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."

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Next, on to Syria. Why are we there? Does waging war in The Middle East make sense and is it winnable?



Endless war, endless greed: The Pentagon is lining its pockets with taxpayer dollars

Endless war, endless greed: The Pentagon is lining its pockets with taxpayer dollars
This piece originally appeared on TomDispatch

These days, lamenting the apparently aimless character of Washington’s military operations in the Greater Middle East has become conventional wisdom among administration critics of every sort. Senator John McCain thunders that “this president has no strategy to successfully reverse the tide of slaughter and mayhem” in that region. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies bemoans the “lack of a viable and public strategy.” Andrew Bacevich suggests that “there is no strategy. None. Zilch.”

After 15 years of grinding war with no obvious end in sight, U.S. military operations certainly deserve such obloquy. But the pundit outrage may be misplaced. Focusing on Washington rather than on distant war zones, it becomes clear that the military establishment does indeed have a strategy, a highly successful one, which is to protect and enhance its own prosperity.

Given this focus, creating and maintaining an effective fighting force becomes a secondary consideration, reflecting a relative disinterest — remarkable to outsiders — in the actual business of war, as opposed to the business of raking in dollars for the Pentagon and its industrial and political partners. A key element of the strategy involves seeding the military budget with “development” projects that require little initial outlay but which, down the line, grow irreversibly into massive, immensely profitable production contracts for our weapons-making cartels.

If this seems like a startling proposition, consider, for instance, the Air Force’s determined and unyielding efforts to jettison the A-10 Thunderbolt, widely viewed as the most effective means for supporting troops on the ground, while ardently championing the sluggish, vastly overpriced F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that, among myriad other deficiencies, cannot fly within 25 miles of a thunderstorm. No less telling is the Navy’s ongoing affection for budget-busting programs such as aircraft carriers, while maintaining its traditional disdain for the unglamorous and money-poor mission of minesweeping, though the mere threat of enemy mines in the 1991 Gulf War (as in the Korean War decades earlier) stymied plans for major amphibious operations. Examples abound across all the services.
Meanwhile, ongoing and dramatic programs to invest vast sums in meaningless, useless, or superfluous weapons systems are the norm. There is no more striking example of this than current plans to rebuild the entire American arsenal of nuclear weapons in the coming decades, Obama’s staggering bequest to the budgets of his successors.

Taking Nuclear Weapons to the Bank

These nuclear initiatives have received far less attention than they deserve, perhaps because observers are generally loath to acknowledge that the Cold War and its attendant nuclear terrors, supposedly consigned to the ashcan of history a quarter-century ago, are being revived on a significant scale. The U.S. is currently in the process of planning for the construction of a new fleet of nuclear submarines loaded with new intercontinental nuclear missiles, while simultaneously creating a new land-based intercontinental missile, a new strategic nuclear bomber, a new land-and-sea-based tactical nuclear fighter plane, a new long-range nuclear cruise missile (which, as recently as 2010, the Obama administration explicitly promised not to develop), at least three nuclear warheads that are essentially new designs, and new fuses for existing warheads. In addition, new nuclear command-and-control systems are under development for a fleet of satellites (costing up to $1 billion each) designed to make the business of fighting a nuclear war more practical and manageable.

This massive nuclear buildup, routinely promoted under the comforting rubric of “modernization,” stands in contrast to the president’s lofty public ruminations on the topic of nuclear weapons. The most recent of these was delivered during his visit — the first by an American president — to Hiroshima last month. There, he urged “nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles” to “have the courage to escape the logic of fear, and pursue a world without them.”

In reality, that “logic of fear” suggests that there is no way to “fight” a nuclear war, given the unforeseeable but horrific effects of these immensely destructive weapons. They serve no useful purpose beyond deterring putative opponents from using them, for which an extremely limited number would suffice. During the Berlin crisis of 1961, for example, when the Soviets possessed precisely four intercontinental nuclear missiles, White House planners seriously contemplated launching an overwhelming nuclear strike on the USSR. It was, they claimed, guaranteed to achieve “victory.” As Fred Kaplan recounts in his book Wizards of Armageddon, the plan’s advocates conceded that the Soviets might, in fact, be capable of managing a limited form of retaliation with their few missiles and bombers in which as many as three million Americans could be killed, whereupon the plan was summarily rejected.

In other words, in the Cold War as today, the idea of “nuclear war-fighting” could not survive scrutiny in a real-world context. Despite this self-evident truth, the U.S. military has long been the pioneer in devising rationales for fighting such a war via ever more “modernized” weapons systems. Thus, when first introduced in the early 1960s, the Navy’s invulnerable Polaris-submarine-launched intercontinental missiles — entirely sufficient in themselves as a deterrent force against any potential nuclear enemy — were seen within the military as an attack on Air Force operations and budgets. The Air Force responded by conceiving and successfully selling the need for a full-scale, land-based missile force as well, one that could more precisely target enemy missiles in what was termed a “counterforce” strategy.

The drive to develop and build such systems on the irrational pretense that nuclear war fighting is a practical proposition persists today. One component of the current “modernization” plan is the proposed development of a new “dial-a-yield” version of the venerable B-61 nuclear bomb. Supposedly capable of delivering explosions of varying strength according to demand, this device will, at least theoretically, be guidable to its target with high degrees of accuracy and will also be able to burrow deep into the earth to destroy buried bunkers. The estimated bill — $11 billion — is a welcome boost for the fortunes of the Sandia and Los Alamos weapons laboratories that are developing it.


To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here.

119 comments:

  1. You know that your country is Fucked Up Beyond All Reason (FUBAR) when Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the best our “exceptional” country of 325,000,000 can put up for POTUS and a brilliant and honest Andrew Bacevich and thousands like him are ignored.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Speaking of being exceptional:

    As Exceptionally American As It Gets
    by Pierre Tristam | June 18, 2016 - 8:08am | permalink
    — from Flagler Live

    Every nation has its recognizable rituals, its routines that make national character stand out more distinctly than anything else. Brazil has soccer or Rio’s carnivals. Saudi Arabia has the Hajj around Mecca. Spain has Valencia’s tomato-throwing day or the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Ireland has St. Patrick’s Day and India has Diwali, its five-day festival of light.

    We have mass shootings.

    As in any undisciplined and carefree nation, our national ritual doesn’t happen on set days, but it happens more often than any other nation’s famous rituals. It’s at once more surprising, like a flash mob, and more reliable: you can bet your lifesavings it’ll happen sooner than later, assuming you’re not in the line of fire.

    {...}



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. {...}

      By some measures it happens almost every day. By more conservative measures it happens about once a month: going by the obliteration of four or more people at a time, there’s been some 200 mass murders since 2006, not at all a bad count for monthly regularity, though as yet there’s no magazine or cable-TV station devoted to the custom.

      Like all major multi-day rituals, this one has its predictable set pieces, its prescribed liturgy. All participants usually know how to play their part, and they play it very well. We’ve all had a lot of practice. Victims of course get killed, maimed, disfigured, or debilitated for life. Mountains of flowers grow and bloom as if irrigated by the grounds where blood flowed, like the red poppies of Flanders. Candles burn the length of a wick that usually measures the distance to the next massacre. The president makes a speech, filling in the blanks of the same speech recycled for dates, place names and maybe number of dead.

