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."

Saturday, August 07, 2010

Murder Most Foul in Afghanistan




The dead are believed to be six Americans, one Briton and a German who worked for a charity providing eye care and medical help. They were part of the IAM, International Assistance Mission.

This is what they said they were doing in Afghanistan:

The IAM is an international charitable, non-profit, Christian organization, serving the people of Afghanistan, through capacity building in the sectors of Health and Economic Development.


IAM’s core values are:

  • Dependency on God
  • Love for All
  • Teamwork
  • Accountability
  • Learning
  • Quality Work


This is what they were doing in Afghanistan:

Over the decades since 1966, Afghanistan and its people have seen a lot of war and other trouble. As an NGO committed to the Afghan people, IAM has always sought to have a good working relationship with the government. IAM's work has been appreciated by the people and the authorities to the extent that it was able to continue its work for all but a few months when it was forced to suspend its programmes.

Over the years the involvement of IAM work in Afghanistan has expanded and now includes such areas as renewable energy, primary mental health care, physiotherapy, teaching English and community development. IAM is focused on working in areas that are the most needy and underserved. IAM now has projects in some of the most remote parts of the country.


This is their reward:

___________________


Eight doctors killed in Afghanistan
Eight German and American doctors have been found shot dead alongside three bullet-riddled cars in a remote northern province of Afghanistan.

By Ben Farmer
Published: 7:58AM BST 07 Aug 2010
Telegraph

Two Afghans were also found dead with the three women and five men the local police chief said.
Gen Agha Noor Kemtuz, provincial police chief, said it was unclear what the group had been doing in Kuran Wa Munjan district of Badakhshan, but speculated robbery had been a motive for the attack.

He said villagers had reported finding the abandoned vehicles in Afghanistan several days ago and an investigation team was sent to the densely-forested scene on the border with Nuristan province, one day's drive from the provincial capital Faizabad.

He said: "We couldn't find any passports or anything," he said.

"Nothing was left behind."

German and American diplomats confirmed they were urgently investigating the reports, but said the remote location was hampering investigations.

A United States embassy spokeswoman said: “We have reason to believe that several American citizens are among the deceased.

“We cannot confirm any details at this point, but are actively working with local authorities and others to learn more about the identities and nationalities of these individuals.”

Badakhshan is considered one of the safer, though most remote provinces in Afghanistan. The poverty stricken region attracts a small number of hikers and adventure tourists.




217 comments:

  1. Really feeling sorry for all those who lost their lives in afghanistan for nothing.
    I believe US should pull their forces back and everything will be normal again.
    May their souls rest in peace

    ReplyDelete
  2. Need to build'em some better roads.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The bullet-riddled bodies of six Germans, two Americans and two Afghans have been discovered in northern Afghanistan, police say. The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for an attack on "Christian missionaries."

    The bodies of the ten were discovered in a mountainous, forested area in northern Afghanistan, an Afghan police official said on Saturday.

    The foreigners were camping in the remote area of Kuran wa Munjan near the border with Pakistan when they were attacked, according to Agha Noor Kemtuz, police chief for neighboring Badakhshan province.

    Shortly after reports of the discovered bodies surfaced, Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for an attack on "nine Christian missionaries."

    ReplyDelete
  4. Really Big Roads.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's a tough place to missionary.

    ReplyDelete
  6. For an Afghan to convert to Christianity, that is a capital offense, in the Islamic Republic founded by the United States in Afghanistan.

    So those "missionaries" if that was their role, were conspiring amongst themselves and their Afghan clients, to commit serious criminal offenses.

    Capital crimes.

    That there are Afghans that would act, preemptively, to stop such serious criminal behavior, not that outlandish. Especially by the US Standard of preemption used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    The existence of a clear and present threat of potentially serious criminal behavior.

    The missionaries very presence, plus their good works, posed a threat of promoting religious conversion from Islam to Christianity.

    Now one may think that religious conversion should not be a capital offense. I think that such a legal standard is barbaric and unjust, but the founders of the Islamic Afghan Republic, GW Bush and Company, they must not have.

    Or that particular Law would not have been on the books. We would not be subsidizing an Islamic Government that held religious conversion to be a Capital crime, if the US government found such a legal standard to be offensive.

    But the reality, that is the United States has 100,000 troops in Afghanistan to enforce the writ of that Islamic Government, far and wide. So the statute must not be considered barbaric nor ill conceived, by US.

    The proof is in the tasting.

    Now if those doctors and such were not missionaries, then the organization they worked for, it should not have labeled itself as "Christian". That very label, indicative of their conspiring to perform criminal activities, there in the Islamic Republic empowered by US, in Afghanistan.

    That is the Standard the US has chosen to defend and promote, by standing up an Islamic Republic, get used to it.

    Learn it, live it, love it.

    Embrace our Islamic allies.

    That's the American way forward.

    ReplyDelete
  7. (AFP) - A U.S .appeals court ruled Friday that police cannot track a suspect using GPS technology without a warrant, tossing out the conviction of a man arrested for drug dealing.

    The U.S.Court of Appeals in Washington overturned the 2008 conviction of Antoine Jones, saying police violated his constitutional rights by tracking his movements with a satellite navigation system device installed on his vehicle without a warrant.

    The three-judge panel ruled that Washington police effectively established their case by tracking Jones to locations of drug activity.

    "It is one thing for a passerby to observe or even to follow someone during a single journey as he goes to the market or returns home from work," the court opinion said.

    "It is another thing entirely for that stranger to pick up the scent again the next day and the day after that, week in and week out, dogging his prey until he has identified all the places, people, amusements, and chores that make up that person's hitherto private routine."

