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."
Watch it and learn.
ReplyDeleteGreat video, Deuce, thanks.
DeleteThere are a lot of lessons to be learned from this video. I am sure they have been by most and just as confident, not by all.
ReplyDeleteOn a personal note, my family had my Uncle Eddy at Pearl and he survived and stayed in service for another twenty years. He was joined by my father and his brother who served in Africa and Germany. Korea took two more uncles into the US military, The Cold War and Viet Nam, took in three of my brothers, four cousins and me, all who survived. A fifth cousin, an army Green Beret, was killed by a landline. Coincidently his older brother had been killed in Viet Nam fighting for the French. None of them was a hung ho muthafucka and none of them ever bragged about anything.
ReplyDeleteI doubt that any of them remembered anything in detail about their enlistment papers or the size of the rounds they fired in boot camp except for my father and uncle that trained on a 50 caliber. Pretty hard to forget that.
ReplyDeleteThey got my uncle at Pearl, but we got our "evens."
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the "lesson" is that All lifers are stupid, crazy, or all of the above. "Our" lifers, their lifers, and the lifer behind the tree.
Normal people never sign the first "shipping over" papers.
And, ALL politicians will be corrupted by the siren song of war. All of them.
DeleteOne exception: The poor boy that enlists to get out of poverty, and "finds a home" in the military. That finds a chance to "become" a semi-normal human being. He's not there because he "loves it;" he's there because his family needs to eat.
DeleteOctober 25, 1944, 0200 hours. It is the final major day of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Six America battleships slowly steam back and forth across the mouth of the Surigao Strait. Five are survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack—West Virginia, Pennsylvania, California, Tennessee, and Maryland. Two forces of Japanese battleships, cruisers, and destroyers are steaming north in the strait. The American battleships will “cross their T,” pouring full broadsides into each arriving Japanese ship. The Pearl Harbor battleships are about to have their revenge.
DeleteLet’s see what we have from the war-mongering Iranians. There is this:
ReplyDeleteDespite the historic Geneva Accord with Tehran, which calls for Iran to curb its nuclear activity in return for sanction easing, Washington is ready to boost military sales in the Gulf, as well as maintain its weighty presence.
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Gulf Arab leaders on Saturday the United States was committed to maintaining its vast military forces in the Middle East, as well as supplying its Arab clients with state-of-the-art military equipment.
"I am under no illusions, like all of you, about the daily threats facing this region, or the current anxieties that I know exist here in the Gulf," Hagel told the Manama Dialogue security forum in Bahrain on Saturday. "These anxieties have emerged as the United States pursues diplomatic openings on some of the region's most difficult problems and most complex issues, including Iran's nuclear program and the conflict in Syria."
Hagel confirmed that the US military “will not make any adjustments to its forces in the region — or to its military planning — as a result of the interim agreement with Iran."
The defense secretary’s comments come amid a general reduction of tensions in the region, not to mention the American people’s exasperation with foreign entanglements in an economic downturn. Although the US military is winding down its decades-long, super-expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, US militarization in the region continues unabated.
The Pentagon is fielding more than 35,000 troops in the Persian Gulf, together with tanks, fighter jets and artillery that serve as a “bulwark against aggression,” Hagel said. Exactly where that source of “aggression” derives from, however, he failed to say.
Hagel is attempting to reassure the Arab world, not to mention Israel, that Washington has no intention of alienating the region, even as the United States has shifted its military attention, not to mention the bulk of its assets, to Asia.
Hagel, who told Congress last month that US isolationism is more of a threat than hubris, reminded his listeners of the 40 American warships and aircraft carrier fleet prowling the waters around the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Originally dispatched in late 2011 at the height of tensions with Iran, this massive US naval flotilla does not appear to be going home anytime soon
Why would the Iranians possibly consider the need for nuclear deterrence?
War is a wonderful business.
Delete.
DeleteUS Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Gulf Arab leaders on Saturday the United States was committed to maintaining its vast military forces in the Middle East, as well as supplying its Arab clients with state-of-the-art military equipment.
As if we had a choice.
If we didn't Lockheed-Martin and General Dynamics would have our balls.
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If you don't have a deep industrial base and require one, don't go to war with a nation that has a deep industrial base.
ReplyDeleteWrong lesson. The lesson is not to go to war with anyone if you can possibly help it.
DeleteIn the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower, "War will Always surprise you."
Same lesson, different words.
DeleteThe US has a deep industrial base and an ongoing appetite to go to war with countries that don’t. How is that working out?
DeleteWith the average American scratching a broke American ass, that's how.
DeleteNo so badly with Japan as of now. Much of their industrial base is in the USA these days.
Delete:)
The world is different now than then in so many ways it is not comparable.
The lesson for today?
Use nukes not troops I guess.
Or just join the civilized world.
Give up the Koran.
Flee to the mountains.
Live under the American nuclear umbrella.
Become a chef.
Don't really know what the lesson for today might be.
Don't launch rockets into Israel perhaps.
Apply for disability.
No irony intended here:
DeleteThe lesson for today?
Use nukes not troops I guess.
Or just join the civilized world.
The lesson might be: If you have nukes, you don't have to fear nukes.
DeleteThanks for the post. Until Iran accepts a Rothschild controlled central bank, the US will push for war so it can put one there. The average American is a political and spiritual child. What daddy government tells them is all they know and mommy media will give them a feel-good bedtime story to reinforce it. A population that can't find Iran on a map, doesn't know a persian from an arab, a sunni from a shiite, or the first thing about monetary policy will be in no position to question the recreation of Iran through military force even though they will end up footing the bill for it.
ReplyDeleteWhat non sense.
DeleteBeginning with "a Rothschild controlled central bank".
The diaspora Jews will do anything to maintain their Jewish monopoly of nuclear weapons in Israel. They count on the support of useful idiots like you to do it.
