COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, December 23, 2013

Mission Accomplished: 8,000 U.S. dead, 40,000 wounded, $2 trillion sunk, Iraq and Libya disintegrating in tribal, civil and sectarian war, Afghanistan on the precipice, and al-Qaida no longer confined to Tora Bora but active in Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, Yemen and Syria. While America was caught up in these wars, China swept past Britain, France, Germany and Japan to emerge as the second largest economy on earth. Using her $250-$300 billion annual trade surpluses with the United States, she has been locking up resources across Africa, Latin America, Australia and Asia.

WHY NEO-ISOLATIONISM IS SOARING


By: Patrick J. Buchanan
12/20/2013 06:00 AM

“Neo-isolationism is the direct product of foolish globalism. … Compared to people who thought they could run the universe, or at least the globe, I am  neo-isolationist and proud of it.”
Those are not the words of an old America Firster, but the declaration of that icon of the liberal establishment Walter Lippmann in 1967, a year before he endorsed Richard Nixon.
In 1968, it was Nixon urging we stay the course in Vietnam, as Sens. Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy were clamoring for retreat and swift withdrawal.
In 1972, it was Democratic nominee George McGovern who would run on the neo-isolationist slogan “Come Home, America!” and win the endorsement of the New York Times and Washington Post.
Today, neo-isolationism, bred of that “foolish globalism” of which Lippmann wrote, has made a comeback. For the first time since polling began in 1964, it is the dominant sentiment of the nation.
According to a new Pew poll, 52 percent of Americans believe “the U.S. should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own.” Only 38 percent disagree.
Asked if the United States should think less in “international terms but concentrate more on our national problems,” Americans agree by 80-16, or a ratio of 5-to-1.
As Max Fisher of the Washington Post writes, this sentiment manifest itself decisively in the uprising last summer against U.S. intervention in Syria. Red line or no red line, the people told Obama, we want no part of Syria’s civil war. It is not our war. Obama belatedly agreed.
The roots of the new isolationism are not difficult to discern. There is, first, the end of the Cold War, the liberation of the captive nations of Europe, the dissolution of our great adversary, the Soviet Empire, and the breakup of the Soviet Union. The Cold War, our war, was over. Time to come home.
The Bushes and Bill Clinton said no.
So we let the New World Order crowd have its run in the yard. We invaded Panama, intervened in Haiti and Mogadishu, launched Desert Storm to liberate Kuwait, bombed Serbia for 78 days to force it to surrender its cradle province of Kosovo.
Came then the blowback of 9/11, following which we had the Afghan war to overthrow the Taliban and create a new democracy in the Hindu Kush, the invasion and occupation of Iraq to strip Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction he did not have, and the air war on Libya.
Others may celebrate the fruits of these wars but consider the costs:
A decade of bleeding with 8,000 U.S. dead, 40,000 wounded, $2 trillion sunk, Iraq and Libya disintegrating in tribal, civil and sectarian war, Afghanistan on the precipice, and al-Qaida no longer confined to Tora Bora but active in Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, Yemen and Syria.
While America was caught up in these wars, China swept past Britain, France, Germany and Japan to emerge as the second largest economy on earth. Using her $250-$300 billion annual trade surpluses with the United States, she has been locking up resources across Africa, Latin America, Australia and Asia.
Now Beijing has declared its own Monroe Doctrine to encompass the East and South China seas and all islands therein and to challenge the United States for hegemony over the Western Pacific.
Consider, now, what America was up to this past week.
Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was in Kiev, egging on protesters demanding the resignation of the elected president, should he choose a Russia-led customs union over the EU.
Will someone explain exactly what business it is of the United States which economic union Ukraine chooses to join, or not join?
Even as we are pushing Kiev toward the EU, conservative and populist parties are rising across Europe to get their countries out of the EU, including in Britain where the Tories are demanding a vote.
John (“We are all Georgians now!”) McCain was also in Kiev threatening sanctions if the government clears its main square of squatters the way we cleared Zuccotti Park of Occupy Wall Street.
The demand that Ukraine be gentle with its demonstrators was issued as the U.S. was lifting sanctions on Egypt’s army, which this year arrested President Mohammed Morsi, jailed thousands of Muslim Brotherhood, and mowed down hundreds in Cairo’s streets in an action John Kerry described as “restoring democracy.”
What hypocrites we must seem to the world.
Now, President and Mrs. Obama and Vice President Biden have, on the high moral ground that Russia has outlawed LBGT propaganda, declared they will not attend the Sochi winter Olympics.
Yet, are we not courting Iran? Did not Obama bow to the king of Saudi Arabia? When was the last time they had a gay pride parade in Riyadh, Tehran, Mecca or Qom?
How can a nation as polarized morally and paralyzed politically as ours lead the world? It cannot. The people sense what the elites cannot see.
The American Century is over. Time to restore the republic.

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?” 

THIS IS CHOICE:

236 comments:

  1. A fool makes a mistake but doesn’t see it. A greater fool repeats the mistakes. John McCain, my guy, occupies a space shared by few men; however, I falter in my ability to describe it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Replies
    1. I'll accept "sublime" if you mean the chemical process whereby a solid mass is turned directly into a vapor upon heating.

      Delete
  3. ...or is it criminal cantankerousness?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rat says the North Vietnamese fried his brain.

      I gotta finish that classic movie that I can't even remember now:

      The brainwashed Dude.

      Delete
    2. I rallied for Clean Gene in '68.

      Delete
    3. The North Vietnamese fried Rat's brain?

      I thought he was born that way.

      Either way, his brain is truly fried.

      Delete
    4. For some reason I thought it wasn't "The Manchurian Candidate."
      ...but it was.

      Delete
    5. DeuceMon Dec 23, 05:08:00 AM EST
      ...or is it criminal cantankerousness?

      I think not. He was deprived of glory in his war and vicariously seeks glory through the actions of others in their wars and struggles.

      Mr. McCain is a brilliant man living with a monumental case of PTSD. From the moment he attempts to rise from sleep each day and is stymied by irreparably damaged shoulders he is carried back to another time and place.

      Delete
    6. DougMon Dec 23, 06:33:00 AM EST
      Rat says the North Vietnamese fried his brain.

      ...Rat or McCain?

      Delete
  4. Libya and Syria are ripping successes. Iraq could have been if we'd divided it up like Miss T, I and Joe Biden suggested. Iraq may still be a success. Egypt is a great success. In Afghanistan the women are moderately better off, as long as we stay.

    Anything that weakens as Islamic state or Islam as a whole........

    What are you really complaining about here?

    We are definitely in a cultural war not of our making. Isolationism is not the answer.

    "Power grows out of the bombay of a B-52"

    ReplyDelete
  5. The answer to the literary pop question of the other day is:

    "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen"

    back to beddie......

    ReplyDelete
  6. War is a wonderful business. It'll be back.

    ReplyDelete
  7. House Lawmakers Press VA on Lobotomies

    As a Vietnam Vet, shouldn't Rufus be entitled to a brain scoop?

    The benefits to society would be enormous.

    ReplyDelete
  8. More troops to be deployed to South Sudan.

    ...President Barrack Hussein Obama.

    ReplyDelete
  9. South Sudan: US citizens evacuated from Bor
    US evacuates its citizens from strategic city amid heavy machine-gun fire, but Canadians, Britons and Kenyans trapped, UN official says

    Fleeing workers tell of brutal killings

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sounds like a good idea.

      Too bad folks were ignored in Ben Gazi.

      Delete
    2. Sacrificial Lambs.
      Hell, he mighta ben gay.

      Burmashave
      Ben Gay
      Obamacare

      Delete
    3. South Sudan: US citizens evacuated from Bor

      The violence began late on 15 December. The president of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, said last week that an attempted military coup had triggered the violence, and the blame was placed on former vice-president Riek Machar, an ethnic Nuer. Other officials have since said a fight between Dinka and Nuer members of the presidential guard triggered the fighting, which spiralled across the country.

      Analysts suggested that a tribal militia known as the White Army – from the Lou Nuer ethnic group – was moving toward Bor, which is populated by Dinkas. Lanzer said he could not say anything with precision about those reports.

      ---

      I'd probly side w/the Dinkas.

      ...it's such a cool moniker.

      Delete
    4. Dougie Dinka has a nice ring to it.

      Delete
    5. :)

      Dirty Dougie Dinka is even better.

      (that's a literary reference to Roethke's poem about Dirty Dinky - 'YOU may be Dirty Dinky')

      hardeharhar.....

      Delete

    6. “Participate in your life, don't just bear witness to the rain washing you away.”

      Delete
  10. Stevie Wonder Recreates 'Songs in the Key of Life' for Holiday Benefit

    John Mayer, Esperanza Spalding, Chick Corea and more join in at House Full of Toys concert.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nice that Stevie's ancestors made it across The Atlantic.

      Delete
  11. Maybe if I say "nice" enough, I'll forget who I'm missing?

    ...a lobotomy would probly have a higher success rate.

    ReplyDelete
  12. CRUZE CLEAN TURBO DIESEL†
    A NEW GENERATION OF DIESEL

    The all-new 2014 Cruze Clean Turbo Diesel combines maximized efficiency and impressive performance. Its 2.0L turbocharged clean diesel engine boasts an SAE-certified 151 horsepower and 264 lb.-ft. of low-end torque — more than Volkswagen Jetta TDI. Plus, with an EPA-estimated 46 MPG highway, it offers the best fuel economy of any gas-only or diesel car in America†. And the best thing is, Cruze Clean Turbo Diesel emissions are below strict U.S. environmental standards. New technologies including exhaust gas recirculation, selective catalyst reduction, a particulate filter and advanced fuel system components allow the diesel engine in Cruze to generate at least 90% less nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions than previous generation diesels and very low particulate emissions.

