“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Accuses the Pakis
No diplomatic subtlety here. Singh lays the blame of the Mumbai terror murders on elements in the Pakistani Government. That is an act of war. Now we will see what India does about it.
"Today, even as Pakistan engages in whipping up war hysteria, our nation remains steadfastly united and if anything the process of national consolidation is becoming stronger"
Pakistan's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Malik Ahmad Khan, too, blamed India for not giving any evidence to Pakistan related to Mumbai terror attacks.
"India has not even begun its official investigation. We will give befitting response to Indian military’s adventurism.
India has not pushed back its forces from forward position on Pakistan’s eastern borders," said Malik Ahmad Khan.
O.T. but I came across this odd note in "The Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich"--
"Among the American dead were several prisoners shot in cold blood by Colonel Jochen Peiper's combat group of the 1st S.S. Panzer Division near Malmedy on December 17. According to the evidence presented at Nuremburg, 129 American prisoners were massacred; at the subsequent trial of the S.S. officers involved, the figures were reduced to 71. The trial before an American military tribunal at Dachau in the spring of 1946 had a curious denoument. Forty three S.S. officers including Peiper were condemned to death, twenty three to life in prison and eight to shorter sentences. Sepp Dietrich, commander of the Sixth S.S. Panzer Army, which fought in the northern side of the Bulge, received twenty three years, and others lesser sentences.
Then a hue and a cry arose in the U.S. Senate, especially from the late Senator Joe McCarthy, that the S.S. officers had been treated brutally in order to extort confessions. In March 1948 thirty one of the death sentences were commuted; in April the death sentences were reduced from 12 to 6and in January 1951, under a general amnesty, the remaining death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. At the time of this writing all have been released. Almost forgotten in the hubbub over the alleged ill treatment of the S.S. officers was the indisputable evidence that at least sevety-one unarmed U.S. war prisoners were slain in cold blood on a snowy field near Malmady on December 17, 1944 on the orders--or incitement--of several S.S. officers."
Well you can't be too fair to the S.S. Struck me as odd.
The Soviets would have made mincemeat out of them.
The Soviets would probably be still bogged down.
But maybe we shouldn't have helped. I recall thinking it was a good idea at the time, helping those freedom fighters, and paying the Russians back, and it may have hastened the fall of the Soviet Union, but it also brought us Osama and the Taliban.
Since then, I've learned it's a risky business advocating what should or shouldn't be done.
I doubt the Indians will do much, I'm usually wrong, and I'm not saying what they should or shouldn't do. Everything seems to have some invisible downside lurking about.
Freegans often find sustenance at the bottom of dumpsters, helping to reduce waste and limit their participation in the destructive global economy. But is this the best use of their time, or are they just propping up an exploitative economic system?
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5505
------
We report. You decide.
From the archives of the Lester Brown founded WorldWatch Institute.
I can testify to this-- these days I rent some apartments to students, mostly, and a couple of others.
These students are pretty darned well off, most of them, relatively speaking of course. When the change of the semester rolls around, it's worth it to take a quick glance over at the dumpster. An immaculate computer desk is downstairs for instance. Lamps is another big ticket item they often leave, along with microwave ovens. Often a bicycle, maybe missing a chain, can be found, and chairs, even couches, if one were in the market.
One day I was waiting near a large complex of apartments to meet with a guy, and this older retired fellow, that had been inspecting the dumpsters, and I got to talking. He was with some local Christian church, and spent, he said, a good part of his time going around to all the dumpsters in town, he had a route he had worked out, and had a pickup, getting whatever was valuable, mostly recyclables, but other stuff too, selling them, and donating the money to some local charity. He said he pulled out some thousands of dollars every year doing that. It was his hobby, to help out.
Dumpster diving for food wouldn't work around the apartments. However behind the supermarkets or restaurants it might be a gold mine for all I know.
For the big items one can score at the change of semesters.
Farmers markets don't work well up here. Too cold, and not enough fruits and veggies grown. Maybe other places.
However you can get lentils cheap at the warehouse, if you buy a ton, and have a pickup, and can divide it up among some others.
These freegans seem to be evolving towards (not necessarily back to) the life style of the hunter/gatherers, with the emphasis on gatherers. I've read that in some of the warmer climes one can get by on three or fours hours a day, the original leisure society. It was talking about the !Kung as I recall. They are not going to be talked out of their lifestyle, particularily since the womenfolk do most of the gathering:)
I don't follow the argument about how freeganing might help or hurt corporations, but I'm not buying the percentage of wasted food that was cited.
That's what losers do, adopt some of the tactics of the winners. The Republicans too need an equivalent of ACORN, a Republican voter manufacturing and assembly plant. ---
I picked up a layman's book on recent cosmology. We're being over run by some stuff called dark energy. This stuff causes space to repel space, causing our bubble to blow up and expand, and, since it increases with the volume of space, soon, relatively speaking, things will be shooting apart faster than the speed of light. Except for the local glusters of galaxies, whose gravitation will keep them together. The sky's gonna go dark, if I understood it right, except for the Milky Way, and a few other galaxies in our local gluster. Dark energy, and another oddity, dark matter, make up most of the universe. If you could get some dark matter, you might be able to manufacture an invisible tank or airplane, as it doesn't interact with light in any known way. The possiblities of this material to a criminal mind are legion.
That's what it said. But added, if dark energy keeps its behavior as it's thought to be now. If it changes behavior, all bets are off.
I personally have quit worrying about this stuff, thinking the respiration, breathing in and out, of Brahma is as good a way to look at it.
Pakistan, that is a client State of the US. Over the last few years we have paid them tens of billions of dollars. They allow US to transit their country, when the terrorists are resting, to supply Nato and Afghani troops, in Afghanistan.
The newly elected President, of Pakistan, recently reassured the world his country was not a failed State. Seems that if a President has to pronounce his State secure from yhe perception of failure, it has already failed.
The ISI was a sponsor of the Taliban and by extension the aQ elements that attacked the US in September of 2001. To have then paid the Pakistani tribute payments, in cash instead of Jdams, was criminal.
