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."

Monday, December 26, 2011

Post-Gaddafi Nightmare: Libya rebels unleash revenge



Former Libyan rebels offered military jobs

Libya will include thousands of former rebels who helped topple Muammar Gaddafi in its armed forces from January, the defence minister said on Sunday, testing the government's ability to get rebel leaders to cede command of their fighters.




7:00AM GMT 26 Dec 2011 TELEGRAPH

Although rebels met a deadline imposed by the National Transitional Council (NTC) to withdraw this week from the capital Tripoli, militias led by rival commanders still guard key installations and checkpoints across the city.

The lack of a fully functioning army and police force, has given militias free rein to fight turf wars after the uprising that ended Gaddafi's 42-year dictatorship in August.

"The programme aims at including the revolutionaries in many fields including defence," Osama al-Juwali, interim defence minister told a news conference also attended by interim interior minister Fawzi Abd al-All.

"The idea is to inject new blood in the army which was marginalised by the tyrant (Gaddafi)," said Mr Juwali who was commander of the Zintan militia that captured Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam in November.

Abd al-All said the rebels were also invited to take up positions in the interior ministry which, he said, was understaffed. He said they could also apply for civilian jobs in government offices through the ministry of labour.

Lifting of the UN Security Council sanctions this month on Libya's central bank and a subsidiary means that the interim leaders have access to cash that could be used to offer the fighters well-paying government jobs.

Juwali said that part of the plan was to train the rebels to take up high-ranking positions in the military.

He said it would take a month to register and allocate them to the military, police and other civilian posts, and months before they were trained to guard borders and installations, including oilfields and refineries, now held by rival militias.
"Everyone is allowed to join the special forces, the navy and others," he said. Talks were being held with a number of countries to train rebels inside and outside Libya for the military, he said.

Gaddafi ignored the military, giving control to security militias led by either his sons or confidants.

Mr Juwali said he was not concerned about occasional skirmishes among rebel factions and that he was continuously in contact with most of the rebel leaders.

"I am not worried about the revolutionaries," he told Reuters after the conference. "The revolutionaries ask me every day when can they hand in their weapons and ammunition, but I tell them to wait until we have the facilities to store them."
The latest major turf war broke out this month when armed men in the vehicles of Libya's new national army tried to take control of Tripoli's international airport from a powerful Zintan militia unit.

73 comments:

  1. The former Taliban ambassador can only shake his head. “There will be no end to this war,” he says. “No one among the Taliban believes in peace.” A lot of them seem practically addicted to war. “Many Taliban are fanatical and enjoy fighting with no ultimate goal other than the power it brings them personally,” says a former Taliban Foreign Ministry official who remains committed to the cause. “Thoughts of peace never cross their minds.”

    While in Afghanistan there is War Without End

    b

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  2. As long as Libya continues pumping oil, the more dysfunctional the local government, the better.

    Having a "stable" government in Libya was of no benefit to the United States for the past 20 years.

    In fact, it was a major cause for concern, if terrorism in and amongst the Europeons is a concern for the United States.

    Bombings in Germany, targeting US soldiers, and in the air, over Scotland, just two of the attributes of the previous regime, there.

    As long as the US is going to be involved in Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, the more dysfunctional the locals be, the better.

    That Libya has devolved into groups of tribal factions, a big plus.

    Much more a dream come true, than a nightmare.

    ReplyDelete
  3. As for Afpakistan, the US should just leave that part of the sand box.

    Cut all those folk off from US aid and involvement.

    If the people there again become a threat, well, the US has extensive "stand off" military capacity that could handle it.

    B-2 and 52s come first to mind.

    Recall, if you will, that 800 Rangers to close the door at Tora Bora, was considered a "foot print" to large, even when presented with the opportunity to capture or kill Osama.

    Back in the day.

    Now with 100,000 troops in Afpakistan and Osama dead, tambien, the military futility of staying further becomes obvious.

    Unless. of course, protecting our interests in the heroin trade is really that important to the national interests of the United States.

    I, myself, do not think it is.

    The heroin would flow to Russia, even without US assistance.

    Things are looking up.
    Dr Paul reportedly tied for second, in New Hampshire, with 17% support.

    Go Doc Go!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Another group of totalitarians not deserving of US aid.

    Discrimination and violence against women – purportedly motivated by religious sensibilities – have spiraled out of control.

    In recent weeks, we have been witness to women attacked for refusing to move to the back of the bus to uphold a policy of gender segregation; women forced out of a venue where elections in a Jerusalem neighborhood were being held; women denied the right to come on stage to receive an official Health Ministry prize for research into the relationship between Halacha and medicine; women banned from a Jerusalem ad campaign to encourage organ donations; and women prevented from serving in key IDF positions due to the opposition of a growing, increasingly vocal group of religious male soldiers and officers. And this list is by no means exhaustive.

