Friday, November 18, 2011
Ehud Barak Pisses on Netanyahu’s Parade.
This is interesting. There must be confusion on Capital Hill. Our Rulers and Masters in the Potomac Politburo must be wondering if they missed an email or perhaps got the wrong playbook. OMG, the horror! What are they to do when they hear an honest evaluation from a politician? Hannity will be double checking to see if he missed some nuance on the meaning of “existential”. Poor Bibi must have had to pop an additional Toprol. Hell man, if he can’t control his defense minister, at least he can control his blood pressure.
No one in their right mind wants Iran to be a nuclear power, except the Iranians. Barak stated the case as to why Iran would want to have nuclear weapons. Netanyahu does not want Iran to have nuclear weapons. The US executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for giving nuclear secrets to the Russians but the Russians got them anyway as did the Chinese, the Indians and worst of all the Pakistanis and North Koreans. The argument rests on what Israel and the US can do about it and what they should do about it.
Anyone care for a slam-dunk? They go down rather nicely but the hangover can be dreadful.
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That was fun, the Germans plotting their Economic Anschluss in Europe is not. Here is hoping that the slimy limey, David Cameron, does not run into Parliament waving a piece of paper claiming we will have economic peace in our time.
ReplyDeleteAnyone seen Nigel Farage?
ReplyDeleteGermany has drawn up secret plans to prevent a British referendum on the overhaul of the European Union amid concerns it could derail the euro-zone rescue package, according to leaked documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph of the U.K.
ReplyDeleteAngela Merkel, the German chancellor, is expected to tell Prime Minister David Cameron that Britain doesn't need a referendum on EU treaty changes, despite demands from senior U.K. Conservatives for more powers to be repatriated to Britain, The Telegraph said.
The leaked memo, written by the German foreign office, discloses radical plans for an intrusive new European body that will be able to take over the economies of beleaguered euro-zone countries, The Telegraph said.
It discloses that the EU's largest economy is also preparing for other European countries, which are too large to be bailed out, to default on their debts -- effectively going bankrupt, The Telegraph said. It will prompt fears that German plans to deal with the euro-zone crisis involve an erosion of national sovereignty that could pave the way for a European "super state" with its own tax and spending plans set in Brussels, The Telegraph said.
…and still there will be legions of dumb-shits defending the euro concept.
ReplyDeleteDaniel Hannan said, roughly, "the only beneficial parts of the EU required no treaties or special government bodies like the EC. They could have been accomplished with the simple removal of existing restrictions on trade, movement of people and labour." Who is Daniel Hannan?
The Germans, given a uniform to wear or a title are simply incapable of restraining themselves.
ReplyDeleteWhich brings me back to the new Minister of Infrastructure, Makis Voridis. Before he was an ax-wielding law student, Voridis led another fascist youth group that supported the jailed leader of Greece’s 1967 military coup. Greece has been down this fascism route before, all under the guise of saving the nation and complaints about alleged parliamentary weakness. In 1967, the military overthrew democracy, imposed a fascist junta, jailed and tortured suspected leftist dissidents, and ran the country into the ground until the junta was overthrown by popular protest in 1974.
ReplyDeleteThat military junta—and the United States support for it (for which Clinton apologized in 1999)—is a raw and painful memory for Greeks. Most Greeks, anyway. As far as today’s Infrastructure Minister, Makis Voridis, was concerned, the only bad thing about the junta was that it was overthrown by democracy demonstrators. A fascist party was set up in the early 1980s in support of the jailed coup leader, and Voridis headed up that party’s youth wing. That’s when he earned the nickname “Hammer.” You can probably guess by now why Greece’s Infrastructure Minister was given the nickname “Hammer”: Voridis’s favorite sport was hunting down leftist youths and beating them with, yes, a hammer.
After the hammer, he graduated to law school– and the ax; was expelled from law school; and worked his way up the adult world of Greek fascist politics, his ax tucked under the bed somewhere. In 1994, Voridis helped found a new far-right party, The Hellenic Front. In 2004’s elections, Voridis’s “Hellenic Front Party” formed a bloc with the neo-Nazi “Front Party,” headed by Greece’s most notorious Holocaust denier, Konstantinos Plevis, a former fascist terrorist whose book, “Jews: The Whole Truth,” praised Adolph Hitler and called for the extermination of Jews. Plevis was charged and found guilty of “inciting racial hatred” in 2007, but his sentence was overturned on appeal in 2009.
By that time, Makis “Hammer” Voridis had traded up in the world of Greek fascism, merging his Hellenic Front Party into the far-right LAOS party, an umbrella party for all sorts of neo-Nazi and far-right political organizations. LAOS was founded by another raving anti-Semite, Giorgos Karatzeferis—nicknamed “KaratzaFührer” in Greece for alleging that the Holocaust and Auschwitz are Jewish “myths,” and saying that Jews have “no legitimacy to speak in Greece.” The Anti-Defamation League is going ballistic about it; for some reason, the media hasn’t taken notice, except in Israel.
Austerity and Fascism in Greece - The Real 1%
This is absurd, it will lead to despotism, surely history has told us this much. Forcing latins to adopt teutonic ways is rank bad science. It was the German demand for maintaining their productivity advantage, Club Med desire for FDI, and universal ambition for a currency to challenge dollar hegemony that required all of the rigid treaties and loss of democratic principles.
ReplyDeleteCameron's policies are not conservative. He is a fake.
Cameron has the nuts of a gerbil. Best of British luck to you!
ReplyDeleteSomeone once said, "Fascism is Continually descending on the United States, but it always "Hits" Europe.
ReplyDeleteThe Europeans are in a slow motion sovereign debt death dive. This will not end well.
ReplyDelete“My major fear is that the eurozone government bond market is broken, and will be impossible to repair,” said Matt King, credit strategist at Citi.
ReplyDeleteWhat else could possibly go wrong?