    Like to have that.

    ...if it didn't have touch screen controls.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I want one too........Santa !

      Delete






  13. CNN poll: ObamaCare support cratering at 35/62


    posted at 8:01 am on December 23, 2013 by Ed Morrissey






    People still have two more days to get their Christmas shopping completed, but the deadline for enrolling in ObamaCare is today — and people are even less inclined to view it as a gift than ever. A new CNN poll shows ObamaCare approval at an all-time low, and disapproval at an all-time high, with a 35/62 rating, thanks to an exodus of women from the ranks of supporters:


    Only 35% of those questioned in the poll say they support the health care law, a 5-point drop in less than a month. Sixty-two percent say they oppose the law, up four points from November.

    Nearly all of the newfound opposition is coming from women.

    “Opposition to Obamacare rose six points among women, from 54% in November to 60% now, while opinion of the new law remained virtually unchanged among men,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. “That’s bad news for an administration that is reaching out to moms across the country in an effort to make Obamacare a success.”

    Last week, Barack and Michelle Obama urged moms to start chatting up strangers in grocery stores to discuss ObamaCare. Maybe they’d like to rethink that idea. If moms start talking about ObamaCare in grocery stores these days, they’d be more likely to discuss why they can’t buy enough groceries because of the expense.

    The 35% support level is the lowest since CNN started polling on the question after the bill’s passage. (The historical data shows a 29% approval rating in June 2011, but that appears to be a typo, as it also shows 39% approval in the same poll when broken down into too liberal/not liberal enough opposition responses.) This is the first time that opposition in the CNN poll has hit 60%, too. The 27-point split in the gap is the highest in the poll, and a nine-point jump in a month.

    By the way, the opposition to ObamaCare is nearly identical for all income types. The approval rating for those making less than $50K is 35/60; above $50K, it’s 36/63. Among those 18-34 years of age, the approval rating is 38/59. That’s bad news for Democrats.

    CNN offers this thought on the idea that 15% of people think it’s not liberal enough:


    According to the survey, 43% say they oppose the health care law because it is too liberal, with 15% saying they give the measure a thumbs down because it is not liberal enough. That means half the public either favors Obamacare, or opposes it because it’s not liberal enough, down four points from last month.

    Talk about a stretch! And even that doesn’t hold up, as the artificial support/too conservative is declining, too. Here’s a better measure of what people think about the Affordable Care Act: 63% of respondents think that it’s going to make their health care cost more, compared to only 28% who think it will stay the same — and only 7% who think it’s going to make it more affordable. The last time CNN polled on that question was September 2009, when a majority thought it would make no difference or help it cost less (51%) as compared to 47% who thought it would make it more expensive. As the price tag becomes clear, so does the opposition based on its reality.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The women are finally catching on.........danger ahead........watch out !!

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

      Delete
  14. GREAT !!!!

    My special Christmas Gift to Quirk has shipped and should be under his tree on Christmas Eve -

    https://www.flipeez.com/?MID=4315440

    He can use during the New Year's Celebrations, too !!!!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Rufus IIMon Dec 23, 02:18:00 AM EST
    Approx. 8.4 Million Americans now have health coverage as a result of Obamacare.

    Does that number include the approximately 5,000,000 Americans forced into catastrophic polices?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete

    4. “His own chocolate center has filled up with poison,
      the roses he gave her all twisted black”

      ― Terra Elan McVoy, After the Kiss

      Delete

    5. “You don’t get to rewrite it to suit some warped view you have of the past and your own present.”

      Delete
    6. Hey Deuce, why not delete the incomplete misleading quote by the unnamed coward of the blog?

      I don’t need your advice, but beat you to it.

      Delete
  16. So should Israel arrest whoever spied on their prime ministers?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. “The days hardened with cold and boredom like last year's loaves of bread. One began to cut them with blunt knives without appetite, with a lazy indifference.”

      ― Bruno Schulz, The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories

      Delete
    2. from debka.

      Many Israelis were scandalized when documents released by Edward Snowden revealed that their best friend, America, had in 2009 targeted a former prime minister and defense minister for secret surveillance. But their political leaders were not surprised. For years, the United States has been running a complex eavesdropping and surveillance web to spy on friends and foes alike, including Israel. Satellites gather and transmit data to command centers, “informers” operate in the field and the most fertile sources of all are not human but the instruments which bug cell phones, tablets and social networks.
      The US National Security Agency, NSA, exposed by its former agent the whistleblower Edward Snowden, can monitor these devices whenever it wants, just by beaming its instruments at a defined country, location, group of people or topics.
      If, for instance, NSA electronically obtains a list of Israeli servicemen, their cell phone numbers and credit cards, its monitors can keep each one under constant surveillance.
      The same applies to the personnel of Israel’s Air Force, Aerospace industry and other high-tech military manufacturers, such as Elbit and Rafael. Those lists may safely be assumed to be already in the agency’s hands.
      To collect videos and images, American spy agencies only have to pan through such data gold mines as YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest, the last of which was recently crowned Content Curation. This is because Pinterest does much of the intelligence watchers’ work for them by assorting the material according to subject and field of interest and so unknowingly providing them with neat data packages.
      The network catching on like wildfire of late is WhatsApp.
      It is also a favorite of Israel’s elementary schoolchildren for swapping their thoughts and news.
      A child may explain he or she can’t join the gang that afternoon because his or her father, an Air Force colonel or captain of a naval vessel, is just home from Crete or Sardinia. This will tell the eavesdropper that Israeli crews have been changed at those bases.
      An Israeli officer driving his car only has to consult Waze for a short cut to his secret destination to reveal it to a clandestine watcher.

      Delete
    3. So who controls these armies of spies and directs their focus?
      Those are murky waters which are virtually uncharted, as President Barack Obama implied obliquely in the comments he made at his end-of-year news conference Friday, Dec. 20. To still the uproar against indiscriminate spying on Americans, he promised a review and possibly reforms of the NSA, adding tellingly: “Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we necessarily should.”
      Snowden’s revelations about the spies sitting on the phones of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Brazilian President Dilma Roussef have got Washington into hot water. They also revealed the negligence of their own security services.
      However, Israel, to our certain knowledge, has lived with this unwanted American attention from its earliest days. In the 1980s, when the late Menahem Begin was prime minister, an odd-looking vehicle sprouting a forest of antennae stood permanently and quite visibly beneath his office window in Jerusalem.
      His staff identified it quite frankly as a mobile American listening station. The measures used later were a lot more sophisticated. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and other Israeli officials, in their turn, had their e-mails intercepted regularly.
      But after 2009, Washington introduced a high-powered, multilayered system of intelligence-gathering – especially against Israel, about which neither Snowden nor the Israelis have been forthcoming. This system had a single narrow focus: to pick up the slightest murmur or clue suggesting that Israel was about to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, which it had threatened to do without prior notice to Washington.
      Listening in on the laconic conversations Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held with Ehud Barak was not enough. What the spies were told to look for was out-of-the-way conduct, such as an order placed suddenly for a large quantity of aircraft fuel, or the import of an unusual amount of emergency medical equipment.
      At the high noon of this period of mistrust, US officers of the highest ranks began dropping in on Israel with increasingly frequency. Every week to ten days, some many-starred general or fast-talking Pentagon official arrived for a visit. They were told to ferret out any signs of Israel getting ready for an attack on Iran in time for Washington to step in and stop it.
      These emissaries had two directives:
      1. To maintain a tight grip on the prime minister, defense minister and chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz and other IDF generals and keep them in sight at all times;
      2. To pick up on their every nuance of speech or behavior for signals of hidden activity too subtle for monitoring devices to register.
      The tempo of these visits tapered off when Washington concluded that Israel had given up on a military strike on Iran at that stage.
      However, the spying did not.
      DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources report that in recent months Israeli complained to the Obama administration about hotel suites which undercover agents had rented in Jerusalem at sites overlooking a secret military installation frequented by high Israeli officials for their most private consultations. The Netanyahu government asked Washington to stop this underhand surveillance. But meanwhile certain other - less friendly - Western spy agencies had caught on and took suites at the same location.
      The conclusion from these incidents is that US clandestine surveillance of Israel is unlikely to stop in the foreseeable future – and not just against key figures and military personnel, but also involving economic and industrial espionage.
      To combat the expanding exposure of its secrets, Israel has been introducing “sterile spaces” impenetrable to illicit penetration as well as using tricks to misdirect attention. However, the Americans and other interested parties keep on looking for holes in these barriers - and so the contest goes on.

      Delete
    4. http://www.debka.com/article/23548/Not-just-the-NSA-US-spies-rent-a-Jerusalem-hotel-suite-to-watch-a-secret-Israeli-site

      Delete
    5. So it's clear that America spied on Israel.

      Should allies that spy on one another understand this as the way they game is played?

      Israel is not surprised.

      Maybe it's time for some honesty in our spy biz....

      All nations spy on one another, friend and foe alike.

      This is not news.

      In fact? I'd be disappointed if the USA DIDNT spy on allies (as well as enemies)...

      Delete
  17. I would welcome the opportunity to sit with the BBC’s news and current affairs chiefs to outline the need for the truth of history.