Delete:)
DeleteThe diaspora Jews
I"m glad Israel has nukes. It's keep the peace......so far.......
It turns out that the radius of the fireball increases with the cube root of the yield. That means you would need a nuclear weapon with 1000 times more power to increase the footprint of total destruction by a factor of ten.
DeleteAssuming Iran manages to duplicate the feat of the Manhattan Project and create a 15 kiloton bomb, here are the ranges of various effects:
2.1 km - Thermal radiation radius (2nd & 3rd degree burns)
1.8 km - Widespread destruction - Air blast radius
684 m - Near total fatalities - Air blast radius
1.4 km - Ionizing radiation radius (500 rem)
15.2 s - Fireball duration
100 m - Fireball radius (airburst)
130 m - Fireball radius (ground-contact airburst)
So go ahead, keep talking about Israel being a one bomb state.
A simple graphic presentation of the effect of multiple yields in weaponized nuclear energy.
Deletehttp://www.nucleardarkness.org/nuclear/highvslowyield/
bob
The B61 nuclear weapon, the Turks have upwards of 90 of these, stored at the Incirlik air base.
DeleteThey are combat ready.
Type - Nuclear bomb
Production history
Designer Los Alamos National Laboratory
Designed - 1963
Manufacturer - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Produced - 1968 (full production)
Number built - 3,155
Specifications
Weight - 700 pounds (320 kg)
Length - 11 feet 8 inches (3.56 m)
Diameter - 13 inches (33 cm)
Blast yield - 0.3 to 340 kilotons
Europe “Denuclearized”: Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Turkey are Bona Fide Nuclear States
By Manlio Dinucci
The media spotlight is shining on Geneva, where talks are underway for the denuclearization of Iran, which does not have nuclear weapons and adheres to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel however remains in the shadows, albeit with hundreds of nuclear weapons pointed at Iran and other countries, and not adhering to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Even more in the shadows is the fact that the United States, while they are engaged in the Geneva process of denuclearization Iran, is nuclearising Europe, potentiating the weapons stored in Germany, Italy , Belgium, Holland and Turkey. There are about 200 B-61 bombs in addition to more than 500 French and British nuclear launch ready warheads. According to a conservative estimate, in Italy there are from 70 to 90, stored at Aviano (Friuli ) and Ghedi Torre. But there could be still more in other sites. It is not known how many more nuclear weapons are on board units of the Sixth Fleet and other warships dropping anchor in our ports.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/europe-denuclearized-germany-italy-belgium-holland-and-turkey-are-bona-fide-nuclear-states/5359858
Lord, just think. For one fourth the money we wasted in Iraq, we could be totally energy independent. No need to ever again give a shit about Persian Gulf oil, or the crazed assholes that sell it.
ReplyDeleteWe're doing that now with improved fuel economy, fewer miles driven, and fracking.
DeleteYes, and it sounds as if Australia is the new Saudi......as someone posted here.......
DeleteWe still Import 7 Million bbls of oil/day.
DeleteThe NeoCon Obama could approve the gas line from Canada too......but he is in the pocket of Chevron, or the greenies, the Saudis, or someone.
DeleteOnly Rufus would know for sure.
So what we should import some oil?
DeleteMuch of the world does.
We export foodstuffs.
Much of the world doesn't.
Delete“If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.”
Seeing that Obama is not approving the Canadian pipeline, is going to do nothing about Iran, has restrained energy development on the national land, prays to Mecca, is a Christian of pastoral sort, he must be in the pay of.........the international Jewish bankers.....................or something.
ReplyDeleteBlog Logic
ANONYMOUS: WARNING WE ARE IN AN OBAMA POLICE STATE ...
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN7KWZwqFw4
bob
The Obama administration recently released its first major fracking policy--the Bureau of Land Management’s proposed rules for fracking on 600 million acres of public land. And it’s even worse than we feared.1
ReplyDeleteIn a major concession to the fracking industry and its lobbying efforts, the proposed rules are even weaker than previous drafts of the rules.2 3 The proposed rules are so weak that their provisions for disclosing toxic fracking chemical were literally written by ExxonMobil, part of the “model legislation” pushed by the ultra-conservative American Legislative Exchange Council!4 And they do nothing to close Dick Cheney’s infamous “Halliburton loophole,” which exempts fracking from key parts of the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act.5
Of course, it’s become clear that there is simply no safe way to frack. So even worse than the concessions made to industry in the draft regulations is the assumption that fracking should be allowed to continue on federal lands despite overwhelming evidence that it endangers our air, water and climate.
The BLM is accepting public comments on its proposed fracking rules until August 23. We need to . . . . . .
Tell it to the BLM
I'm still trying to find this "federal" land that Obama has constrained production on.
DeleteI think you can see Russia from a house there.
DeleteOkay, if you're referring to ANWR, I gotta give you partial credit; but, in fairness, "Congress" killed that a couple of decades ago.
Delete
DeleteEven John McCain, the senior partner of McCain/Palin, took ANWAR off the table, as Rufus II relates.
Have you ever noticed what big tits that Sarah Palin has?
bob
Change your pajamas, throw those slippers in the trash, put that bathrobe in the laundry and go clean up your room.
DeleteWhile you’re at it, brush your teeth.
Delete.
DeleteThe proposed rules are so weak that their provisions for disclosing toxic fracking chemical were literally written by ExxonMobil, part of the “model legislation” pushed by the ultra-conservative American Legislative Exchange Council!4 And they do nothing to close Dick Cheney’s infamous “Halliburton loophole,” which exempts fracking from key parts of the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act.5
As if every piece of legislation wasn't written by lobbyists for the groups it benefits.
Working Assets supports groups such groups as Greenpeace, Planned Parenthood, and Democracy Now. I would say the company knows a little bit about lobbying groups writing legislation.
