The US has this off and on love affair with our space program. Well, it is being strangled due to lack of funds. While we fund lots and lots of wars. Obama warns Russia to NOT INVADE OTHER COUNTRIES which has to go down in history alongside Hitler talking about peace with Chamberlain. On the heels of being all indignant about Iran comes news that China is suppressing race riots. As if we never do this. Time to remember who is doing what to whom when it comes to racist wars. Like in Israel.
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Nasa experts scale back moon and Mars plans in face of Obama funding cut fears – Telegraph
Forty years after astronauts first walked on the moon, Nasa, the US space agency, is officially committed to a $35 billion (£22 billion) plan instituted by President George W. Bush to build the first of a new generation of manned rockets that can return to the planet by 2020.
However, the new president has appointed an independent panel to review America’s costly manned space programme, called Constellation, and make recommendations by the end of August….
With Nasa engineers now floating cut-rate rocket alternatives, some politicians and former astronauts fear that the 2020 deadline will be foiled by financial constraints.
Noting a space exploration budget of six billion dollars in 2009, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida said: “Nasa simply can’t do the job it’s been given – the president’s goal of being on the moon by 2020.”
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We could defund Israel. Israel is a wealthy country that doesn’t need US aid. It is just, the residents there don’t want to pay taxes or run up bills so they tack on their own military expenses onto our bill. Japan does this, too. So does Europe. They all ride on our dying pony. We plod along, spending more and more on wars and on our military umbrella to protect all our trade rivals. Less than one month’s fighting in Afghanistan will pay for a year’s worth of NASA, too.
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We did this during the Vietnam War. We wanted to go to the moon and we did. But we also went bankrupt. So both the space programs and the warmongering had to be reduced. Since 1980, we paid for both via going into debt. The plan is to do this forever. A gob smacked idea, of course. But we are ever hopeful.
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Mars, by the way, is a dead end. You can go in but not out. It is a gravity pool. Only because it sounded nifty, did people want to go there. I don’t mind sending all the Mars people to Mars. I just hope they understand, they are not leaving again. A bankrupt empire is the same way: it is a one-way trip downwards. Struggling upwards is very, very difficult. I would strongly suggest, instead of spending a billion dollars on robot assassin killing machines, we skip doing this and spend the money on NASA before China ends up owning the entire moon.
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Barack Obama urges Russia not to interfere in neighbouring states | World news | guardian.co.uk
Barack Obama today set out his vision for a new post-cold war world, and urged Russia not to interfere in neighbouring states and to move on “from old ways of thinking”.
HAHAHA. Not only do we mess around with ‘neighboring states’ all the time, we mess around with DISTANT states all the time, too. While we are butchering Afghani peasants, our idiot President feels free to lecture Russia about crushing peasants?
In a keynote speech during his first trip to Russia as US president, Obama called on Moscow to stop viewing America as an adversary. The assumption that Russia and the US were eternal antagonists was “a 20th-century view” rooted in the past, he said.
We haven’t been particularly friendly, have we? When Russia dropped the USSR business, we rushed in and dismembered the place and laughed at the Russians.
Obama delivered a tough, though implicit, critique of Kremlin foreign policy, rejecting the claim it has “privileged interests” in post-Soviet countries. He said the 19th-century doctrine of spheres of influence and “great powers forging competing blocs” was finished.
“In 2009, a great power does not show strength by dominating or demonising other countries. The days when empires could treat sovereign states as pieces on a chessboard are over,” he said, speaking to graduates from Moscow’s New Economic School….
No, they are playing ‘Go’ now. And look at who demonizes all sorts of countries and their leaders! Starting with Iran, of course. The US loves to ‘demonize’ and we have demons du jure. We have axis of evil over here and evil doers over there and under the bed and all over the place.
Obama also stressed the importance of “independent media in exposing corruption at all levels of business and government”. Russia’s state-controlled TV has largely snubbed Obama’s first trip to Moscow, apparently on Kremlin orders, either failing to mention him at all or relegating him to the lower regions of the news schedule.
HAHAHA. Our media is just as free. If there wasn’t the internet, we would all be reading Pravda all the time. This has been true all of my life.
