Politics, The Final Frontier (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

One of the great joys of YouTube browsing is discovering there are relatively gigantic things going on in the world you never get to hear about in the ordinary course of browsing the MSM and tommyrot on the internet. For instance, new and major artificial international waterways.

Oddly, the stock of these has not been added to for a hundred years since the Panama Canal and the Kiel Canal was added to the Suez Canal. Oddly, because the technology that built those mega-projects and the financing sources to do so have made giant strides in the last hundred years. Here are three that are on the go right now that I only found out about in the last week:

A new Panama Canal through Guatemala. Paid for initially by a Hong Kong billionaire who is suspected to be a catspaw of a Chinese government only too aware the Americans will never relinquish their de facto grip on the other one. Which is in any case too small, too busy and too affected by lack of water. The Guatemalan Panama canal is begun but is currently holding fire.

An alternative to the Suez Canal through Iraq. If you look at the map this seems a weird concept but the idea is that ships offload at the Shatt-al-Arab, the containers are taken by a new high speed train to southern Turkey where they are offloaded for onward transmission to all parts west. Personally I can't see it working but enormous new docking facilities are being built at the Shatt-al-Arab--way more than Iraq needs--so somebody must think it will.

A waterway at the narrowest part of Thailand so ships can avoid the world's second biggest choke point, the Malacca Straits. (The first biggest being the Straits of Dover so expect a maritime M4 corridor any time soon.) The Thai corridor is in the late planning stage.

If I've missed any, sing out! (Oh yes, there's to be a second Bosphorus north of Istanbul to avoid the restrictions of the Montreux Convention--but that's old news. Possibly it will turn out to be fake news from President Erdogan.)

[Boreades]

Al-Beeb is quivering.

[Boreades]

Then Al-Beeb doubled down.

[Mick Harper]

It's true they're all Putin-mad but some good may very well come from it. They have recognised unconsciously that a golden bridge must be built for Vlad-the-Bad. The Europeans should shut the fuck up for the moment, they are introducing an unnecessary complication (both militarily and morally) and let the Big Three--US, Ukraine & Russia--battle it out. That is, not battle it out because the Big Two are going nowhere.

It's called fifth-wheel syndrome.

[Boreades]

We should note that "open-source data" has a variety of meanings and interpretations. More on that later.

[Wile E. Coyote]

We now have a new definition of unanimous, and it's 26-1.

Pedants might point that this not strictly of "one mind" but when that one is always Victor Orban, and nothing ever is going to be agreed upon, ever again, what actually are you going to do?

The most obvious solution would be to give Hungary to Putin in exchange for allowing Ukraine EU/Nato Membership. The only problem is that Hungary will veto this, not because it's not in favour, but because they want to be paid. When a deal is reached Victor will then demand something else, and finally still vote against.

So the new EU normal is that votes get taken, Victor votes against and the EU goes ahead anyway declaring it's a unanimous decision 26-1.

I guess the idea is that if he don't like the new definition he can always leave.......

[Mick Harper]

That is exactly as I pointed out over on the Terrorism thread re NATO Clause 3 & 4. If we are serious about pan-European defence (and I am not saying we necessarily should be) that is definitely not the model to go for. Except the nambdies are so enamoured of equality and consensus we might get stuck with it.

We need something like 'a coalition of the willing'. Yes, that's it © M J Harper.

[Boreades]

For those counting the bargaining chips.

This from a pro-NATO source:

[Mick Harper]

He was at it again with a US takeover of disputed nuclear power plants. I asked an investment manager friend who has billions of pounds under his command (though not my two) which industries are contra-indicated at this time.

"Well, obviously anything to do with rare earth minerals since everyone's been piling into them and there will soon be a worldwide glut of epic proportions," he said.
"What about nuclear?" I prompted.
"What about nuclear?" he answered.
"Say, old fashioned nuclear power stations."
"Mick, I'm an investment manager not a twat."
"You're a bit of a twat."
"No, you're a twat."
"No, you're a twat."
etc

[Boreades]

The mention of rare-earths just nudged a memory.

The Trump made much of getting a deal from Ukraine for those rare-earths.

Just a glance at the ISW map of "Raw Materials in Ukraine" shows that most of the rare-earths are in the Russian controlled areas.

But that should not be an insurmountable problem as there's no shortage of third parties willing to act as go-betweens. Just as we can still buy Russian oil and gas from several other countries, and pretend it originally comes from them, not from Russia.

Because Sanctions Are Working.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Trump made much of his mineral deposit deal with President Ashraf Ghani in 2017. That deal was estimated to be worth a cool $1trillion, at the time peace loving folks were concerned that such was the size of Trump's deal that the US would never voluntarily leave Afghanistan.

In light of subsequent events we learned that the true value turned out somewhat lower than the estimated $1 trillion.

Firstly the estimate appears to have overlooked the cost of excavation. Buyers of minerals are normally unwilling to pay top dollar for huge Afghani boulders. This means that the supplier is normally expected to extract/mine the valuable stuff from at least much of the rock before transporting it to the buyer. This actually is quite a costly business, so when calcualting value on a deal it's normally good accounting practice to take into account things like cost of extraction and supply.

Secondly there was a stated hope that the Taliban would not attack US companies keen to extract in Helmond province (where most depoits were) which was never tested as the mining companies spotted that the Taliban had continued to attack Afghan troops, despite a peace deal that Trump negotiated with the Taliban.

Net result: no actual metal in the US and all remains inside Afghan rocks.

True worth of Deal $0.00.

[Mick Harper]

It will all come together in the Trump Towers Gaza Strip-Mine.
'Adventure-holidays for the well-heeled.'

Day One: You join a select group panning for beryllium
Day Two: Hunting Hamas hold-outs in tunnels
Day Three: Handing out food, tents etc to Palestinian lookalikes
Day Four: You are member for the day of Médecins sans Frontières
Day Five: Make your own drone... and fly it!
Day Six: Grand Peace Conference simulation and celebration
Day Seven: Limo to Ben Gurion and home.

[Boreades]

[Mick Harper]

If only there was no Himalayan massif the Russians could run their pipelines to places NATO can't reach.