      There’s the obligatory debate on whether it’s traditional murder, hate crime or terrorism, a modern-day replica of the middle age’s scholastic disputations over the length of a saint’s beard or a heretic’s propensity to burn more crisply than a Catholic. If it’s terrorism, for example, it justifies a new crusade, which has very little to distinguish it from the old crusades except that it also applies at home, where Muslims would be somehow banned and an inquisition dusted off.

      It’s also the perfect foil for the country’s gun-raving maniacs locked and loaded on NRA dogma: The latest mass murder that would have been impossible without easier access to guns than to Xanax is chalked up to a war for civilization, a weak president, political correctness, big government, liberals, the media–anything but guns. There’s an inescapable parallel with the Black Plague, which was blamed on Jews, foreigners, gypsies, bad air, bad wine, god’s wrath–on anything but flea-ridden rodents.

      {...}

      Delete
    2. {...}

      ... “From 2001 to 2010, 119,246 Americans were murdered with guns, 18 times all American combat deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” writes Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a former commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan. That’s about 40 nine-elevens. McChrystal calls that “a national crisis.” The NRA sees it as a fundraising opportunity.

      Delete
    3. Pierre Tristam is the editor of FlaglerLive, a non-profit news service in Florida. Follow him @PierreTristam.

      ABOUT AUTHOR Pierre Tristam is a Daytona Beach News-Journal editorial writer. Reach him at ptristam@att.net or through his personal Web site at www.pierretristam.com .

      http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/pierre-tristam/67739/as-exceptionally-american-as-it-gets

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

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Excellent move, Quirk.

      It really was a first rate dumb ass comment.



      Delete
  4. MUSLIMS SPITTING ON FEMALE NURSES

    https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=MUSLIMS+SPITTING+ON+FEMALE+NURSES

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Does denial of the Evil of Islamism make sense?

      Delete
    2. My cup of tea:

      Guards who have a noxious “cocktail” of feces, urine, semen, spit, and vomit ...

      GITMO Guards attacked with feces, vomit, and urine on a daily basis

      MILITARY POLICE IN CAMP DELTASomething I’ve learned that few Americans realize is that those who are subject to the most abuse at Guantanamo are not the detainees but the medics and guards who serve them. This shocking state of affairs has been largely under-reported by media whose focus remains on unsubstantiated tales of torture generated primarily from released detainees and attorneys who represent them.

      http://www.barenakedislam.com/2014/04/16/gitmo-guards-attacked-with-feces-vomit-and-urine-on-a-daily-basis/

      GITMO Guards attacked with feces, vomit, and ... - Bare Naked Islam
      www.barenakedislam.com/.../gitmo-guards-attacked-with-feces-vomit-an...
      Apr 16, 2014 - A female nurse who while treating a detainee in the hospital was ... Guards who have a noxious “cocktail” of feces, urine, semen, spit, and vomit ...

      Delete
    3. An attitude adjustment is definitely called for here.

      You'd have to search long and wide to find a Jew, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Mormon, agnostic, atheist spitting on a female reporter, and after the search I'd bet you'd have come up empty.

      Delete
    4. You expect them to give her a box of chocolates?

      Delete
    5. The link I went to from Doug above was about a female reporter in Denmark I think it was who was spit on by a couple of muzz on live TV.

      I would expect them to not do that and behave according to mores of the rest of the world.

      But they were savages and acted according to savage mores.

      No box of cholcolate expected, just human decency.

      Delete
  5. .

    Please stop putting up links to hate sites. I went there to check out your story and am now probably on some FBI watch list.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It would be good for you, keep you on your toes, and keep you from mouthing off here so often.

      Hell, you ought to be on some watch list or other just for making that stupid comment about Israel annexing and occupying Gaza.

      Perhaps the American Psychiatric Association's watch list, if they have one....

      I have noticed of late that you are beginning to take your own posts down more frequently.

      I read this as a sign of some returning sanity.



      Delete
  6. They have been imprisoned by the US military for 14 years without a trial. Free room and board for 14 years and not an ounce of gratitude.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Several of those O'bozo has released have gone back to the battlefield, and have actually killed some Americans, so I have read.

      Best to leave them in Gitmo until the hostilities are totally over, which they never will be for the moslems.

      Let them call Gitmo home till then.

      Delete
    2. "Several of those O'bozo has released have gone back to the battlefield, and have actually killed some Americans, so I have read."

      You want that on your conscience ?

      Delete
    3. What should be happening is they ought to be facing a military tribunal, being prisoner of war, but O'bozo has I believe blocked that path.

      Delete
    4. The Americans killed are not in New Jersey picking tomatoes or Idaho picking potatoes. They are US government mercenaries in countries where they have no business, killing their people and destroying what little they have. If Afghan drones and Afghan soldiers were roaming and terrorizing Dietrich, Idaho, you would be out there with you elk rifle actually killing them yourself?

      Delete
    5. I’m all for a tribunal, but not the way you think. The real criminals are not the partisans defending their turf in Middle Eastern and Asian villages. You have to go to Crawford Texas, Chappaqua, New York or 350 Park Avenue Floor 26 New York, NY to find the real big time criminals.

      Delete
  7. More violence and intimidation from the American left -

    Gay Voters Say 'Dangerous' To Come Out For Trump....

    Physical Violence....Drudge


    I saw one gay guy interviewed on Fox News who said it was much easier for him when he first came out as gay than when he came out for Trump.

    I put up a link to an interview Trump gave 20 years ago which showed him to be way way ahead of the curve on gays....basically said he couldn't give a shit about it and in his businesses was only looking for competence.

    20 years ago....

    ReplyDelete
  8. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE

    To Burt, the blasts he experienced in Afghanistan eventually became a kind of music. The detonation of C4 and other such military-grade explosives felt like extremely high notes — painful, yet over quickly. But blasts from bombs made out of fertilizer — a favourite of Afghan insurgents — were like standing next to a speaker at a rock concert: the dull bass thuds didn't necessarily hurt, but they would reverberate through his body like a wave, and stay with him for a long time afterwards.

    They're with him still. Burt, who asks that his real name not be used, spent four months as a tactical adviser to a US military bomb-disposal unit in Afghanistan, during which he was within 50 metres of a detonating improvised explosive device (IED) more than 18 times. His sleeping problems began even before he left. So did the headaches, the ringing in his ears and the nausea. He started to forget things — a problem that got even worse after he returned home. Burt would find himself in a room in his house and wonder why he was there. One time, he told his wife they should try a new restaurant in town. She replied that they had eaten there with friends just a few days before.

    As recently as two years ago, this constellation of symptoms might have been diagnosed as a classic case of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a psychological condition that can be caused by the constant stress of being in combat. But Burt, now on medical leave, blames those low notes. He is convinced that the body-shaking blasts did something to his brain. And many doctors, medical researchers and military officials have come to believe he is right.

    The visible toll of insurgent-made IEDs has been awful enough. In the ten years since military operations began in Afghanistan and then Iraq, IEDs have killed more than 3,000 US and allied troops, and wounded roughly ten times that number. But many more troops have been exposed to multiple blasts and not suffered any visible physical injuries. Like Burt, they often report an array of symptoms, ranging from sleep disturbance to problems concentrating. And an increasing body of evidence suggests that the repeated concussions have left them with an invisible, subcellular-level form of traumatic brain injury (TBI) that not only impairs their day-to-day functioning, but also increases their long-term risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases.

