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."

Friday, December 19, 2014

With the Soviet Union dead and gone, with Russia no longer able to buy up Cuba’s sugar crop at inflated prices, with oil prices having tanked and Venezuela on the brink of default, unable to ship free oil to Cuba indefinitely, the Castro brothers were staring into the abyss. Then Barack Obama rode to the rescue.

OBAMA THROWS FIDEL A ROPE


The celebrations in Havana and the sullen silence in Miami tell you all you need to know about who won this round with Castro’s Cuba.
In JFK’s metaphor, Obama traded a horse for a rabbit.
We got back Alan Gross before his Communist jailers killed him, along with an American spy, in exchange for three members of a Cuban espionage ring. Had we left it at that, the deal would have been fine.
But Obama threw in an admission that all nine presidents before him pursued a “failed policy.” Calling for recognition of the Castro regime as the legitimate government of Cuba, Obama said, “Isolation has not worked.”
“Not worked”? What is he talking about? Isolating Cuba during the last 30 years of the Cold War helped bankrupt and bring down the Soviet Empire, which had to carry Cuba on its back.
Obama’s admission is being seen in Cuba as vindication of half a century of hostility to the United States. But with the new Congress controlled by Republicans, it will be a while before the U.S. embargo is lifted, Cuban goods began to flow across the Florida Strait, and U.S. dollars flow back to sustain one of the last of the Leninist regimes in its terminal stage.
But why did Obama choose now to bail out Cuba?
With the Soviet Union dead and gone, with Russia no longer able to buy up Cuba’s sugar crop at inflated prices, with oil prices having tanked and Venezuela on the brink of default, unable to ship free oil to Cuba indefinitely, the Castro brothers were staring into the abyss.
Then Barack Obama rode to the rescue.
Nevertheless, though he has handed Fidel and Raoul a diplomatic triumph, their regime is not long for this world, as its maladies are incurable.
Marxist ideology, the political religion in which the regime is rooted, is a dead faith. The world communist revolution was a god that failed. It is over, finished. Outside of North Korea and Cuba, who preaches that Marxism-Leninism is the future toward which mankind is heading? Who still believes that?
Consider the record of the regime with which Obama wishes to restore diplomatic relations.
Before Fidel, Cuba had the fourth highest standard of living in the hemisphere. Today, her standard of living is not much higher than that of Haiti and Cuba is less free than under the dictatorship of Batista.
Castro may go down in history as one of the great antagonists of the American superpower. But what, enduring, did he accomplish?
In his youthful days, Fidel allowed Nikita Khrushchev to put ballistic missiles on the island, and brought about the gravest crisis of the Cold War, perhaps the gravest in world history.
For three decades his homeland was a satrap and strategic base of an odious empire that no one mourns. For those same decades, Cuba provided troops to advance communist revolutions in Africa, the Caribbean and Central America. Now the whole rotten enterprise has gone to seed.
Who looks upon Castro’s Cuba today as a model to follow?
When Castro goes, his monuments may remain. After all, Lenin’s corpse is still entombed in Red Square, as is Mao’s in Tiananmen Square.
But how long can the successor regime hang on?
Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China are nationalistic and autocratic. They have embraced state capitalism. When the Castro brothers pass on, how will their successors justify their police state and permanent monopoly of power — if U.S. tourists are walking the streets of Havana?
When Cuban-Americans travel all over the island, Cuba’s young, who know nothing of the revolution, will surely ask: Why do we not have what these Americans have?
This is not to say that Cuba is headed for a democratic future. There remains the possibility, as happens in Latin America, of a new charismatic strong man emerging. A Cuban Hugo Chavez.
But, today, dictators have to deliver. Or they, too, have to resort to greater repression. Or they, too, have to go.
 Castro is a famous man from the 20th century. But consider the price the Cuban people have paid for his fame.
Two generations of Cubans have lived without freedom. Heroic Cuban dissenters have gone to the wall and died in the thousands in his jails and prisons. Refugees have been machine-gunned off the Cuban coast. The toxicity of Marxism-Leninism has polluted Cuba’s culture.
Some Cubans may remember Fidel with admiration. After all, even Stalin still has his admirers.
There was once a time in America in the 1960s when useful idiots of the New Left plastered posters of Che Guevara in dormitory rooms and traveled to Cuba to cut sugar cane to identify with the revolution.
On seeing the adulation Fidel yet receives, even from some in our own land, one begins to understand how the ancient Egyptians could have worshipped an insect.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority.”

224 comments:

  1. Just got through watching "Sometimes A Great Notion" with the wife. Henry Fonda, Paul Newman.

    Had forgotten what a wonderful movie it really is.......

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  2. >>Castro may go down in history as one of the great antagonists of the American superpower. But what, enduring, did he accomplish?<<

    Nada.

    Wrong time to throw the Castro Bros a lifeline.

    The regime and its maladies may be incurable, but they've lasted a long time..........

    Taken all in all, it's a mistake.



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  3. A Dictator’s Best Friend
    Column: Obama rescues tyrants from Havana to Damascus

    BY: Matthew Continetti
    December 19, 2014 5:00 am

    “It’s a sad day for freedom,” Marco Rubio told Bret Baier after President Obama announced he would normalize relations with Cuba. Not a sad day, senator: a sad year.

    If there was a theme to 2014, it was Obama’s persistence in bailing out dictators and theocrats from political scrapes and economic hardships, his tenacity in pursuit of engagement with America’s adversaries no matter the cost to our strength, principles, credibility, or alliances.

    In this president the thugs in Havana and Caracas, Damascus and Tehran, Moscow and Naypyidaw and Beijing have no better friend. For these bullies, these evildoers, these millenarians and sectarians, Barack Obama is more than a dupe. He is an insurance policy.

    Cuba is but the latest example of this president’s failing to exercise leverage in the pursuit of American strength and security and prestige. Here are the Castro brothers, decrepit and spent, their revolution a joke, their economy in peril thanks to the collapse in oil prices brought on by a strong dollar and increased U.S. supply.

    The China option—foreign direct investment from America—is Raul and Fidel’s only play to sustain power over the society they have impoverished. And Obama says yes, yes to everything: an embassy, an ambassador, diplomatic relations, travel and exchange, status among nations, removal from the list of state sponsors of terror, and a serious opportunity to lessen the embargo that has kept the dictators caged for decades.

    In return, the Castro brothers give up … well, what? Alan Gross, a political prisoner and persecuted religious minority who shouldn’t have been imprisoned in the first place? A second man who has been in captivity for decades? Thin gruel.

    No promise of elections, no declaration of religious freedom, no demilitarization, no opening up of Cuban prisons to international inspection. Not even a pledge that salaries from U.S. companies operating in Cuba at indentured-servitude rates—the minimum wage is $19 a month—will be paid directly to employees rather than passed through the bloated, corrupt, suffocating state.

    This isn’t giving away the store. This is giving away the shopping mall, town center, enterprise zone. And it is entirely in character with President Obama’s foreign policy.

    In the late summer of 2013 Bashar Assad was caught using chemical weapons against his own people. The president and his secretary of state decried this violation of international norms and pledged, in televised addresses, to punish the Syrian tyrant for wanton slaughter and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The application of deadly force against Assad’s air force and military installations would cripple the regime and hasten the end of a civil war that has taken the lives of some 200,000 Syrians. But suddenly Obama reversed course. He signed on to a Russian proposal to prevent a military strike in exchange for Assad’s “giving up” his barbaric tools.

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    1. Today Bashar Assad remains in power, his opposition is divided, he has entered into an alliance of convenience with the medieval Islamic State that governs from Raqaa to Mosul. The weapons? Earlier this month the U.S. government—Barack Obama’s government—accused Syria of ongoing “systematic use” of chemical arms. I repeat: ongoing.

      Not only has Obama failed to achieve his stated aims of removing Assad and ending the WMD threat. The situation is more dangerous than it was a year ago because the Islamic State’s menagerie of Saddam loyalists and itinerant holy warriors is securing ground from which to launch attacks on targets throughout the world. Baathist dictators, chemical agents, refugees, Islamic armies are the consequence of this president’s curious mixture of false promises and aggrieved passivity.

      Barack Obama threw the Castros a lifeline, rescued Assad. But these monsters are not even the most dangerous of the despots he has enabled. An Iranian nuke would change the strategic equation of the Middle East and thus the world. Not only would Israel be threatened, so would America because of Iran’s past use of terrorist proxies and increasingly sophisticated missile tech. And the threat would increase as Sunni and Turkic nations developed or bought WMD to deter the Persian hegemon.

      By the end of last year the economic sanctions passed by Congress over the Obama administration’s objections, as well as the shale energy revolution, had brought the Iranian economy to the brink of collapse. The moment had arrived to rally the West. Demonstrate a credible threat of force—perhaps by crippling Assad’s air defenses—and force the Iranians into a defensive posture.

      What did Obama do? He agreed to lift sanctions on Iran, infusing the theocratic economy with billions of dollars, in exchange for entering direct negotiations and a few paltry concessions. The centrifuges kept spinning, Iran cheated on the terms of this incredibly generous interim agreement, Iranian missile development, international terrorism, support for radical Islam, and human rights abuses went on.

      Obama said U.S. advocates of sanctions were warmongers. His underlings called Israel’s prime minister a chickenshit. And when the interim deal reached its expiration date, when Iran’s undeterred commitment to achieving nuclear status was obvious to all, when the ayatollah was tweeting his plan to eliminate Israel from the earth, Obama extended the deal and economic relief just so he would not be exposed as a failure.

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    2. Not even Iran, however, has invaded its neighbors as unabashedly and aggressively as Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which in less than eight years has annexed parts of Georgia and a critical region of Ukraine. Some 4,300 people have been killed since Putin’s undeclared invasion of eastern Ukraine last spring, not counting the hundreds who died when a pro-Russian missile battery destroyed a civilian airliner.

      Obama’s response has been limited to sanctions on Putin and his inner circle. He has not provided the heavy arms necessary to roll back Russian advances in the east, nor has he launched a new Marshall Plan to sustain the economy of free Ukraine until Putin’s illegal war comes to an end. Obama’s idea of military aid is to send MREs.

      This week Putin reached an impasse. Changes in the global economy—a strengthening America, plunging commodity prices, spooked foreign investors–have provoked the worst crisis in Russia since the late 1990s. The sanctions Obama has already agreed to will worsen the pain.

      This is a point of maximum leverage. A public and generous commitment of financial and military aid to Ukraine, an assertion of U.S. military and ideological might, could expel the Russians from the east and inspire the democratic opposition in Moscow. What will Obama do?

      Two words: Blow it. The president has agreed to sign a tough sanctions bill passed unanimously by Congress only because it contains loopholes that will allow him to shirk its harshest and most effective provisions. I do not hear him calling for increased hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, including on federal lands, I have missed his pledge to restore America’s military and rebuild a force to deter the bear, I am betting he won’t expand natural gas exports, or increase the number of military advisers in Kiev, or expel Russia from the G8. Opportunity missed.

      Like the Castros, Assad, and the mullahs, Putin is in danger, his grip tenuous, his options narrowing. Lucky for him, lucky for the other bad guys, Putin can count on the American president to bail him out. Forget about standing up for a U.S.-led international order: Obama won’t even respond to North Korea’s act of war against the United States, its cyber-attack on a U.S. film studio that succeeded in limiting free speech from thousands of miles away. And Obama says he’s against bullying!