On Monday Obama and Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, agreed a framework document that would see both sides cut their nuclear arsenals by up to a third. Today Obama warned again of the dangers of nuclear proliferation, and urged Moscow to join with the US to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and to end North Korea’s nuclear efforts.
Russia is calling our bluff. The whole world has demanded that the US and Israel disarm. We can’t scream about nuclear bombs while threatening to blow up the world.
He also reaffirmed that the US would only go ahead with its planned missile defence shield in central Europe – opposed by the Kremlin – if there was an Iranian nuclear “threat”. He said neither the US or Russia would benefit from a nuclear arms race in east Asia or the Middle East.
All hail Zionism! Thank you for being a flunky.
“In the short period since the end of the cold war we have already seen India, Pakistan and North Korea conduct nuclear tests. Without a fundamental change, do any of us truly believe that the next two decades will not bring about the further spread of nuclear weapons?” he asked.
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Russia doesn’t want nukes to spread. This is why they gave no one any nukes during the Cold War. Most of the nuclear proliferation was via the US and involved US allies. Namely, France, Britain, Israel, India, etc.
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Seven US Troops Killed in Afghanistan — News from Antiwar.com
Seven US soldiers have been killed today in a pair of bombings on opposite sides of Afghanistan. Other blasts have been reported near US bases which have killed Afghan civilians and wounded soldiers, a sign that the ever growing violence in Afghanistan is still worsening.
Welcome to Vietnam, Obama. You already drip with blood. When you sleep at night, just remember, even if you refuse to remember your dreams, they still are there. And the messages will come through even if you refuse to listen. Part of our soul hears the screams and knows you are guilty of war crimes every bit as much as LBJ, Nixon or the Bushes or Reagan or any of the warmongers who slept in the same bloody, evil bed.
In the largest attack, a US military vehicle was destroyed trying to cross a bridge in the northern Kunduz Province. Four US soldiers were killed, along with two Afghan civilians. Two other civilians were reported wounded in the blast. The Taliban took credit for this attack, a comparative rarity in the Afghan north.
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The dead soldiers who are dying in this ludicrous war will march to the same skeletal drummer who leads all dead troops past the grave. As fireflies flitter about the dark, dreary woods at the Gates of Death, we can count the dead souls who died for empires. There are millions of these people. All waiting for Armageddon.
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Fresh protest erupts in China’s Xinjiang region – washingtonpost.com
Women in flowered headscarves scuffled with armed police Tuesday in a fresh protest in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, where at least 156 people have been killed and more than 1,400 arrested in the area’s worst ethnic violence in decades.
About 200 Uighurs blocked a street, some screaming that their husbands and children had been arrested in the massive crackdown on members of the Muslim minority by Chinese authorities since the violence started Sunday in the Xinjiang capital….
Many Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) haven’t been wooed by China’s rapid economic development, which has attracted large numbers of Han – China’s ethnic majority – into Xinjiang. Some want independence, while others feel they’re being marginalized in their homeland.
There were no independent figures on the ethnic breakdown of the casualties in the rioting. Xinhua quoted Li Yi, head of the publicity department of the Communist Party in Xinjiang, as saying Tuesday that 129 men and 27 women died. Li said 1,080 people were hurt in the rioting.
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The disorders in Afghanistan are spreading. The Muslim uprising is spreading. The US is not fixing this. We are making it much, much worse. As we are supposed to be angry with the Chinese for suppression race riots, we have to keep our eyes on the prize: Israeli Jews conducting one of the most brutal ethnic cleansing regimes on earth. The Palestinians riot and they are butchered. And don’t make the news here at all. Not one. It is very easy to find arresting pictures of IDF brutality since they do it nonstop, there are plenty of opportunities for filming these crimes.
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But like US crimes against humanity, these vanish into puffs of smoke before coming to our shores.
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Google Image Result for http://www.nogw.com/images/brave_idf_soldier.jpg
And here is a reminder from just several years ago, how the IDF treats Muslim women who stand bravely between the IDF and their men who went into a Mosque:
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Google Image Result for http://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer2/20122005/930508/SJS02_wa.jpg
November, 2006:
Some 60 gunmen were reported to have fortified themselves inside the mosque late Thursday after the IDF began encircling the town as part of the operation to stop the launching of Qassam rockets from the area. Palestinian sources reported that the gunmen fired at the troops from within the windows of the mosque and that the IDF responded with stun grenades and teargas to try to force the gunmen to surrender. Witnesses said an Israeli army bulldozer knocked down an outer wall of the mosque, the army reported that part of the mosque’s ceiling had collapsed as a result and Palestinian sources reported that there were casualties inside.