But that was par for the compassionate course that was set and stayed. President elect Obama has stated that there are 40 to 50,000 hardcore jihadi that need killing, most of those reside in Pakistan. If all goes well, he'll get on with the mission of delivering justice. If not, he'll just be another Federal Socialist at the helm, a Washingtonian to the core.
"The lightcone shows the strange implications of th speed of light. Perhaps most surprisingly, it shows that much of the information we will have in the future is already on the way towards us;, but right now it's not in our past or our future. It's outside our lightcone. Because of the limiting speed of light, time can't be divided into simply past and future. There is a third category: neither past nor future but "outside our lightcone" or perhaps "elsewhen".
The region outside the lightcone represents most of the universe, and it is not in our past or future because we're separated from it by too much "spacetime" for it to have affected us or for us to affect it. Einstein's concept of spacetime does not replace space and time--they are still meaningful on their own--but instead represents a deep interdependence between space and time. Time is dependent on the motion of the clock measuring it, and thus not all observers will agree on it. But because everyone sees light traveling at the same speed, relativity allows us to define a quantity called the spacetime separation that all observers must agree on. Within the concept of spacetime, the slippery individual quantities of space and time compensate for each other, revealing an underlying unity that is not relative but absolute--or "invariant". There were occasions when Einstein regretted having named his theory "relativity" and mused that he should have called it the theory of invariance, since the invariance of spacetime is its central concept.
Whatever is not in or on our backward lightcone can have no effect on us today. But that doesn't mean it won't affect us in the future, or our children or our great-great-grandchildren. Light and other forms of information are already traveling toward Earth and will arrive in ten years, a hundred years, a million years from now. That information has been on its way for possibly billions of years. Much of our future already exists--it just hasn't gotten here yet.
The past exists too--it's streaming away at the speed of light, and that's why we can't send it any information. But it's sending us plenty. We're reading the messages it wrote long ago that are arriving now. In some sense the past of the universe lies in our future, because more of the past will be found in the future as those ancient messages stream in, untouched and accurate after their long journeys. Imagine that a runner from ancient Greece were just arriving today, breathless, carrying the news of the defeat of the Persians, and we were the first to hear it from his lips. Runners are coming from all over the universe with news of their eras, in every form of radiation and the strangest languages anyone's ever heard; the cosmological revolution is human beings finally beginning to undrstand and put the whole story together."
"The View From The Center of the Universe" Primack and Abrams
I wrong about making tanks and planes out of dark matter, cause it seems it doesn't stick together or interact with anything. You'd have to get some kind of 'dark glue' or 'dark welding material' to hold it together.
Anyways, I don't think there will ever be a packet of light info streaming out to space showing the aliens that Obama has killed 40,000 or 50,000 hardcore jihadis in Pakistan, unless we get nuked first. He may send a few more troops to Afghanistan for a while, to cover his campaign promises, but I don't see him actually doing much.
But then again, bob, you did not see him gaining the oval office, either. Did not see him besting Billery or carrying so many previously Republican States.
Obama is a study of contradictions
I wouldn't bet, much, on what he will or will not do.
He is a winner, in his own right, that much is clear. He did not use family and his father's cronies to reach the apex of US power politics. He obviously kept his eye on the prize.
All true Rat, but he'd either have to carpet bomb the place or put in a lot of troops wouldn't he? Any other way?
I can't see it.
Besides, most of his voters wouldn't much like it, I'd imagine.
But you're right, he's come up with surprises.
I'm worried about what the democrats are going to try to do to the 2nd Amendment. They've got some bill going that let's the AG decide what kind of guns are ok, now that it's been, at least temporarily, decided we peasants can have a gun, of some kind.
I don't care for you guys discussing my methods of sustenance w/o asking my permission first. ...and unlike al-Bob, I've never been caught sniffing old Tampons.
I've wondered how you make your living, Doug. Those dumpsters around the fancy beach condos must be loaded with high quality shit. You might even be able to export 'em to the mainland. Maybe you already are!
Yeah, he had some help. The Chicago gang, Soros, that other guy you've mentioned, foreign money, ACORN....an idiotic electorate....a miserable Supreme Court....
Mr GW Bush was quite predictable, from early on. While he provided red meat rhetoric his performance never met the promise. This was readily evident by mid 2003, back when even you were still camped along side him.
Time will tell. I'm guessing Obama is just another Federal Socialist, but he's been empowered by GW Bush to nationalize America. Another point of light, a gift from the Bush family that we'll all get to enjoy the benefits of.
Of course Obama had help, friends and associates along the way, but he found them himself. Earned their assisstance, it was not offered as a gift to his father, for past favors given.
Obama may be a bastard, but he is a self made man.
Years ago, the wife of the Magistrate Judge here, who worked for the local FedEx, got busted for shipping drugs through the company airways and trucks.(marijuana)
Which the judge was smoking a little of himself. He was a good, fair judge regardless.
Of course, she finked out on all her co-conspirators, got probation, then elected to the city council.
But, I think her career is over. The Judge is retired, and she's out of politics.
I still can't believe he got elected. The country has passed me by. My light cone is slipping away. My information pack is heading out to the vasty deeps at the speed of light.
He may still pardon those guys. If he doesn't I'll agree with you. And that Vietnam vet ought to be pardoned too.
I sign many a meaningless petition. Just got a reply from one of my Senators today. Never seems to make an impact. I signed a petition for Ramos and Compion.
So, here is the next part of Obama's conservative repackaging. He is going to match the deficits that our conservative icon and touchstone, Ronald Reagan, presided over, in 1983.
From the NYTines
Mr. Obama was not specific about the size of the deficit he expects, beyond his reference to “a trillion-dollar deficit or close to a trillion-dollar deficit” for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. Aides said later that the estimate — in line with what economists have been anticipating given the economy’s rapid deterioration — did not include the costs of the proposed stimulus package, which could add hundreds of billions of dollars more to the red ink.