    These incidents have generated a debate over what has been euphemistically referred to as the “banishing” of women from the public sphere. But chauvinism, discrimination or downright violence would more accurately describe this behavior.

    On Saturday night, a young haredi man was arrested on suspicion of spitting at a woman helping girls onto a school bus at a religious-Zionist elementary school in Beit Shemesh.


    Reported in the JPost as ...
    Gender Insanity

    Which does not accurately describe the religious hatred that is saturating that patch of sand.

    When the Star of David is used like to emulate Swastikas during the Kristallnacht of 1938, painted upon the doors of the homes of those to be persecuted for their religion, well, it's time for the US to get off the bus.

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  5. If Libya can no longer project force across it's own borders, like it did into Chad, that's a good thing.

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  6. "The recent spate of incidents is so severe that it brought the issue of gender discrimination to the center of public discourse. Significantly, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who opened Sunday’s cabinet meeting by denouncing discrimination against women, has called on haredi legislators to speak out publicly against the phenomenon and ask their spiritual leaders to do so as well."

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  7. The Beit Shemesh municipality announced on Sunday that it would install approximately 400 security cameras in areas where verbal intimidation and spitting have been reported."

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  8. "Israeli society – backed by politicians both male and female, on the left and on the right, and even religious and secular – are pretty much in agreement that this extremism and any sort of discrimination against women is wrong and must be stopped."

    All from the Jerusalem Post.

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  9. Does not sound like a "totalitarian" society to me.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Nor does it sound like "religious hatred" is saturating Israel.

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  11. Arming Iran with weapons and using the profits to fund hired guns to murder people is totalitarian..

    Iran-contra affair
    Iran-contra affair, in U.S. history, secret arrangement in the 1980s to provide funds to the Nicaraguan contra rebels from profits gained by selling arms to Iran. The Iran-contra affair was the product of two separate initiatives during the administration of President Ronald Reagan. The first was a commitment to aid the contras who were conducting a guerrilla war against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The second was to placate “moderates” within the Iranian government in order to secure the release of American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon and to influence Iranian foreign policy in a pro-Western direction.

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  12. Despite the strong opposition of the Reagan administration, the Democratic-controlled Congress enacted legislation, known as the Boland amendments, that prohibited the Defense Dept., the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or any other government agency from providing military aid to the contras from Dec., 1983, to Sept., 1985. The Reagan administration circumvented these limitations by using the National Security Council (NSC), which was not explicitly covered by the law, to supervise covert military aid to the contras. Under Robert McFarlane (1983–85) and John Poindexter (1985–86) the NSC raised private and foreign funds for the contras. This operation was directed by NSC staffer Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North. McFarlane and North were also the central figures in the plan to secretly ship arms to Iran despite a U.S. trade and arms embargo.


    Now spitting on a child is an ear mark of a totalitarian nation.

    It has been reported that North Korea and Communist China has notorious "spitting" squads that roamed the streets spitting on unsuspecting peasants...

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  13. There are plenty, if not the majority of Israeli citizens that are opposed to the religious fanatics taking over their society.

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  14. Deuce said...

    There are plenty, if not the majority of Israeli citizens that are opposed to the religious fanatics taking over their society.

    You know why they have time to harrass women riding busses? They don't have to go to drill in the IDF. The ultra-religious have an escape clause. They get the seculars to do their fighting for them.

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  15. Israel hopes to have 65 percent of draft-aged haredi men either in IDF uniform or doing security-related national service by the year 2015, according to a plan approved by the cabinet Sunday.

    Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu characterized the plan as nothing less than a “significant revolution” that will have far-reaching consequences regarding the integration of haredim into society.

    “We will not allow a growing proportion of the public to be exempt from service ostensibly due to ‘full-time religious studies.’ Israel cannot sustain this,” Netanyahu said.

    The proposal passed by a vote of 23-1, with Minorities Affairs Minister Avishay Braverman (Labor) casting the only nay vote. Intelligence Agencies Minister Dan Meridor (Likud) and Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor) abstained



    Now in America?

    There is no required military service.

    Maybe if there were, there would not be as many militant queers harassing all of the normal people in society.

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  16. Maybe if there were, there would not be as many militant queers harassing all of the normal people in society.

    Yeah. Let's elect Newt, get someone who was married three times tell us how two women getting hitched will destroy the fabric of society.