    The judges said the use of GPS, or Global Positioning System tracking, was a violation of the constitutional guarantee in the Fourth Amendment of unreasonable searches and seizures, saying it was an "intrusion" into "private affairs."

    "This case itself illustrates how the sequence of a person's movements may reveal more than the individual movements of which it is composed," the court said.

    "Having tracked Jones's movements for a month, the government used the resulting pattern -- not just the location of a particular 'stash house' or Jones's movements on any one trip or even day -- as evidence of Jones's involvement in the cocaine trafficking business."

    They said the pattern of GPS data "was central" to the case against him.

    ReplyDelete
  8. There’s a class war coming

    The haves are retirees who were once state or municipal workers. Their seemingly guaranteed and ever-escalating monthly pension benefits are breaking budgets nationwide.

    The have-nots are taxpayers who don’t have generous pensions. Their 401(k)s or individual retirement accounts have taken a real beating in recent years and are not guaranteed. And soon, many of those people will be paying higher taxes or getting fewer state services as their states put more money aside to cover those pension checks.

    At stake is at least $1 trillion. That’s trillion, with a “t,” as in titanic and terrifying.

    The figure comes from a study by the Pew Center on the States that came out in February. Pew estimated a $1 trillion gap as of fiscal 2008 between what states had promised workers in the way of retiree pension, health care and other benefits and the money they currently had to pay for it all. And some economists say that Pew is too conservative and the problem is two or three times as large.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Queen Michelle need a new coat.

    Young London fashion designer has been commissioned by US First Lady Michelle Obama.

    Bunmi Olaye, 27, who runs Bunmi Koko with her partner Francis Udom, was given the honour after sending a prospectus of her designs to the White House.

    Soon after a call came to the couple from Washington asking if a coat could be made for Mrs Obama.

    Mr Udom said: “Someone said they were from the First Lady's office and she was interested in a cream coat we had featured and could we make it for her.

    “We were stunned but kept calm and said we would make her a coat in September. I hope she likes it.”


    God save the Queen

    ReplyDelete
  10. It's time to have a good Swede as President, or better yet a half Swede, forth English, eighth French and German, like me, then we'd really get somewhere.

    ReplyDelete
  11. There are 40 million people on food stamps. Why?While you think about it: rest your eyes on the slide show

    ReplyDelete
  12. Capital crimes


    heh, you say

    ReplyDelete
  13. OLE

    First Lady Michelle Obama exhibits zero guilt when shutting down cities for personal vacations. People being inconvenienced, restricted or disappointed doesn't impact Mrs. Obama in the least. The perpetual vacationer is more than able to push back the unwashed masses in order to ensure ample space exists between presidential sovereigns and peasant-like peons.

    Reminiscent of Bar Harbor, while vacationing in Spain, "Spanish police cleared off a stretch of beach for U.S. first lady Michelle Obama and daughter Sasha to relax by the Mediterranean ...after a busy day of sightseeing."

    Them-and-us stanchions were created with palm trees, which were used "to mark off the boundaries of a 100-meter (100-yard) expanse for the American delegation." Michelle rested comfortably inside a "canvas hut by the shore" obscured from view on three sides like a monarch from the Middle Ages. An unperturbed Shelley relaxed while little Sasha "splashed in the sea" with a security guard as cordoned off "onlookers gawked.

    During the Spanish excursion, i.e. "private-citizen" outing, the First Lady toured the Alhambra Palace in Granada. America's imperial First Lady took in "the exquisite reddish citadel ... the seat of Moorish rule in Spain - and the city's cathedral, and also watched a flamenco show in a hillside cave turned into a tavern."

    According to observers, Michelle "clapped along with the booming chords of the guitarists and rapid-fire, clicking heels of the dancers." She did it well. "This woman has rhythm," said Juan Andres Maya, leader of the flamenco troupe.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Let them eat tapas

    Regardless of the city, state, or international location the Obamas visit, the family always manages to track down ice cream. Before visiting the Granada cathedral, Spanish media outlets reported that Michelle enjoyed butterfat and sugar-infused chocolate creamery and, although "dessert is not a right," Mom did allow Sasha to indulge in melon and raspberry.

    Back in the old US of A, unemployed Americans ate stale bread and bologna for dinner. However, "Sasha ate pasta, and her mother and the rest of the U.S. delegation had tapas," at $66 dollars per person. The dinner included elegant "sea bass tartare, strawberry gazpacho and sardines, followed by a main course of lobster with seaweed risotto."

    ReplyDelete
  15. AFGHAN CHRISTIANS SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR THEIR FAITHS.

    Jun 16, 2010 ... They call on the international community to put pressure on the Afghan government to spare those sentenced to death. ...


    No, not only me, boobie.

    As to promoting a culture of death, you are the one that advocates for bombing the civilian population of Kandahar.

    Advocating for the mass murder of women and children by doing so.

    ReplyDelete
  16. More hypocrisy from the boobie, who gets that prize.

    ReplyDelete
  17. lobster with seaweed risotto>

    That's really exotic.

    And actually doesn't even sound good to me.

    I'll take a Big Mac, thanks.

    Michelle is a nice looking woman, but she really is an asshole, just like her husband.

    ReplyDelete
  18. I'm not a self confessed killer, asshole.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Mrs Obama merely a distraction, while the US supports the legal execution of Christians in Afghanistan.

    Your tax dollars at work.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Atlas Shruged in a nice woman, very bright/

    ReplyDelete
  21. But you want to be, just never had the balls to leave home, to defend American values.

    You would not even defend those American values of justice and rightousness in Idaho.