At $1 trillion, the deficit would not only shatter the largest previous shortfall in dollar terms — $455 billion last year — but it could also exceed the post-World War II-era record by the measure more meaningful in economic terms, the deficit as a percentage of total economic activity.
Diane Rogers, chief economist at the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan organization that supports fiscal discipline, estimated that the deficit this year would hit 7 percent of the gross domestic product. The largest previous record in those terms was in 1983, when it hit 6 percent.
This is a good book I picked up. Getting cosmology down to my level. They are promising to put together a new mythology for our age. I'll let you know what they come up with.
The galaxies, they say, are surrounded by a vast field of dark energy, which keeps the stars in the arms from spinning off into space, which they should be doing if what we 'see' is all there is. By far the greatest percent of the stuff of the universe is contained in this dark matter and dark energy, they say. Only in the last couple of decades did this understanding really take hold. Odd stuff, doesn't interact with light or 'regular' matter in any known way. But dark matter has gravity.
--- Sounds like he's going for the record, going to shatter earlier deficit efforts.
There was that and some CBS footage of hundreds of armed anti-Americans protesting US activities in some Paki town. The enemy in the open, streamed live by CBS and not a single Jdam fell. Both those Pakistani realities and a story posted in one of the threads, at the BC concerning Iraq.
I recall it, even today. The US military was not authorized to take any, even non-lethal, actions to maintain the security integrity of their convoys in Iraq.
Not even allowed to throw water bottles at the offending drivers and their vehicles. Even as vehicle borne IEDs were beginning to proliferate. It was an eye opener, to be sure.
The crew at the BC, in another episode, were enamoured by Mr Yon's photo of the Four Duece SGMajor wearing his raybans ...
So cool ...
None wanting to even acknowledge the "Catch and Release" policies that allowed the Iraqi insurgent to shoot the unit Commander.
Though that was later in the timeline of cascading confidence in the leadership of US forces.
Until conservatives, libertarians and Republicans - who will be the lion's share of Big Hollywood's contributors - recognize that (pop) culture is the big prize and that politics is secondary, there will be no victory in this important battle.
Hollywood is no longer an American industry. And it took a prolonged war in which the studios and most of the stars didn't show up to fight for America to draw attention to this hard truth.
American corporations, the FBI, the CIA and elected U.S. officials are the bad guys in flicks these days. Radical Islamists are seldom vilified while the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines are smeared too often.
Film production - and countless jobs - have been steadily shipped abroad for cost-cutting purposes. Standing ovations at Cannes and Golden Globes - not American popular opinion - determine who wins the Oscar. And homegrown actors are hailed as First Amendment heroes for speaking out against the United States.
The anti-hero rules this celluloid world. Nihilism is packaged as edginess. And there's zero sense that anyone's watching out for quality control. Even the respected awards are often given to the most outlandish and gratuitously deplorable.
In 2003, Meryl Streep told the Wall Street Journal:
"We export the crap. And then we wonder why everybody hates us and has a distorted picture of what Americans are."
(Breitbart says that one of the biggest producers in Hollywood offered himself @ the Pentagon after 9-11, saying: "I'm the best at what I do, I can make movies especially for you." --- The Washingtonian Response: "We don't do propaganda"
The story is going to be told. Who tells the tale, well, that makes a lot of difference, in the telling and the moral of the story.
The hubris of believing the US could rely on the results of limited combat and policing and ignore the battle of ideas, just illustrates the ignorance of the real world that engulfs the US military.
With an average pay package that rivals the UAWs, An average of$112,000 per annum in pay and benefits. Our military results, overall, rival the performance level of the "Big Three".
Providing a product, whether it is what the market needs or wants. Neither group can respond quickly to changes in the strategic situation.
Good points on Obama being self-made in achieving the Presidency , as was little jimmy carter.
Obama is smarter and does not seem to be as vindictive or nasty as Carter. Obama has a very serendipitous starting point.
People expect a lot from him but not much from the economy and further understand the world is a political mess. Everyone hopes Obama will be successful and none more so than George Bush. A successful Obama presidency will do wonders for the legacy of W.
Keeping the all-volunteer Army at full strength in wartime hasn't been cheap, either. The cost per troop soared to $120,000 in 2006 from $75,000 in 2001.
The Study I got the $112,000 figure from may well have been this one< from the Center for Defense Information.
June 22, 2006 Addressing DOD’s High Manpower Costs
Pay and benefits for members of the U.S. armed services cost $158 billion in 2004. That makes an average of $112,000 per troop. Because of large increases requested by the Pentagon and substantially more added by Congress, these costs rose 28 percent over the last four years (after adjusting for inflation), twice the rate of compensation growth in the private sector.
The personnel costs have grown so high that they pressure resources for other military activities, such as training and weapons maintenance, and they put strain on the overall size of the fighting forces. For example, the Pentagon has made new plans for the Navy and Air Force to contain costs by shedding tens of thousands of active duty personnel in coming years.
The high cost for uniformed personnel makes it no longer prudent to assign them to non-essential or non-military duties, such as truck driving, facilities upkeep, accounting, jet engine repair, and much else. In response, Defense Department (DOD) out-sources many such services to contractors at home and in the field, an activity for which DOD is sometimes criticized without acknowledgement of the underlying reason.
Military personnel actually only see about 66 percent of their compensation; roughly $40,000 per active duty member comes in the form of non-cash benefits, such as subsidized housing, health care, day care for children, retirement payments, commissaries, and dining facilities.
"Military personnel actually only see about 66 percent of their compensation; roughly $40,000 per active duty member comes in the form of non-cash benefits, such as subsidized housing, health care, day care for children, retirement payments, commissaries, and dining facilities."
Just another dysfunctional middle American family.
Babes out of wedlock and drug dealing in-laws, stereotypical of life in a real American trailer park.
The Clinton's had a similar drug problem in their family. Wasn't Bill's brother fond of the nose candy? Perhaps Bill, himself, was. Or so the stories were told.
