COLLECTIVE MADNESS
“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."
RRRRRROFL!!!!
ReplyDelete87,000000000 years ago, a Mesopotamian invented monogrammed Depends (initially, there were complaints of chafing, but that ceased when by democratic vote of the royal family of Ur the whiners were buried alive under thousands of the soiled cuneiform bricklettes).
ReplyDeleteI need one, NOW!
Nice fiddle playin'
ReplyDeleteearliest known pictograph
ReplyDeleteThe first blow was struck today in the newly launched "Battle of Freedom for the Elk" with a .243 today on the upper Selway by some woman named somethingorother. At about sixty yards, using a wounded coyote call.
ReplyDeleteRejoice, Freedom for the Elk/Animal Rights Movement.
A nasty fang, a gut, and an asshole bit the dust.
No other news yet, though the hunting pressure is less than expected, according to the local radio news. Though the sales of wolf tags where through the roof.
(Mostly for historical keepsake purposes)
Allen, talking about petroglyphs, they are all up and down the Snake River Canyon here. As, of course, all over the world. But this is a good place for them.
ReplyDeleteU.S. District Judge Donald Molloy took under advisement a request by 13 environmental groups to stop the hunt while their lawsuit seeking to return wolves to the federal endangered species list is considered. Molloy said he would decide quickly.
ReplyDeleteNearly 10,000 wolf tags were sold in Idaho so far. But hunting only began Tuesday in the Sawtooth Zone and from Boise up to the Sawtooth Valley and in the Lolo Zone in northcentral Idaho.
Idaho will allow 220 wolves out of a population of an estimated 1,000 wolves to be killed this year. Montana also has a wolf season with a 75-wolf limit.
Opening Day
I can't help noting, it was not too long ago that we had the newly launched, "Battle for the Freedom of the Wolves", brought to us by our beloved Idaho Fish and Game Department.
ReplyDeleteI want to launch a "Battle for Freedom from the Blessed Idaho Fish and Game Department", but most people seem asleep.
The wisdom of the aging.
I say all these things about the wolves because I know there where many more of them here before the 'reintroduction'. They were back up in the back country for sure. They wandered down and folks spotted them once in a while. All I'm really saying is, you got to take the ranchers interests into consideration, and the poor elk too.
ReplyDeleteI'm the last guy that wants to wipe them out.
I just think the whole program was not thought out well.
I would have more or less left it alone.
Robert Millage, a Realtor, took the day off to participate in the state's first-in-decades wolf hunting season. Millage said he heard wolves howling in a drainage before sunrise.
ReplyDelete...
"This is what predator seasons are for," he said. "Everyone has been complaining, so if they are going to have a wolf season, I figured I better go."
Millage said he will have the hide tanned into a rug or perhaps have it made into a life-size mount.
1st Wolf
I guess what I am really, moderately pissed about, is, I know there where more wolves around than the 'estimates'.
ReplyDeleteWe were doing just fine.
Then they got to cart em' in from Canada, and all hell breaks loose.
While members of the wolf alliance demonstrate, Milt Turley, Ron Mazurek and a few other men stand back and talk about the bigger picture.
ReplyDelete...
Mazurek: "Let the managers manage the animals accordingly and don't let any of it get out of hand and the wolves have gotten out of hand."
...
Mazurek and Milt Turley will get their wish, unless Judge Donald Molloy issues an injunction stopping Idaho's wolf season.
Starts Today
newsflash...
ReplyDeletethose blood sucking leeches did it again!
New Israeli Mortar Shell to Be Used by US Military
01 September 2009 , 13:57
The new mortar shell.
The shell, which is equipped with GPS technology to direct it precisely to its target, is expected to be used by battalions of the US military in Afghanistan
http://dover.idf.il/IDF/English/News/the_Front/09/09/0101.htm
In the last few weeks, a new mortar shell was successfully tested by the Raytheon Company. The mortar shell is part of the Guided Accuracy system, which is produced by the Israel Military Industries (IMI). The system is directed by GPS and has new abilities considered very accurate. The modern technology allows soldiers to navigate the course of the mortar shell to the target through a GPS system, up to a distance of ten meters from the launching point.
The mortar shell is expected to be used by battalions of the US military, among other things in the framework of the military operations in Afghanistan. “This is the only mortar shell worldwide that reaches such high accuracy,” Bill Peterson, the director of the project at Raytheon pointed out. “The mortar shell has the ability to cope in an advanced way with wind and stormy weather in the mountains. We are ready to quickly deliver the system to be used by the forces in the Afghan mountains,” he added. A member of the IMI claims that the system could also be used by the IDF, and according to him, the IDF might purchase it within the next few years.