      “Think where man’s glory most begins and ends,” wrote Yeats, “And say my glory was I had such friends.” Dictators don’t have many friends. But they have Barack Obama.

      http://freebeacon.com/columns/a-dictators-best-friend/

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    3. Obama: Worst President in American History.

      Delete
    4. >>> Not even a pledge that salaries from U.S. companies operating in Cuba at indentured-servitude rates—the minimum wage is $19 a month—will be paid directly to employees rather than passed through the bloated, corrupt, suffocating state.

      This isn’t giving away the store. This is giving away the shopping mall, town center, enterprise zone. And it is entirely in character with President Obama’s foreign policy.<<<

      Delete
    5. The Blog
      Obama Apologizes to Castro
      Cuban communist leader lectures Obama for 30 minutes.
      2:34 PM, Dec 19, 2014 • By MICHAEL WARREN
      Share

      Barack Obama apologized to Cuban president Raul Castro during their phone conversation after the American commander in chief's opening remarks. Speaking to reporters at his final White House press briefing of 2014 Friday afternoon, Obama gave more details about his phone call with the communist leader of Cuba earlier this week before the announcement of a change in U.S. policy on the Caribbean island nation.
      Official portrait of Barack Obama

      Obama began the phone call with Castro with what he described as 15 minutes of opening comments. It was the first conversation between the heads of state in both countries since 1961.

      "I apologized for taking such a long time," Obama said. Castro responded by reminding Obama that the American president was still young enough to beat Castro's brother, former Cuban president and revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, who once gave a 7-hour-long speech.

      According to the president, Raul Castro proceeded to speak to Obama uninterrupted for 30 minutes.

      http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-apologizes-castro_821908.html#

      Well, what the hell, why not?

      He went on 'The Apology Tour' when the moron first took office.

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    6. Being on a roll -


      Obama’s Bailout for Communist Dictators
      December 18, 2014 by Daniel Greenfield 88 Comments
      890181107
      Print This Post Print This Post

      Mandela memorial service (30)The Soviet Union did not have to fall. If Carter had won a second term and Mondale had succeeded him, the Communist dictatorship might have received the outside help it needed to survive.

      And we would still be living under the shadow of the Cold War.

      Carter couldn’t save the Soviet Union, but he did his best to save Castro, visiting Fidel and Raul in Cuba where the second worst president in American history described his meeting with Castro as a greeting among “old friends”.

      Raul Castro called Carter “the best of all U.S. presidents.”

      Obama’s dirty deal with Raul will make the worst president in American history, Castro’s new best friend.

      Carter couldn’t save Castro, but Obama did. This was not a prisoner exchange. This was a Communist bailout.

      Obama boasted that he would increase the flow of money to Cuba from businesses, from bank accounts and from trade. When he said, “We’re significantly increasing the amount of money that can be sent to Cuba”, that was his real mission statement.

      The Castro regime is on its last legs. Its sponsors in Moscow and Caracas are going bankrupt due to failing energy prices. The last hope of the Butcher of Havana was a bailout from Washington D.C.

      And that’s exactly what Obama gave him.

      Obama has protected the Castros from regime change as if Communist dictators are an endangered species.

      From the beginning, Obama put his foreign policy at the disposal of Havana when he backed Honduran leftist thug Manuel Zelaya’s attempt to shred its Constitution over the protests of the country’s Congress and Supreme Court. And its military, which refused to obey his illegal orders.

      Obama’s support for an elected dictator in Honduras should have warned Americans that their newly elected leader viewed men like Zelaya favorably and constitutions and the separation of powers between the branches of government unfavorably. It also showcased his agenda for Latin America.

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    7. His embrace of Raul Castro brings that agenda out into the open even if he still insists in wrapping it in dishonest claims about “freedom” and “openness” while bailing out a Communist dictatorship.

      Obama began his Castro speech with a lie, declaring, “The United States of America is changing its relationship with the people of Cuba.”

      The Cuban people have no relationship with the United States because they have no free elections and no say in how they are governed. The only Cubans who have a relationship with the United States fled here on rafts.

      Obama did not make his dirty deal with the Cuban people. He made it in a marathon phone call with the Cuban dictator.

      When Obama claims that his deal with Raul Castro represents a new relationship with the people of Cuba, he is endorsing a Communist dictatorship as the legitimate representative of the Cuban people.

      This is a retroactive endorsement of the Castro regime and its entire history of mass murder and political terror. Obama is not trying to “open up” Cuba as he claimed. He likes Cuba just the way it is; Communist and closed.

      Obama did not consult the Cuban people, just as he did not consult the American people. He disregarded the embargo, Congress, the Constitution and the freedom of the Cuban people.

      His dictatorial disregard of the embargo, which can only be eliminated by Congress, in order to support a dictatorship, is a disturbing reminder that the road he is walking down leads to a miserable tyranny.

      Cuban-American senators from both parties have been unanimous in condemning the move. These senators are the closest thing to Cuban elected officials. But Obama disregarded Senator Menendez, a man of his own party, Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Ted Cruz.

      Instead Obama chose to stand with Raul Castro and his Communist dictatorship.

      Obama tried to whitewash his crime by exploiting Alan Gross, a USAID contractor who was imprisoned and abused by the Castro regime, as if the release of an American hostage justified helping the men holding him hostage stay in power. And the media, which was reprinting Castro’s propaganda claiming that Gross’ imprisonment was justified, is busy now pretending that it cares about his release.

      He had similarly tried to whitewash his Taliban amnesty by using Bergdahl and his parents as cover. If a deal is struck with Iran, the release of Robert Levinson, Saeed Abedini or Amir Hekmati will almost certainly be used to divert attention from the fact that their own government has collaborated with the thugs and terrorists who took them hostage.

      Even though Obama criticized European countries for paying financial ransoms to ISIS, his own ransom paid to the Castros is worth countless billions. And the blood money pouring out of American banks into the Castro regime will encourage other dictatorships to take Americans hostage as leverage for obtaining concessions from the United States. Americans abroad will suffer for Obama’s dirty deal.

      Delete
    8. No European country recognized ISIS in exchange for the release of hostages. Only Obama was willing to go that far with Cuba, not only opening diplomatic and economic relations, but promising to remove the Communist dictatorship from the list of state sponsors of terror despite the fact that the last State Department review found that Cuba continued to support the leftist narco-terrorists of FARC.

      FARC had taken its own American hostages who were starved and beaten, tortured and abused.

      Now Obama has given in to the demand of a state sponsor of terror to be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism in exchange for releasing a hostage.

      Obama has sent a message to Iran that the best way to secure a deal is by wrapping it in an American hostage. He has told ISIS that we do negotiate with terrorists. And he has once again demonstrated that his vaunted “smart power” is nothing more than appeasement wrapped in excuses and lies.

      But Obama did not act to help Alan Gross. He did not even act because he genuinely thought that diplomatic relations would open up Cuba. In his speech, Obama used the claim commonly put forward by Castro apologists that the very fact that the Castros were still in power proved that sanctions had failed. Yet the lack of sanctions against Cuba by the rest of the world certainly did not usher in the new spirit of openness that Obama is promising. Rewarding dictators with cash never frees a nation.

      This was not about saving Alan Gross. It was about saving Raul Castro.

      Obama and Castro are both weakened leaders of the left. Like the Castros, Obama has lost international influence and his own people have turned on him. The only thing he has left is unilateral rule.

      If Obama saw something of his own hopes and aspirations to engage in a populist transformation of the United States in Manuel Zelaya or Hugo Chavez, his horizons have narrowed down to those of Raul Castro. His ability to remake the world has vanished and the American people are revolting against his collectivization efforts. They want open health care markets, free speech and honest government.

      Obama can no longer remake the Middle East, he certainly can’t bring the Soviet Union back from the dead, but he could still bail out Raul Castro and maintain Communist rule in Cuba.

      No matter how often Obama claims to be “on the right side of history”, the Castros are a living reminder that to be on the left is to be on the wrong side of history.

      Obama did not want to see the “Berlin Wall” fall in Havana on his watch. After watching his own grip on the United States collapse, he did not want to see the left fail again.

      We can never know how history might have been different if Carter had gotten a second term or if Mondale had replaced Reagan. But Obama’s deal with Castro reminds us that the end of the USSR was not inevitable. It happened because we stood up against the tyrants in the Kremlin and their useful idiots in the White House.

      A good man like Reagan could make a difference by bringing down the USSR. A bad man like Obama can make a difference by keeping Cuba Communist.

      http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obamas-bailout-for-communist-dictators/

      Delete
  4. My fellow elders:

    Take it easy on Christmas -

    EXCESSMAS DAY: Fatal Heart Attacks Occur More Than Any Other Day.........Drudge

    ReplyDelete
  5. Another load of trash, brought in by Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lester Crown wins, again

    The U.S. State Department has approved sales of tanks and other armored vehicles to Iraq as part of a deal worth about $3 billion. ...

    “The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq for M1A1 Abrams tanks and associated equipment, parts and logistical support for an estimated cost of $2.4 billion,” the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said in a statement on Friday.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Notice that the DoD includes the Peshmerga forces as part of the Iraqi Army, not some 'stand alone' military or political entity.

      On Friday, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel also announced that up to 1,300 more U.S. troops, including about 1,000 soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, will be deployed in Iraq in late January.

      “Their mission will be to train, advise and assist Iraqi security forces,” Pentagon Press Secretary Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, said in a statement. “This deployment is part of the additional 1,500 troops that the president authorized in November.”

      According to Kirby, the newly deployed troops will train 12 Iraqi brigades, including nine from the Iraqi security force and three from the Peshmerga forces.

      Delete
    2. http://www.ibtimes.com/us-grants-3b-sale-tanks-armored-vehicles-iraq-will-send-1300-troops-assist-iraqi-1763904

      Delete
  7. .

    According to Kirby, the newly deployed troops will train 12 Iraqi brigades, including nine from the Iraqi security force and three from the Peshmerga forces.

    Translation (from a person that speaks English as a second language):

    Notice that the DoD includes the Peshmerga forces as part of the Iraqi Army, not some 'stand alone' military or political entity.

    :o)

    .

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    Replies
    1. Glad you noticed, Legionnaire Q.

      Delete
    2. Your learning curve is not static.

      Delete

    3. When a person stands firmly in the right, there is no need to stretch.

      Delete
    4. .

      Then, keep licking them toads.

      :o)

      .

      Delete
    5. Just another load of or rat shit brought in by the War Criminal and Dead Beat Dad and Confessed MORON and Professional Asshole named Jack "Shit" Hawkins The Toad Licker, Quirk.

      ;)

      Delete
    6. Pay it no mind.

      There's no mind behind it.

      Delete
  8. Stratfor: Ukraine Coup Plotted by US Over Russian Stance on Syria
    United States decided to act following Russia’s successes in the Middle East

    The United States is behind the February coup in Kiev, which came in response to Russia’s stance on Syria, said George Friedman, the founder and CEO of Stratfor, a global intelligence company.