Obama in a news conference has stated that he will be receiving a $1.2 Trillion deficit. Obviously this number was constructed by someone with hyper BDS.
On that cost per troop number - I'm guessing they've taken the total annual costs (benefits ect.) and divided it by the number of troops. If indeed this is how the number is calculated it is a bit misleading in that many of the benefits are accruing to vets as well.
True that legacy costs need be accounted for it's just that if you use the statistic as a guide toward the cost of adding additional troops then or as justification for reducing troops then that number could be a problem.
That $40,000 could drop, if the number of active duty increased, but not all that much.
In the case of the Army there are 1,447,076 active duty, according to wiki.
In the case of the UAW I think that $15 per hour was attributed to legacy retirement and health costs. That be X 40 or $600 per week x 52 or $3,120 annually dedicated to retirement & health legacy costs.
There are 500,000 retired UAW members and 750,000 retired from the Army, alone.
It was reported in a filing with the Labor Department that the UAW had 464,910 members at the end of 2007.
The UAW operating at a one to one ratio, while the Army is operating at a two to one ratio, now.
Personnel costs, short and long term. Maybe that'll come up for review, 38 year olds retiring at half the current pay rate, for life.
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"Today, even as Pakistan engages in whipping up war hysteria, our nation remains steadfastly united and if anything the process of national consolidation is becoming stronger"
ReplyDelete-Singh
Pakistan is the most dangerous place on the planet. It is nuclear and not fixable by democratic fantasies.
ReplyDeleteAfghanistan is a waste of time and resources without stability in Pakistan and there is no clear path to that.
The Soviets would have made mincemeat out of them. But the CIA fscks had to get in the way.
ReplyDeletePakistan's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Malik Ahmad Khan, too, blamed India for not giving any evidence to Pakistan related to Mumbai terror attacks.
ReplyDelete"India has not even begun its official investigation. We will give befitting response to Indian military’s adventurism.
India has not pushed back its forces from forward position on Pakistan’s eastern borders," said Malik Ahmad Khan.
Terror not India's Enemy
O.T. but I came across this odd note in "The Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich"--
ReplyDelete"Among the American dead were several prisoners shot in cold blood by Colonel Jochen Peiper's combat group of the 1st S.S. Panzer Division near Malmedy on December 17. According to the evidence presented at Nuremburg, 129 American prisoners were massacred; at the subsequent trial of the S.S. officers involved, the figures were reduced to 71. The trial before an American military tribunal at Dachau in the spring of 1946 had a curious denoument. Forty three S.S. officers including Peiper were condemned to death, twenty three to life in prison and eight to shorter sentences. Sepp Dietrich, commander of the Sixth S.S. Panzer Army, which fought in the northern side of the Bulge, received twenty three years, and others lesser sentences.
Then a hue and a cry arose in the U.S. Senate, especially from the late Senator Joe McCarthy, that the S.S. officers had been treated brutally in order to extort confessions. In March 1948 thirty one of the death sentences were commuted; in April the death sentences were reduced from 12 to 6and in January 1951, under a general amnesty, the remaining death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. At the time of this writing all have been released. Almost forgotten in the hubbub over the alleged ill treatment of the S.S. officers was the indisputable evidence that at least sevety-one unarmed U.S. war prisoners were slain in cold blood on a snowy field near Malmady on December 17, 1944 on the orders--or incitement--of several S.S. officers."
Well you can't be too fair to the S.S. Struck me as odd.
The Soviets would have made mincemeat out of them.
ReplyDeleteThe Soviets would probably be still bogged down.
But maybe we shouldn't have helped. I recall thinking it was a good idea at the time, helping those freedom fighters, and paying the Russians back, and it may have hastened the fall of the Soviet Union, but it also brought us Osama and the Taliban.
Since then, I've learned it's a risky business advocating what should or shouldn't be done.
I doubt the Indians will do much, I'm usually wrong, and I'm not saying what they should or shouldn't do. Everything seems to have some invisible downside lurking about.
brought us Osama and the Taliban
ReplyDelete==
I hope our knuckleheads will finally learn their lesson. Always side with the side against the Jihadis.
That might be the best rule of thumb all right.
ReplyDeletenite,Mat
Is “Skipping” Enough to Save the World?
ReplyDeleteby Erik Assadourian on November 26, 2007
Freegans often find sustenance at the bottom of dumpsters, helping to reduce waste and limit their participation in the destructive global economy. But is this the best use of their time, or are they just propping up an exploitative economic system?
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5505
------
We report. You decide.
From the archives of the Lester Brown founded WorldWatch Institute.
I'm still rumbling around here, Linear.
ReplyDeleteI can testify to this-- these days I rent some apartments to students, mostly, and a couple of others.
These students are pretty darned well off, most of them, relatively speaking of course. When the change of the semester rolls around, it's worth it to take a quick glance over at the dumpster. An immaculate computer desk is downstairs for instance. Lamps is another big ticket item they often leave, along with microwave ovens. Often a bicycle, maybe missing a chain, can be found, and chairs, even couches, if one were in the market.
One day I was waiting near a large complex of apartments to meet with a guy, and this older retired fellow, that had been inspecting the dumpsters, and I got to talking. He was with some local Christian church, and spent, he said, a good part of his time going around to all the dumpsters in town, he had a route he had worked out, and had a pickup, getting whatever was valuable, mostly recyclables, but other stuff too, selling them, and donating the money to some local charity. He said he pulled out some thousands of dollars every year doing that. It was his hobby, to help out.
Dumpster diving for food wouldn't work around the apartments. However behind the supermarkets or restaurants it might be a gold mine for all I know.
For the big items one can score at the change of semesters.
Farmers markets don't work well up here. Too cold, and not enough fruits and veggies grown. Maybe other places.
However you can get lentils cheap at the warehouse, if you buy a ton, and have a pickup, and can divide it up among some others.