ReplyDeleteGet some rest.
ReplyDeleteThe ink wasn’t even dry yet on the European bailout fund, the EFSF when it paid $1.3 billion to bail out Proton Bank in Greece. Turns out, Proton had siphoned off $1 billion in a scheme of fraud, embezzlement, money laundering, and offshore front companies, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung. And then a bomb exploded.
ReplyDeleteThe bomb, fabricated of dynamite, demolished four cars in front of a building in Halandri, a suburb of Athens. Not a coincidence: in the building lived a senior employee of the Bank of Greece, whose meticulous investigation of Proton Bank had exposed the massive criminal scheme. According to the police, the bomb was intended as a warning to those who attempt to shed light on these kinds of machinations.
Founded in 2001 as an investment bank, Proton Bank expanded rapidly, was listed on the Athens stock exchange in 2005, and was then acquired by private equity funds. In 2006, Proton acquired Omega Bank. In 2008, Piraeus Bank acquired 31% of Proton. In late 2009, a guy named Lavrentis Lavrentiadis bought that 31% stake from Piraeus Bank. As Proton’s largest shareholder, he became its president. He also had interests in pharmaceuticals and the media and was the majority owner and president of Neochimiki, a manufacturer of detergents headquartered in Athens. By March 2011, he’d sold down his stake to 15% as the value of the stock collapsed. Chairman of the board was former US Ambassador Daniel Speckhard.
Ever the active under-40 entrepreneur, Lavrentiadis and some partners also founded a financial institution in Lichtenstein, Lamda Privatbank AG, which they capitalized with 25 million Swiss franks. He was its first client and majority owner, according to Schweizer Banken Info. Lamda, which began operating in November 2010, attempts to inspire confidence today on its sparse website: “We manage your portfolio with competence and a strong sense of responsibility as we know your lifetime achievements are behind your assets.”
Lavrentiadis is one of the main suspects of the Proton investigation.
On October 10, the Greek Finance Ministry, on advise from the Greek Central Bank, took over and recapitalized Proton Bank with €900 million ($1.3 billion) from the Financial Stabilization Fund, which is part of the EFSF. However, the Bank of Greece had been investigating Proton for some time and was compiling a report of several hundred pages that contained a plethora of details, tables, and lists of suspicious transactions with offshore . . . .
More of the Greek . . . . Hell, I don't know what to call it
This is some bad shit
ReplyDeleteDavid Cameron will be warned that he risks creating an unstoppable momentum behind a "two-speed Europe", which would be dominated by France and Germany, if Britain demands too many concessions during the eurozone crisis.
In a series of meetings in Berlin and Brussels, the prime minister will be advised that Britain should table modest proposals next year when EU leaders embark on a small treaty revision to underpin the euro.
Cameron will have breakfast in Brussels with José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission. He will then meet Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European council, before flying to Berlin to meet Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.
Christ, the British PM being summoned to Berlin
bythe German Chancellor, facing terms of surrender. They must be getting nervous in Poland.
Merkel, who said earlier this week that the eurozone crisis showed the need to create a political union in Europe, is pressing fellow EU leaders to agree to a narrow and quick revision of the Lisbon treaty. This is designed to place tougher fiscal rules for the eurozone on a legal footing.
Der Spiegel reported that Berlin would like the European Court of Justice to take action against eurozone members that break the rules. A six-page German foreign ministry paper, published by Der Spiegel this week, calls for "a ('small') convention that is precisely limited in terms of content" to present proposals "rapidly". These would then be agreed by all 27 members of the EU.
that really sounds ominous:
ReplyDeleteThe European Court of Justice
Germany has had a miniscule defence budget (for obvious reasons) since 1945, and has looked after its manufacturing industries. Others have preferred to play soldiers.
ReplyDeleteoppositionresearch said... Germany has had a miniscule defence budget (for obvious reasons) since 1945, and has looked after its manufacturing industries. Others have preferred to play soldiers.
ReplyDeleteSomehow Germany seems to get all the oil they need despite their refusal to project power overseas. They do it the old-fashioned way, by paying for it.
Deuce: Der Spiegel reported that Berlin would like the European Court of Justice to take action against eurozone members that break the rules
ReplyDeleteVee haff vays you know.
31. Victor: Madoff defrauded many of his own tribe–who cares?
ReplyDeleteYou know, I myself don't believe we should give aid to Israel, but this rolls out from my libertarian views and I include a lot of other countries on that chopping block. But you actually hate Jews, and I'm not willing to go there because my Boss is a Jewish carpenter and His mother was a temple intern once.
Deuce wrote:
ReplyDelete"The argument rests on what Israel and the US can do about it and what they should do about it."
and I thought "jeezus cheriiist what's a Contrarian to do with when the host gets reasonable"
and then you come up with:
"…and still there will be legions of dumb-shits defending the euro concept"
and I'm shaking my head wondering how you can support a concept such as "The UNITED States of America"?? I mean you aren't a psuedo-confederate States rights maniac like Rat...
The United States evolved as a loose voluntary federation in what was a near wilderness on a continent devoid of infrastructure, laws and governance.
ReplyDeleteRecently we saw Ghadaffi kill thousands trying to put down a rebellion against state authority, We see it in Syria.
Lincoln believed in a strong central power.
Lincoln, in draconian fashion, killed 600,000 Americans to maintain and solidify federal control. Were the killing and destructions under Lincoln less terrible than those by Ghaddafi? Not to those that were killed.
In general, I do not like seeing people killed by their own government for their own good.
The "common market” was touted as a free trade zone. It has morphed into something far worse. You just watched two elected governments toppled by their unelected masters in Brussels. If you think that is a good thing then by inference why not 50 states, why not 150? Why not the World? Do I want to see an EU army dispatching federal troops to put down local rebellions and kill people and ruin places that I would prefer to vacation to?
We have recently seen the gross misuse of Nato. Do I want this to increase and continue?