    Hiding from criminals in your rain barrel, instead of helping the Law Enforcement authorities catch the evil doers that are on a rampage in your community.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Fuck you, we WERE the law here.

    We built it.

    Asshole.

    And one thing we didn't do was murder.

    That was against our laws, mostly imported from England, and Rome, and the human conscience, but you wouldn't know nothing about that.

    ReplyDelete
  23. By your own admission you are a moral coward.
    Would not even protect the women of your community from recidivist rapists.

    You are a sham of a man to have behaved in such a manner.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Dont feed the troll...

    If you lay down with Rats?

    You get up with Fleas...

    Dont engage it, dont respond to it...

    It's just a troll.

    ReplyDelete
  25. While evil doers rape and pillage, in Idaho, you stood by, silent, boobie.

    That is an abomination.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Forty million people on food stamps, how's that hopey changey thing workin' out for ya?

    ReplyDelete
  27. Teresita said...
    Forty million people on food stamps, how's that hopey changey thing workin' out for ya?


    Did you add in all those government featherbedding jobs as well?

    Don't forget the #1 welfare king and queen... "the Obamas"...


    Ghetto goes to Paris...

    Or is it?

    Michelle O's pissed at the ONE for dipping the dick on the down low? Was the Mrs. Vaca really PUNISHMENT/PAYBACK for misbehavin' Messiah?

    Or is it really just selfish, livin large trashy people that squat in the whitehouse?

    ReplyDelete
  28. They were an eye care team.

    Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, had this to say:

    "Yesterday at around 0800 (0330 GMT), one of our patrols confronted a group of foreigners. They were Christian missionaries and we killed them all," he told the AFP news agency.

    ReplyDelete
  29. That's good advice, WiO.

    I'll just say one more thing, then never talk to him again.

    rat is the worst person I've come across in my life

    ReplyDelete
  30. Only because you were afraid to find the man that raped your daughter.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Rat does have a point about our tacit support of Sharia Law when we prop up regimes like that as part of the "War on Terra". Sort of like the way we propped up Marcos on the "War on Commies".

    ReplyDelete
  32. One of the central tenets of Reverend Wright's mission is to open eyes to the fallacy of "middleclassness".

    He should be proud of the Obama's who taking his teaching to heart, now eschew the very idea.

    Michelle and Barack have overcome, Hallelujah!

    Let them eat cake, indeed.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Please, rat and bob, give a rest. You're soiling the threads.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Thank you partner. This constant bickering is worse than a couple of kids. Knock it off.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Here's an article about patients in a poor economy quitting $5k/month anti cancer drugs and suffering relapses.

    $60K per year per patient just for the pharmaceuticals. There are plenty of patients with a wide variety of maladies who have similar expenses.

    I suspect that a Fed Panel will find it easier to say no than a govt regulated, profit making insurance company would.

    ReplyDelete
  36. I am going to leave the comments up so that others can see to the level you two in particular have degenerated. I invite you both to take them down.

    My first job as a kid was to shovel cowshit from a barn. I will be getting out the shovel in the future on non-intelligent, infantile name-calling.

    ReplyDelete
  37. It is more than tacit support, Ms T. It is full fledged and total support.

    100,000 troops in support Sharia in Afghanistan and about the same in Iraq.

    We are allied with Islam, fully, totally.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Miss T, I think we are doing the best we can. You're right, about
    Sharia, I fully agree with you, but it's hard to change a whole society, overnight.

    We're just kinda working around the edges.

    I've advocated bombing the hell out of all Pastun, but we're just not up to that as a society, yet.

    Maybe some day.

    And, I don't even know if I'm right.

    I'm right on the religious and human rights aspect, but I do have calms about carpet bombing Kandahar.

    We are in a really tough position.

    ReplyDelete
  39. I'm not ever talking to rat again, so you won't have any trouble from me.

    ReplyDelete
  40. The Taliban are a scourge. Al Qaeda found a natural refuge with their kindred spirits of Afghanistan and NW Pakistan.

    If the report which I read here, about Petraeus further tightening the RoE, is true, it reinforces my opinion they we should ASAP leave there with the promise to rain death if they foxtrot with us again.

    I will avert my eyes from future reports of internecine Islamic atrocities.

    Let them eat halal.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Anyone that demeans both Jefferson and Reagan, the United States and it's founding philosophies, while advocating for the mass killing of civilians, and the abortion of black fetuses, while telling us that "we" are losing our country, they get what's coming to them.

    boobie needs a little introspection, hope I provided it for him.

    ReplyDelete
  42. I'm not ever talking to rat again, so you won't have any trouble from me.

    I'll help you. Whenever I see you relapsing, I'll delete your comment.

    How's that?

    ReplyDelete
  43. Deuce, I'd take my comments down gladly, but I honestly, don't know how to do it. I'm not good with the computer.

    If you want to take them down, take them down, I'd be happy if you'd do so.

    I am kinda ashamed of them.

    We've got sunshine and blue sky here today, it's really delightful.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Perfect Whit, thanks, it's your Bar, after all.

    ReplyDelete
  45. rat said:
    We are allied with Islam, fully, totally.

    I assume you're good with that since it's official government policy.

    ReplyDelete
  46. That's amazing, Deuce; that was, basically, my first job. We had a small dairy farm, and I had to shovel it out after school. Man, I hated that job. The only job, other than picking cotton, that I well, and truly, hated.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Trying to remember if I ever filled the back of my Corvair Van with Cowshit...

    Good, dry, Arabian Horseshit, to the brim, multiple times.

    Different excrement for different folks.

    From different beasts.

