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, January 23, 2009

Obama Disconcerts

I, as most Americans, do not  care  about six hundred  sociopath killers and killer wannabees doing stir in Guantanamo. Guantanamo was always an obscenity, not because it was cruel but because it was outrageously expensive and overly dramatic and contrived. 

What ever was accomplished in Gitmo could have been done in a shipping container in Kabul. I would bet that the American tax payer has paid $100,000,000 per prisoner. That is not why Obama was elected. Remember the "economy stupid?"

Obama won because a majority are rightly scared about the economic condition of the USA and they had no faith in John McCain. Obama would be better served, holding the lefty razzle dazzle and focus on the real threat, which is the truly obscene economic wreck left by Bush.

76 comments:

  1. All true, except Barney Franks etal. should carry the greater part of thee conomic blame. It was housing that collapsed first.

    And, it might be better if Obama didn't concentrate on the economy. He might well make things worse, as Thomas Sowell has suggested.

    Best of all, he'd go live in Kenya.

    “It is a terrible thing when you think you got on a bandwagon and it turns out to be a garbage truck." Ernst (Putzi) Hanfstaengl*


    (* Hanfstaengl was a friend of Adolph Hitler. He later worked for FDR, but returned to Germany, "a Nazi to the end." I used the quote only because it so accurately sums up how I believe many Obama supporters will feel in the not too distant future.)

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  2. The buck stops at the Resolute desk, in the Oval Office, bob. Always has.

    That all the Federal Socialists were in on the deal, all to true.
    But what of it, those other et als, they won the election, the GOP lost.
    History is written by the winners.

    Funny stuff,

    Doug said...
    3. Leo Linbeck III:


    Bush fought a two front war: one front in Iraq, the other in the United States. He won the first, and lost the second.


    ... the War in Iraq is considered 'Won', but the US troops still cannot be safely withdrawn. Withdrawal signifies victory, occupation does not.

    Victory without the parade is not a victory, at all.
    Dear doug presents us with Leo who is stretching the fabric of their own personal realities, so as to not lose all hope. But the facts remain, we are where we were in June of 2003, in Iraq, today.
    Had we 'won' then?
    If we had, why didn't we begin to leave?
    If we had not, then how have we now?

    We put off local elections for 5 years and gained nothing by it of any signifigance.

    But if anyone thinks that the trillion USD that was borrowed and spent on the 'War on Terror' in Iraq was a 'good thing' for the United States, your judgement of the percieved reality is fundementally flawed, to say the least.

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  3. Oh, and duece, I would say that Obama's base of support, before September's mourning, was all about Gitmo and the wars.

    It was the Johnny come latelys that climbed on the economy bandwagon, in October and November of 2008.

    For many of US, it is about the economy, but for those Obama activists that don't have much to lose, Gitmo is the game.

    Should have kept those fellas in Afghanistan, if we were going to keep them, at all.
    There were 650 or so detained there at some point in the past. there are 258 or so left. No one will take most of them, or if they will, it'd just be to turn them loose. As in Yeman.

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  4. Murtha wants 'em. Turn 'em loose in Philly.

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. Here's the deal my small bank got. There is some kind of rating system on the banks, for this, 1 to 5, or somesuch. The worse the rating the more strings attached. They got some 100 million or more they didn't ask for, but were basically asked to take. It's a loan. Five years, I think. I imagine at 0 rate. To be used only for loans. There is no ownership by the Feds, in their deal, unlike in some of the other situations, where the bank's rating isn't so hot. So I was told this morning, if I haven't garbled it too much. I want some of this action, myself.

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  7. Here's how one Brit sees it---


    42. susan:


    a nice outlook from a british commentator.

    Barack Obama inauguration: this Emperor has no clothes, it will all end in tears

    This will end in tears. The Obama hysteria is not merely embarrassing to witness, it is itself contributory to the scale of the disaster that is coming. What we are experiencing, in the deepening days of a global depression, is the desperate suspension of disbelief by people of intelligence - la trahison des clercs - in a pathetic effort to hypnotise themselves into the delusion that it will be all right on the night. It will not be all right.