No thanks.
Our own elected clowns cannot legislate without conceding to “gangs of six” and super committees.
ReplyDeleteOur president routinely appoint czars to do this and and do that while using governmental departments to make and enforce laws.
Bigger is worse. Always. The greater the World population, the worse it will get for them. I pity our descendents who will not know what it means to be free, who will learn about the "great men" in history, who were rarely if ever great.
I won't deny there are problems with the European union as it is presently structured nor would I say Civil war is a good thing but much of what drove the union in Europe was the absurdity of the myriad of borders and different currencies between the countries and the damage that did on travel and trade. Can you imagine if each State in the US had a different currency and different customs, immigration, and work rules? One can easily see how a Union would be beneficial. Similarly we are unifying trade rules throughout the world with a similar concept behind it.
ReplyDeleteWith that in mind one puzzles at a statement such as "…and still there will be legions of dumb-shits defending the euro concept" The arguments of the "dumb-shits" actually have some merit casting doubt on who is the "dumb shit" :)
What we saw, in Libya, is no gross misuse of NATO, but its' use delayed by 20 years.
ReplyDeleteIt took that long to get the French on board.
Recall they would not let the USAF F-111s over fly France, on the way to Tripoli, from England.
This time they led the charge.
Justice delayed is still justice served.
It is indicative of the renewed strength of the NATO alliance that the French have embraced it, after having left the fold, back in the day.
That the Italians, Brits and French carried such a large part of the load, in Libya, a great step forward towards future success, for US.
"Bigger is worse. Always."
ReplyDeleteIs it, really? Look at what the Constitution provides and that is a function of Big over ruling the Small. Similarly there is the military...naw, you are right, it would be best if the US were just a collection of State militia's that way we wouldn't have to deal with all the nasty US Empire sucking the good out of the world for the benefit of a few corporations.
ah shit Rat, the Bro's noticed the minor shuffle at the top of the Egyptian heap
ReplyDelete"Egyptian Islamists Protest Military Rule"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/world/middleeast/egyptian-islamists-rally-to-protest-military-rule.html?hp
If the US is to remained fully engaged in foreign plots and intrigues, better that our allies truly are that.
ReplyDeleteBetter to gift the Australians the USS Nimitz and its' air wing than to send it, or the Marines, to defend Australia from dubious threats.
US foreign policy should be to encourage our allies to carry their own load.
Well, ash, the Brotherhood is there in Egypt, on the ground.
ReplyDeleteThey know better than those in Ohio and Idaho the state of things, in Egypt.
The status que remains unchanged, post Mubarak. US interests in Egypt are well secured, by the Egyptian Army.
Exemplified by the Brotherhood's actions there, today.
The fear mongers are left grasping at straws, on the military front.
ReplyDeleteThere are few military threats to the United States. No conventional military threats, at all.
The Military Industrial Complex searching, pretty much in vain, for another global threat.
Islam has not panned out for them, as a global threat, not with the Muslims in Indonesia ordering 200 aircraft from Boeing.
So, we remain firmly in the embrace of our Islamic allies in both Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.
ReplyDeleteWhile the sad sacks of Iran now being portrayed, by those that need the fear, as a global threat.
All because they may gain access to 1940's weapons technology.
Sanctions and Sabotage are Sufficient
Another mud hut society that those that feed off fear are trying to portray as a global military threat.
ReplyDeleteTheir missile capacity, unable to successfully launch and land a monkey.
Which the US accomplished in 1948, with German engineers.
If you cannot land a monkey, you can't splash a nuke, intact.
Reliable reentry is essential, for both.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteummm, Rat, 1948 capability didn't involve missiles but rather a plane and a parachute if memory serves. Simply having the capacity to make a nuke go boom can kill a load of folk and provide quite the deterrent.
ReplyDeleteThat was the date provide by Wiki, ash.
ReplyDeleteCould have been 1951, or '61 for that matter. Point is, if you cannot get the monkey down, you can't a nuke, either.
The mere possession of a nuke, by a country is a deterrent to overt aggression, not.
It has not worked out that way for Pakistan. There having been a series of cross border raids into Pakistan that their possession of a nuclear arsenal has not deterred.
While possession of a nuclear weapon may deter an invasion, it is no offensive military threat. Not if it cannot be reliably delivered to a viable target, outside the country.
MAD works, has for 60 plus years.
The point was, rat, that the only use of Nuclear weapons was by the US and they WEREN'T delivered by missile but rather dropped from a plane. No need for fancy missile technology to successfully deliver the payload. The 1948 method worked just fine.
ReplyDeleteAs a side note, that last post seemed self contradictory where you posit that MAD works yet maintain that it doesn't for the likes of Pakistan.
Even while they deny attempting to build one, why should the Iranians not have a nuclear deterrent, against the nuclear capabilities possessed in Israel, Turkey and Russia, as well as Pakistan and India?
ReplyDeleteWhy should the Iranians remain constrained in the NPT, when Israel, Pakistan and India are not compliant?
Sanctions and Sabotage are Sufficient
Do remember that the hero Barack did the unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon (2000), abandoning in the process Israel's longtime allies there, bringing about the militarization of southern Lebanon, which has in part brought us to the current mess.
ReplyDeleteYou sure you want this guy as your foreign policy role model?
The Iranian Air Force, ash, could not deliver it, by plane.
ReplyDeleteThe USAAF had air superiority, over Japan, in 1945.
Iran has no capacity for that, anywhere.
The air force of the UAE, alone, could defeat the Iranian capability. According to General P.
The Iranian Air Force could not control the skies of Iran, not for any longer than Iraqi assets controlled the skies over Baghdad.
While I am sure you get a kick out of being able to write "piss on Netanyahu", you will discover that Barack will just as readily "piss" on you.
ReplyDeleteBe careful what you wish for; you just might get it.
He is the Israeli Military Minister, now, is he not?