    If such a meeting took place the main point I would stress, fully documented,
    is that Zionism’s claim that Israel has lived and still lives in danger of annihilation is propaganda nonsense to facilitate the assertion that Israel is the victim (when actually it is the aggressor and oppressor) and ...

    ... must be free to act with impunity in any way it thinks fit,
    even when its actions demonstrate contempt for international law
    and the human and political rights of the Palestinians. But there will be no such meeting.

    Partly out of fear of offending Zionism too much and provoking its wrath, the BBC’s news and current affairs chiefs have no desire to put the truth about the making and sustaining of the Israel-Palestine conflict on their agenda.

    And the same can be said of virtually all the mainstream media’s editorial executives.>


    http://www.redressonline.com/2013/12/the-enduring-power-of-zionisms-propaganda-lies/

    ReplyDelete
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    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    2. The Sad Lesson of Alan Hart

      Hart blames this alleged Zionist victory in the propaganda war on a lack of financial support for those trying to write and speak out for Palestinian justice...

      Hart feels it is mainly wealthy Palestinians and other Arabs who have failed to support pro-Palestinian activists...

      According to his own explanation, his decision to leave the struggle is connected to the fact that Arab publishers and media failed to financially support and promote his recent book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews.

      This was a great disappointment to him because the Arab media had serialized his prior work on Yasser Arafat and this had brought him “a significant income.” He had obviously made the assumption that the situation would repeat itself.

      So strong was that expectation that, as Mr. Hart tells us in his resignation statement, he made certain decisions, such as mortgaging his property in order to support the production of the Zionism study, which have now brought him into financial distress. Hart appears to see the failure of Arab money to come to his assistance as indicative of Arab failure to support the Palestinian cause.


      Money, Money, Money

      Delete
    3. The Hegelian DialecticMon Dec 23, 11:00:00 AM EST


      Abusive Ad Hominem occurs when an attack on the character or other irrelevant personal qualities of the opposition—such as personal finances—are offered as evidence against their position.

      Delete
    4. The Hegelian DialecticMon Dec 23, 11:00:00 AM EST :-D))

      Alan Hart made statements in his so-called Letter of Resignation. Among those was his disappointment at the failure of Arabs to munificently fund his work, e.g. a significant income.

      Quoting a confession venality is not ad hominem.


      You did not read the article, did you?

      Delete
  18. The Five Most Deadly and Expensive Military Weapons

    I would disagree with #1 on the matter of lethality. All are grounded at the moment following inspections of the fleet.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. I'll get my sign-on or ...

      ... there will be ...

      No Christmas!


      Grinch

      Delete
    2. .

      I find it strange that someone who has failed to advance beyond simple cut-and-paste has the temerity to criticize someone else's technical capabilities or imagination.

      “there are other simpler ways that we also support for people who are less technical.”

      Perhaps, these are more fitted to our rat.

      Long ago, rat gave up any allusion to independent thought instead adopting the 'thinking is hard' approach of cut-and-paste using others' thoughts and words as his only means of expression. Recently, he (evidently having run out of quotes in Bartlett's) offers us the same tired quotations over and over again in a monotonous endless loop like some irritating muzak stream. Wash, rinse, repeat. Wash, rinse, repeat. Wash, rinse, repeat.

      And today, we see the devolution continues. In an attempt to strip his continuous loop of all meaning, he even eschews the idea of context and relevance.

      The rat is our own little

      The Farmer Says

      toy, bleating and mooing his way through each stream, trivial and meaningless background noise.

      While the constant quacks and oinks are annoying, they would be tolerable, fading from consciousness like the babble of white noise from background radiation, were it not for doofi
      like WiO who continues to push the buttons and pull the lever and then stomps his foot in petulance like a spoilt three year old when the box that is the rat goes 'Quack' instead of 'Moo.'

      .


      Delete
    3. :-) My kids loved that toy.

      Delete

    4. I knew that nobody could be on the blog week after week as themselves and exist for any length of time, because no one has that rich a personality....

      So I knew that I had to create some characters.

      JACKIE GLEASON

      Delete

    5. The facts are always friendly, every bit of evidence one can acquire,
      in any area, leads one that much closer to what is true.


      Carl Rogers

      Delete
    6. While the constant quacks and oinks are annoying, they would be tolerable, fading from consciousness like the babble of white noise from background radiation, were it not for doofi
      like WiO who continues to push the buttons and pull the lever and then stomps his foot in petulance like a spoilt three year old when the box that is the rat goes 'Quack' instead of 'Moo.'


      Quirk, if you were to read the sequence of posts you would find that i ONLY push buttons AFTER rat leaves a dropping.

      More accuracy of your criticisms would be appreciated in the future.

      Delete


    7. The notion of Judaism as a “race”, rather than a religion of various races, is without foundation.

      The results of a recently published study by Israeli-American geneticist Dr Eran Elhaik at John Hopkins University have scientifically and genetically validated Sand’s research

      The idea of a “nation race” was progressively developed and reinforced over centuries among segregated Jewish communities in Europe.

      With the rise of German nationalism in the 19th century, Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz “retrospectively” crafted a discrete identity for the ghettoized people –  mapping their origin to an old kingdom and wandering exiles.
      The exiles tales transpired from a Christian myth of “divine punishment” imposed on Jews for rejecting the new religion.

      The parable is likely to have originated from the Old Testament story of Jews wandering the desert for disobeying God and worshipping a golden calf.
      Christians propagated the concept of exile to lure “disobeying” Jews to the new religion, becoming their saviour from another eternal banishment.

      Modern political Zionism, which otherwise rejects the Christian Bible, adopted the untested story of “Jewish exile” to establish a mythical linkage between European Jews and the Middle East.

      But Jewish history tells us that the Romans did not expel the original Jews from Palestine when they crushed the Simon bar Kokhba revolt in 136 AD but instead barred them only from city of Jerusalem – and even then they were allowed to visit it during Tisha B’Av, the annual fasting day on the ninth day of the month of Av in the Hebrew calendar.

      Under Christianity and during the Roman Empire a large number of native Jews converted to Christianity and, with the advent of Islam, most adopted the new religion and assimilated under the new power.

      In addition to the descendants of the Canaanites, the original denizens before patriarch Abraham’s arrival from Mesopotamia, Sand concludes that today’s Muslim and Christian Palestinians are actually the true progenies of the original Jews.


      Delete
    8. .

      Accuracy?

      Let me provide some.

      You and rat are like two three year olds, one vacuous and lacking imagination, the other giving credence to the first's ridiculous brain farts through childish temper tantrums and blustering.

      The rat won't go away. You keep him alive, you moron. As a matter of fact, you two share a sick co-dependency. Without each other to feed off of it's unlikely we would see much of either of you.

      .

      .

      Delete
    9. I strongly disagree.

      However I did notice a LACK of specifics in your retort.

      I go away and the Rat continues unabated.

      Try reading with an open mind for a while, notice the pattern of attacks HE makes. Against Bob, Allen, myself?

      You gave me to much credit for Rat's insane behavior.



      Delete
    10. .

      Oh, I don't give anyone credit for your insane behavior, rat. I realize you come by that all on your own.

      Could have been licking those toads early in life but it's gone too far to be blaming them now.

      .

      Delete

  20. “Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root...
    Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace,
    but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used,
    for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets
    but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish,
    the ideals to which we are dedicated.”

    ― Ronald Reagan, The Quest for Peace, the Cause of Freedom

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. “Someday, the realm of liberty and justice will encompass the planet.

      Freedom is not just the birthright of the few,
      it is the God-given right of all His children, in every country. It won't come by conquest.

      It will come, because freedom is right and freedom works.
      It will come, because cooperation and good will among free people will carry the day.”

      ― Ronald Reagan

      Delete
  21. The Most Underreported Foreign News Stories of 2013

    The most underreported foreign news story of 2013 is the pogrom against Christians in Islamic countries...

    The pogrom is the inexorable result of Islamic teaching and Western indulgence. It is, after all, directed at Christians because there are no more Jews left to persecute.

    Having established these principles, Islamic supremacists have now turned their hostile attention to the remaining Christian minorities in the Middle East.


    Predictably, elections were contested on explicitly sectarian terms, with Christians portrayed as “enemies of Islam” and obstacles to the majority vision of a caliphate established pursuant to sharia tenets. Massacres against Christian communities and the torching of Christian churches and homes became standard fare.

    Meanwhile in Iraq, where the United States endorsed the adoption of a sharia constitution, the United Nations estimates that a million Christians have fled the country in the last decade. In Syria, Christians are systematically targeted by the Sunni jihadists waging a civil war against the Assad regime. Thousands of Christians were evacuated from Sudan this year because the Islamic-supremacist government regards them as enemies of the sharia state.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mahdi Darius NazemroayaMon Dec 23, 11:44:00 AM EST

      The Eradication of the Christian Communities of the Middle East

      It is no coincidence that Egyptian Christians were attacked at the same time as the South Sudan Referendum and before the crisis in Libya.

      Nor is it a coincidence that Iraqi Christians, one of the world’s oldest Christian communities,
      have been forced into exile, leaving their ancestral homelands in Iraq.

      Coinciding with the exodus of Iraqi Christians, which occurred under the watchful eyes of U.S. and British military forces, the neighbourhoods in Baghdad became sectarian as Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims were forced by violence and death squads to form sectarian enclaves.

      This is all tied to the Yinon Plan and the reconfiguration of the region as part of a broader objective.

      In Iran, the Israelis have been trying in vain to get the Iranian Jewish community to leave.

      Iran’s Jewish population is actually the second largest in the Middle East and arguably the oldest undisturbed Jewish community in the world.

