Thirty-five years ago saw one of the most disgraceful episodes in American history. South Vietnam's capital of Saigon fell to communist North Vietnamese troops, bringing a close to the Vietnam War, a conflict that the United States lost by choice.
The Vietnam War could have turned out much differently. As veterans of the conflict often say, "We were winning when I left." But President Johnson's limited war sought not victory but stalemate. He wanted to preserve South Vietnam's freedom but not destroy the principal threat to that freedom in Hanoi. In 1965, Johnson said he sought to convince the communists of "a very simple fact: We will not be defeated. We will not grow tired. We will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement." Yet 10 years later, the United States had done all of the above.
Had the United States fought North Vietnam as it had any other enemy in its history, the conflict would have been settled speedily. However, fear of escalation and Chinese intervention caused Johnson to severely limit the use of force against the North. He chose to fight the war on unfavorable terms in the South, which was a long-term recipe for failure; nevertheless, the United States and South Vietnamese armed forces foiled every North Vietnamese attack. The 1968 Tet Offensive, the last-ditch attempt to achieve a communist victory, was a historic military defeat for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, which a demoralized U.S. government and skeptical press turned into an American political defeat.
After Johnson left office in disgrace, President Nixon's war - termed the "Better War" by historian and Vietnam veteran Lewis Sorley - demonstrated a model for long-term success in South Vietnam. The United States withdrew its combat forces and "Vietnamized" the war, bolstering our allies with materiel, intelligence and air support. The proof of the success of this model was the 1972 Easter Offensive, in which Hanoi violated the terms of the truce and conducted a major conventional attack on the South. The offensive was turned back by a combination of tenacious defense by South Vietnamese forces and unrestrained U.S. bombing in the North. "The surgical operation theory is all right," Nixon told National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, "but I want that place, whenever the planes are available, bombed to smithereens during the blockade. If we draw the sword out, we're going to bomb those bastards all over the place." America was finally speaking a language the communists understood.
Ultimately, South Vietnam became a casualty of American domestic politics: Watergate, the oil crisis and a general crisis of national confidence. The 1973 Paris Peace Agreement was a flawed deal forced on Saigon with promises of future support that were soon broken. President Nixon was hounded from office. The emboldened Democratic Congress cut aid to South Vietnam and left the Paris Peace Agreement unenforceable. President Ford was too weak politically to force the issue, even if he had wanted to.
Hanoi seized the opportunity in the spring of 1975 and invaded the South. The South Vietnamese mounted a spirited defense but soon ran out of ammunition and supplies. Hanoi, meanwhile, was amply supplied by its communist patrons in Moscow and Beijing. By the end of April 1975, South Vietnam was in its death throes, Americans were being choppered out from Saigon rooftops and the world saw the United States as a pitiful, enfeebled giant.
America's betrayal of South Vietnam has been an inspiration to foreign insurgents and domestic activists and politicians who have sought to replicate it whenever U.S. forces have been deployed abroad. U.S. military might is only as strong as the politicians who stand behind it. The lesson for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan is that America will prevail with strong will and determined leadership. A disgrace like April 1975 must never happen again.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
South Africa's Land Reform
To: A.A. Cunningham
Ahh, I’m glad that CNN brought up the “centuries of inequality”. I believe one of the inequalities is intelligence.
South Africa’s nation IQ average is a combination of the two main ethnic groups. These can easily be compared by looking at the Dutch (the Afrikanner’s heritage) which is tied for #6 in the world at 102 and Zimbabwe, which is probably what South Africa would be if you subtracted the several million Whites. It is rated #77 of 81, with an average IQ score of 66.
Somehow I’m expecting CNN won’t mention this. Instead we will be fed the “history of racism” bullcrap.
Thinking about it: if you had a child with an IQ of 66 would you prefer that they live in a society run by others with IQ’s of 66, or one run by people with IQs of 102? Which is more humane?
Rank Country IQ estimate[3]
1 Hong Kong 107
2 South Korea 106
3 Japan 105
4 Taiwan 104
5 Singapore 103
6 Austria 102
6 Germany 102
6 Italy 102
6 Netherlands 102
10 Sweden 101
10 Switzerland 101
12 Belgium 100
12 China 100
12 New Zealand 100
12 United Kingdom 100
16 Hungary 99
16 Poland 99
16 Spain 99
19 Australia 98
19 Denmark 98
19 France 98
19 Mongolia 98
19 Norway 98
19 United States 98
25 Canada 97
25 Czech Republic 97
25 Finland 97
28 Argentina 96
28 Russia 96
28 Slovakia 96
28 Uruguay 96
32 Portugal 95
32 Slovenia 95
34 Israel 94
34 Romania 94
36 Bulgaria 93
36 Ireland 93
36 Greece 93
39 Malaysia 92
40 Thailand 91
41 Croatia 90
41 Peru 90
41 Turkey 90
Rank Country IQ estimate[3]
44 Colombia 89
44 Indonesia 89
44 Suriname 89
47 Brazil 87
47 Iraq 87
47 Mexico 87
47 Samoa 87
47 Tonga 87
52 Lebanon 86
52 Philippines 86
54 Cuba 85
54 Morocco 85
56 Fiji 84
56 Iran 84
56 Marshall Islands 84
56 Puerto Rico 84
60 Egypt 83
60 Saudi Arabia 83
60 United Arab Emirates 83
61 India 81
62 Ecuador 80
63 Guatemala 79
64 Barbados 78
64 Nepal 78
64 Qatar 78
67 Zambia 77
68 Congo 73
68 Uganda 73
70 Jamaica 72
70 Kenya 72
70 South Africa 72
70 Sudan 72
70 Tanzania 72
75 Ghana 71
76 Nigeria 67
77 Guinea 66
77 Zimbabwe 66
79 Democratic Republic of the Congo 65
80 Sierra Leone 64
81 Ethiopia 63
82
10 posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 1:27:03 PM by Jack Black ( Whatever is left of American patriotism is now identical with counter-revolution.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]
To: Jack Black
That list is very interesting, although I doubt some of it’s individual rankings. What is the source for it?
11 posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 1:43:21 PM by matthew fuller (#11. Thou shalt not argue with morons.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]
To: matthew fuller; Jack Black; Travis McGee; Black Agnes
If you doubt it then disprove it.
the chart on wiki is even worse on third worlders and wiki ain’t known for being a stormfront site now is it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations#National_IQ_estimates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_Global_Inequality
12 posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 1:59:43 PM by wardaddy (life is good, culture is dying)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]
To: wardaddy
Sorry, I can’t prove any of my thoughts on this, but the items that I have doubts about are the stated one point superiority of US over Canada, because of the US multicultural nature vs what I perceive Canada’s to be. The second item that I’m dubious about is the position of Israel. That seems to be oddly low.
13 posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 2:50:41 PM by matthew fuller (#11. Thou shalt not argue with morons.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]
To: MinorityRepublican
The ANC is trying to do to South Africa what Mugabe did to Rhodesia.
Ahh, I’m glad that CNN brought up the “centuries of inequality”. I believe one of the inequalities is intelligence.
South Africa’s nation IQ average is a combination of the two main ethnic groups. These can easily be compared by looking at the Dutch (the Afrikanner’s heritage) which is tied for #6 in the world at 102 and Zimbabwe, which is probably what South Africa would be if you subtracted the several million Whites. It is rated #77 of 81, with an average IQ score of 66.
Somehow I’m expecting CNN won’t mention this. Instead we will be fed the “history of racism” bullcrap.
Thinking about it: if you had a child with an IQ of 66 would you prefer that they live in a society run by others with IQ’s of 66, or one run by people with IQs of 102? Which is more humane?
Rank Country IQ estimate[3]
1 Hong Kong 107
2 South Korea 106
3 Japan 105
4 Taiwan 104
5 Singapore 103
6 Austria 102
6 Germany 102
6 Italy 102
6 Netherlands 102
10 Sweden 101
10 Switzerland 101
12 Belgium 100
12 China 100
12 New Zealand 100
12 United Kingdom 100
16 Hungary 99
16 Poland 99
16 Spain 99
19 Australia 98
19 Denmark 98
19 France 98
19 Mongolia 98
19 Norway 98
19 United States 98
25 Canada 97
25 Czech Republic 97
25 Finland 97
28 Argentina 96
28 Russia 96
28 Slovakia 96
28 Uruguay 96
32 Portugal 95
32 Slovenia 95
34 Israel 94
34 Romania 94
36 Bulgaria 93
36 Ireland 93
36 Greece 93
39 Malaysia 92
40 Thailand 91
41 Croatia 90
41 Peru 90
41 Turkey 90
Rank Country IQ estimate[3]
44 Colombia 89
44 Indonesia 89
44 Suriname 89
47 Brazil 87
47 Iraq 87
47 Mexico 87
47 Samoa 87
47 Tonga 87
52 Lebanon 86
52 Philippines 86
54 Cuba 85
54 Morocco 85
56 Fiji 84
56 Iran 84
56 Marshall Islands 84
56 Puerto Rico 84
60 Egypt 83
60 Saudi Arabia 83
60 United Arab Emirates 83
61 India 81
62 Ecuador 80
63 Guatemala 79
64 Barbados 78
64 Nepal 78
64 Qatar 78
67 Zambia 77
68 Congo 73
68 Uganda 73
70 Jamaica 72
70 Kenya 72
70 South Africa 72
70 Sudan 72
70 Tanzania 72
75 Ghana 71
76 Nigeria 67
77 Guinea 66
77 Zimbabwe 66
79 Democratic Republic of the Congo 65
80 Sierra Leone 64
81 Ethiopia 63
82
10 posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 1:27:03 PM by Jack Black ( Whatever is left of American patriotism is now identical with counter-revolution.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]
To: Jack Black
That list is very interesting, although I doubt some of it’s individual rankings. What is the source for it?
11 posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 1:43:21 PM by matthew fuller (#11. Thou shalt not argue with morons.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]
To: matthew fuller; Jack Black; Travis McGee; Black Agnes
If you doubt it then disprove it.
the chart on wiki is even worse on third worlders and wiki ain’t known for being a stormfront site now is it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations#National_IQ_estimates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_Global_Inequality
12 posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 1:59:43 PM by wardaddy (life is good, culture is dying)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]
To: wardaddy
Sorry, I can’t prove any of my thoughts on this, but the items that I have doubts about are the stated one point superiority of US over Canada, because of the US multicultural nature vs what I perceive Canada’s to be. The second item that I’m dubious about is the position of Israel. That seems to be oddly low.
13 posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 2:50:41 PM by matthew fuller (#11. Thou shalt not argue with morons.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]
To: MinorityRepublican
The ANC is trying to do to South Africa what Mugabe did to Rhodesia.
U.S. Consolidates Military Network In Asia-Pacific Region
Thursday, 29 April 2010 08:16
Written by Rick Rozoff
E-mail Print PDF
The United States has six naval fleets and eleven aircraft carrier strike groups patrolling the world's oceans and seas. The U.S. Navy is as large as the world's next thirteen biggest navies combined [1].
Washington has as many aircraft carriers as all other nations together. Russia has one; China has none. The U.S. and its NATO allies - Britain (2), Italy (2), France (1) and Spain (1) - account for 17 of 22 in service in the world. Ten of the eleven American carriers are Nimitz class nuclear-powered supercarriers, substantially larger than most all non-U.S. ones. The U.S. Navy has all ten supercarriers in the world at the moment. [2]
U.S. aircraft carriers contain 70-80 planes and are available for deployment in all the world's oceans and most of its seas. They are escorted in their carrier groups by anti-air and anti-submarine warfare guided missile destroyers, anti-submarine warfare frigates, missile cruisers with long-range Tomahawks, and nuclear-powered fast-attack submarines. The U.S. also maintains between ten and twelve naval expeditionary strike groups which include amphibious assault ships and AH-1 Super Cobra attack helicopters in addition to destroyers, cruisers, frigates, attack submarines and P-3C Orion long-range anti-submarine and maritime surveillance aircraft.
With the reestablishing of the Navy's Fourth Fleet - its area of responsibility includes Central and South America and the Caribbean Sea - two years ago after a 58-year hiatus, the U.S. has six fleets that can be dispatched to all five oceans.
The Seventh Fleet (there is no First Fleet), based in Japan, is the largest of U.S. forward-deployed fleets and consists of as many as 40–60 ships, 200-350 aircraft and 20,000-60,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel. Its area of responsibility takes in more than 50 million square miles of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, from Russia's Kuril Islands in the north to the Antarctic in the south, from the South China Sea to the Arabian Sea, South Africa to the Korean Peninsula, the Strait of Malacca to the Taiwan Strait.
When on the occasion of accepting the Nobel Peace Prize last December President Barack Obama referred to himself as the Commander-in-Chief of the world's sole military superpower he was not guilty of hyperbole if he was of hubris. His defense budget for next year is almost half as large as world military spending for 2008, the last year for which the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has compiled figures.
The U.S. has mutual defense treaties with six nations in the Asia-Pacific area: Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand. The Pentagon has bases in Japan and South Korea, troops and base camps in the Philippines, satellite surveillance sites in Australia and the use of air bases in Thailand.
Australia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are included in the American global missile interceptor network with Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and ship-based Standard Missile-3 deployments in those four nations. Last December it was announced that the U.S. will supply Taiwan with 200 Patriot anti-ballistic missiles and the following month it was revealed that Washington will also provide Taiwan with eight frigates capable of being upgraded to fire Standard Missile-3 interceptors. [3]
Last week the head of the Missile Defense Agency, Lieutenant General Patrick O'Reilly, told the U.S. Congress that, as Reuters summarized it, "Japan remains fully committed to building a linchpin multibillion-dollar missile interceptor with the United States," despite hopes to the contrary entertained after the Democratic Party of Japan's Yukio Hatoyama became prime minister last September.
Referring to the current Standard Missile-3 enhancement program, O'Reilly said that Japanese government officials "have indicated that they are in full support and their commitments are solid."
In regards to the upgraded interceptor missile, the SM-3 Block IIA, he added, "Within the next year, we will begin our discussions on production arrangements between the United States and Japan." [4]
On April 27 the U.S. renewed a military logistics agreement with Australia "allowing deployed Australian forces to exploit the vast logistics capability of the American military" and permitting "U.S. forces on operations to make use of Australian logistics."
"Since its inception, the agreement had ensured supply support and services to Australian and U.S. forces deployed to all parts of the world wherever they were operating together....That included mutual support during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan." [5]
Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Marine General James Cartwright, is visiting New Zealand this week to consult with the country's top military commanders and defense minister.
Cartwright is "the first vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to visit New Zealand since the position was established" in 1986. [6] His visit comes two weeks after NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, U.S. Admiral James Stavridis, made similar trips to New Zealand and Australia.
Last month New Zealand's Defence Minister Wayne Mapp announced that joint military exercises with the U.S. would resume after 23 years, since the nation's 1987 ban on the docking of nuclear-powered warships and submarines.
New Zealand has been brought back into the fold in part by providing NATO with over 200 troops for the war in Afghanistan. Australia, with over 1,500 soldiers assigned to the International Security Assistance Force in the nation, is the largest non-NATO troop contributor to the war. Last year it unveiled plans for the most extensive military buildup in its post-World War Two history. [7]
On April 23 the U.S. and India launched the ten-day Malabar 2010 military exercises after "Ships, submarines and aircraft from the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet arrived in Goa" to engage in maneuvers which include training for "surface and anti-submarine warfare, coordinated gunnery exercises [and] air defense...." [8] The U.S. contribution consists of two guided missile destroyers, a guided missile frigate, a guided missile cruiser, a nuclear fast-attack submarine, P-3 Orion anti-submarine and surveillance aircraft, SH-60B Seahawk helicopters and Navy SEAL (Sea, Air and Land) special forces.
The Malabar war games have been conducted jointly by the U.S. and India since 1992 (except for 1998-2001 after India carried out nuclear tests), but last year included Japan, and Malabar 2007 was a five-nation operation held in the Bay of Bengal with the U.S. and India joined by Australia, Japan and Singapore, leading to suspicions of U.S. designs for an Asia-Pacific analogue of NATO.
As Malabar 2010 was underway, "warships, combat aircraft and soldiers" from Australia, Britain, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore (all Commonwealth nations) began Exercise Bersama Shield 2010 "on the Malaysian peninsula and in the South China Sea." [9]
Malaysia is among a minority of maritime states not to have joined the U.S.-launched Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) whose architect was then U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton. Established in 2003 as "a global effort that aims to stop trafficking of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), their delivery systems, and related materials to and from states and non-state actors," [10], it has grown to incorporate over 90 of the world's 148 coastal nations. [11]
China, Indonesia and Malaysia have refused to join, though South Korea did in May of last year, and the first three countries along with Iran and North Korea - the states used as justification for the PSI - view the U.S.-led global surveillance, interdiction and boarding operation with deep concern and doubts about its legality, as it operates without a United Nations mandate, can be argued to circumvent and violate international maritime law, and in effect grants the U.S. and its allies the self-arrogated right to conduct piracy on the high seas.
"Launched on May 31, 2003, U.S. involvement in the PSI stems from the U.S. National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction issued in December 2002. That strategy recognizes the need for more robust tools to stop proliferation of WMD around the world, and specifically identifies interdiction as an area where greater focus will be placed. President Obama strongly supports the PSI. On April 5, 2009 in Prague, the President called on the international community to make PSI a 'durable international institution.'" [12]
The PSI has been effectively if not formally extended into the Indian Ocean and the Horn of Africa with the U.S.-run Combined Task Force 150 and Combined Task Force 151 warship deployments. Recently the South Korean navy assumed command of Combined Task Force 151 from Singapore. Combined Task Force 150 contributing navies include those of the U.S., Britain, Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Portugal, Singapore, Spain and Turkey.
Last week it was announced that NATO welcomed South Korea as the 46th nation supplying it with troops for the war in Afghanistan. On March 29 Mongolia became the 45th. [13] Singapore also has troops serving under NATO in the country and until this year Japan was providing naval support to the U.S. war effort there.
On April 26 the China Daily reported that Rear Admiral Yang Yi, formerly in charge of strategic studies at the Chinese army's National Defense University, said "The United States is the greatest perceived threat to the People's Liberation Army" and that "the US was the only country capable of threatening China's national security interests in an all-round way." [14]
Another Chinese news source on the same day wrote of U.S. Prompt Global Strike (PGS) plans to be able to strike any target on earth within sixty minutes and the Pentagon's recent test flights of the X-37B orbital space plane and the Falcon hypersonic spy plane, reporting that "Chinese space technology expert Pang Zhihao said the spaceship...aids the PGS program, which he said could be a potential threat to world peace." [15]
The previous day London's Sunday Times acknowledged that "Obama's interest in Prompt Global Strike (PGS)...has alarmed China and Russia...." [16]
U.S. fast strike and first strike global missile and space strategy and its expansion of military alliances and networks in the Asia-Pacific area are rightly seen as threats to China and Russia. And to international security and peace.