    We have been here before. In the spring of 1997, to be precise, when a charismatic, young prime minister entered Downing Street, cheered by children bussed in for the occasion waving plastic Union Jacks. A very few of us at that time incurred searing reproaches for denouncing the Great Charlatan (as I have always denominated Tony Blair) and dissenting from the public hysteria. Three times a deluded Britain elected that transparent fraud. Yesterday, when national bankruptcy became a formal reality, we reaped the bitter harvest of the Blair/Brown imposture.

    The burnt child, contrary to conventional wisdom, does not fear the fire. After the Blair experience there is no excuse for anybody in Britain falling for Obama. Yet today, in this country, even some of those who remained sane during the emotional spasm of the Diana aberration are pumping the air for Princess Barack. At a time of gross economic and geopolitical instability throughout the Western world, this is beyond irresponsibility.

    To anyone who kept his head, the string of Christmas cracker mottoes booming through the public address system on Washington’s National Mall can only excite scepticism. It is crucial to recall the reality that lies behind the rhetoric. Denouncing “those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents” comes ill from a man whose flagship legislation, the Freedom of Choice Act, will impose abortion, including partial-birth abortion, on every state in the Union. It seems the era of Hope is to be inaugurated with a slaughter of the innocents.

    Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is like one of those toxic packages traded by bankers: it camouflages many unaffordable gifts to his client state. With a federal deficit already at $1.2 trillion, Obama wants to squander $825 billion (which will undoubtedly mushroom to more than $1 trillion) on creating 600,000 more government jobs and a further 459,000 in “green energy” (useless wind turbines and other Heath-Robinson contraptions favoured by Beltway environmentalists).

    It is frightening to think there is a real possibility that the entire world economy could go into complete meltdown and famine kill millions. Yet Western - and British - commentators are cocooned in a warm comfort zone of infatuation with America’s answer to Neil Kinnock. We should be long past applauding politicians of any hue: they got us into this mess. The best deserve a probationary opportunity to prove themselves, the worst should be in jail.

    It is questionable whether the present political system can survive the coming crisis. Whatever the solution, teenage swooning sentimentality over a celebrity cult has no part in it. The most powerful nation on earth is confronting its worst economic crisis under the leadership of its most extremely liberal politician, who has virtually no experience of federal politics. That is not an opportunity but a catastrophe.

    These are frank, even ungracious, words: they have the one merit that, unlike almost everything else written today about Obama, they will not require to be eaten in the future.

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/gerald_warner/blog/2009/01/20/barack_obama_inauguration_this_emperor_has_no_clothes_it_will_all_end_in_tears




    THIS IS NOT AN OPPORTUNITY BUT A CATASTROPHE

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  8. Frankenstein loses a round--


    Court rejects Franken bid to stop recount lawsuit

    By PATRICK CONDON Associated Press Writer

    The Associated Press - Friday, January 23, 2009

    ST. PAUL, Minn.

    A three-judge panel has refused Democrat Al Franken's request to block a lawsuit over the Minnesota Senate recount outcome.

    Franken came out on top of Republican Norm Coleman by 225 votes in the recount. But Coleman is contesting the result.

    The dismissal means the trial on Coleman's lawsuit starts Monday.

    Coleman argues that the recount process was flawed. He says votes were double-counted in some precincts and that more absentee ballots should be admitted.

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  9. There are not Five living Americans that give a good Goddamn about Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine, Gaza, Colombia, Bolivia, or Putin's shorts.

    It's the "Paycheck," Bubba.

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  10. ... Withdrawal signifies victory, occupation does not.

    '45?

    Yer brush a little broad?

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  11. Remember the "economy stupid?"
    ==

    Military Keynesianism is a failure. There are much better things to spend money on. The Guantanamo inmates should all be executed and the place closed down.

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  12. Musharraf was asked whether he is comfortable with the continuation of the attacks, even with a new U.S. president in place.