These freegans seem to be evolving towards (not necessarily back to) the life style of the hunter/gatherers, with the emphasis on gatherers. I've read that in some of the warmer climes one can get by on three or fours hours a day, the original leisure society. It was talking about the
!Kung as I recall. They are not going to be talked out of their lifestyle, particularily since the womenfolk do most of the gathering:)
I don't follow the argument about how freeganing might help or hurt corporations, but I'm not buying the percentage of wasted food that was cited.
Reporting from North Idaho.
Rebuilding The Republican Party Through The Internet
ReplyDeleteThat's what losers do, adopt some of the tactics of the winners. The Republicans too need an equivalent of ACORN, a Republican voter manufacturing and assembly plant.
---
I picked up a layman's book on recent cosmology. We're being over run by some stuff called dark energy. This stuff causes space to repel space, causing our bubble to blow up and expand, and, since it increases with the volume of space, soon, relatively speaking, things will be shooting apart faster than the speed of light. Except for the local glusters of galaxies, whose gravitation will keep them together. The sky's gonna go dark, if I understood it right, except for the Milky Way, and a few other galaxies in our local gluster. Dark energy, and another oddity, dark matter, make up most of the universe. If you could get some dark matter, you might be able to manufacture an invisible tank or airplane, as it doesn't interact with light in any known way. The possiblities of this material to a criminal mind are legion.
That's what it said. But added, if dark energy keeps its behavior as it's thought to be now. If it changes behavior, all bets are off.
I personally have quit worrying about this stuff, thinking the respiration, breathing in and out, of Brahma is as good a way to look at it.
Pakistan, that is a client State of the US. Over the last few years we have paid them tens of billions of dollars. They allow US to transit their country, when the terrorists are resting, to supply Nato and Afghani troops, in Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteThe newly elected President, of Pakistan, recently reassured the world his country was not a failed State. Seems that if a President has to pronounce his State secure from yhe perception of failure, it has already failed.
The ISI was a sponsor of the Taliban and by extension the aQ elements that attacked the US in September of 2001. To have then paid the Pakistani tribute payments, in cash instead of Jdams, was criminal.
But that was par for the compassionate course that was set and stayed. President elect Obama has stated that there are 40 to 50,000 hardcore jihadi that need killing, most of those reside in Pakistan. If all goes well, he'll get on with the mission of delivering justice. If not, he'll just be another Federal Socialist at the helm, a Washingtonian to the core.
A no change Charlie.
"The lightcone shows the strange implications of th speed of light. Perhaps most surprisingly, it shows that much of the information we will have in the future is already on the way towards us;, but right now it's not in our past or our future. It's outside our lightcone. Because of the limiting speed of light, time can't be divided into simply past and future. There is a third category: neither past nor future but "outside our lightcone" or perhaps "elsewhen".
ReplyDeleteThe region outside the lightcone represents most of the universe, and it is not in our past or future because we're separated from it by too much "spacetime" for it to have affected us or for us to affect it. Einstein's concept of spacetime does not replace space and time--they are still meaningful on their own--but instead represents a deep interdependence between space and time. Time is dependent on the motion of the clock measuring it, and thus not all observers will agree on it. But because everyone sees light traveling at the same speed, relativity allows us to define a quantity called the spacetime separation that all observers must agree on. Within the concept of spacetime, the slippery individual quantities of space and time compensate for each other, revealing an underlying unity that is not relative but absolute--or "invariant". There were occasions when Einstein regretted having named his theory "relativity" and mused that he should have called it the theory of invariance, since the invariance of spacetime is its central concept.
Whatever is not in or on our backward lightcone can have no effect on us today. But that doesn't mean it won't affect us in the future, or our children or our great-great-grandchildren. Light and other forms of information are already traveling toward Earth and will arrive in ten years, a hundred years, a million years from now. That information has been on its way for possibly billions of years. Much of our future already exists--it just hasn't gotten here yet.
The past exists too--it's streaming away at the speed of light, and that's why we can't send it any information. But it's sending us plenty. We're reading the messages it wrote long ago that are arriving now. In some sense the past of the universe lies in our future, because more of the past will be found in the future as those ancient messages stream in, untouched and accurate after their long journeys. Imagine that a runner from ancient Greece were just arriving today, breathless, carrying the news of the defeat of the Persians, and we were the first to hear it from his lips. Runners are coming from all over the universe with news of their eras, in every form of radiation and the strangest languages anyone's ever heard; the cosmological revolution is human beings finally beginning to undrstand and put the whole story together."
"The View From The Center of the Universe" Primack and Abrams
I wrong about making tanks and planes out of dark matter, cause it seems it doesn't stick together or interact with anything. You'd have to get some kind of 'dark glue' or 'dark welding material' to hold it together.
Anyways, I don't think there will ever be a packet of light info streaming out to space showing the aliens that Obama has killed 40,000 or 50,000 hardcore jihadis in Pakistan, unless we get nuked first. He may send a few more troops to Afghanistan for a while, to cover his campaign promises, but I don't see him actually doing much.
But then again, bob, you did not see him gaining the oval office, either. Did not see him besting Billery or carrying so many previously Republican States.
ReplyDeleteObama is a study of contradictions
I wouldn't bet, much, on what he will or will not do.
He is a winner, in his own right, that much is clear. He did not use family and his father's cronies to reach the apex of US power politics. He obviously kept his eye on the prize.
No reason to think he'll stumble, now.
All true Rat, but he'd either have to carpet bomb the place or put in a lot of troops wouldn't he? Any other way?
ReplyDeleteI can't see it.
Besides, most of his voters wouldn't much like it, I'd imagine.
But you're right, he's come up with surprises.
I'm worried about what the democrats are going to try to do to the 2nd Amendment. They've got some bill going that let's the AG decide what kind of guns are ok, now that it's been, at least temporarily, decided we peasants can have a gun, of some kind.
As gag has reported, bob, there is an easy remedy to that threat.
ReplyDeleteBuy your guns today, with plenty of ammo, and put them in the closet.
If asked, don't tell.
I don't care for you guys discussing my methods of sustenance w/o asking my permission first.