1) Measured by battle fleet tonnage.
2) A supercarrier is currently defined as an aircraft carrier displacing 70,000 or more tons.
3) U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow
Stop NATO, January 19, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/u-s-china-military-tensions-grow
4) Reuters, April 21, 2010
5) Xinhua News Agency, April 27, 2010
6) Ibid
7) Australian Military Buildup And The Rise Of Asian NATO
Stop NATO, May 6, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/australian-military-buildup-and-the-rise-of-asian-nato
8) Navy Newsstand, April 23, 2010
9) Agence France-Presse, April 26, 2010
10) U.S. Department of State
http://www.state.gov/t/isn/c10390.htm
11) Proliferation Security Initiative And U.S. 1,000-Ship Navy: Control Of
World’s Oceans, Prelude To War
Stop NATO, January 29, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/proliferation-security-initiative-and-us-1000-ship-navy-control-of-worlds-oceans-prelude-to-war
12) U.S. Department of State, Ibid
13) Mongolia: Pentagon Trojan Horse Wedged Between China And Russia
Stop NATO, March 31, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/mongolia-pentagon-trojan-horse-wedged-between-china-and-russia
14) China Daily, April 26, 2010
15) Global Times, April 26, 2010
16) Sunday Times, April 25, 2010
Written by Rick Rozoff
E-mail Print PDF
The United States has six naval fleets and eleven aircraft carrier strike groups patrolling the world's oceans and seas. The U.S. Navy is as large as the world's next thirteen biggest navies combined [1].
Washington has as many aircraft carriers as all other nations together. Russia has one; China has none. The U.S. and its NATO allies - Britain (2), Italy (2), France (1) and Spain (1) - account for 17 of 22 in service in the world. Ten of the eleven American carriers are Nimitz class nuclear-powered supercarriers, substantially larger than most all non-U.S. ones. The U.S. Navy has all ten supercarriers in the world at the moment. [2]
U.S. aircraft carriers contain 70-80 planes and are available for deployment in all the world's oceans and most of its seas. They are escorted in their carrier groups by anti-air and anti-submarine warfare guided missile destroyers, anti-submarine warfare frigates, missile cruisers with long-range Tomahawks, and nuclear-powered fast-attack submarines. The U.S. also maintains between ten and twelve naval expeditionary strike groups which include amphibious assault ships and AH-1 Super Cobra attack helicopters in addition to destroyers, cruisers, frigates, attack submarines and P-3C Orion long-range anti-submarine and maritime surveillance aircraft.
With the reestablishing of the Navy's Fourth Fleet - its area of responsibility includes Central and South America and the Caribbean Sea - two years ago after a 58-year hiatus, the U.S. has six fleets that can be dispatched to all five oceans.
The Seventh Fleet (there is no First Fleet), based in Japan, is the largest of U.S. forward-deployed fleets and consists of as many as 40–60 ships, 200-350 aircraft and 20,000-60,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel. Its area of responsibility takes in more than 50 million square miles of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, from Russia's Kuril Islands in the north to the Antarctic in the south, from the South China Sea to the Arabian Sea, South Africa to the Korean Peninsula, the Strait of Malacca to the Taiwan Strait.
When on the occasion of accepting the Nobel Peace Prize last December President Barack Obama referred to himself as the Commander-in-Chief of the world's sole military superpower he was not guilty of hyperbole if he was of hubris. His defense budget for next year is almost half as large as world military spending for 2008, the last year for which the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has compiled figures.
The U.S. has mutual defense treaties with six nations in the Asia-Pacific area: Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand. The Pentagon has bases in Japan and South Korea, troops and base camps in the Philippines, satellite surveillance sites in Australia and the use of air bases in Thailand.
Australia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are included in the American global missile interceptor network with Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and ship-based Standard Missile-3 deployments in those four nations. Last December it was announced that the U.S. will supply Taiwan with 200 Patriot anti-ballistic missiles and the following month it was revealed that Washington will also provide Taiwan with eight frigates capable of being upgraded to fire Standard Missile-3 interceptors. [3]
Last week the head of the Missile Defense Agency, Lieutenant General Patrick O'Reilly, told the U.S. Congress that, as Reuters summarized it, "Japan remains fully committed to building a linchpin multibillion-dollar missile interceptor with the United States," despite hopes to the contrary entertained after the Democratic Party of Japan's Yukio Hatoyama became prime minister last September.
Referring to the current Standard Missile-3 enhancement program, O'Reilly said that Japanese government officials "have indicated that they are in full support and their commitments are solid."
In regards to the upgraded interceptor missile, the SM-3 Block IIA, he added, "Within the next year, we will begin our discussions on production arrangements between the United States and Japan." [4]
On April 27 the U.S. renewed a military logistics agreement with Australia "allowing deployed Australian forces to exploit the vast logistics capability of the American military" and permitting "U.S. forces on operations to make use of Australian logistics."
"Since its inception, the agreement had ensured supply support and services to Australian and U.S. forces deployed to all parts of the world wherever they were operating together....That included mutual support during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan." [5]
Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Marine General James Cartwright, is visiting New Zealand this week to consult with the country's top military commanders and defense minister.
Cartwright is "the first vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to visit New Zealand since the position was established" in 1986. [6] His visit comes two weeks after NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, U.S. Admiral James Stavridis, made similar trips to New Zealand and Australia.
Last month New Zealand's Defence Minister Wayne Mapp announced that joint military exercises with the U.S. would resume after 23 years, since the nation's 1987 ban on the docking of nuclear-powered warships and submarines.
New Zealand has been brought back into the fold in part by providing NATO with over 200 troops for the war in Afghanistan. Australia, with over 1,500 soldiers assigned to the International Security Assistance Force in the nation, is the largest non-NATO troop contributor to the war. Last year it unveiled plans for the most extensive military buildup in its post-World War Two history. [7]
On April 23 the U.S. and India launched the ten-day Malabar 2010 military exercises after "Ships, submarines and aircraft from the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet arrived in Goa" to engage in maneuvers which include training for "surface and anti-submarine warfare, coordinated gunnery exercises [and] air defense...." [8] The U.S. contribution consists of two guided missile destroyers, a guided missile frigate, a guided missile cruiser, a nuclear fast-attack submarine, P-3 Orion anti-submarine and surveillance aircraft, SH-60B Seahawk helicopters and Navy SEAL (Sea, Air and Land) special forces.
The Malabar war games have been conducted jointly by the U.S. and India since 1992 (except for 1998-2001 after India carried out nuclear tests), but last year included Japan, and Malabar 2007 was a five-nation operation held in the Bay of Bengal with the U.S. and India joined by Australia, Japan and Singapore, leading to suspicions of U.S. designs for an Asia-Pacific analogue of NATO.
As Malabar 2010 was underway, "warships, combat aircraft and soldiers" from Australia, Britain, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore (all Commonwealth nations) began Exercise Bersama Shield 2010 "on the Malaysian peninsula and in the South China Sea." [9]
Malaysia is among a minority of maritime states not to have joined the U.S.-launched Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) whose architect was then U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton. Established in 2003 as "a global effort that aims to stop trafficking of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), their delivery systems, and related materials to and from states and non-state actors," [10], it has grown to incorporate over 90 of the world's 148 coastal nations. [11]
China, Indonesia and Malaysia have refused to join, though South Korea did in May of last year, and the first three countries along with Iran and North Korea - the states used as justification for the PSI - view the U.S.-led global surveillance, interdiction and boarding operation with deep concern and doubts about its legality, as it operates without a United Nations mandate, can be argued to circumvent and violate international maritime law, and in effect grants the U.S. and its allies the self-arrogated right to conduct piracy on the high seas.
"Launched on May 31, 2003, U.S. involvement in the PSI stems from the U.S. National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction issued in December 2002. That strategy recognizes the need for more robust tools to stop proliferation of WMD around the world, and specifically identifies interdiction as an area where greater focus will be placed. President Obama strongly supports the PSI. On April 5, 2009 in Prague, the President called on the international community to make PSI a 'durable international institution.'" [12]
The PSI has been effectively if not formally extended into the Indian Ocean and the Horn of Africa with the U.S.-run Combined Task Force 150 and Combined Task Force 151 warship deployments. Recently the South Korean navy assumed command of Combined Task Force 151 from Singapore. Combined Task Force 150 contributing navies include those of the U.S., Britain, Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Portugal, Singapore, Spain and Turkey.
Last week it was announced that NATO welcomed South Korea as the 46th nation supplying it with troops for the war in Afghanistan. On March 29 Mongolia became the 45th. [13] Singapore also has troops serving under NATO in the country and until this year Japan was providing naval support to the U.S. war effort there.
On April 26 the China Daily reported that Rear Admiral Yang Yi, formerly in charge of strategic studies at the Chinese army's National Defense University, said "The United States is the greatest perceived threat to the People's Liberation Army" and that "the US was the only country capable of threatening China's national security interests in an all-round way." [14]
Another Chinese news source on the same day wrote of U.S. Prompt Global Strike (PGS) plans to be able to strike any target on earth within sixty minutes and the Pentagon's recent test flights of the X-37B orbital space plane and the Falcon hypersonic spy plane, reporting that "Chinese space technology expert Pang Zhihao said the spaceship...aids the PGS program, which he said could be a potential threat to world peace." [15]
The previous day London's Sunday Times acknowledged that "Obama's interest in Prompt Global Strike (PGS)...has alarmed China and Russia...." [16]
U.S. fast strike and first strike global missile and space strategy and its expansion of military alliances and networks in the Asia-Pacific area are rightly seen as threats to China and Russia. And to international security and peace.
1) Measured by battle fleet tonnage.
2) A supercarrier is currently defined as an aircraft carrier displacing 70,000 or more tons.
3) U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow
Stop NATO, January 19, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/u-s-china-military-tensions-grow
4) Reuters, April 21, 2010
5) Xinhua News Agency, April 27, 2010
6) Ibid
7) Australian Military Buildup And The Rise Of Asian NATO
Stop NATO, May 6, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/australian-military-buildup-and-the-rise-of-asian-nato
8) Navy Newsstand, April 23, 2010
9) Agence France-Presse, April 26, 2010
10) U.S. Department of State
http://www.state.gov/t/isn/c10390.htm
11) Proliferation Security Initiative And U.S. 1,000-Ship Navy: Control Of
World’s Oceans, Prelude To War
Stop NATO, January 29, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/proliferation-security-initiative-and-us-1000-ship-navy-control-of-worlds-oceans-prelude-to-war
12) U.S. Department of State, Ibid
13) Mongolia: Pentagon Trojan Horse Wedged Between China And Russia
Stop NATO, March 31, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/mongolia-pentagon-trojan-horse-wedged-between-china-and-russia
14) China Daily, April 26, 2010
15) Global Times, April 26, 2010
16) Sunday Times, April 25, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Judging from the fact that GS stock ROSE yesterday, I would say they were happy to play along for a day.
Goldman charge looks more like politics than fraud [Goldman charges not likely to stick]
Financial Post (Toronto) ^ | 2010-04-20 | Terence Corcoran
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 6:36:32 PM by Clive
Paul Krugman, Nobel economist, calls it "looting." The media, spoonfed a story line by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, regurgitated the claim that Goldman Sachs had sold a $1-billion mortgage derivative product that was "designed to fail." The case against Goldman, said the Financial Times of London, "is damning."
It would indeed be damning if true - and if the SEC's story line on the evidence were to hold up before a jury, should it ever get to a jury, which is doubtful.
There's barely a thread holding it all together, and one of the thinnest bits is in an email from one Fabrice Tourre, a 31-year-old Goldman vice-president who put the alleged fraudulent deal together. On Jan. 23, 2007, Mr. Tourre wrote to a friend: "More and more leverage in the system, The whole building is about to collapse anytime now ... Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab[rice Tourre] ... standing in the middle of all these complex, highly liveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all of the implicaions of those monstrosities."
Very flip and savvy, in a juvenile way. But good enough for SEC investigators who spent 18 months on the Goldman file. They must have been desperate. Even in the SEC's version, the Goldman scandal looks far from being a fraud and a lot like a move on behalf of Democrats and the Obama administration to boost support for radical financial reform.
The commission's 22-page rap sheet, in a quick read, is like following the plot of a Quentin Tarantino film. It's complicated and scary, but what the hell's happening? Remove the blood and gore created by the SEC's screenwriters, and a different story emerges. The deal that is now rattling world financial markets turns out to have been a complicated piece of financial work to be sure, but it fails to live up to claims of massive deception and breach of U.S. securities law. It is telling that the charge is a civil fraud, not a criminal fraud, indicating a lack of hard evidence of deliberate malfeasance.
The SEC's version of the deal, stripped of incriminating assumptions, shows Goldman Sachs acting as middle-man in putting together a financial transaction in early 2007 between big-time mortgage-market players who had different views as to the future of the U.S. housing market.
Gambling that the market would stay strong were ACA Capital and ACA Management, subsidiaries of a U.S. bond insurer and experienced mortgage-backed risk analysts and players. Also taking the positive long position was IKB Deutsche Interbank, a commercial bank headquartered in Dusseldorf, Germany. In the years before 2007, IKB had become involved as an expert investor in derivative products based on U.S. mortgage securities. These were not small unsuspecting investors wandering in off the street.
Betting that the U.S. housing market was set to crash was Paulson & Co., the hedge fund which in the SEC's words "developed an investment strategy based upon the belief that, for a variety of reasons, certain mid-and-subprime [mortgage-backed securites] rated ‘Triple B' ... would experience credit events." A smart strategy, in retrospect.
According to the SEC, Paulson had compiled a list of Triple B-rated mortgage-backed securites and bonds that it expected to self-destruct. Paulson aimed to short (sell) a hypothetical portfolio of these mortgage-based products, thereby making money when and if the market crashed. In early 2007, Paulson approached Goldman Sachs asking it to find counterparties to its plan. It wanted someone to take up the other side of the bet.
Goldman Sachs, through Mr. Tourre, found two: IKB in Germany and ACA Management. IKB had already become nervous about the U.S. housing market, and it wanted future investments in the market to be vetted in advance by a more experienced player. ACA fit the description. The SEC says ACA had by 2006 come to specialize in mortgage-based investment deals and had "closed on 22 CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) worth $15.7-billion."
And so, for a relatively small fee of $15-million, Mr. Tourre and Goldman Sachs mediated a negotiation between the two bets on the future of the market. In early January, 2007, Paulson produced an initial list of 123 residential sub-prime mortage-backed securites that it wanted included in the portfolio. After about eight weeks of negotiations, various securities were added and others were removed. On February 26, Paulson and ACA "came to an agreement on a reference portfolio of 90" mortgage-backed securites.
Not that there were any securities to buy. The deal, ABACUS 2007-AC1, would contain a "reference portfolio" rather than an actual portfolio of mortgage-backed securites. It was to be a "synthethetic" collateralized debt obligation (CDO). In all, the deal contained more than $1-billion in make-believe securities. For its share, IKB in Dusseldorf put $150-million into ABACUS, a bet on the positive future for the mock portfolio. The investor on the other side of the transaction was Paulson & Co., betting on the negative.
Among the SEC's claims is that ACA somehow did not actually perform the official "selection" of the securities in the portfolio, even though its own summary makes it clear that ACA - a veteran in the business and a known expert in the field - signed off on the final selection. The SEC also claims that ACA was "misled" by Goldman into believing that Paulson would be investing on the same side of the bet that ACA was on.
Whether those allegations hold up remains to be seen. Goldman Sachs, in response, has issued its version of events and, among other things, categorically rejects the claim that it said Paulson was gambling on the same side as IKB and ACA. "Goldman Sachs never represented to ACA that Paulson was going to be a long investor," said Goldman in a note to clients last Sunday.
Goldman also has a more than plausible answer to the charge that documents did not disclose that Paulson was on the other side of the transaction. Goldman says it is being accused of fraud in part "because it did not disclose to one party of the transaction the identity of the party on the other side," something that market makers never do.
Goldman, moreover, says that - even though it knew who was on the other side - it invested a bit of money of its own directly in the ABACUS deal, and lost about $90-million. Did Goldman defraud itself?
ABACUS was also an easy investment call, at least on paper. The portfolio, full of Triple-B mortage junk, was rated AAA by Moody's and Standard and Poors. That reflects the theory at the time that while some mortgages may go bad, it was highly unlikely that all Triple-B mortgages would turn to junk simultaneously. Was Moody's defrauded too?
The SEC's portrayal of ACA as something of an innocent victim is hard to figure. After having worked on and approved the selection of securities, ACA took up more than $900-million of the deal when it closed on April 26. ACA would have been at risk on ABACUS for weeks until it eventially unloaded its position to ABN AMRO Bank, the Dutch bank, in late May of 2007. When the securities went bad, ABN - later controlled by Royal Bank of Scotland - paid out the $900-million loss, the money going to Paulson.
The SEC claims, without providing any hint of evidence, that ACA was snookered. "It is unlikely that ACA Capital would have written protection on the super senior tranche if it had known that Paulson, which played an influential role in selecting the reference portfolio, had taken a significant short position instead of a long equity stake in ABACUS 2007-AC1."
This is certainly a reach. Even if ACA were now to claim that it had been tricked, it was itself part of the trick. ACA agents approved the portfolio that ACA invested in. No blame can be passed on to Paulson or others.
These are the Goldman charges. If that's all there is to the case, they are unlikely to go far and were likely never intended to go very far beyond creating an environment that favours massive new regulatory reform for U.S. banks and investment houses. The vote at the SEC to press the charges split along party lines, with the Democrats on the panel approving the action.
In the ABACUS deal, Paulson & Co. made the right bet. Making the wrong bet were a top market insurance player (ACA), a sophisticated German bank (IKB), a world-class Dutch bank (ABN) and the world's leading investment bank (Goldman Sachs). Loot changed hands, to be sure, but there was no looting.
Financial Post (Toronto) ^ | 2010-04-20 | Terence Corcoran
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 6:36:32 PM by Clive
Paul Krugman, Nobel economist, calls it "looting." The media, spoonfed a story line by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, regurgitated the claim that Goldman Sachs had sold a $1-billion mortgage derivative product that was "designed to fail." The case against Goldman, said the Financial Times of London, "is damning."