    The Situation Room
    Wolf Blitzer interviwes former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf
    4-7 p.m.

    "Nobody in Pakistan is comfortable with the strikes across the border. There is no doubt in that. Public opinion is very much against it," he said. "But as far as this issue of the new president -- President Obama having taken over and this continuing -- but I have always been saying that policies don't change with personalities; policies have national interest, and policies depend on an environment.

    "So the environment and national interest of the United States being the same, I thought policies will remain constant," he said. Video Watch Musharraf address the reported U.S. air strike »

    Musharraf also addressed a statement he made about the $10 billion in assistance from the United States that Pakistan has received, calling it a "pittance for a country which is in the lead role to fight terrorism."

    He emphasized his gratitude to the United States for the funding, but said the amount is low compared to billions spent in Afghanistan and "maybe over a trillion dollars" in Iraq.

    "Please don't think that this $10 billion was such a great amount that we ought to be eternally grateful while we know that we deserve much more and we should have got much more and we must get much more if we are to fight the global war on terror," he said.

    Musharraf stressed that Pakistan was "in the lead role fighting a war for you for 10 years, between '79 and '89," a reference to Pakistan's alliance with the United States and the Afghan mujahedeen rebels during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

    Musharraf emphasized that for 42 years, up until 1989, Pakistan had been a "strategic partner" of the United States.
    ==


    Pakistan should be left to face India Russia China. Let India Russia China rip it apart. Jihadistan has no right to exist.

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  13. A Ride With The Valkyrs

    http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaJ3KuSWC_U

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  14. '45 was no victory, though the parades made it appear as one.
    The Berlin airlft, a continuation of the War in Europe, came in 1948 & 49. The Greek civil war ended in 1949.

    The was no "Victory" in the whole of Europe, more than half of Europe was ceded to a totalitarian worse than Hitler. That was not victory, in Europe.

    The War did not end. The name of it changed, but that's all.

    A matter of writing history from a Federal Socialist perspective, not one that opposes the military industrial complex that Ike, who I like, warned US of.

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  15. Retailer Eyes Russia

    Wal-Mart Opens Office in Moscow

    by Lana F. Flowers, The Morning News, Rogers, Arkansas

    Springdale -- Wal-Mart is exploring the retail market in Russia, with an office open in Moscow.

    The Bentonville based retailer also joined the Russian Association of Retail Companies, a trade association similar to the National Retail Federation in the US said Richard J. Coyle, Wal-Mart's senior director for international corporate affairs.

    Doug McMillon, who becomes president and chief executive officer of Wal-Mart International on February 1, "would like to grow the international business," Coyle said. Mike Duke, who was international division president and CEO will succeed Lee Scott as president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. on Feb.1.

    Wal-Mart has no immediate timeline to open a store in Russia...

    "We really aren't saying much because there's not much to say yet," [Coyle] said.

    ...

    "Flush with cash, the well heeled segment of the (Russian) population tends to go for pricier items, while the hoi polloi go for cheap stuff -- but in bigger amounts," said Suomen Pannki, Finlands Bank. The average monthly wage in Russia in March, 2008 was 16,400 rubles, the bank said, about $502.58 in US dollars.


    --------

    WallyWorld's top guns have global marketing priorities. Same article notes Tyson Foods sold $236.8 million, mostly poultry products, to Russia, its second largest international market after Mexico.

    Wal-Mart stock seems to have declined since BHO's inauguration, but I haven't tracked it closely. It was up, and had weathered the meltdown pretty well.


    ===================

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  16. The Obama plan obviously calls for more efficient use of funds for abortion. That will get the economy rolling.

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  17. Elsewhere in Arkansas:

    Propossal Cows Farmers

    POSSIBLE LIVESTOCK EMISSIONS TAX RAISES CONCERN

    Kim Souza, The Morning News

    Springdale -- Rumors of a potential tax on livestock emissions has raised a stink in rural communities in recent weeks.

    ...

    The National Pork Producers Council said it is suing to challenge the EPA's requirement that livestock farms inform communities about estimated emissions.