The system was tested by the US military throughout the last few weeks. During the tests, the shells were fired at a variety of targets in mountainous areas. The shells were fired under conditions similar to battle, including extreme temperatures, and the mortar shell hit precisely seven out of eight times.
IMI chairman Avner Raz is satisfied with the results of the tests and explains that the development of new technology for combat soldiers has become a supreme objective of the strategic program of IMI. The CEO of IMI, Avi Felder, concluded that the success of Raytheon’s demonstration helps both companies.
Though if I were young, female, and looking for a good paying job, I'd join up too, like one I saw the other day, gorgious, armed, $50,000 4 wheel drive pickup, IDFG logo, luscious.
ReplyDeleteWhat's not to like.
Bob pays for it.
Honesty, I'd do what she has done, if I were young and in her shoes.
She'd be of some better use though, on the southern border.
Meditate upon this, O Brother Monks--
ReplyDeleteLet this sink into our consciousness--
We have collaped the Clearwater Elk Herd.
Meditate upon that, O my bother Monks.
Just can't let it go, that's a fanatical sectarian for you.
ReplyDeleteThose Abrahamics, just fanatical if not controlled by reasonable secularists. Which is why we bribe both the displaced Europeons and the natives of the Levant to be nice, to each other.
Should leave them to their own devices, though, the Europeons should go back to Eastern Europe, where the last 1 million Israeli colonists came from.
That would settle the settlement issue, easing the population pressure that drives Israeli territorial expansion onto land that is not legally theirs to utilize.
Well, I'm worn out. At least the damned muzzies just try to kill you. They don't try to "Whine" you to death.
ReplyDeleteThere is no living human that cares less about the middle east, and their varied populations than I, and, somehow, I've spent two days arguing over it.
Maybe by tomorrow it will have gone away.
And, maybe they'll make me the Pope. 'Bout the same odds, I imagine.
Dammit, if we really want to do something, let's help the Mountain Caribou
ReplyDeleteThey need it. It just pisses me off.
Nite, Rufus.
Rufus!
ReplyDeleteTurn your attention elsewhere!
Give money to the Mountain Caribou Defense Fund, if there is one, and if there isn't, start one.
I really mean it.
Nite, Ruf.
Nite, Rufus.
ReplyDeleteRat sounds like Ahmedinijad.
By God, I'm going to bed too.
ReplyDeleteIf it should happen that our Blessed Idaho Fish and Game Department, and fucking Uncle Sam too, should happen to wipe out the last remaining Mountain Caribou, by reintroducing wolves in Idaho, then I think it time I blow my brains out, giving up in a noble fashion, all the cares of this world, and hoping for a better.
grrrrrrrr nite
Sam, you are ahead of me. I thought the first kill was by a woman.
ReplyDeleteThe 47-year-old mayor believes there's still time for "the people in the south" to take global action to stem the worst of warming. "I'm hopeful," Merven Gruben said.
ReplyDelete"I don't think it's too late."
Except, perhaps, for Tuk.
Front Line
Nite, Bob.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you get when you mix PMS with GPS?
ReplyDeleteA crazy bitch who WILL find you.
Got an e-mail from Linear. He backs me up.
ReplyDeleteI Move, with a Second from Linear Thinker, that Allen be accepted as one of the Members of The Board of Directors of the Elephant Bar.
I wish this to be considered by the powers that be.
FIJI'S suspension from the Commonwealth was the "sad but inevitable" result of the failure of the military government to commit to a return to democracy, Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith says.
ReplyDelete...
Australia, the Commonwealth, the Pacific Islands Forum, the European Union and the United Nations had all expressed concern about human rights abuses by the regime, "particularly the reduced independence of the judiciary, media censorship, intimidation of opponents and the recent harassment of Methodist Church leaders," he said.
Mr Smith said the suspension was another strong message from the international community that Fiji must work with them to return the nation to democracy and to the rule of law.
Sad but Inevitable
Got an e-mail from Linear. He backs me up.
ReplyDeleteI Move, with a Second from Linear Thinker, that Allen be accepted as one of the Members of The Board of Directors of the Elephant Bar.
I wish this to be considered by the powers that be.
I have sent this request to the powers that be.