It would indeed be damning if true - and if the SEC's story line on the evidence were to hold up before a jury, should it ever get to a jury, which is doubtful.
There's barely a thread holding it all together, and one of the thinnest bits is in an email from one Fabrice Tourre, a 31-year-old Goldman vice-president who put the alleged fraudulent deal together. On Jan. 23, 2007, Mr. Tourre wrote to a friend: "More and more leverage in the system, The whole building is about to collapse anytime now ... Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab[rice Tourre] ... standing in the middle of all these complex, highly liveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all of the implicaions of those monstrosities."
Very flip and savvy, in a juvenile way. But good enough for SEC investigators who spent 18 months on the Goldman file. They must have been desperate. Even in the SEC's version, the Goldman scandal looks far from being a fraud and a lot like a move on behalf of Democrats and the Obama administration to boost support for radical financial reform.
The commission's 22-page rap sheet, in a quick read, is like following the plot of a Quentin Tarantino film. It's complicated and scary, but what the hell's happening? Remove the blood and gore created by the SEC's screenwriters, and a different story emerges. The deal that is now rattling world financial markets turns out to have been a complicated piece of financial work to be sure, but it fails to live up to claims of massive deception and breach of U.S. securities law. It is telling that the charge is a civil fraud, not a criminal fraud, indicating a lack of hard evidence of deliberate malfeasance.
The SEC's version of the deal, stripped of incriminating assumptions, shows Goldman Sachs acting as middle-man in putting together a financial transaction in early 2007 between big-time mortgage-market players who had different views as to the future of the U.S. housing market.
Gambling that the market would stay strong were ACA Capital and ACA Management, subsidiaries of a U.S. bond insurer and experienced mortgage-backed risk analysts and players. Also taking the positive long position was IKB Deutsche Interbank, a commercial bank headquartered in Dusseldorf, Germany. In the years before 2007, IKB had become involved as an expert investor in derivative products based on U.S. mortgage securities. These were not small unsuspecting investors wandering in off the street.
Betting that the U.S. housing market was set to crash was Paulson & Co., the hedge fund which in the SEC's words "developed an investment strategy based upon the belief that, for a variety of reasons, certain mid-and-subprime [mortgage-backed securites] rated ‘Triple B' ... would experience credit events." A smart strategy, in retrospect.
According to the SEC, Paulson had compiled a list of Triple B-rated mortgage-backed securites and bonds that it expected to self-destruct. Paulson aimed to short (sell) a hypothetical portfolio of these mortgage-based products, thereby making money when and if the market crashed. In early 2007, Paulson approached Goldman Sachs asking it to find counterparties to its plan. It wanted someone to take up the other side of the bet.
Goldman Sachs, through Mr. Tourre, found two: IKB in Germany and ACA Management. IKB had already become nervous about the U.S. housing market, and it wanted future investments in the market to be vetted in advance by a more experienced player. ACA fit the description. The SEC says ACA had by 2006 come to specialize in mortgage-based investment deals and had "closed on 22 CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) worth $15.7-billion."
And so, for a relatively small fee of $15-million, Mr. Tourre and Goldman Sachs mediated a negotiation between the two bets on the future of the market. In early January, 2007, Paulson produced an initial list of 123 residential sub-prime mortage-backed securites that it wanted included in the portfolio. After about eight weeks of negotiations, various securities were added and others were removed. On February 26, Paulson and ACA "came to an agreement on a reference portfolio of 90" mortgage-backed securites.
Not that there were any securities to buy. The deal, ABACUS 2007-AC1, would contain a "reference portfolio" rather than an actual portfolio of mortgage-backed securites. It was to be a "synthethetic" collateralized debt obligation (CDO). In all, the deal contained more than $1-billion in make-believe securities. For its share, IKB in Dusseldorf put $150-million into ABACUS, a bet on the positive future for the mock portfolio. The investor on the other side of the transaction was Paulson & Co., betting on the negative.
Among the SEC's claims is that ACA somehow did not actually perform the official "selection" of the securities in the portfolio, even though its own summary makes it clear that ACA - a veteran in the business and a known expert in the field - signed off on the final selection. The SEC also claims that ACA was "misled" by Goldman into believing that Paulson would be investing on the same side of the bet that ACA was on.
Whether those allegations hold up remains to be seen. Goldman Sachs, in response, has issued its version of events and, among other things, categorically rejects the claim that it said Paulson was gambling on the same side as IKB and ACA. "Goldman Sachs never represented to ACA that Paulson was going to be a long investor," said Goldman in a note to clients last Sunday.
Goldman also has a more than plausible answer to the charge that documents did not disclose that Paulson was on the other side of the transaction. Goldman says it is being accused of fraud in part "because it did not disclose to one party of the transaction the identity of the party on the other side," something that market makers never do.
Goldman, moreover, says that - even though it knew who was on the other side - it invested a bit of money of its own directly in the ABACUS deal, and lost about $90-million. Did Goldman defraud itself?
ABACUS was also an easy investment call, at least on paper. The portfolio, full of Triple-B mortage junk, was rated AAA by Moody's and Standard and Poors. That reflects the theory at the time that while some mortgages may go bad, it was highly unlikely that all Triple-B mortgages would turn to junk simultaneously. Was Moody's defrauded too?
The SEC's portrayal of ACA as something of an innocent victim is hard to figure. After having worked on and approved the selection of securities, ACA took up more than $900-million of the deal when it closed on April 26. ACA would have been at risk on ABACUS for weeks until it eventially unloaded its position to ABN AMRO Bank, the Dutch bank, in late May of 2007. When the securities went bad, ABN - later controlled by Royal Bank of Scotland - paid out the $900-million loss, the money going to Paulson.
The SEC claims, without providing any hint of evidence, that ACA was snookered. "It is unlikely that ACA Capital would have written protection on the super senior tranche if it had known that Paulson, which played an influential role in selecting the reference portfolio, had taken a significant short position instead of a long equity stake in ABACUS 2007-AC1."
This is certainly a reach. Even if ACA were now to claim that it had been tricked, it was itself part of the trick. ACA agents approved the portfolio that ACA invested in. No blame can be passed on to Paulson or others.
These are the Goldman charges. If that's all there is to the case, they are unlikely to go far and were likely never intended to go very far beyond creating an environment that favours massive new regulatory reform for U.S. banks and investment houses. The vote at the SEC to press the charges split along party lines, with the Democrats on the panel approving the action.
In the ABACUS deal, Paulson & Co. made the right bet. Making the wrong bet were a top market insurance player (ACA), a sophisticated German bank (IKB), a world-class Dutch bank (ABN) and the world's leading investment bank (Goldman Sachs). Loot changed hands, to be sure, but there was no looting.
Iceland volcano jokes cover the net.
April 19th, 2010 | Author: Ellie Velinska
Iceland to Europe: Do you lava me like I lava you?
The last wish of the Icelandic economy was to have its ashes scattered over Europe.
UK is grounded and this time it is not by Obama.
Hiring volcanologists! Call UBL.
Eyjafjallajokull is erupting only twice a year: April through September and October through March.
Gordon Brown asked for cash, but there is no C in the Icelandic alphabet.
My house is covered with dust with a stench of sulfur. Do you live in Iceland? Nope… still married.
Redundant aircraft was spotted miraculously flying over the North Pole. Santa? Nope… the Russian Aeroflot on its way to America.
The Pentagon has a plan how to move Iceland to the Middle East.
Eyjafjallajokull ejaculated!
Time for the USA to attack Iceland for possessing weapons of mass disruption.
Shopping in Iceland: do you want any ash back?
According to the Mayan calendar the volcano will stop when half of Europe say its name right.
Too early to say how much money we lost – we have to let the dust settle first.
Give us 2 billion dollars in cash and we will turn off the ash!
Because of Tiger Woods no virgin can be found to woo the Volcano.
Europe: Send cash, not ash!
Eyjafjallajokull now goes by a new name: Thefuckingvolcano
Wife: you are drunk! – Husband: I am not! – Wife: Say Eyjafjallajokull – Husband: OK! I am drunk!
Everybody in Iceland graduates magma cum laude.
Below is the Saturday Night Live take on the Iceland eruption with Larry King Volcano Cold Open.
Iceland to Europe: Do you lava me like I lava you?
The last wish of the Icelandic economy was to have its ashes scattered over Europe.
UK is grounded and this time it is not by Obama.
Hiring volcanologists! Call UBL.
Eyjafjallajokull is erupting only twice a year: April through September and October through March.
Gordon Brown asked for cash, but there is no C in the Icelandic alphabet.
My house is covered with dust with a stench of sulfur. Do you live in Iceland? Nope… still married.
Redundant aircraft was spotted miraculously flying over the North Pole. Santa? Nope… the Russian Aeroflot on its way to America.
The Pentagon has a plan how to move Iceland to the Middle East.
Eyjafjallajokull ejaculated!
Time for the USA to attack Iceland for possessing weapons of mass disruption.
Shopping in Iceland: do you want any ash back?
According to the Mayan calendar the volcano will stop when half of Europe say its name right.
Too early to say how much money we lost – we have to let the dust settle first.
Give us 2 billion dollars in cash and we will turn off the ash!
Because of Tiger Woods no virgin can be found to woo the Volcano.
Europe: Send cash, not ash!
Eyjafjallajokull now goes by a new name: Thefuckingvolcano
Wife: you are drunk! – Husband: I am not! – Wife: Say Eyjafjallajokull – Husband: OK! I am drunk!
Everybody in Iceland graduates magma cum laude.
Below is the Saturday Night Live take on the Iceland eruption with Larry King Volcano Cold Open.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
just a thought...
” The Organ in Charge
All the organs of the human body were having a meeting, trying to decide who should be the one in charge.
“I should be in charge,” said the brain , “Because I run all the body’s systems, so without me nothing would happen.”
“I should be in charge,” said theblood, “Because I circulate oxygen all over so without me you’d all waste away.”
“I should be in charge,” said thestomach,” Because I process food and give all of you energy.”
“I should be in charge,” said thelegs, “because I carry the body wherever it needs to go.”
“I should be in charge,” said the eyes, “Because I allow the body to see where it goes.”
“I should be in charge,” said therectum, “Because I’m responsible for waste removal.”
All the other body parts laughed at the rectum And insulted him, so in a huff, he shut down tight. Within a few days, the brain had a terrible h eadache, the stomach was bloated, thelegs got wobbly, the eyes got watery, and theblood Was toxic. They all decided that the rectum should be the boss.
So what’s the moral of the story?
The asshole is usually in charge!”
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The American Recovery, Lots of Puff But No Substance
Ok, ok, if one reads the US post and watches Wall Street, not to mentions listens to the "honest" American government, one "knows" that everything in America is perfectly fine, economy is thundering along and the Empire is back to full strength....or is it?
Behind the daily charade, the endless cheer leading are very unforgiving currents that ca not be hidden from an expert eye, no matter how much the Obama Regime and the rest of the American One Party Two Branch system wants it. Lets review:
1. Housing
American housing continues to be a disaster, absolutely and all the time. The second wave of resets, these in the Alternative-A category, that is, houses much more expensive than the Subprime, is just starting to crest and the full weight of this disaster will not hit until some time in late 2010, early 2011. All resets will not be out of the American system until 2013. So why the "good" numbers?
Well, first, it is hard to figure out what these numbers are. Every month, early in the month, one reads about issues and problems with continued worsening of the sales figures. Some of this is hidden by only comparing the numbers against the previous year's for the same month. Rather ridiculous comparison that does well to hide trends. A trend requires comparisons over a longer time period and more than a single data point. Further, by only comparing to last year's, a year already down sharply, it hides how far the numbers are down all together from the start of the Great American Collapse. Then there are the revisions, such as today's news that "Pending Home Sales Rise Sharply In February"....but wait, today is the 5th of April, and this news, revised and printed, is driving another bought of American stock inflation?
Then there are the numerous attempts to forestall the true state of the problem or hide it. One American program after another to keep the people in their houses, those who can not pay, are all sponsored by that single real American export, debt. But the cost of that debt has risen sharply, just in the past week, a full half of a percentage point. How much is that? We'll assume it is compounded only once for the year and we'll assume that we are only dealing with half a trillion, for nice round numbers. That's $2.5 billion in additional service fees, a pittance of a rise for the American printing machine. Of course, the problem is, this is a trend in itself. More on this later.
Furthermore, there is a year's worth of housing that is so far been kept off of the books, by the mega banks, who see no reason to put it on market since they will not sell anyways. Foreclosures, though with all government programs, continue to increase both in quantity and dollar volume. Prices continue to fall or are kept from falling by artificial means. Even the level of new house construction is done by artificial $8,000 stimulus, that is a credit, which is cutting into already lowered tax revenues.
2. Commercial Real Estate
Just like the residential real estate markets, commercial is also over built, but unlike the residential, the Americans are still building commercial. Already this market has a 15% vacancy rate and growing, as small business and even large key stores go out of business. The latest in a long chain is Hollywood Video, leaving large store fronts empty in numerous strip malls. Unlike the residential debt, which was primarily held by giant banks who own the American regimes, the commercial debt is held by small family and company banks, banks the Washingtonians have no quams about shutting down, one after another. The government than sells these small fry to their big financial owners on Wall Street.
3. Cost of Financing
This is what will finally sink the Americans, surer than any iceberg. The costs are already increasing, on a long term trend. The 10-year bond notes are up, up and away, with interest rates rising to 4.01%, up .51% over the past 5 or 6 trading days, alone. There is no sign of this stopping as not only does the American regime have hundreds of billions more to sell of new debt, just for this month, but refinancing of old debt is needed and that refinancing is picking up steam.
Further, programs like Social Security (what passes for government pensions for the non-government workers) are finally bankrupt, 6 years ahead of schedule and will require some $30 billion in the first year alone. This sum will sky rocket over the next two or three years.
4. Infrastructural rot
As for America as a whole, its rotting, quite literally. About 5 years ago a major bridge collapsed and killed over 30 people. Follow on investigations determined that over 700 major bridges were close to collapse. After billions of dollars wasted and stolen, none have been repaired.
2. Commercial Real Estate
Just like the residential real estate markets, commercial is also over built, but unlike the residential, the Americans are still building commercial. Already this market has a 15% vacancy rate and growing, as small business and even large key stores go out of business. The latest in a long chain is Hollywood Video, leaving large store fronts empty in numerous strip malls. Unlike the residential debt, which was primarily held by giant banks who own the American regimes, the commercial debt is held by small family and company banks, banks the Washingtonians have no quams about shutting down, one after another. The government than sells these small fry to their big financial owners on Wall Street.
3. Cost of Financing
This is what will finally sink the Americans, surer than any iceberg. The costs are already increasing, on a long term trend. The 10-year bond notes are up, up and away, with interest rates rising to 4.01%, up .51% over the past 5 or 6 trading days, alone. There is no sign of this stopping as not only does the American regime have hundreds of billions more to sell of new debt, just for this month, but refinancing of old debt is needed and that refinancing is picking up steam.
Further, programs like Social Security (what passes for government pensions for the non-government workers) are finally bankrupt, 6 years ahead of schedule and will require some $30 billion in the first year alone. This sum will sky rocket over the next two or three years.
4. Infrastructural rot
As for America as a whole, its rotting, quite literally. About 5 years ago a major bridge collapsed and killed over 30 people. Follow on investigations determined that over 700 major bridges were close to collapse. After billions of dollars wasted and stolen, none have been repaired.
The cities though are rotting to. Detroit, the former #3 city and main industrial center, is a total third world hell hole, where the average house sells for under $11,000 and no one wants them. Why? To live on abandoned streets, surrounded by feral dogs, feral peoples and Islamic lunatics? Or New Orleans, still rotting and the murder capital of America in body count, even while military police patrol it. Or LA, half of which is a war zone. Little Rock with a worse per capita gang problem than LA? Phoenix Arizona? Second kidnap capital of the world? Or maybe Atlanta, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Miami and Reno, all crime ridden hellholes, just like Washington DC, once one leaves the government sector and the ultra rich chenovnik neighborhoods.
The US has not built a single new refinery or nuclear power plant in 40 years. It has an antique of a rail system. The massive automobile highways are jammed, even as the cost of gasoline is once again skyrocketing. The list goes on.
5. Anti-Business Government
Without a doubt, the government in Washington is extremely anti business, seeing the role of government not in guaranteeing a free market and regulating product quality and keeping corruption at bay, but in running the actual markets. From a massive socialist medical bill that is not a pay roll tax based sole payer (as in the very successful French and German models) but some Frankenstein of version of the NHS from the UK and Canada, this monster bill is already sucking out the funding of many thousands of large and small companies, who will be forced to increase layoffs. But most of its taxes do not kick in until after the 2012 elections, guaranteeing further depression. The government prescribed and mandatory private insurance will bankrupt many families and cause many other to go into sell off of assets, to pay penalties, thus will reduce the spending capability of most households.
Behind this is the Global Warming, anti-Carbon bills, as well as EPA regulation of carbon. This will kill off any energy intensive businesses, such as all manufacturing, and will increase the logistics costs of all goods needed for life. Most of this will be in the form of taxation through fines and business tax.
The American Marxists already control almost half the automotive industry, are taking over the small financial industries on behalf of their banker owners, are now able to take over the medical and medical services industry and have already started making noises about the aviation industry. This puts them in control of over half the American market. True, they will not take over the little family businesses, but than again, Leninist-Trotskyte Fascism, unlike Stalinist Communism, always cared primarily about the heights of industry, not the drags of markets. Remember NEP?
6. Outsourcing/Illegals...or Better Productivity
The disappearance of work for the American citizen continues, at an increased pace, as more and more well paying jobs are fleeing the American disaster. Of course, these same companies continued main market remains America, the disconnect has actually grown even worse not better. The present power regime has done nothing to stymie this, only complained, while pursuing the exact same policies of the past 22 years. Their one solution to stymie out flows has been to massive increase government pay rolls, and everyone know, bureaucrats only improve over all productivity of an economy...correct?
Mean while, Americans are now told a schizophrenic message: get used to high unemployment (from a liar regime who swore it would never get that high, just hand us your children's futures) and spend for all you are worth to save yourself from high unemployment. That the American unemployment rate is almost twice as high as Russia's, a nation that the American business world continues to belittle as a broken mercantilist society, is ignored. After all, America has better worker productivity....that is, they have fewer people doing more work for less pay....see, the system can "improve" with no end. To say that the 60-80 work week of the 17th century is back, is redundant, for the Americans, it more than likely never really left.