    ...

    Farms that fail to comply face fines of up to $25,000 per day.

    ...

    Apple said swine farmers were essentially given 30 minutes to comply. The notice was posted on Friday at 4:30 p.m. with a Tuesday deadline. Monday was a federal holiday, and Tuesday much of Washington was closed for the presidential inauguration.

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  18. WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Friday quietly ended the Bush administration's ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide information on the option.

    Liberal groups welcomed the decision, while abortion rights foes criticized the president.

    Known as the ''Mexico City policy,'' the ban has been reinstated and then reversed by Republican and Democratic presidents since Ronald Reagan established it in 1984. Democrat Bill Clinton ended the ban in 1993, but Republican George W. Bush re-instituted it in 2001 as one of his first acts in office.

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  19. I guess your brush is never too broad if you write your own history.

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  20. We beat everybody we declared war on, or those who declared war on us.

    Would be hard to call that a loss.

    Finally, the Soviet Union collapsed, even though we weren't at war with them, except arguably through some proxies, so I quess we could say we won the Cold War too.

    Poland, for instance, is happy about the final outcome, could name some other countries too.

    We shouldn't sell ourselves short, peace has broken out in Europe for the last 65 years, mostly, and everybody is more or less happy. Happier than they were under Hitler and Stalin, anyway.

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  21. Conditions can be criticized in heaven, if one has a mind to.

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  22. The Federals have chased the livestock off most of the public lands that had historicly been cattle ranches. Both the BLM and the Forest Service have killed range ranching, at least here.

    Now the Federals seem to be moving against the pig business, which is a messy and foul smelling affair. Much like industrial chicken farms, stinky.

    That 'other white meat' ain't kosher, anyway.

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  23. ...so I quess we could say we won the Cold War too.

    Good. Let's have a parade, Bob.

    rat can be in it. Riding his horse.

    And mat, too. On a green bicycle.

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  24. That's true, bob.
    We beat Germany and lost half of Europe.

    So, whether we won or not, in 1945, depends upon the perspective.

    Not winning in Europe led to Korea and Vietnam. The Soviets were embolden by their success against US, in Europe.

    Just as not winning the 'War on Terror' in 2003 or 2004 will lead to the Iranians gaining a nuclear capability.

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  25. Took mom to a late lunch at the Golden Corral buffet after her beauty appointment. Mom's 94.

    Followed a cute little car into the parking lot. It looked like a KIA SUV that'd got concentrated between two eighteen-wheelers. About 6 feet long.

    Two people got out. I thought the driver to be a rather handsome woman, until she turned out, on closer examination, to be a man.

    I naturally thought of our green vehicle enthusiast.

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  26. She is an outspoken advocate for gun rights and has a 100% positive rating from the NRA, [20] but has also worked to strengthen legislation to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

    Kirsten Gillibrand, New Senator From New York

    From the point of view of the 2nd Amendment, we could have done a lot worse.

    From the name, she sounds German or Nordic.

    Seems like a lot better choice than Princess U no.

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  27. Kirsten Gillibrand

    About time we had some good news.

    I've always liked girls named Kirsten.

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  28. Korea the first war offically 'not won' though the cease fire has lasted, allowing the NorKs to arm up with a clone of a Pakistani nuke.

    Vietnam, offically the 'lost war'

    Between the two, right around 100,000 US soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines lost their lives.

    Because of the status que in Europe, where we had declared victory, in 1945.

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  29. A Quantum Memory Leap


    http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22013/?a=f

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  30. Damn, I ought to run down to the Dodge dealers lot right now, and get a picture for you folks of all the brand new Nez Perce Tribal Police cars that just came in, all painted up nice. We counted 10 driving by.

    I highly doubtful that the Casino is paying for those cars, I think rather, you and I are.

    They need maybe two, at most. Lapwai, Idaho isn't all that hard to patrol. You could do it with a horse, in fact, or one of Mat's electric scooters.

    But, they sure look nice.