    ...my best guess is that sloppy cow shit was reserved for the pick ups.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Rufus, have you ever driven a John Deere 6602 for hours on end?

    I can tell you it's a pain in the damn ass, and I mean that.

    But, you lose weight.

    ReplyDelete
  49. FWI:
    The Taliban is not classified as a terrorist group by our government.

    ...the list is long, but they didn't make it somehow.

    As 'Rat points out, backing Islamic Regiemes is a difficult but noble endeavor.

    ReplyDelete
  50. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Pelosi and Fatass...

    Your taste in women escapes me, Bob.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo and Bosnia, all in the win column for converting secular Muslim states to Muslim states.

    Turkey, perhaps we should get an assist there. Iran is too complicated for us to take credit.

    ReplyDelete
  53. 26 Billion for healthy food for the kiddies.

    Fatass can't pass an Ice Cream Parlour without sampling their wares.

    Do as she says, not ass she does.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Especially if the air conditioner don't work, which it didn't sometimes.

    Then you really lose the weight.

    But you come out of it being very attractive to the women!~

    ReplyDelete
  55. Think of a Coal Train, 1,000 miles long.

    China burns that

    Every Day.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Our Train would only be 330 Miles long.

    ReplyDelete
  57. The flight crew will take it off autopilot when necessary.

    I just saw Whit come in the back door with a big spanking brand new shovel. It is the top of the line BIGASS model.

    Damn thing now made in China.

    ReplyDelete
  58. I like her skin, Deuce. She's got good teeth, too, if you've noticed.

    ReplyDelete
  59. I see Rat's is going through the back threads and policing his butts.

    ReplyDelete
  60. Bob, I grew up driving a, I think it was, 1039 John Deere. You had to spin (definitely, the wrong word, maybe "turn" would be better) the flywheel to start it.

    No "power take-off." You jammed the floor-mounted lever forward to engage the trans. You yanked (again, not the best word - maybe pulled with all your might on) the rope to lift the plow out of the ground, and to drop it back down.)

    We made a living with that tractor, and a little ford, for several years until dad got a new JD around 1957, or so.

    ReplyDelete
  61. That thing probably had a top speed of about 5 mph. Drive all day? Until "Dark" thirty, hoss.

    ReplyDelete
  62. 1039 should have read 1939.

    ReplyDelete
  63. Deuce: My first job as a kid was to shovel cowshit from a barn. I will be getting out the shovel in the future on non-intelligent, infantile name-calling.

    "I saw they had the king and the duke with their feet tied to a rail. I KNEW it was them even though they were all covered in tar and feathers and didn’t even look human—they looked like a couple of enormous soldier plumes. It made me sick to see it, and I felt sorry for those poor pitiful rascals. After seeing them like that, I just didn’t think I could feel angry with them any more. It was just a dreadful thing to see. Human beings CAN be awfully cruel to one another."

    ReplyDelete
  64. Air-Conditioning on a "Tractor?"

    You gotta be shitting me?

    ReplyDelete
  65. My great grandfather had an old John Deere. I don't know what model it was but I remember from my childhood that it had a huge power takeoff flywheel, and the tractor seemed to bounce up and down with every turn of the rod. I think it must have been a two cylinder tricycle design.

    ReplyDelete
  66. Public schools across Hawaii closed on 17 Fridays during the past school year to save money, giving students the shortest academic year in the nation. This wouldn't be a problem, except that the Torpedo Intermediate Maintenance Activity in Pearl Harbor draws from the local pool for "talent" and they can't read their procedures, and I gotta fix everything they screw up.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Yeah, I used the wrong term, there. I should have said, "Power Lift." It had a "wheel" on the right side that you could strap a belt around to run, say, a conveyer for putting up silage.

    ReplyDelete
  68. That horizontal 2 makes a unique noise.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Pelosi and Fatass...

    Your taste in women escapes me, Bob.


    Hell, Deuce, I'm madly in love with Sarah Palin, and Melody.

    I can't help it, it's hopeless.

    ReplyDelete
  70. The funny thing is, that old low-compression, low rpm, super low-geared engine had pretty good "pulling" power. Not compared to today's tractors, of course, but it was pretty good in mud (in spite of the little narrow tires.)

    ReplyDelete
  71. Some might call it blackmail. The governor of Wyoming calls it desperation.

    Governor Dave Freudenthal is threatening to sell off a chunk of one of America's most beautiful national parks unless the Obama administration comes up with more money to pay for education in the financially beleaguered state.


    Teacher's unions.

    ReplyDelete
  72. Rufus, you wouldn't believe how quiet and nice these new combines are. It's just like sitting in an insurance office or a law office. I never had one, just the old 6602, but I've been in one, and they are NICE.

    ReplyDelete
  73. Husband goes back to Iraq and Afghanistan here very shortly.

    Will get him drunk and make him talk upon his return.

    ReplyDelete
  74. And they are actually less complex than the old ones. Believe it or not.

    Thank God for the Women of America!

    We couldn't have got here without 'em!

    ReplyDelete
  75. Best wishes to you,Trish.

    ReplyDelete
  76. ...and make him talk upon his return.

    Okay! We'll expect you to dish.

    ReplyDelete
  77. The preferred method and setting: At least six Snakebites and a nice campfire.

    ReplyDelete
  78. Grand Teton (Big Tits) National Park seems to be somewhere between 300,000, and 500,000 Acres.

    The State is threatening to sell 1,360 acres (that's already being used for cattle ranching.)

    I think the Republic will survive.

    ReplyDelete
  79. Trish, I don't know where you're from, but you ought to come out here to Idaho sometimes. I think you would really like it, especially McCall and down that aways. And the Salmon River is really beautiful.