ReplyDeleteIt is Israel's choice, not ours.
Deuce said...
ReplyDeleteThe Germans, given a uniform to wear or a title are simply incapable of restraining themselves.
Fri Nov 18, 04:35:00 AM EST
:)heh
My dad would have agreed with that. He would have been against the reunification of Germany -- 'they'll be goosestepping again'.
b
As MJ Rosenberg writes:
ReplyDeleteWith one honest comment, he demonstrated that the hysteria surrounding an Iranian bomb is phony. It is, in fact, not about an "existential threat" to Israel but about two countries competing for regional hegemony.
When the German forestry students come here on an educational exchange to our excellent forestry school, they all have orgasms when they get a look at our forests. They'd cut all their trees down back in the middle ages sometime. They just can't believe it. Idaho, by the way, is about as big as Germany. And livable too, until the ratcrapper and his ilk get their way and sell off the national forests -- probably to ----.......the Germans.
ReplyDeleteb
Mr Rosenberg goes on to say:
ReplyDeleteMeir Dagan, the Mossad chief who retired early this year, calls bombing Iran a "stupid idea." He says:
A military attack will give the Iranians the best excuse to pursue the nuclear race. Khamenei will say 'I was attacked by a country with nuclear capabilities; my nuclear program was peaceful, but I must protect my country.'
He adds that any attack on Iran would lead Hizbullah to let fly its thousands of missiles against Israeli cities, missiles infinitely more numerous, deadly and sophisticated than anything Hamas has.
Another ex-Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy says Iran does not present an existential threat to Israel. "The State of Israel cannot be destroyed but "an attack on Iran could affect not only Israel, but the entire region for 100 years."
And now we have Defense Minister Ehud Barak's admission that the Israeli campaign to rush the U.S. and Israel itself into war is based on, at best hype and at worst lies. Just like Iraq.
Then boobie, those adventurous Germans, they'd become Americans.
ReplyDeleteJust like you.
Cause it worked with the Swedes, no?
They have some large forests, in Western Germany, but they are more managed garden than wilderness.
ReplyDeleteWe'd certainly be closer to balancing the Federal budget, by selling assets and cutting the expenses associated with them.
ReplyDeleteSarah Writes
ReplyDeleteQuotes Twain - "There is no distinctively American criminal class except Congress"
heh:)
She would have been our best candidate. No Gingrich type garbage in her trash can.(Gingrich was for the individual mandate at one time) No SarahCare from an earlier incarnation as a Mass. 'democrat'.
And, nice to look at.
b
The people of the United States gifting the land to immigrant Swedes.
ReplyDeleteNow the descendents of those Swedes, not wishing to even sell part of the remainder to promote fiscal prudence.
The Brotherhood in Tahrir Square
ReplyDeleteWho's looking out for the Copts?
Crapper, the more I think about your opinions the more you seem to me on the level of one of those posse commitatii that bedeviled the lawyers and courts so often here some years ago. Always thinking they had an original insight into the nature of social life together they'd refuse to, say, pay their income taxes on the grounds they'd given up their American citizenship or something. Always the same outcome, short trial, off to prison. All these cases having been decided many times decades ago.
One guy says the national forests belong to the people, I'm the people, so he goes out and starts logging. Off to prison.
I don't have to get a driver's license the roads are public property, I'm the public, etc.
This nonsense about minting platinum trillion dollar coins could be taken from their playbook, selling off the national forest heritage for a bowl of porridge that will be wasted anyway, that too, they might go for, jury nullification like your hero Ron Paul, seeing conspiracies everywhere, Zionism equals Nazism, and, insisting there is no difference between the political parties when your right to your guns was just recently decided BY ONE VOTE in the US Supreme Court. It makes a difference who elected President and who is on that court.
Bonkers.....and nasty, too.
b
Well, boobie, I'll tell you what ...
ReplyDeleteThe Chief Rabbinate of Israel called the termination of pregnancy the "Murder of Jewish Souls".
Now, whether or not you agree with that, it seems to be the Judaic position. As articulated by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.
The Zionist have "Murdered" over a million Jewish souls, in Israel, since 1948.
The only folks that exceeded the Zionist toll on Jewish souls in modern times, the NAZI.
Plain fact.
The Zionist use NAZI law, the Nuremberg Laws tin their non-Judaic definition of "Jew", according to Orthodox Jews, that would, one assumes, know.
As to jury nullification, that takes twelve citizens, working in concert.
ReplyDeleteFailure to Report or Misprison of Felony, the miscreant takes it upon himself to decide the Law.
Or is part of a "Conspiracy of Silence" that allows a sexual predator to roam free in the community.
Allegedly to "protect" the victim.
While really all that is done, put other innocents on the firing line.
While I am sure you get a kick out of being able to write "piss on Netanyahu", you will discover that Barack will just as readily "piss" on you.
ReplyDeleteBe careful what you wish for; you just might get it.
I did not say Barak wanted to piss on Netanyahu. I said on “his parade”. I am certain you recognize that was a metaphor, Allen. No one actually pisses on anyone or anything in a literal fashion. However, you have to admit that it would be entertaining to see General Bluster having a hissy fit with Barak getting off message.
Yes Allen. I do remember another military plan that had slam-dunk written all over it..
ReplyDeletes a side note, that last post seemed self contradictory where you posit that MAD works yet maintain that it doesn't for the likes of Pakistan.
ReplyDeleteMAD is working just fine for Pakistan.
If You Can't Trust Einstein Who The Hell CAN You Trust?
ReplyDeleteb
The Pakistani nuclear force, no deterrent to the cross border raids of the United States, into Pakistan.
ReplyDeleteFrom the air and with boots on the ground, the US roams far and wide across the length and breadth of Pakistan, with out fear of overt conventional military, let alone nuclear retaliation.
Their tactical nukes, of no use.