    Russia has repeatedly said that the coup in Kiev was organized by the US, Friedman told Kommersant newspaper. Indeed, it was the most overt coup in history, the political analyst stressed.

    The United States decided to act following Russia’s successes in the Middle East, a key region for the US. Americans saw that Russians could influence what was happening in the Middle East, Friedman said. Russians are one of the many challenges in the region that the US faces, he stated. The US thought Russia’s activities were an attempt to harm Washington, the political analyst told the newspaper, adding that events in Ukraine should be viewed in this context.


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  9. Normalization of relations with Cuba is not the result of a diplomatic breakthrough or a change of heart on the part of Washington. Normalization is a result of US corporations seeking profit opportunities in Cuba, such as developing broadband Internet markets in Cuba.

    Before the American left and the Cuban government find happiness in the normalization, they should consider that with normalization comes American money and a US Embassy. The American money will take over the Cuban economy. The embassy will be a home for CIA operatives to subvert the Cuban government. The embassy will provide a base from which the US can establish NGOs whose gullible members can be called to street protest at the right time, as in Kiev, and the embassy will make it possible for Washington to groom a new set of political leaders.

    In short, normalization of relations means regime change in Cuba. Soon Cuba will be another of Washington’s vassal states.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Mexican drug cartels are no strangers to heroin smuggling, although they have historically lagged behind other countries and organizations in production and distribution. However, a recent investigation by the award-winning Dromomanos journalism collective revealed the powerful Sinaloa Federation has overtaken Colombian and Asian drug suppliers in New York, and that the cartel now dominates heroin distribution across the United States.

    According to analysis by InsightCrime.org, the DEA has indicated that 50 percent of heroin sold in the US is produced in Mexico, between 43 and 45 percent comes from Colombia, and the rest from Asian countries. Almost all of it is supplied by Mexican cartels. This is no surprise, considering the years of practice Mexican drug smugglers have under their belts.

    ReplyDelete
  11. .

    “The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq for M1A1 Abrams tanks and associated equipment, parts and logistical support for an estimated cost of $2.4 billion,” the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said in a statement on Friday.

    Hey, why not.

    It's getting harder and harder to just give the tanks away to the Moscow, ID police department, might as well sell to Iraq (which likely will equate to the same thing).

    The bill also adds $120 million in funding for a program to upgrade the M-1 Abrams tank, despite a current surplus of tanks that dates back to the Cold War. These additional resources were not requested by the Pentagon, which has practically begged Congress to stop funding the production of additional tanks.

    Army Secretary John M. McHugh acknowledged this was essentially a government-run “make-work” scheme, not a program that addresses our military needs when he wrote to leaders in Congress in August: “Though I must reiterate that the Army has no need for additional M1A 2SEPv2 tanks, the production of these tanks does contribute to the mitigation of risk to our industrial base.”


    http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/226173-taxpayers-shortchanged-by-bloated-defense-bill

    .

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    1. Lester needs the 'work', especially at that facility in Cairo, Egypt.

      Delete
  12. .

    Traverse City – — A federal judge on Friday threw out an Obama administration decision to remove the gray wolf population in the western Great Lakes region from the endangered species list — a decision that will ban further wolf hunting and trapping in Michigan and two other states.

    The order also affects wolves in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service dropped federal protections from those wolves in 2012 and handed over management to the states.

    U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., ruled Friday the removal was “arbitrary and capricious” and violated the federal Endangered Species Act.

    Unless overturned, his decision will prohibit further wolf hunting and trapping in the three states, all of which have had at least one hunting season since protections were removed...


    http://2164th.blogspot.com/2014/12/with-soviet-union-dead-and-gone-with.html?showComment=1419083650289#c4322692908532559768

    One has to wonder how many wolves have been caught on that camera Obumble was putting up.

    .

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    1. Too muddy out there to check right now, Q.

      And haven't talked to Wayne lately.

      I noticed all his cattle were gone the other day. Wonder if he has gotten out of the cattle business. It is really time consuming and he's my age.

      Do know there are about 50 elk out that way again, the wolves follow.

      I must salute Obama on the wolves. The only thing he's doing right that I can see.

      There is another move in Idaho to bring back the Grizzly Bears, in the Selkirk and Selway.

      I'm for this.

      It's gonna take some time and doing, but it's possible it will get done.

      Delete
  13. .

    ISIS Targets Afghanistan Just as the U.S. Quits

    As the United States moves out of Afghanistan, ISIS is moving in to compete with al Qaeda and the Taliban in the legendary region of Khorasan, which also includes Pakistan and Iran.


    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/19/for-isis-one-big-target-is-afghanistan-just-as-the-u-s-is-leaving.html

    .

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    Replies
    1. What a wonderful mysterious romantic and enchanting land Afghanistan must be.....

      Delete
  14. The narrative that [former Mexican president] Felipe Calderón always pulled out was that 90 percent of the dead were narco-traffickers; this is what he would say after every massacre. Governors and other authorities would always roll out this explanation that somehow the people who were killed deserved it. This has been a way of covering up a problem that goes much deeper. In the first place, Mexico has no death penalty. Even if there was a death penalty, everyone deserves a fair trial. Even if 90 percent of the dead were involved in the drug trade, this would not justify their deaths. It’s not that this narrative worked, but it sufficiently deflected attention away from the real issue.


    What makes Ayotzinapa so different are the particulars of the case itself, which resisted and broke with that narrative of power and control and distraction that the Mexican government, in complicity with the U.S. government, has been holding all along and especially over the past 10 years with the incredible explosion of narco-violence. All of a sudden, this incident broke with that narrative because it so obviously doesn’t fit with any of those explanations. These [the 43 students who were “disappeared”] are students, they are activists who are completely unarmed, they are politically active, and they are obviously innocent. They can’t be seen just as “collateral damage” of a generalized crisis of violence. It’s an attack on the Mexican people by the government and the Mexican government is supported by the U.S. government.

    This is what many of us have been saying all along. In 2011, a group of us brought Felipe Calderón and the narco-traffickers to the International Criminal Court. Thousands of Mexicans signed a petition. A brave young human rights lawyer from Mexico, Netzaí Sandoval, who was 27 at the time, personally went to The Hague and presented a case against the Mexican government and the cartels for crimes against humanity, demonstrating, with evidence, that this was not a question of the “bad guys” just killing each other, but of the state committing crimes against the Mexican people. Now all of a sudden the nature of the Ayotzinapa incident makes clear to everyone what many of us have been saying for a long time.

    ReplyDelete
  15. A Reuters reporter saw the army deploying tanks and artillery in Libya's second-largest city.

    Yesterday at least 210 people were killed in fighting in the city since troops loyal to the country's elected government launched an attempt to re-take the city from Islamist militias two weeks earlier, a medical official said.

    The official would not identify those killed, or say whether they included government troops.

    The turmoil in Benghazi started when renegade General Khalifa Hifter - a former Gadhafi army chief who joined the opposition decades before the uprising - launched a campaign against Islamist militias which were implicated in series of assassinations and attacks on journalists, activists, and security forces in the city.

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2819086/Libyan-navy-ship-sinking-clashes-army-ISIS-Benghazi-port.html

    ReplyDelete

  16. "It's getting harder and harder to just give the tanks away to the Moscow, ID police department, might as well sell to Iraq (which likely will equate to the same thing)." Quirk

    What a strange and undecipherable comment we have here !

    Moscow, Idaho doesn't even have one of those heavy Hummers.

    Detroit, Michigan might use some tanks, but hardly Moscow, Idaho.

    No one in Moscow would know how drive one, either.

    Quirk, I am worried about you.

    Are you OK?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You might try the Idaho National Guard, or the Idaho Militia.

      I used to be a member of our Idaho Militia until age 55, when they retire us.

      57 years of service.

      I suppose you could just send a tank or two to me personally. I could set them up out at the farm.

      How many you got?

      Delete
  17. Know then thyself, presume not God to scan

    The proper study of Mankind is Man.
    Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
    A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:
    With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
    With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
    He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
    In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
    In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
    Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
    Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
    Whether he thinks too little, or too much;
    Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd;
    Still by himself, abus'd or disabus'd;
    Created half to rise and half to fall;
    Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all,
    Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;

    The glory, jest and riddle of the world.
    Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,

    Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
    Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
    Correct old time, and regulate the sun;
    Go, soar with Plato to th’ empyreal sphere,
    To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;
    Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,
    And quitting sense call imitating God;
    As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,
    And turn their heads to imitate the sun.
    Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule—
    Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!



    (Reuters) - Cuban President Raul Castro on Saturday demanded that the United States respect Cuba's communist rule as the two countries work toward normalizing diplomatic ties.

    U.S. President Barack Obama this week reset Washington's Cold War-era policy on Cuba and the two countries swapped prisoners in a historic deal after 18 months of secret talks.

    U.S. officials will visit Havana in January to start talks on normalization, and Obama has said his government will push Cuba on issues of human and political rights as they negotiate over the coming months.

    Castro said on Saturday he is open to discussing a wide range of issues but that they should also cover the United States and he stressed that Cuba would not be giving up its socialist principles.

    "In the same way that we have never demanded that the United States change its political system, we will demand respect for ours," Castro told Cuba's National Assembly in a session that turned into a celebration of resistance to U.S. aggression.

    Castro also said Cuba faces a "long and difficult struggle" before the United States removes a decades-old economic embargo against the Caribbean island, in part because influential Cuban-American exiles will attempt to "sabotage the process" toward normalization.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That fellow described in those lines above sounds really fucked up.

      Delete
    2. Joe Campbell would agree the proper study of mankind is man, though.

      Delete
    3. I’m sure you could fix him.

      Delete
    4. What is the difference between Castro demanding recognition that Cuba is 'Communist' and Bib demanding recognition that Israel is 'Jewish'?

      Bottom line: It's just two authoritarians seeking recognition.

      Delete
    5. I'm suspect that, at this point, you are beyond fixing, Deuce.

      Delete
    6. Bob, with all due respect, if you are the solution, I’ll stick with the problem.

      Delete
    7. Same back at ya, Deuce along with a hearty Merry Christmas and an especially Happy Hanukkah.

      May your Menorah burn bright and lastingly.

      Delete
  18. How quaint of the Castros,
    I’m sure you’ll all agree

    ReplyDelete
  19. Quba Tourism LLC has announced special side trips so the ticket holder - free cigar included - can go view the sugar slaves cutting cane in the fields and take pictures, too.

    Quba Tourism is trying to get access to the Cuban penal system for viewing and pics but so far has not succeeded.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Jack HawkinsSat Dec 20, 11:59:00 AM EST

    What is the difference between Castro demanding recognition that Cuba is 'Communist' and Bib demanding recognition that Israel is 'Jewish'?

    Bottom line: It's just two authoritarians seeking recognition.

    .................

    Actually, Professional Asshole, if you go back you'll see I said I thought the bill in the Knesset was unwise for a variety of reasons and said they ought to drop the idea.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry, I read Bid as Bob there.

      Delete
    2. You are Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson, now and forever.

      {;-)

      Delete
    3. Avoiding a draft by legal means, by going to college is not "draft dodging"

      We all know that. But when you say it? It makes you look small….

      :)

      And as Martha Stewart would say?

      That's a good thing.