    "We've got a lot of guys out there that might be 30 years old that have been blown up a dozen times," says Kevin Kit Parker, a biomedical engineer at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who is conducting research on TBI. "And the risk that these guys are going to get a disease like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's is soaring."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LOVING THE TROOPS

      The number of troops affected by this kind of silent TBI has already topped 200,000, according to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center in Washington DC. A survey done by the Rand Corporation, a not-for-profit research firm in Santa Monica, California, suggests it could be as high as 320,000. The Pentagon and the US Department of Veterans Affairs, which are responsible for the health care of current and former troops, respectively, are getting worried about a potential epidemic of disability and dementia. The disorder also presents a major challenge for researchers.

      Delete
    2. .

      Yea, but you can't pull them out.

      Think about the women.


      .

      Delete
    3. One thing you certainly don't think about, you and your Quirk's Human Suffering Calculator.

      Delete
    4. .

      You ass.

      You sit here mouthing off constantly on how we have to keep troops in Afghanistan and the ME 'For the women'. Do have a clue how many hundreds of thousands of women and children have been killed because of out actions in the ME? Do you care? Do you give a shit how many millions of them have been turned into refugees by out actions in the ME. Do you care?

      Do you care about the thousands of troops (including some women) that were killed in your quixotic quest to 'save the women' there. How many of them are suffering the same casualties as the men Deuce reported on.

      We have been involved in this latest morass for a decade and a half, 15 years of this bullshit. Tell me, how has our having troops there improved the lot of the women in those countries, I mean the ones that are still alive.

      You are either a friggin hypocrite or the stupidist hick in the world.

      .

      Delete
    5. You said I was a war monger for suggesting some no fly zones and safe zones in Syria.

      We are now into something like half a million dead there and god only knows the wounded and look at the refugee problem.

      You got your wish, idiot child.

      You either a friggin hypocrite or the stupidest slicker in the world.

      President Obama has said the Afghan War is the important war, the one we must win.

      How can you argue with our peaceful President ?

      And we were ALL for going in at the start.

      And, what I actually said was we ought to at least protect the women in Kabul, and the north.

      Go suck lemons.

      And tell us all again how Israel has annexed Gaza and is occupying it with IDF troops.

      Nitwit.

      Delete
    6. It's really too bad Deuce dedicated this place to us betraying one another.

      If he had only said something like:

      'This place is dedicated to building community through polite conversation' or some such.

      :(

      I would try to be more polite to faultful Quart, no matter that he doesn't deserve it.

      Delete
    7. .

      Damn, Bob, put a little effort into try to comprehend what you read. I was talking the last 15 years, Iraq II, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq III/Syria, Yemen, the whole effort over there. How can you try to justify it on any basis, the wholesale slaughter there and the pain we still suffer with here?

      Now you do your usual, when you are forced to attempt to think and the pain starts you change the subject and divert.

      Pitiful.

      .

      Delete
  9. THE GOOD NEWS

    is that the Pentagon has finally begun to put a high priority on understanding, diagnosing and treating these injuries. But, as officials there now admit, it is playing catch-up after too many years of ignoring the problem.

    "The system of care was really in denial for the longest time," says Colonel Christian Macedonia, a physician with the US Army who serves as medical-sciences adviser to Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Partly this was just the culture of the military, says Macedonia: because most soldiers dazed by a blast wave seemed to recover very quickly — on the surface — the attitude was, "Hey, shake it off".

    When the symptoms did begin to show, he says, troops with TBI were often misdiagnosed as having PTSD, which has similar symptoms. And veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have all too often been exposed to physical and psychological traumas that could easily cause both.

    “People just look at this field and turn and run.”

    But most of all, Macedonia thinks that the reluctance to recognize silent TBI was "the ghost of the Gulf War" — the ongoing scientific controversy around the diffuse symptoms described by many troops who served in the 1991 conflict. Study after study has failed to identify a root cause for Gulf War syndrome, he says, so when people started coming forward with TBI — yet another constellation of complaints that could not be linked to a single cause — the frustrated military-medicine hierarchy just didn't want to hear about it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. EXCEPTIONAL MUTHAFUKUS ONE AND ALL

    Back to Burt

    ...But in the meantime, Burt and the hundreds of thousands of other people with brain injuries can only hope that progress comes in time to help them. Once an ambitious multi-tasker, Burt says he now has problems with basic tasks. These days, he can get around the house, and even manage trips to the store — as long as he makes lists or uses some other form of reminder. “But I will never be what I was," he says.

    OOrah

    http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110921/full/477390a.html

    ReplyDelete
  11. Wayne State replaces math requirement with 'diversity training' requirement.

    http://hotair.com/archives/2016/06/19/one-university-moves-to-drop-their-math-requirement-and-guess-what-theyll-replaced-it-with/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Math and physics training is wasted on the GOP. All the answers are in the Bible.

      Delete
    2. Dumb comment.

      Almost Quirkian.

      Delete
  12. DON’T BELIEVE YOUR LYING RED, BLISTERING, SCORCHED SKIN OR THAT AIR TOO HOT TO PULL IN FOR A DEEP BREATH.

    An extreme heat wave will grip the southwestern United States through early week.
    A strong ridge of high pressure will take control and strengthen into this week, sending temperatures to dangerous levels.

    "When a ridge of high pressure like this one forms in the middle to late June, it can deliver some of the hottest weather possible to the Desert Southwest," AccuWeather Western U.S. Expert Ken Clark said.

    Temperatures will run between 10 and 20 degrees Fahrenheit above average through the early part of the week.
    “The peak of the heat in many areas will be on Monday, but Sunday and Tuesday will be no slouches either in the high heat department,” Clark said.


    DON’T BELIEVE THE LYING SCIENCE

    From April 2015 to May 2016 each month has been a new record for global average temperatures, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It is an unprecedented series of broken global temperature records. And scientists are warning now that we are in unprecedented territory facing the start of a climate emergency.

    TRUST THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

    ReplyDelete
  13. .

    The link I went to from Doug above was about a female reporter in Denmark I think it was who was spit on by a couple of muzz on live TV.

    I would expect them to not do that and behave according to mores of the rest of the world.

    But they were savages and acted according to savage mores.

    No box of cholcolate expected, just human decency.



    Interesting you should mention that. I went to google and typed in a search 'female reporter spit on'. A link to that story was the first to pop up and it continued to pop up repeatedly over the next seven pages of links (that's as far as I went). There had to be 50 references to that same incident from various blogs from gatewaypundit to vidmx to whatreallyhappened.

    The next most links went to the story of a mail reporter who cold cocked a prisoner who spit on him. Then there were a few about camels and llamas spitting and Trump verbally abusing female reporters. And then there was this one that only showed up twice, once in an ABC report and once in a You Tube video.

    Reporter feels mob's hate in the Holy City

    They might be supremely religious, but their behaviour - to me - was far from charitable or benevolent.

    As the protest became noisier and the crowd began yelling, I took my recorder and microphone out of my bag to record the sound.

    Suddenly the crowd turned on me, screaming in my face. Dozens of angry men began spitting on me.
    Spit like rain

    I found myself herded against a brick wall as they kept on spitting - on my face, my hair, my clothes, my arms.

    It was like rain, coming at me from all directions - hitting my recorder, my bag, my shoes, even my glasses.

    Big gobs of spit landed on me like heavy raindrops. I could even smell it as it fell on my face.

    Somewhere behind me - I didn't see him - a man on a stairway either kicked me in the head or knocked something heavy against me.

    I wasn't even sure why the mob was angry with me. Was it because I was a journalist? Or a woman? Because I wasn't Jewish in an Orthodox area? Was I not dressed conservatively enough?


    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm sure Bob will be consistent and condemn the religion of all those spotters...