Than there is the mind boggling 21% real unemployment, counting the semi employed, unemployed and the untouchables who do not really exist, that is people who have run out of unemployment benefits. These are not longer citizens to the American regime, but human garbage to be swept under the rug. Funny thing is, those hurt the most are black Americans, but then again, Islamic Arabs, like Obama's father's clan, always hated blacks, which is why one of the 40 Arabic words for slave is the same as their word for Black Africans and why his clan butchers and burns alive Black Kenyan Christian Africans. At the same time, it comes out that there are 8 million jobs in America, still occupied by illegal workers. Incredible, but the Americans take it, so they must deserve it.
7. War, War, War
That is right, not only is the war in Iraq continuing, even though the Americans are paying everyone off as they retreat from the ruined cities of that ruined nation, but the war in Afghanistan, both the real war and the imaginary war, are heating up. Imaginary? Why yes, like the report I printed of the conquest of the Taliban city of Marjah, where some 80,000 people lived and hundreds of Taliban stayed. Except that the city turned out to be a tiny village with a mosque and a couple of stores..
Now the Obama regime has intensified its air war on Pakistan's villages. Involved itself in the Yemeni civil war, as if the Saudi leading a Jihad against Shei rebels was not bad enough, but is now threatening and moving force to attack Iran, even as it ditches allies like Britain and Israel and continue to try and surround Russia with rockets...these being portable, though, while rearming Georgia, for round 2.
And, we must not forget, the trade war the US is now waging with its main financial backer and thus owner: China.
Over stretch has a whole new meaning for the "hyper"power.
So, if you are about to invest your monies in dollars or the US economy, one would have to be insane, knowing all this.
Stanislav Mishin
The article originally appears on the author's blog Mat Rodina
Behind the daily charade, the endless cheer leading are very unforgiving currents that ca not be hidden from an expert eye, no matter how much the Obama Regime and the rest of the American One Party Two Branch system wants it. Lets review:
1. Housing
American housing continues to be a disaster, absolutely and all the time. The second wave of resets, these in the Alternative-A category, that is, houses much more expensive than the Subprime, is just starting to crest and the full weight of this disaster will not hit until some time in late 2010, early 2011. All resets will not be out of the American system until 2013. So why the "good" numbers?
Well, first, it is hard to figure out what these numbers are. Every month, early in the month, one reads about issues and problems with continued worsening of the sales figures. Some of this is hidden by only comparing the numbers against the previous year's for the same month. Rather ridiculous comparison that does well to hide trends. A trend requires comparisons over a longer time period and more than a single data point. Further, by only comparing to last year's, a year already down sharply, it hides how far the numbers are down all together from the start of the Great American Collapse. Then there are the revisions, such as today's news that "Pending Home Sales Rise Sharply In February"....but wait, today is the 5th of April, and this news, revised and printed, is driving another bought of American stock inflation?
Then there are the numerous attempts to forestall the true state of the problem or hide it. One American program after another to keep the people in their houses, those who can not pay, are all sponsored by that single real American export, debt. But the cost of that debt has risen sharply, just in the past week, a full half of a percentage point. How much is that? We'll assume it is compounded only once for the year and we'll assume that we are only dealing with half a trillion, for nice round numbers. That's $2.5 billion in additional service fees, a pittance of a rise for the American printing machine. Of course, the problem is, this is a trend in itself. More on this later.
Furthermore, there is a year's worth of housing that is so far been kept off of the books, by the mega banks, who see no reason to put it on market since they will not sell anyways. Foreclosures, though with all government programs, continue to increase both in quantity and dollar volume. Prices continue to fall or are kept from falling by artificial means. Even the level of new house construction is done by artificial $8,000 stimulus, that is a credit, which is cutting into already lowered tax revenues.
2. Commercial Real Estate
Just like the residential real estate markets, commercial is also over built, but unlike the residential, the Americans are still building commercial. Already this market has a 15% vacancy rate and growing, as small business and even large key stores go out of business. The latest in a long chain is Hollywood Video, leaving large store fronts empty in numerous strip malls. Unlike the residential debt, which was primarily held by giant banks who own the American regimes, the commercial debt is held by small family and company banks, banks the Washingtonians have no quams about shutting down, one after another. The government than sells these small fry to their big financial owners on Wall Street.
3. Cost of Financing
This is what will finally sink the Americans, surer than any iceberg. The costs are already increasing, on a long term trend. The 10-year bond notes are up, up and away, with interest rates rising to 4.01%, up .51% over the past 5 or 6 trading days, alone. There is no sign of this stopping as not only does the American regime have hundreds of billions more to sell of new debt, just for this month, but refinancing of old debt is needed and that refinancing is picking up steam.
Further, programs like Social Security (what passes for government pensions for the non-government workers) are finally bankrupt, 6 years ahead of schedule and will require some $30 billion in the first year alone. This sum will sky rocket over the next two or three years.
4. Infrastructural rot
As for America as a whole, its rotting, quite literally. About 5 years ago a major bridge collapsed and killed over 30 people. Follow on investigations determined that over 700 major bridges were close to collapse. After billions of dollars wasted and stolen, none have been repaired.
2. Commercial Real Estate
Just like the residential real estate markets, commercial is also over built, but unlike the residential, the Americans are still building commercial. Already this market has a 15% vacancy rate and growing, as small business and even large key stores go out of business. The latest in a long chain is Hollywood Video, leaving large store fronts empty in numerous strip malls. Unlike the residential debt, which was primarily held by giant banks who own the American regimes, the commercial debt is held by small family and company banks, banks the Washingtonians have no quams about shutting down, one after another. The government than sells these small fry to their big financial owners on Wall Street.
3. Cost of Financing
This is what will finally sink the Americans, surer than any iceberg. The costs are already increasing, on a long term trend. The 10-year bond notes are up, up and away, with interest rates rising to 4.01%, up .51% over the past 5 or 6 trading days, alone. There is no sign of this stopping as not only does the American regime have hundreds of billions more to sell of new debt, just for this month, but refinancing of old debt is needed and that refinancing is picking up steam.
Further, programs like Social Security (what passes for government pensions for the non-government workers) are finally bankrupt, 6 years ahead of schedule and will require some $30 billion in the first year alone. This sum will sky rocket over the next two or three years.
4. Infrastructural rot
As for America as a whole, its rotting, quite literally. About 5 years ago a major bridge collapsed and killed over 30 people. Follow on investigations determined that over 700 major bridges were close to collapse. After billions of dollars wasted and stolen, none have been repaired.
The cities though are rotting to. Detroit, the former #3 city and main industrial center, is a total third world hell hole, where the average house sells for under $11,000 and no one wants them. Why? To live on abandoned streets, surrounded by feral dogs, feral peoples and Islamic lunatics? Or New Orleans, still rotting and the murder capital of America in body count, even while military police patrol it. Or LA, half of which is a war zone. Little Rock with a worse per capita gang problem than LA? Phoenix Arizona? Second kidnap capital of the world? Or maybe Atlanta, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Miami and Reno, all crime ridden hellholes, just like Washington DC, once one leaves the government sector and the ultra rich chenovnik neighborhoods.
The US has not built a single new refinery or nuclear power plant in 40 years. It has an antique of a rail system. The massive automobile highways are jammed, even as the cost of gasoline is once again skyrocketing. The list goes on.
5. Anti-Business Government
Without a doubt, the government in Washington is extremely anti business, seeing the role of government not in guaranteeing a free market and regulating product quality and keeping corruption at bay, but in running the actual markets. From a massive socialist medical bill that is not a pay roll tax based sole payer (as in the very successful French and German models) but some Frankenstein of version of the NHS from the UK and Canada, this monster bill is already sucking out the funding of many thousands of large and small companies, who will be forced to increase layoffs. But most of its taxes do not kick in until after the 2012 elections, guaranteeing further depression. The government prescribed and mandatory private insurance will bankrupt many families and cause many other to go into sell off of assets, to pay penalties, thus will reduce the spending capability of most households.
Behind this is the Global Warming, anti-Carbon bills, as well as EPA regulation of carbon. This will kill off any energy intensive businesses, such as all manufacturing, and will increase the logistics costs of all goods needed for life. Most of this will be in the form of taxation through fines and business tax.
The American Marxists already control almost half the automotive industry, are taking over the small financial industries on behalf of their banker owners, are now able to take over the medical and medical services industry and have already started making noises about the aviation industry. This puts them in control of over half the American market. True, they will not take over the little family businesses, but than again, Leninist-Trotskyte Fascism, unlike Stalinist Communism, always cared primarily about the heights of industry, not the drags of markets. Remember NEP?
6. Outsourcing/Illegals...or Better Productivity
The disappearance of work for the American citizen continues, at an increased pace, as more and more well paying jobs are fleeing the American disaster. Of course, these same companies continued main market remains America, the disconnect has actually grown even worse not better. The present power regime has done nothing to stymie this, only complained, while pursuing the exact same policies of the past 22 years. Their one solution to stymie out flows has been to massive increase government pay rolls, and everyone know, bureaucrats only improve over all productivity of an economy...correct?
Mean while, Americans are now told a schizophrenic message: get used to high unemployment (from a liar regime who swore it would never get that high, just hand us your children's futures) and spend for all you are worth to save yourself from high unemployment. That the American unemployment rate is almost twice as high as Russia's, a nation that the American business world continues to belittle as a broken mercantilist society, is ignored. After all, America has better worker productivity....that is, they have fewer people doing more work for less pay....see, the system can "improve" with no end. To say that the 60-80 work week of the 17th century is back, is redundant, for the Americans, it more than likely never really left.
Than there is the mind boggling 21% real unemployment, counting the semi employed, unemployed and the untouchables who do not really exist, that is people who have run out of unemployment benefits. These are not longer citizens to the American regime, but human garbage to be swept under the rug. Funny thing is, those hurt the most are black Americans, but then again, Islamic Arabs, like Obama's father's clan, always hated blacks, which is why one of the 40 Arabic words for slave is the same as their word for Black Africans and why his clan butchers and burns alive Black Kenyan Christian Africans. At the same time, it comes out that there are 8 million jobs in America, still occupied by illegal workers. Incredible, but the Americans take it, so they must deserve it.
7. War, War, War
That is right, not only is the war in Iraq continuing, even though the Americans are paying everyone off as they retreat from the ruined cities of that ruined nation, but the war in Afghanistan, both the real war and the imaginary war, are heating up. Imaginary? Why yes, like the report I printed of the conquest of the Taliban city of Marjah, where some 80,000 people lived and hundreds of Taliban stayed. Except that the city turned out to be a tiny village with a mosque and a couple of stores..
Now the Obama regime has intensified its air war on Pakistan's villages. Involved itself in the Yemeni civil war, as if the Saudi leading a Jihad against Shei rebels was not bad enough, but is now threatening and moving force to attack Iran, even as it ditches allies like Britain and Israel and continue to try and surround Russia with rockets...these being portable, though, while rearming Georgia, for round 2.
And, we must not forget, the trade war the US is now waging with its main financial backer and thus owner: China.
Over stretch has a whole new meaning for the "hyper"power.
So, if you are about to invest your monies in dollars or the US economy, one would have to be insane, knowing all this.
Stanislav Mishin
The article originally appears on the author's blog Mat Rodina
Friday, April 9, 2010
Wearable robot lets internet users 'feel' physical contact
Internet users will be able to reach out and hug one another thanks to a new wearable robotic device that creates the sensation of physical contact.
By Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo
Published: 7:00AM BST 07 Apr 2010
Wearable robot lets internet users 'feel' physical contact
The device is capable of distinguishing nine emotions including joy, fear, interest, guilt and anger Photo: GETTY IMAGES
The iFeel-IM device, created by Japan-based scientists, simulates sensations such as heart beats, hugging, stomach butterflies and spine tingles among those wearing it.
The robotic creation was among a string of futuristic interactive devices showcased at the first two-day Augmented Human International Conference held in the French ski resort Megeve.
Dzmitry Tsetserukou, an assistant professor at Toyohashi University of Technology in Japan, described how his iFeel-IM robotic device was designed to add a human touch to the ethereal world of cyberspace.
"We are steeped in computer-mediated communication - SMS, e-mail, Twitter, Instant Messaging, 3-D virtual worlds - but many people don't connect emotionally," he said.
"I am looking to create a deep immersive experience, not just a vibration in your shirt triggered by an SMS. Emotion is what give communication life."
The result of five years of research, the new device – whose name stands for I Feel Therefore I Am – consists of a complex collection of sensors, motors, vibrators and speakers woven into a series of straps.
Software created by Alena Neviarouskaya, a researcher at the University of Tokyo, decodes emotional messages embedded in written text, triggering the appropriate touch response within the robot.
The device is capable of distinguishing nine emotions including joy, fear, interest, guilt and anger with 90 per accuracy resulting in corresponding physical sensations such as squeezes and increased warmth in the user.
While the technology would have enabled scientists to add a mechanism for sexual desire, the scientists opted against it to avoid distracting from its emotion-based focus.
In an echo of the Hollywood blockbuster Avatar, the new robot was tested during the conference on the three-dimensional environment Second Life, where on-line personas gave and received hugs physically felt by their human controllers.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2489479/posts
While the technology would have enabled scientists to add a mechanism for sexual desire, the scientists opted against it to avoid distracting from its emotion-based focus.
How noble of those scientists but we all know where this is inevitably headed.... Um, so when can I get the Petra Verkaik version of this thingy?
1 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:17:13 AM by PJ-Comix
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To: PJ-Comix
Is there something with Japanese women that keep driving these Japanese scientists to keep coming up with ways to replace them, or are they just freaky?
2 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:19:33 AM by diverteach (D.C. has become Jonestown)
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To: diverteach
lol.. is it me or are there a bunch of kinky Japanese scientists who get off on research like this or what?
3 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:21:37 AM by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ... Godspeed .. Monthly Donor Onboard .. Chuck DeVore - CA Senator. Believe.)
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To: diverteach
Is there something with Japanese women that keep driving these Japanese scientists to keep coming up with ways to replace them, or are they just freaky?
And why are our scientists so far behind ?
4 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:21:59 AM by kbennkc (For those who have fought for it , freedom has a flavor the protected will never know F Trp 8th Cav)
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To: diverteach
Used to think the English were freaky when I lived there, but it seems the Japanese beat them every time.
5 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:23:29 AM by SmokingJoe
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To: PJ-Comix
“If some unemployed punk in Trenton, New Jersey, lying on a sofa with a bong, can get a cassette to make love to Elle McPherson for $19.95, this virtual reality stuff is going to make crack look like Sanka.” - Dennis Miller
6 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:25:07 AM by ConservaTexan (February 6, 1911)
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To: diverteach
Is there something with Japanese women that keep driving these Japanese scientists to keep coming up with ways to replace them, or are they just freaky?
The problem is more likely with the Japanese men. I knew a lot of Japanese businessmen in L.A. and they would ignore really hot looking Japanese women in order to search for skanky looking bleach blonde street hos in the USA. It made no difference how ugly the American hos were as long as they were blonde. And most of them were fake blondes.
7 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:25:42 AM by PJ-Comix ( Redundancy Can Be Quite Catchy As Well As Contagious)
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To: diverteach
Spent an R&R in Japan. Japanese scientists must have met some other women than Japanese!
8 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:26:22 AM by TaMoDee
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To: ConservaTexan
lol
9 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:27:16 AM by ecomcon
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To: PJ-Comix
Yep - and the blondes’ carpet rarely matches the drapes. This brought a song and a movie to mind - Turning Japanese by The Vapors (old 80s tune) and Brainstorm (80s movie - I think it was Natalie Woods’ last film).
10 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:35:25 AM by vrwconspiracist (The Tax Man cometh)
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To: PJ-Comix
and they would ignore really hot looking Japanese women in order to search for skanky looking bleach blonde street hos in the USA. It made no difference how ugly the American hos were as long as they were blonde. And most of them were fake blondes.
I am not sure if you ever read any of James Clavell’s historical novels about Japan, but the stories of these Japanese samurai getting off on skanky white blond hookers, was recurring theme in quite a few of his books. They seemed to really get off on the really skanky ones for some reason.
11 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:36:35 AM by SmokingJoe
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To: PJ-Comix
[cue the Citibank identity-theft-prevention ad]
“...a girl robot...This is gonna be the best prom ever!”
12 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:36:38 AM by RichInOC (No! BAD Rich! (What'd I say?))
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To: SmokingJoe
I was walking down a street once near the Sunset Strip in L.A.. What I saw were two taxiloads of skanky fake blonde hos tossing rocks at each other. Why? Because parked nearby was another cab full of Japanese businessmen. What happened is that a bunch of the skanky fake blonde hos spotted the business men and hopped into a cab to go after them. Unfortunately another cab full of skanky fake blonde hos were already in hot pursuit of the Japanese. Soooo....when the cab full of the Japanese pulled over, so did the two carloads of skanky blonde hos who battled it out with rocks over who would claim the Japanese businessmen. Meanwhile the Japanese businessmen were getting a kick watching the “blondes” fight over them. Very funny scene!!!
13 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:42:55 AM by PJ-Comix ( Redundancy Can Be Quite Catchy As Well As Contagious)
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To: PJ-Comix
Reminds me of the Orgasmatron or the Orb from Woody Allen’s Sleeper.
14 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:45:29 AM by Irenic
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To: PJ-Comix
Virtual Girlfriend in "The 6th Day" (Ahnold should have stayed an actor)
15 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:46:24 AM by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: PJ-Comix
Chuckle!
And they had all this free entertainment and never even had to pay for it.
16 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:49:21 AM by SmokingJoe
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To: SmokingJoe
There is some really gruesome Anime out there.
17 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:54:51 AM by Cyber Liberty (Build a man a fire; he'll be warm for a night. Set a man on fire; he'll be warm the rest of his life)
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To: PJ-Comix
Did they have coupons?
18 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:55:34 AM by Cyber Liberty (Build a man a fire; he'll be warm for a night. Set a man on fire; he'll be warm the rest of his life)
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To: PJ-Comix
Where is this heading??
Here's the state of the art 5.5 years ago:
Ins and Outs of Teledildonics
19 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 11:02:55 AM by cynwoody
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To: diverteach
My wife is half-Japanese, and, well, I have no desire for a robot.
By Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo
Published: 7:00AM BST 07 Apr 2010
Wearable robot lets internet users 'feel' physical contact
The device is capable of distinguishing nine emotions including joy, fear, interest, guilt and anger Photo: GETTY IMAGES
The iFeel-IM device, created by Japan-based scientists, simulates sensations such as heart beats, hugging, stomach butterflies and spine tingles among those wearing it.
