Blog Friends with Smoking Fingers

Thomas Barnett

Zenpundit

Tom Barnett has been on fire since taking the reins of being his own webmaster, as he out OODA Loops the best of the MSM pundits. This quartet of posts are just a few examples of his deft eye and smoking fingers getting to the meat of a story.

China becomes a net importer of coal in 2009, in part because its needs are skyrocketing in terms of electricity generation and because it has sought to crack down on unsafe mining throughout the country.

But the shift is sudden and almost unreal in its magnitude: from basically breaking even in 2008 to a net importation of more than 100 tonnes million in 2009...

...This huge growth in consumption share is and will be mirrored in the oil industry.

When you see numbers like this, you naturally come to the conclusion, as I have for a while now, that the U.S. and "Chindia" are natural partners in policing and shrinking the Gap; we for pol-mil reasons, they for economic-network reasons.

Read more:
Appreciating China for what it's done for global capitalism

Then feast your eyes on these insightful treats.
Feudalism replaced by "democratic centralism" Replaced by..

The SysAdmin navy is a money-bal team

China becomes next importer on coal, and reinvigorates entire global coal market as result

Mark at Zenpundit has also been very productive the past few days, producing excellent book reviews and these two posts, that share almost 50 comments between them.

Thought Experiment

Thinking With A Fresh Mind

One of the commenters had this interesting link that caught my eye.
Upper bound: The American dream is simple: work hard and move up. As the country emerges from recession, the reality looks ever more complicated

If you have stopped along the way and read every article. I think you will agree, my blog friends have produced a mimi bonanza of thoughtful posts.