Large army forces and special IDF units were sent to the area to carry out the operation. An Israeli soldier was lightly wounded from an anti-tank missile which hit a post along the security fence, he received medical treatment on location.
Forces reportedly opened fire on a group of women who streamed to the encircled mosque to serve as shields for gunmen holed up there, killing one and wounding 10, Palestinian officials and witnesses said. The army says that IDF forces in the area exchanged fire with gunmen standing amidst a group of rioters protesting the operation.
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They simply shot these women dead or badly wounded them! To see the US go all gooey and gaga over a woman in Iran shot in a similar way illustrates our double standards. And as usual, our bloody hellish President ignores all this and presumes to lecture the world on civil and human rights. Obviously, some people are subhumans and don’t get any of these Presidential goodies.
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god but you are in rare form today elaine. you ought to be a poet or write some song lyrics with your feel for words. show the younger generation what viet nam era protest songs were all about….save the kids! get davids kid to produce etc. its a good thing you have with words and how they feel elaine!
I R like ThA space… lots of good science out there ‘its like a totally different environment and stuff’… like your article says we need to manage huge risks because we can only invest so much, and when we loose we loose GiGantiC blocks of experience and materiel…
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So, Im a total spaceman… we should pass a law that says mars is the holy land for all jews in israel ‘maybe they could make the water flow, the citys glow, and democracy flourish on the red planet’… but my gut tells me all they want is another license plate on a wall somewhere ‘see Palestine’
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I like the moon and space stations and satelites better for tech investment vs. mars… lots of the same basics of technology ‘if not more so’… mars is more interstellar travel and transforming of which our tools are still fairly crude and physics prone
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The universe is vast and uncomplicated in space time… there must be something we are missing ‘the complicated moving part’ we are sure to find it as long as Israel doesnt Nuke everyone
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every miniseries has its seasons
The dead soldiers who are dying in this ludicrous war will march to the same skeletal drummer who leads all dead troops past the grave. As fireflies flitter about the dark, dreary woods at the Gates of Death, we can count the dead souls who died for empires. There are millions of these people. All waiting for Armageddon.
As Openly Hidden noticed also, you are an inspired Sybil non-parallel. Your web faithful in Digitalandia do hope and pray that you replenish yourself with occasional Dionysian pleasures on prescribed moon phases to encourage mortal happiness and vitality to continue the crusade.
Please include an occasional video to let us know that you are maintaining a decorum of equilibrium, because we care.
How important is the G8 Summit?
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — Chinese President Hu Jintao cut short his stay in Italy and cancelled his attendance at this week’s Group of Eight leaders’ summit due to violence in China’s Xinjiang region, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported Wednesday. State Councilor Dai Bingguo will attend the summit in the central Italian city of L’Aquila on Hu’s behalf, the Chinese report said
Sorry! Here is the link to the above
http://tinyurl.com/mv6bl6
It has been difficult to find any specifics regarding the exact nature of the nuclear arms agreement Obama wishes to have with Russia. In previous administrations, particularly Bush’s, the arms reductions were fake. Both sides simply reclassified nukes from “strategic” to “tactical” (or vice versa) and called it a reduction in strategic arms. It was the international treaty version of 3-card monte.
In addition, arms reduction isn’t necessarily weapons-grade material reduction. What will happen to the uranium and plutonium in these weapons if they are actually dismantled, and who will do the work? The Russians, for instance, have a horrid record of nuclear accountability and still cannot account for some of the material from the Cold War days.
Arms reduction sounds nice in the media, but the devil (or angel too I suppose) is in the details. Real arms reduction is more than photo-ops, pretty speeches, and treaties. I want to see what Obama really plans for arms control.
” On the heels of being all indignant about Iran comes news that China is suppressing race riots. As if we never do this. ”
Not sure what the point is, there. We do, so we don’t get to say anything when someone else does?
I think the point is that that is something everyone does. The Chinese are no holier than we are.