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I just grabbed an article to illustrate, one side's beliefs, anyway, that there was very little Federal interference with "fracking" on U.S. lands.
Delete.
DeleteI know, Ruf.
Just making the point (one I've probably made too many times) that in D.C. it's not even 'who you know' but rather what you can offer. The whole operation is a scam.
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...less than one third of uninsured young people say they plan to enroll in coverage, which means that those the president was depending upon to carry the weight of health care costs would rather spend the little money they have trying to get their Obama logo tattoo lasered off...
ReplyDelete
DeleteThat always was the 'hole' in the ACA program.
The penalties for non-compliance were set so low, to low to force compliance.
I'm not so sure. If you're real low income the subsidies pretty much wipe out any premium, and if you're higher income the 1% (which becomes 2%, and then 2.5% in the next two years) kicks in.
DeleteEnforcable by dinging tax returns. Any alt.twentysomething smart enough to get a gig in an Apple store is going to tweak his withholding to come in close to neutral. The other ones, older than 26 who don't fall under their parent's plan, don't have tax returns because they don't have jobs.
Delete
Delete1% of $24,000 is $240.
I would not be surprised if that was the average monthly premium for a 27 to 32 year old single adult.
The penalty is to low to force compliance.
90% of them have jobs, and a lot of those are married, and want their children to have healthcare (and, will end up getting their insurance pretty much "for free.")
DeleteI'm betting the end result will be somewhat better than the rabid tea partiers are hoping for, and maybe not quite as good as is being wished for by the libs.
A 27 to 32 making $24,000.00 will get a pretty good subsidy, Rat. (whether it will be enough? we'll see, I guess.)
DeleteThere are a couple of websites with calculaters; I guess "someone" :) should go try to find out a little more. Maybe later. :)
I went
ReplyDeleteHere
and looked up a 29 yr old, no family, no kids, making $24,000.00/yr
Premiums, after subsidies, for the bronze plan was $91.75 mo.
He/she was also eligible to buy just a "catastrophic" plan which would be quite a bit cheaper, but the calculater didn't give a price for that one.
If said individual had a wife, and child, his premium would be Zero for the Bronze Plan.
Btw, I've read that that Kaiser calculater is very accurate.
DeleteNow, think about that. A 29 year old with wife and kid, will have a premium of Zero.
How many 29 year olds are thinking, right now, that they're not interested will wake up one fine morning, soon, and decide that they are?
How about a 23 yr old making $16,000.00 / yr.
Delete$8.75 / month.
I believe I could sell that. :)
Btw, that was for a bronze plan. I assume the Catastrophic plan would be essentially free.
Delete.
DeleteGazaaaam.
The days of the free lunch are back.
:)
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They never left.
DeleteThey're just extending Down the food chain a bit.
A 23 year old earning 16k a year would most likely not consider spending on anything but partying and other necessities of life. Insurance? No friggin way!
DeleteThe cook down at the local restaurant is a college grad, and laid-off school teacher - his salary, about $16,000.00. I'm quite sure he'd pay $8.75 / mo. for health insurance.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAustralia Imports a little over a Half a Million barrels of oil / day.
ReplyDeleteDatabrowser
That will change when the new fields come on line next year.
DeleteAustralia is rich in energy reserves, which include fossil fuels and substantial uranium reserves, and is one of the few Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development members that is a significant net hydrocarbon exporter. According to government sources Australia currently exports over 70 percent of its total energy production.
DeleteAccording to the World Nuclear Association Australia has the world's largest recoverable reserves of uranium, roughly 31 percent, and is the third largest producer and exporter of uranium for nuclear-powered electricity,
Australia NSW to Become Natgas Boom Region?
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Australia-NSW-to-Become-Natgas-Boom-Region.html
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ReplyDeleteMulticulturalism?
An unsympathetic view. The 'Clash of Civilizations' in France.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-french-philosopher-finkielkraut-on-muslims-and-integration-a-937404.html
Finkielkraut: It is presented to us as the model for the future. But multiculturalism does not mean that cultures blend. Mistrust prevails, communitarianism is rampant -- parallel societies are forming that continuously distance themselves from each other.
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ReplyDeleteOn the surface, the Geneva agreement received a positive if chilly welcome from the Arab states located within shouting distance of Iran. Saudi Arabia declared, “This agreement could be a first step toward a comprehensive solution for Iran's nuclear program,” provided, it added with a note of cutting skepticism, “there are good intentions.” Behind the agreeable tone, however, there were countless reports that the Saudis were enraged, feeling betrayed by Washington and convinced that Iran would not keep its word.
A senior adviser to the royal family accused the U.S. of deceiving its allies by engaging in secret talks with Iran ahead of the Geneva meetings, and said the Saudis were furious at Washington. “We were lied to,” said Nawaf Obaid, “things were hidden from us.”
According to Obaid, the Saudis have decided to pursue their own policy goals. “Saudi Arabia will be there to stop [the Iranians] wherever they are in Arab countries.” Iran has been accused of involvement in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain. “We cannot accept Revolutionary Guards running around in Homs,” Obaid said, referring to the Syrian city.
Despite the show of bravado, the reality looks much grimmer. Arab states in the region are visibly reassessing their strategic calculations. And so far, they seem inclined to hedge their bets in anticipation of living with a much more powerful Iran. That looks a lot like the scenario that America’s Arab allies have feared.
One after another, the members of the Saudi-centered Gulf Cooperation Council, the regional bloc, have been holding meetings with Iranian officials in the two weeks since the Geneva deal.
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/13423/world-citizen-iran-deal-already-shifting-regional-balance-of-power
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ADELAIDE, Australia, December 5, 2013 (ENS) – Huge reservoirs of low-salinity water have been discovered where they are least expected – buried under the seabed on continental shelves around the world.