Although much is heard about the plight of the Palestinian refugees, little is said about the Jews who fled from Arab states. In 1945, there were more than 870,000 Jews living in the various Arab states. Many of their communities dated back 2,500 years. Throughout 1947 and 1948 these Jews were persecuted. Their property and belongings were confiscated. There were anti-Jewish riots in Egypt, Lybia, Syria, and Iraq. In Iraq, Zionism was made a capital crime. Aproximately 600,000 Jews sought refuge in the State of Israel. They arrived destitute, but they were absorbed into the society and became an integral part of the state. In effect, then, a vertible exchange of populations took place between Arab and Jewish refugees. Thus, the Jewish refugees from Arab countries became full Israeli citizens whereas the Arab refugees who fled their homes in Palestine, remained “refugees“ unaided by the neighboring Arab countries.
ReplyDeleteLittle is heard about the Jewish refugees because they did not remain refugees for long. Of the 820,000 Jewish refugees, 586,000 were resettled in Israel at great expense, and without any offer of compensation from the Arab governments who confiscated their possessions. During the 1947 UN debates, Arab leaders threatened the Jews living in their countries with expulsion and violence if partition were to occur. Egypt's delegate told the General Assembly: “The lives of one million Jews in Muslim countries would be jeopardized by partition.“ Following the 1947 United Nations vote to partition Palestine, Arab violence against Jews erupted throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
In 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration:
ReplyDeleteHis Majesty's Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
The Mandate for Palestine included the Balfour Declaration. It specifically referred to "the historical connections of the Jewish people with Palestine" and to the moral validity of "reconstituting their National Home in that country." The term "reconstituting" shows recognition of the fact that Palestine had been the Jews' home. Furthermore, the British were instructed to "use their best endeavors to facilitate" Jewish immigration, to encourage settlement on the land and to "secure" the Jewish National Home. The word "Arab" does not appear in the Mandatory award.11
The Mandate was formalized by the 52 governments at the League of Nations on July 24, 1922.
this was the law.....
If Allen so accepts, it is done.
ReplyDeleteMountain Caribou, sounds like a mighty fine jerky...
ReplyDeleteYes, indeed. I support Bob's suggestion, with enthusiasm and absolutely no qualifications or reservations.
ReplyDeleteThe selection process is still a mystery to me. I'm still puzzled why I was nominated. But, this is not about me. Allen has demonstrated his bona fides on numerous occasions.
His seating would lend some dignity to an otherwise often motley assembly of bar flies.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is asking hunters not to shoot bears with radio collars. The DNR says those animals help researchers collect valuable data.
ReplyDelete...
Other radio-collared bears live in and around the Chippewa National Forest, Camp Ripley, the Cloquet Forestry Station, Voyageurs National Park, and the Eagles Nest chain of lakes between Ely and Tower.
Most of the monitored bears have highly visible blaze orange collars.
Season Opens
Seems to me the highly visible radio collars work against the bears. Hereabouts the bear hunters equip their dogs with radio collars and follow the chase from the triangulated comfort of their pickup trucks. What's to stop the hunters from just scanning for the bear frequencies?
ReplyDeleteThe honor system?
ReplyDeleteIn an earlier hunting trip, Roosevelt had gone to Mississippi and failed to bag a bear, and he was embarrassed by newspaper accounts of the experience. When he came to Louisiana for a little relaxation, “Roosevelt banned reporters and gawkers, and even the Secret Service men did not know where his camp was,” Brinkley writes.
ReplyDelete“When reporters followed Roosevelt around on such hunting trips, he saw them as mice looking for sensational copy so as to become rats.”
We doubt that Obama would be successful in eluding either the Secret Service or the press on his vacations. We also suspect that Roosevelt wasn’t the only president to have such a dim view of reporters.
How TR Took a Vacation
The Brits and their "Last Colony", a place where they could ship their Jews.
ReplyDeleteEmbraced by the other Europeons, but not the residents of the Levant. It was typical of the Brits, to give away what was not theirs.
Bringing the Brits in as the moral and binding legal authority is another step towards making the comparison of South Africa to Israel all the more relevant.
ReplyDeleteIs that where you really want to go?
The decisions of the 19th century imperialists not that morally binding on the players, today.
Within 30 years of the Declaration, it had already been modified, so it was not carved in stone, that Declaration, made in London.
Times Online - Jenny Booth - 1 hour ago
ReplyDeleteDavid Miliband confirmed today that Gordon Brown did not want the Lockerbie bomber to die in a Scottish jail, but he adamantly denied that the Government took any active steps to secure his release.