That is the message that should be broadcast, far and wide. That a nuclear deterrent, really isn't.
Instead there i a predisposition that the "mud hut" nukes would deter the United States from taking military action.
That the Pakistani or NorKs have a MAD capacity. Or that the Iranians would, tambien.
The destruction would not be mutual.
Theirs would be assured.
The US would not be destroyed, given either of their capabilities.
There are ninety gravity nukes at that Turkish Air Force base, allotted to the Turkish Air Force.
ReplyDeleteThe Italians and Belgian's have their allotments, too.
If the Iranians had a nuke or two, they'd never be assured of destroying their target.
But their own destruction, of that there is no doubt.
desert rat said...
ReplyDeleteThe Pakistani nuclear force, no deterrent to the cross border raids of the United States, into Pakistan.
Pakistan is ostensibly our ally against Qaeda on the War on Terrah. If they were officially belligerent, it would be a different story altogether.
Deuce:
ReplyDeleteMAD is working just fine for Pakistan.
Nothing mutual about it. We can touch Pakistan with B-2s, and they can't punch back, except on forward-deployed assets, which have force protection.
The Indian nukes do not deter the ISI and its "deniable" components.
ReplyDeleteNot in Kashmir nor Bombay.
The Israeli nukes do not deter Hezbollah or Hamas.
Though they deterred Egypt, Jordon and Syria back in the days of symmetrical warfare.
And would deter Iran.
Anonymous Bob, quoting his rice crispies, said:
ReplyDeleteShe would have been our best candidate. No Gingrich type garbage in her trash can.
Sarah Palin's baggage has baggage. She manufactures baggage. They could have an entire reality TV network on cable devoted only to Sarah Palin and the people in her life, and it would look like My Name Is Earl.
Except Earl was likeable!
ReplyDeleteThe fact is Assured Destruction is what was the demise of symmetrical warfare.
ReplyDeleteWhen the US could assure the enemies destruction, with "smart" non-nuclear munitions, the game changed.
Add stealth and mutual never again enters the equation.
DR: If you cannot land a monkey, you can't splash a nuke, intact.
ReplyDeleteYou don't splash nukes unless they are bunker busters. You light them off a mile or two over a target, depending on yield, because that provides optimum damage. The fireball should just touch the ground.
It's stuff like this that causes me to be inherently optimistic.
ReplyDeleteResearchers with the US Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) and the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS), have demonstrated that introducing a maize (corn) gene into switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), a potential feedstock for advanced biofuels, more than doubles (250%) the amount of starch in the plant’s cell walls, resulting in higher glucose release for fermentation with or without biomass pretreatment.
The gene, a variant of the maize gene known as Corngrass1 (Cg1), holds the switchgrass in the juvenile phase of development, preventing it from advancing to the adult phase. The results of this research are described in . . . .
Keep'em Young
Deuce: Lincoln, in draconian fashion, killed 600,000 Americans to maintain and solidify federal control.
ReplyDeleteThe CSA fired on Old Glory at Charleston and forced the Federals to strike the colors and surrender the site. What happens when you do that shit? That's right, you get Sherman's 60,000 troops pouring like a river of hot lave from Atlanta to Savannah, then hanging a left and rolling over Columbia for good measure. What else happens? Blow up the Maine, lose all your islands in the Caribbean and South China Sea. Sink the Luisitania? You get the Treaty of Versailles shoved up your ass. Take out Pearl Harbor and you get Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This should pretty much establish a rule of thumb: Don't open fire on the Stars and Stripes. But some folks are slow learners.
:)heh
ReplyDeleteNice, Miss T.
b
And don't you dare ever wink ---
ReplyDeleteSaudi women to cover “tempting” eyes
Religious police issues order following fight between one of its officers and the husband of a woman after the former told her to cover her eyes. If confirmed, the step would mark a step backward compared to King Abdallah’s cautious overtures.
Riyadh (AsiaNews) – Saudi women with attractive eyes may be forced to cover them up, said Sheikh Motlab al Nabet, a spokesman for Saudi Arabia's Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV), better known as the religious police or Mutaween.
The report appeared on the news website Bikya Masr. In it, al Nabet is quoted as saying the committee had the right to stop women revealing "tempting" eyes in public.
The decision was taken after a man was reportedly hospitalised after a fight with a committee member who told his wife to cover her eyes.
Women in Saudi Arabia already have to cover their hair, and, in some regions, their faces while in public. If they do not, they face punishments including fines and public floggings.
Legally, women are treated as minors without power to act on their own and must have a ‘guardian’ whose consent is necessary for all legal procedures, from marriage to contract, as well as driving, travelling or simply going to a hotel.
However, a few years from now, Saudi women might be able to cast their vote in local elections for the first time. In fact, because of pressure from women’s groups and cautious overtures by King Abdallah, the situation might improve.
Yet the appointment of Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz as crown prince might reverse the course of events for he is viewed as close to conservative circles.
b
Exactly, Ms T. There are many complications to "Splashing" a nuclear warhead.
ReplyDeleteSubmerge and pop one off in Puget Sound and there could be quite a wave.
While a ground burst does throw up a lot more fallout, than does your air burst.
The US does have ground penetrating nuclear capacity, as well.
Indeed the B61 warhead has five detonation options.
Current mods have five fuzing options:
Free fall air burst (high altitude only)
Parachute retarded airburst (high or medium altitudes)
Free fall contact burst (high or medium altitudes)
Parachute retarded contact burst (high or medium altitudes)
Parachute retarded laydown delayed surface burst (delivery altitudes up to 5000 feet), 31 and 81 sec delays available
The Mod 11 has a special ground impact time delay feature to allow it to penetrate into the earth before detonating.
I'll take two of the parachute retarded laydown delayed surface burst and five free fall air burst (high altitude only) C.O.D.