ReplyDeleteA study published today in the scientific journal “Nature,” reveals that an estimated half a million cubic kilometres of low-salinity water has been located off Australia, China, North America and South Africa.
Vast New Freshwater Sources Found Beneath the Sea
http://ens-newswire.com/2013/12/05/vast-new-freshwater-sources-found-beneath-the-sea/
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ReplyDeleteObama's response to a Chris Matthews' question on Obama's management style.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/12/05/obama_ongoing_obamacare_problems_dont_reflect_on_my_management_style.html
Classic Obama.
Worthy of some who post here.
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If you stretch the definition of hydrocarbon to include coal (most don't,) then Australia is a net hydrocarbon exporter - being that it is the world's largest exporter of coal. However, it's pretty unlikely that Australia will ever be a net oil exporter.
ReplyDeleteNo stretch is necessary, but the Australians count coal in their numbers. Australia is the second largest exporter of coal. As to other hydrocarbons, Australia seems at the cusp of a major transformation. While it is impossible to know, the country may dwarf others in reserves of the more typical energy resources, oil and natural gas.
DeleteAll this good fortune may come at the cost of the loss of urgency in developing alternative sources of energy. One day, we have to get off this planet. Had we used the gift of nuclear energy prudently, constructively, man might now routinely travel the solar system at will.
To clarify my meaning,
Deletehy·dro·car·bon noun \ˈhī-drō-ˌkär-bən\
: a substance (such as coal or natural gas) that contains only carbon and hydrogen
Conventionally, petroleum (rock oil) is categorized as a hydrocarbon although containing contaminates which are not. Hence, petroleum is refined to extract myriad hydrocarbons.
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ReplyDeleteWhat is the Cost of a Free Lunch?
Consider Vermont. Unlike my own state of New Hampshire, it has a bucolic image: Holsteins, dirt roads, the Vermont Teddy Bear Company, Ben & Jerry’s, Howard Dean … . And yet the Green Mountain State has appalling levels of heroin and meth addiction, and the social chaos that follows. Geoffrey Norman began a recent essay in The Weekly Standard with a vignette from a town I know very well – St. Johnsbury, population 7,600, motto “Very Vermont,” the capital of the remote North-East Kingdom hard by the Quebec border and as far from urban pathologies as you can get. Or so you’d think. But on a recent Saturday morning, Norman reports, there were more cars parked at the needle-exchange clinic than at the farmers’ market. In Vermont, there’s no inner-city underclass, because there are no cities, inner or outer; there’s no disadvantaged minorities, because there’s only three blacks and seven Hispanics in the entire state; there’s no nothing. Which is the real problem.
Large numbers of Vermonters have adopted the dysfunctions of the urban underclass for no reason more compelling than that there’s not much else to do. Once upon a time, St. Johnsbury made Fairbanks scales, but now a still-handsome town is, as Norman puts it, “hollowed out by the loss of work and purpose.” Their grandparents got up at four in the morning to work the farm, and their great-great-great-whatever-parents slogged up the Connecticut River, cleared the land, and built homes and towns and a civilization in the wilderness. And now? A couple of months back, I sat in the café in St. Johnsbury and overheard a state official and a chamber of commerce official discuss enthusiastically how the town could access some federal funds to convert an abandoned building into welfare housing.
“Work” and “purpose” are intimately connected: Researchers at the University of Michigan, for example, found that welfare payments make one unhappier than a modest income honestly earned and used to provide for one’s family. “It drains too much of the life from life,” said Charles Murray in a speech in 2009. “And that statement applies as much to the lives of janitors – even more to the lives of janitors – as it does to the lives of CEOs.” Self-reliance – “work” – is intimately connected to human dignity – “purpose.”
So what does every initiative of the Obama era have in common? Obamacare, Obamaphones, Social Security disability expansion, 50 million people on food stamps. The assumption is that mass, multigenerational dependency is now a permanent feature of life. A coastal elite will devise ever-smarter and slicker trinkets, and pretty much everyone else will be either a member of the dependency class or the vast bureaucracy that ministers to them. And, if you’re wondering why every Big Government program assumes you’re a feeble child, that’s because a citizenry without “work and purpose” is ultimately incompatible with liberty. The elites think a smart society will be wealthy enough to relieve the masses from the need to work. In reality, it would be neofeudal, but with fatter, sicker peasants. It wouldn’t just be “economic inequality,” but a far more profound kind, and seething with resentments.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/work-540498-one-health.html
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I wonder what Charles Murray thought about his government-subsidized group health insurance, and his government-subsidized mortgage?
DeleteTypical right-wing bullshit. Fine for Me, but not for Thee.
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DeleteI don't think so.
I've said it before, the poor and middle class didn't create the current economic problems. They are the victims of it. They did not create the trends caused by technology and globalization. They suffer from them. The tax code and productivity gains only tend to increase the divide between rich and poor. No question about it.
Will the extension of more unemployment benefits that they are talking about now help out a lot people? Certainly. However, for the government's priorities are way off IMO. What the people need are jobs, not handouts. It has now been five years and we are still talking of extending more unemployment benefits. We have seen the studies where people in many states can earn more in government benefits than they can earn working for a modest salary. Now, as someone here put it we have 'free' healthcare.
The government doesn't attempt to provide jobs. They don't change the tax code to incentivize job growth her in the US. What they provide is bread and circuses, just enough to keep the 'folks' quiet. It's just like Saudi Arabia except SA can afford it. We just print up more money. The reasons are the same, keep the 'folks' quiet. Only the blind or the ideologue couldn't see it. IMO of course.
What is bullshit is blaming the whole issue on the 'right-wing'. The right-wing contributes to the problem no doubt, in their push for deregulation, tax-cuts for the rich, and a laissez-faire economy. The left-wing contributes to it more subtly when the only solutions they can come up with is spending more money in order to keep the hoi palloi quiet. One way or the other both sides stick it to the little guy.