      I stand with Israel, you stand with Hamas Jack Hawkins.

      :)

      Delete
  21. Some guy on Fox is saying it would take an act of Congress to get rid of the Cuban embargo, that what we've done is legitimize an undemocratic terrorist state.

    Cuba will be removed from that terrorist category by O'bozo soon, he says.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ... what we've done is legitimize an undemocratic terrorist state.
      Did that in 1948 when the US recognized and legitimized the terrorist state of ...

      Israel - Founded by Terrorists and Sustained by Terrorism and now ... Allied with Islamic Terrorists


      AIDING ISIS: Israel Bombs Syria For Fifth Time in 18 Months, Gives Arms, Medical Aid to Terrorists

      Contrary to popular belief, Israel is very much involved in the destabilization of Syria

      Delete
    2. Jack, didn't you get the memo?

      America, Israel, Cuba, Russia are all equals now…

      Hamas and Cuba, Iran and Russia are all good nations..

      :)

      Be careful of what you wish for.. You might just get it…

      there term "terrorism" is dead.

      If Israel is a state founded by "terrorists" then George Washington was a terrorist.

      :)

      Words used to have meanings, you have proved that words are nonsense.

      Better to use bullets.

      A lesson you have driven home..

      Kill those that seek your destruction…

      A good lesson..

      I stand with Israel you stand with Hamas.

      :)

      Delete
  22. Dr. Ben Carson is taking a trip to Israel !

    Ben for President

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      So did about 80 members of Congress. Free entertainment and recreation.

      You can't beat that.

      .

      Delete
    2. Quirk, far more of our Congress visits our most important and close ally in the Middle East, Israel.

      At last look? I'd say most have and the good news? Unlike taxpayer funded junkets the costs come directly out of the pockets of American citizens like me.

      Not deductable in any way, transparent and reported…

      Citizens of this nation putting their hard earned dollars behind their beliefs.

      Delete
    3. .

      Not deductable in any way, transparent and reported…

      Nonsense.

      Do they really keep you so in the dark in those AIPAC meetings, WiO, or are you so conditioned that you just automatically start spouting it?

      .

      Delete
  23. Isis morale falls as momentum slows and casualties mount
    Erika Solomon in Beirut
    Financial Times


    Flagging morale, desertion and factionalism are starting to affect the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as Isis, testing the cohesion of the jihadi force as its military momentum slows.

    Activists and fighters in parts of eastern Syria controlled by Isis said as military progress slows and focus shifts to governing the area, frustration has grown among militants who had been seen as the most disciplined and effective fighting force in the country's civil war.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Isis remains a formidable force: it controls swaths of territory and continues to make progress in western Iraq. But its fighters have reached the limit of discontented Sunni Muslim areas that they can easily capture and US-led coalition air strikes partnered with offensives by local ground forces have begun to halt their progress.

      Delete
    2. "Morale isn't falling — it's hit the ground,"
      said an opposition activist from Isis-controlled areas of Syria's eastern Deir Ezzor province.
      "Local fighters are frustrated — they feel they're doing most of the work and the dying . . . foreign fighters who thought they were on an adventure are now exhausted."

      An activist opposed to both the Syrian regime and Isis, and well known to the Financial Times, said he had verified 100 executions of foreign Isis fighters trying to flee the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, Isis's de facto capital.
      Like most people interviewed or described in this article, he asked for his name to be withheld for security reasons.


      What was that Rufus called 'em ... oh yeah, I remember ...

      Dead Men Walking

      Delete
    3. said he had verified 100 executions of foreign Isis fighters trying to flee the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, Isis's de facto capital.



      Just like hamas, executing those they deem not doing their share against Israel.

      death by firing squad..

      LOL

      Jack, a serious question, when you were doing your extrajudicial killings in Central America did you have to execute those of your ranks that wanted to quit?

      Delete
    4. “I’m not asking if they’ve forgotten how to be Jews, but if they’ve forgotten how to be decent human beings.
      Have they forgotten how to converse?”

      - Reuven Rivlin, President of Israel

      {;-)

      Delete
    5. Oh yeah, they're Dead, alright. :)

      And, I imagine, a lot of them are starting to figure it out.

      Now, it's just a matter of when we make it "Official."

      Delete
    6. Jack, jack, silly jack, you always love to 1/2 quote folks…

      Reuven also said to CURE the sickness, Israel should be the ONLY state, a Jewish state from the RIver to the sea and that the so-called palestinians are JUST arabs, no more , no less…

      :)

      Rivlin, supports killing Hamas members and those engaged in trying to genocide Israel and the Jews.

      Delete
    7. Looks like the Local Forces are about to cut off Mosul and Talafar from the Daesh stronghold in eastern Syria.
      Whatever logistical support that was flowing to those cities, cut-off. Or about to be.

      What has been heard from Kobane, lately?
      Must be holding ...
      That heavy weapons company of Iraqi Security Forces, from the peshmerga militias, and their ability to communicate and coordinate with Coalition aircraft seems to have made a major difference in that fight.

      Delete
    8. The peshmerga also closed in on Tall Afar, a large city from which huge numbers of Shiite Turkmen were displaced when IS attacked in June.

      "There is continuous shelling by the peshmerga. It is likely they will move a bit closer,"

      said one Tall Afar official, adding that the Kurdish troops were 13 kilometres (eight miles) north of the city.

      Residents said the Iraqi army's elite counter-terrorism unit -- known as the Golden Brigade -- was also involved in operations around the city.

      "There's fighting going on, it started last night. I can hear shooting and explosions not that far away even as we speak. I can sometimes hear fighter jets,"

      said Abu Hussein, a 26-year-old who was a teacher before the jihadist offensive.

      "Where I live, in the Kasek neighbourhood of Tall Afar, I can see many IS members preparing to flee the city," he said.

      According to a US military statement, two of the five air strikes by coalition warplanes on Thursday targeted IS vehicles near Tall Afar.

      The Iraqi portion of the jihadists' caliphate has shrunk in recent weeks, with central government troops and Shiite militia making significant gains in the east of the country and south of Baghdad.

      Kurdish officers have said the latest peshmerga-led operation forced many IS militants to seek refuge across the Syria border or in their main hub of Mosul, Iraq's second city, around which they have been building berms and trenches.

      Delete

    9. The Iraqi portion of the jihadists' caliphate has shrunk in recent weeks, with central government troops and Shiite militia making significant gains in the east of the country and south of Baghdad.

      Delete
    10. The Iraqi portion of the jihadists' caliphate has shrunk in recent weeks, with central government troops and Shiite militia making significant gains in the east of the country and south of Baghdad.


      English as Any Language
      The Shiite and Kurdish militias are both working with the "central government troops' to create the ...
      Iraqi Security Forces

      {;-)

      Delete
    11. Jack, a serious question, when you were doing your extrajudicial killings in Central America did you have to execute those of your ranks that wanted to quit?

      Delete
  24. In 1961, JFK reassured little girl Soviets couldn’t stop Santa

    The Kennedy Presidential Library wants to remind the world that not even the threat of thermonuclear conflict can stop Santa Claus from making his rounds.

    The library has republished the text of a 1961 letter from President John F. Kennedy reassuring a little girl who was worried about possible Soviet nuclear tests at the North Pole.

    Kennedy’s letter to 8-year-old Michelle Rochon says he shares her concerns, not just for the fate of Santa but all people


    http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/12/20/jfk-reassured-little-girl-soviets-couldn-stop-santa/gxYHULZitwSgcTiwzTrmbK/story.html

    ReplyDelete
  25. Jack, a serious question, when you were doing your extrajudicial killings in Central America did you have to execute those of your ranks that wanted to quit?


    Answer, inquiring minds want to know…

    ReplyDelete
  26. Now our little piece of "O"rdure believes in self diagnosis.

    Mr Reuven Rivlin, President of Israel, admits Israeli society is sick. "O"rdure agrees he can see the symptoms, too.
    But ... their recognition that the symptoms reflect an social illness, their prescription for the disease invalidated by the the illness.
    It is a case societal insanity.

    We should not finance the inmates running of the asylum any longer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Everyone here but Rufus and Deuce think you are sick, Jack Ass.

      And Deuce may be wavering and Rufus has been silent so far on the subject.

      Many helpful suggestions have made offered to you to try to help you out, many have made a diagnosis......

      Delete
  27. >>>government troops and Shiite militia making significant gains in the east of the country and south of Baghdad<<<

    South of Baghdad?

    Didn't know ISIS had even gotten south of Baghdad.

    They must be doing better than I thought.

    Another day closer to July 4th, 2015.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Govt Data: 1 in every 5 jobs now held by foreign workers...

    11 million fewer Americans in labor force...

    Census: Immigrant population has doubled since 1990...

    80 million immigrants by 2060...

    Immigrants build document trails to remain in USA................drudge

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That was always the complaint, that they were ...

      Undocumented Immigrants

      Now the complaint is that they are getting documented.

      {;-)

      Delete
    2. My complaint has always been that they are here......documented or not.

      We might as well give Arizona to Mexico. You'd be just as unhappy there as here.

      Delete
    3. Well, that is an improvement from ...

      BobSun Feb 23, 10:56:00 PM EST
      "The argument that they are not native is amazing in light of the fact that neither are Europeans native."

      Exactly.

      Shoot the Arizonans as well, give the meat to the poor.


      http://2164th.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-space-dump.html

      At least you have moved from advocating genocide and cannibalism to merely disenfranchising six million citizens.

      That' s progress, of a sort

      {;-)

      Delete
    4. Jack, but you advocate the genocide of the Jewish people…

      How sick is that?

      Delete
    5. Jack, Jack, Quirk has informed you I was only joking.

      Joking, Jack.

      I was imitating you.

      Delete
  29. Metast-ISIS
    12.19.14
    ISIS Targets Afghanistan Just as the U.S. Quits

    As the United States moves out of Afghanistan, ISIS is moving in to compete with al Qaeda and the Taliban in the legendary region of Khorasan, which also includes Pakistan and Iran.

    LONDON — Few sayings of the Prophet Mohammed have a stronger hold on the imagination of the world’s jihadists than his prophecy about the flags: "If you see the black banners coming from Khorasan, join that army, even if you have to crawl over ice,” he is supposed to have admonished the faithful. “No power will be able to stop them and they will finally reach Baitul Maqdisi”—Jerusalem— “where they will erect flags."

    And where was this magical land of Khorasan, whence the conquerors would come? Think Afghanistan and pieces of all the countries that surround it, including and especially Iran.

    For the great ideologues of modern jihadist terror, Ayman al Zawahiri of al Qaeda and Abu Bakr al Baghdadi of the so-called Islamic State, the strategic and symbolic importance of Khorasan is huge, and there are already signs that they are competing for control there. Some factions of both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and some members of al Qaeda in the area have pledged allegiance to Baghdadi’s self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq.............

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/19/for-isis-one-big-target-is-afghanistan-just-as-the-u-s-is-leaving.html

    ISIS is even Metatast- ISISing into Afghanistan.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Syria, SunniLand Iraq, SOUTH of Baghdad, Afghanistan.........THE CRAPPER DOCTRINE is obviously coming up short.....

    ReplyDelete
  31. Jack, a serious question, when you were doing your extrajudicial killings in Central America did you have to execute those of your ranks that wanted to quit?

