This and That

Amero: Never Mind Gold

Has the time come?

A currency union, similar to the European Union “Euro” has been proposed for North America. The name of the new currency is the “Amero”. The Wikipedia encyclopedia article has additional details about the “Amero”. This has been the source for many conspiracy theories tied in with other proposals such as the “Canamex Corridor”.

These private-issue fantasy pattern coins will be struck as an annual series (until such time as it is no longer legal to do so), starting in the latter part of 2007.

Some pieces are available for immediate delivery . . . .

Final mintages will be determined by sales. The 2007 issues will be available for order until no later than December 31, 2007, and none will ever be minted or available after that.

The 2007 designs feature various Seated Liberty obverses and a similar Eagle & Globe reverse (except for the Jamestown 400th Anniversary commemorative issue which features Pocahontas).


Amero

WikiWatch: Good Deal

There’s a lotta censorin’ going’ out there:

Editing your own entry on Wikipedia is usually the province of vain celebrities keen for some good PR. But a new website has uncovered dozens of companies that have been editing the site in order to improve their public image.

I’m glad the Wikipedia Scanner came along. I hope they help clean up Wikipedia.

Meanwhile, I wonder what it has to say about Mark Roth. Excuse me while I exercise my vanity enough to go check . . . .

I might have guessed.

With so many Mark Roths out there, how come he’s got that WikiCorner all to himself?

Maybe I’ll try my hand at improving the information at Wikipedia. 😉

Oh, let me see what comes up for James Roth (since Mark is my middle name) . . . .

Ha! Nothing there yet! Maybe . . . .

😀

Preparing for the MoAB

As in Mother of All Battles — to use an old SaddamH expression.

The Reds Are Getting Together as Sri Lanka’s Daily News reports under their own headline:

The leaders of China, Russia and four Central Asian countries meet in Kyrgyzstan this week to pursue what is widely seen as an anti-US agenda, before attending large-scale war games in Russia to underline their group’s rising clout.

Presidents Hu Jintao and Vladimir Putin will join the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek on Thursday for the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Founded six years ago, the SCO covers a vast territory including increasingly important gas and oil fields in Russia and Central Asia, as well as the emerging economic giant of China.

The six countries deny forming an anti-Western alliance. According to the Chinese ambassador to Moscow, Liu Guchang, the Bishkek summit will discuss “longterm good-neighbourliness, friendship and cooperation.”

But many analysts see the SCO as a growing bastion against US expansion into Central Asia and against Western pressure for free elections and open media.

Even if the organisation remains loosely integrated and modestly funded, military exercises held last week in China and this week in Russia’s Ural Mountains — with SCO presidents due to attend the final day on Friday — show that intentions are serious.

Under the innocuous sounding title “Peace Mission 2007” about 6,500 soldiers backed by planes, heavy weapons, and paratroopers are training to seize a fictional settlement.

Most of the troops are Chinese or Russian, but for the first time all SCO member states will contribute personnel.

While advertised as “anti-terrorism” exercises, the manoeuvres more closely resemble full-scale military assaults in built-up areas.

The International Herald Tribune adds this tidbit:

Representatives from the SCO’s four observer states, Iran, India, Mongolia and Pakistan, will attend the Aug. 16 summit but not the war games, Li said.

Iran, whose President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be attending his second SCO summit, is among those reportedly interested in joining the SCO as a full member.

Some Islamic states are interested in playing MoAB with the “Commies”?

Half of those observer states have nukes and Iran is hot on the trail.

Speaking of nukes, will Libya eventually want to be another MoABite player?

Then how about this piece from “America’s Newspaper”?

Libya is sitting on a stockpile of almost 200 barrels of uranium despite agreeing in 2003 to dismantle its nuclear program, the Daily Telegraph has learned.

Military Draft in USA?

Bush War Adviser Says Draft Worth a Look

Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military draft, President Bush’s new war adviser said Friday.

“I think it makes sense to certainly consider it,” Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said in an interview with National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”

“And I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table. But ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation’s security by one means or another,” Lute added in his first interview since he was confirmed by the Senate in June.

President Nixon abolished the draft in 1973. Restoring it, Lute said, would be a “major policy shift” and Bush has made it clear that he doesn’t think it’s necessary.

I wonder how soon till he has to back down from those statements.

Bridges & Earmarks

More Than 70,000 Bridges Rated Deficient

More than 70,000 bridges across the country are rated structurally deficient like the span that collapsed in Minneapolis, and engineers estimate repairing them all would take at least a generation and cost more than $188 billion.

That works out to at least $9.4 billion a year over 20 years, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The bridges carry an average of more than 300 million vehicles a day.

That’s a whole pile of bridges! (And I hope that never even comes close to being literally true.)

I suspect a bridge we cross 4-6 times a week is one of them. It’s across the Pudding River on Whiskey Hill Road. I wonder about that bridge especially in winter when the river is high enough to almost “rub” the bridge’s underside.

In a related story, The Hill reports that a House panel OKs $250M for Twin Cities

House Transportation Chairman Jim Oberstar (D) on Thursday called for an increase in gas taxes and more investment in roads and bridges in the wake of the Minneapolis bridge collapse in his home state Wednesday.

Mr. Oberstar, the government is already increasing (very substantially) the price of our fuel. How about the US Congress do the right thing on this one?

Eliminate Earmarks and Better Bridges

(Better there is a verb.)

Or if they simply cannot do without their earmarks, how about this idea: Any earmark in a bill that has nothing to do with the bill shall be permanently replaced with an earmark for maintaining, upgrading, and replacing US infrastructure (beginning with bridges).

An earmark thus replaced cannot appear again in any bill until ten years pass.

Above all, love God!