      Iranian Jews view themselves as Iranians who are tied to Iran as their homeland, just like Muslim and Christian Iranians, and for them the concept that they need to relocate to Israel because they are Jewish is ridiculous.

      In Lebanon, Israel has been working to exacerbate sectarian tensions between the various Christian and Muslim factions as well as the Druze.

      Lebanon is a springboard into Syria and the division of Lebanon into several states is also seen as a means for balkanizing Syria into several smaller sectarian Arab states.

      The objectives of the Yinon Plan are to divide Lebanon and Syria into several states on the basis of religious and sectarian identities for Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, Christians, and the Druze.

      There could also be objectives for a Christian exodus in Syria too.

      The new head of the Maronite Catholic Syriac Church of Antioch,
      the largest of the autonomous Eastern Catholic Churches,
      has expressed his fears about a purging of Arab Christians in the Levant and Middle East.

      Patriarch Mar Beshara Boutros Al-Rahi and many other Christian leaders in Lebanon and Syria are afraid of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover in Syria.
      Like Iraq, mysterious groups are now attacking the Christian communities in Syria.

      The leaders of the Christian Eastern Orthodox Church, including the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, have also all publicly expressed their grave concerns. Aside from the Christian Arabs, these fears are also shared by the Assyrian and Armenian communities, which are mostly Christian.

      Sheikh Al-Rahi was in Paris where he met President Nicolas Sarkozy.
      It is reported that the Maronite Patriarch and Sarkozy had disagreements about Syria, which prompted Sarkozy to say that the Syrian regime will collapse.
      Patriarch Al-Rahi’s position was that Syria should be left alone and allowed to reform.

      The Maronite Patriarch also told Sarkozy that Israel needed to be dealt with as a threat if France legitimately wanted Hezbollah to disarm.

      It has been reported that Sheikh Al-Rahi was told in Paris by President Nicolas Sarkozy that the Christian communities of the Levant and Middle East can resettle in the European Union.

      This is no gracious offer.

      It is a slap in the face by the same powers that have deliberately created the conditions to eradicate the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East.

      The aim appears to be either the resettling of the Christian communities outside of the region or demarcate them into enclaves. Both could be objectives.

      Delete
    2. OMG! Yes, it must be a conspiracy involving Israel as chief demon. Why didn't I think of that.

      Goodness, you are so clever.

      Rubbish!

      Delete
    3. In Lebanon, Israel has been working to exacerbate sectarian tensions between the various Christian and Muslim factions as well as the Druze.

      Lebanon is a springboard into Syria and the division of Lebanon into several states is also seen as a means for balkanizing Syria into several smaller sectarian Arab states.

      The objectives of the Yinon Plan are to divide Lebanon and Syria into several states on the basis of religious and sectarian identities for Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, Christians, and the Druze
      ***********

      If that's the plan, sounds like a good plan to me.....probably make for a more peaceful less aggressive place in the long run.....

      Delete
    4. What are the psychological forces at play in conspiracy thinking?

      Basically what’s happening in any conspiracy theory is that people have a need or a motivation to believe in this theory, and it’s psychologically different from evidence-based thinking. A conspiracy theory is immune to evidence, and that can pretty well serve as the definition of one. If you reject evidence, or reinterpret the evidence to be confirmation of your theory, or you ignore mountains of evidence to focus on just one thing, you’re probably a conspiracy theorist. We call that a self-sealing nature of reasoning.

      Delete

    5. “He was nothing but a conduit, after all, and there isn't a culvert in the world that remembers the water flowed through it once the rain has stopped.”

      ― Stephen King, The Green Mile

      Delete
  22. PRINCE CHARLES COMES THROUGH FOR CHRISTIANS

    “I have for some time now been deeply troubled by the growing difficulties faced by Christian communities in various parts of the Middle East,” he said.

    “It seems to me that we cannot ignore the fact that Christians in the Middle East are increasingly being deliberately targeted by fundamentalist Islamist militants.

    Christianity was literally born in the Middle East

    Charles said Christians now accounted for 4 per cent of the population in the Middle East and North Africa – the lowest concentration in the world....



    "The reality is that Christians are being exterminated..."

    Christians have lived in the ME and North Africa since the beginning. St. Augustine was a North African. So, the Muslims cannot argue that Christians are occupiers of Islamic land. Hmm...That would seem to leave us with the fact ethnic and religious cleansing is stock and trade of Islam. Christians are targeted because they are Christians. Could this say something profound about Jews? Yes, I think so.

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

      Delete
    2. Last I read the Christians weren't being exterminated by the Jews......

      I've read that both Jews and Christians are being exterminated by Moslems,,,,

      Delete
    3. AnonymousMon Dec 23, 12:10:00 PM EST
      Last I read the Christians weren't being exterminated by the Jews......

      What are the psychological forces at play in conspiracy thinking?

      Basically what’s happening in any conspiracy theory is that people have a need or a motivation to believe in this theory, and it’s psychologically different from evidence-based thinking. A conspiracy theory is immune to evidence, and that can pretty well serve as the definition of one. If you reject evidence, or reinterpret the evidence to be confirmation of your theory, or you ignore mountains of evidence to focus on just one thing, you’re probably a conspiracy theorist. We call that a self-sealing nature of reasoning.

      Delete

    4. Three key features characterize Israeli apartheid:

      • Four million Palestinians in the Occupied Territories lack the right to vote for the government that controls their lives through a military occupation.

      In addition to controlling the borders, air space, water, tax revenues, and other vital matters pertaining to the Occupied Territories,
      Israel alone issues the identity cards that determine the ability of Palestinians to work and their freedom of movement.


      • About 1.2 million Palestinian Israelis, who make up 20 percent, or one-fifth, of Israel’s population, have second-class citizenship within Israel, ...
      ... which defines itself as a Jewish state rather than a state for all its citizens.

      More than 20 provisions of Israel’s principal laws discriminate, either directly or indirectly, against non-Jews, according to Adalah: The Legal Center for Minority Rights in Israel.

      Millions of Palestinians remain refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere, unable to return to their former homes ...
      ... and land in present-day Israel.

      Even though the right of return for refugees is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.




      bob

      Delete
    5. desert rat,

      When you start wars and lose, there are consequences. Tough.

      Germany started a war in 1939. It lost that war after the butchery of tens of millions of human beings. After peace was restored the ethnic Germans of Eastern Europe were forcibly repatriated to Germany. The number affected approached 2,000,000. Of these, at least 500,000 died of exposure, starvation, dehydration, and murder. Perhaps 2,000,000 million German POWs died in like manner.

      After the Armistice of 1949, some Jewish political figures demanded that all Muslims be driven out of the new country, Israel, following the example of the Allies with the Germans. This strategy was strangled in the cradle. Israel took the decision that Muslims living within the confines of Israel at the end of hostilities could remain. Moreover, Israel went so far as to politically enfranchise these Muslims. Hence, today about 2,000,000 live within Israel, demonstrating no desire to fall into the grasp of either Hamas or Fatah.

      Again, when you start wars and lose, there are consequences. Tough.

      As an aside, there are now about 4,500,000 Syrian refugees spread across the ME. I have not heard you utter a word of sympathy about their plight. They are identical to the Palestinians, as you say, “It’s in the blood.” So, where is your outrage about the contemporary brutalizing of Muslims by other Muslims? Where will I find post after post expressing your tender affection for these poor souls and rabid chastisement of their oppressors – Muslims? I have not and will not see this from you because you are pathologically obsessed with Jews and harming them in any way you can. You have no more use for Palestinians or Muslims than a cat has for a mouse. You are a racist.



      Delete
  23. Wow, it's seems that this blog has turned over a new leaf...

    I am IMPRESSED.

    ReplyDelete
  24. rat must be taking a crap right now.......

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And 'bob' has been arrested for impersonating an officer......

      Delete
    2. 6 or 7 decent posts in a row, a record....

      Delete
  25. Replies
    1. Amazing.

      Had a neighbor that carved a bear out of a tree stump, but he was rank amateur compared to that.

      Delete
    2. "And in the image of G-d created He man."

      It is estimated that the amount of information contained within the average human brain could fill two sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The trick is gaining access.

      Delete
  26. A great way to keep up with Moslem slaughter of everyone else around the world each day is to read JihadWatch regularly. You will probably get sick of it, but one needs to be reminded.......

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The way you Islamaphobes talk about Islam reminds me of how the Germans (an others) talked about Jews in the early 20th century.

      Delete
    2. Ash,

      You deny that Christians are being systematically persecuted by officials of Islamic governments, e.g. Egyptian police? You deny that Christians are being driven from their ancestral homes by Islamic governments and their agents? You deny the veracity of Prince Charles? Are those of us who refuse to turn a blind-eye from the obvious ethnic and religious cleansing "Islamaphobes"?

      By the way, I do not fear Muslims, but I do understand them and the corrosive impact of the political manifesto called the Quran. Whether you accept the Quran as the absolute word of god is neither here nor there. Many other educated Muslims do not. However, hundreds of millions of ignorant souls do understand it as binding, with violations punishable by death in this life and eternal hell in the next. They too get a vote.

      As to how Germans (including German tribes) talked about Jews, you would have to examine literature dating back to the 5th C. CE. I doubt you have done this. You will find nothing comparable in Jewish literature, no matter the level of persecution.

      Delete
    3. The only way to explain that comment is that you are a nitwit, dear Ash.

      I will start to post from JihadWatch all this incidents concerning Canada.