“Some 60 gunmen were reported to have fortified themselves inside the mosque late Thursday after the IDF began encircling the town as part of the operation to stop the launching of Qassam rockets from the area.”
Those BASTARDS!!! How DARE they stop the launching of Qassam rockets from the area.!!!
That reminds me of that siege of Arafat’s compound in Ramallah, back in 2002, remember? I remember noting that the areas under Palestinian control amounted to two rooms, neither of which was a bathroom.
“Forces reportedly opened fire on a group of women who streamed to the encircled mosque to serve as shields for gunmen holed up there…”
So let’s think this through. On one side… Palestinian gunmen. On the other… the IDF. Neither is particularly well-known for observing the gentlemanly niceties of combat, which is to say if it moves they’ll shoot it.
And some people decide to interpose themselves between the two sides… with utterly predictable results.
Back for a moment to Russia… You will of course recall that kerfuffle over gas supplies between Russia and Europe late last winter. Now Russia has apparently decided that summer is a great time to press Europe for a few billion more Euros to keep the gas flowing.
It being July, the Europeans have rejected Russia’s generous offer.
Ironic isn’t it. US lectures Russia, but quietly allows Israel to continue colonization. Disgusting.
Report: U.S. okays Israel construction of 2,500 settlement homes
Source: Haaretz
Israel had won agreement from the United States for the continued construction of 2,500 housing units in settlements in the West Bank, despite U.S. calls for a freeze, according to the widespread circulation tabloid daily Ma’ariv.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said the United States and Israel have been trying to find common ground on the sensitive settlement issue, but he had no comment on the front-page report of a deal.
A U.S. embassy spokesman in Tel Aviv also had no immediate comment.
The report followed a briefing by Defense Minister Ehud Barak to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his talks in London on Monday with U.S. envoy George Mitchell on ending a rift with Washington over its demand for a settlement freeze.
Western officials said the United States was moving in the direction of making allowances so Israel could finish off at least some existing projects which are close to completion or bound by private contracts that cannot be broken.
“This is a concession to avoid causing undue hardships on individuals” who have signed contracts and have already paid for work that cannot be refunded, one of the officials said, adding that discussions were still under way.
“We’re talking about polishing off things that are basically done,” the official said.
maybe there is some hope for the younger generation fixing things our generation has done to them after-all. maybe its just how you look at things. for instance, on good source, this is an sample of what our young soldiers listen to now as they drive around in their humvees.
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so you will be getting what you so obviously have yearned for your entire life would be my guess elaine. in this universe, if you ask for trouble long enough, hard enough, you can generally get it. heh. a brave new world indeed.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5670VT20090708
Google takes aim at Microsoft with new PC platform
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Called the Google Chrome Operating System, the new software will be in netbooks for consumers in the second half of 2010, Google said in a blog post, adding that it was working with multiple manufacturers.
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Every Processor I have purchased since like 97 has been an AMD. They help bring technology to the people with the most to gain ‘see loot’. Its a helluvah’ great product too… every upgrade has been more than significant thanks to AMDs great technology and fabrication soundness… Find myself eyeballin’ Intels all the time but its so easy to be behind a company like AMD… as obama likes to say ‘it keeps them honest’ when talking about monopolistic activities… competition, ‘real’ competition is like totally my friend
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And google is totally the best service provider on the webernet… constantly inovating the neatest ‘and amazingly necessary’ big idea… and now this, funny part is you know in the long run theres google behind it boi
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/2009/07/08.html
ZURICH, July 8 (Reuters) – Switzerland has vowed to prevent UBS from handing over client information to U.S authorities, in an attempt to defend bank secrecy, saying a tax case targeting its main bank is souring diplomatic ties.
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The kings of europe are too hesitant to relinquish the power of their dukes and barrons
from
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KG09Dj02.html
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surely the english wouldn’t have done this evil too! i.e.
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“….Putting a rare bit of actual history in the plot lines, Trevelyan’s story was that he was a descendent of the so-called Liensk Cossacks, nationalist, anti-communist Russians who fought for Hitler during World War II. This group was betrayed back to Stalin’s most untender mercies by the West after the war….”
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“….Even considering the fact that the Goldman Sachs folks are far smarter than the average Bush flunkie, I still doubt that they have been solely, or even mostly, responsible for what Taibbi has accused them of. Goldman Sachs guys are smart, but they’re not SPECTRE….”
from
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KG09Dj02.html
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surely the english wouldn’t have done this evil too! i.e.