    You fought for it, it's yours.

    ReplyDelete
  80. "Okay! We'll expect you to dish."

    Aber naturlich. The thing is getting HIM to dish.

    Man just does not dish. Much.

    ReplyDelete
  81. It's a Queen to Queen thingy bit

    The officials would not discuss how many security agents are traveling and said that number is determined not by the first lady but by the Secret Service. The staff members are present because the first lady in her official capacity will pay a visit to King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia on Sunday before heading home, they said.

    ReplyDelete
  82. It has nothing to do with "recessions," (they've been trying to sell it for 10 years,) or education (Wyoming is in pretty good shape;)

    It's all about a property that's worth, at least, $3 Million/Yr on which they're getting $3 thousand/yr.

    ReplyDelete
  83. Obamanation

    Sasha’s sister, Malia, 12, missed the trip while at summer camp, and President Obama celebrated his 49th birthday without his family, over dinner in Chicago with Oprah Winfrey and some personal friends. But the whole family will travel later this month to the Gulf Coast for a few days and then to Martha’s Vineyard for 10 days.

    ReplyDelete
  84. I think John Deere Tractor Company, and Catepillar, and Boeing make America.

    I'm all for some of these big American corporations.

    What the hell would we do without them?

    The machinery they have made is past understanding.

    You want to farm with horses, like grand dad?

    I'll take John Deere, any day of the year.

    ReplyDelete
  85. "Trish, I don't know where you're from..."

    I'm an Army Brat.

    That's where I'm from.

    I'd truly love to take a leisurely tour of the upper west.

    I'd like to take a couple of years and do nothing but see my own country.

    It'd sure make for good blogging.

    ReplyDelete
  86. The Tetons, I've been there.

    They are absolutely beautiful.

    I wish I had better language than that, but I don't.

    ReplyDelete
  87. Travelogues?

    Nah, we like "emotion," and "Conflict."

    ReplyDelete

  88. I'd like to take a couple of years and do nothing but see my own country.

    It'd sure make for good blogging.


    How exactly would you do that?

    ReplyDelete
  89. $3 Mil might be a little high. Somewhere between $1, and $2 Million/Yr, though.

    ReplyDelete
  90. A Digital Camera, an iphone, and a laptop (wireless card?)

    ReplyDelete
  91. I could drop in at each and every one of your private abodes and crack your heads with a baseball bat.

    Not that I fantasize about it much.

    ReplyDelete
  92. I'd like to take a couple of years and do nothing but see my own country.

    Who wouldn't?

    ReplyDelete
  93. Good luck finding mine (watch out for the moccassins, though.)

    ReplyDelete
  94. One of them 4 footers can ruin your whole weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  95. I could drop in at each and every one of your private abodes and crack your heads with a baseball bat.

    I would like just a hug, thank you very much.

    ReplyDelete
  96. "How exactly would you do that?"

    Um. You know. Like most people who do that. With some kind of recreational vehicle.

    ReplyDelete
  97. Do we dare organize an EB meet and greet?

    Geez, I don't know about that....

    ReplyDelete
  98. We would kill each other.

    ReplyDelete
  99. Interesting corn crop this year. They're expecting a record yield, but I'm kinda dubious.

    Iowa caught a snow right after planting, a bit too much rain, early, and it's been a little "Too" hot the last month, I think.

    Probably a "Good" crop, maybe not a record.

    ReplyDelete
  100. If I had me one of them big ol' air-conditioned combines I could spend the next month worrying about whether or not I could pay for it.

    ReplyDelete
  101. This is probably the best radio talk show on the air today. The John Batchelor Show

    I download to my Ipod and listen on the go but you can hear it online, too.

    ReplyDelete
  102. "I would like just a hug, thank you very much."

    : )

    ReplyDelete
  103. re Jack Johnson

    I was over in a market in Kailua a couple of months ago.

    Nice looking young woman had a Jack Johnson t-shirt on.

    Got a strange reaction from her when I asked where she got it.

    Got a stranger one when I apologized after her explanation.

    Told her I wasn't aware of the young guy's concert she'd been to. Said I thought her shirt had something to do with a re-issue of Miles Davis' Jack Johnson.

    (Miles kicks in at the deuce and a quarter mark...)


    .

    ReplyDelete
  104. With regards, whit, the US and its' alliances with Islam I can tell you this.

    The United States is in a precarious position. We are dependent upon the Semites of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf for our economic survival.

    We are addicted to an energy resource that is non-renewable and limited. A resource that the Islamic Semites control.

    US foreign policy reflects that reality. It is in the best interests of the people of the United States to maintain a very close relationship with the practitioners of Islam.

    To constantly claim that the US is at war with those Islamists, well, that actively undermines that aspect of US foreign policy.

    I have advocated for energy policies that would first diminish and then eliminate the need for those alliances. While those that claim that we are at war with Islam tend to support our continued addiction to petroleum products.

    Until the US retools its' economy, away from oil and to a renewable and domestically produced alternative, we are joined at the hip with Islam.

    That is the reality.

    As John "Maverick" McCain, standard bearer of the GOP says:
    Learn it, Live it, Love it!

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  105. Rama­dan, the month when Muslims fast from sun­up to sundown, starts Wednesday and ends Sept. 9.
    Avoid sex with wife.
    Do not behave foolishly and impudently and

    ... The fasting peo­ple refrain from food, drink, sexual relations, foolish behavior, and arguments.

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  106. Trish The Secesh River

    I shouldn't really be giving out my secrets but I will just for you.