Since it was reported by the NTYimes, maybe it did not happen
ReplyDeleteNew York Times - Abdul Waheed, Taimoor Shah - 50 minutes ago
KABUL, Afghanistan - The second-ranking intelligence official in Afghanistan was assassinated by a suicide bomber Wednesday morning in a blast that killed 15 others and wounded 54 in Mehterlam, the capital of the ...
Bloomberg - Eduard Gismatullin - 45 minutes ago
ReplyDeleteSept. 2 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc, Europe's second-largest oil company, said it made “a giant oil discovery” at its Tiber Prospect in the deepwater area of the Gulf of Mexico.
Afghan U.S. Embassy patrol in 'deviant' parties with booze, hookers - report
ReplyDeleteBY Richard Sisk
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Such behavior, in an Islamic Republic. Little wonder the natives distrust US.. Look at how we behave, and proudly pose for photos of the activities.
Like Frat boys at play, on your dime.
wi"o"s binding legal authority ...
ReplyDeleteDavid Miliband confirmed today that Gordon Brown did not want the Lockerbie bomber to die in a Scottish jail, ...
The Brits are fucks, there is a reason we threw them out of the US.
Twice.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal's report on war in Afghanistan: Strategy 'not working,' new plan needed
ReplyDeleteRead more:
US plans for ‘imperial’ presence in Pakistan
ReplyDeleteBy Karamatullah K. Ghori, Dawn.com
Pardon the Pakistani news media going gaga over Washington’s plans to beef up, extraordinarily, its diplomatic presence in Pakistan. The plans are staggering and stupendous, for want of more descriptive adjectives. But they are, for the record, just geared to Washington’s diplomatic stake in Pakistan, lest the Pakistanis routinely clobbered in the ‘civilised western world’ for their outbursts of emotions over supposedly petty little things.
‘The Americans are coming, and coming big,’ according to media pundits in Pakistan. And none should blame them for going over the top because the figures being bandied about are, to say the very least, flabbergasting.
What’s on the drawing boards in Washington and Islamabad are the blue prints for vastly increasing the number of American personnel manning one of the most important diplomatic presence in the 21st century for the Americans in Pakistan. Apparently, Washington feels that its battery of 750 men and women stocking the American Embassy in Islamabad is far too inadequate to cope with the job on their hands. They need to be given a big injection to inflate their muscles. The magic potion said to be brewing would add at least another thousand people on what’s being described as a ‘war footing.’ That would take US diplomatic presence in Islamabad way above the current largest American diplomatic mission in Beijing, China; the number there stands at a paltry 1450.
ROAD TRIP
The party is moving to Pakistan!
Obama praises Islam at Ramadan meal
ReplyDeleteSep. 2, 2009
Associated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday praised American Muslims for enriching the nation's culture at a dinner to celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
"The contribution of Muslims to the United States are too long to catalog because Muslims are so interwoven into the fabric of our communities and our country," Obama said at the iftar, the dinner that breaks the holiday's daily fast.
The president joined Cabinet secretaries, members of the diplomatic corps and lawmakers to pay tribute to what he called "a great religion and its commitment to justice and progress."
Attendees included Congress' two Muslim members - Reps. Keith Ellison and Andre Carson as well as ambassadors from Islamic nations and Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren.
Obama shared the story of Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir, another invited guest, who broke a state record for most career points as a Massachusetts high school student.
"As an honor student, as an athlete on her way to Memphis, Bilqis is an inspiration not simply to Muslim girls - she's an inspiration to all of us," he said.
Obama also noted the contributions of Muhammad Ali, who was not in attendance, though the president borrowed a quote from famous boxer, explaining religion.
"A few years ago," Obama said, "he explained this view - and this is part of why he's The Greatest - saying, 'Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams - they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do - they all contain truths.'"
Ramadan, a monthlong period of prayer, reflection and sunrise-to-sunset fasts, began Aug. 22 in most of the Islamic world. It is believed that God began revealing the Quran to Muhammad during Ramadan, and the faithful are supposed to spend the month in religious reflection, prayer and remembrance of the poor.
White House dinners marking the holy month are nothing new. Former President George W. Bush held iftars during his eight years in office.
Obama has made a special effort since taking office to repair US relations with the world's Muslims, including visits to Turkey and Cairo. In a June speech at the Egyptian capital, as well as in one to another important Muslim audience, in Turkey, Obama said: "America is not - and never will be - at war with Islam."
Obama also released a video message to Muslims before the start to Ramadan. In the video, he said Ramadan's rituals are a reminder of the principles Muslims and Christians have in common, including advancing justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.