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“….Putting a rare bit of actual history in the plot lines, Trevelyan’s story was that he was a descendent of the so-called Liensk Cossacks, nationalist, anti-communist Russians who fought for Hitler during World War II. This group was betrayed back to Stalin’s most untender mercies by the West after the war….”
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“….Taibbi’s article that essentially charges Goldman Sachs with all the economic hardship of the past century falls along these lines, but I don’t think he comes anywhere near proving his point.
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Also, the conspiracy mavens commit another grave error – they assign human agency far more power over the terrible force of the randomness of existence than is actually the case. For instance, to believe that the Bush administration orchestrated 9/11 is to implicitly believe that a group of rich-boy boobs that for five days could not deliver bottled water to a drowning city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina would be able to silently and without much trace commit the greatest crime in history.
….Even considering the fact that the Goldman Sachs folks are far smarter than the average Bush flunkie, I still doubt that they have been solely, or even mostly, responsible for what Taibbi has accused them of. Goldman Sachs guys are smart, but they’re not SPECTRE….”
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so back off elaine. all our troubles are simply because of bad luck!
ooops!
this is not my fault. i refuse to take any blame.
and lastly from denninger about california….
“….The problems with California are illustrative of those facing The United States as a whole. The state has spent like a drunken sailor, believing that the “good times” of 10, 20 even 30% annual housing appreciation would stoke consumerism and thus tax revenues. This in turn led the state to gold-plate pension and employment benefits for its employees, including most particularly their various unions, where every bleat of “but the chiiiilllllllldddrrreeeeeennn” has been answered with showers of money – whether it be schools, medical care or a fancy new fire truck (or fire station!)
At the same time the largess was codified in the form of “sanctuary cities” where lawbreaking (in the form of illegal immigration) became formal public policy. With the welcome mat out, they came in droves of course, and soaked up all the “free money.”
Reality now bites back – there is no free money and there never was. The supposed “appreciation” was false; it was nothing more than piling up debt upon debt, pretending that we had prosperity and rapidly growing revenues, when in fact we had borrowed it all….”
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imho, there is such a thing as too many government employees and programs and taxes and leftist ideas generally and woman studies graduates actually. the coming liberating bowel movement by usa will be welcome actually. and al gore is only the finest example of what my generation did best. and now everyone gets what they got coming to them betcha.
Too many men graduating, too, if you want to be logical. Of course, that is very difficult. As I recall, a lot of white men voted for tax cuts and more spending. Reagan was UNPOPULAR WITH MANY WOMEN but ridiculously popular with white males.
Ditto Schwarzenegger.
About warhead dismantling: periodically, warheads need to be reprocessed as the plutonium decays and the warhead becomes less efficient. The treaties probably coincinde with regular reformulting schedules. The plutonium will degrade rapidly all on its own, but the fission products resultant from the decay may have very long half-lives.
As for state and municipal employees, look at New Jersey, where every stinking borough has its own school district and police force. Compare this to Montgomery County, MD, where there is only the county police. Taxes in NJ are the highest in the country, largely because of the local beaurocratic infrastructure. And MD residents in Montgomery County haven’t faced a crime wave (since the snipers, of course).
100% correct about NJ county and municipal overlaps. Lots of corruption, too. Note that the state is run by Goldman Sachs. 😦
so you feel arnold is the problem in california? or is it with the entire culture of our parasitic generation expecting and teaching others they can get something for nothing, “work” is for someone else to do, “work” is especially for stupid, uneducated suckers to do, “business” (as in actually doing something real) is evil and preys on “the people”, and how many college majors are there with utterly useless bogus assumptions and conclusions and maybe PhD’s never will hear one word of actual truth about reality? the problem is not one of the “liberal” culture vs the bankster culture. the problem is both of those rancid parasitic cultures vs. real people doing real work trying to live real lives.