In the end you end up with a country of brainwashed Eloi, looking for the government to take care of them from cradle to crypt, talking on their government provided cell-phones, cashing in their food stamps, visiting the doctor with their 'free' healthcare, and using their welfare credit card for a trip to Vegas. Paradise. In fact, a Brave new world.
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It's the right-wing house leadership that refused to consider any of Obama's jobs bills - even the Veterans Jobs Bill.
Delete"Welfare credit card for a trip to Vegas?" Really? Brutha, puhleeze.
Obama and the dems are running the country and it ain't workin' worth a shit......
DeleteI'll pay my credit cards if you pay yours......
QuirkSat Dec 07, 03:50:00 PM EST
Delete" It's just like Saudi Arabia except SA can afford it."
Saudi Arabia to expel up to 2 million workers
http://peakoil.com/publicpolicy/saudi-arabia-to-expel-up-to-2-million-workers
The problem faced by SA is the same as that faced by the US: will Saudi Arabian citizens take menial or physically hard jobs? It is the hope of the kingdom's rulers that they will. I would not count on it; the good life has become embedded, institutionalized. Moreover, how does SA reprogram a generation indoctrinated with contempt for labor, based on racial stereotyping.
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DeleteYour liberal stripes are showing.
In the first few years of the Obama presidency, the Big O never gave a thought to jobs as he pursued his agenda. When has he ever actually done anything but talk about jobs? When has he ever fought for those 'job bills' you/he are 'talking' about.
The Dems controlled both houses of Congress in 2009/2010, the period when something might have been done about jobs. Nothing was.
Puhleeze, Actions count. Words count as much as bullshit. I suspect your wife doesn't actually allow you to watch info-commercials anymore?
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What can big brother government do to create jobs aside from hiring folk themselves? Do you really believe Obama and the dens had the.power and the mandate to totally reform the tax system?
Deletequirk, you don't seem to object to offering welfare but you simply object to the motive you've postulated as to why it is given ( to keep the sheeple quiet) which could easily be mistaken as motive, especially when attributed to government, is nigh on impossible to determine.
There were a lot of jobs in the various renewable energy policies that they managed to get through in the first two years. Having said that, they were not quite as good on jobs as I thought they could have been.
Delete.
DeleteAs Obama put it to his peeps (with a chuckle), well the jobs weren't quite as shovel ready as I thought they'd be.
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DeleteOnce again, Ash, you have managed to completely miss the point I was making while failing to differentiate my first response which was a general condemnation of government policy from my second comment which was a rebuttal of Rufus' comment, to wit, 'simply blame it all on the GOP'.
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Oh I got it however it is still contradictory cynical whining.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI too am conflicted about whether it is worth my time to try to help you understand your contradictory statements. On the one hand you decry the 'welfare state' and lament how it is more profitable to collect welfare then work and on the other you don't begrudge the welfare the poor get. You then moan about how Obama is set to increase the welfare through extended unemployment and 'free' health care while maintaining that the poor getting the free stuff isn't the problem. Rather, in your view, the problem are the 'dicks' in DC who do it to keep the sheeple in their pens happily mewing their wonderful leaders who can't afford it like the Saud's can. Meanwhile, in a separate comment which is supposed to inoculate you somehow from holding contradictory opinions, you decry the meme 'the right wing being responsible' and flay Obama for not creating wonderful jobs for all.
Deletethat about sums it up ;)
oh ya, ASSSSHHHH, you are da man, da tater, my hero! slap that Quirkster down, BIG!
Delete.
DeleteGo away, Ash. You don't get it and you won't get close to getting it until you go back and read the original article that I linked to and then wrap you brain around the argument that was being made there. Everything else revolves around that and the subsequent flow of comments by Rufus and me.
Now, I am not suggesting you do that, however.
I apologize for calling you dense. It is half time in the Big Ten Championship game and after some reflection I came up to pull my post since it was probably a little harsh. I'm sure you are a great guy, but, I'm tired of you jumping into a conversation and requiring someone to give you a Reader's Digest summary of the plot before preceeding.
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Multiculturalism?
ReplyDeleteIt didn't even work between the Black Feet and the Nez Perce, and they were genetically nearly as possible identical, though lingoed a bit different.
Give me a break.
I've maintained here, only partly in jest, that the whole wind blown riffle was a literary event, a contest between two opposed readings of the Christian Bible.
DeleteOne wonders how he could show such callous disregard of the human carnage, the 600,000 or even more dead Americans, all that pain, and treat it so lightly as a wind riffle across the prairie?
It has been documented that Fudd is …
bob
One wonders at how anyone but an illiterate could come to any other conclusion.
DeleteWhat were they really at bottom then fighting over?
Tariffs?
DeleteRights, they were fighting for their rights and against northern aggression against their homeland.
China pulls out of UN process over territorial dispute with Philippines
ReplyDelete• Move underscores China's tough geopolitical stance in region
• Territorial claims continue to dominate visit by Joe Biden
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/06/china-territorial-dispute-philippines
"He said China’s blank refusal to participate in the tribunal process, a move it revealed to the Philippines by way of diplomatic letter in February, marked the [FIRST] time a state had ever refused to take part in an inter-state arbitration under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea."
I think China will have to back off to some extent (its single carrier is going to have a lot of company) But it set a precedent, given Mr. Obama's capitulation, and it will come back in time. The Chinese are patient.
China is telling its neighbors it's the big dog on the block. How will the neighbors react? Yesterday, Japan announced the closing of four "obsolete" nuclear reactors. Hmm...
DeleteAlfred Nossig was a Polish Jewish sculptor.
Following the Nazi German invasion of Poland, Nossig co-operated with the Abwehr.
While living in the Warsaw Ghetto, Al would provide regular reports to the Nazis.