    Big V-8s, air conditioned, 4 wheel drives, with lots of room for the arrested.

    Would fit right in with the fleet of rigs run by the Idaho "More Pickup Trucks Than Employees" Fish and Game Department.

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  31. In fact, I think I will. Later.

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  32. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vectrix_superbike.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  33. Touch The Sound Of Silence:

    http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=uv1X5MxbHiQ

    ReplyDelete
  34. Head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol:

    http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=m377Is4tGF0

    ReplyDelete
  35. Born into a politically connected family, Kirsten Rutnik was born and raised in Albany, New York. Her parents are Douglas P. Rutnik, a Republican lobbyist[1] and former attorney with the public defender's office, and Polly Noonan Rutnik, also an attorney;[2] they are divorced[3]. Gillibrand's maternal grandmother, Dorothea "Polly" Noonan (1915-2003), was a women's rights activist who founded the Albany Democratic Women's Club and was a confidant of Mayor Erastus Corning[4]. "As a 10-year-old girl," Gillibrand later said, "I would listen to my grandmother discuss issues and she made a lasting impression on me."[ (wiki)

    She's Irish and blue collar

    To Gillibrand's charges that he is too close to the president, Sweeney countered "she is too close to (national Democratic Party Chairman) Howard Dean." He added he "always votes for the district first."


    "This campaign is about the district," countered Gillibrand. "They want energy reform, they want a congressperson to secure Social Security and make sure it is funded and someone who will not give in to the pharmaceutical companies. This is something the congressman will not do because he is beholden to the administration."


    Gillibrand bristled at Sweeney's accusation about her past, saying, "I grew up in Albany and I went to school in Troy."


    "I lived my whole life here and I come from a working-class family with a distinctive blue collar resume," said Sweeney.


    "I got interested in politics by going door-to-door with my grandmother (Polly Noonan) who founded the area's first women's Democratic Club," Gillibrand said. "He needs to be held accountable for his votes, despite his father's history."


    "Given her father is one of Albany's most notorious lobbyists, it seems rather hollow," Sweeney said in reference to his ties to Washington lobbyists.

    By By: James V. Franco

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  36. 10 of these big Durangos. Fancy inside. In addition to the fleet they already have which is substantial.

    Not begrudging them the transportation, but it's way overkill.

    All part of the new stimulus program.

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  37. Trees in western U.S. forests are dying at twice the rate they were a few decades ago, a new study finds.

    http://green.yahoo.com/news/livescience/20090122/sc_livescience/treedeathsdoubleinwesternusforests.html
    ==

    Damn Indians should be offering prayers to mother earth instead of driving the white devils' death machines.

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  38. Beats riding bareback on an Appaloosa

    Appaloosa Horse Club

    The New Nez Perce Horse

    They are crossing the old Appaloosa with the Akhal-Teke, an ancient breed that originated in Turkmenistan (near Afghanistan).

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  39. Say that down here, Mat, you'll soon find yourself in the Lapwai Jail.

    Just send my m aa iil
    To the Lapwai j a i l

    But, I'll bail ya out.

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  40. There was a hidden smiley there, Bob. :)

    ReplyDelete
  41. Train Charter Trips Boom (Despite Swedes' Fondness for Planes to Thailand)

    http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/01/train-charters-booming.php


    :)

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  42. "Unfortunately, one of the most popular destinations - Thailand - is accessible by train, but it takes over ten days (you cross the Baltic to Finland first) and includes a week on the Trans-Siberian railroad. Not for everyone - so some Swedes are instead choosing train charter closer to home."

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  43. So Bob, when should we expect them Swedish girls to invade Haifa's beaches?

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  44. I just heard that left wing lunatic, Gore Vidal on the BBC. It was striking how much he sounded like Deuce. :O

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  45. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  46. Vidal was singing the praises of FDR and called the Bush Administration the most uneducated in the history of the country. Vidal also said that Bush and Co. had wrecked the "Goddamn country."

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  47. Judges Hand Frankenstein "Stinging Rebuke"

    ----

    I recall William F. Buckley saying to Vidal, "You son of a bitch...." on one of his programs.

