, very troublesome in execution.

So how is this strategy helping the reconciliation process? You know, the one that was the stated purpose of the surge????

Comment by RUCerious — January 8, 2008 @ 10:28 am

We arming these guys to go after AQ. We are not trying to recouncile AQ with the Iraqis, we are trying to erase their prescence.

Comment by bilbobaggins — January 8, 2008 @ 9:26 am

Wow….

This is precisely why I refuse to join the Chamber of Commerce. I run a small business and in the middle of starting a second. The Chamber should focus on small business owners. Giant corporations are perfectly capable of defending themselves. And it’s a lie that my interests as a small business person are aligned with giant corporations.

Since this Reagan era started, giant corporations have had free rein to do pretty much anything they want, from oil companies gouging consumers (although some of their pricing is market related) to banks merging to media consolidation, the result has been a disaster.

The Chamber of Commerce would do well to focus on what is needed to return business and consumers back into balance. Defending the status quo, in such a lopsided time where large corporations can do whatever they want, that’s suicide for business. It will only make it harder for people to start businesses and keep them going if consumers are upset and the large corporations have too much power.

By any chance, is there a connection ?