This done during the deportation of Jewish residents to concentration camps.
Alfred Nossig was a Fifth Columnist.
Fukushima. The Japanese have been closing Nuke plants right and left.
DeleteJapan shutdown the last plant last Sunday. Fifty or so plants are now idle. Until Fukushima (a word I would not try to pronounce three times fast) 30% of Japan's power was derived from nuclear sources.
DeleteAll that being true, Japan has recently passed a stern state secrets act, despite vigorous opposition from the public. It remains my belief that Japan is preparing for a future confrontation with China. MAD will figure large in that event, in my opinion. North Korea could be on the short list of problems to solve, given its continuous provocations.
There's some oil out there in the China Sea, and the ChiComs are dead serious about oil.
DeleteChina imports almost as much oil as we do (if they haven't drawn even, by now.)
DeleteAnd, whereas, we can cut our consumption further, and still prosper, China will have to have more if they are to grow their economy - and, they very much intend to continue growing their economy.
Re: South China Sea
DeleteYes, that is the prize. Having seen pictures of the smog in China, a bi-product of a reliance on coal, the prize becomes more tempting all the time, I would think.
It looks like Australia could handle major deliveries of LNG in the midterm but that is a long haul, when what you need is so close at hand. Australia could do the same with petroleum but that doesn't improve the situation. Then there is the problem of the Straits of Malacca, a strategic game breaker.
I saw an article recently asking the question, "Who is running the show"? The thesis was that the Chinese military may be in the drivers seat. To risk war without a blue water navy is crazy. Despite Japan's insanity 72 years ago, it did have a real navy. This has to be saber rattling and the setting down of markers for future reference.
More than 1,500 Mexican troops have moved into a city on the US border being fought over by rival drug gangs.
ReplyDeleteSoldiers moved into Ciudad Juarez to try to regain control of a city in which more than 2,000 people have been murdered over the past year.
Officials say they intend to have 7,000 troops and police in position by the end of the week.
Rival gangs are battling for control of the city, which is a key entry point for drug smuggling into the US.
Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said the troops were there in support of the local authorities.
"Ciudad Juarez worries us deeply," he said in an interview with Reuters news agency.
"It is the reason why there is a response by the federal government to support the request of local authorities.
Public safety is a shared responsibility among the federal, state governments and municipalities."
He added: "In areas where drug traffickers have a lot of influence,
sadly there is a risk that they will have an interest in influencing the formation of public power, particularly the local authority.
This is something that concerns us."
Police chief quit
Last month, the police chief in Ciudad Juarez, Roberto Orduna, stepped down after
drugs gangs threatened to kill at least one police officer every two days until he quit.
Mayor Jose Reyes had earlier insisted the city would not back down to criminal gangs.
But after a police officer and a prison guard were killed,
he said Mr Orduna's departure was the only way the authorities could protect policemen.
Speaking after the latest deployment of troops in his city,
Mr Reyes said the army and the local authorities were working together to help the troops work with local police and residents.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7922982.stm
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Delete:):):)
Obama must make the mandatory grovel to Paraguay
ReplyDeletePresident Obama acknowledged Saturday that he’d prefer to see a much harsher agreement with Iran, one that not only shuts down the Middle Eastern nation’s nuclear program entirely but also eliminates all of its “military capabilities.”
Such an option, however, isn’t on the table and is simply unrealistic, the president said, which is why critics of the recent deal with Iran — both domestically and across the globe, particularly in Israel — should be content with what has been achieved thus far.
“If we could create an option in which Iran eliminated every single nut and bolt of their nuclear program and foreswore the possibility of ever having a nuclear program, and for that matter, got rid of all of its military capabilities, I would take it. But that particular option is not available,” Mr. Obama said Saturday at a Brookings Institution forum dedicated to the relationship between the U.S. and Israel, which has come under some strain as Israeli officials decry the deal reached between Iran, the U.S. and its international partners.
The phrase :
ReplyDelete"the whole wind blown riffle was a literary event..." --
was written by someone with a knowledge of literature and history.......
and is a wonderful and memorable phrase.
A Wild Ride
DeleteA soft, cool wind blew over the grass, riffling it
in gentle waves on the slope leading down to the lake.
Birds chirped in nearby trees, and a rabbit sat on
a rock near the water, scratching it’s ears with it’s
long hind leg.
Nature, in all it’s peaceful glory.
Not at all applicable in telling the tale of 650,000 DEAD Americans
"Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
ReplyDelete___Orwell
Is life all one big illusion?
ReplyDeleteYou can always tell a Harvard man; he’s the one with a series of scarlet A’s on his report card. This week, Harvard’s Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay M. Harris admitted to the university newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, that the most common grade for Harvard students is an A. What’s the median grade?
Would you believe A-minus?
The reason Harvard is coming clean about its grade inflation is that they were prodded by professor Harvey C. Mansfield, who said in the Crimson that the inflated grades at the university are “indefensible … a failure on the part of this faculty and its leadership to maintain our academic standards.”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/12/04/Massive-Harvard-Grade-Inflation-revised
"The Drone market is booming worldwide, moving so quickly that aviation experts predict unmanned aerial vehicle sales will soon take the largest market share of all aircraft sales. The front-running drone exporter is, surprisingly, not the U.S., it's Israel".
ReplyDeleteIsrael drone manufacturing booms
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Israel_drone_manufacturing_booms_999.html
DeleteAbraham Gancwajch who was a prominent Jewish Nazi collaborator in Warsaw Ghetto during Second World War.
Described as the "kingpin" of the ghetto underworld.
Abraham Gancwajch who was a Fifth Columnist
U.S. blocks major Israeli drone export deals
ReplyDeletehttp://www.worldtribune.com/2013/06/21/u-s-blocks-major-israeli-drone-export-deals/
"Industry sources said the Israeli Defense Ministry vetoed requests by
major companies for UAV exports. They said the proposed exports stemmed from
political pressure by the United States."
