Reality-BasedTM Political Numbers from Nicholas Beaudrot
Electoral Math
Reality-BasedTM Political Numbers from Nicholas Beaudrot
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Stuff that Must Go In Your Bookmarks: Watching America is simply too valuable to be ignored. News from many international newspapers, translated into English for your consumption. Not by some translating gadget, but by actual human beings.
If you want to know whether or not the image of the US is suffering in various countries, which of course affects US companies that do business abroad, this is a great place to go.
"Free trade politics is tricky. Farm politics is trickier."
Now that that's out of the way, the Chilean paper La Tercera had a brief blurb on a trade agreement between the US and Colombia. Colombia's intial demands for duty-free imports of 1,000,000, then 500,000, then 350,000 tons of sugar to the US were reduced to 50,000 tons, which may still be enough to derail the trade deal in Congress. By my nose count, if the Republicans representing sugar producers (mostly in Florida) get together with the Republicans representing textile producers (mostly in the Carolinas) and vote "No", the agreement is dead.
Of course, this is insane; Colombia is going to have to find ways for those living in rural communities to make a living that doesn't depend on the drug trade, and eliminating the sugar business as a viable option makes no sense. But being the principled guy that he is, Bush caved to Big Sugar rather than try to do a little better at fighting the War On Some Drugs When Used By Some People.
Why does George Bush want to take away your cheap sugar? And why is he soft on narcoterrorists?
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updated by Nicholas Beaudrot on 07:31 13 March 2006