    As an American and as someone who is NOT a felon or behaves in felony manner, unlike you, we would like an answer.

    Not a deflection.

    Answer, inquiring minds want to know…

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. tell us Jack, in the jungle of Central America, did you ever just cap a fellow spec ops who was tired of all the death and killing?

      Delete
    2. C'mon, Crapper, fess up......

      Delete
    3. Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson, why do you need for me to 'fess up', I mean ...
      You and "O"rdure claim there has already been a confession made.

      Quote that ...

      Delete
    4. Jack, a serious question, when you were doing your extrajudicial killings in Central America did you have to execute those of your ranks that wanted to quit?

      As an American and as someone who is NOT a felon or behaves in felony manner, unlike you, we would like an answer.

      Not a deflection.

      Answer, inquiring minds want to know…

      Delete
  32. See really good picture of Stonehenge here-


    Stonehenge discovery could rewrite British pre-history
    The most important discovery at Stonehenge for a generation could be destroyed by David Cameron's plan to build a tunnel at the World Heritage Site

    The most important discovery at Stonehenge for a generation could be destroyed by David Cameron's plan to build a tunnel at the World Heritage Site
    David Cameron announced plans to route the A303 into a tunnel to take traffic away from the world heritage site of Stonehenge Photo: AP
    Sarah Knapton

    By Sarah Knapton, Science Editor

    10:31AM GMT 19 Dec 2014

    Comments365 Comments

    Archaeologists have discovered the earliest settlement at Stonehenge - but the Mesolithic camp could be destroyed if government plans for a new tunnel go ahead.

    Charcoal dug up from the ‘Blick Mead’ encampment, a mile and a half from Stonehenge, dates from around 4,000BC. It is thought the site was originally occupied by hunter gatherers returning to Britain after the Ice Age, when the country was still connected to the continent.

    Experts say the discovery could re-write history in prehistoric Britain.

    There is also evidence of feasting - burnt flints and remains of giant bulls – aurochs – as well as flint tools.

    The dig has also unearthed evidence of possible structures, but the site could be destroyed if plans for a 1.8 mile tunnel go ahead........

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/archaeology/11303127/Stonehenge-discovery-could-rewrite-British-pre-history.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ...unearthed evidence of possible structures, ...

      Which when reconstructed will show that King David ... err... I mean King Arthur dwelt there.

      Delete
    2. ... or was it it home to Merlin - the Wizard

      Only schooled archaeologists will be able to deduce?

      Delete
    3. What the hell are you talking about?

      Again you show your ignorance.

      The dig is from 4000 BC.

      King Arthur's Legend is from the Sixth Century AD, not nearly so long ago, Herr ratass.

      You have spoken the truth once...........when you confessed to being a moron.

      Everyone here agrees with you on that point.

      Delete
    4. Here, ratass, I'll try to help you out once again.....

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur

      Delete
    5. This helping you out becomes tedious........it may be the last time.

      Delete
    6. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    7. Revised and Extended

      That you put such a pedestrian face on a legend, shameful, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson.

      That you would take the Wiki explanation of the myth at face value, typical of the light intellect required of farmers and Eng Lit grads from U of Washington.

      Delete
    8. Jack, a serious question, when you were doing your extrajudicial killings in Central America did you have to execute those of your ranks that wanted to quit?

      As an American and as someone who is NOT a felon or behaves in felony manner, unlike you, we would like an answer.

      Not a deflection.

      Answer, inquiring minds want to know…

      Delete
    9. Jack HawkinsSat Dec 20, 05:09:00 PM EST

      Revised and Extended

      That you put such a pedestrian face on a legend, shameful, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson.

      That you would take the Wiki explanation of the myth at face value, typical of the light intellect required of farmers and Eng Lit grads from U of Washington.

      ................

      What a stupid statement, Jack.

      "Pedestrian"?

      "myth at face value"?

      Your meaning is hard to decipher, as there isn't any there.

      Now toddle along, and tell us all about King David.

      But remember, you have intelligent Jewish readers, so don't make a further fool of yourself.

      Delete
  33. This just in: 20% of Idaho bum's Social Security and Welfare paid by foreign workers.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Two cops just got gunned down sitting in their patrol car in New York City. Don't know the details on the shooter, who a bit later shot himself in the subway.

    Fox News on line

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Guy's name is Ismael Brinsely.

      He had shot his girlfriend in another town a bit earlier.

      Delete
    2. This was bound to happen.

      Perhaps Mayor deBlasio will be pleased.

      Will Reverend Al Sharpton speak?

      The guy's computer or web postings were filled with kill cops stuff.



      Delete
  35. For Rufus, who needs all the good news he can get -

    Iraqi Kurds Get Their Groove Back, End Siege of Mount Sinjar
    Kurdish forces declared victory and freed Yazidi holdouts, with help from U.S. air power. Is this just a ploy by the Islamic State—or the beginning of the road to retaking Mosul?

    Kurdish forces in northern Iraq celebrated their biggest victory yet over ISIS on Friday after breaking, with U.S. air support, the lengthy jihadi siege of Mount Sinjar and freeing hundreds of trapped members of the Yazidi religious sect.

    The Kurds claimed at least 100 Islamic militants were killed in the two-day battle to lift the siege. The victory by about 8,000 Peshmerga fighters will boost the Kurds’ confidence in their efforts to roll back the territorial gains made in northern Iraq by the fighters for the so-called Islamic State.

    In welcoming his forces’ success, Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani tweeted: “Brave peshmerga have broken the siege of Mount Sinjar. I dedicate this important victory to all Yazidis.” Kurdish forces Friday night were organizing the evacuation of the Yazidis from the mountain enclave where they had been trapped since the jihadis launched a lightning offensive in August.

    Lt. Gen. James Terry, who heads the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS, said coalition warplanes had mounted 53 airstrikes in recent days to help Kurdish forces to “maneuver and regain approximately 100 square kilometers of ground” near Sinjar. The Kurds say they’ve recaptured even more territory, claiming they grabbed back about 700 square kilometers, though some analysts questioned that estimate.

    “It was a very big operation and thankfully it was concluded very successfully,” Masrur Barzani, the son of the Iraqi Kurdish leader, told reporters. With considerable bravado he added: “This operation will of course continue to clear all the areas that are still under the control of ISIS but the details of that, or the timing of that, I am not at liberty to discuss at the moment.”

    Zaim Ali, a Peshmerga commander, said: “We have established a military plan to clear ISIS from all of areas.” And he crowed, “ISIS is attacking us only with car bombs.”

    “Unfortunately, they did not send the ammunition and their contribution was nothing, to be quite frank with you, especially for this operation.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The expulsion of ISIS from northern Iraq, though, is a long way off. Although the operation to liberate Mount Sinjar was a significant advance, it wasn’t free of serious hitches, and they will have to be ironed out before bigger targets are taken on, such as launching an attack on the militant-held city of Mosul, where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced in the summer the formation of a caliphate with himself as caliph.

      Despite the claim by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal Thursday that a united Iraq is “sharing the resources and responsibilities to defend and serve all our people” and is pushing back ISIS, Iraqi government forces played no major role in the breaking of the Mount Sinjar siege, although government helicopters had been dropping supplies to the cornered and starving Yazidis.

      Appeals to Baghdad for military materiel went unanswered. “We asked the Iraqi government to provide the ammunition needed for this operation,” said Masrur Barzani, who heads Iraqi Kurdistan’s national security council. “Unfortunately, they did not send the ammunition and their contribution was nothing, to be quite frank with you, especially for this operation.”

      As Kurdish leaders acknowledge, liberating Mosul is beyond the capability of the peshmerga and government forces will be needed. Speaking last week at a terrorism conference in Washington, D.C., former CIA Director John McLaughlin said retaking Mosul was months off, possibly a year.

      Some analysts have urged caution about the Kurdish gain. The Kurds claim they broke the siege without suffering any casualties, which suggests that in the final drive for the mountain ISIS commanders decided not to stand and fight and undertook a tactical withdrawal instead, possibly with the intention of striking back later. That pattern has been seen before in northern Syria, with the highly mobile militants giving up ground when pressed—only to later return.

      The news of the breaking of the siege, though, is coming as music to the ears of Obama administration officials, who are pointing to the freeing of the Yazidis on Mount Sinjar as a sign of real progress. Their plight—thousands of other Yazidis were killed or enslaved by Islamic militants—along with the murders of U.S. journalists James Foley and Steve Sotloff were cited by President Obama as reasons to act to stem Islamic State advances.

      http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/20/iraqi-kurds-get-their-groove-back-end-siege-of-mount-sinjar.html

      Delete
    2. Here's the bad news for Ruf's July 4th, 2015 prediction, though -

      >>>The expulsion of ISIS from northern Iraq, though, is a long way off. Although the operation to liberate Mount Sinjar was a significant advance, it wasn’t free of serious hitches, and they will have to be ironed out before bigger targets are takeThe expulsion of ISIS from northern Iraq, though, is a long way off. Although the operation to liberate Mount Sinjar was a significant advance, it wasn’t free of serious hitches, and they will have to be ironed out before bigger targets are taken on, such as launching an attack on the militant-held city of Mosul, where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced in the summer the formation of a caliphate with himself as caliph.

      Despite the claim by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal Thursday that a united Iraq is “sharing the resources and responsibilities to defend and serve all our people” and is pushing back ISIS, Iraqi government forces played no major role in the breaking of the Mount Sinjar siege, although government helicopters had been dropping supplies to the cornered and starving Yazidis.

      Appeals to Baghdad for military materiel went unanswered. “We asked the Iraqi government to provide the ammunition needed for this operation,” said Masrur Barzani, who heads Iraqi Kurdistan’s national security council. “Unfortunately, they did not send the ammunition and their contribution was nothing, to be quite frank with you, especially for this operation.”

      As Kurdish leaders acknowledge, liberating Mosul is beyond the capability of the peshmerga and government forces will be needed. Speaking last week at a terrorism conference in Washington, D.C., former CIA Director John McLaughlin said retaking Mosul was months off, possibly a year.

      Some analysts have urged caution about the Kurdish gain. The Kurds claim they broke the siege without suffering any casualties, which suggests that in the final drive for the mountain ISIS commanders decided not to stand and fight and undertook a tactical withdrawal instead, possibly with the intention of striking back later. That pattern has been seen before in northern Syria, with the highly mobile militants giving up ground when pressed—only to later return.

      The news of the breaking of the siege, though, is coming as music to the ears of Obama administration officials, who are pointing to the freeing of the Yazidis on Mount Sinjar as a sign of real progress. Their plight—thousands of other Yazidis were killed or enslaved by Islamic militants—along with the murders of U.S. journalists James Foley and Steve Sotloff were cited by President Obama as reasons to act to stem Islamic State advances.<<<

      http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/20/iraqi-kurds-get-their-groove-back-end-siege-of-mount-sinjar.htmled by President Obama as reasons to act to stem Islamic State a

      Delete
  36. Mount Sinjar (Iraq) (AFP) - Kurdish peshmerga forces delivered aid on Mount Sinjar and expanded a major offensive against jihadist-held areas in northwestern Iraq on Saturday after breaking a months-old siege.