      ....err, we'll maybe not Bob cause he's a hypocrite - maybe Doug instead.

      Delete
    2. As I tried to get away I found myself up against the line of riot police blocking the crowd from going any further.

      Reassurance

      Israeli police in their flak jackets and helmets, with rifles and shields, were yelling just as loudly back at the protesting crowd.

      I found them something of a reassurance against the angry, spitting mob.


      I condemn the mob and salute the Israeli Police.

      Delete
    3. The Smirk'n'Quirk Comedy Team is together once again....

      ....two summer fools arm in arm at Summer Solstice.

      Delete
    4. .

      The crowd was spiting on the woman and attacking her.

      BUT, the police 'yelled' at the crowd. Loudly.

      Do you even realize what a dolt you sound like?

      .

      Delete
    5. It's easy recognizing summer fools.

      But not winter ones.

      In the winter, a fool comes and knocks at your door, in heavy fur coat and head gear.

      It's only after you let him in and he takes off the heavy clothing and begins mumbling that you know he's a fool.

      In the summer however you see a man across the way waving his arms about and drooling and speaking nonsense and you know immediately he is a fool.

      The Smirk'n'Quirk Twins are summer fools.

      Taken roughly from Ernest Hemingway's 'For Whom The Bell Tolls' as told to Robert Jordan by a Russian military officer in Madrid, Spain during the Spanish Civil War.

      Delete
    6. And just what do you recommend, Summer Fool Quirk ?

      That the Police gun them all down ?

      If so, surely you'd agree the Police are justified in gunning down any Arabstinian rock throwers they might come upon.

      The Police protected her.

      She was thankful for it.

      You're an IDIOT, Quirkster.

      Delete
    7. We're headed out to a Summer Solstice Concert and a Father's Day Lunch.

      Cheers !

      Later

      Delete
    8. .

      The Police protected her.


      Tell it to her dry cleaner.

      .

      Delete
    9. .

      And just what do you recommend, Summer Fool Quirk ?

      That the Police gun them all down ?



      This shows how simple you are. To you it comes down to a matter of the police firmly chastising protesters or shooting them, no mention of arrests or any other actions in between.

      The woman was not only a victim of battery she was also a victim of assault, she was smacked in the head. Arrests or at least a arrest should have been in order (if possible). Raising your voice is hardly an assertive response in this instance.

      However, that's not the most simplistic argument you offer here.

      When talking about the attack on the Dutch women you say...

      The link I went to from Doug above was about a female reporter in Denmark I think it was who was spit on by a couple of muzz on live TV.

      I would expect them to not do that and behave according to mores of the rest of the world.

      But they were savages and acted according to savage mores.

      No box of cholcolate expected, just human decency.


      With a more virulent and violent attack by Israelis you write that act off completely, not even a mention, because after the fact the police raised their voice to the protesters.

      Time for you to look up the meaning of the word 'Hypocrisy'.

      .

      Delete
  14. Strikes in Syria

    Bomber, attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 16 strikes in Syria:

    -- Near Abu Kamal, a strike destroyed three ISIL oil well heads.

    -- Near Raqqah, three strikes struck two ISIL-used bridges and an ISIL staging area.

    -- Near Ayn Isa, a strike destroyed two ISIL rocket systems.

    -- Near Dayr Az Zawr, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

    -- Near Manbij, nine strikes struck nine separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed 11 ISIL fighting positions and an ISIL vehicle.

    -- Near Mara, a strike destroyed an ISIL vehicle and an ISIL heavy machine gun.

    Strikes in Iraq

    Rocket artillery and bomber, ground-attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 18 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:

    -- Near Baghdadi, two strikes struck an ISIL beddown facility and an ISIL staging area and destroyed an ISIL bunker.

    -- Near Beiji, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL fighting position, three ISIL vehicles, an ISIL heavy machine gun, an ISIL recoilless rifle and an ISIL mortar system.

    -- Near Fallujah, four strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed 22 ISIL fighting positions, two ISIL vehicles, 10 ISIL heavy machine guns, seven ISIL light machine guns, an ISIL recoilless rifle, three ISIL rocket-propelled-grenade systems and an ISIL vehicle-borne bomb and denied ISIL access to terrain.

    -- Near Kisik, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and an ISIL assembly area.

    -- Near Mosul, a strike struck an ISIL oil headquarters.

    -- Near Qayyarah, five strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed three ISIL mortar systems, an ISIL assembly area, an ISIL weapons cache and an ISIL command-and-control node and denied ISIL access to terrain.

    -- Near Ramadi, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL fighting position, an ISIL vehicle, an ISIL vehicle-borne bomb, an ISIL boat and an ISIL light machine gun and damaged a separate ISIL boat.

    -- Near Tal Afar, a strike struck two separate ISIL foreign fighter command posts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ash not concerned about the spitting on Syrians with rockets?

      Delete
  15. Spitting on people is vile. No matter who does it.

    Now with that said?

    Knife attacks are worse.

    Ash do you condemn knife attacks on women? No matter who does it?

    crickets.

    ReplyDelete
  16. QuirkSun Jun 19, 11:59:00 AM EDT
    .

    The Police protected her.


    Tell it to her dry cleaner.



    Ah the war crimes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      More silliness.

      The woman suffered assault and battery. In addition to the spit storm she was smacked in the head.

      My comments were more to point out the two different ways Bob viewed the two incidents, the Dutch reporter and the one in Israel.

      In the one, Bob talks of mores and human decency and calls the perps savages.

      In the second, he ignores the perps completely and switches the conversation to the police who raised their voices.

      The hypocrisy is palpable.

      .

      Delete
    2. Anyone who spits as assault is disgusting

      Of course if you are being attacked and you spit in retaliation? Different story.

      Now if a gang of Jews or arabs spit on people they don't like? they should be arrested.

      But talk about hypocrisy?

      You reek of it daily.

      Delete
  17. Arab's spit on Jews in Jerusalem, of course they use gasoline as spit...

    A home in Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv neighborhood was struck by four firebombs Thursday night thrown by four Arab suspects from the West Bank who were illegally residing in the adjacent neighborhood of Jebl Mukaber.


    Now that's spitting...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      And for some reason you fail to mention the settlers who throw the firebombs killing families including children and other who burn kids alive.

      Typical.

      .

      Delete
    2. In any instant a firebomb is used against innocent people it is a crime.

      the assertion to which I think you are referring? The Palestinians accuse settlers 1st without any evidence.

      But if a jew is guilty? Arrest, convict and incarcerate them.

      The telling stats tell a different story however, THOUSANDS of firebomb attacks by arabs verses a few by Jews.

      Jews aint perfect and there are jails in israel FILLED with Jewish thugs and murderers...

      The difference of course in the palestinian culture there are no arabs in jail for throwing firebombs or murder against Jews and those arabs in Israeli prisons? Get a salary by the PA for their attacks.

      Put that in your pipe and smoke it

      Delete
    3. Two Israeli Jewish citizens have been charged in the arson attack that killed three members of the Dawabsha family last summer.

      Israeli prosecutors charged 21-year-old Amiram Ben-Uliel with three counts of murder. Ben-Uliel was also charged with attempted murder for trying to set fire to another house.

      Prosecutors also charged a minor with accessory to murder. He reportedly helped plan the attack but did not show up to execute it.


      Sounds like Israeli justice works.