      The news today was a lot about Nigeria and the Sudan.

      Since that is so far away from your stomping grounds I am assuming you could care less.......

      They are after all just killing Christians mostly in those places......an occasional atheist, women, some seculars, like you......

      "What Me Worry" - Ash

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

      Delete
    5. Sure there are problems in the Middle East - many bad acts have and are occurring. Stereotypes arise from the actual. The same goes for the Jews and the complaints many had of them arose from actuality. That does not, however, justify the persecution of the whole group based on such a broad classification. Some folk use these stereotypes and believe that 'they' are less than human. Many bad things can follow...

      Delete
    6. Jews do not believe that the Palestinians are not human. They are all too human and, therefore, dangerous. Every poll taken within the last ten years among Palestinians shows a rejection of Israel's right to exist. Moreover, each poll has shown a large majority favor terrorism as an instrument of policy. When the same polls are conducted across the Muslim world, the results are much the same. Since I have posted these polls repeatedly, I will not waste my time doing so again. For those interested Pew is a good place to start.

      Accepting people at their word through polling data is not stereotyping; rather, it is the sensible recoginition of fact. Those liberal Jews who refuse the data are stereotyping; implying that the Arabs are too ignorant to make an independent judgment and, therefore, their elites know what is best. Such a viewpoint is not only arrogant to the extreme; it equally as dangerous.

      Delete
    7. .

      You are wasting your time, Ash.

      The ME is a lost cause. The best thing about it is its resources. The worst thing about it is its people. It's always been such. I can appreciate the point you are trying to make. The millions of mothers sitting in refugee camps watching their kids fade away from famine likely could give a shit about whether someone is Jewish or Sunni or Christian or Shia. But those mothers and kids matter little. It's the leaders there that chart the course of events and they are all the same from Abdullah to Assad to Erdogen to Abbas to Netanyahu. They all seek regional hegemony and they use religion as an excuse to push their ends . It is evident from their actions.

      We get the same spittle from the dicks here. Rat on the one side, instigating and inciting, our own little The Farmer Said toy, with his endless loop of Israeli/Jewish invective. On the other side, WiO and his bros who delight in the deaths of thousands of those same innocents you refer to.

      It's a sick world over there. And we have enough of our own on this blog clustered at the lowest end of the sick-o-meter. No need to get involved in the ME. The boys in D.C. have already proven themselves incapable of doing anything positive and effective there.

      .

      Delete
    8. Allen wrote:
      "Jews do not believe..."

      hmmm, the unanimity of Jews? Are you familiar with the tendency for abuse victims to abuse themselves? Entirely possible it could happen on a larger societal scale - no?

      Delete
    9. Well, Ash, since we seem responsible for all the world's ills, we are, at the very least, simpatico.

      Victims are four beautiful, young medical interns out for lunch, reduced to ground meat by a valiant Muslim warrior. I know victims.

      Delete
    10. We can trot out all sort of Palestinian victims as well ole boy. 2 wrongs don't = right. The victim card will only get you so far and not convince many.

      Delete

    11. AshMon Dec 23, 01:29:00 PM EST
      The way you Islamaphobes talk about Islam reminds me of how the Germans (an others) talked about Jews in the early 20th century.


      allenMon Dec 23, 01:52:00 PM EST
      Ash,

      You deny that Christians are being systematically persecuted by officials of Islamic governments, e.g. Egyptian police? You deny that Christians are being driven from their ancestral homes by
      Islamic governments and their agents? You deny the veracity of Prince Charles? Are those of us who refuse to turn a blind-eye from the obvious ethnic and religious cleansing "Islamaphobes"?

      By the way, I do not fear Muslims, but I do understand them and the corrosive impact of the political manifesto called the Quran. Whether you accept the Quran as the absolute word of god is neither here nor there. Many other educated Muslims do not. However, hundreds of millions of ignorant souls do understand it as binding, with violations punishable by death in this life and eternal hell in the next. They too get a vote.

      As to how Germans (including German tribes) talked about Jews, you would have to examine literature dating back to the 5th C. CE. I doubt you have done this. You will find nothing comparable in Jewish literature, no matter the level of persecution.


      Ash,

      I am sure you overlooked answering any of the questions posed about Christian persecution by Muslims. Give it a go, please.

      Delete
    12. ...victim card...Excuse me while I go vomit.

      Delete
    13. I did. There are many bad acts committed in the ME. So?

      Delete
  27. This quote says something profound about the openness of Judaism to anyone coming in peace, giving the lie to exclusiveness and apartheid tendencies. There are Jews of every race and color. Under our law, it is a sin and sometimes a crime to draw distinctions. To be clear, German tourists come to Israel regularly; few convert, but all are welcome. That in itself is astounding; the group referenced below is miraculous.

    This is an excerpt of a sermon by my rabbi.

    I was deeply moved, when I read about this pilgrimage as I was moved when I read the stories of the children and the grandchildren of former Nazis who have settled in Israel, and who have become Jews. One of them, believe it or not, was named Hitler—or at least that was his original name. He’s descended from Adolph Hitler’s brother, Alois. Today, believe it or not, he is a professor of Jewish Studies at an Israeli university!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is amazing !!

      Delete
    2. Why is it amazing?
      The entire family carries the Ashkenazi gene identifiers.

      It's in their blood.

      Delete
    3. AnonymousMon Dec 23, 02:28:00 PM EST
      Why is it amazing?
      The entire family carries the Ashkenazi gene identifiers.

      It's in their blood.


      Thank you, desert rat. You make my work so much easier. Keep those deep 18th-19th C.thoughts coming.

      Please, don't introduce phrenology, despite the temptation to latch onto "science".

      Blut und Ehre!

      Delete

    4. Adolf Hitler may have owed more to the 'subhuman' races he tried to exterminate than to his 'Aryan' compatriots, according to new finding published in Belgium this week.

      In research for the Flemish-language magazine Knack, journalist Jean-Paul Mulders traced Hitler's living relatives in the Fuhrer's native Austria, as well as the United States.

      "The results of this study are surprising," said Ronny Decorte, a geneticist interviewed by Knack. "Hitler would not have been happy."
      Geneticists identify groups of chromosomes called haplogroups, 'genetic fingerprints' that define populations.

      Hitler's second most dominant haplogroup is the most common in Ashkenazi Jews.

      "The findings are fascinating if you look at them in terms of the Nazi worldview, which ascribed such an extreme priority to notions of blood and race,"

      Decorte said.

      http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/dna-tests-reveal-hitler-s-jewish-and-african-roots-1.309938



      bob

      Delete
    5. But bob, if the Ashkenazi are just typical Europeans, what's the news?

      Delete
    6. The Fuhrer 'would not have been happy' to learn he was more Berber tribesman than Aryan superman.

      The Jews must have paid off the study's authors because we know from our resident genetic scholar that Europeans are all the same. His source is impeccable, Dr. Mohammed ben BooBoo. Dr. ben BooBoo received his PhD from the Riyadh School of Textile Weaving and Camel Husbandry.

      According to Mulders, Hitler's dominant haplogroup, E1b1b, is relatively rare in Western Europe - but strongest in some 25 percent of Greeks and Sicilians, who apparently acquired the genes from Africa: Between 50 percent and 80 percent of North Africans share Hitler's dominant group, which is especially prevalent among in the Berber tribes of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, and Somalis.

      Delete
  28. A friend of Sweetie-Pie's got enrolled, yesterday. She said it took about about 45 minutes (spent awhile choosing the best policy.)

    This gal has many serious health problems, cancer, among them, and has been unable to buy insurance for years. Her family has been, literally, bankrupted by her health problems, and her ability to work has been devastated by her ongoing, untreated illnesses.

    She qualified for a Silver Plan with virtually no deductibles, or co-pays, and a monthly premium of $22.90.

    Said she had tears in her eyes when she received the confirming e-mail.

    I know this person well; this is not bullshit.

    I'm very happy for this woman, and I'm proud of my country for helping her like this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She's weak and now a burden on us all until the death panels are set up.

      Delete
    2. A raped girl is bad for the family: it shows that they can’t protect their women;
      that they have little social standing; and that they’re not respectable.

      It’s worse for the victim because once a woman, or a girl—or a boy—is known as the target of a rape she becomes so despised, so shamed, so worthless that she turns into public property.

      No one is raped only once.

      ― Louise Brown,
      The Dancing Girls of Lahore:
      Selling Love and Saving Dreams in Pakistan's Pleasure District

      Delete

    3. A person who is raped is a weak person, they get what they deserve.

      Delete
    4. Louise BrownMon Dec 23, 02:29:00 PM EST
      A raped girl is bad for the family: it shows that they can’t protect their women;
      that they have little social standing; and that they’re not respectable.


      This comment is disgusting.

      Delete
    5. AnonymousMon Dec 23, 02:30:00 PM EST
      A person who is raped is a weak person, they get what they deserve.


      This comment is posted by a sick individual.

      Delete
    6. .

      You are naïve in assuming it was Bob, Ash.

      This is the typical MO of the rat.

      .

      Delete
    7. What is "Occupation"Mon Dec 23, 02:43:00 PM EST
      "This comment is disgusting"

      That's the ticket..

      Delete

    8. “Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side?
      And hain't that a big enough majority in any town?”

      Delete

    9. A female comes amongst you and describes life in Pakistan,
      the horrors of life in a repressive and misogynistic culture and you boys chastise her?

      For speaking the plain truth of life in Pakistan, for the victims of rape.