    The peshmerga closed in on Sinjar town south of the mountain and Tal Afar to its east. If successful, the move would significantly alter the map of the Islamic State (IS) group's self-declared cross-border "caliphate" and isolate its Mosul hub.

    The autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region's peshmerga troops reached the flanks of Mount Sinjar with food and other aid three days after launching a vast operation in the region backed by US-led coalition air strikes.
    As the convoy worked its way up the mountain, a 60-kilometre-long (40-mile) ridge where civilians and fighters had been trapped since September, people swarmed vehicles to get food.

    "I haven't seen an orange since September," said a 10-year-old girl as the peshmerga distributed fruit and other food.

    The civilians, some of whom had sought refuge on Sinjar after being displaced from nearby villages by IS fighters, looked exhausted, their skin sunburnt and clothes caked in dirt.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "We had barely received any aid in 75 days. It stopped coming when the Islamic State cut the road," said Hassan Khalaf, a gaunt 45-year-old.

      "What we need now is aid. We want them to save us," he told an AFP journalist travelling with the peshmerga convoy.


      - Genocide fears -

      Tens of thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority were trapped on the mountain for days in the searing August heat in a first siege that sparked fears of genocide and was one of the reasons that led US President Barack Obama to launch an air war against IS.

      Many were eventually evacuated when a coalition of Kurdish forces opened a corridor to Syria, and on Saturday the same factions were trying to reopen that route.

      A statement from the Kurdish president's son, who also heads the Kurdish Regional Security Council (KRSC), said the peshmerga had cleared villages on the northern side of the mountain.

      The Syrian Kurdish YPG group, which has been leading the battle against the jihadists in the town of Kobane on the Syrian-Turkish border, was moving south to join up with the peshmerga.

      It said it recaptured several villages from IS on the Iraqi border, which was confirmed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

      Securing that corridor will make it possible to evacuate some of the civilians on Sinjar to Iraqi Kurdistan via Syria.

      The peshmerga are also receiving crucial support from Yazidi tribal fighters.




      .. View gallery
      This US Air Forces Central Command photo released by …
      This US Air Forces Central Command photo released by the Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System …

      On Wednesday, the peshmerga launched what they have described as the largest operation yet against the IS since it overran major parts of Iraq in . . . . .

      Delete
    2. The photo accompanying "Hookin' Up" (Rufus) shows a good road open to traffic. That road should have been bracketed if IS was serious about maintaining a siege. That it was not indicates that either IS has lost interest or cannot close the road by mortar and/or artillery fire.

      The one thing air power can do very well is destroy exposed batteries. In the instance, this may be the case, i.e. IS has lost its large-bore firepower. If this is true, then, numbers of troops and unbroken supply lines give the advantage to bigger battalions, i.e. the Kurds.

      Delete
  37. Two NYPD officers have died after being shot ambush-style as they sat in their patrol car in Brooklyn, law enforcement sources say. One of the sources said both officers were shot in the head. The alleged shooter was found dead in a nearby subway station from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
    ___Lucianne

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ismael is the guy's first name, can you believe it?

      Delete
    2. Not Rufus, not Allen, not Bob, not Jacob, but.....Ishmael.

      Delete
    3. Ismaaiyl Brinsley ... "regular guy" ... "motivational" ... His girl friend was unavailable for comment. She was murdered earlier in the day.

      Delete
  38. Reverend Al Sharpton is already on the case - (by the way, he really should pay all those back taxes) -



    Two NYPD cops executed in Brooklyn, suspect suicides
    posted at 6:43 pm on December 20, 2014 by Jazz Shaw

    Share on Facebook 4
    21 SHARES

    We need to summon up our prayers for the families, friends and colleagues of two as yet unidentified New York City police officers who were murdered execution style in a most cowardly fashion in Brooklyn this afternoon. The details are pretty horrible.

    Two uniformed NYPD officers were shot dead Saturday afternoon as they sat in their marked police car on a Brooklyn street corner — in what investigators believe was a crazed gunman’s execution-style mission to avenge Eric Garner and Michael Brown.

    “It’s an execution,” one law enforcement source said of the 3 p.m. shooting of the two officers, whose names were being withheld pending family notification of their deaths.

    The tragic heroes were working overtime as part of an anti-terrorism drill when they were shot point-blank in their heads by the lone gunman, who approached them on foot from the sidewalk at the corner of Myrtle and Tompkins avenues in Bed-Stuy.

    “I’m Putting Wings on Pigs Today,” a person believed to be the gunman wrote on Instagram in a message posted just three hours before the officers were shot through their front passenger window.

    Another social media post by the suspected gunman read, “They Take 1 Of Ours … Let’s Take 2 of Theirs.” Nothing is confirmed yet, but the evidence they are releasing in the early hours looks pretty hard to refute. Also, the matching clothing on the suspect’s body and in the one Instagram photo are pretty convincing.

    The alleged killer was already on the run on suspicion of having murdered his girlfriend in Baltimore.

    And, of course, the one person who seems to be at the center of all the protests was quick to release a statement.

    In a statement, activist the Rev. Al Sharpton said the Garner family was outraged by news of the shootings.

    “Any use of the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, in connection with any violence or killing of police, is reprehensible and against the pursuit of justice in both cases,” the statement said. “We have stressed at every rally and march that anyone engaged in any violence is an enemy to the pursuit of justice for Eric Garner and Michael Brown… The Garner family and I have always stressed that we do not believe that all police are bad, in fact we have stressed that most police are not bad.”

    You know, that’s not exactly how I remember it.

    There are roughly a thousand things I could write at the moment, but I’m pretty sure I would come to regret any of them. We’ll have more updates later, or possibly just a separate post for you tomorrow. In the meantime, let us pray.

    http://hotair.com/archives/2014/12/20/two-nypd-cops-executed-in-brooklyn-suspect-suicides/


    ReplyDelete
  39. This is very first link an old girlfriend, Ms. Levine, sent my way. She did not write a song for me, although she could have. She did write an unforgettable chapter in my life.

    Come Away With Me

    ReplyDelete
  40. Pretty dang good music there, allen.

    Sure beats that freight train screeching brakes, Harley-Davidson exhaust, air plane crash, car roll over, one two beat, industrial mechanical production line, assault rifle banging, ear splitting shit Quirk used to put up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. Without distraction, our heads might explode. Given the murderous nature of some of our fellows, a cave along the Dead Sea is a tempting resort. However, Judaism and Erasmus both deny us such respite. May G-d have mercy on us.

      Tonight we are NYPD!

      Delete
  41. If Quirk were a spider -

    >>>Those crazy jaws aren’t just for hunting, though. They’re also sexy violins.


    A doting mama assassin spider, Eriauchenius workmani, with her egg case. They look a bit like Milk Duds, don’t they? Also, what’s the deal with calling them Milk Duds? Doesn’t seem to telegraph much faith in your product. Hannah Wood

    You see, when two assassin spiders love each other very much, they flirt by vibrating their abdomens. “And then they also have these little modified pair of legs called pedipalps, really close to the mouthparts,” Wood said. “And they have specialized hairs that they rub on the jaws, and they vibrate that really quickly and make sounds.” Then once they do decide to mate, they line up belly to belly, facing away from each other—on account of those big heads being in the way. The male will then use his pedipalps to grab a sperm bundle from his genital opening and place it in the female’s genital opening.

    When she eventually lays her eggs, she carries the egg case on her leg, “and she kind of drags it around with her wherever she goes,” Wood said. “It almost looks like a fungus spore, with this little ball hanging beneath them.” Once the kiddos hatch, the family will actually hang out together for a few days, “and then the little babies just decide to wander off and start to hunt.”

    And so the next generation of ninjas heads off into the world to terrorize their fellow spiders and maybe, just maybe, one day use their faces as violins. Go, go gadget face violin!<<<

    http://www.wired.com/2014/12/absurd-creature-of-the-week-assassin-spider/

    ReplyDelete
  42. Did you ever wonder what our beloved Rodent looks like?

    Here he is --

    http://www.wired.com/2014/09/absurd-creature-of-the-week-naked-mole-rat/

    Beautiful picture, no?

    >>>They live their entire lives underground<<<

    ReplyDelete
  43. allenSat Dec 20, 07:10:00 PM EST
    Ismaaiyl Brinsley ... "regular guy" ... "motivational" ... His girl friend was unavailable for comment. She was murdered earlier in the day.

    Another follower of Mohammed.

    http://heavy.com/news/2014/12/ismaaiyl-brinsley-pictures-photos-facebook-instagram-bed-stuy-nypd-shooting-bleau-barracuda/4/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Slow rocket fire from Gaza after Hamas goes back to accepting Tehran’s domination

      They are followers of Mohammed also.

      http://www.debka.com/article/24303/Slow-rocket-fire-from-Gaza-after-Hamas-goes-back-to-accepting-Tehran’s-domination

      Delete
    2. Netanyahu is making noise about an "eye for an eye" response to Hamas attacks ... his usual BS ... When your country is attacked, you smash the attackers. Yes, I know the President is on vacation and no one wants to rock the boat but, gee whiz, there are some responsibilities that come with being PM of Israel.

      Delete
  44. Hamas has arrested a Palestinian woman in the Gaza Strip on charges of spying for Israel, sources close to the movement said on Saturday. They told the Hamas-affiliated Majd website that the woman’s mission was to “reach senior leaders of Hamas.” The sources claimed that the woman, whose identity was not revealed, managed to gather “dangerous information” about some of Hamas’s top leaders through their relatives. According to the sources, the 40-year-old woman followed the wives, sons, and daughters of the top Hamas leaders in order to find out where they were hiding during Operation Protective Edge.

    The woman also monitored the houses of the Hamas leaders and their relatives during the war, the sources said, adding that she passed on the information to her handlers in the Israeli security authorities.

    She will be executed by the, as Rufus calls, the "freedom fighters of Palestine" Hamas.

    http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Hamas-Gaza-woman-spied-for-Israel-385274

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Any trial involved?

      Does she get a defense lawyer?

      Jury of her peers?

      Or just 'bang'?

      Delete
  45. Replies
    1. It's tough, leaving Islam, ISIS in particular it seems.

      Delete
    2. They got the ISIS 'dishonorable discharge'.

      Delete
    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
  46. Neither Police Officer killed in New York was white. One was Hispanic, the other Asian.

    Whites makes up 48% of the New York City Police Force I read.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It seems unclear whether the girlfriend died or not.

      Delete
  47. Jihad Watch - Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

    Brooklyn cop killer’s FB page: “Strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah”

    December 20, 2014 8:40 pm By Robert Spencer 24 Comments

    Quranquote
    Brinsley Ismaaiyl
    Brinsley murdered two policemen in Brooklyn today, as they were having lunch. The murders are being reported as revenge for the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. However, there appears to be more to the story. His Facebook page contains a photo of Qur’an 8:60, which includes the phrase, “Strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah.”

    He also identifies himself as an Arabic speaker, which is not common among gangbangers.

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/12/brooklyn-cop-killers-fb-page-strike-terror-into-the-hearts-of-the-enemies-of-allah

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. By the way, Robert Spencer is running for President.

      If you don't like jihadis, you might give him a close look.