The robotic creation was among a string of futuristic interactive devices showcased at the first two-day Augmented Human International Conference held in the French ski resort Megeve.
Dzmitry Tsetserukou, an assistant professor at Toyohashi University of Technology in Japan, described how his iFeel-IM robotic device was designed to add a human touch to the ethereal world of cyberspace.
"We are steeped in computer-mediated communication - SMS, e-mail, Twitter, Instant Messaging, 3-D virtual worlds - but many people don't connect emotionally," he said.
"I am looking to create a deep immersive experience, not just a vibration in your shirt triggered by an SMS. Emotion is what give communication life."
The result of five years of research, the new device – whose name stands for I Feel Therefore I Am – consists of a complex collection of sensors, motors, vibrators and speakers woven into a series of straps.
Software created by Alena Neviarouskaya, a researcher at the University of Tokyo, decodes emotional messages embedded in written text, triggering the appropriate touch response within the robot.
The device is capable of distinguishing nine emotions including joy, fear, interest, guilt and anger with 90 per accuracy resulting in corresponding physical sensations such as squeezes and increased warmth in the user.
While the technology would have enabled scientists to add a mechanism for sexual desire, the scientists opted against it to avoid distracting from its emotion-based focus.
In an echo of the Hollywood blockbuster Avatar, the new robot was tested during the conference on the three-dimensional environment Second Life, where on-line personas gave and received hugs physically felt by their human controllers.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2489479/posts
While the technology would have enabled scientists to add a mechanism for sexual desire, the scientists opted against it to avoid distracting from its emotion-based focus.
How noble of those scientists but we all know where this is inevitably headed.... Um, so when can I get the Petra Verkaik version of this thingy?
1 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:17:13 AM by PJ-Comix
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]
To: PJ-Comix
Is there something with Japanese women that keep driving these Japanese scientists to keep coming up with ways to replace them, or are they just freaky?
2 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:19:33 AM by diverteach (D.C. has become Jonestown)
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To: diverteach
lol.. is it me or are there a bunch of kinky Japanese scientists who get off on research like this or what?
3 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:21:37 AM by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ... Godspeed .. Monthly Donor Onboard .. Chuck DeVore - CA Senator. Believe.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]
To: diverteach
Is there something with Japanese women that keep driving these Japanese scientists to keep coming up with ways to replace them, or are they just freaky?
And why are our scientists so far behind ?
4 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:21:59 AM by kbennkc (For those who have fought for it , freedom has a flavor the protected will never know F Trp 8th Cav)
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To: diverteach
Used to think the English were freaky when I lived there, but it seems the Japanese beat them every time.
5 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:23:29 AM by SmokingJoe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]
To: PJ-Comix
“If some unemployed punk in Trenton, New Jersey, lying on a sofa with a bong, can get a cassette to make love to Elle McPherson for $19.95, this virtual reality stuff is going to make crack look like Sanka.” - Dennis Miller
6 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:25:07 AM by ConservaTexan (February 6, 1911)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]
To: diverteach
Is there something with Japanese women that keep driving these Japanese scientists to keep coming up with ways to replace them, or are they just freaky?
The problem is more likely with the Japanese men. I knew a lot of Japanese businessmen in L.A. and they would ignore really hot looking Japanese women in order to search for skanky looking bleach blonde street hos in the USA. It made no difference how ugly the American hos were as long as they were blonde. And most of them were fake blondes.
7 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:25:42 AM by PJ-Comix ( Redundancy Can Be Quite Catchy As Well As Contagious)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]
To: diverteach
Spent an R&R in Japan. Japanese scientists must have met some other women than Japanese!
8 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:26:22 AM by TaMoDee
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To: ConservaTexan
lol
9 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:27:16 AM by ecomcon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]
To: PJ-Comix
Yep - and the blondes’ carpet rarely matches the drapes. This brought a song and a movie to mind - Turning Japanese by The Vapors (old 80s tune) and Brainstorm (80s movie - I think it was Natalie Woods’ last film).
10 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:35:25 AM by vrwconspiracist (The Tax Man cometh)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]
To: PJ-Comix
and they would ignore really hot looking Japanese women in order to search for skanky looking bleach blonde street hos in the USA. It made no difference how ugly the American hos were as long as they were blonde. And most of them were fake blondes.
I am not sure if you ever read any of James Clavell’s historical novels about Japan, but the stories of these Japanese samurai getting off on skanky white blond hookers, was recurring theme in quite a few of his books. They seemed to really get off on the really skanky ones for some reason.
11 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:36:35 AM by SmokingJoe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]
To: PJ-Comix
[cue the Citibank identity-theft-prevention ad]
“...a girl robot...This is gonna be the best prom ever!”
12 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:36:38 AM by RichInOC (No! BAD Rich! (What'd I say?))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]
To: SmokingJoe
I was walking down a street once near the Sunset Strip in L.A.. What I saw were two taxiloads of skanky fake blonde hos tossing rocks at each other. Why? Because parked nearby was another cab full of Japanese businessmen. What happened is that a bunch of the skanky fake blonde hos spotted the business men and hopped into a cab to go after them. Unfortunately another cab full of skanky fake blonde hos were already in hot pursuit of the Japanese. Soooo....when the cab full of the Japanese pulled over, so did the two carloads of skanky blonde hos who battled it out with rocks over who would claim the Japanese businessmen. Meanwhile the Japanese businessmen were getting a kick watching the “blondes” fight over them. Very funny scene!!!
13 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:42:55 AM by PJ-Comix ( Redundancy Can Be Quite Catchy As Well As Contagious)
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To: PJ-Comix
Reminds me of the Orgasmatron or the Orb from Woody Allen’s Sleeper.
14 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:45:29 AM by Irenic
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To: PJ-Comix
Virtual Girlfriend in "The 6th Day" (Ahnold should have stayed an actor)
15 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:46:24 AM by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: PJ-Comix
Chuckle!
And they had all this free entertainment and never even had to pay for it.
16 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:49:21 AM by SmokingJoe
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To: SmokingJoe
There is some really gruesome Anime out there.
17 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:54:51 AM by Cyber Liberty (Build a man a fire; he'll be warm for a night. Set a man on fire; he'll be warm the rest of his life)
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To: PJ-Comix
Did they have coupons?
18 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 10:55:34 AM by Cyber Liberty (Build a man a fire; he'll be warm for a night. Set a man on fire; he'll be warm the rest of his life)
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To: PJ-Comix
Where is this heading??
Here's the state of the art 5.5 years ago:
Ins and Outs of Teledildonics
19 posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 11:02:55 AM by cynwoody
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To: diverteach
My wife is half-Japanese, and, well, I have no desire for a robot.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
A Food Fight for Hugo Chavez With his popularity sagging, Venezuela's fiery President is seizing supermarkets from owners. But can he keep stores stoc
By Geri Smith
An Exito supermarket: Sales are off since the government takeover in January Isaac Urrutia/Reuters
Caracas - It's 10 a.m., and tempers are already flaring at the Cada supermarket in Caracas' San Bernardino neighborhood. The store has just taken delivery of two pallets of 4- and 11-pound sacks of sugar. With dozens of shoppers swarming around him, Rigoberto Fernández tries to pass out the bags one by one. The clerk hands a smaller one to a gray-haired woman, but she flings it back. "How dare you tell me I can't have one of the larger bags?" she screams. The sack splits open, spilling sugar everywhere.
Within 10 minutes, the shipment has vanished. "I am so fed up with these food shortages," Fernández mutters as he sweeps up the mess. "People get desperate and start behaving like animals."
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's response to the food shortages: find a scapegoat, in this case supermarket owners. On Jan. 17, the mercurial leader expropriated six Exito stores, controlled by France's Groupe Casino. A month later he seized Cada, another Casino chain, with 35 supermarkets and eight distribution centers.
El Presidente's efforts to transform his country into a Cuban-style socialist state are sputtering. With its vast oil wealth, Venezuela shouldn't suffer from shortages, yet inefficient farms, government takeovers of supermarkets, and a 50% currency devaluation in January have thrown the food supply into disarray. That's bad news for Chávez, whose anti-capitalist message and ceaseless drive to undermine U.S. influence in Latin America have made him Washington's biggest headache in the region. Chávez's approval rating among Venezuelans has dropped to about 45% from 70% three years ago.
Supplying low-cost food to the poor has been a centerpiece of Chávez's presidency. He has expropriated food processors, stores, and more than 6 million acres of farms and ranches, convinced that the government can feed Venezuela better than the private sector does. Under state ownership, though, production has suffered. From 1999 to 2008, per capita, sugar cane was off by 8%, fruit declined by 25%, and beef production dropped by 38%, according to Carlos Machado, an expert in agriculture at the Institute of Higher Administrative Studies, a business school in Caracas. "The cooperatives have failed and our cattle ranching has been decimated," Machado says.
While Chávez was flush with oil profits, it was easy to take up the slack with purchases of chicken from Brazil, beef from Argentina, and powdered milk from New Zealand. Food imports jumped from $1.3 billion in 1999, when Chávez took office, to $7.5 billion in 2008—about 70% of what Venezuelans eat. But falling crude oil prices and last year's 3.3% contraction of the economy left Chávez with less money to buy food abroad, or to prop up poorly run state farms and food processors. Government officials "think they know how to run businesses, but they just run them into the ground, just like they're running the country into the ground," says 47-year-old homemaker Antonia Rangel, one of the shoppers who managed to get a bag of sugar at the Cada store.
"SOCIALIST MEGASTORES"
A new consumer protection law, which went into effect on Feb. 1, allows Chávez to expropriate virtually any company if he deems it to be in the national interest. Exito's alleged misdeed: raising food prices following the January devaluation (though two months later, on Mar. 9, the government authorized stores to boost prices on some basic goods by as much as 35%). Chávez wants to transform the chain's outlets into what he calls "socialist megastores" that sell food, appliances, and clothing with virtually no markup. "The measure is one further step in the Venezuelan state's policy of transforming capitalism into socialism," Chávez declared on his weekly Hello President TV show. Exito's parent and the government haven't disclosed any details on compensation.
The supermarket seizures have alarmed grocers, but few are willing to speak publicly for fear of more harassment. "This is one of the worst times we've ever lived through," says the CEO of a major supermarket chain. "We live in constant fear that we could be shut down or taken over by the government."
Chávez has been skirmishing with supermarkets for years. In 2002, big food producers and distributors participated in a two-month nationwide work stoppage that nearly brought the economy to its knees. In response, Chávez opened a rival network of government-run grocery stores, where more than a quarter of Venezuelans now shop.
The biggest state-owned chain, Mercal, has 16,600 outlets, ranging from street-corner shops to huge warehouse stores. They employ 85,000 workers selling basic products such as rice, sugar, and beans at prices as much as 40% below those the government sets for private stores. Mercal also has a fleet of trucks that serve street markets, and it offers free lunches and afternoon snacks at 6,000 soup kitchens. "Mercal is a very noble mission that contributes to a higher quality of life for Venezuelan families," says Carlos Alonzo Sánchez, manager of a busy Mercal store near El Junquito, a vast hillside shantytown on the outskirts of Caracas.
Joelis Muñoz recently carted 9 pounds of sugar, 7 pounds of rice, and 4 1/2 pounds of corn flour home from Sánchez's Mercal outlet. Her bill was $4.88, half what it would have been at a private supermarket. "Since the government opened these stores, my family hardly ever goes to regular supermarkets anymore," says the 21-year-old single mother.
CHEAP CHICKEN
The state-run stores serve as a platform for Chávez's revolutionary message. In the middle-class California Norte neighborhood of Caracas, an outlet of a second government-controlled chain called PDVAL (owned by state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA) offers frequent reminders about the source of the bounty. At the entrance, a banner proclaims: "Food Sovereignty! All power to the people!" A few feet down the first aisle, a placard reminds shoppers that the "government is fighting for your food security." Says Luis Pedro España, a sociologist at Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas: "It's quite clear to anyone who shops at state-run stores that they owe it all to the President, who brought cheap chicken to the people."
Sometimes, however, there aren't any cheap chickens to sell. The PDVAL store offers tomato sauce from Spain, nutritional drink mixes, and cans of tuna at regulated—but not subsidized—prices. On a recent Friday, though, there's no chicken, beef, or sugar. To fill empty shelves, the store has stocked an entire aisle with nearly 1,000 bottles of cooking oil made by a company the government took over two years ago. Another aisle is filled with hundreds of bags of corn flour. A third is jammed with industrial quantities of dried oregano and curry powder.
When scarce products do arrive, word spreads fast and long lines form. "I can only let one or two people in at a time so things don't get out of control," says Omar Gálvez, manager of a small Mercal outlet in Petare, a rough Caracas slum.
Supplying Venezuelans with cheap chicken isn't cheap. Félix Osorio, Chávez's Food Minister, oversees Mercal from a spacious office filled with paintings, handicrafts, and other gifts from constituents. Osorio, a 40-year-old Army lieutenant colonel, says the government will spend $605 million this year on food subsidies, plus $1.8 billion to run the Mercal system. "Food is a basic necessity, and not mere merchandise," Osorio says, munching on a midnight snack of white cheese and fried beef empanadas after a long day in the field. "The capitalists," he says, "don't see it that way."
Even so, the government knows it can learn something from the people it frequently calls "squalid capitalists." Taking control of the Exito and Cada supermarkets makes sense, Osorio says, because the government needs more expertise in large-scale retailing. The authorities are negotiating with Groupe Casino and may allow the French company to stay on as a minority partner to help keep the chain running smoothly. Casino declined to comment.
SUDDEN SHUTDOWNS
The capitalists, though, face constant oversight. Members of Cuba-inspired "community councils," or neighborhood watch groups, can make unannounced inspections to look for signs of hoarding. One executive from a nationwide chain grouses about constant visits from tax authorities, the consumer protection agency (to check prices), workplace safety inspectors, and even the National Guard, which monitors store hours to make sure they don't stay open too long and use too much electricity at a time of widespread blackouts. Even when no infractions are found, the executive sighs, "The inspector can say, 'It doesn't matter, I have orders to shut you down for 24 hours,' and he does it—just like that."
Supermarket managers estimate that the government regulates prices on about 20% of the items they sell, but these products account for up to 40% of volume. "We make zero profit on most of the regulated foods, so we have to make up for it by charging more for other goods," says Carlos Hernández, manager of Los Campitos, a small grocery in Caracas' upscale El Rosal neighborhood. And at Exito and Coda stores, says one executive, the government seems intent on eliminating any possibility of turning a profit. "How are they going to replace freezers and forklifts as they wear out?" he asks.
Supermarket owners are watching how the government manages Exito, renamed Bicentenario in honor of this year's 200th anniversary of Venezuela's independence from Spain. Since the takeover, sales have sagged, according to Sintesis Financiera, an economics consultancy. Now suppliers concerned over delays in payment appear to be slowing deliveries, prompting Chávez to warn 60 companies that they may be expropriated if they fail to double deliveries to the chain.
With legislative elections scheduled for September, the fiery President is likely to continue cracking down on food retailers. Although he doesn't face another presidential vote until 2012, he's determined to hold onto his party's majority in the National Assembly. Chávez has won the loyalty of poor Venezuelans with his food subsidies, but as inflation erodes spending power, that support is flagging. After climbing by more than 15% annually from 2004 to 2009, consumption has started to fall, Central Bank data show.
As supermarket owners fret about further expropriations, Venezuelans increasingly say socialism isn't the right path. In a poll by researcher DATOS taken two weeks after the Exito seizure, 58% of respondents said they disapprove of Chávez's takeover of stores. Another DATOS survey found that 86% don't think Cuba is an appropriate model for Venezuela. Chávez "is moving in the opposite direction from what people say they want for their country," says DATOS director Joseph Saade. "People look at everything the government has taken over and they're seeing that the companies have become dysfunctional."
Smith is Bloomberg BusinessWeek's Latin American correspondent, in Mexico City.
An Exito supermarket: Sales are off since the government takeover in January Isaac Urrutia/Reuters
Caracas - It's 10 a.m., and tempers are already flaring at the Cada supermarket in Caracas' San Bernardino neighborhood. The store has just taken delivery of two pallets of 4- and 11-pound sacks of sugar. With dozens of shoppers swarming around him, Rigoberto Fernández tries to pass out the bags one by one. The clerk hands a smaller one to a gray-haired woman, but she flings it back. "How dare you tell me I can't have one of the larger bags?" she screams. The sack splits open, spilling sugar everywhere.
Within 10 minutes, the shipment has vanished. "I am so fed up with these food shortages," Fernández mutters as he sweeps up the mess. "People get desperate and start behaving like animals."
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's response to the food shortages: find a scapegoat, in this case supermarket owners. On Jan. 17, the mercurial leader expropriated six Exito stores, controlled by France's Groupe Casino. A month later he seized Cada, another Casino chain, with 35 supermarkets and eight distribution centers.
El Presidente's efforts to transform his country into a Cuban-style socialist state are sputtering. With its vast oil wealth, Venezuela shouldn't suffer from shortages, yet inefficient farms, government takeovers of supermarkets, and a 50% currency devaluation in January have thrown the food supply into disarray. That's bad news for Chávez, whose anti-capitalist message and ceaseless drive to undermine U.S. influence in Latin America have made him Washington's biggest headache in the region. Chávez's approval rating among Venezuelans has dropped to about 45% from 70% three years ago.
Supplying low-cost food to the poor has been a centerpiece of Chávez's presidency. He has expropriated food processors, stores, and more than 6 million acres of farms and ranches, convinced that the government can feed Venezuela better than the private sector does. Under state ownership, though, production has suffered. From 1999 to 2008, per capita, sugar cane was off by 8%, fruit declined by 25%, and beef production dropped by 38%, according to Carlos Machado, an expert in agriculture at the Institute of Higher Administrative Studies, a business school in Caracas. "The cooperatives have failed and our cattle ranching has been decimated," Machado says.
While Chávez was flush with oil profits, it was easy to take up the slack with purchases of chicken from Brazil, beef from Argentina, and powdered milk from New Zealand. Food imports jumped from $1.3 billion in 1999, when Chávez took office, to $7.5 billion in 2008—about 70% of what Venezuelans eat. But falling crude oil prices and last year's 3.3% contraction of the economy left Chávez with less money to buy food abroad, or to prop up poorly run state farms and food processors. Government officials "think they know how to run businesses, but they just run them into the ground, just like they're running the country into the ground," says 47-year-old homemaker Antonia Rangel, one of the shoppers who managed to get a bag of sugar at the Cada store.