      Shame on you all!


      bob

      Delete
  29. I am now pleading with my daughter to get up here and get me a proper moniker. On the other hand I told her to stay there today as the roads are hazardous.

    Thank you for your patience.

    And, yes, rat needs help, badly.....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rabindranath TagoreMon Dec 23, 03:15:00 PM EST


      “If he is weak enough to grow smaller to fit himself to his covering,
      then it becomes a process of gradual suicide by shrinkage of the soul.”

      Delete
    2. .

      The rat continues to take the one pill that makes him small.

      .

      Delete

    3. “The revolution in global communications thus forces all nations to reconsider traditional ways of thinking about national sovereignty.”

      ― George Shultz

      Delete
  30. bob appears to an amalgam of many - a mythical character. The original bob might have enjoyed such a concept except he got lost.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      And the rat refuses to take the red pill.

      .

      Delete
    2. Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and LibraryMon Dec 23, 03:55:00 PM EST


      “A little girl raised her hand," she remembered,
      "and said, ’Mrs. Reagan, what do you do if somebody offers you drugs?’

      And I said, ’well, you just say no.’ And there it was born.

      I think people thought we had an advertising agency over who dreamed that up - not true."

      Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library
      http://www.reaganfoundation.org/details_f.aspx?p=RR1008NRHC&tx=6

      Delete

    3. “To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.

      Delete
  31. Ash, I now have a gmail account. If you put up your instructions again, I will try.

    But, she is my blogger administrator......

    Make it really simple, as in, 1, 2, 3 etc......

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Ash - Mon Dec 09, 01:11:00 PM EST

      bob, quite your whining about folk posting as anonymous and get a log in.
      YOU CAN DO IT YOURSELF, you do not need your daughter.

      I've told you how - why don't you just do it?

      If you can't remember that far back (like a week) then simply go to google.com and select sign in.
      When presented with the sign in page select "sign in with different account" then select "add account" and follow the instructions from there.

      Quit your whining.
      Be a master of your own destiny and quite hanging on to the apron strings of your daughter.


      heh, heh, heh,


      bob

      Delete
    2. Once you have a gmail account just sign in using the account login information for that gmail account and you will be logged in. Once logged in you go to "dashboard" which you can see in the very upper right corner here at the bar to control your 'name' and 'avatar'.

      Delete
    3. I will try, Ash, after we get back from driving into Wal-Mart for the final gasp and grasp of shopping......

      Thank you, Sir

      Delete
  32. Beijing has declared its own Monroe Doctrine

    China's violations of international law does not fit the Monroe Doctrine, IMO.

    Australia is vulnerable.

    China

    Australia

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Maybe they want an aircraft carrier battle group, to ease their fears?

      Lend-Lease

      It could live again!


      bob

      Delete

  33. Referring to historical events, each of us takes pride in the blossoming of knowledge associated with the Renaissance but find many to blame for the fall of Rome.

    After Rome fell, incomes fell one-hundred fold and much knowledge was lost.

    For instance, the concept of zero and negative numbers,
    introduced to the collective human knowledge by ancients of Mesopotamia and India,
    became non-existent in Europe until the rebirth of knowledge in the Renaissance.

    If it weren’t for northern Africa and Islamic culture,
    might have lost this knowledge altogether during the European Dark Ages.

    If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.
    - Isaac Newton

    Progress has occurred in isolation but is more often made through the tension created when one idea collides with another. Without conflicts of thoughts and desires, the need to ask questions and thrust new concepts forward is too small to justify the energy required to make progress.

    Perhaps it is this tension itself that drives change agents out of bureaucratic organizations which seek smooth flowing operations. These change agents often find themselves in risky positions where their freedom to create is less hindered.

    Tim J. Smith, PhD

    ReplyDelete
  34. Here is the full answer of the rabbi that Miss T put only partially up five threads back concerning Jews and the afterlife -

    Do Jews Believe in an Afterlife?


    By Tzvi Freeman

    Answer:

    There isn't anything after life, because life never ends. It just goes higher and higher. The soul is liberated from the body and returns closer to her source than ever before.

    The Torah assumes this in its language many times -- describing Abraham's death, for example, as going to rest with his fathers and similar phrases. The Talmud discusses the experiences of several people who made the trip there and back. Classic Jewish works such as Maavor Yabok describe the process of entering the higher world of life as a reflection of the soul's experiences while within the body: If the soul has become entrenched in material pleasures, she experiences the pain of ripping herself away from them so that she can experience the infinitely higher pleasure of basking in G-dly light. If she is soiled and injured by acts that sundered her from her true self while below, then she must be cleansed and healed.

    On the other hand, the good deeds and wisdom she has gained on her mission below serve as a protection for her journey upwards. You want a real good spacesuit to make this trip.

    The Zohar tells us that if it were not for the intercession of the pure souls above, our world could not endure for even a moment. Each of our lives is strongly impacted by the work of our ancestors in that other world. Grandma's still watching over you.

    Why should souls basking in divine light above be at all concerned about what's happening in your mundane life below? Because, there they feel the truth that is so easy to overlook while down here: that this lowly, material world is the center-stage of G-d's purpose in creating all that exists.

    That is also why, at the final resolution, all souls will return to physical bodies in this world.








    By Tzvi Freeman


    Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a senior editor at Chabad.org, also heads our Ask The Rabbi team. He is the author of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth. To subscribe to regular updates of Rabbi Freeman's writing, visit Freeman Files subscription.


    Illustration by Chassidic artist Michoel Muchnik; click here to view or purchase Mr. Muchnik's art.

    More articles by Tzvi Freeman | RSS

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Makes good sense to me.

      Delete
    2. 'of a dead man/s winding-sheet and carry it with you everywhere.' is an error on my part, committed by swiping up a little too far.

      Please disregard that.

      Delete

    3. “...the restaurant itself is weird especially because of a big raunch mad thicklipped sloppy young Fillipino woman sitting alone at the end of the restaurant gobbling up her food obscenely and looking at us insolently as tho to say

      "Fuck you, I eat the way I like splashing gravy everywhere”

      ― Jack Kerouac

      Delete

    4. Philippine Daily Inquirer

      ‘PDI’s anonymous news source was tainted’


      We find it unfortunate that the Inquirer statement on the Dasmariñas incident misses the point: The reporter relied on an unnamed source who fed her lies. Not several sources, but principally just one source, as clearly stated in the Dec. 19 story.

      And we have received information that the source is allegedly a person who hates the Binay family and has a history of making biased and unfounded statements against them. If this is true, then the reporter’s source is a tainted one.

      The Dec. 19 story was anchored on a fabricated event (the so-called arrest of the guards) and a fabricated quote (“Do you know me?”) coming from this one anonymous source who clearly wanted to escape accountability.

      The Inquirer reporter highlighted these lies despite denials and clarifications from two persons who had direct knowledge of the incident: the Makati chief of police and the owner of the security agency.

      Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/67955/pdis-anonymous-news-source-was-tainted#ixzz2oKmHHJcx


      bob

      Delete
  35. The annual Holiday Video is hot off the press and freshly posted:

    A Very Valis Christmas Part 3

    Merry Christmas!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Sweet, Ash.

      And Merry Christmas to you and the family.

      (However, I think the link probably qualifies as spam and I'll have to mention it to Deuce when he returns. You might have to spend another Christmas over in the corner.)

      .

      Delete
    2. Jeeze Louise I make a clickable link and the spam Nazis kick my ass.




      anybody got ad dollars to spend? Www.valis.net will dispense with them with ease!

      Delete
  36. Got that mandrake post all screwed up -

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandrake_(plant)

    Was saying, and we have heard - O have we not? - about how the mandrake shrieks upon being pulled from the earth to which it is attached so tightly --

    This was in response to this in Miss T's article --

    "If the soul has become entrenched in material pleasures, she experiences the pain of ripping herself away from them........"

    ReplyDelete
  37. And here are some literary references I was attempting to put up -

    Literature[edit]

    In its more sinister significance:

    Machiavelli wrote in 1518 a play Mandragola (The Mandrake) in which the plot revolves around the use of a mandrake potion as a ploy to bed a woman.

    Shakespeare refers four times to mandrake and twice under the name of mandragora.

    "...Not poppy, nor mandragora,Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleepWhich thou owedst yesterday." Shakespeare: Othello III.iii"
    Give me to drink mandragora...That I might sleep out this great gap of timeMy Antony is away." Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra I.v"Shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth." Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet IV.iii"Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan" King Henry VI part II III.ii

    John Donne refers to it in the second line of his song, 'Go and catch a falling star', as an example of an impossible task,

    "Get with child a mandrake root"It is in Samuel Beckett's "Waiting For Godot", too. "Let's hang ourselves immediately!" "It'd give us an Erection!" "An Erection!" "With all that follows - where it falls, Mandrakes grow, that's why they shriek when you pull them up. Did you not know that?"

    In Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, mandrakes can be found in the Hogwarts greenhouses. When pulled out of the earth, they resemble humans, and just as in the mythology, the cry is fatal. The mandrake can also revive those who have been petrified.

    In The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck, Ethan Hawley mentions both the form and legend of the mandrake root in chapter eight when describing a collection of "worthless family treasures" as follows: "We even had a mandrake root - a perfect little man, sprouted from the death-ejected sperm of a hanged man..."

    In Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett, a reference to the mandrake is made, describing a plant that lets out a supersonic scream when it is uprooted.