ReplyDelete...and unlike al-Bob, I've never been caught sniffing old Tampons.
He used his grandfather's crony, the drug dealing commie child molester to find his way to Hyde Park Illinois, 'Rat!
ReplyDeleteBeen so long since I've had anything shipped,
ReplyDeleteI don't remember if Fed-Ex ever used to do this:
Any idears?
Denver - Oakland - Memphis - Hawaii?
Jan 7, 2009 - 4:34 AM Departed FedEx location
MEMPHIS, TN
Jan 6, 2009 - 12:55 PM - In transit
MEMPHIS, TN
9:46 AM - Arrived at FedEx location
OAKLAND, CA
Jan 5, 2009 11:02 PM - At local FedEx facility
DENVER, CO
7:44 PM - Left FedEx origin facility
ARVADA, CO
3:26 PM - Picked up
ARVADA, CO
9:59 AM - Package data transmitted to FedEx
I've wondered how you make your living, Doug. Those dumpsters around the fancy beach condos must be loaded with high quality shit. You might even be able to export 'em to the mainland. Maybe you already are!
ReplyDelete...that's why I'm trying to figure out how Fed-Ex works.
ReplyDelete...need any pre-owned Thong Bikinis?
Yeah, he had some help. The Chicago gang, Soros, that other guy you've mentioned, foreign money, ACORN....an idiotic electorate....a miserable Supreme Court....
ReplyDeleteSarah Palin--she's done it on her own.
(unwashed, of course)
ReplyDeleteLike GW Bush used James Baker?
ReplyDeleteI do not think so.
Mr GW Bush was quite predictable, from early on. While he provided red meat rhetoric his performance never met the promise. This was readily evident by mid 2003, back when even you were still camped along side him.
Time will tell. I'm guessing Obama is just another Federal Socialist, but he's been empowered by GW Bush to nationalize America.
Another point of light, a gift from the Bush family that we'll all get to enjoy the benefits of.
His biggest help was probably 'Rat's fave:
ReplyDeleteBig John.
...with camping finance reform. tm
...got the Supremes and W's help on that, too.
Damn!@
ReplyDelete'Rat's gonna tout his six-month head-start he had on me ratting out W!
...I have the excuse of being brainwashed @ BC longer than he.
Of course Obama had help, friends and associates along the way, but he found them himself. Earned their assisstance, it was not offered as a gift to his father, for past favors given.
ReplyDeleteObama may be a bastard, but he is a self made man.
Years ago, the wife of the Magistrate Judge here, who worked for the local FedEx, got busted for shipping drugs through the company airways and trucks.(marijuana)
ReplyDeleteWhich the judge was smoking a little of himself. He was a good, fair judge regardless.
Of course, she finked out on all her co-conspirators, got probation, then elected to the city council.
But, I think her career is over. The Judge is retired, and she's out of politics.
Both democrats.
Jeb ought '12!
ReplyDeleteHe's a self made bastard, I'll go that far with you.
ReplyDeleteW is pardoning Coyotes, Drug Dealers, assorted crooks and criminals...
ReplyDeleteBut NOT
Ramos and Campeon!
...nor Libby.
I DARE anyone to claim NOW he is a decent, honest, and honorable man.
I still can't believe he got elected. The country has passed me by. My light cone is slipping away. My information pack is heading out to the vasty deeps at the speed of light.
ReplyDelete...like to watch him and Johnny Sutton get butt-fucked by some LARGE Federal Detainees.
ReplyDelete...on the same bunk @ the same time.
...bobal tripping out on late nite again.
ReplyDeleteArea 51, here we come!
He may still pardon those guys. If he doesn't I'll agree with you. And that Vietnam vet ought to be pardoned too.
ReplyDeleteI sign many a meaningless petition. Just got a reply from one of my Senators today. Never seems to make an impact. I signed a petition for Ramos and Compion.
So, here is the next part of Obama's conservative repackaging. He is going to match the deficits that our conservative icon and touchstone, Ronald Reagan, presided over, in 1983.
ReplyDeleteFrom the NYTines
Mr. Obama was not specific about the size of the deficit he expects, beyond his reference to “a trillion-dollar deficit or close to a trillion-dollar deficit” for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. Aides said later that the estimate — in line with what economists have been anticipating given the economy’s rapid deterioration — did not include the costs of the proposed stimulus package, which could add hundreds of billions of dollars more to the red ink.
At $1 trillion, the deficit would not only shatter the largest previous shortfall in dollar terms — $455 billion last year — but it could also exceed the post-World War II-era record by the measure more meaningful in economic terms, the deficit as a percentage of total economic activity.
Diane Rogers, chief economist at the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan organization that supports fiscal discipline, estimated that the deficit this year would hit 7 percent of the gross domestic product. The largest previous record in those terms was in 1983, when it hit 6 percent.
Bush family values know no borders other than those declared by the One World Court.
ReplyDeleteRR had large Democrat Majority.
ReplyDeleteW, Republican control, until he and the Rovian Genius Eliminated that for Generations, most likely forever.
RR, like Obama, had to take over from a Historically BAD previous Admin.
ReplyDeleteAll those pardons and attack Iran, in the next 13 days?
ReplyDeleteWow, that'll be something to see.
This is a good book I picked up. Getting cosmology down to my level. They are promising to put together a new mythology for our age. I'll let you know what they come up with.
ReplyDeleteThe galaxies, they say, are surrounded by a vast field of dark energy, which keeps the stars in the arms from spinning off into space, which they should be doing if what we 'see' is all there is. By far the greatest percent of the stuff of the universe is contained in this dark matter and dark energy, they say. Only in the last couple of decades did this understanding really take hold. Odd stuff, doesn't interact with light or 'regular' matter in any known way. But dark matter has gravity.
---
Sounds like he's going for the record, going to shatter earlier deficit efforts.
I didn't say he was going to attack Iran. I did say a couple times I hoped he would.
ReplyDeleteHe's getting more pressure on Ramos and Compeon than any other pardon, I'd think.