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  17. Newt is finished. How can you expect a man to be qualified to be president when he cannot even prepare a plan to get on the ballot in his home state. Newt had his Herman Cain moment. It is all down hill from here.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Teresita said...
    Maybe if there were, there would not be as many militant queers harassing all of the normal people in society.

    Yeah. Let's elect Newt, get someone who was married three times tell us how two women getting hitched will destroy the fabric of society.



    Is that what they call a "non sequitur"

    A non sequitur can denote an abrupt, illogical, unexpected or absurd turn of plot or dialogue not normally associated with or appropriate to that preceding it. ...

    Your reputation from the Belmont Club is we'll earned.

    Love the way you CHANGE the comments to fit your own political point of view.

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  19. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  20. Selfneutered was over in Greece sailing around with what's her name, Callista?, when he should have been home minding the store.

    His aides all got pissed and quit en masse.

    Then came flocking back of course, when his star began to rise.

    heh, I've never seen such a mess.

    b

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  21. Anonymous is WiO.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Deuce said...

    Newt is finished. How can you expect a man to be qualified to be president when he cannot even prepare a plan to get on the ballot in his home state.


    All Obama has to do in the general is run 15 second spots with Newt footage that say "Welcome to Amateur Hour"

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  23. What is "Occupation": Israel hopes to have 65 percent of draft-aged haredi men either in IDF uniform or doing security-related national service by the year 2015, according to a plan approved by the cabinet Sunday.

    So in four more years, the number of sexists spitting on women who don't go to the back of the bus will be reduced somewhat, unless they are home from the IDF on leave.

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  24. If I write a post that you don't like or offends you, it wasn't me. It was Ron Paul's ghostwriter

    ReplyDelete
  25. Nancy Pelosi knows where to draw the line. If she didn't she wouldn't have eyebrows.

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  26. By process of elimination - shitting them out - one is left out of this current crop of crap with Romney, who hasn't cheated on his wife, got on the ballot in Virginia, got through Harvard Law and Business too in four years, while married with kids, is a Rino, but at least isn't Obama, and doesn't have the foreign policy of Jeremiah Wright. Besides he went on mission for two years to France, and one must almost admire such a pursuit of futility.

    And he can probably win.


    b

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  27. Teresita said...

    If I write a post that you don't like or offends you, it wasn't me. It was Ron Paul's ghostwriter

    Mon Dec 26, 12:48:00 PM EST


    Same with me.


    b

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  28. Iran: Woman may be hanged, not stoned (wow, human rights are improving!)

    ReplyDelete
  29. Teresita said...
    What is "Occupation": Israel hopes to have 65 percent of draft-aged haredi men either in IDF uniform or doing security-related national service by the year 2015, according to a plan approved by the cabinet Sunday.

    So in four more years, the number of sexists spitting on women who don't go to the back of the bus will be reduced somewhat, unless they are home from the IDF on leave.



    In the IDF, women serve equally...

    And yes they do spit on rude, insensitive men and women.


    I guess in Teresea's militant queer world there is no rude behavior.

    I guess she missed the annual Queer's for Palestine march....

    ReplyDelete
  30. In racist Israel...

    LGBT people
    Further information: Sexual orientation and military service#Israel
    Israel is one of 24 nations that allow openly gay individuals to serve in the military. Since the early 1990s, sexual identity presents no formal barrier in terms of soldiers' military specialization or eligibility for promotion.[31]
    Up until the 1980s, the IDF tended to discharge soldiers who were openly gay. In 1983, the IDF permitted homosexuals to serve, but banned them from intelligence and top-secret positions. A decade later, Professor Uzi Even,[32] an IDF reserves officer and chairman of Tel Aviv University’s Chemistry Department revealed that his rank had been revoked and that he had been barred from researching sensitive topics in military intelligence, solely because of his sexual identity. His testimony to the Knesset in 1993 raised a political storm, forcing the IDF to remove such restrictions against gays.[31]
    The chief of staff's policy states that it is strictly forbidden to harm or hurt anyone's dignity or feeling based on their gender or sexual orientation in any way, including signs, slogans, pictures, poems, lectures, any means of guidance, propaganda, publishing, voicing, and utterance. Moreover, gays in the IDF have additional rights, such as the right to take a shower alone if they want to. According to a University of California, Santa Barbara study,[32] a brigadier general stated that Israelis show a "great tolerance" for gay soldiers. Consul David Saranga at the Israeli Consulate in New York, who was interviewed by the St. Petersburg Times, said, “It's a non-issue. You can be a very good officer, a creative one, a brave one, and be gay at the same time.”


    If only America was as enlightened...

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  31. I have no issues with Gay people for being gay...