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  48. Swedish girls aren't on Haifa's beaches now?

    That'll have to be fixed.

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  49. Halo Wars

    http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=5bLjqxYlZVM

    ReplyDelete
  50. That'll have to be fixed.
    ==

    I don't they be challenging the Dutch girls any time soon. Them Dutch girls have the Israeli midget market cornered.

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  51. If we are in the business of funding abortions or pro abortion groups in the third world, why aren't we being accused of some kind of neo-colonial plot to subjugate those peoples? Accused of conducting a stealth genocide?

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  52. I don't ^think they be challenging..

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  53. Swedish girls aren't on Haifa's beaches now?
    ==

    Actually, they are. Haifa has more "wild" beaches than Tel Aviv. Seems the Swedes are trying for the back door action.

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  54. Because it is seen, by the opinion makers ad a form of Eugneics

    Scientific Origins of Eugenics

    Elof Carlson, State University of New York at Stony Brook

    The eugenics movement arose in the 20th century as two wings of a common philosophy of human worth. Francis Galton, who coined the term eugenics in 1883, perceived it as a moral philosophy to improve humanity by encouraging the ablest and healthiest people to have more children. The Galtonian ideal of eugenics is usually termed positive eugenics. Negative eugenics, on the other hand, advocated culling the least able from the breeding population to preserve humanity's fitness. The eugenics movements in the United States, Germany, and Scandinavia favored the negative approach.

    ReplyDelete
  55. The following snippet is from a piece
    Funding the Eugenics Movement

    It lists the origins of the movement, the usual suspects, Carnegie, Harriman, Rockefeller, Henry Ford, along with John Harvey Kellogg, M.D and Clarence J. Gamble. Then the story moves on to a more modern era

    From its beginning, the United Nations was a major battleground for population control. The Vatican and many Catholic countries resisted population control there, as did many Muslim nations. Still, the flow of funds from the United Nations for eugenics purposes has grown steadily.

    The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) puts out an Inventory of Population Projects every year, which gives a quick view of programs and their financial support around the world. The inventory shows "multilateral" support from international bodies, "bilateral" support from one nation to another, and support from "non-governmental organizations," or NGOs.

    To take one random example: in Egypt in 1988-89, there was support from three multilateral organizations. The World Bank had supported two projects over a period of years, with a cost of over $45 million (costs split with the Egyptian government). UNFPA had provided support for eleven projects, expending over $30 million. The World Health Organization (WHO) had provided approximately $2.5 million over the previous 17 years.

    Egypt received bilateral agency assistance from three nations. The United States provided $25 million over a two-year period. Germany and Japan provided much smaller sums.

    There were 17 NGOs providing funds for population assistance in Egypt that year. The NGOs are much more flexible than national governments; they can get funds approved faster than donor nations, and can work around laws in recipient nations. One clear example is the Pathfinder Fund in the United States, which provided funds for abortion equipment when the American government refused to do so, and provided the equipment in a nation where abortion was illegal (by saying that the suction devices were for "menstrual regulation). NGOs active in Egypt that year included:

    Association for Voluntary Surgical Sterilization (formerly the Human Betterment Foundation, founded by E. S. Gosney, a member of Advisory Council of the American Eugenics Society), which provided about $125,000 for six sterilization projects;

    Family Planning International Assistance, which reported "a cumulative total of $2,952,940 in family planning commodities [that is, condoms, Pills, IUDs, etc.] to 27 institutions in Egypt";

    International Planned Parenthood Federation, which spent $588,500 in Egypt that year;

    John Snow, Inc, which was spending $4.5 million over seven years to save children from diarrhea, plus another $532,000 in one year to strengthen family planning programs;

    Pathfinder Fund, which was spending $300,226 over two years helping to build or improve 258 family planning clinics;

    Population Council, which reported four projects in Egypt that year, including one on Norplant and two on IUDs, at a cost of $59,000;

    Rockefeller Foundation, which was spending $55,000 on two projects over several years to study Norplant and Pill usage.
    In Kenya, to take another example, the same multilateral agencies provided population control funds that year (World Bank, UNFPA and WHO). Bilateral support came from the United States, Sweden, Norway, Britain, Finland, Germany and Canada. There were 22 NGOs funding population control in Kenya that year, including all the groups mentioned above.
    In the years since the report used in these example, population funding has increased substantially, from all sources.