    In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Devil's Foot (contained in the Sherlock Homes collection His Last Bow) a crystalline extract of "Devil's Foot Root", also called mandrake, is at the root, so to speak, of two bizarre and related murders

    ReplyDelete


  38. AshMon Dec 23, 03:39:00 PM EST

    Once you have a gmail account just sign in using the account login information for that gmail account and you will be logged in. Once logged in you go to "dashboard" which you can see in the very upper right corner here at the bar to control your 'name' and 'avatar'.







    AnonymousMon Dec 23, 04:18:00 PM EST

    I will try, Ash, after we get back from driving into Wal-Mart for the final gasp and grasp of shopping......

    Thank you, Sir



    ReplyDelete
  39. Test toast terr rone

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well Bless You, Ash, You Merry Gentleman, and a wonderful Christmas and Holidays to ye !!

      Delete
    2. Yet it is still not what I am seeking.....

      Delete
    3. In the dashboard edit your profile settings.

      Delete
    4. when you post select "google account" in that little dropdown menu by the 'reply as'

      Delete


    5. More like this?

      Delete
    6. Communist Fudd! | Bob's House of Video Games – Video Game LOLs

      chzbobshouseofvideogames.wordpress.com/.../video-game-lols-communist...

      Aug 11, 2010 - WW2 USSR were not fascists, they were communists, and Nazi Germany were also not Fascists they were national socialists you both fail.


      bob

      Delete
    7. Vote for Fudd 2012
      by urwutuis Posted March 07, 2010

      That's right. Mr. Fudd has tossed his hat in the ring.
      Elmer is planning a vigorous campaign on the Loonytoon ticket.
      Promising to "wabbit wight ahead of wascawy wepubwicans & democwats"

      You may as well vote for him for all the good it will do.
      Capital (not Capitol) Hill is a puppet show.
      Put on to give us the illusion of free elections when nothing could be farther from the truth.
      With control of the media, either through direct ownership or advertising, corporations can ensure that anyone capable of actually changing the status quo, stands a better chance of winng the Indy 500 on roller skates than seeing his name on the ticket.

      Whether you see it or not we are living in a fascist state.

      We have few or no rights in a system controlled by large corporations
      that requires government permission for virtually everything.

      We are enslaved by debt in the largest Ponzi scheme ever by what is probably the most corrupt institution on the planet. Our government.

      In league with the banks they have sold us into economic slavery with debt as the shackles and interest as the whip. What's different about the new slavery is that wage slaves must provide their own food, clothing and shelter How sweet

      They have gotten so cozy with business that it's hard to tell them apart as they jump from private to public sector and back again.

      Voting will not fix this. I don't know what will.
      It will probably have to break down completely before it can be fixed.

      We need to develop a system that is not profit based.
      A for profit system encourages corruption and greed.
      We need to progress beyond that.

      There is no denying that global structure is needed and a united planet is not only inevitable but necessary to our very survival. The barriers of politics and religion need to be removed and the worlds resources pooled for the benefit of all.

      A for profit system as we now see in the US can only lead deeper into fascism and the monetary system must continually expand or it will collapse.

      Common sense tells us that it can't expand forever.

      Capitalism produces competition but also produces greed, corruption and stratification while supressing new technology, ideas and information. It cannot sustain itself.

      Pooling of global resources, ideas and technology can provide a high standard of living for everyone and eliminate the need for armies police and like mental institutions.

      If peoples basic needs were met it would free them to pursue more important goals than merely day to day survival. Education would solve population and the technology already exists to provide clean energy to the entire planet.

      We need to stop buying into the adminstrations lies and start to think globally.

      Wake up America the house is on fire.


      bob

      Delete
  40. AFP

    BAGHDAD: The Iraqi military attacked camps belonging to an Al-Qaeda-linked militant group in Anbar province, destroying two, the defence ministry said on Monday.

    After locating camps with aircraft, Iraqi forces launched "successful strikes... resulting in the destruction of two camps in the desert of Anbar," spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said in an statement.

    The assaults came after five senior officers, including a divisional commander, and 10 soldiers were killed during an operation against militants in the mainly Sunni western province of Anbar.

    Askari told AFP on Sunday that the civil war in neighbouring Syria was driving violence in Iraq.

    Aerial photographs and other information pointed to "the arrival of weapons and advanced equipment from Syria to the desert of western Anbar and the border of Nineveh province," he said.

    This has encouraged Al-Qaeda-linked militants to "revive some of their camps that were eliminated by security forces in 2008 and 2009," Askari said, adding that aerial photos showed 11 militant camps near the border with Syria.

    "Photographs and intelligence information indicate that whenever there is pressure on armed groups in Syria, they withdraw to Iraq... to regroup and then carry out terrorist operations in the two countries," Askari said.

    Violence in Iraq has reached a level not seen since 2008, when the country was just emerging from a period of brutal sectarian killings.

    More than 6,650 people have been killed in Iraq since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.



    Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Dec-23/242115-iraq-forces-destroy-militant-camps-in-anbar-spokesman.ashx#ixzz2oKwSTiLZ
    (The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

    ReplyDelete
  41. Rockford, IL – Today on the internationally famous platform for public opinions and discarded facts, Chief Tchad Beale witnessed another Rockford area battle going down between Elmer Fudd and Desert Rat. Elmer Fudd defended Mr. Quinn Gelastio, famous guitarist from FrequencyX2, while attacking Desert Rat for presenting a fact with a proof link.

    Elmer was not happy and called Mr. Rat a “dick”.
    Mr. Rat asked Mr. Fudd why he made it personal instead of providing the fact with a fact versus a verbal attack.
    A libel attack on a cartoon character went down on facebook.com!

    Mr. Fudd was even more confused and called Mr. Rat more names and saying,
    “Quinn Gelastio is my friend! You be nice, Rat!”

    You tell that desert rat where to go, Mr. Fudd!
    Click on the screen capture to read the full transcript.

    http://rkfdnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/yep-dg.jpg

    In other news, we agree with Mr. Rat for breaking the noose with facts.

    Poor Rockford, they take everything to heart, defending facts with opinions.
    Realists have no chance, Mr. Rat.
    You’ll be better off feeding from the carrot patch over in Iowa where facts matter.

    There are some wonderful characters in the Forest City of Hopes, Dreams, Sounds and Visions.
    We are happy to know all of them so that we can break the noose for you once again.

    You’ll know more when we know less



    bob

    ReplyDelete
  42. I will never (hardly ever) criticize Ash again.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Thank you Ash !!

    You will always be special to me now !!

    All these other turds let me float around in cyber space, but not you !!!

    You the best, dude !!!

    I even have a 'delete' button now !!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ash wouldn't leave me in a phone booth in Vegas without enough change to even call a friend.

      No siree, only Quirk would do that !!

      Delete
    2. .

      I even have a 'delete' button now !!

      Don't forget to use it.

      .

      Delete
    3. Dang !!!

      Just tried to delete you.

      Doesn't seem to work.

      Wonder what is wrong?

      Delete
    4. Praise the lord for surely this is Christmas miracle if there ever was one!

      Delete
    5. You da miracle worker, Ash, you da man.....!!!!!

      Delete
  44. A strong rally in financial markets over the past two months is expected to add a last-minute boost to bonus packages for Wall Street's traders and investment bankers, partially offsetting an otherwise grim year.

    The winners in financial firms this year are likely to be equity traders, who have reaped gains from soaring stock markets, and investment bankers, who have benefited from a pickup in initial public offerings...

    ReplyDelete
  45. Replies
    1. heh, where do you come up with such shit?

      Well, you're no Boston Blackie, that's for sure.

      That title belongs to Ash - a friend to the friendless.......

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6eQYz13LfQ

      Delete
    2. Quirk was the petty criminal who imported the anti tank weapon and the machine guns for the really bad guys.......

      Delete
    3. Oh lord, what has been wrought?

      Delete
  46. On this day in 2003, government officials announced that they found the first case of suspected mad-cow disease in the U.S.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Here is a sad commentary on the state of male/female relations in India -


    India Is Sitting on a Time-Bomb of Violence Against Women


    BY SUNNY HUNDAL











    Imagine a world where the proportion of girls being born is so low that large proportions of males just cannot find partners when they come of age. In such a world they are more likely to congregate in gangs for company. In turn, that means they are more likely to engage in risky behaviour: i.e. commit crime, do drugs and engage in violence against women. In gangs, men are more likely to harass women and even commit rape.

    But this isn’t some dystopian fantasy – there are 37 million more men than women in India, and most of them are of marriageable age given the relatively young population. A social time-bomb is now setting off there with terrifying consequences.






    While researching for my e-book on violence against women in India, earlier this year I came across an extraordinary article on why some brothers living in the same household were sharing a wife rather than marrying separate women.

    Let that sink in for a moment. The Times of India reported in 2005 on instances where between two and five brothers living in a house, in rural areas in the state of Punjab, had married the same woman. It was extraordinary not just for what was in it, but for what was left out.

    The article - "Draupadis bloom in rural Punjab" - cited two reasons for these polyandric arrangements: they prevented the household from splitting into multiple families and therefore dividing the meagre land they owned; men just could not find wives to settle down with. [The women are called "Draupadis" in reference to the princess who married five brothers in the Hindu epic The Mahabharata]. Punjabi writer Gurdial Singh told the Times of India: “the small landholdings and skewed sex ratio have abetted the problem."

    A year ago, after the atrocious and widely-publicised gang-rape and murder of the student in Delhi, there has been much discussion of what is going on in India. Of course, the epidemic of violence against women is not an Indian problem alone.


    .

    But something more is going on there that deserves special attention. Not enough people inside India and outside realise the problem there is on a different scale because of the scale of sex-selection, which has meant that millions of girls who should be in the population are systematically wiped out.