The US first got wind of drone technology during Israel's 1982 attack on the PLO in Lebanon. Almost immediately, the US military sought Israel's expertise in starting drone development in the States. No good deed shall go unpunished.
Israel's Lieberman says peace with Palestinians not imminent
ReplyDeletehttp://news.yahoo.com/israel-39-lieberman-says-peace-palestinians-not-imminent-094815547.html
Strange??? Mr. Kerry says peace deal is close. Mr. Abbas would not have his photo taken with Mr. Kerry at Kerry's self-promoting news conference. Now, along comes Israel's #1, who says no deal will be done.
Who do you believe?
DeleteJózef Andrzej Szeryński was a Polish-Jewish police-colonel inspector for the Lublin district and a commander of the Jewish Ghetto Police during the Second World War. Born Józef Szenkman to a Jewish family, becoming a collaborator with the Nazis following the invasion of Poland. In August 1942, Szeryński survived being shot twice in an assassination attemptS
Józef Andrzej Szeryński was a Fifth Columnist
He was also a Roman Catholic.
DeleteIt all depends upon the purity of the mother's gene pool..
DeleteNo other consideration is seriously considered
bob
None of the above.
ReplyDelete:)
DeleteTrue dat
A glance at why the US is buying Russian copters
ReplyDeleteA glance at why the US is buying Russian helicopters for Afghanistan's security forces
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/glance-why-us-buying-russian-125805204.html
"—Why couldn't an American-made helicopter do the job? Turns out one actually could. A top-secret Pentagon study found that the Chinook, a heavy-lift helicopter built by Boeing in Pennsylvania, was the most cost-effective option for the Afghans. Congressional critics of the Mi-17 contract said the Pentagon used the study to prove the necessity of buying Mi-17s and never mentioned the Chinook."
DeleteHenric Ştefan Streitman was a Romanian Jew, a journalist, translator and political figure, who traversed the political spectrum from socialism to the far right. He was a physicist, social commentator and publisher, known for both his polemical stances and his erudition.
Streitman turned to Nazi collaborationism during World War II, becoming president of the Central Jewish Office.
Henric Ştefan Streitman was a Fifth Columnist
He was a member of the Romanian Orthodox Church.
DeleteFor whatever it is worth, he was not a Romanian citizen.
DeleteOxford Dictionary
fifth column
Syllabification: (fifth col·umn)
noun
a group within a country at war who are sympathetic to or working for its enemies.
The late Desert Rat could have been called a fifth columnist, given his written comments contrary to the policy of his country, then at war.
Delete
DeleteStella {Goldschlag} Kübler Isaacksohn was a Jewish woman born in Germany who collaborated with the Gestapo during World War II, exposing and denouncing Berlin's underground Jews.
Kübler was very successful at finding her former schoolmates and handing their information over to the Gestapo.
The data concerning the number of her victims varies from between 600 to 3,000 Jews.
Kübler's charisma and striking good looks were a great advantage in her pursuit of underground Jews.
The Nazis called her "blonde poison".
Stella {Goldschlag} Kübler Isaacksohn was a Fifth Columnist.
DeleteIf you can guess desert rat's name ...
Betcha it is not Rumpelstiltskin!
Oxford Dictionary
DeleteNo, she was not. She was a German citizen aiding her government in a time of war. READ the definition below. You are confused.
fifth column
Syllabification: (fifth col·umn)
noun
a group within a country at war who are sympathetic to or working for its enemies.
Anon.
DeleteG-d knows I like a good fight as well as the next man. But you are just throwing stuff against the wall, hoping some will stick. You are really starting to bore me. Do better, old man.
AnonymousSat Dec 07, 10:28:00 PM EST
DeleteIf you can guess desert rat's name ...
Betcha it is not Rumpelstiltskin!
In the Cherokee language it would be "She It fOr B' ra-Ns".
Don't hold me to that transliteration, it's been a long time, but I think it catches the Great Spirit's intention...or not..
:)
DeleteI thought we already knew it......wasn't it prophezchinalashol or something........I think it's hezboolic but not sure......
http://eaglerarelife.com/content/melissa-jarboe
ReplyDeletePresident Barack Obama warned Saturday that Israel's vision of an "ideal" nuclear agreement with Iran was unrealistic and put the chance of any acceptable final deal emerging at no more than 50/50.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.yahoo.com/obama-warns-39-ideal-world-39-iran-nuclear-194012822.html
Yeah, it's Israel's fault. And if Saudi Arabia says too much they will be thrown into the mix. Obama only made about 1,000 ironclad assurances to Israel and Saudi Arabia. Since no one in either government was ever into Chicago politics, they fell for the con.
Then, to ad insult to injury, Obama orders up an air defense of Iran that will prevent either Israel or Saudi Arabia from taking sovereign action. Iran knows its daddy.
All good news to me.
DeleteWe'll see how much you like Mr. Obama's other lies. That was the point.
DeleteThe bill, which forms part of Abe’s broader push to strengthen Japan’s defense policy in the face of China’s military assertiveness, stiffens penalties for bureaucrats who leak secrets and journalists who publish them.
ReplyDeleteJapan’s Abe Secures Passage of Secrecy Law as Opposition Revolts
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-06/japan-s-abe-seeks-to-pass-secrecy-bill-that-sapped-popularity.html
Japan may just kick start her economy in preparation for war. There's nothing like war to get things moving. As I recall, Japan did this once before.