Was Russia's 'Arctic Sea' Carrying Missiles to Iran?
ReplyDeleteIn July, the Russian-manned cargo ship the Arctic Sea disappeared on its way to take timber from Finland to Algeria.
Since then, the Russian navy has found the ship, and the alleged hijackers who boarded it on July 24 have been charged with kidnapping and piracy. The ship's captain, his crew and whatever cargo the ship was carrying have also been detained. An initial search of the hull turned up nothing suspicious, and now Russia's official explanation of what happened will probably become the final one - this was a hijacking thwarted by its navy without a shot being fired. But there are baffling details left unexplained, leading some experts to claim that the truth is much more sinister: the Arctic Sea, they say, was intercepted by Israel as it carried a secret cargo of weapons to the Middle East.
The highest-ranking official to put forward this version of events is the European Union's rapporteur on piracy and a former commander of the Estonian armed forces, Admiral Tarmo Kouts. In an interview with TIME, he says only a shipment of missiles could account for Russia's bizarre behavior throughout the monthlong saga. "There is the idea that there were missiles aboard, and one can't explain this situation in any other way," he says. "As a sailor with years of experience, I can tell you that the official versions are not realistic."
Kouts says an Israeli interception of the cargo is the most likely explanation. But this theory, which some Russian analysts put forward in the days after the Arctic Sea was rescued and which Kouts agreed with in his interview with TIME, has been vehemently denied by Russia's envoy to NATO, Dmitri Rogozin, who says Kouts should stop "running his mouth."
The official explanation coming out of Moscow is simple enough: the Arctic Sea, manned by a Russian crew, set sail from Finland under a Maltese flag on July 22. It was destined for Algeria and carried less than $2 million worth of timber. Then a group of eight Russian and former Soviet hijackers boarded the ship on July 24. The ship's tracking device was disabled in the last days of July, as it passed through the English Channel into the Atlantic, and the ship disappeared. On Aug. 12, the Russian navy sent out a search party. A week later, Russia declared that the ship and its crew had been rescued.
But as details of the hijacking emerged, the tale got murkier, and Moscow's explanation does little to clear things up. Why, with so many other ships carrying much more valuable cargo, would the hijackers target the Arctic Sea and its small load of timber? Why didn't the ship send out a distress signal? Why did Israeli President Shimon Peres pay a surprise visit to Russia a day after the ship was rescued? Why did Russia wait so long to send its navy to find the ship? And what did the brother of one of the alleged hijackers, Dmitri Bartenev, mean when he told Estonian TV on Aug. 24 that his brother and the other suspected pirates had been "set up ... They went to find work and ended up in a political conflict. Now they are hostage to some kind of political game"? Bartenev's lawyer tells TIME that his client was "in the wrong place at the wrong time."
There are also questions surrounding the Arctic Sea's rescue. On orders from the Kremlin, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov sent a completely disproportionate force, including destroyers and submarines, to look for the vessel. It took five days for them to find it, the Defense Ministry said, even though the Foreign Ministry later announced that it was fully aware of the Arctic Sea's coordinates the entire time. To fly the alleged pirates and the crew back to Moscow - a group of only 19 men - Russia dispatched two enormous military-cargo planes. And then on their arrival, the ship's crew was detained along with the alleged hijackers for days of questioning, with no access to their families or the media.
ReplyDelete"Even from the basic facts, without assumptions, it is clear that this was not just piracy," says Mikhail Voitenko, editor of the Russian maritime journal Sovfrakht, which has been tracking unusual incidents on the high seas for decades. "I've never seen anything like this. These are some of the most heavily policed waters in the world. You cannot just hide a ship there for weeks without government involvement."
"The most likely explanation is that the Israelis intercepted this cargo, which had been meant for Syria or Iran," says Yulya Latynina, a prominent political commentator "They will now use the incident as a bargaining chip with Russia over weapons sales in the region, while allowing Russia to save face by taking its empty ship back home."
But in an Aug. 18 statement, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that Peres had discussed "the sale of Russian weapons and military hardware to countries hostile to Israel" with his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev, on that day during four hours of closed-door talks in the Russian city of Sochi. According to the statement, Peres "stressed that Israel has concrete proof of Russian weapons being transferred to terrorist organizations by Iran and Syria, especially to Hamas and Hizballah." A spokeswoman for the Israeli President declined to elaborate on any connection with the Arctic Sea. In a parallel statement, the Kremlin did not mention weapons sales, saying after the meeting that "we more clearly and precisely understand each other's positions."