Robert Maguire's Library tagged China →  View Popular

As the climate-change deal deadline in Copenhagen loomed
late Thursday, Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton huddled with world leaders in an impromptu meeting that
lasted into the wee hours of the morning, a State Department official on the scene reports.

Following Clinton's attendance at the Queen's dinner (after her
meeting with Chinese premier Wen
Jiabao), heads of state of key countries decided to go back to the Bella Center and talk it all out
until past 2 a.m. In attendance were British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, South African
President Jacob Zuma, Brazilian
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,
and others, the official said.

Oil demand is projected to grow by 1% per year on average, from 85 million barrels per day in 2008 to 105 mb/d in 2030. All the growth comes from non-OECD countries; OECD demand falls.

Unfortunately the IEA does not present this oil situation in a figure, however the one below for total primary energy demand gives us a good impression. China, India and the rest of the non-OECD world keep growing their consumption (IEA forecast, not mine!), while OECD is all but flatlining.

But remember the moment when Obama turned to Ambassador Jon Hunstman and said more or less, "Jon, did any questions come in via the internet?" I now have heard from enough different informed sources to be comfortable saying that the Chinese government did not know this was coming, and that the ensuing discussion about the Great Firewall was not at all according to their script. Jeremy Goldkorn adds a note about that question -- whose answer, as I mentioned earlier, has the potential to resonate within China. Goldkorn says:

"The Great FireWall question at the Shanghai town hall came directly from the blogger briefing arranged by the Embassy and consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou.

"I attended the briefing and live tweeted it. The bloggers included Anti and Bei Feng, two of the loudest voices calling for open media in China at the moment, but also Rao Jin from AntiCNN.com. The most common question, asked several times by different bloggers, was if Obama knew about the Great FireWall and if he would do something about it."

Remember when Glenn Beck accused President Obama of winning followers like a totalitarian demagogue, warned against the nefarious tendencies of community organizers, and was himself defended against critics by Jonah Goldberg, who called Beck "a libertarian populist?” Now the cable television host is touting a "radical," details-to-be-announced mass movement that promises to save the United States. Its name: "The Plan."

It includes a series of adult education seminars where citizens will be taught political activism, self-reliance, and the dread community organizing. The often tearful Fox News personality also promises a book that will include more specifics.

"We need to start thinking like the Chinese," Mr. Beck said at a recent rally. "I’m developing a 100 year plan for America."

The weird thing is: some aspects of the current tea-party movement appeal to me. Its deep concern with debt and spending is shared by the Dish and has been since its inception. And a conservative critique of unrestrained capitalism - especially the reckless speculation and banking sector in the past decade - is vital if we are to save capitalism from itself. But Beck is not Richard Posner or Bruce Bartlett or Charles Murray, whose ideas are worth taking seriously. As Charles Murray puts it:

"Beck uses tactics that include tiny snippets of film as proof of a
person’s worldview, guilt by association, insinuation, and occasionally
outright goofs like the fake quote. To put it another way,
I as a viewer have no way to judge whether Beck is right. I have to
trust that the snippets are not taken out of context, that the dubious
association between A and B actually has evidence to support it, and
that his numbers are accurate. It is impossible to have that trust."

No wonder Palin feels a kindred spirit. The two of them represent the degenerate expression of cliches that used to be ideas (and ideas worth retaining and adjusting to new circumstances). But the vessel for rethinking will not come from proud ignoramuses and populist Elmer Gantrys. It will not come from reiterating propaganda but from confronting unpleasant facts about conservatism's recent catastrophic failures and mistakes.