ReplyDeleteb
It was not that simple. Thirteen colonies voluntarily formed a union. The lawful voters in each colony ratified the constitution and they formed a union. Nothing in the union said that if at some time you left the union, the penalty would be death. The union was in the pursuit of liberty. That was the point. It was done because it was in the opinion of the voters in each state that they would form a more perfect union. The union became less than perfect for the people in South Carolina. The federal government or the people in Pennsylvania or New York did not own South Carolina. The people of South Carolina did. They decided, like a bad marriage, it was time to go their separate ways. South Carolina passed the ratification act and in their opinion had the right to withdraw. They passed an act of secession. They asked the federals to leave the state peacefully. After secession they viewed the federals as an occupying power. Lincoln wan’t leaving.
ReplyDeleteInstead, Lincoln provoked them by reinforcing Fort Sumter. Could Lincoln have negotiated with South Carolina? Could he have let them leave? Of course he could have. Like the pharaohs who stopped the Israelis from leaving Egypt, Lincoln played hardball. He won. The South lost and 600,000 Americans died.
Local communities and states have been losing individual freedoms and power ever since. The average person in any state is at the mercy of the federal government. Martha Steward gets a stock tip and does time in a federal prison. Congress and their families do and they get rich. I support the right of secession because I support the concept of freedom and individual responsibility. California would be a happier and richer state if California were three states.
I think fifty states with less federal control would be a richer and happier country and if Florida decided they want to go it alone, let them, don’t kill them.
To follow your argument and the practice of Lincoln, if the Greeks decided to leave the European union, the union they voluntarily joined, the Germans and French could decide to attack and occupy Greece. Their is not a spit of distance between the two cases.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your service
ReplyDeleteDarth Vader clones with night sticks.
ReplyDeleteThe people of South Carolina certainly weren't universally content. Nor did most of them own anything at all. You are forgetting the unpleasantness of slavery.
ReplyDeleteLike the pharaohs who stopped the Israelis from leaving Egypt, Lincoln played hardball.
This is ironic, as the Hebrews were fleeing slavery and South Carolina was intent to keep it. I have never seen the Pharaohs equated with Lincoln ever before.
The old southern spiritual says "Go down Moses, go down to Egypt land, tell old Pharo, let my people go".
I certainly agree the Feds have gotten way too big though. And it's true there is no exit clause in the Constitution. Some Hawaiians are still bitter that Independence was not on the ballot when they voted, just statehood or territory. They have a point.
b
If the south had been allowed to go its own way, and history otherwise had developed apace up to WWI and its aftermath WWII, who would have fought jerry?
ReplyDeleteMany in the south would have been sympathetic to European doctrines of racial and cultural superiority.
b
Like the Scots and Welsh did with Britain and the Canadians, Puerto Ricans, Guatemalans and Dominicans did with the US.
ReplyDeleteThe Scots-Welsh descendants throughout the South have adequately accounted for themselves in fighting under stars and bars as well as stars and stripes.
ReplyDeleteThe relationship between a slave and master is always a tyrant against one who wants freedom. It varies in degrees. Clearly a cute slave on the Jefferson estate had her share of pleasures working under the boss.
An odd thing is, after being forced to stay in the Union, many from the south are the most patriotic folks there are, disproportionately overrepresented in the armed forces, last I read.
ReplyDeleteb
According to my wife, who follows such things, it's not certain it was Tom who knocked her up, but may have been his brother. I think they'd have to dig Tom up and DNA his bones if they could to be certain. It is certain she worked underneath some master.
ReplyDeleteb
FOX News reports:
ReplyDeletePanetta Warns Israel on Consequences of Iran Military Strike
Big Bother In EU About Whether or No Water Fights Dehydration
ReplyDeleteReally, there's something in the water, over there.
b
The administration is "afraid of any instability and oil markets, and therefore wants to take no decisive action," Kirk said. "They'll give some pretty good speeches against Iran, but they will not take decisive economic action. That may be because they don't want disruption in Western economies, worried about prospects for the campaign."
ReplyDeleteThere you go. Sanctions and sabotage have no chance.
If Israel does go we'll be drawn in anyway, I'd bet.
b
Though of the two, sabotage and sanctions, sabotage would seem to be quite superior.
ReplyDeleteb
Well, if the US won't go for enhanced economic sanctions, it won't go for bombs, either.
ReplyDeleteDeuce: I support the right of secession because I support the concept of freedom and individual responsibility.
ReplyDeleteFor plantation owners and overseers maybe. The cotton pickers get the lash and they get sol' down de riber.
No bombs under Obama......unless we're forced to open that shipping lane back up, out of dire necessity.
ReplyDeleteb
Deuce: They asked the federals to leave the state peacefully. After secession they viewed the federals as an occupying power. Lincoln wan’t leaving. Instead, Lincoln provoked them by reinforcing Fort Sumter.
ReplyDeleteClassic blame-the-victim. The little Eichmanns in the WTC made Osama kill them, too.
The bottom line is that the President swore an oath to preserve and defend US Government Property. Fort Sumter was not forgotten by any means. Sherman changed the Rules of Engagement when he got to South Carolina; as in, there weren't any.
because I support the concept of freedom and individual responsibility.
ReplyDeleteTrouble is, that's exactly what the secessionists were out to deny to a large portion of the human beings living among them.
Thus, the quandary.
Which is the higher value, freedom to dissociate, or the right not to be a slave? Because dissociation meant the continuation of slavery in South Carolina.
b
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteNo bombs under Obama......unless we're forced to open that shipping lane back up, out of dire necessity.
I don't think we'll be "forced" to do it. I'm thinking we should only do that if Europe and China asks us very nicely, and there's a UN Resolution to open the strait, and it doesn't get vetoed by Russia.
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ReplyDeleteThe Solyndra affair is a disgrace on many levels, the initial loans, the quid pro quo, DOE trying to stick it to the taxpayers in terms of who gets paid first in any bancruptcy, DOE suggesting it would be a good thing for Solyndra to hold off announcing any layoffs until after the 2012 election.