But then he's beyond being pressured at this point.
He's already done the pardons.
ReplyDeleteYou and I, at least, knew he was NEVER gonna do Iran.
...only nutcases like Mat, Habu, and WIO...
RR, like Obama, had to take over from a Historically BAD previous Admin.
ReplyDeleteExactly right, doug.
And there is still a long line of folk waiting to piss on Carter's grave, all these years later.
Ingraham was saying it's SPITE on Ramos and Campeon.
ReplyDelete...she's been on W's shitlist since immigration reform.
Tiny little Bastard POTUS.
Unfortunately, I won't be around in 3 decades to piss on W's.
ReplyDeleteIf I could, I would.
Add in that tax receipts will be down, the deficit is really going to be taking off.
ReplyDeleteSomebody in the Bush Ad., probably Cheney, said "Deficits don't matter" as I recall.
This was when the Iraq war costs were coming in just a little tiny bit higher than was represented to Congress.
He's done giving out pardons?
ReplyDeleteWasn't Clinton handing them out till midnight of the last day of his term?
Big Box Stores in Kahului, Maui are more crowded than ever....
ReplyDeleteSome small local businesses going out...
Anybody able to explain fact #1?
...occupancy rates down 15 -20% on the tourism side.
Piss in a bottle, hire someone to throw it on the grave for you, Doug, posthumously.
ReplyDeleteSomeone might be able to grow a business out of that idea.
I was just sayin he has ALREADY pardoned drug and people runners.
ReplyDeleteCheck out the dumpsters in those big box stores.
ReplyDeleteGotta go, take care.
I'll practice that bottle trick tonight.
ReplyDelete"Deficits don't matter"
ReplyDeleteObviously the conservative position, that.
Little wonder that Republican Congressmen tell US:
Conservatism being the negation of ideology
The big boxes offer value to the consumer, the Walmart model wins, with them.
ReplyDeleteDespite mat's distate for it.
Mat would tax BIG BOX.
ReplyDelete...just to show em who's Czar.
Tourism hitting the post 9-11 trough, here, too.
ReplyDeleteThis time a self-inflicted wound.
We cannot blame the Muslims, the responsibility lies with Bernie Madoffs of the world.
And those that failed to police them.
W = Weakness...
ReplyDeleteWeakness is Provacative!
ProvOcative!
ReplyDeleteThe New Tone
ReplyDeleteTurned out to be
Tone Deaf.
...back on topic:
ReplyDeleteMy first big schism w/Bush concerned Pakistan.
When ABC News provided all the evidence and targeting info needed to deal Al-Q a serious blow.
...and W and the gang blew it.
Again.
ReplyDeleteThere was that and some CBS footage of hundreds of armed anti-Americans protesting US activities in some Paki town. The enemy in the open, streamed live by CBS and not a single Jdam fell. Both those Pakistani realities and a story posted in one of the threads, at the BC concerning Iraq.
ReplyDeleteI recall it, even today. The US military was not authorized to take any, even non-lethal, actions to maintain the security integrity of their convoys in Iraq.
Not even allowed to throw water bottles at the offending drivers and their vehicles. Even as vehicle borne IEDs were beginning to proliferate. It was an eye opener, to be sure.
The crew at the BC, in another episode, were enamoured by Mr Yon's photo of the Four Duece SGMajor wearing his raybans ...
So cool ...
None wanting to even acknowledge the "Catch and Release" policies that allowed the Iraqi insurgent to shoot the unit Commander.
Though that was later in the timeline of cascading confidence in the leadership of US forces.
Catch and release.
ReplyDeleteAt home and abroad.
At home, the caught are fed well and given free medical treatment, the better to return to victimise taxpaying citizens.
Breitbart on Big Hollywood
ReplyDeleteUntil conservatives, libertarians and Republicans - who will be the lion's share of Big Hollywood's contributors - recognize that (pop) culture is the big prize and that politics is secondary, there will be no victory in this important battle.
Hollywood is no longer an American industry. And it took a prolonged war in which the studios and most of the stars didn't show up to fight for America to draw attention to this hard truth.
American corporations, the FBI, the CIA and elected U.S. officials are the bad guys in flicks these days. Radical Islamists are seldom vilified while the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines are smeared too often.
Film production - and countless jobs - have been steadily shipped abroad for cost-cutting purposes. Standing ovations at Cannes and Golden Globes - not American popular opinion - determine who wins the Oscar. And homegrown actors are hailed as First Amendment heroes for speaking out against the United States.
The anti-hero rules this celluloid world. Nihilism is packaged as edginess. And there's zero sense that anyone's watching out for quality control. Even the respected awards are often given to the most outlandish and gratuitously deplorable.
In 2003, Meryl Streep told the Wall Street Journal:
"We export the crap. And then we wonder why everybody hates us and has a distorted picture of what Americans are."
(Breitbart says that one of the biggest producers in Hollywood offered himself @ the Pentagon after 9-11, saying:
ReplyDelete"I'm the best at what I do,
I can make movies especially for you."
---
The Washingtonian Response:
"We don't do propaganda"
Producer:
"Then we'll lose!"
...enough said.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe story is going to be told.
ReplyDeleteWho tells the tale, well, that makes a lot of difference, in the telling and the moral of the story.
The hubris of believing the US could rely on the results of limited combat and policing and ignore the battle of ideas, just illustrates the ignorance of the real world that engulfs the US military.
With an average pay package that rivals the UAWs, An average of$112,000 per annum in pay and benefits. Our military results, overall, rival the performance level of the "Big Three".
Providing a product, whether it is what the market needs or wants. Neither group can respond quickly to changes in the strategic situation.
Always selling last year's model.
Good points on Obama being self-made in achieving the Presidency , as was little jimmy carter.
ReplyDeleteObama is smarter and does not seem to be as vindictive or nasty as Carter. Obama has a very serendipitous starting point.
People expect a lot from him but not much from the economy and further understand the world is a political mess. Everyone hopes Obama will be successful and none more so than George Bush. A successful Obama presidency will do wonders for the legacy of W.