    I have issues with jew hating, judaism hating zionist bashing assholes....

    ReplyDelete
  32. Issues in one hand and 5 dollars in the other will get you a caramel mocha.

    ReplyDelete
  33. I deleted one comment which was nothing more than a two page blank scroll. Express yourself in such a way that goes beyond laying on the return button.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Deuce said...
    I deleted one comment which was nothing more than a two page blank scroll. Express yourself in such a way that goes beyond laying on the return button.




    Wow I am impressed...

    But yet you allow threats and blood libels....

    You are a fine person, for an anti-semite...

    ReplyDelete
  35. President Obama should've gotten coal in his stocking this year, but due to govt regulations, Santa wasn't allowed to hand out coal.

    ReplyDelete
  36. WiO to our host: "You are a fine person, for an anti-semite..."

    The irony. Being called an anti-Semite from Pork Rinds for Allah when Arabs are Semites.

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  37. anti-semite? the term has been trivialized to be on a level with “have a nice day”.

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  38. Teresita said...
    The irony. Being called an anti-Semite from Pork Rinds for Allah when Arabs are Semites.

    That ain't "irony".

    You hating Israel, Jews and Judaism and claim to be a "christian"

    That is irony..

    As for your oddly worded conjecture about arabs being semites?

    You are just being specious and distorting...

    The term "anti-semite" does not apply to arabs, to put that out there is no better than those that object to the word "niggerly" cause it SOUNDS like nigger...

    By the way, when you served in the US Armed forces and LIED about your "lesbianism" after swearing an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws on the books AT THAT TIME of the Uniform Code of Conduct does that not make you unfit for duty?

    And you expect to collect a retirement from us actual taxpayers?

    for shame....

    Lying, stealing and misdirecting, nothing here has changed...

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  39. Deuce said...
    anti-semite? the term has been trivialized to be on a level with “have a nice day”.


    keep saying that to yourself... But to those it has meaning? We SEE your actions....

    Your behavior tells us all we need to know...

    Your opinion of the word? Meaningless..

    But then again, you could give a Rat's ass...

    Actually, no you love Rat's ass more....

    ReplyDelete
  40. The irony.

    Almost hilarious as Teresita witnessing on her Christian knowledge on one post and dropping f bombs on another.

    Pakistan threatening to close the strait of Hormuz again...must be, according to the expertise at the bar

    ReplyDelete
  41. Maybe we can all agree that things are looking up in Libya?

    No American dead, not even wounded (?), the oil is flowing, the tyrant/terrorist is gone, and the savages are at each others throats.

    Is not this the definition of success?


    b

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  42. Sorry WIO, you are part of the problem. You play the Yiddish clown.

    The opportunistic insertion of Israeli politics into American election is a great corruption. It is troubling and is a deception and distraction from what is important and normal.

    Wio, you are devoid of the natural sensitivity of Jews; compassion, reason, and political policies that derive from that.

    The form that that sensitivity takes is the urging for peace, comprised of health for our kin and community and health for our/their neighbors.
    When Netanyahu positions peace as impossible, the opportunists take it up. Some and certainly some on this blog reason, “If this is a war, then lets win it rather than lose it.”

    When the left positions that peace is impossible, it FEEDS the view of the right-wing opportunists. It is a confirmation of their posing of the question.

    The only path in which the divide won’t happen in the US, in which people are forced to a decision of win or lose, rather than to construct a win-win (as much of a cliche as it is), is for the left to construct the argument that peace is possible and is being pursued by some (if not the current Israeli administration).

    Your antics provoke. You are a madman and need help.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Things are getting better in Libya? I guess you did not bother to watch the video or could not understand it.

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  44. The oil flow is back up to about 1 million bpd. That's absolutely the Only important thing about Libya.

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  45. Any place that has religious emblems painted upon the doorways of the "enemy", is reminiscent of Nazi Germany, circa 1938.

    A place that requires upwards of four hundred "security" cameras, not a free society. to call it such, Orwellian.

    ReplyDelete
  46. jacob said...
    Sorry WIO, you are part of the problem. You play the Yiddish clown.

    The opportunistic insertion of Israeli politics into American election is a great corruption. It is troubling and is a deception and distraction from what is important and normal.



    You speak as though you think you know anything..

    You do not.

    You are naive.

    ReplyDelete
  47. But Jacob...

    Tell you what...

    Please stay and discuss all things jewish with the jew haters here...

    Talk to you in 6 months...

    Every OTHER Jew has left here disgusted...

    ReplyDelete
  48. AMERICAN THINKER ALERT!