      On 31 July 2015, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his phone call to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has expressed "shock and horror" at an arson attack telling him that "it's upon us to together fight terror, no matter which side perpetrates it"


      PA salaries to terrorists
      In April 2011, the Palestinian Authority Registry published a Government Resolution granting all Palestinian prisoners imprisoned in Israel for security and terror-related offenses a monthly salary from the PA (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 15, 2011). This new resolution, called PA Government Resolution of 2010, numbers 21 and 23, formalized what has long been a PA practice.

      The PA defined which Palestinians would be considered "prisoners": "Anyone imprisoned in the occupation's [Israel's] prisons as a result of his participation in the struggle against the occupation" (Ch. 1 of Law of Prisoners, 2004/19, www.alasra.ps, accessed May 9, 2011)

      According to the PA definition, more than 4,500 Palestinian prisoners (as of December 2012) serving time for terror-related offenses are recipients of PA salaries. This means that Palestinians convicted of crimes such as theft do not receive a salary, but Hamas and Fatah terrorist murderers do.

      These monthly payments to prisoners are paid from the PA’s general budget and income taxes are paid, as is the case with all other PA salaries (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 19, 2011). According to the language of the PA regulation as well as PA economic reports on government salaries, the monthly salaries to prisoners range from 2,400 shekels to 12,000 shekels. The PA economic report listed the prisoners’ salaries as part of the PA general salary budget, which includes civil servants, military personnel and others. (Life and the Market, supplement to Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 19, 2011). It was not listed as a social service payment.

      The PA’s general budget and salary budget is funded by numerous donor countries. Since 2011, PMW has been documenting that international donors' aid money given for salaries and to the PA general budget pays the salaries of Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israel. This is in violation of the letter or spirit of the laws of the funding countries.

      http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=1005

      Delete
    4. MAJORITY OF PALESTINIANS SUPPORT KNIFE ATTACKS, UNLESS THE ATTACKER IS A YOUNG GIRL

      Two-thirds of Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip support the current spate of knife attacks against Israelis on the streets of Israel and the Palestinian territories—but almost three-quarters disapprove of young girls doing the stabbing, according to a new poll released on Tuesday.

      Since October 1, Palestinians have killed nineteen Israelis and one U.S. citizen in a series of stabbings, shootings and car rammings. The attacks began as anger over allegations that Israel was attempting to change the status quo at a Jerusalem holy site—known as the Haram al-Sharif to Muslims and the Temple Mount to Jews— reached boiling point. Israeli forces have killed 119 Palestinians in clashes over the past two months. Of those, Israel says, 67 were attackers.

      The survey, conducted by the Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki for the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), shows that 67 percent of Palestinians across both territories support the use of knives in confrontations with Israelis, while 31 percent oppose the tactic.


      How many Settler knife attacks against palestinians have there been?

      If none? Quirk are you saying that Israels need to stab Palestinians to keep up the averages?

      Delete

  18. If you spit upon "O"rdure, he will report you to the FBI!

    {;-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jack "I kill civilians" Hawkins says distortions and lies.

      {;-)

      Delete
    2. However I DID report Jack (and his real name) to the AZ FBI for making threats to me over the internet.

      :)

      Delete
  19. It was just yesterday that our little "O"rdure remarked that when former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak accused Benjamin Netanyahu's government of pushing the country into becoming an “apartheid state", it was merely a 'political' move.

    Pandering, as it were, to the millions of voters in Israel who believe that Israel is, or is transforming into an "Apartheid State".

    That "O"rdure believes that there are enough voters in Israel that believe the "Apartheid State" meme and are appalled, that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, "O"rdure tells us, can make it a political issue.

    The people of Israel confirming, through "O"rdure's analysis of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak actions, that many voters in Israel accept that it is an Apartheid State, and are concerned.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jack HawkinsSun Jun 19, 03:11:00 PM EDT
      It was just yesterday that our little "O"rdure remarked that when former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak accused Benjamin Netanyahu's government of pushing the country into becoming an “apartheid state", it was merely a 'political' move.


      Actually that's not what I said, why not quote the exact words in context?

      Is it because you're a coward?

      Delete

    2. You want the quote, "O"rure, go get it.

      Further your own embarrassment.

      Delete
    3. Pussy..

      You quote snippets and out of context words, you distort lie and misdirect..

      Go fuck yourself...

      Self confessed criminal

      Delete
    4. Jack "the dead beat dad" Hawkins says:

      That "O"rdure believes that there are enough voters in Israel that believe the "Apartheid State" meme and are appalled, that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, "O"rdure tells us, can make it a political issue.

      Once again, Jack LIES distorts and misdirects.

      BTW What would Jack KNOW about what I believed?

      After Jack stalked the WRONG JEW for 2 years (Chocolate Emporium) thinking and bragging about it here at the blog...

      LOL

      What a fool

      Delete
  20. Meanwhile, there are many people in Japan that would like the US to end the "Occupation" ...

    Tens of thousands of people yesterday protested against the presence of US military bases in Okinawa, many wearing black to mourn the rape and killing of a local woman, a case in which a US contractor is a suspect.

    The rally called for a review of the US-Japanese security agreement, which burdens Okinawa with hosting the bulk of US troops in Japan.

    Also contentious is a plan to relocate a US Marine Corps air station to a less-populated part of the island. The relocation plan developed after public anger erupted in 1995 over the rape of a girl by three US servicemen.


    http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/06/20/2003649031

    ReplyDelete

  21. There is this little news bite ...

    Every observatory in the world now reports carbon dioxide is at highest level in 4 million years

    One wonders how that can be, when the GOP base is so sure the world was created 5,000 years ago.

    ReplyDelete
  22. What is "Occupation" Sat Jun 18, 08:17:00 PM EDT

    ...

    He is a politician, just like in the USA will say anything to get elected.


    So former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak will garner political support among Israeli voters by voicing their concerns that Israel is now an "Apartheid State".

    "O"rdure figures that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak will gain voter support, in Israel, according to "O"rdure's written word, yesterday.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If there was not voter support for former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak calling Israel and Apartheid Stat, well, according to "O"rdure, he'd not have said it.

      So many Israelis believe it, and are apalled, that "O"rdure believes that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak can make it a pivotal political issue

      Delete

    2. Figure there's be no reason for anyone to wait, while you failed to perform, "O"rdure.

      Delete
    3. I didn't fail to report you and your criminal activities to the proper authorities.

      Delete
  23. Philadelphia:

    Cheri Honkala, the leader of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, announced that her group was organizing the world’s largest “fart-in” to be held on July 28 at the Wells Fargo Center during Hillary Clinton’s anticipated acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination.

    “We will be holding a massive bean supper for Bernie Sanders delegates on American Street in my Kensington neighborhood on the afternoon of July 28,” she said. “We are setting up a Clintonville there, modeled on the Hoovervilles of the 1930s where the poor and unemployed built shanty towns. The Sanders delegates, their bellies full of beans, will be able to return to the Wells Fargo Center and greet the rhetorical flatulence of Hillary Clinton with the real thing.”

    Honkala said she would issue an invitation to Sanders to join the bean supper, which she is calling Beans for Hillary. She has asked donors to send cans of beans to 1301-W Porter Street, Philadelphia, Pa., 19148.

    “Any remaining beans will be served to the homeless, although we will, of course, be urging Sanders delegates to eat as much as possible,” Honkala said.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Chris Hedges, an author and activist who is an ordained Presbyterian minister, will open the Beans for Hillary meal with a nondenominational prayer.

      “I am happy to bless a meal that will be put to such effective political use,” Hedges said.