    The major international population control funders are the World Bank and UNFPA. The leader among the national governments that have made a serious commitment to population control has been the United States, but Japan has been catching up. The Scandinavian nations have made the largest per capita contributions. The British and the Canadians are also large donors to population control.


    Now since the US funds 25% of the UN's general budget, you can get the picture.
    Not the actions of a 'Christian Nation', not by any means.

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  56. Ancient Greek homes doubled as pubs, brothels

    New interpretation casts a new light on the economy in classical Greece

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28775168/

    ReplyDelete
  57. Is there any other conclusion, asked a popular 1926 textbook (co-authored by a leading California eugenicist), that "the Negro lacks in his germ plasm excellence of some qualities which the white race possess, and which are essential for success in competition with the civilizations of the white races at the present day." Eugenics also targeted poor whites, especially in rural areas, on the grounds that they constituted a distinct and "degenerate" racial typology.

    ... that under the banner of "national regeneration," tens of thousands, mostly poor women, were subjected to involuntary sterilization in the United States between 1907 and 1940. And untold thousands of women were sterilized without their informed consent after World War II. Under California's 1909 sterilization law, at least 20,000 Californians in state hospitals and prisons had been involuntarily sterilized by 1964. California, according to a recent study, "consistently outdistanced every other state" in terms of the number of eugenic sterilizations. In the 1910s and 1920s, men were as likely to be sterilized as women were, but by the 1940s restrictions on reproductive choice were aimed at women.


    The song remains the same, the title has changed ...
    to "Choice" rather than "national regeneration".

    Marketing, ain't it grand.

    ReplyDelete
  58. George Mason University supplied the above copy from:

    The Frightening Agenda of the American Eugenics Movement
    By Tony Platt
    Mr. Platt, emeritus professor of social work, California State University Sacramento, is a member of the editorial board of Social Justice and author of books and articles on U.S. history and social policy. His current research interests include the history of eugenics in California. "To Stem the Tide of Degeneracy: The Eugenic Impulse in Social Work"

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  59. "Agam Energy Systems" Pulls Out The Pistons For 100 Miles To The Gallon

    http://greenprophet.com/2009/01/23/6263/agam-energy-systems/

    ReplyDelete
  60. The US Army’s RQ-7 Shadow UAVs are currently too small to carry weapons, but their surveillance turret’s laser rangefinder can designate GPS locations for JDAMs and related bombs, Excalibur 155mm artillery shells, and GMLRS 227mm rockets.

    Mortars from Aircraft?

    Training, UAVs, Key To Army Aviation In The Field

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  61. Mini JDAMs, now that is a wicked cool toy, wonder what the tail assembly costs?

    Dec 16/08: General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems announces that it has successfully demonstrated the ability to maneuver and guide 81mm air-dropped mortars to a stationary ground target after release from an aircraft. ...

    RCFC is an integrated fuze and guidance-and-flight control kit that uses GPS/INS navigation, and clips on by replacing current fuze hardware in existing mortars. ...

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  62. Goose-Murdering Lunatic Worshipped as a "Hero"

    Pilot At exactly 9:30 AM on January 15, 2009, a flock of unsuspecting geese was sucked into the engines of United Airways Flight 1549 out of New York's La Guardia airport. Karma, it seems, wasted no time catching up with the sinister aircraft, for it suddenly spiraled out of control and plunged into the icy water of the Hudson River. Save for the passengers and crew, there were no survivors.