      Delete
  48. 25 of History's Deadliest Dictators

    http://list25.com/25-of-historys-deadliest-dictators/?view=all

    ReplyDelete
  49. Norah Jones

    … a haunting paean to Amy Winehouse (what might been) … possibly a rare paeon – Ms Jones is gifted enough to pull it off …

    ReplyDelete
  50. >>>CURRENCY FALLS

    The Syrian pound, which has fallen around 70 percent since the civil war began in 2011, lost another 10 percent over the past two weeks alone.

    ((((Dealers said the slide was driven by several factors, including a realization that U.S. strikes on Islamic State insurgents were not helping Assad as much as had been expected.)))) But a major one was that a falling oil price had made them fear Iran would be less able to help shore up its ally's economy.

    Shi'ite Iran has deep ties with Syria. Assad is an Alawite, an offshoot of Shi'ism, and Tehran sees him as a bulwark against Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia's influence in the region....<<<


    Exclusive: Iran's support for Syria tested by oil price drop

    http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-irans-support-syria-tested-oil-price-drop-150637054.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The US and Saudi strategy is working as planned.
      The decline in oil prices has given a boost to the US, while crimping the cash flow of Iran and Russia.

      Gotta give credit where credit is due, President Obama has steered US to an enviable global position.
      The publicly perceived 'enemies' are in the impact area, and they know it.

      Using US true strengths, well beyond the recent historic failures and currently meager opportunities to garner gains for US interests by utilizing the military option.

      Delete
  51. Bought a nice, little Frier at Walmart for $0.99 / lb the other day. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 2 liter of coke for $0.99, also.

      Must be something in the water. :)

      Delete
    2. I'm waiting for the price of Hershey's Chocolate to collapse, myself.

      Delete
    3. 32 oz. Hershey's Chocolate with Almonds, $0.99, that's what I want for Christmas.

      Delete
  52. Robert Spencer Announces Candidacy for President
    December 18, 2014 by Frontpagemag.com 27 Comments
    1533331
    Print This Post Print This Post

    Below are the video and transcript to Robert Spencer’s keynote speech at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s 20th Anniversary Restoration Weekend. The event took place Nov. 13th-16th at the Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

    Robert Spencer: This a momentous occasion actually, because I’ve decided to take this opportunity as I stand before so many patriots and lovers of freedom to announce my candidacy for the Presidency of the United States. Now, you might think this is a joke and of course it is. I have no political experience, I’ve never held elected office, never even run for office. I have no organization, no staff and no money. I am not now and have never been a member of the Washington establishment. In other words, I’m just the man for the job.

    There’s a serious point that I’m making here. The point is that the problem is not Barack Obama. The problem is not the Democrats. Barack Obama and the Democrats are just symptoms of the problem. The problem is an entrenched Washington establishment that keeps failing again and again and yet it keeps on applying the same failed solutions to problems. Presidents come and presidents go, but this establishment is forever and no matter how many times its remedies fail, it keeps on applying them without an ounce of self-reflection.

    What we need is a massive housecleaning. What we need is a genuine outsider elected with a mandate to do this housecleaning, to really open up the windows in the State Department and let in the sunlight and clear out all these failed ideas that are doing nothing less than leading this nation into disaster................

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/robert-spencer-announces-candidacy-for-president/


    Just the man for the job !

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  53. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2014/1221/US-planes-hit-Islamic-State-in-Iraq-Syria-after-big-Kurdish-victory

    US planes hit 'Islamic State' in Iraq, Syria after big Kurdish victory

    The US led air campaign sought to build on the successes of Friday and Saturday, when Iraqi Kurdish forces helped by US planes were able to break the siege of Mt. Sinjar, where a genocide of Yazidis was once feared.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sinjar Mountain, Iraq and Washington — US-led air forces attacked Islamic State targets on Sunday with 13 air strikes in Iraq and three in Syria, the US military said. The bombing in Iraq has helped Kurdish forces roll-back advances by the self-styled Islamic State, which led to a stunning victory for the Kurds yesterday.

      One of the Iraq strikes were near Sinjar in the north of the country, which destroyed Islamic State buildings, tactical units and vehicles, while other Iraqi cities targeted included Tal Afar and Mosul in the north, Baiji in the center of the country, and Ramadi, the capital of the western Anbar Province, according to the Combined Joint Task Force.

      The strikes in Syria over the weekend were focused around the contested city of Kobani near the Turkish border. There were five air strikes near Kobani on Saturday followed by the three on Sunday.

      Delete
    2. Yesterday, Iraqi Kurdish fighters flashed victory signs as they swept across the northern side of Sinjar mountain, two days after breaking through to free hundreds of Yazidis trapped there for months by Islamic State fighters.

      A Reuters correspondent, who arrived on the mountain late Saturday, witnessed Kurdish and Yazidi fighters celebrating their gains after launching their offensive on Wednesday with heavy US air support.

      Delete
  54. Good for the Kurds and the Yazidis !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, the Rat Doctrine shining through.

      By utilizing local troops and Coalition 'Close Air Support' the Daesh have been halted and now, are being driven off the ground they seized last August.

      As predicted, here at the Elephant Bar, by both Rufus and Jack Hawkins.
      Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson telling us that Close Air Support would only be successful if it was US combt troops on the ground. That the Iraqi nationals were incapable of successful military operations.

      That only US troops could protect the Kurds from Daesh.

      Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson proven wrong in that belief, both in Iraq and Syria, where Iraqi Security Forces have entered the battle against Daesh, bringing Coalition 'Close Air Support' with them..

      Delete
    2. Nope, War Criminal rat.

      What I said was the Kurds, who will fight, might be the exception.

      So, Dead Beat Dad, you have it wrong again.

      I did say if we are to put troops in they should be used to help the Kurds.

      You are a self admitted moron, a War Criminal who can't read, a serial liar, and are proud to be a self described Professional Asshole.

      I'd be happy to stop the name calling if you'd ever comply.

      I'm sure all are tired of it.

      Delete
    3. Apologies for all the lies you have told is the prerequisite, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson.
      For the accusation of war crimes, of murder, and worse.

      So first comes the apology, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson.
      It is a precondition to any cease fire..

      Delete
    4. You see, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson, we all know that what I claim about you is the truth, in your own words.

      While what you say about me, is a complete fabrication.
      Since that is the truth, of it, the accuracy of your moniker ... shines through

      It grates upon you, much more than your lies and libels bear upon me.

      {;-)

      Delete
    5. And, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson, my preconditions have been long stated, as well.

      Delete
    6. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

      Delete
  55. Seattle
    10-4-0, 2nd NFC West

    Arizona
    11-3-0, 1st NFC West

    Seattle plays Arizona at Arizona starting at 5:30 PST today.

    This should be a good game.

    ReplyDelete
  56. http://www.tasnimnews.com/English/Home/Single/595446

    “The Syrian nation is determined to eradicate terrorism and extremist ideologies," Assad said in a meeting with visiting Iranian parliament Speaker Ali Larijani.

    The two met in Damascus on Sunday to discuss bilateral relations between Iran and Syria as well as regional developments and the ongoing crisis in Syria.

    Assad further said that "Syria will continue the process for national reconciliation."

    He also thanked Iran’s stance toward Syria and called for the expansion of Tehran-Damascus cooperation in all areas.

    Larijani, for his part, stressed that the Iranian nation will not give up its support for Syria against terrorism.

    Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since March 2011. More than 191,000 people have been killed in over three years of fighting in the war-ravaged country.

    The US and its regional allies- especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - have been supporting the terrorist militants operating inside Syria for more than three years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Syria is a goner. It doesn't exist any longer. Neither does Iraq.

      Delete
  57. 4 days ago - The Dead Men seem to still be walking -


    Reports of U.S. Ground Fighters Emerge as ISIS Gains in Iraq
    The Fiscal Times
    By Riyadh Mohammed December 17, 2014 10:45 AM






    No matter how many bombs Americans drop on ISIS forces, Iraqi troops are losing ground. If al-Anbar is lost, the entire Iraqi front dynamic will shift to favor ISIS again, and months of the U.S.-led air campaign will have been wasted.

    Maybe that’s why we had reports from an Iraqi field commander on Tuesday that U.S. forces had their first ground clash with ISIS terrorists at midnight on Monday, Baghdad time. ISIS fighters were forced to withdraw after U.S. air force fighters bombed enemy positions.

    Related: 9 ISIS Weapons That Will Shock You

    The minor victory was well timed. After six weeks of defeats in Iraq, ISIS made its first gains in the western province of al-Anbar last week, threatening the remaining Iraqi government forces and its tribal Sunni allies who are defending the remaining cities and army camps there.

    “We have ammunition to fight ISIS for five days only. After that, we will not be able to fight them with their advanced arms,” said Sheikh Naeim al-Gaud, a tribal leader who suffered hundreds of losses in a massacre committed by ISIS several weeks ago near the city of Hit, western Iraq.

    A lot is riding on Al-Anbar. It’s Iraq’s largest province, about one-third the size of Iraq. It borders Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. It also borders Baghdad, Babil, Karbala, Najaf, Salahuddin and Nineveh provinces. Most of the province is controlled by ISIS. Nevertheless, the provincial capital, Ramadi, is divided between the Iraqi government and ISIS. Several other towns are still controlled by the government as well, including an army camp that hosts 100 U.S. soldiers.

    On the days following al-Gaud’s warning, ISIS retook many areas to the west of Ramadi, near the town of al-Baghdadi, forcing the army and its allies to halt an attack to restore the city of Hit. Shekh al-Gaud said he only received 72 AK-47 rifles that are out of service despite his public appeals for help. He also said that the army’s seventh division, which is fighting ISIS in his area, has no tanks at all while ISIS has many of them. His tribal fighters used rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs, to counter ISIS tanks. That is no longer working. “They have developed a way to make their tanks avoid our rockets.”

    Related: The Merger of ISIS and al-Qaeda Could Cripple the Civilized World

    He lost 762 members of his tribe who were killed by ISIS.

    One of the reasons the Iraqi government hesitates to arm the tribes in al-Anbar is that some of the weapons sent previously ended up in ISIS hands. “I was told that 4000 Russian PKCs heavy machine guns were sent before. 800 of them ended up with ISIS,” al-Gaud said.

    View photos

    To make a bad situation worse, al-Anbar’s provincial council fired the governor. The governor was injured three months ago while fighting ISIS and has been on sick leave ever since. He went to Baghdad to dispute the decision in court. Al-Anbar’s tribes sent two delegations recently to ask for weapons -- one to the U.S. and another to Iran. They also tried to buy weapons from the local black market.

    View photos


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The situation is not much better in other parts of Iraq. A huge part of the Iraqi state’s assets was allocated to facilitate and protect the annual religious march of millions of Iraqi and Iranian Shiite pilgrims to the holy city of Karbala. The ritual commemorates 40 days from the anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, who was killed in the seventh century.

      View photos


      Exploiting that opportunity, ISIS launched an attack aimed at the holy city of Samarra to the north of Baghdad. Most of the attack was repelled. However, it provoked the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to order a full alert of his militia to prepare for Jihad to protect Samarra from danger. It was a situation similar to this in February 2006 that started the sectarian war in Iraq.