"SOCIALIST MEGASTORES"
A new consumer protection law, which went into effect on Feb. 1, allows Chávez to expropriate virtually any company if he deems it to be in the national interest. Exito's alleged misdeed: raising food prices following the January devaluation (though two months later, on Mar. 9, the government authorized stores to boost prices on some basic goods by as much as 35%). Chávez wants to transform the chain's outlets into what he calls "socialist megastores" that sell food, appliances, and clothing with virtually no markup. "The measure is one further step in the Venezuelan state's policy of transforming capitalism into socialism," Chávez declared on his weekly Hello President TV show. Exito's parent and the government haven't disclosed any details on compensation.
The supermarket seizures have alarmed grocers, but few are willing to speak publicly for fear of more harassment. "This is one of the worst times we've ever lived through," says the CEO of a major supermarket chain. "We live in constant fear that we could be shut down or taken over by the government."
Chávez has been skirmishing with supermarkets for years. In 2002, big food producers and distributors participated in a two-month nationwide work stoppage that nearly brought the economy to its knees. In response, Chávez opened a rival network of government-run grocery stores, where more than a quarter of Venezuelans now shop.
The biggest state-owned chain, Mercal, has 16,600 outlets, ranging from street-corner shops to huge warehouse stores. They employ 85,000 workers selling basic products such as rice, sugar, and beans at prices as much as 40% below those the government sets for private stores. Mercal also has a fleet of trucks that serve street markets, and it offers free lunches and afternoon snacks at 6,000 soup kitchens. "Mercal is a very noble mission that contributes to a higher quality of life for Venezuelan families," says Carlos Alonzo Sánchez, manager of a busy Mercal store near El Junquito, a vast hillside shantytown on the outskirts of Caracas.
Joelis Muñoz recently carted 9 pounds of sugar, 7 pounds of rice, and 4 1/2 pounds of corn flour home from Sánchez's Mercal outlet. Her bill was $4.88, half what it would have been at a private supermarket. "Since the government opened these stores, my family hardly ever goes to regular supermarkets anymore," says the 21-year-old single mother.
CHEAP CHICKEN
The state-run stores serve as a platform for Chávez's revolutionary message. In the middle-class California Norte neighborhood of Caracas, an outlet of a second government-controlled chain called PDVAL (owned by state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA) offers frequent reminders about the source of the bounty. At the entrance, a banner proclaims: "Food Sovereignty! All power to the people!" A few feet down the first aisle, a placard reminds shoppers that the "government is fighting for your food security." Says Luis Pedro España, a sociologist at Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas: "It's quite clear to anyone who shops at state-run stores that they owe it all to the President, who brought cheap chicken to the people."
Sometimes, however, there aren't any cheap chickens to sell. The PDVAL store offers tomato sauce from Spain, nutritional drink mixes, and cans of tuna at regulated—but not subsidized—prices. On a recent Friday, though, there's no chicken, beef, or sugar. To fill empty shelves, the store has stocked an entire aisle with nearly 1,000 bottles of cooking oil made by a company the government took over two years ago. Another aisle is filled with hundreds of bags of corn flour. A third is jammed with industrial quantities of dried oregano and curry powder.
When scarce products do arrive, word spreads fast and long lines form. "I can only let one or two people in at a time so things don't get out of control," says Omar Gálvez, manager of a small Mercal outlet in Petare, a rough Caracas slum.
Supplying Venezuelans with cheap chicken isn't cheap. Félix Osorio, Chávez's Food Minister, oversees Mercal from a spacious office filled with paintings, handicrafts, and other gifts from constituents. Osorio, a 40-year-old Army lieutenant colonel, says the government will spend $605 million this year on food subsidies, plus $1.8 billion to run the Mercal system. "Food is a basic necessity, and not mere merchandise," Osorio says, munching on a midnight snack of white cheese and fried beef empanadas after a long day in the field. "The capitalists," he says, "don't see it that way."
Even so, the government knows it can learn something from the people it frequently calls "squalid capitalists." Taking control of the Exito and Cada supermarkets makes sense, Osorio says, because the government needs more expertise in large-scale retailing. The authorities are negotiating with Groupe Casino and may allow the French company to stay on as a minority partner to help keep the chain running smoothly. Casino declined to comment.
SUDDEN SHUTDOWNS
The capitalists, though, face constant oversight. Members of Cuba-inspired "community councils," or neighborhood watch groups, can make unannounced inspections to look for signs of hoarding. One executive from a nationwide chain grouses about constant visits from tax authorities, the consumer protection agency (to check prices), workplace safety inspectors, and even the National Guard, which monitors store hours to make sure they don't stay open too long and use too much electricity at a time of widespread blackouts. Even when no infractions are found, the executive sighs, "The inspector can say, 'It doesn't matter, I have orders to shut you down for 24 hours,' and he does it—just like that."
Supermarket managers estimate that the government regulates prices on about 20% of the items they sell, but these products account for up to 40% of volume. "We make zero profit on most of the regulated foods, so we have to make up for it by charging more for other goods," says Carlos Hernández, manager of Los Campitos, a small grocery in Caracas' upscale El Rosal neighborhood. And at Exito and Coda stores, says one executive, the government seems intent on eliminating any possibility of turning a profit. "How are they going to replace freezers and forklifts as they wear out?" he asks.
Supermarket owners are watching how the government manages Exito, renamed Bicentenario in honor of this year's 200th anniversary of Venezuela's independence from Spain. Since the takeover, sales have sagged, according to Sintesis Financiera, an economics consultancy. Now suppliers concerned over delays in payment appear to be slowing deliveries, prompting Chávez to warn 60 companies that they may be expropriated if they fail to double deliveries to the chain.
With legislative elections scheduled for September, the fiery President is likely to continue cracking down on food retailers. Although he doesn't face another presidential vote until 2012, he's determined to hold onto his party's majority in the National Assembly. Chávez has won the loyalty of poor Venezuelans with his food subsidies, but as inflation erodes spending power, that support is flagging. After climbing by more than 15% annually from 2004 to 2009, consumption has started to fall, Central Bank data show.
As supermarket owners fret about further expropriations, Venezuelans increasingly say socialism isn't the right path. In a poll by researcher DATOS taken two weeks after the Exito seizure, 58% of respondents said they disapprove of Chávez's takeover of stores. Another DATOS survey found that 86% don't think Cuba is an appropriate model for Venezuela. Chávez "is moving in the opposite direction from what people say they want for their country," says DATOS director Joseph Saade. "People look at everything the government has taken over and they're seeing that the companies have become dysfunctional."
Smith is Bloomberg BusinessWeek's Latin American correspondent, in Mexico City.
South Indians in Roman Egypt?
ARCHAEOLOGY
South Indians in Roman Egypt?
One way to understand the implications of the archaeological discoveries at Pattanam is to delve into the amazing wealth of data from the excavations at the lost Ptolemic-Roman port city of Berenike, on Egypt’s Red Sea coast. During the Ptolemic-Roman period (third century B.C. to sixth century A.D), Berenike served as a key transit port between ancient Egypt and Rome on one side and the Red Sea-Indian Ocean regions, including South Arabia, East Africa, India and Sri Lanka, on the other.
This ancient port city was well-connected by roads from the Nile that passed through the Eastern Desert of Egypt and also by sea routes from the Indian Ocean regions. Cargoes unloaded at Berenike and other Egyptian Red Sea ports (such as Myos Hormos, now lost) used to be taken along the desert roads to the Nile and from there through the river to the Mediterranean Sea and across, to the Roman trade centres.
Exotic goods from Rome and Egypt flowed into Berenike along the same desert road before being loaded into large ships bound for the Indian Ocean.
By the end of the second century B.C., the Egyptians and the Romans finally learnt the skill of sailing with the monsoon winds across the Indian Ocean (“from the Arabs and other Easterners”). Voyages from Berenike for the riches of the Malabar coast therefore became “faster, cheaper, but not less dangerous”.
According to most accounts, one of the major centres in India that ships from Berenike travelled to, along with the monsoon winds, was the emporium of Muziris, on the Malabar coast.
However, as the silting of the harbour, among other uncertain reasons, caused Berenike’s eventual abandonment before the middle of the sixth century A.D., Muziris, too, disappeared mysteriously from the itinerary of the later voyagers to the Malabar coast. For a long time since then, both these centres remained forgotten.
But while archaeological evidence about Muziris or the Indian Ocean trade remained elusive in the Malabar coast, it was Berenike that eventually offered invaluable proof of its links with the Yavanas.
In wide-ranging and ongoing excavations at Berenike launched from 1994 (and at many other places on the Eastern Desert), a team of dedicated archaeologists from the University of Delaware (United States) led by Prof. Steven E. Sidebotham, along with partners from several other institutions, has documented evidence of the cargo from the Malabar coast and people from South India being at the last outpost of the Roman Empire and of Indians on the Berenike-Nile road.
Among the unexpected discoveries at Berenike were a range of ancient Indian goods, including the largest single concentration (7.55 kg) of black peppercorns ever recovered in the classical Mediterranean world (“imported from southern India” and found inside a large vessel made of Nile silt in a temple courtyard); substantial quantities of Indian-made fine ware and kitchen cooking ware and Indian style pottery; Indian-made sail cloth, basketry, matting, etc. from trash dumps; a large quantity of teak wood, black pepper, coconuts, beads made of precious and semi-precious stones, cameo blanks; “a Tamil Brahmi graffito mentioning Korra, a South Indian chieftain”; evidence that “inhabitants from Tamil South India (which then included most of Kerala) were living in Berenike, at least in the early Roman period”; evidence that the Tamil population implied the probable presence of Buddhist worshippers; evidence of Indians at another Roman port 300 km north of Berenike; Indian-made ceramics on the Nile road; a rock inscription mentioning an Indian passing through en route; “abundant evidence for the use of ships built and rigged in India”; and proof “that teak wood (endemic to South India), found in buildings in Berenike, had clearly been reused”(from dismantled ships).
R. Krishnakumar
South Indians in Roman Egypt?
One way to understand the implications of the archaeological discoveries at Pattanam is to delve into the amazing wealth of data from the excavations at the lost Ptolemic-Roman port city of Berenike, on Egypt’s Red Sea coast. During the Ptolemic-Roman period (third century B.C. to sixth century A.D), Berenike served as a key transit port between ancient Egypt and Rome on one side and the Red Sea-Indian Ocean regions, including South Arabia, East Africa, India and Sri Lanka, on the other.
This ancient port city was well-connected by roads from the Nile that passed through the Eastern Desert of Egypt and also by sea routes from the Indian Ocean regions. Cargoes unloaded at Berenike and other Egyptian Red Sea ports (such as Myos Hormos, now lost) used to be taken along the desert roads to the Nile and from there through the river to the Mediterranean Sea and across, to the Roman trade centres.
Exotic goods from Rome and Egypt flowed into Berenike along the same desert road before being loaded into large ships bound for the Indian Ocean.
By the end of the second century B.C., the Egyptians and the Romans finally learnt the skill of sailing with the monsoon winds across the Indian Ocean (“from the Arabs and other Easterners”). Voyages from Berenike for the riches of the Malabar coast therefore became “faster, cheaper, but not less dangerous”.
According to most accounts, one of the major centres in India that ships from Berenike travelled to, along with the monsoon winds, was the emporium of Muziris, on the Malabar coast.
However, as the silting of the harbour, among other uncertain reasons, caused Berenike’s eventual abandonment before the middle of the sixth century A.D., Muziris, too, disappeared mysteriously from the itinerary of the later voyagers to the Malabar coast. For a long time since then, both these centres remained forgotten.
But while archaeological evidence about Muziris or the Indian Ocean trade remained elusive in the Malabar coast, it was Berenike that eventually offered invaluable proof of its links with the Yavanas.
In wide-ranging and ongoing excavations at Berenike launched from 1994 (and at many other places on the Eastern Desert), a team of dedicated archaeologists from the University of Delaware (United States) led by Prof. Steven E. Sidebotham, along with partners from several other institutions, has documented evidence of the cargo from the Malabar coast and people from South India being at the last outpost of the Roman Empire and of Indians on the Berenike-Nile road.
Among the unexpected discoveries at Berenike were a range of ancient Indian goods, including the largest single concentration (7.55 kg) of black peppercorns ever recovered in the classical Mediterranean world (“imported from southern India” and found inside a large vessel made of Nile silt in a temple courtyard); substantial quantities of Indian-made fine ware and kitchen cooking ware and Indian style pottery; Indian-made sail cloth, basketry, matting, etc. from trash dumps; a large quantity of teak wood, black pepper, coconuts, beads made of precious and semi-precious stones, cameo blanks; “a Tamil Brahmi graffito mentioning Korra, a South Indian chieftain”; evidence that “inhabitants from Tamil South India (which then included most of Kerala) were living in Berenike, at least in the early Roman period”; evidence that the Tamil population implied the probable presence of Buddhist worshippers; evidence of Indians at another Roman port 300 km north of Berenike; Indian-made ceramics on the Nile road; a rock inscription mentioning an Indian passing through en route; “abundant evidence for the use of ships built and rigged in India”; and proof “that teak wood (endemic to South India), found in buildings in Berenike, had clearly been reused”(from dismantled ships).
R. Krishnakumar
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Obama Signals Enemies that Nuking U.S. Is A’OK With Him
Yesterday, April 06, 2010, 9:19:12 AM | Warner Todd Huston
-By Warner Todd Huston
President Obama is known for bowing to foreign dictators, emperors and Kings but it is such a chore to do it individually. Flying around the world to bow to each killer, oppressor, and tyrant is so time consuming. If only he had a way to do it to every American enemy at once it would save our bower in chief sooooo much time. Well, it appears he’s found a way.
In a bow to every foreign enemy at once President Barack “linguine spine” Obama has proudly announced that the U.S. won’t use its own nuclear weapons even if we are attacked by some other entity’s nukes!
So, come on down enemies of the U.S. The traitor in chief has just announced it’s open season on the good ol’ USA.
That’s right, enemies of the US, let those nukes fly because this may be the only chance you’ll get to have such a self-hating, self-flagellating, traitorous president sitting in the White House before he’s voted out to be replaced by a real American again.
Michelle’s “Kenyan Homecountry” honey is letting the guard down so hurry, hurry, hurry and let that nuclear winter fall. Do it now before it’s too late to take advantage of this limited time offer.
-By Warner Todd Huston
President Obama is known for bowing to foreign dictators, emperors and Kings but it is such a chore to do it individually. Flying around the world to bow to each killer, oppressor, and tyrant is so time consuming. If only he had a way to do it to every American enemy at once it would save our bower in chief sooooo much time. Well, it appears he’s found a way.
In a bow to every foreign enemy at once President Barack “linguine spine” Obama has proudly announced that the U.S. won’t use its own nuclear weapons even if we are attacked by some other entity’s nukes!
So, come on down enemies of the U.S. The traitor in chief has just announced it’s open season on the good ol’ USA.
That’s right, enemies of the US, let those nukes fly because this may be the only chance you’ll get to have such a self-hating, self-flagellating, traitorous president sitting in the White House before he’s voted out to be replaced by a real American again.
Michelle’s “Kenyan Homecountry” honey is letting the guard down so hurry, hurry, hurry and let that nuclear winter fall. Do it now before it’s too late to take advantage of this limited time offer.
Fish Wrap Forgets To Inform That Killed Photographer Was Hanging With Insurgents
Yesterday, April 06, 2010, 8:02:12 PM | William Teach
Have you heard about the video that was released that showed the killing of a Reuters photographer back in 2007 by American military helicopters? The Times makes sure that you don’t miss it: Video Shows American Killing of Photographer
The Web site WikiLeaks.org released a graphic video on Monday showing an American helicopter shooting and killing a Reuters photographer and driver in a July 2007 attack in Baghdad.
A senior American military official confirmed that the video was authentic.
Reuters had long pressed for the release of the video, which consists of 38 minutes of black-and-white aerial video and conversations between pilots in two Apache helicopters as they open fire on people on a street in Baghdad. The attack killed 12, among them the Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and the driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40.
At a news conference at the National Press Club, WikiLeaks said it had acquired the video from whistle-blowers in the military and viewed it after breaking the encryption code. WikiLeaks edited the video to 17 minutes.
Everything above, including the headline, is meant to insinuate that the two were killed for no reason. After all, the helicopter pilots simply opened up on people on a Baghdad street. And the pilots laughed about it. The Times does get around to telling readers that the Apaches had been called in because of small arms fire and RPG’s used against American troops, but then
But the video does not show hostile action. Instead, it begins with a group of people milling around on a street, among them, according to WikiLeaks, Mr. Noor-Eldeen and Mr. Chmagh. The pilots believe them to be insurgents, and mistake Mr. Noor-Eldeen’s camera for a weapon. They aim and fire at the group, then revel in their kills.
Au contraire, Fish Wrap! The Jawa Report and Hot Air, among others, do a fantastic job in tearing apart the video, showing that the “people on the street of Baghdad” had AK-47’s and at least one RPG, and a convoy of America troops were approaching. So, the Apache pilots asked for permission to fire, and did just that. It was a war zone, and, as Cassy Fiano points out, if media folks embed themselves with insurgents, aka scumbag Islamist extremists, if they get killed, they shouldn’t be surprised. The Jawa Report has much more along those lines, such as “This wouldn’t be the first time Reuters had sent off it’s “crack team” of locals to give the terrorists’ “point of view”.”
The Fish Wrap finally gets around to some actual meat in the last paragraph
The report showed pictures of what it said were machine guns and grenades found near the bodies of those killed. It also stated that the Reuters employees “made no effort to visibly display their status as press or media representatives and their familiar behavior with, and close proximity to, the armed insurgents and their furtive attempts to photograph the coalition ground forces made them appear as hostile combatants to the Apaches that engaged them.”
Ah. So, weapons and the Reuters dudes were hanging and having fun with terrorists. In a war zone.
I do find it interesting that this supposedly huge!!!!! story only made it to page A13 of the Tuesday print edition, while it is front page on the web. The Times knows that this story is really no big deal, but, they could get lots of hits on the web if people saw the story easily.
Unshockingly, the unhinged on the left are going unhinged about the original release from Wikileaks, which calls this “Collateral Murder.” In fact, that is what the website is called. The Weekly Standard points out that this was anything but, that doesn’t stop the kooks at the Democratic Underground, Boing Boing (which offers the Al Jazeera view), Little Green Goofballs, and the Rachael Maddow Show blog, among others, doing their typical hate America and support Islamist extremists schtick.
Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach
Have you heard about the video that was released that showed the killing of a Reuters photographer back in 2007 by American military helicopters? The Times makes sure that you don’t miss it: Video Shows American Killing of Photographer
The Web site WikiLeaks.org released a graphic video on Monday showing an American helicopter shooting and killing a Reuters photographer and driver in a July 2007 attack in Baghdad.
A senior American military official confirmed that the video was authentic.
Reuters had long pressed for the release of the video, which consists of 38 minutes of black-and-white aerial video and conversations between pilots in two Apache helicopters as they open fire on people on a street in Baghdad. The attack killed 12, among them the Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and the driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40.
At a news conference at the National Press Club, WikiLeaks said it had acquired the video from whistle-blowers in the military and viewed it after breaking the encryption code. WikiLeaks edited the video to 17 minutes.
Everything above, including the headline, is meant to insinuate that the two were killed for no reason. After all, the helicopter pilots simply opened up on people on a Baghdad street. And the pilots laughed about it. The Times does get around to telling readers that the Apaches had been called in because of small arms fire and RPG’s used against American troops, but then
But the video does not show hostile action. Instead, it begins with a group of people milling around on a street, among them, according to WikiLeaks, Mr. Noor-Eldeen and Mr. Chmagh. The pilots believe them to be insurgents, and mistake Mr. Noor-Eldeen’s camera for a weapon. They aim and fire at the group, then revel in their kills.
Au contraire, Fish Wrap! The Jawa Report and Hot Air, among others, do a fantastic job in tearing apart the video, showing that the “people on the street of Baghdad” had AK-47’s and at least one RPG, and a convoy of America troops were approaching. So, the Apache pilots asked for permission to fire, and did just that. It was a war zone, and, as Cassy Fiano points out, if media folks embed themselves with insurgents, aka scumbag Islamist extremists, if they get killed, they shouldn’t be surprised. The Jawa Report has much more along those lines, such as “This wouldn’t be the first time Reuters had sent off it’s “crack team” of locals to give the terrorists’ “point of view”.”
The Fish Wrap finally gets around to some actual meat in the last paragraph
The report showed pictures of what it said were machine guns and grenades found near the bodies of those killed. It also stated that the Reuters employees “made no effort to visibly display their status as press or media representatives and their familiar behavior with, and close proximity to, the armed insurgents and their furtive attempts to photograph the coalition ground forces made them appear as hostile combatants to the Apaches that engaged them.”
Ah. So, weapons and the Reuters dudes were hanging and having fun with terrorists. In a war zone.
I do find it interesting that this supposedly huge!!!!! story only made it to page A13 of the Tuesday print edition, while it is front page on the web. The Times knows that this story is really no big deal, but, they could get lots of hits on the web if people saw the story easily.
Unshockingly, the unhinged on the left are going unhinged about the original release from Wikileaks, which calls this “Collateral Murder.” In fact, that is what the website is called. The Weekly Standard points out that this was anything but, that doesn’t stop the kooks at the Democratic Underground, Boing Boing (which offers the Al Jazeera view), Little Green Goofballs, and the Rachael Maddow Show blog, among others, doing their typical hate America and support Islamist extremists schtick.
Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach
New Survey Explains Why So Many Young Folks Vote Democrat
Stop the ACLU ^ | 4-3-10 | unattributed
Posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:26:13 PM by smokingfrog
This might explain why 68% of those under 30 voted for Obama over McCain: For millennials, work ethic not defining factor. Are twentysomethings really spoiled and lazy? Survey suggests it’s true
Jared Rogalia, 25, a Hertz rental car manager-trainee in Alexandria, is as cranky as someone twice his age when he complains about his generation’s work ethic. Here’s how Rogalia characterizes his age group: “The first is: really spoiled and lazy. The second is: We’re free-spirited. And the third is: They’d rather be poorer and have free time than have a lot of money.”
The millennial generation — about 50 million people between ages 18 and 29 — is the only age group in the nation that doesn’t cite work ethic as one of its “principal claims to distinctiveness,” according to a new Pew Research Center study, “Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change.” The Washington-based nonprofit organization found that young adults and their elders agree: Baby boomers and Generation X-ers have better work ethic and moral values than those in their 20s.
In a survey of about 1,200 people of all ages, millennials chose other traits to define themselves: 24 percent said “technology use,” 11 percent went with “music/pop culture,” 7 percent chose “liberal/tolerant,” and 6 percent said “smarter.” Only 5 percent noted their generation’s “work ethic” — the same portion who chose “clothes” as their distinction.
I have the pleasure of working with some great folks under 30 whose work ethic is excellent. But, we all run into so many under 30’s who have little to no work ethic. The Millenials are a very feelings based group. After a long, long seminar on dealing with these folks as employees, we decided that the class content could have been boiled down (generically) to “gimme! I’m entitled!”
(Excerpt) Read more at stoptheaclu.com ...
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TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: millenials; pew; workethic
1 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:26:14 PM by smokingfrog
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To: smokingfrog
Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change.
Millenials: Arrogant. Groupthinking. Traitors.
2 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:30:37 PM by Talisker (When you find a turtle on top of a fence post, you can be damn sure it didn't get there on it's own.)
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To: smokingfrog
i found out why—
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg98BvqUvCc
3 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:36:07 PM by chicken head
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To: smokingfrog
You also have to realize these are indoctrinated young people through textbooks teaching them America is racist horrible etc. Obama was positioned as a uniter /centrist (morons believed this?) and voting for him would rid our nation of its collective guilt.
Young people are ignorant through lack of life experience. They are easy targets for Democrats and Dems go after them. Young white people are taught to be ashamed of their race and history. Voting for Obama was sold as the cool thing to do.
Now... hopefully they are waking up. Universities though are where the young are radicalized. Listen to the interview with Obama’s communist college buddy. Becoming a professor (though Obama was never more than an instructor) and ‘community activist’ were acceptable paths for socialists.
4 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:36:24 PM by TigerBait
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To: smokingfrog
My sister is 24, she voted Republican. My Mama raised her right :-) she didn’t get sucked into the whole Obama mania crap. She said he was a phony from the moment she saw him.
5 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:38:54 PM by Sarah Barracuda
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To: smokingfrog
Well, what did you expect? None of these kids ever lost or failed at anything in school. If they finished last, they still got an award. If they failed, they were labeled as “defered achievers,” or some such rot. Why would they have developed a “work ethic?”
6 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:40:54 PM by rmh47 (Go Kats! - Got Seven? [NRA Life Member])
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To: smokingfrog
If you are not a liberal at 20 you have no heart.
If you are still a liberal at 40 you have no brain.
7 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:47:50 PM by 43north (BHO: 50% white, 50% black, 100% red)
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To: Talisker
“After a long, long seminar on dealing with these folks as employees, we decided that the class content could have been boiled down (generically) to “gimme! I’m entitled!””
From what I am seeing and being told from others who have to “suffer” through working with these people, this is absolutely correct.
They are arrogant and group thinkers. However, they aren’t motivated enough to rise to the level of being traitors. They simply don’t care enough to interfere with their personal, selfish narcissism.
There are exceptions to the rule. And when you talk to the rare few who don’t follow the herd, they will tell you to not trust or believe there are members of their ranks that will be capable of being leaders when they inherit this country. That is really alarming because they don’t see themselves in that role either.
They were not raised as individuals and they truly do not like the older generation and in a lot of cases they don’t like their parents. Many see their older counterparts as hinderances to their promotion at work. It rarely occurs to them that they might have to pay their dues to move up in the ranks.
Very alarming and very sad.
8 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:48:34 PM by BlessingsofLiberty (Obama, YOU LIE!!)
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To: smokingfrog
Spoiled, no work ethic and no understanding of American History. Useful idiots for the socialists. . . We have a lot of work to do to try and educate them. . They're a big voting block.
9 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:49:45 PM by Art in Idaho
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To: Art in Idaho
At that age I had a strong work ethic, but virtually no knowledge of US History or how the government is supposed to work. I’m 58 years old, but government education back then was pretty poor.
10 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 2:00:17 PM by gitmo ( The democRats drew first blood. It's our turn now.)
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To: smokingfrog
They will have a sobering moment when they learn that the Baby Boomers who raised them will have nothing to pass on to them because we had to pay for the ponzi scheme called Social Security and Medicare - instituted, managed, and consumed by “The Greatest Generation”.
11 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 2:01:32 PM by uncommonsense (Liberals see what they believe; Conservatives believe what they see.)
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To: BlessingsofLiberty
It rarely occurs to them that they might have to pay their dues to move up in the ranks.
I'm 45, and I have never understood this whole "paying your dues" business. Why should anyone have to "pay any dues" in order to achieve higher rank, status, or pay? Workers should be rewarded according to the quality of their work, not on the basis of how may years they've been punching a clock or how good they are at kissing ass.
I say if a person of 24 can do a better job than I can, they deserve to be my boss and make more money than I do.
12 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 2:02:52 PM by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
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To: smokingfrog
Because they are stupid and run their live based on what they think is “Cool”?
13 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 2:04:49 PM by SoConPubbie
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To: smokingfrog
What the author doesn’t account for is that the more spoiled and entitled the individual, the more enraged when they don’t get what they want.
When they can’t find work in this worsening economy they will hold Obama personally responsible for all their woes. And I don’t think all his various Obama Youth Corps programs will be able to employ a significant percentage of them.
14 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 2:36:51 PM by sinanju
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To: smokingfrog
The “young folks” polled don’t pay taxes, ie., they’re still leeches...
...making them, naturally, part of a core Democrat constituency.
15 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 2:46:55 PM by Lancey Howard
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To: smokingfrog
It’s simple. They don’t understand the way the world works because all they’ve ever done is school, which is an unnatural situation led by liberals.
I remember when I was in high school. Weekly Reader published a quiz on “Are you a Republican or a Democrat” (This was when 18 year olds first got the vote). Almost every kid in the class, including me, was superliberal, according to the quiz.
So I took it home (I wasn’t supposed to) and gave it to my conservative mother. She answered the quiz opposite every answer I gave, and explained WHY. It was hard to understand her logic, but now I realize she was right in all her answers, simply because I’ve now been there.
16 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 3:04:47 PM by I still care (I believe in the universality of freedom -George Bush, asked if he regrets going to war.)
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To: smokingfrog
I’m 26 and work until my supervisors practically shove me into the break room to rest for a bit.
I learned from the best. My dad. :)
17 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 4:12:44 PM by Crazieman (Feb 7, 2008 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1966675/posts?page=28#28)
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To: Crazieman
I used to do that until I realised that none of the ‘work ethic’ generation work that way. Laziness isn’t the sole provenance of the young, regardless of what survey answers say. I personally think the younger generation is more honest about what they truly value.
Personally, I would rather spend more time with family and friends then I would at work. My family is the most important thing in my life after God.
For most of us, work really isn’t that important. It doesn’t define us, because ‘work’ is a nebulous concept. It comes and goes as it pleases.
I’m sure older generations made the connection with work because that’s what work was. You started at the bottom and worked your way up to the top. These days, it won’t work that way anymore. They will dump you when they don’t need you anymore and you have to find another job. This is why it’s unhealthy for us to define who we are by what we do.
18 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 4:25:46 PM by BenKenobi ("we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be")
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To: smokingfrog
Everyone under 40 should be sent to camps and force fed grits and Bob Wills music.
19 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 4:37:13 PM by BigCinBigD (God bless you Texas! And keep you brave and strong,)
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To: smokingfrog
because they are f-ing idiots would be my guess.
20 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 4:53:23 PM by GOP Poet (Obama is an OLYMPIC failure.)
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To: BlessingsofLiberty
The #1 reason we homeschooled our kids was so that they would not follow the herd. It worked! They are individuals.
21 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 6:05:09 PM by cookiedough
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To: smokingfrog; All
Parasites versus Producers...
22 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 6:37:04 PM by backhoe (Just an Old Keyboard Cowboy, ridin' the trakball into America's Twilight...)
Posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:26:13 PM by smokingfrog
This might explain why 68% of those under 30 voted for Obama over McCain: For millennials, work ethic not defining factor. Are twentysomethings really spoiled and lazy? Survey suggests it’s true
Jared Rogalia, 25, a Hertz rental car manager-trainee in Alexandria, is as cranky as someone twice his age when he complains about his generation’s work ethic. Here’s how Rogalia characterizes his age group: “The first is: really spoiled and lazy. The second is: We’re free-spirited. And the third is: They’d rather be poorer and have free time than have a lot of money.”
The millennial generation — about 50 million people between ages 18 and 29 — is the only age group in the nation that doesn’t cite work ethic as one of its “principal claims to distinctiveness,” according to a new Pew Research Center study, “Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change.” The Washington-based nonprofit organization found that young adults and their elders agree: Baby boomers and Generation X-ers have better work ethic and moral values than those in their 20s.
In a survey of about 1,200 people of all ages, millennials chose other traits to define themselves: 24 percent said “technology use,” 11 percent went with “music/pop culture,” 7 percent chose “liberal/tolerant,” and 6 percent said “smarter.” Only 5 percent noted their generation’s “work ethic” — the same portion who chose “clothes” as their distinction.
I have the pleasure of working with some great folks under 30 whose work ethic is excellent. But, we all run into so many under 30’s who have little to no work ethic. The Millenials are a very feelings based group. After a long, long seminar on dealing with these folks as employees, we decided that the class content could have been boiled down (generically) to “gimme! I’m entitled!”
(Excerpt) Read more at stoptheaclu.com ...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: millenials; pew; workethic
1 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:26:14 PM by smokingfrog
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To: smokingfrog
Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change.
Millenials: Arrogant. Groupthinking. Traitors.
2 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:30:37 PM by Talisker (When you find a turtle on top of a fence post, you can be damn sure it didn't get there on it's own.)
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To: smokingfrog
i found out why—
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg98BvqUvCc
3 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:36:07 PM by chicken head
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: smokingfrog
You also have to realize these are indoctrinated young people through textbooks teaching them America is racist horrible etc. Obama was positioned as a uniter /centrist (morons believed this?) and voting for him would rid our nation of its collective guilt.
Young people are ignorant through lack of life experience. They are easy targets for Democrats and Dems go after them. Young white people are taught to be ashamed of their race and history. Voting for Obama was sold as the cool thing to do.
Now... hopefully they are waking up. Universities though are where the young are radicalized. Listen to the interview with Obama’s communist college buddy. Becoming a professor (though Obama was never more than an instructor) and ‘community activist’ were acceptable paths for socialists.
4 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:36:24 PM by TigerBait
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To: smokingfrog
My sister is 24, she voted Republican. My Mama raised her right :-) she didn’t get sucked into the whole Obama mania crap. She said he was a phony from the moment she saw him.
5 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:38:54 PM by Sarah Barracuda
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To: smokingfrog
Well, what did you expect? None of these kids ever lost or failed at anything in school. If they finished last, they still got an award. If they failed, they were labeled as “defered achievers,” or some such rot. Why would they have developed a “work ethic?”
6 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:40:54 PM by rmh47 (Go Kats! - Got Seven? [NRA Life Member])
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To: smokingfrog
If you are not a liberal at 20 you have no heart.
If you are still a liberal at 40 you have no brain.
7 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:47:50 PM by 43north (BHO: 50% white, 50% black, 100% red)
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Talisker
“After a long, long seminar on dealing with these folks as employees, we decided that the class content could have been boiled down (generically) to “gimme! I’m entitled!””
From what I am seeing and being told from others who have to “suffer” through working with these people, this is absolutely correct.
They are arrogant and group thinkers. However, they aren’t motivated enough to rise to the level of being traitors. They simply don’t care enough to interfere with their personal, selfish narcissism.
There are exceptions to the rule. And when you talk to the rare few who don’t follow the herd, they will tell you to not trust or believe there are members of their ranks that will be capable of being leaders when they inherit this country. That is really alarming because they don’t see themselves in that role either.
They were not raised as individuals and they truly do not like the older generation and in a lot of cases they don’t like their parents. Many see their older counterparts as hinderances to their promotion at work. It rarely occurs to them that they might have to pay their dues to move up in the ranks.
Very alarming and very sad.
8 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:48:34 PM by BlessingsofLiberty (Obama, YOU LIE!!)
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To: smokingfrog
Spoiled, no work ethic and no understanding of American History. Useful idiots for the socialists. . . We have a lot of work to do to try and educate them. . They're a big voting block.
9 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 1:49:45 PM by Art in Idaho
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To: Art in Idaho
At that age I had a strong work ethic, but virtually no knowledge of US History or how the government is supposed to work. I’m 58 years old, but government education back then was pretty poor.
10 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 2:00:17 PM by gitmo ( The democRats drew first blood. It's our turn now.)
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To: smokingfrog
They will have a sobering moment when they learn that the Baby Boomers who raised them will have nothing to pass on to them because we had to pay for the ponzi scheme called Social Security and Medicare - instituted, managed, and consumed by “The Greatest Generation”.
11 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 2:01:32 PM by uncommonsense (Liberals see what they believe; Conservatives believe what they see.)
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To: BlessingsofLiberty
It rarely occurs to them that they might have to pay their dues to move up in the ranks.
I'm 45, and I have never understood this whole "paying your dues" business. Why should anyone have to "pay any dues" in order to achieve higher rank, status, or pay? Workers should be rewarded according to the quality of their work, not on the basis of how may years they've been punching a clock or how good they are at kissing ass.
I say if a person of 24 can do a better job than I can, they deserve to be my boss and make more money than I do.
12 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 2:02:52 PM by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
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To: smokingfrog
Because they are stupid and run their live based on what they think is “Cool”?
13 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 2:04:49 PM by SoConPubbie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: smokingfrog
What the author doesn’t account for is that the more spoiled and entitled the individual, the more enraged when they don’t get what they want.
When they can’t find work in this worsening economy they will hold Obama personally responsible for all their woes. And I don’t think all his various Obama Youth Corps programs will be able to employ a significant percentage of them.
14 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 2:36:51 PM by sinanju
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: smokingfrog
The “young folks” polled don’t pay taxes, ie., they’re still leeches...
...making them, naturally, part of a core Democrat constituency.
15 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 2:46:55 PM by Lancey Howard
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: smokingfrog
It’s simple. They don’t understand the way the world works because all they’ve ever done is school, which is an unnatural situation led by liberals.
I remember when I was in high school. Weekly Reader published a quiz on “Are you a Republican or a Democrat” (This was when 18 year olds first got the vote). Almost every kid in the class, including me, was superliberal, according to the quiz.