    Curious Lack of Indonesians at Gitmo

    More Swedes at Gitmo than Indonesians. Might be the climate but I doubt it.

    b

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  49. The United States already faces a shortage of primary-care doctors. Medical schools today produce one such physician for every two our country needs. By 2019, the American Academy of Family Physicians warns that the United States will be short 40,000 doctors.

    ObamaCare Woes

    b

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  50. Whatever replaces the Colonel, an improvement for the US.

    All that counts for the Europeons, with regards Libya, is that the oil flows.

    Things are looking up, there.

    Certainly nothing bad, for US, is going on there.

    ReplyDelete
  51. The medical schools are more a product of the AMA than of the Federals.

    Sorry that reality interferes with your storyline, boobie.

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  52. The US can always import doctors from Mexico, India and, of course, Pakistan.

    If the AMA were to allow the politicos to do it.

    Wouldn't be good for the AMA guild members, to have more doctors in the market. Limited supply provides for higher salaries and more political clout.

    The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) is an accrediting body for educational programs at schools of medicine in the United States and Canada
    ...
    The LCME is sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Medical Association.


    The Doctor Guild limits the supply of doctors, by limiting the number of medical schools and students.

    Or US students would not have been in Granada, studying medicine. Giving cause for the US to invade that island paradise.

    ReplyDelete
  53. jacob said...


    Jacob is Ms T aka Teresa aka Lesbian warrior

    ReplyDelete
  54. One of the contributing factors that leads to high doctor salaries and the disproportionately high percentage of US GDP dedicated to health care.

    That and the Federal welfare subsidies available to senior citizens for medical care.

    And that medical insurance is a tax free benefit, for corporate employees.

    All while the Medical Guild limits the supply of doctors through direct control of the educational process.

    The Union is in charge.
    Just like at Government Motors.

    ReplyDelete
  55. That is not true

    I am jacob

    ReplyDelete
  56. Good Lord, WIO, are you a "natural-born" English-speaker?

    Jacob's writing is in NO way similar, in Any aspect, to T's.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Everyone knew who the previous nom de guerre's belong to on the very first post. Jacob? Not a chance.

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  58. Well, we all seem to have survived Christmas, again. The year's about wrapped up, one more time.

    So. Time for predictions, eh? See how wrong we can be this time.

    You all first. :)

    ReplyDelete
  59. Rufus: So. Time for predictions, eh? See how wrong we can be this time.

    1. Obama wins re-election because it's Amateur Hour at the GOP.

    2. Bashir Assad gets sodomized by a knife at the hands of a mob and joins Khaddafi in hell.

    3. China's real-estate bubble burst continues apace. Gas prices in the $2.59 range.

    4. WiO calls at least four new people anti-Semites.

    5. Anono-Bob goes apeshit over some new skirt on the Elephant Bar.

    ReplyDelete
  60. Absent a complete economic meltdown I'm a little skeptical of the $2.59 gas.

    Otherwise, they all look pretty plausible. (esp. the one about Bob, and the skirt.) :)

    ReplyDelete
  61. hmm, #4 looks pretty likely, also. :)

    ReplyDelete
  62. Teresita said...
    Rufus: So. Time for predictions, eh? See how wrong we can be this time.

    4. WiO calls at least four new people anti-Semites.


    I just keep calling the same jew haters what they are...

    Just look in the mirror..

    ReplyDelete
  63. Rufus II said...
    Good Lord, WIO, are you a "natural-born" English-speaker?

    Jacob's writing is in NO way similar, in Any aspect, to T's.


    Wow are you an easy mark...

    ReplyDelete
  64. I would never post as "Jacob". Tamar is more my speed.

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  65. There are no new skirts, what with Sarah gone, and Michele going....

    b

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  66. Rufus sobers up, gets off the tracks and comes home, and apologizes to everyone for even thinking about Ron Paul, or Obama.

    b

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  67. The crapper as usual is full of shit.

    desert rat said...

    The medical schools are more a product of the AMA than of the Federals.

    Sorry that reality interferes with your storyline, boobie.

    Mon Dec 26, 08:42:00 PM EST
    desert rat said...

    The US can always import doctors from Mexico, India and, of course, Pakistan.

    If the AMA were to allow the politicos to do it.


    AMA represents about 25% of docs and is mostly irrelevant today.

    And, my post didn't have a 'storyline' but was a simple link to an article.

    b

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  68. Goddamn!! You did it again, Bob.

    Now, I have to Disinfect my computer, again.

    ReplyDelete
  69. When are you going to realize that that vile rag publishes nothing but distortions, and half-truths for sucker farmers from Idaho.

    ReplyDelete