      “The Democratic primary process, as Sanders supporters now realize, was rigged from the start,” said Hedges, a Pulitzer-prize winning former New York Times foreign correspondent. “The Democratic National Committee and the Clinton machine used a variety of mechanisms to game the elections including the appointing of superdelgates, the banning of independent voters from numerous primaries, purging voters from voting lists and using millions in dark money and from Super PACs to fund the Clinton campaign. Caucuses, as we saw in Nevada, were shamelessly manipulated on behalf of Clinton. Sanders never had a chance.”

      “We need to build a third party and populist movements, freed from Democratic Party control, to defy corporate power,” Hedges said. “This will take more than one election cycle to accomplish. If Sanders will not join us, we will have to do it without him.”

      Honkala, who was the Green Party’s vice-presidential nominee in 2012, said the poor and working men and women could not endure more assaults from the forces of neoliberalism and the two corporate political parties.

      “The Clintons have done enough damage,” she said. “They decimated the working class with the North American Free Trade Agreement. They exploded the prison population under the 1994 Omnibus Crime bill and draconian drug laws that mandated life sentences. They destroyed the welfare system, and under the old system 70 percent of the recipients were children. They turned the airwaves over to a half dozen corporations by deregulating the FCC. They ripped down the firewalls between commercial and investment banks that precipitated the global meltdown. There is not a war they don’t support. And their record on civil liberties is appalling. We cannot afford more of the same. We are either going to build third party movements or an American Spring.”

      Delete
    2. Honkala is planning a march on the opening day of the convention, although the city has denied her a permit.

      It will begin on the south side of Philadelphia’s City Hall at 3 p.m. on July 25. She said the Beans for Hillary event would cap three days of protests during the convention to highlight the plight of the poor and the working poor.

      “We get political mutations like Trump because the system does not work on our behalf,” she said. “Putting the Clintons back in power may remove Trump from the scene, but it guarantees that a political figure even more frightening will rise to take his place. Until we wrest back control from corporate power things will only get worse.”

      Delete
    3. It is an apt recognition of the corruption of the US political system.

      Delete
  24. In 2008, Hillary opened the campaign with many more Super Delegates than did Obama. However, when Obama won the majority of the pledged delegates (even though it was a small majority,) Hillary's Super Delegates switched over to Obama.

    Super Delegates have never determined the outcome of a Democratic Primary - and, they wouldn't have this year.

    But, the fact is, Hillary wiped Sanders out in all conceivable metrics. She pummeled him in the Total Vote, in Pledged Delegates, in States Won, and in the Size of States Won.

    She beat him in "Open" Primaries, as well as "Closed" Primaries. Also, in the instances where the states purged voter rolls (such as NY,) and closed polling stations (such as Arizona,) the changes impacted the strongest in precincts where Hillary was affected more negatively than was Bernie.

    The old commie just got himself a good, transcontinental, Marxist ass-kicking.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How many times a day do you masturbate to pictures of Hillary?

      Delete
  25. It’s getting to look like another case of political correctness become lethal as we learn more and more of the red flags people ignored about the Orlando jihadist.

    From USA Today:

    Mateen in 2007, as part of the G4S hiring screening process, underwent a standard psychological exam — named the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory — and a background check, its representatives said. The state also screened Mateen every two years in order for him to keep his private security license. Beyond that, G4S does not conduct yearly background checks of its employees; rather, 15 percent of all employees are randomly checked each year, representatives said. Mateen’s background, however, was checked again by G4S in 2013 after the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office requested he be removed from the St. Lucie County Courthouse patrol after he allegedly made derogatory comments to a deputy. A deputy at the courthouse mentioned the Middle East to Mateen, who reacted by threatening the deputy, said Sheriff Ken Mascara, who attended the Wednesday night meeting at the community’s Island Club. “Omar became very agitated and made a comment that he could have al-Qaida kill my employee and his family,” Mascara said Wednesday. “If that wasn’t bad enough, he followed it up with very disturbing comments about women and followed it up with very disturbing comments about Jews and then went on to say that the Fort Hood shooter was justified in his actions.”
    Shouldn’t that be enough to keep someone from buying a gun? This guy had a long history of these kind of reactions, and yet nobody connected the dots until he started shooting people.

    Here’s how they treated the incident:

    The FBI launched an investigation into Mateen after Sheriff’s Office officials reported the incident to the agency. As part of its investigation, the FBI examined Mateen’s travel history, phone records, acquaintances and even planted a confidential informant in the courthouse to “lure Omar into some kind of act and Omar did not bite,” Mascara said. The FBI concluded Mateen was not a threat after that, Mascara said. In an interview with G4S management shortly after the courthouse comments, Mateen told his superiors he was the target of inflammatory comments from co-workers because of his Islamic faith, Levine said. The interview, Levine said, took place shortly after the Boston Marathon bombings, which was carried out by two Islamic extremist brothers. Levine said Mateen claimed his co-workers on one occasion asked him what suicide vest he was wearing on a particular day. G4S concluded Mateen worked in a hostile environment and did not fire him, Levine said.
    Except there’s an ex-employee who said that he had been threatened and harassed by Mateen too. It looks like Mateen knew how to manipulate the system and abuse our absurd notions of political correctness.

    http://therightscoop.com/more-missed-red-flags-orlando-jihadist-had-threatened-to-kill-sheriffs-deputy/#ixzz4C47IQVVU

    ReplyDelete
  26. Lynch: "Partial Transcript" Of Orlando 911 Calls Will Have References To Islamic Terrorism Removed
    Transcript:
    LORETTA LYNCH: What we're announcing tomorrow is that the FBI is releasing a partial transcript of the killer's calls with law enforcement, from inside the club. These are the calls with the Orlando PD negotiating team, who he was, where he was... that will be coming out tomorrow and I'll be headed to Orlando on Tuesday.

    CHUCK TODD: Including the hostage negotiation part of this?

    LYNCH: Yes, it will be primarily a partial transcript of his calls with the hostage negotiators.

    CHUCK TODD: You say partial, what's being left out?

    LYNCH: What we're not going to do is further proclaim this man's pledges of alleigance to terrorist groups, and further his propaganda.

    CHUCK TODD: We're not going to hear him talk about those things?

    LYNCH: We will hear him talk about some of those things, but we are not going to hear him make his assertions of allegiance and that. It will not be audio, it will be a printed transcript. But it will begin to capture the back and forth between him and the negotiators, we're trying to get as much information about this investigation out as possible. As you know, because the killer is dead, we have a bit more leeway there and we will be producing that information tomorrow.


    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/06/19/lynch_partial_transcript_of_orlando_911_calls_will_have_references_to_isis_cut_out.html

    ReplyDelete
  27. FATHER’S DAY

    My father was the son of Norwegian immigrants, blond hair, blue eyes, like me. He worked hard and loved his wife and kids as much as love could be. I think of my father almost every day, and since today is Father’s Day I thought I would write down a few of the things I remember of those long ago days.

    The time I was a little kid
    Seven, I would note
    The kitchen and a block of wood
    He built a toy sail boat
    A kite he made me at that time
    The frame some scraps of wood
    Newspaper and an old worn tie
    But could it fly? It could
    Then later, I was older now
    Piano, dinner done
    He’d show me ukulele chords
    With music, father, son
    I close my eyes and hear him now
    Each evening he would play
    That old upright piano
    In his own distinctive way
    I see that old piano bench
    He knew most every song
    That ever had been written
    Oh it seems a time so long
    He left us on a winter day
    Some thirty years ago
    We gathered by the mounded earth
    The winter clouds so low
    But I still see that kite and boat
    Piano keys still play
    I see him as he’ll always be
    And miss him every day

    Walt

    ReplyDelete
  28. Musk is right: This is all a very sick computer simulation.
    9-11 Had nothing to do with Islam or Saudi Arabia.