However, when it comes to the jobs being created by Obama's green inititive, Solyndra is just one part of a much broader scam.
The Fact Checker
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Former Philippine President Gloria Arroyo has been arrested on charges of election fraud.
ReplyDeleteNot too big (or politically connected) to fail. Important lesson for the next President. Move more money off-shore for the required payoffs when it's time to get your own ass out of the country.
Women with sexy eyes in Saudi Arabia may be forced to cover them up, according to the spokesperson of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV) in the conservative Gulf kingdom. Spokesman of the Ha’eal district, Sheikh Motlab al-Nabet said the committee has the right to stop a women whose eyes seem “tempting” and order her to cover them immediately.
ReplyDeleteOlivia Wilde better stay the hell out of the Magic Kingdom.
ReplyDeleteLike that Pinocchio scale, Quirk, we should draft that for use around here.
ReplyDelete:---)-----
b
GM Loses Massive...and....City Of Detroit In Big Shit Pot Of Trouble
ReplyDeleteb
Tablecloth Trick
ReplyDeleteA HUSBAND IS AT HOME WATCHING A FOOTBALL GAME WHEN HIS WIFE INTERRUPTS,
ReplyDeleteHONEY, COULD YOU FIX THE LIGHT IN THE HALLWAY? IT'S BEEN FLICKERING FOR
WEEKS NOW.
HE LOOKS AT HER AND SAYS ANGRILY, FIX THE LIGHTS NOW? DOES IT LOOK LIKE I
HAVE GE WRITTEN ON MY FOREHEAD? I DON'T THINK SO!
FINE, THEN THE WIFE ASKS, WELL THEN, COULD YOU FIX THE FRIDGE DOOR? IT WON'T
CLOSE RIGHT
TO WHICH HE REPLIED, FIX THE FRIDGE DOOR? DOES IT LOOK LIKE I HAVE
WESTINGHOUSE WRITTEN ON MY FOREHEAD? I DON'T THINK SO!
FINE, SHE SAYS THEN YOU COULD AT LEAST FIX THE STEPS TO THE FRONT DOOR? THEY
ARE ABOUT TO BREAK
I'M NOT A CARPENTER AND I DON'T WANT TO FIX STEPS HE SAYS, DOES IT LOOK LIKE
I HAVE HOME DEPOT WRITTEN ON MY FOREHEAD? I DON'T THINK SO!
I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU. I'M GOING TO THE PUB!!!!
SO HE GOES TO THE PUB AND DRINKS FOR A COUPLE OF HOURS...HE STARTS TO FEEL
GUILTY ABOUT HOW HE TREATED HIS WIFE, AND DECIDES TO GO HOME.
AS HE WALKS INTO THE HOUSE HE NOTICES THAT THE STEPS ARE ALREADY FIXED. AS
HE ENTERS THE HOUSE , HE SEES THE HALL LIGHT IS WORKING AS HE GOES TO GET A
BEER, HE NOTICES THE FRIDGE DOOR IS FIXED.
HONEY, HE ASKS, HOW'D ALL THIS GET FIXED?
SHE SAID, WELL, WHEN YOU LEFT I SAT OUTSIDE AND CRIED JUST THEN A NICE YOUNG
MAN ASKED ME WHAT WAS WRONG, AND I TOLD HIM.
HE OFFERED TO DO ALL THE REPAIRS, AND ALL I HAD TO DO WAS EITHER GO TO BED
WITH HIM OR BAKE A CAKE.
HE SAID, SO WHAT KIND OF CAKE DID YOU BAKE?
SHE REPLIED, HELLOOOOO....DO YOU SEE BETTY CROCKER WRITTEN ON MY FOREHEAD? I
DON'T THINK SO!
Nonsense. Pure PC nonsense
ReplyDeleteJust look at the places in the World where slavery was still in fashion throughout the Americas in 1850. Slavery was on its way out, and ended most everywhere without killing 600,000 citizens. If the Civil War was fought over slavery, Lincoln was a bigger fool than I thought:
1851: New Granada (Colombia) abolishes slavery[29]
1852: The Hawaiian Kingdom abolishes kauwa system of serfdom.[35]
1853: Argentina abolishes slavery when promulgating the 1853 Constitution
1854: Peru abolishes slavery[16]
1854: Venezuela abolishes slavery[16][29]
1855: Moldavia partially abolishes slavery.[36]
1856: Wallachia partially abolishes slavery.[36]
1860: Indenture system abolished within British-occupied India.
1861: Russia frees its serfs in the Emancipation reform of 1861.[37]
1862: Treaty between United States and Britain for the suppression of the slave trade (African Slave Trade Treaty Act).[28]
1862: Cuba abolishes slave trade[16]
1863: Slavery abolished in Dutch colonies.[38]
1863: In the United States, the Emancipation Proclamation declares those slaves in Confederate-controlled areas to be freed. Most slaves in "border states" are freed by state action; separate law frees the slaves in Washington, D.C.
1865: United States abolishes slavery with the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution; about 40,000 remaining slaves are affected.[16]
1869: Portugal abolishes slavery in the African colonies
1870: U.S. abolishes slavery in the Department of Alaska after purchasing it from Russia in 1867
1871: Brazil declares free the sons and daughters born to slave mothers after 28 September 1871.
1873: Slavery abolished in Puerto Rico
1873: Treaty between Britain and Zanzibar and Madagascar to suppress slave trade [28]
1874: Britain abolishes slavery in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), following its annexation in 1874 (after Third Anglo-Asante War).
1879: Bulgaria abolishes slavery (note: the slavery was abolished with the first constitution of the renewed Bulgarian state)
1882: Ottoman firman abolishes all forms of slavery, white or black.[39]
1885: Brazil passes Sexagenarian Law freeing all slaves over the age of 60.