    Desperate for another "Joe the Plumber" to ruin Obama's historical day in the sun, the Right Wing Media is hailing the pilot of the Death Plane, Chelsey Sullenberger III, as a "hero". Excuse me, but if I moseyed on down to the local park and took a weed-whacker to a flock of endangered waterfowl, they'd lock me up and throw away the key - and rightly so. Indeed, in a sane, rational, progressyve world, Sullenberger would be frog-marched out of the airport in leg irons. Instead, he gets the key to the city and gushing adoration from the so-called "unbiased press". Worse of all, he shows absolutely no remorse for the lives he destroyed.

    "After the crash, (Chauncy Goose-Slayer III) was sitting there in the ferry terminal, wearing his hat, sipping his coffee and acting like nothing happened," one eyewitness complained.

    "That guy is one cool customer," a horrified airlines official wept. "He was...behaving like it was just another day at the office."

    No shame. No guilt. No conscience. That's the mark of a true sociopath. Kind of reminds you of certain chimpy someone who is at this moment enjoying the last of his stolen days in the White House, doesn't it?

    Sadly, both Charles Winchester III and George W. the Shrub will most likely never be tried for their crimes against either humanity or Anatidae. One can only hope that as investigators sift through the mangled, mutilated remains of the slaughtered geese, new evidence will come to light that will put both these murderous neocon bastards behind bars forever.


    http://blamebush.typepad.com/


    ==

    Confess dRat! You iz Lawrence "Liberal Larry" Chomstein, born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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  63. Eugenics is nothing new. The ancient Greeks were into it in a big way. The deformed child got left on the rocks by the sea. And they had this idea of the proportionate beauty of the human form, hence the statues. One wonders what they would have done with Stephen Hawking.

    The practice of eugenics in its positive form seems inbred, that is Frost's eyes meeting eyes, upwards to the light, or however the line goes.

    When eugenics becomes mostly concerned with moral and ethical qualities, we might be getting somewhere.

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  64. Around here, we don't cotton to the damned geese, sometimes we have special city hunts, and blast them to smithereens. These are highly popular events.

    I recall a photo of a duck waddling along unconcernedly, with an arrow through it's body, on some Las Vegas golf course. They don't much care for them there either, I quess.

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  65. I'm actually Bob Barker. I'm sure glad to done with that stupid show. I don't even miss Vanna anymore.

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  66. Sleepless, Mat.

    That there is Grand Coulee Dam, courtesy of Roosevelt.

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  67. You'e always at least half asleep, Mat, from the look of things.

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  68. Playlist: 70's Easy Tempo

    http://ca.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=828B5434AC228375

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  69. Well, I'm punching out for today. G'Nite, Bob.

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  70. Goodnight Mat, me too, talk to ya tomorrow.

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  71. Merrill Boss Canned From Million-Dollar Office

    By Scott Ross
    NBCNewYork.com
    updated 5:48 a.m. ET, Sat., Jan. 24, 2009


    As the once venerable brokerage house Merrill Lynch crumbled, CEO John Thain spent a cool million to redecorate his office and lined the pockets of execs with billions in bonuses. Yesterday, Thain joined the armies of the unemployed.

    Thain was relieved of his duties by Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis just a month after the company bought Merrill in a fire sale for $19.4 billion dollars, reports Bloomberg News.

    "(Lewis) flew to New York today, met with John Thain, and it was mutually agreed that his situation was not working out, and he would resign," Bank of America spokesman Robert Stickler said.

    Among the problems that plagued Merrill as the global financial crisis brought the company to its knees was Thain's freewheeling ways.

    In December, as the company wrapped up a fourth quarter that saw $15 billion in losses, Thain dished out $4 billion in bonuses to his executives. Such year-end bonuses are typically given in late January.

    The timing of the lavish handouts has drawn the attention of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who has launched an investigation.

    Earlier in the year Thain, hired designer Michael Smith, whom Michelle Obama has just retained to touch up the White House family quarters, to redecorate his office The bill came out to $1.22 million. The invoice included such expenditures as an $87,000 rug, $28,000 for four pairs of curtains and, most incredibly, $1,405 for a wastebasket.

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