    Orlando gunman Omar Mateen visited Saudi Arabia on NYU-sponsored trip with 12 Muslim NYPD officers in 2012

    Omar Mateen made the trip as part of an annual pilgrimage led by the Islamic Center at New York University, according to the Wall Street Journal.
    Omar Mateen made the trip as part of an annual pilgrimage led by the Islamic Center at New York University, according to the Wall Street Journal.
    The gunman who slaughtered 49 people at an Orlando nightclub traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2012 with a group from New York that included 12 Muslim NYPD officers, according to reports.

    Omar Mateen made the trip as part of an annual pilgrimage led by the Islamic Center at New York University, according to the Wall Street Journal.

    About 80 people were on the trip for Umrah, a religious pilgrimage taken by millions of devout Muslims to Mecca and Medina.

    Groups from Columbia and Yale universities, as well as about 40 people from an NYPD contingent were on the journey, the university told the newspaper in a statement.

    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/orlando-gunman-visited-saudi-arabia-nyu-trip-12-nypd-cops-article-1.2678747

    https://www.google.com/search?q=Saudi+Arabia&rlz=1C1AVSU_enUS357&oq=Saudi+Arabia&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i65l2j69i60j69i59&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

    ReplyDelete
  29. Happy Father's Day to those who have earned it!

    Now if you are a dead beat dad? Someone who beat his wife enough to cause her to take her child and FLEE back to Central America?

    NO HAPPY FATHERS DAY TO YOU...

    Must piss you off Jack, knowing that rejection must be painful.

    Jack, you deserve it..

    Prick.

    ReplyDelete
  30. What if PTSD Is More Physical Than Psychological?
    A new study supports what a small group of military researchers has suspected for decades:
    that modern warfare destroys the brain.

    In early 2012, a neuropathologist named Daniel Perl was examining a slide of human brain tissue when he saw something odd and unfamiliar in the wormlike squiggles and folds. It looked like brown dust; a distinctive pattern of tiny scars. Perl was intrigued. At 69, he had examined 20,000 brains over a four-decade career, focusing mostly on Alzheimer’s and other degenerative disorders. He had peered through his microscope at countless malformed proteins and twisted axons. He knew as much about the biology of brain disease as just about anyone on earth. But he had never seen anything like this.

    The brain under Perl’s microscope belonged to an American soldier who had been five feet away when a suicide bomber detonated his belt of explosives in 2009. The soldier survived the blast, thanks to his body armor, but died two years later of an apparent drug overdose after suffering symptoms that have become the hallmark of the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: memory loss, cognitive problems, inability to sleep and profound, often suicidal depression. Nearly 350,000 service members have been given a diagnosis of traumatic brain injury over the past 15 years, many of them from blast exposure. The real number is likely to be much higher, because so many who have enlisted are too proud to report a wound that remains invisible.
    ===
    Perl’s findings, published in the scientific journal The Lancet Neurology, may represent the key to a medical mystery first glimpsed a century ago in the trenches of World War I. It was first known as shell shock, then combat fatigue and finally PTSD, and in each case, it was almost universally understood as a psychic rather than a physical affliction. Only in the past decade or so did an elite group of neurologists, physicists and senior officers begin pushing back at a military leadership that had long told recruits with these wounds to “deal with it,” fed them pills and sent them back into battle.
    ===
    For those who survived a blast and suffered the mysterious symptoms, soldiers quickly coined their own phrase: shell shock. One period lyric went like this:

    Perhaps you’re broke and paralyzed

    Perhaps your memory goes

    But it’s only just called shell shock

    For you’ve nothing there that shows.

    One British doctor, Frederick Mott, believed the shock was caused by a physical wound and proposed dissecting the brains of men who suffered from it. He even had some prescient hunches about the mechanism of blast’s effects: the compression wave, the concussion and the toxic gases. In a paper published in The Lancet in February 1916, he posited a “physical or chemical change and a break in the links of the chain of neurons which subserve a particular function.” Mott might not have seen anything abnormal in the soldiers’ brains, even if he had examined them under a microscope; neuropathology was still in its infancy. But his prophetic intuitions made him something of a hero to Perl.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/magazine/what-if-ptsd-is-more-physical-than-psychological.html?_r=0

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=visible+evidence+of+brain+injury+from+explosions&oq=visible+evidence+of+brain+injury+from+explosions&gs_l=news-cc.12..43j43i53.17095.45488.0.56027.48.8.0.40.1.0.165.1213.0j8.8.0...0.0...1ac.1.sVdufq3q860

      Delete
  31. 14 Year Old Girl Dies From Injuries After TWICE DEPORTED Drunk Driving Illegal Alien Hit Her Christmas Eve

    Just days after Speaker Paul Ryan said he did not want to ‘clog jails’ with previously deported drunk driving illegal aliens, 14 year-old Gianna Bartolucci, died Saturday from brain injuries caused by a twice deported drunk driving illegal alien in a head-on crash last Christmas Eve in Clarkson, New York, according to a statement by her parents posted to their church website.

    …”Point three: what we have to figure out is how do we write Kate’s Law so that we’re not clogging up our jails so much for, say, DUI, but for the true violent criminals? … We need to get the details right so that we actually are going after the people that are doing this. … Trust me, you know we’re frustrated about this.”

    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/06/14-year-old-girl-dies-injuries-previously-deported-drunk-driving-illegal-alien-hit-christmas-eve/

    ReplyDelete
  32. A head-on collision is not a violent way to die.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Happy Father's Day to all the good fathers.

    I second WiO's sentiments.

    It's a big job, very important.

    A dead beat dad is a true blight on humanity.

    We listened to an old fiddler today, and his wife doing the hand bellows, they were GREAT, and the cookies were tremendous, and I made touch with a couple of folks I hadn't seen in years.

    Excellent time we had !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, I forgot, Jack 'Dead Beat Dad' Hawkins is an asshole.

      Delete
    2. His girl 'dropped the kid', in Jack's disgusting phrase, comparing the birth of a human child to cattle, in the USA, a good move - and then fled from Jack immediately back to Central America.

      Delete
  34. Big basketball game coming up -

    Later

    ReplyDelete
  35. @scottostler
    Sure you're nervous, #Warriors fans. That's why God made tequila shooters. #saludamente

    ReplyDelete
  36. Syria is a clusterfuck.

    Assad, with Iran, Hezbollah, Russia, USA and now Palestinian help has offed 400- 500 thousand civilians. They say ISIS has murdered about 30 thousand.

    Makes you proud don't it?

    ReplyDelete
  37. Moscow announces death of 11th Russian soldier in Syrian war

    June 19, 2016, 7:02 PM (IDT)

    Russia's Defense Ministry announced Sunday that Sgt. Andrei Timoshenkov, who was wounded in fighting near the Syrian city of Homs on June 15, had succumbed his injuries. It was the 11th death of a Russian soldier announced by Moscow since its military intervention in Syria 10 months ago in September 2015.


    ReplyDelete
  38. Early in the Syrian War I argued for some no fly zones and safe zones, but Quirk screamed his old lungs out that I was a war monger so I dropped the subject.