    The Secesh is a delight, and you can take that camper, right over from McCall, in about a day.

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  107. And Here's Slate Creek


    There are dozens of high country lakes you can hike into, in the high Idaho back country.

    That's for you, Trish.

    I'll even give you a map!

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  108. And I mean to tell you, in those high country mountain lakes, the fish are big boomers, like 18-20 inches or so, and that's LARGE. They cruise around the shorelands of these little high mountain lakes, which you really have to work to, to get to, hike your ass off, but it's worth it, but watch out for the thunder storms. One time we were up there, it scared the shit out me.

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  109. Here's
    the main Salmon, with a little ice on it, at low flow.

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  110. Here's Payette Lake, and McCall, Idaho.

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  111. Here's
    The Yacht Club in McCall, where I lived when I was broke and out of college, but the rent was cheap and the fishing was great.

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  112. Nice place but seemed that some of the employees could use a drug test

    Well, that wasn't really the way it was when I was there.

    I actually went to church a few times.

    Between fishing.

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  113. Deuce said...
    Obamanation

    Sasha’s sister, Malia, 12, missed the trip while at summer camp, and President Obama celebrated his 49th birthday without his family, over dinner in Chicago with Oprah Winfrey and some personal friends. But the whole family will travel later this month to the Gulf Coast for a few days and then to Martha’s Vineyard for 10 days.

    ---

    I assert again:

    Nobody with this shmuck's "work ethic" could have written that book, or accomplished ANYTHING of real consequence.

    The GOP should buy him a Cadillac, send him a monthly welfare check, and free blow.
    Just to make the scene appear more authentic.

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  114. I heard he starts work @ 9:30 when he's occaisionally in the house.

    I had an evil, profit-driven entrepreneur as my landlord in an industrial property whose work day was largely done by 9:30.

    Mostly stayed there after that to keep an eye on things, enjoy people, and tip a few Heinekins.

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  115. BHO would tip his head back and look down his ugly snout at such a lout.
    ...and tax away his "excess profit"

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  116. About that big brouhaha over "Russian Wheat fires:"

    Those, plus a weak crop in Canada have knocked estimates for Global Production down from 670 Million Tonnes, to 650 Million Tonnes.

    About 3%.

    Famine is right around the corner, I guess.

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  117. The GOP should buy him a Cadillac, send him a monthly welfare check, and free blow.


    Now, Doug, I object to this.




    I'll be damned if I'm going for "Free" blow.

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  118. Incorporate in Panama, bank in Belize. Escape the financial clutches of the ObamaNation, if that matters to you.

    But do not bank in Panama, they'll more than give you up, now-a-days.

    But a Panamanian corporation, no one can even tell who owns it, but the fella actually holding the certificate.
    Not the Panamanian government, especially.

    While Belize bankers are still holding out against the IRS and other US regulators.
    Even more so than in the Caymans or Switzerland.

    Or pay the fair and equitable taxes owed to Uncle Sam, the choice is yours.

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  119. Russia doesn't export much Wheat, anyway.

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  120. Over an hour without Babble babble.

    Nap time in Idaho I reckon.

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  121. Where is Curtis when we need him?


    "But no one ever seems to mention Gen Curtis Lemay’s plans, made without knowledge of the atomic bomb. He was going to bring over the 8th and 15th Air Forces and with their 5000 B-17’s and B-14’s based on islands nearer to Japan, combined with 1500 B-29’s they literally were going to leave no two bricks stuck together in the entire country, fly down their railroads dropping bombs every 100 ft, and so forth. Not one big Hiroshima but thousands of little ones that would be more deadly."

    - RWE

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  122. It was what,1975 or something, when all of Russia dried up, and wheat prices shy rocketed. But old Linear wouldn't remember this, cause he's got one coming Alzheimer's, poor boy, and we can do nothing, but feel sorry.

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  123. on coming

    I made a typing mistake

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  124. I used to roll that big John Deere flywheel, get the two cylinders poppin', and when she was warmed up good, I'd rev her up and slam in that hand clutch lever. I could get the front wheels 4 feet off the ground in low gear.

    Dad was not pleased.

    You haven't shoveled shit until you've cleaned out a poultry house with about 6 inches of dried chicken litter on the floor. Each scoop releases a fog of ammonia, your eyes water, and every 3 minutes or so you stagger to the door for some fresh air. My boss was raisin' pheasants that year for a sportsmen's shootin' gallery. There were about a thousand juvenile birds in the same damned coop while I was shovelin', and every time I'd reenter, two thousand beady eyes on a thousand scrawny necks would track my every move. I was reminded of those days not too long ago when I stepped into a banquet hall at a senior center at lunch time. A hush fell over the place, and a couple hundred beady eyes again tracked my every move.

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  125. Tyler Cowen had a couple of pieces on the Korean War and its air campaign yesterday at marginalrevolution.com.

    Go look.

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  126. Ol' Curtis Lemay, notwithstanding, Doug, NO bombing campaign in history has been more than 20% effective. Eighteen Percent being the acknowledged number.

    No area was ever bombed to a greater extent than Berlin, and the streetcars were running when it was over.

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  127. It would have been a horrible bloodbath.

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  128. ...you left out the stench of ammonia.

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  129. When was it, Linear, you genius, when wheat prices went up so much?

    You're supposed to know this stuff.

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  130. I did that a'purpose, doug, so's your mind's nose would activate your tear ducts, and you'd cry in sympathy. It's a literary trick. Seems to work.

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  131. I fantasize some pleasant death, then to be recycled by a Cougar, or some such.
    Very Romantic.
    Unlike the banquet hall.