So I took it home (I wasn’t supposed to) and gave it to my conservative mother. She answered the quiz opposite every answer I gave, and explained WHY. It was hard to understand her logic, but now I realize she was right in all her answers, simply because I’ve now been there.
16 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 3:04:47 PM by I still care (I believe in the universality of freedom -George Bush, asked if he regrets going to war.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: smokingfrog
I’m 26 and work until my supervisors practically shove me into the break room to rest for a bit.
I learned from the best. My dad. :)
17 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 4:12:44 PM by Crazieman (Feb 7, 2008 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1966675/posts?page=28#28)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Crazieman
I used to do that until I realised that none of the ‘work ethic’ generation work that way. Laziness isn’t the sole provenance of the young, regardless of what survey answers say. I personally think the younger generation is more honest about what they truly value.
Personally, I would rather spend more time with family and friends then I would at work. My family is the most important thing in my life after God.
For most of us, work really isn’t that important. It doesn’t define us, because ‘work’ is a nebulous concept. It comes and goes as it pleases.
I’m sure older generations made the connection with work because that’s what work was. You started at the bottom and worked your way up to the top. These days, it won’t work that way anymore. They will dump you when they don’t need you anymore and you have to find another job. This is why it’s unhealthy for us to define who we are by what we do.
18 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 4:25:46 PM by BenKenobi ("we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be")
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To: smokingfrog
Everyone under 40 should be sent to camps and force fed grits and Bob Wills music.
19 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 4:37:13 PM by BigCinBigD (God bless you Texas! And keep you brave and strong,)
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To: smokingfrog
because they are f-ing idiots would be my guess.
20 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 4:53:23 PM by GOP Poet (Obama is an OLYMPIC failure.)
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To: BlessingsofLiberty
The #1 reason we homeschooled our kids was so that they would not follow the herd. It worked! They are individuals.
21 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 6:05:09 PM by cookiedough
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To: smokingfrog; All
Parasites versus Producers...
22 posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 6:37:04 PM by backhoe (Just an Old Keyboard Cowboy, ridin' the trakball into America's Twilight...)
Madonna: Sex Selling Hypocrite
Yesterday, April 06, 2010, 1:16:02 AM | Warner Todd Huston
-By Warner Todd Huston
I guess as a youngster she was busy designing wacky, risque outfits when she should have been learning the definitions of words, but Madonna — the famed “Material Girl” — uttered a whopper recently misusing the word “irony” when she should have been using the word “hypocrite”… as in what she is.
Of course the first thought that anyone has of pop singer Madonna is sex, sex, sex. She has made her entire career on selling her sexuality. From the days of 1983’s hit “Holliday,” to photo spreads in Playboy and Penthouse, to crawling on stage like a cat in heat, to girl-on-girl kisses, and raunchy videos throughout, Madonna has made her bucks with her body with as much skin showing as possible at all times even today in her 50s.
But, suddenly mother Madonna is hopeful that her own 13-year-old daughter, Lourdes, will “dress more conservatively.” Sex is bad all of a sudden when Madonna is talking about her own child.
Madonna told the magazine Us Weekly that she wished her child would not emulate the sexually exploitive style she herself made her career on.
Madonna may be a style icon, but that doesn’t mean daughter Lourdes Leon, 13, takes her advice. “If anything, I wish she’d dress more conservatively,” says the pop star, 51. “How’s that for irony?”
No, Mz Madonna. How’s that for hypocrisy, not “irony.”
Like a true lefty, Madonna sees nothing wrong with exploiting her own sexuality and creating an empire that invites millions of pre-teen girls the world over to emulate her, yet when it is her daughter that wants to sex herself up, suddenly it’s “conservative” time for Mz Madonna!
This is a direct admission that she knows that what she has spent the last 40 years doing was illicit, wrong, and bad for kids. But, you see, when it’s her fans and her fans parents that are being harmed, Madonna doesn’t care. But should her own child start down that path it’s Katie bar the door and time to enroll the girl in a Nunnery. Suddenly Mz Madonna becomes all prudish and wants to prevent the sexual exploitation of her own daughter.
It isn’t “irony,” Mz Madonna. It’s hypocrisy that you wallow in.
-By Warner Todd Huston
I guess as a youngster she was busy designing wacky, risque outfits when she should have been learning the definitions of words, but Madonna — the famed “Material Girl” — uttered a whopper recently misusing the word “irony” when she should have been using the word “hypocrite”… as in what she is.
Of course the first thought that anyone has of pop singer Madonna is sex, sex, sex. She has made her entire career on selling her sexuality. From the days of 1983’s hit “Holliday,” to photo spreads in Playboy and Penthouse, to crawling on stage like a cat in heat, to girl-on-girl kisses, and raunchy videos throughout, Madonna has made her bucks with her body with as much skin showing as possible at all times even today in her 50s.
But, suddenly mother Madonna is hopeful that her own 13-year-old daughter, Lourdes, will “dress more conservatively.” Sex is bad all of a sudden when Madonna is talking about her own child.
Madonna told the magazine Us Weekly that she wished her child would not emulate the sexually exploitive style she herself made her career on.
Madonna may be a style icon, but that doesn’t mean daughter Lourdes Leon, 13, takes her advice. “If anything, I wish she’d dress more conservatively,” says the pop star, 51. “How’s that for irony?”
No, Mz Madonna. How’s that for hypocrisy, not “irony.”
Like a true lefty, Madonna sees nothing wrong with exploiting her own sexuality and creating an empire that invites millions of pre-teen girls the world over to emulate her, yet when it is her daughter that wants to sex herself up, suddenly it’s “conservative” time for Mz Madonna!
This is a direct admission that she knows that what she has spent the last 40 years doing was illicit, wrong, and bad for kids. But, you see, when it’s her fans and her fans parents that are being harmed, Madonna doesn’t care. But should her own child start down that path it’s Katie bar the door and time to enroll the girl in a Nunnery. Suddenly Mz Madonna becomes all prudish and wants to prevent the sexual exploitation of her own daughter.
It isn’t “irony,” Mz Madonna. It’s hypocrisy that you wallow in.
Obama;s Nuclear Strategy Intended as a Message (Yes, "We Surrender", unilaterally)
Obamalateral Disarmament
National Security: Aiming at a world where nuclear weapons are obsolete, the administration's nuclear posture review leaves a world without American nuclear weapons and the backbone to use them.
After his stunning bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto lamented that all that had been accomplished was to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.
Under policies announced by the Obama administration, a devastating chemical or biological attack on this country might merely awaken our very own Hamlet and fill him with a terrible sense of angst.
We have said before that rather than strive for a world without nuclear weapons, we should strive for a world without enemies willing to use them against us. Our retaliatory power should be unquestioned, as should be our willingness to use it. President Reagan called this proven and successful policy peace through strength. It has been replaced by a hair-splitting policy of nuance.
The U.S. is now promising not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even if they attack America with biological or chemical weapons or launch a paralyzing cyberattack.
This is good news for our enemies to know — they can wipe out much of New York City, but as long as their signature is on that piece of paper, their capital is safe from becoming a pile of irradiated rubble. We are not making this up.
In this nuclear posture, which can best be described as slouching in a recliner, we renounce the development of any new nuclear weapons, thus ensuring the aging of our nuclear deterrent into obsolescence and irrelevance.
And we'll be getting rid of some old ones — the long-range, nuclear-capable Tomahawk cruise missile, for example.
Our arsenal is to shrink by thousands of nuclear weapons, and we'll restrict the instances in which their use is an option. Worse yet, we'll tell our enemies when and if we will use them, eliminating the ambiguity that has helped keep us safe. Under President George W. Bush, our posture reserved the right to use nuclear weapons "to deter a wide range of threats," including biological and chemical attack.
President Obama will sign a U.S.-Russian arms treaty in Prague on Thursday and host a nuclear security summit in Washington next week. The administration says the treaty will scale back the number of deployed long-range warheads by 30%. Obama pledges we will "reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy." Unfortunately, he will reduce our national security as well.
There used to be a policy called mutual assured destruction, or MAD, by which war among the superpowers would be deterred by the ability of each to survive and still devastate each other. This new policy is just plain mad, without the deterrence, making conflict more likelier.
President Kennedy once said, and rightly so, that only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt could we be certain beyond doubt that they would never be employed. Reagan won the Cold War and pushed the Evil Empire into the ash heap of history through a policy of peace through strength. He announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, built a 600-ship Navy and put Pershing missiles in Europe.
Our potential enemies have not stood still. As Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, points out, Moscow is on track toward upgrading 80% of its strategic forces. It routinely conducts underground, hydrodynamic tests that Obama considers impermissible under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty we religiously observe.
In his Prague speech last year, Obama spoke of "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," ignoring the fact that before 1945 we lived in such a world and it was neither peaceful nor secure.
We'd prefer that the security of the American people be entrusted to an American military ready to respond with overwhelming force to any attack from any source, rather than pieces of parchment and the goodwill of our enemies.
National Security: Aiming at a world where nuclear weapons are obsolete, the administration's nuclear posture review leaves a world without American nuclear weapons and the backbone to use them.
After his stunning bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto lamented that all that had been accomplished was to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.
Under policies announced by the Obama administration, a devastating chemical or biological attack on this country might merely awaken our very own Hamlet and fill him with a terrible sense of angst.
We have said before that rather than strive for a world without nuclear weapons, we should strive for a world without enemies willing to use them against us. Our retaliatory power should be unquestioned, as should be our willingness to use it. President Reagan called this proven and successful policy peace through strength. It has been replaced by a hair-splitting policy of nuance.
The U.S. is now promising not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even if they attack America with biological or chemical weapons or launch a paralyzing cyberattack.
This is good news for our enemies to know — they can wipe out much of New York City, but as long as their signature is on that piece of paper, their capital is safe from becoming a pile of irradiated rubble. We are not making this up.
In this nuclear posture, which can best be described as slouching in a recliner, we renounce the development of any new nuclear weapons, thus ensuring the aging of our nuclear deterrent into obsolescence and irrelevance.
And we'll be getting rid of some old ones — the long-range, nuclear-capable Tomahawk cruise missile, for example.
Our arsenal is to shrink by thousands of nuclear weapons, and we'll restrict the instances in which their use is an option. Worse yet, we'll tell our enemies when and if we will use them, eliminating the ambiguity that has helped keep us safe. Under President George W. Bush, our posture reserved the right to use nuclear weapons "to deter a wide range of threats," including biological and chemical attack.
President Obama will sign a U.S.-Russian arms treaty in Prague on Thursday and host a nuclear security summit in Washington next week. The administration says the treaty will scale back the number of deployed long-range warheads by 30%. Obama pledges we will "reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy." Unfortunately, he will reduce our national security as well.
There used to be a policy called mutual assured destruction, or MAD, by which war among the superpowers would be deterred by the ability of each to survive and still devastate each other. This new policy is just plain mad, without the deterrence, making conflict more likelier.
President Kennedy once said, and rightly so, that only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt could we be certain beyond doubt that they would never be employed. Reagan won the Cold War and pushed the Evil Empire into the ash heap of history through a policy of peace through strength. He announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, built a 600-ship Navy and put Pershing missiles in Europe.
Our potential enemies have not stood still. As Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, points out, Moscow is on track toward upgrading 80% of its strategic forces. It routinely conducts underground, hydrodynamic tests that Obama considers impermissible under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty we religiously observe.
In his Prague speech last year, Obama spoke of "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," ignoring the fact that before 1945 we lived in such a world and it was neither peaceful nor secure.
We'd prefer that the security of the American people be entrusted to an American military ready to respond with overwhelming force to any attack from any source, rather than pieces of parchment and the goodwill of our enemies.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
The end of our 'special relationsip' with Britain
The Week ^ | April 1, 2010 | Daniel Larison
Posted on Saturday, April 03, 2010 9:27:55 AM by GOPGuide
After decades of playing second fiddle to the U.S., Britain, like other U.S. allies, is prepared to chart a more independent course. It's about time.
A British parliamentary committee has reported that the “special relationship” between Britain and the United States is over. It is tempting to dwell on the responsibility of President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for having brought this about, but the end of the “special” relationship is actually very good news for both countries. Having been abused past the breaking point before and during the Iraq war, the U.S.-British relationship was bound to change, and the only regret either nation should have now is that the change did not come sooner when it might have done more good.
The way is now clear for building a balanced, reciprocal relationship based on shared interests rather than sentimental attachments, reflexive support, or nostalgia for a Roosevelt-Churchill or Reagan-Thatcher partnership.
In practice, the “special relationship” has for several decades meant that Britain endorses and aids U.S. efforts and military actions abroad while it receives little or nothing in exchange. Until the end of the Cold War, a close connection with America was useful to Britain. It helped offset Britain’s international decline while strengthening its position in Europe, where Britain worked to prevent any single power from dominating the Continent. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the peaceful reunification of Germany, and the increasing consolidation of the European Union, these concerns grew anachronistic. Like other alliances defined by the crucibles of WW II and the Cold War, the “special relationship” has lost its old purpose while the “Global War on Terror” has failed to supply a new one.
Britain’s constancy has allowed Washington to take its support for granted. In turn, Britain’s automatic support has enabled Washington to behave abroad far more recklessly than it could feasibly have done all on its own. It is much harder to imagine an American domestic political consensus in support of the Iraq war had Britain not supported it, and Britain’s absence from any "coalition of the willing" would have engendered greater opposition to the invasion from European governments.
On the other hand, had Britain been a more reluctant ally, it might have dissuaded the previous administration from making its worst decision, saving years of needless warfare and loss. That would have been best for America, but it would have served Britain’s cause as well. As the committee report explained, Britain’s close identification with reckless U.S. actions has harmed British interests elsewhere in the world.
If the Iraq war confirmed that the “special relationship” had gone horribly awry, the recent controversy over the Falkland Islands was in some respects the last straw. Britain has long resented U.S. neutrality in Britain’s territorial dispute with Argentina. But when Secretary of State Clinton recently expressed support for negotiations over the status of the territory, it appeared that neutrality had morphed into back-stabbing opposition. Clinton’s comment may have stemmed more from clumsiness than policy—until sheep become strategic assets the Falklands will remain a low priority at the State Department. But for Britain, the episode encapsulated the one-sided nature of the relationship.
Whoever forms Britain’s next government following the general election this spring will almost certainly be less deferential. That is a consequence of international politics in general as well as Iraq in particular. Economic growth and democratization have spawned a new generation of rising powers with increasingly assertive and independent foreign policies. In navigating this new terrain, longtime U.S. allies such as Japan and Turkey will exercise greater independence and flexibility. We should expect the same from Britain.
David Cameron, Britain’s Conservative leader and potentially its next prime minister, will likely chart a more independent course than his predecessors. His support for the Iraq war and his appointment of a “pro-American” (and Euroskeptic) shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, notwithstanding, he has repeatedly articulated the view that critical allies make better allies. “We will serve neither our own, nor America’s, nor the world’s interests, if we are seen as American’s unconditional associate in every endeavor,” he said. What’s more, it appears that all three major British parties share this view. So no matter who comes out of the election on top, a more critical, independent ally across the ocean appears all but certain. Friends change. Washington will just have to adjust.
Posted on Saturday, April 03, 2010 9:27:55 AM by GOPGuide
After decades of playing second fiddle to the U.S., Britain, like other U.S. allies, is prepared to chart a more independent course. It's about time.
A British parliamentary committee has reported that the “special relationship” between Britain and the United States is over. It is tempting to dwell on the responsibility of President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for having brought this about, but the end of the “special” relationship is actually very good news for both countries. Having been abused past the breaking point before and during the Iraq war, the U.S.-British relationship was bound to change, and the only regret either nation should have now is that the change did not come sooner when it might have done more good.
The way is now clear for building a balanced, reciprocal relationship based on shared interests rather than sentimental attachments, reflexive support, or nostalgia for a Roosevelt-Churchill or Reagan-Thatcher partnership.
In practice, the “special relationship” has for several decades meant that Britain endorses and aids U.S. efforts and military actions abroad while it receives little or nothing in exchange. Until the end of the Cold War, a close connection with America was useful to Britain. It helped offset Britain’s international decline while strengthening its position in Europe, where Britain worked to prevent any single power from dominating the Continent. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the peaceful reunification of Germany, and the increasing consolidation of the European Union, these concerns grew anachronistic. Like other alliances defined by the crucibles of WW II and the Cold War, the “special relationship” has lost its old purpose while the “Global War on Terror” has failed to supply a new one.
Britain’s constancy has allowed Washington to take its support for granted. In turn, Britain’s automatic support has enabled Washington to behave abroad far more recklessly than it could feasibly have done all on its own. It is much harder to imagine an American domestic political consensus in support of the Iraq war had Britain not supported it, and Britain’s absence from any "coalition of the willing" would have engendered greater opposition to the invasion from European governments.
On the other hand, had Britain been a more reluctant ally, it might have dissuaded the previous administration from making its worst decision, saving years of needless warfare and loss. That would have been best for America, but it would have served Britain’s cause as well. As the committee report explained, Britain’s close identification with reckless U.S. actions has harmed British interests elsewhere in the world.
If the Iraq war confirmed that the “special relationship” had gone horribly awry, the recent controversy over the Falkland Islands was in some respects the last straw. Britain has long resented U.S. neutrality in Britain’s territorial dispute with Argentina. But when Secretary of State Clinton recently expressed support for negotiations over the status of the territory, it appeared that neutrality had morphed into back-stabbing opposition. Clinton’s comment may have stemmed more from clumsiness than policy—until sheep become strategic assets the Falklands will remain a low priority at the State Department. But for Britain, the episode encapsulated the one-sided nature of the relationship.
Whoever forms Britain’s next government following the general election this spring will almost certainly be less deferential. That is a consequence of international politics in general as well as Iraq in particular. Economic growth and democratization have spawned a new generation of rising powers with increasingly assertive and independent foreign policies. In navigating this new terrain, longtime U.S. allies such as Japan and Turkey will exercise greater independence and flexibility. We should expect the same from Britain.
David Cameron, Britain’s Conservative leader and potentially its next prime minister, will likely chart a more independent course than his predecessors. His support for the Iraq war and his appointment of a “pro-American” (and Euroskeptic) shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, notwithstanding, he has repeatedly articulated the view that critical allies make better allies. “We will serve neither our own, nor America’s, nor the world’s interests, if we are seen as American’s unconditional associate in every endeavor,” he said. What’s more, it appears that all three major British parties share this view. So no matter who comes out of the election on top, a more critical, independent ally across the ocean appears all but certain. Friends change. Washington will just have to adjust.
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