    We can put a number on this. To have a natural sex ratio like most of the world, India would need more women than men in its population. Around 23 million more women in fact. So, adding the 37 million (to equalise the number of men and women) to 23 million gives us an approximate figure of 60 million women "missing" from the population of India.




    .

    Punjab is ground-zero for this phenomena. Dividing up small land-holdings are not a new issue for the agricultural state; it’s the skewed sex-ratio which is the real problem. In a report published in 2009, the charity Action Aid India found that among some communities in Punjab there were as less as 300 girls per 1,000 boys. Overall, it is among the worst states in the country for the female to male ratio.

    There’s a huge deficit of women because families fear the cost of raising a daughter. It is a commonly practiced tradition (despite being outlawed) that the bride’s family pays a large sum of money to the groom’s family at the wedding. Plus, women are generally not seen as bread-winners and or allowed to inherit wealth like men in some states.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In the 1980s, an infamous ad run by private hospitals stated: "Pay 5,000 rupees today [to have an abortion] and save 50,000 rupees [in dowry payments] tomorrow." It was soon banned but the sentiments linger on. Sex-selection is now spreading to rural areas as the technology gets cheaper and enforcement of the law remains ineffectual. Media exposes of doctors providing sex-selection services and offering to abort girls are commonplace, but they have little overall impact because demand is too strong.

      But sex-selection doesn’t paint the full picture. Large proportions of women are missing also because many poor families simply murder girl infants at birth if they can’t afford ultrasound and abortion services. Others simply neglect girls as they’re growing up (India is far and away the world's worst for differences in gender for child mortality). In fact, the sex-ratio of girls to boys under the age of 6 keeps dropping.

      What’s extraordinary about all this is that until the gang-rape last year, the media paid very little attention to such issues. The Times of India report I mentioned for example neglected to interview any women and ask if they were happy with their arrangement. Neither does the reporter look into how widespread these arrangements were and what impact they were having on communities. It’s as if they were reporting on the price of onions, with a positive gloss of such marriages are ‘blooming’.

      In reality, there are increasing stories of women being kidnapped or trafficked to be forced into marriages because men cannot find brides. Yet, until recently, there was an extraordinary unwillingness in the media to join the dots. The gang-rape last year started a debate about violence against women in India, but for many women the impact of this social time-bomb are being felt now.

      This piece first appeared on newstatesman.com.

      Delete
    2. Joseph Campbell drew an imaginary line down through Iran - east of that line, he said, there was no individuality. Everything was role playing. In India too this manifested in the caste system.

      Change comes slowly.......and India is slowly changing.......

      West of Iran, individuality took root early on.......northern Europe......and notice how there women were more highly thought of than elsewhere........the moslems simply couldn't believe it when they first learned England was run by a woman.......

      Delete

    3. The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.

      Delete
    4. Ben, you've said that about 20 times already.

      Delete

    5. It was just as true the last time it was said as the first.

      As our good friend Winston says

      If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever.
      Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again.
      Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.


      I have found in my dealings with farmers,cooks, and senior citizens ..
      that even three times is not enough.


      Delete
    6. Farmer BobMon Dec 23, 08:21:00 PM EST

      northern Europe......and notice how there women were more highly thought of than elsewhere.....

      Among some German tribes, the women went to the battlefield with their men. Initially, the Romans were disconcerted by this ferocity.

      Delete
  48. Tijuano and ChivisMon Dec 23, 08:29:00 PM EST

    El Mayo Reportedly Gave up Macho Prieto


    Inside the criminal circles of the Sinaloa cartel, Gonzalo Inzunza Inzunza´s head had a price.

    Working under direct orders of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada,
    Inzunza was blamed for killing “people of his same company”,
    and denying it afterwards. Federal Agents got to the mix;

    Conclusion: Claiming he was too disobedient,
    the leaders of the cartel gave the order for his execution on the first days of December.

    The execution was planned with the Government ending the life of “Macho Prieto”.
    The government was provided with his whereabouts, to facilitate the government in a capture or kill plan.

    That plan was inacted on December 18th,
    which resulted in a chase and shootout lasing two hours in a luxury area of Puerto Peñasco, Sonora.

    The aftermath was five dead bodies.

    After the shootout, they recognized that one of those dead was “El Macho Prieto”,
    but neither PGR nor the National Security Council confirmed the identities of the dead bodies.

    http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2013/12/el-mayo-reportedly-gave-up-macho-prieto.html

    ReplyDelete
  49. ...playing the victim card, again...

    Syria: barrel bombs 'kill 87 children' in Aleppo
    Bombings in northern city by forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad have left more than 300 dead, say opposition forces


    The media report no deaths in the West Bank or Gaza. This good news was saved by poor Jewish marksmanship. It is reported that a young gentleman was attempting to place an explosive device at the border. To prevent "victims", Jewish troops fired on the young man but missed.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Deuce,

    I will not be surprised to see the violence in Syria spill over into Iraq's Anbar Province. During an Iraqi raid to destroy two jihadist camps from the air, Iraqi authorities report 10 more camps were spotted from the air. According to the Iraqis, the jihadists (Sunni) are regrouping and equipping in this predominately Sunni province.

    Anbar Province is bordered by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria. The central government has little control over the largest state within Iraq. It is reputed to hold vast stores of munitions of all sorts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But you already knew this. Duh...

      Delete

    2. The Role of the 'Sons of Iraq' in Improving Security

      Greg Bruno
      Staff Writer, Council on Foreign Relations
      Monday, April 28, 2008;


      Dubbed the "Anbar Awakening" by Iraqi organizers, it has been hailed as a turning point in the U.S.-led war effort. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told lawmakers in Washington the uprising has reduced U.S. casualties, increased security, and even saved U.S. taxpayers money.

      "The savings and vehicles not lost because of reduced violence," the general said in April 2008, "far outweighed the costs of their monthly contracts."

      Yet the future of the Awakening -- Sahwa in Arabic -- is a matter of increasing debate in foreign policy circles. Internal disputes within the predominantly Sunni groups have threatened the stability of the revolt, some experts say. Sunni groups have also complained about low pay and a lack of opportunities for employment within Iraq's army and police forces.

      CFR Senior Fellow Steven Simon writes in Foreign Affairs that while the Sahwa strategy may bring short-term stability to Iraq, the long-term effect could be runaway
      "tribalism, warlordism, and sectarianism."

      Anbar Awakes

      While the U.S. military considered aligning with Iraqi tribes soon after the war began, it was the brutality of al-Qaeda in Iraq that eventually gave birth to Iraq's Awakening movement.

      By the summer of 2006, the insurgent group, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
      had deeply entrenched itself in Anbar province west of Baghdad.

      The relocation of U.S. military forces to the capital that summer contributed to the group's gains, experts say.

      Col. Sean MacFarland, who commanded a U.S. combat team in the provincial capital of Ramadi that summer and helped initiate the Awakening movement, told reporters in July 2006 that government buildings had "become really little more than shells" used to "hide snipers and IED triggerman."

      Military commanders say al-Qaeda in Iraq relied on "indiscriminate violence and extremist ideology" to further its goal of establishing a caliphate -- a single, transnational Islamic state.

      But the heavy-handed approach backfired. Alienated by a foreign-led, religiously zealous insurgency, Sheikh Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha approached MacFarland (TIME) about shifting his allegiance to the United States. Thousands of Sunni civilians ultimately joined a U.S. alliance.

      Delete

    3. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/28/AR2008042801120.html

      Delete
    4. Re: "Anbar Awakening"

      Rubbish!

      This report is nearly four-years old. It has nothing to do with Anbar today. Keep fishing and pasting.

      Delete
  51. ho ho ho

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH71UJj0x7I

    ReplyDelete
  52. Environmental groups Monday asked a federal judge to halt a planned wolf and coyote derby in Idaho, branding the event an illegal killing contest.

    ...

    A group behind the event, a pro-hunting organization called Idaho for Wildlife, aims to lure up to 300 hunters to Salmon, Idaho, including children, to boost the economy — and raise awareness for health concerns it says are related to wolves.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SAVE OUR FEW REMAINING ELK

      Kill a coyote for Christmas and a wolf for the New Year !!

      Delete
    2. .

      You notice how they finally admit this whole farce is about making a buck. Only a naïf or a faux farmer wouldn't understand that.

      .

      Delete
  53. Even Mr. Buchanan cannot resist the Sirens' song.

    Anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of the intellectual.

    Although this is complete stupidity, it does show the ease with which a legitmate Jewish archetype lends itself to misuse and cheap thrills.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .


      Believe me, you can keep your victimhood.

      .

      Delete
    2. It was a quote by Buchanan having nothing to do with victimhood (whatever that is).

      Delete
    3. .

      You offer no link and no context.

      It appears you are trying to protect the copyright on a "legitimate Jewish archtype".

      What's a body to think?

      .

      Delete
  54. Pat Buchanan is a nitwit and a gas bag.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Nonsense.

      In 20 years, the neocons took us from the world's sole hyperpower to primus inter pares.

      .

      Delete
  55. To most all the men of India -

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO8_1TwzY2s

    g'nite

    ReplyDelete
  56. Having gone over my posts of the day, I am satisfied that I did justice to Deuce's thread.

    As to rat, I do not recall anyone paying for a hunting license that made him anyone's exclusive prey.

    I have given rat lots of room to vent. What I will not do is give him room to lie. If that offends, tough.

    ReplyDelete