    The Inscription over my (empty) grave:

    DANG!

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  132. Hitchen's leavetaking should be interesting.
    Maybe I'll read him, for the first time.

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  133. We had a little small shed out back, LT. Mom sold a few eggs in town. We'd cut holes in the wall so you could just reach in, and get the eggs without having to go in the place. Of course, you couldn't see what you were doing; you were just feeling.

    I was probably six when I reached in there and got me a big old handful (and I mean BIG handful) of Black Snake. Yikes!

    I ain't never like snake, and I sure as hell didn't when I was six.

    Quite a noise, I made.

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  134. Doubt Hitch will be as profound as Warren Zevon:

    "Enjoy every sandwich."

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  135. Well, that just makes you a chicken shit scooper, nothing to be proud of, you moron.

    But I'm glad you had a working life.

    Makes for good men.

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  136. little small shed, as opposed to big small shed. :)

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  137. Our kitchen ceiling was filled with rat turds and piss.
    Pulling that down was a treat.

    Top THAT Mofo's!

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  138. ...also lived with Bats in the belfry, but I've already told that one a couple of times.
    (the one in which I plugged him with a pellet above our bed, and he proceeded to ooze.)

    If your name was Gore,
    you'd be weird, too.

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  139. Yeah, but them dairy barns had to be scooped out Every mf'in day. 365 mf'in days of the year. Every damned day of your poor little mf'in life!

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  140. Behave yourself, Babble.

    You've been warned.

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  141. Did you milk the ladies, Rufus?
    My basic spastic nature was on full display.
    ...course a few human females shared the same view.

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  142. Our neighbor's mini-dairy had a cement gutter leading to the creek.

    Not EPA approved.

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  143. Never milked a cow in my life, Doug. Dad only milked one "by hand" every now, and then. If one's udders were too sore for the machine, or whatnot.

    Glad I never got "checked out" on that end of the deal. We shut down the dairy operation when I was seven, or eight, I guess. It was a small operation, and along about that time Dad figured out that he could, actually, make a buck off that old sandhill raising watermelons, and canteloupes.

    We raised everything from potatoes, to onions, to sweet corn, to cotton, to beans, to wheat, to corn, to younameit; but the only thing that was a dependable moneymaker was the melons. You knew they would grow, and you knew the stores would buy'em.

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  144. Let me put it this way, Doug. There was about two acres behind the dairy barn that didn't need fertilizin, and could grow the hell out of anything you cared to plant.

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  145. Come to think of it, there might have been more to that story of shutting down the dairy than I was aware of. :)

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  146. What weapons did you employ against weeds, Rufus?

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  147. Mostly, Rufus, and a fucking hoe.

    And, that weren't no fucking "Ho," either.

    I wuz the "Ho."

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  148. We would "cultivate" the corn. That means we would run a shallow plow down the middles, and throw dirt up on the stalks, covering any weeds growing there.

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  149. I didn't mind the "choppin" all that much. I could stand up straight (I was a tall, skinny kid.)

    I hated that goddamned "pickin." Man, I hated that. Hardest work I've ever done. Miserable. We got out of school for a couple of weeks in the fall for "cotton-picking vacation." No shit. The city kids got a vacation, and we had to, actually, pick the damned stuff. Just thinking about it makes me want to jump off a bridge.

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  150. We raised everything from potatoes, to onions, to sweet corn, to cotton, to beans, to wheat, to corn, to younameit; but the only thing that was a dependable moneymaker was the melons. You knew they would grow, and you knew the stores would buy'.

    Sounds like home, except for the cotton. Sold the best from a stand out front, and kept the rest for winter. I don't ever remember eating store bought produce until I left home. Used to have to shovel snow to get at the "root cellar" hatch to bring in spuds and carrots and apples for the kitchen. Proceeds from the truck garden put my sister and me through college.

    Rich, black, deep bottomland soil. Dad grew the sweetest melons and the best sweet corn I've ever eaten, and that was after a 40-plus hour work week as a factory maintenance electrician.

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  151. The women had, I guess it was, five or six foot sacks. The mens' were longer, seven or eight feet, maybe. The kids used "Tow Sacks."

    You can't imagine how much cotton it takes to fill up fucking tow sack. A cotton row has to be the longest distance between two trees in the history of the universe.

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  152. We would "cultivate" the corn. That means we would run a shallow plow down the middles, and throw dirt up on the stalks, covering any weeds growing there.

    :-)

    I discovered when I double-clutched the tractor, I could slap it into "road gear" and cultivate with the shovels set shallow. Zoom! You had to have a steady hand and straight rows, otherwise you'd wipe out the crop real quick.

    Dad was not pleased.

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  154. I laugh when I read the brainii at the Oil Drum trying to figure out where to ride out the apocalypse. Cause I lived close by.

    The most survivable place in the United States, if not the planet would be over around the St. Francis River/Black River area.

    The climate of SE Missouri will grow something like 90 - 95% of All the world's crops, and with the rivers, and forests of the Ozarks/Crowley's Ridge you have sufficient game, and fish for a fairly healthy survival.

    Of course, that's why the Cherokee settled there. I like SEMO better than some of the southeastern locations because you can grow alfalfa there. That said, my second choice would just be to plop down anywhere that the Indians did, before. There's a reason why they were there.

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  155. "I was reminded of those days not too long ago when I stepped into a banquet hall at a senior center at lunch time..."

    So were you there for the food, LT, or just trolling for strays?


    .

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  156. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  157. "Road Gear" down through the middle of the corn crop. I can just see the old man looking back there and seein the John Deere whizzing through the corn field.