1886: Slavery abolished in Cuba[16]
1888: Brazil passes Golden Law, abolishing slavery without indemnities to slaveowners or aid to newly freed slaves.[40]
1890: Brussels Conference Act – a collection of anti-slavery measures to put an end to the slave trade on land and sea especially in the Congo Basin, the Ottoman Empire and the East African coast
1894: Korea abolishes slavery[41]
1896: France abolishes slavery in Madagascar
1897: Zanzibar abolishes slavery[42
Lincoln had to do nothing and slavery would have collapsed under its own weight. The South was destroyed and the Civil War made it worse for the blacks and the whites and caused avoidable social problems for another hundred years.
ReplyDeleteOne saggy boob said to the other saggy boob "If we don't straighten up people will think we're nuts"
ReplyDeleteSlavery ended at its source with the Brussels Conference in 1890. It was an African tradition and the source of supply. It would have been impossible any other way. It was Africans selling Africans on the cheap.
ReplyDeleteWhy do we keep falling in love with politicians that can recite a good speech?
ReplyDeleteAt Gettysburg there were 50,000 American casualties in three days in July. Imagine a bus with 50 people onboard going off the road in Gettysburg today. The local hospitals would be overwhelmed. What do you do with 50,000 casualties in the heat, in the fields with horses, the shit, the flies, the hopeless agony and the waste. No bandages, no antiseptic, no transfusions, no hope. It was a nightmare and to celebrate a speech by the man who could have prevented it?
ReplyDeleteLincoln forgot the simple majesty and wisdom of Matthew 5:9.
ReplyDeleteI think state's righters and secessionists would be better off arguing it was all about slavery.
ReplyDelete'There, that's over with, now we can go dissolve the our union in peace, by a vote, everyone's rights secure.'
Slavery here might have withered away. It also might have slowly morphed into industrial slavery, the production line, etc.
Might think of Germany and their use of slave labor during WWII.
I'm reading a book my wife brought today about Wilberforce. We all know 'Wilberforce freed the slaves'.
But not without a hell of a lot of effort over a lifetime with the massive help of many others. He was rich and opportunely placed to be in Parliament and work the issue.
His conversion to, or rather, beginning to take seriously, his Anglican Christianity was the result of his brief exposure to a Methodist school in London in his youth.
b
Or the majesty of Matthew 10:34.
ReplyDelete.......
The judgements of the Lord are righteous altogether.
b
To believe that slavery would have endured without the Civil War is to disrespect the intelligence and decency of the American people. Was the rest of the World so much smarter, more noble? Were we the people uniquely savage and ignorant?
ReplyDeleteThe Lord may be righteous, it is a rare politician that shares such qualities.
ReplyDeleteEven St. Paul said treat the slaves kindly, but not to free them. And he wasn't uniquely savage and ignorant.
ReplyDeleteHell if I know, maybe it would have withered away with the coming of the machinery.
By the way, I was reading in Huston Smith the other day the secret meaning of St. Paul's 'I know a man lifted up to the third heaven, whether in the body or out of the body I do not know....where he heard things it is forbidden to tell to men'.
His exposition is, taken from an old Eastern Orthodox priest, that the secret is that finally all....ALL....are saved, but this must not be known, lest it undermine our moral striving.
b
The judgements of the Lord are righteous altogether.
ReplyDeleteI never did like that much.
In the other world, sure, but not here.
Way too often the bad guys win, here, and when the better win, what a hell of a price is often paid.
b
Deuce: Lincoln had to do nothing and slavery would have collapsed under its own weight. The South was destroyed and the Civil War made it worse for the blacks and the whites and caused avoidable social problems for another hundred years.
ReplyDeleteAslan said nothing.
"You mean," said Lucy rather faintly, "that it would have turned out all right – somehow? But how? Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?"
"To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan. "No. Nobody is ever told that."
"Oh dear," said Lucy.
-----------------------
"I don't think I'd ever be able to forget what I heard her say."
"No, you won't."
"Oh dear," said Lucy. "Have I spoiled everything? Do you mean we would have gone on being friends if it hadn't been for this--and been really great friends--all our lives perhaps--and now we never shall."
"Child," said Aslan, "did I not explain to you once before that no one is ever told what would have happened?"
Makes alternative history a maddening exercise....
ReplyDeleteWho could have predicted the rise of Ronald McDonald?
b
This book I am reading, The Book of Books is arguing that it was the King James Bible that really freed the slaves, and that people like Wilberforce, Lincoln, etc. were merely the tools.
ReplyDelete'The poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world' said Shelley.
b
King James was a peter puffer ("Rex fuit Elizabeth, nunc est regina Jacobus -- Elizabeth was King, now James is Queen") who personally supervised the torture of "witches". But I do admire the KJV as literature.
ReplyDeleteNow my author is arguing that at bottom the Civil War was over two differing ways of reading the King James Bible.
ReplyDeleteAnd, he has a point.
The south never had much of a chance. There were only about 5 or 6 million whites in the whole area, according to my source here. Against some 20 million or more in the north, and that's where the industry was located.
b
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ReplyDeleteGM Loses Massive...and....City Of Detroit In Big Shit Pot Of Trouble
It seems to come with the territory. Detroit is in Wayne County and the entire county is on the verge of going broke. It's too long a story to even summarize in a short post but the Feds have been here for the past couple months looking into the usual charges of corruption, kickbacks, bloated bureaucracies, etc.
I heard on the news tonight that there are 36,000 homeless on the streets in Detroit each night.
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That's really sad, Quirk, and I really have no idea what the answer is to the problems.
ReplyDeleteb
I read an article many years ago about how the wage structure of all jobs, "public", and private in Detroit were based off of the UAW Wage package.
ReplyDeleteNow, the Auto Worker jobs, and pay scale, are decimated, but the higher paying Public Jobs, and their attendant salaries, live on.
i cant find your email address and i want to send you something
ReplyDelete