Dana Blankenhorn

The War of the Republican Tribes

Assuming history goes as it should, as polls say it will, the next War on Terror is right around the corner.

This will be a real war. A war on your street, in your town. Against terrorists who look just like you.

This is certain for two reasons. First, it happened before -- remember the Weathermen? Second, you can't run for a generation on the proposition that the other side is illegitimate, un-American, an enemy, and not expect some blowback. Just look at what happened under the Clintons -- Oklahoma City, the Atlanta bombings.

Now you expect the Republican tribes to tolerate a Barack Obama Administration dedicated to tearing down everything George Bush has built? Neither do I.

Once the Republican Tribes realize they're finished, they're going to ground. They're going to use their technical savvy (they're Americans) and their ready access to arms (they're Americans) to gather their forces and try to take it all back by force, all the while claiming that they're the victims, they're the ones under attack, they're surrounded and they're just defending themselves.

It's how they roll.

So who are these new terrorists? Thanks to groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center we already have some good ideas.

But that understanding is limited because the SPLC only actively tracks groups which have already announced their intentions against the government -- neo-Nazis, Christian brotherhood, white nationalist, even black nationalists. What happens when what are now mainstream groups find themselves marginalized? And what happens when the economic downturn grows ethnic-based organized crime gangs, as it has in the past?

So some imagination is required:

How dangerous are carbon nanotubes?

Not nearly as dangerous as the press hysteria makes out.

A research team based in Edinburgh, Scotland tested specific types of nanotubes -- collections of tubes which look like asbestos -- in mice. Injecting them to simulate exposure to lung linings resulted in "inflammation and the formation of lesions known as granulomas"

This does not mean that nanotubes, or Buckytubes, are as dangerous as asbestos. It means that specific types of nanotubes -- long, thin tubes allowed to float in mid-air -- could cause the same lesions we know happen with asbestos.

It's a yellow light, a warning. It's not the red light the media is pretending it is. The hysteria, in fact, has a political aim, namely to slow nano-science in general by frightening people into thinking scientists want to kill us.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

A Reason to Produce

Think of this as Volume 11, Number 21 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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All the economic problems of our time have a single root cause. (Cartoon by Thomas Nast, for Harper's Weekly.)

Whether we're talking about the Internet, about wireless technology, or about energy, the cause is a lack of reason to produce more.

Consider oil, only because it's top of mind. Why should OPEC produce more? Why should any other major producer? Why should these suppliers lift a finger to halt the thefts and corruption which keep oil from the market?

Will they make more money by doing this? No, they won't. Oil is at $130 per barrel and going higher. Add more supply and the price will go down.

The same is true for Internet service and wireless service. Why should the companies which control Internet broadband allow the creation of a "new pipe" in wireless? It would compete with their shared monopoly. Having kept prices for basic broadband at $50/month and higher, these monopolists are now moving to actually raise prices by limiting the number of bits they deliver under those contracts, and preventing the spread of competing technologies.

Why shouldn't they? What is their incentive for investing in their networks to increase the number of bits they deliver? Will they earn more money as a result? No, they won't.

The problem in all these cases is the same. Shared monopolies, or oligopolies. The free competition of capitalism naturally moves markets toward this climax state. Think Coke and Pepsi, or Bud and Miller, or WalMart and Target. A very small number of companies in each market control the bulk of supply, and are thus in a position to set prices. Why do you think it costs over $1 for a can of fizzy water?

While proclaiming the benefits of capitalism and competition, the United States government has been endorsing this principle of oligopoly for most of the last century, and that trend has accelerated during this decade. All that has really happened is that the oil producing nations of the world have figured this out and taken advantage.

So the answer to our economic doldrums is simple. We need to switch from giving people reasons to withhold product from the market and give them reasons to supply it.

Chengdu Not Now

The decision has been made.

Due to last week's earthquake outside Chengdu, my won and I won't be traveling there on Thursday.

The husband of our hostess, my son's Chinese teacher, wrote to say that there are still fears  the dams will burst, and that the area is not yet safe.

He advised his wife not to follow through on her own travel plans, to stay a while here in the U.S. Since they haven't been together in almost a year, and must miss each other very much, that decision was not taken lightly.

Right now our plans are to delay departure until April. That will be my son's Spring Break during his senior year. The Chinese schools should be back up by then. The weather should be very nice. And the disaster should be over.

Meanwhile, we're going to do a little fundraising. Once his teacher returns home we'll stay in touch via e-mail, learn what the schools there need, and try to help supply it.

One more funny story.