    That would, probably, have brought on just about the second worst whupping of my young life (the worst, and the one that would have never been close to being topped, being when, at age six, I called my mother an old bitch, and she heard me.) Bubba, let me tell ya, THAT word dropped out of my vocabulary for many, many years.

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  158. I'll leave that to your imagination, Q. Enjoy yourself.

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  159. Interesting that the "only" one who thought about "trolling" and "Senior Citizens Center" in the same context was our ol' buddy, Q.

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  161. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  162. A small utility, the Northern California Power Agency started building a $375 million, 280 MW natural gas combined-cycle plant that is able to ramp up to capacity quickly in responses to changes in load on both the supply and demand sides.

    The technology is 57% efficient, using a power train that uses a gas-fired turbine at the front end to generate electricity, but then reuses waste heat from the gas turbine to produce steam that is run through a steam turbine at the back-end to generate more electricity.


    This is what I see working in conjunction with thousands of small cellulosic ethanol plants - using biogas generated by way of anaerobic digestion from the lignin that's left over from the pretreatment/fermentation stages.


    Lodi installs Siemens Turbines

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  164. Uh, Q, trust me on this. Your granny is safe around Arkansans.

    You might want to keep an eye on the nieces, and younger cuzzins, tho.

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  165. :)

    I mean, it's not like Jerry Lee Lewis was from Mississippi, or anything.

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  166. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  167. It's all that snow, and shit. It just gets'em confused.

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  168. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  169. Hillbillies are just plain nice. You go out to the bar at the Holiday Inn on any Friday night, and you'll see those older businessmen treating the younger citizens to a night out.

    "Giving" people. Friendly.


    Charitable.

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  170. You'll notice I pulled my last two posts. Probably not a line that should be pursued.



    .

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  171. :) They weren't That bad.

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  172. :) Not that Good, either.

    ReplyDelete
  173. I know. You'll see I pulled the one about LT and the snake too.



    Gotta go walk the dog. He's been laying here looking at me for the past ten minutes.


    .

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  174. Sure, run everybody off, and then leave.

    Yankees

    ReplyDelete
  175. I know I didn't put'em to sleep with my "farm" stories. :)

    ReplyDelete
  176. May those who gave the last full measure of devotion find peace.

    Your Long Journey

    As you were.

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  177. Trish said:
    I'd like to take a couple of years and do nothing but see my own country.

    It'd sure make for good blogging.

    Deuce said:
    How exactly would you do that?

    Trish Said:
    Um. You know. Like most people who do that. With some kind of recreational vehicle.

    From the Hunt for Red October:


    Do you think they will
    let me live in Montana?

    I would think they'll
    let you live wherever you want

    Good.

    Then I will live in Montana and I will marry a round American woman
    and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me, and I will have a pickup truck...or...possibly even a recreational vehicle and drive from state to state.

    Do they let you do that?

    Yes.

    No papers?

    No papers.




    You should do it, Trish, while you can.

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  178. I should. I've kept up a correspondence with the round American woman but Montana does not have same sex marriage. Yet.

    ReplyDelete
  179. Course, that 'bigamy' thing might be a "stopper"

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  180. We are sending this out to T tonight.


    Ungodly Fruit


    .

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  181. Oh boy, we're having more of that window rattlin' lighting and thunder as I watch Q's dedication to T.

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  182. We had the biggest lightning storm of my life the other night but it's all passed over now.

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  183. I like the song a lot but to enjoy the music, I have to minimize the screen since the video leads to divided concentration.

    .

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  184. It would take little to get this woman to blog here. DR et al have the cred.

    No more bickering and carping. No more vomiting. Wow, she's got it all and could put the EB on the map.

    http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/08/07/roseanne-barr-nazi-leaders-hitler-goebbels-and-himmler-were-jewish">
    Roseanne Barr: Nazi Leaders Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler Were Jewish

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  185. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  186. Rufus and Ash, just a follow-up on my post of yesterday in which I called Krugman a political hack:

    "Showing intellectual integrity, The Tax Policy Center actually came to Ryan's defense this afternoon (hat tip Joseph Lawler at The American Spectator):

    Krugman alleges fraud because CBO did not score the revenue side of the Congressman's plan. (This is correct as the Joint Committee on Taxation is responsible for providing the official revenue score of tax legislation.)

    "Instead, CBO assumed that total federal tax revenues will be equal to "those under CBO's alternative fiscal scenario...until they reach 19 percent of gross domestic product in 2030, and to remain at that share of GDP thereafter." Contrary to Krugman's claims, this assumption is not unjustified.

    "Ryan has explicitly stated that he is willing to work with the Treasury department to adjust the rates on his tax reform plan to "maintain approximately our historic levels of revenue as a share of GDP." Since 1980 the federal tax revenue has been about 18 percent of GDP..."



    Now Who is the Flim-Flam Man Again?


    .

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  187. Yeah, they found one non-important instance where Krugman got carried away, and claim victory.

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  188. The U.S. insists on nuclear non-proliferation and non-enrichment pledges

    Until it doesn't

    "A Chinese newspaper ran a front-page story last week strongly hinting that China also is not happy about reports that Vietnam and the U.S. are negotiating a civilian nuclear fuel and technology deal that could allow Vietnam to enrich uranium on its own soil.

    "U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said China had not been consulted about the talks, but he would not discuss the specifics of the enrichment provision.

    "Congressional aides have said the agreement will likely not contain a no-enrichment pledge, which the U.S. promotes as the "gold standard" for civilian nuclear cooperation accords to ensure materials are not being used to build a nuclear weapon...


    U.S./Vietnamese Joint Military Maneuvers

    .

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