      Related: How ISIS Wages a Brutal and Hideous War on Women

      In its Sunni-controlled cities, ISIS brutality is escalating. In the town of al-Alam, in Salahuddin province to the north of Baghdad, ISIS executed 13 Sunni men in public. Another hundred were taken prisoner and face a similar fate. “This is ISIS’ revenge for resisting them. They kidnapped about 150 members of my tribe,” said Nazal al-Jbara, a local tribal sheikh of al-Jobur tribe. Similar executions are taking place elsewhere.

      In Mosul, ISIS started to dig a trench around the city to protect it from a future attack. The Iraqi government has recently established the Nineveh Liberation Command. Several thousand men are training in camps in Kurdistan to join the expected attack.

      Mosul’s last governor before the fall of the city went to the U.S. asking for help in arming the local former police force to liberate the city. “They are preparing for the battle of liberating Mosul. They are trying to dig a trench of two meters in depth and two meters in width around the city,” said Rachel Corrie, a blogger from Mosul.

      ISIS’ recent gains prove that the terror organization is still able to surprise the Iraqi government forces and the entire U.S.-led alliance that is backing Iraq with more successful attacks. The Iraqi government forces were doing well in general except for al-Anbar – but they are still facing the ongoing problem of holding the territories they clear.

      While everybody is acknowledging the devastating effect of the U.S.-led air bombing on ISIS targets, many think it needs to increase it, at least in al-Anbar.

      The risk in losing al-Anbar is extremely costly, going back to the early days of the conflict when Baghdad’s fate was questionable. One hopeful sign – or oddity, depending on how you see it – is that the war against ISIS has brought two other enemies together. Shiite militias have been accepted by Anbar’s Sunnis to fight ISIS. United they stand, at least for now.

      http://news.yahoo.com/reports-u-ground-fighters-emerge-154800859.html;_ylt=A86.J78GH5dUbmcAQRcPxQt.

      Delete

    2. Shiite militias have been accepted by Anbar’s Sunnis to fight ISIS. United they stand, ...


      That is the truth of the story, the story arc is just much longer than Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson can comprehend.

      Delete
    3. Riyadh Mohammed

      Now there's an Islamic name for ya......

      ;)

      Delete
    4. " United they stand, at least for now", War Criminal and Dead Beat Dad.

      There's a definite ebb and flow to things, but so far The World Famous Copied From General Crooks rat Shit Doctrine doesn't seem to be turning much of a tide there, Crapper rat.

      Another day closer to Rufus Day, July 4th, 2015.



      Delete
    5. Why don't you scoot over to the Seattle/ Arizona game today, d. rat, and take a break.

      There are still some tickets available I've read.

      Should be a good game. I'll certainly be watching.

      We'll give the folks four or five hours of silence.

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    6. The Cardinals are much less representative of Arizona than is the 162nd Fighter Wing of the Arizona Air National Guard.

      Delete
    7. Probably, but they play good football.

      Delete
    8. Football, the opiate for the dumbass class.

      Delete
    9. Football is a ballet of graceful violent thought.

      Delete
    10. A think game backed up by violent force.

      It's beautiful when well played.

      Atrocious when played by the University of Idaho.

      ;)

      Delete
  58. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  59. Iraqi air force captain Hama conducts preflight inspections while inside a new to service Iraqi F-16 Fighting Falcon Dec. 17, 2014,
    located at the nearby Tucson International Airport, Ariz.
    Hama was part of the first class of Iraqi students training with the 162nd Wing to further enhance interoperability between the two partner nations. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Jordan Castelan)


    AF delivers Iraqi F-16s for training in Arizona


    TUCSON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, Ariz. (AFNS) -- (Editor’s note: For security reasons, the Iraqi air force pilot is not fully identified)

    For more than 65 years the Air Force has embraced the concept of flexibility being the key to airpower. Now Airmen from the Arizona Air National Guard are sharing that capacity to find creative ways to overcome problems with one of the Air Force's newest allies – the Iraqi air force.

    The Iraqi government purchased 36 F-16 Fighting Falcons to help rebuild their air force; however the security situation in Iraq made delivering the aircraft impractical. The decision was made to instead deliver a portion of the jets to Tucson, Arizona and continue the IAF pilots' training there. The Arizona ANG's 162nd Wing was chosen to provide the training due to its already established experience with foreign students.

    "Here at the 162nd Wing we have a lot of missions," said Lt. Col. Julian Pacheco, the 152nd Fighter Squadron director of operations and a F-16 instructor pilot. "But we're mostly known for our international training of F-16 pilots."

    The wing, based at Tucson International Airport, is home to pilots in training from many nations, including the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Japan, and most recently Iraq. While working with airmen from foreign nations can present challenges, it's nothing new to the men and women of the 162nd.


    http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/558509/af-delivers-i

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. "As with any new country there are certainly challenges, mostly communication -- learning their culture and how they learn new things," Pacheco said. "(But) it's basically training a pilot to fly a different aircraft. All the Iraqi pilots have gone through U.S. pilot training and then move to Arizona for their F-16 training."

      Of the 36 aircraft on order, U.S. and Iraqi Airmen made history Dec. 16, as they delivered the first two Iraqi air force F-16D aircraft to Tucson. The most advanced Iraqi student in Tucson, captain Hama, celebrated the arrival of the aircraft with his fellow students.

      "It's a nice feeling to finally have them here," Hama said. "They're not home yet, but we're going to start flying them and get them ready. Soon enough we'll be home flying them over Iraq."

      Hama knew from an early age he would follow his father into military service, but his desire to fly led him in a slightly different direction.

      "I've had a passion for flying since I was a kid," he said. "I started with the army, but I just wanted to be a pilot. I had the chance to join the air force and become a pilot so I did it."

      All of the Iraqi pilots in the training pipeline are eager to complete their training and return home to defend their country.

      “The arrival of Iraqi purchased and owned F-16s is a tremendous step towards Iraqi air force pilots providing organic air power for their country,” said Maj. Gen. Lawrence Martin, the assistant deputy under secretary of the U.S. Air Force for international affairs.

      “They are one of many countries joining a partnering coalition in the fight against ISIS and this delivery will greatly add to their capability in this ongoing fight,” he said. “This type of partner aircrew training is mutually beneficial for students and instructors and promotes safe, integrated operations in a cost-effective environment.”

      Additionally, Pacheco said it is the instructors' goal that when that day comes, the newly minted fighter pilots are as ready as they can be.

      "It's very important to get these pilots trained up in the F-16 as best we can," Pacheco said. "Once they're done with their training here in Tucson they'll go home and go right into operations. Every lesson we can impart to the students, is critical because they'll be using those skills as soon as they go home.

      "With this new fleet of aircraft and the skills that we're teaching them here, they'll be able to protect themselves from threats, and hopefully bring peace to Iraq."

      While the pilots may want to go home to defend their homeland right away, there is still training to be completed here, and the instructors want to ensure they are giving Iraq the best fighter pilots they possibly can.

      "(The situation in Iraq) doesn't lend itself to training," Pacheco said. "The air bases are not ready to accept the aircraft. Bringing the aircraft here lets the pilots get used to their new airplanes in a good training environment. They can concentrate on how to fly this new aircraft and use its systems. When we can deliver the aircraft in country, they'll be ready to go."

      Hama especially is excited to be flying over his native country and has high hopes for the future of Iraq.

      "I'm ready to fly them today, we're just waiting for the green light,” he said. “We're ready, anytime they want us to go. I just want to see my country like any other country, safe and the people living a nice life without the threat of being bombed or kidnapped by bad people."

      The two jets delivered were the first of eight that will be flown to the Arizona air base to allow Iraqi pilots to fly and train in their own aircraft. Six more F-16s are scheduled to be delivered over the next five months.

      Delete
  60. >>>Orangutan is a word from the Malay and Indonesian languages that means "forest man."<<<

    Captive orangutan has human right to freedom, Argentine court rules

    ReutersBy By Richard Lough | Reuters – 1 hour 18 minutes ago


    Science News »

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    More Science news »

    By Richard Lough

    BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - An orangutan held in an Argentine zoo can be freed and transferred to a sanctuary after a court recognized the ape as a "non-human person" unlawfully deprived of its freedom, local media reported on Sunday.

    Animal rights campaigners filed a habeas corpus petition - a document more typically used to challenge the legality of a person's detention or imprisonment - in November on behalf of Sandra, a 29-year-old Sumatran orangutan at the Buenos Aires zoo.

    In a landmark ruling that could pave the way for more lawsuits, the Association of Officials and Lawyers for Animal Rights (AFADA) argued the ape had sufficient cognitive functions and should not be treated as an object.

    The court agreed Sandra, born into captivity in Germany before being transferred to Argentina two decades ago, deserved the basic rights of a "non-human person."

    "This opens the way not only for other Great Apes, but also for other sentient beings which are unfairly and arbitrarily deprived of their liberty in zoos, circuses, water parks and scientific laboratories," the daily La Nacion newspaper quoted AFADA lawyer Paul Buompadre as saying.

    Orangutan is a word from the Malay and Indonesian languages that means "forest man."

    Sandra's case is not the first time activists have sought to use the habeas corpus writ to secure the release of wild animals from captivity.

    A U.S. court this month tossed out a similar bid for the freedom of 'Tommy' the chimpanzee, privately owned in New York state, ruling the chimp was not a "person" entitled to the rights and protections afforded by habeas corpus.

    In 2011, the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) filed a lawsuit against marine park operator SeaWorld, alleging five wild-captured orca whales were treated like slaves. A San Diego court dismissed the case.

    The Buenos Aires zoo has 10 working days to seek an appeal.

    A spokesman for the zoo declined to comment to Reuters. The zoo's head of biology, Adrian Sestelo, told La Nacion that orangutans were by nature calm, solitary animals which come together only to mate and care for their young.

    "When you don't know the biology of a species, to unjustifiably claim it suffers abuse, is stressed or depressed, is to make one of man's most common mistakes, which is to humanize animal behavior," Sestelo told the daily.

    https://ca.news.yahoo.com/captive-orangutan-human-freedom-argentine-court-rules-203651528.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As any good lawyer knows, the orangutan should now immediately sue for damages.

      Delete
    2. QFirm, Lawyers at Large LLC, might make good counsel.

      Delete
  61. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/21/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-sinjar-idUSKBN0JZ0QO20141221

    Despite such internal rivalry, some were simply elated to see the Islamic State on the backfoot. A Yazidi volunteer named Kheder, who had made his way to Sinjar mountain from a refugee camp in the north, exulted in the fight and the spectacle of U.S. air power.

    "I came to kill the terrorists," Kheder said. "I like going to war with the Americans."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's the spirit needed in SunniLand and ShiaLand if the rat Doctrine is to ever work, and the prediction of Rufus is to come true.

      Delete
  62. Warning: The new weekend humor offerings on Fox News are not worth watching.

    ReplyDelete
  63. ... no sympathy for the NYPD ... Hm ...

    ReplyDelete
  64. They have, or are trying out, a new talk group ala The Five or Red Eye but it isn't working.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Also Glenn Beck seems to be hanging around a lot.

      Delete
  65. All about how he used to work at the Bakery as a kid, and sleep on the bags of flour....

    He does seem to know his baking though....

    ReplyDelete