"An average of$112,000 per annum in pay and benefits. Our military results, overall, rival the performance level of the "Big Three"...
ReplyDeleteSay what?
...trying to remember what my first paycheck was.
ReplyDeleteCan't.
Do remember $134.00 sometime later.
Beer and Dogmeat were great deals in Korea, however.
How do you come up with that figure?
ReplyDeleteSeventy Six Bucks, I think.
ReplyDeleteThat was the average, in 2006, duece.
ReplyDeletePosted that here a while back, see if I can find it, again.
...betcha 'Rat can document, Deuce!
ReplyDeleteWell, there is this, from the LA Times:
ReplyDeleteKeeping the all-volunteer Army at full strength in wartime hasn't been cheap, either.
The cost per troop soared to $120,000 in 2006 from $75,000 in 2001.
The Study I got the $112,000 figure from may well have been this one< from the Center for Defense Information.
June 22, 2006
Addressing DOD’s High Manpower Costs
Pay and benefits for members of the U.S. armed services cost $158 billion in 2004. That makes an average of $112,000 per troop. Because of large increases requested by the Pentagon and substantially more added by Congress, these costs rose 28 percent over the last four years (after adjusting for inflation), twice the rate of compensation growth in the private sector.
The personnel costs have grown so high that they pressure resources for other military activities, such as training and weapons maintenance, and they put strain on the overall size of the fighting forces. For example, the Pentagon has made new plans for the Navy and Air Force to contain costs by shedding tens of thousands of active duty personnel in coming years.
The high cost for uniformed personnel makes it no longer prudent to assign them to non-essential or non-military duties, such as truck driving, facilities upkeep, accounting, jet engine repair, and much else. In response, Defense Department (DOD) out-sources many such services to contractors at home and in the field, an activity for which DOD is sometimes criticized without acknowledgement of the underlying reason.
Military personnel actually only see about 66 percent of their compensation; roughly $40,000 per active duty member comes in the form of non-cash benefits, such as subsidized housing, health care, day care for children, retirement payments, commissaries, and dining facilities.
That $40,000 in benefits not subject to taxation, FICA or Income.
ReplyDeleteLittle wonder trish is bored, when the converstion turns to money.
The UAW should unionize the Army!
ReplyDelete$112,000 per troop per annum, in 2004, not 2006.
ReplyDeletemea culpa.
Toyota can produce Jihadi IED's in Rufusland to better the import imbalance.
ReplyDelete"Military personnel actually only see about 66 percent of their compensation; roughly $40,000 per active duty member comes in the form of non-cash benefits, such as subsidized housing, health care, day care for children, retirement payments, commissaries, and dining facilities."
ReplyDeleteWe really need single mothers in uniform.
Single Mothers are the backbone of our Crusade Against the Muslim Infidels.
ReplyDelete...I saw it on MTV.
Honest.
...just ask that Palin grandchild.
ReplyDelete(thot I'd save 'Rat the effort, and give al-bob a nudge, in one post.)
...the evil 'Rat would call it the
ReplyDeleteBastard Grandchild.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThrough no fault of his own, doug.
ReplyDeleteJust another dysfunctional middle American family.
Babes out of wedlock and drug dealing in-laws, stereotypical of life in a real American trailer park.
The Clinton's had a similar drug problem in their family. Wasn't Bill's brother fond of the nose candy? Perhaps Bill, himself, was. Or so the stories were told.
It depends on what the meaning of Jizz, is.
ReplyDeleteObama in a news conference has stated that he will be receiving a $1.2 Trillion deficit. Obviously this number was constructed by someone with hyper BDS.
ReplyDeleteAnother earth quake in Costa Rica, a window rattler.
ReplyDeleteOn that cost per troop number - I'm guessing they've taken the total annual costs (benefits ect.) and divided it by the number of troops. If indeed this is how the number is calculated it is a bit misleading in that many of the benefits are accruing to vets as well.
ReplyDeleteIt can also indicate a very inefficient use of resources and wonder how much of it is actually useful.
ReplyDeleteI suppose you could fill a wheelbarrow with water and walk it down a garden to water your flowers and loose 90% of it on the way there.
An eighteen year old male rifleman is a more efficient use of training than a twenty seven year old, overweight single mother with three kids
True, ash, but that is how the number was calculated for UAW members working at the "Big Three".
ReplyDeleteIt is an apple to apple comparison, in that regard.
Legacy costs are a part of life, for business and government.
A Ponzi scheme needing an ever growing piece of the pie.
True that legacy costs need be accounted for it's just that if you use the statistic as a guide toward the cost of adding additional troops then or as justification for reducing troops then that number could be a problem.
ReplyDeleteThat $40,000 could drop, if the number of active duty increased, but not all that much.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of the Army there are 1,447,076 active duty, according to wiki.
In the case of the UAW I think that $15 per hour was attributed to legacy retirement and health costs.
That be X 40 or $600 per week x 52 or $3,120 annually dedicated to retirement & health legacy costs.
There are 500,000 retired UAW members and 750,000 retired from the Army, alone.
It was reported in a filing with the Labor Department that the UAW had 464,910 members at the end of 2007.
The UAW operating at a one to one ratio, while the Army is operating at a two to one ratio, now.
Personnel costs, short and long term. Maybe that'll come up for review, 38 year olds retiring at half the current pay rate, for life.
Maybe not.
That's $31,250 per worker, paid to cover those legacy costs, not $3,120.
ReplyDeletemea culpa.
But if the Army was in the same benefit range, per retiree, that'd be $23.4 bn per year, spread over the active Army.
$15,600 per soldier at 1.5 million of 'em, goes to retirees, as part of the $40,000 in benefits.
ReplyDeleteMore or less.
Up the number of soldiers to 2 million, that $15,600 drops to $11,700, per.
So with a 25% increase in the size of the force, the $40,000 benefit package would drop to around $36,000, per soldier.
Mark Moel house loan
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