Since everyone seems to be doing it, the ISI's National Civic Literacy Board Civics Quiz.

Your correspondent's luck held fast, as I managed to score 59/60 for a percentage of 98.33% accuracy. I missed question 58 dealing with the effects of a purchase of bonds by the Federal Reserve. I said it was a decrease in the supply of money, on the notion that if the Federal Reserve is spending money to buy bonds---which I interpreted to be Treasury bonds---then they would have less money to introduce into the stream of commerce, et cetera. By the ISI's mark, this is wrong, but I don't care. I'm not an economist, hated my economics classes in college, and consider a career in economics only slightly more promising than taking command of Army Group Vistula in April of 1945.

I think I got lucky on several questions due to the fact that I probably share a broad philosophical and political viewpoint with the ISI. Some of the questions, especially on trade and theories of government, depend upon your viewpoints. If you're a fan of an interventionist central government, then you're going to miss several of these.

Nyah nyah, Goldberg.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 12:20 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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EDIT: The link, as usual, has been changed because F24 have not figure out how to run a website. See here for the current story, where the snide Iranian's remarks have been deleted.

It appears that the French government now considers the worst-case scenario in the Iranian question to be war, and at least one minister suggests that the French and their associates prepare for that scenario.

Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner stated on Sunday that negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program should continue "right to the end", while the French and Germans were considering an additional slate of sanctions to be applied to Iran. Kouchner also stated that he considered an atomic-armed Teheran a "real danger for the whole world" and the situation as, "the greatest crisis" at the present.

The Iranians were, of course, outraged, and said nothing important, and the Israelis were, of course, very pleased that the minister's comments had been made. Some commenter named 'amir safari' snapped that 'Mr Kushner had better shut his slotty mouth and stop pestering our country'. Some fool named Kenneth T. Tellis determined that the United States were a greater danger, ostensibly due to our developed and deployed strategic arsenal. He also questioned whether 'we'---whoever that is---should be a part of the "American wolf pack", while claiming that his "we" should set its sights on the U.S. and not Iran.

Fascinating. President Sarkozy's regime may be something of what the Atlantic community needed, which is to say some steel in the backbone that doesn't belong to either Washington or London. I am also pleased that major French energy companies (i.e. Total and Gaz de France are being encouraged to pass on Iranian contracts. Since the intricacies of the French system are opaque to me, I don't know what the nature of official urging would be, whether it's mere rhetoric or something more muscular.

The issues raised during the run-up to Operation IRAQI FREEDOM may yet be overcome, and Teheran's belligerent intransigence is appreciated here. I have hoped for a rapprochement between Washington and Paris due to the mutual interest of Western states at stake here, and perhaps the Sarkozy government will not be so focused on opposition as a reflexive answer.

For the record, I am decidedly skeptical about the Iranian claims of peaceful development and their supposed 'need' for atomic energy to fuel the national grid. Yeah, 'cause they don't have any other sources of energy in that country. To paraphrase Jason Geddrick in the first Iron Eagle, "You've got a whole country full of it!"

I am also amused when I read some outraged claims by the Iranians that they have a right to (variously) atomic power or atomic weapons, and especially so since I vaguely remember it being claimed as of right due to their developing status. The Iranian nationalists would do well to remember that they freely chose to throw away their progress and development ca. 1979 when they backed Ruhollah Khomeini and gaily marched off to war with Iraq.

Get it through your head, Teheran: You may think you have the right to build your atomic weapons program. Fine. Maybe you do; in the abstract, it's nice to ponder. In reality, other nations may assert a right to have a say in whether a violent Islamic-exporting regime with links to terror should be allowed to develop atomic weapons, and don't be surprised if someone takes violent exception to it.

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Minister Kouchner's remarks are unavailable as an English-language transcript, so I can only repeat what France24 puts up.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 08:55 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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