    Let's ask Quirk then to put the 500,000 dead on his account....

    And as I recall Smirk joined in too with Quirk.

    These two have been acting like twins for a long time now.

    Which is why I've come to call them The Smirk'n'Quirk Twins

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. safe havens and no fly zones make sense.

      it would have stabilized the 12-15 million refugees instead of creating the largest refugee situation in decades.

      Delete
  39. Replies
    1. James has four turnovers. And they were glaring.

      Delete
  40. Self Driving Car kills Star Trek Actor

    http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Star-Trek-actor-Anton-Yelchin-dies-in-car-crash-8311846.php

    ReplyDelete
  41. Tuck in that shirt, player!

    http://videorulebook.nba.com/archive/delay-of-game-player-enters-the-game-with-his-shirt-untucked/

    ReplyDelete
  42. An Indonesian navy vessel fired at foreign fishing trawlers in a confrontation in the South China Sea that resulted in the seizing of a Chinese ship and, Beijing said, injury to one fisherman.

    ...

    It has seized and then sunk foreign vessels and at least twice in recent months detained small numbers of Chinese fisherman it accuses of violating its territory. In a standoff in March, China’s coast guard prevented Indonesian authorities from detaining a Chinese fishing vessel.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Stephen Kinnock, the MP who shared an office with Mrs Cox, was subjected to “particularly venomous” online abuse last week after an article about his family’s support for the Remain campaign. One email threatened violence and has been reported to the police, he said.

    ...

    “Many MPs have a siege mentality because of the abuse, so I do think something needs to be done about it, but the question is what. You’ve got to get a balance between free speech and protecting people’s security.

    The last thing we’d want to do is never hold surgeries, then the bad guys have won.”

    ReplyDelete
  44. Given the more relaxed market mood this week, the relief rally when – if – Brexit doesn't happen may be more subdued than anticipated during last week's skittishness.

    In any case, expect equity and commodity prices to get a lift, and bonds to sell off. The Australian dollar, which has been behaving as a safe-haven-commodity currency hybrid of late may receive some support, although pounds sterling will be the big winner against the US dollar.
    Kathy Lien, BK Asset Management's managing director of foreign exchange trading, sees a "steady 4 per cent to 5 per cent recovery" in the pound.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Good News !

    Activists plan 'world's largest fart-in' during Hillary DNC speech....DRUDGE

    Excellent.

    That will stop the old Criminal in her tracks !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. (I hope they make it a bare assed butts upward fart-in)

      Delete
    2. Bad News:
      Warriors Fart Out.

      Delete
  46. Muhammad Ali receives award in Philidelphia

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/rugbyunion/video-6654/Muhammad-Ali-receives-award-Philidelphia.html

    (Philadelphia)

    ReplyDelete
  47. Orlando Killer’s Father Held Meetings At The White House

    Interesting. Mateen claims he was there meeting senior Congressional staff. They’re all trying to cover it up now that the truth about the Mateen family is out. Seddique is a Taliban supporter and his son is a murderer who swore allegiance to ISIS on whose behalf he slaughter innocent Americans. And Mateen apparently, has been very friendly with the Democrat establishment in Washington.

    Why isn’t anyone else talking about this?

    You’re not going to find this in the mainstream media. They’re too busy shilling for Clinton and Obama. But the pictures don’t lie. And neither do the dead bodies in Orlando.

    Oh, and here’s Seddique Mateen with Democrat Congressman and Hillary supporter, Charlie Rangel of New York.

    http://downstreampolitics.com/2016/06/14/hillarys-state-department-killed-investigation-omar-mateens-mosque/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CORRECTION:

      http://downstreampolitics.com/2016/06/15/orlando-killers-father-held-meetings-white-house/

      Delete
  48. Hillary’s State Department Killed Investigation Of Omar Mateen’s Mosque

    The Obama Administration and candidate Clinton are peddling the idea that Omar Mateen was a lone gunmen radicalized by videos he saw on the internet. Does that sound familiar at all? It’s awfully similar to the bogus story Clinton and Obama told about the “spontaneous protest” in Benghazi that was supposedly in response to an “insulting” video on YouTube. You know, because everyone attends a “spontaneous protest” with mortars and shells. Both stories are lies.

    It turns out that there was an active investigation related to the Islamic Center of Ft. Pierce, Omar Mateen’s mosque, inside the Department of Homeland Security that was shut down at the behest of Hillary Clinton’s State Department. So says retired DHS officer and whistleblower, Philip Haney who was working on the investigation.

    As a member of one of the National Targeting Center’s advanced units, Haney helped develop a case in 2011 on a worldwide Islamic movement known as Tablighi Jamaat, as he recounts in his new book “See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad.” Within a few months, the case drew the “concern” of the State Department and the DHS’s Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Office because the Obama administration believed it unfairly singled out Muslims. The intelligence, however, had been used to connect members of the movement to several terrorist organizations and financing at the highest levels, including for Hamas and al-Qaida.

    In the immediate aftermath of the Orlando massacre, Haney has found that the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, Florida, is part of a network in the United States that originated in the Indian subcontinent.

    The Fort Pierce mosque’s website features a link that demonstrates its relationship to the Shariah Board of America, a division of the Rahmat-e-Alam Foundation, which operates the Darul Uloom Chicago madrassa.

    The madrassa is closely affiliated with the Institute of Islamic Education, which was a major component of Haney’s Tablighi Jamaat case.

    Along with the State Department’s and Department of Homeland Security’s quashing of the case in June 2012, the administration subsequently ordered the deletion of an additional 67 records related to a report on the Institute of Islamic Education.

    Haney explained that this kind of information comprises the “dots” that counter-terrorism analysts connect to form cases that are used to identify potential terrorist threats.

    Mateen’s mosque was also the mosque of the first American to kill himself and others in a suicide bombing. That was 22 year old Mohammad Abusalha in 2014. The FBI determined during an investigation of Mateen that he and Abusalha knew each other but that it wasn’t of any consequence. As of today, they are sticking with that theory. Amazing.

    So why would Hillary shut down this investigation? Political correctness? Bad multicultural ideology? Incompetence? Was she trying to curry favor with the muslim community in hopes of securing their support – and money – in advance of her Presidential bid? It’s probably some combination of all of these.

    But let’s remember that the Clinton Foundation has received tens of millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and other benefactors in the muslim world. Let’s also remember that according to the Petra News Agency, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman claims the Saudis have provided 20% of Clinton’s campaign funding. Follow the money.

    Whatever the reasons – incompetence, bad ideology, payoffs, or pandering for votes – it’s clear the Hillary Clinton does not have the safety and security of this country at heart. She is what she has always been – dishonest, self-seeking, and dangerous and she has no business in the White House.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Eat Hillary's Cunt, Rufus, you Traitorous Dipshit.

    ReplyDelete
  50. .

    Speaking of farts, I see Bob has revived his 'no-fly zone' brain fart.

    We could cite a number of reasons as to why a 'no-fly zone' like most of Bob's ideas is a loser; however, one ought to suffice for any rational person, Hillary is all for it.

    :o)

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ../..

      :o)

      .

      A: "di dah" . . . B: "da di di dit" . . . C: "da di da dit" . . . D: "da di dit" . . . E: "dit" . . . F: di di da dit" G: "da da dit" . . . H: "di di di dit" . . . I: "di dit". . . J: "di da da dah".
      .

      Delete
  51. Doug and Bob at the game last night:

    http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/47/56/47/10414546/5/1024x1024.jpg

    ReplyDelete