Federal authorities have obtained confidential documents that shed new light on JPMorgan Chase’s decision to hire the children of China’s ruling elite,
ReplyDeleteThe documents, which also include spreadsheets that list the bank’s “track record” for converting hires into business deals
JPMorgan’s “Sons and Daughters” hiring program
Fullmark Consultants, a firm that JPMorgan hired in 2006 to help improve its standing in China, also did business with Credit Suisse, according to interviews. Fullmark, which received a $75,000-a-month contract over two years from JPMorgan, was run by Wen Ruchun, the only daughter of Wen Jiabao, who at the time was China’s prime minister, with ultimate responsibility over state-owned companies. In the contract with JPMorgan and other clients, which is now at the center of the federal bribery investigation, Ms. Wen used the alias “Lily Chang.”
Bank Charted Business Linked to China Hiring
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/12/07/bank-tabulated-business-linked-to-china-hiring/?hp
Judge Pirro for Presiden! -
ReplyDeleteOne of the legal eagles on Fox News.....
Then we'd have brains, beauty and humor in the White House......instead of America's darling, "The Fool"
And Dr. Ben Carson for Secretary of Health and most everything else.....
Delete*****
Quirk for Secretary of Cabbies & Cabbie Hats
http://www.hats-plus.com/s-6-newsboy.aspx?CategoryID=0&ManufacturerID=0&GenreID=0&Pagesize=20&Order=5&gclid=COGrjtPvn7sCFcxAMgodkmIAOA
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ReplyDeleteMichigan State beat Ohio State 34-24.
Ends OSU 24 game winning streak and its bid to go to the BCS Championship Game.
MSU wins the Big Ten Championship and will be going to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl.
Go Spartans.
.
Idaho is going to the Toilet Bowl.
ReplyDeleteIt's played in Squat, Detroit.
http://www.globalmarket.com/products/building-decoration/sanitary-kitchen-appliances/bathroom-appliances/squat-pan-1398.html?gclid=CJCry87wn7sCFawRMwoddDAAqA
soooo sorry......Squat, a sub of Detroit, Michigan
DeleteQuirk used to 'work' as an 'official' there.......Line Judge or something.......he was stripped of the title Judge when the Court had him jailed for taking payoffs......
His defense:
"We all know sports is all about the money, your Honor."
The football team there in Squat has as their slogan:
Delete"Life Sucks"
The cheerleaders routine is squatting, which always makes the crowd arise and erect and singing:
"If we can't squat nobody can."
:)
'Squat' is an old Native American word which translates out to "Life Sucks".
DeleteIt was used by the Elders to designate those of inferior understanding among the tribal members.
.
ReplyDeleteNow, without fanfare, President Obama is effectively revoking Carter’s doctrine. The U.S. military presence in the region is receding. When Obama posited in his second inaugural address that “enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war,” he was not only recycling a platitude; he was also acknowledging the folly and futility of the enterprise in which U.S. forces had been engaged. Having consumed vast quantities of blood and treasure while giving Americans little to show in return, that enterprise is now ending...
[One can only hope.]
This de-escalation is not without risks. For as America’s War for the Greater Middle East winds down, it leaves the Islamic world in worse condition — besieged by radicalism, wracked by violence, awash with anti-Americanism — than back in 1980. The list of dictators the United States has toppled or abandoned and of terrorists it has assassinated is impressively long. But any benefits accruing from these putative successes have been few. Ask Afghans. Ask Iraqis. Ask Libyans. Or ask any American who has been paying attention. (Just don’t bother asking anyone who works inside the Beltway, where the failure of the local NFL franchise to win games produces more worry than the U.S. military’s failure to win wars.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/with-iran-obama-can-end-americas-long-war-for-the-middle-east/2013/12/06/4ab56fd4-5c3e-11e3-95c2-13623eb2b0e1_story.html
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ReplyDeleteAlthough tensions in the region have been pushed up to levels not seen for 20 years, the talk of drift, by accident or design, to war is overdone. China’s integration into world markets in recent years makes military expansionism counterproductive, although its drive to build its military might is very significant: its declared defence budget has expanded five times over in 10 years to $102 billion in 2012.
But its economic power, through trade and investment, reaches across the region and world, a reality of interdependence whose constraints are well understood by Xi . There are 20,000 Japanese companies investing in China, mostly in manufacturing, and employing 10 million Chinese workers. War with Japan? Hardly. A little bullying and muscle-flexing . . . that’s another matter.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/sino-japanese-tensions-more-a-matter-of-muscle-flexing-than-a-lead-up-to-war-1.1619780?page=2
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ReplyDeleteRadioactive
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.
ReplyDelete"Everything that kills me makes me feel alive"
"Everything that downs me makes me want to fly."
Counting Stars
.
Tat Tvam Asi, then.
DeleteI am thinking of opening up a dialogue with my niece, who is vegetarian, does not drink, and drugs are anathema, on the issue of dietary habits.
She has said "we don't eat anything that has been alive".
As noble as this may sound, as a fucking fascist farmer fudd, I rise to disagree.
I affirm, the rice has been alive, the wheat as well, and , yes, the brewing barley.
Campbell has covered all this in logical and mythological depth so many moons ago.
His conclusion:
Life lives on life.
But he has a further conclusion - there is much more to it all than that ------
But you'd just have to read him........
There are old tales of how those in "heaven" no longer eat at all but on 'spiritual food' only.
Such a conception is only for imbeciles and the enlightened though.....
I have told my niece I will argue about anything other than money and in the end on the other stuff say....."have it your way"....
:)
Everything that doesn't kill me makes me stronger.
DeleteNietzsche
DeleteThose that have followed the deeper arguments here will have realized by now that life does not suck and life is just the thesis to death the antithesis and there is, always, a higher synthesis to come.
There is, however, something called karma so one best cross one's T' s, dot the i's and know one's p's and Q's , those last especially, and fly right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP77Fja42ts
I have now counted eight wonderful Hindu restaurants in Las Vegas.
Delete:)
Yes!
Don't try to apply those Hegelian thoughts to history though. There is goes astray.......extremely badly.......and ends in extermination camps......
DeleteApply it only to one's self.