years ago i heard that the most popular high school teacher there was in our local high school teaching his students “how to get things done” in todays world….and hint, not one thing he had to say had anything to do with anything but the sophist 1960’s parasitic “ITS ALL ABOUT ME!” culture. it all revolved around manipulating and sophism and fraud and deceit and forgery and ultimately ruthless power. i will post the music video again for your benefit as basically expect this is about all actually real that came of all the “education” and wonderful progress and assurances since world war 2. now we all are going to pay for the unnecessary shit you have done to my country and that is all there is to that. and its not going to be nice. case closed.
and i can’t help looking at michael jacksons “kids” and thinking they were basically manufactured to serve his utterly fucked up demented ego and how fucked up is that actually. but of course it was all about him now wasn’t it….i.e. always, all the time, everywhere my generations anthem is “ITS ALL ABOUT ME! ITS ALL ABOUT ME!”
i retch
@OH
Who would you rather it were about?
Should it be about the bearded white guy in the sky?
Maybe it should be about the myriad faceless and nameless folks that are the Govt.
Should it be about the geography inside the arbitrary lines on a map?
Tell us OH who should it be about if it isn’t allowed to be about you?
there is just something about hunanity. we can go so far, and no farther. since the beginning its been like this nothing good and admirable ever can last and its always like this.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scipio_Africanus
Scipio was welcomed back to Rome in triumph with the agnomen of Africanus. He refused the many further honours which the people would have thrust upon him such as Consul for life and Dictator. In the year 199 BC, Scipio was elected Censor and for some years afterwards he lived quietly and took no part in politics.
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the greatest socialist revolution took place in austria in the 1920’s. what happened? some of the most incredible writings were by generals trying to prevent the the Fall of Constantinople….they were utterly betrayed by politicians just like ours today thinking ITS ALL ABOUT ME! and fuck the rest of you suckers.
do you have kids CK?
Not as many as Michael Jackson had.
hahahha!
so why are they so….white? are they going to be raised by the rest of the jackson family? what must the jacksons think of the white manufactured buggers. and what about priscilla? is she the mother of any of them? and who is that really….less than common looking white woman associated with the kids? how does she fit into the jackson family saga? i am glad i am old.
i won’t annoy you anymore CK….unless you want to talk about impossible things. i bet we both are becoming aware of our mortality. and actually, nothing is our fault. i.e. the debil made me do it! all of it! every bit of it.
so tell me CK, have you ever …. glimpsed even any past lives? you know there is a lot more to the story don’t you.
now i am back outside. it is like a friggin rain forest around here! my hay is probably ruined.
@OH:
I am reminded of something my dad used to say when he was especially irked at me. “It is a wise man who knows his own son.” I have no idea why MJ’s children favour their white mother’s more than they favour the Jackson family looks.
I have no idea if Ms Presley bore Mr Jackson any children.
OH you are probably a whole lot of unsavoury, nasty things but annoying is not one of them.
I refuse to be aware of my upcoming mortality, I alone am to blame or praise for my lost morality… well except for one night when I was outnumbered but not outmanned. Ah the debbil did ride that night, and ride and ride; and, much like american economic policy, by the morning much more stimulus was needed to generate a turgid but tumescent response.
OH I have made up more stories about past lives than I have ever glimpsed.
So if you are living in a rain forest, grow brasil nuts.
RE: the gravity well on Mars, there’s a fascinating solution in Kim Stanley Robinson’s scifi novel “Red Mars”. They build an elevator cable in space, using resources mined out of asteroids. One end of the cable is dropped down to the planet and secured. The other end is attached to a platform in synchronous orbit around Mars. That way they can use weights to counterbalance cargo being lifted up into space, just like on a normal elevator. It’s cheaper for cargo ships to dock at the orbiting platform, and never get sucked into Mars’ gravity.
No doubt we’re a long way from capable of building such a thing, if it’s even possible. But it’s nice to have visions to play around with. Maybe the Chinese will build it someday.
BTW Red Mars is the old-fashioned kind of scifi. Lots of politics mixed in with the science. I recommend it.
Read Heinlein’s 1950’s books about Mars (and the moon and Venus! Heh)
Waziristan killer drones
Twin Strikes Today Bring Total to Four Strikes, Nearly 100 Killed in Less than a Week
obama in russia
In 2009, a great power does not show strength by dominating or demonising other countries. The days when empires could treat sovereign states as pieces on a chessboard are over,” he said, speaking to graduates from Moscow’s New Economic School….
not pieces on a chess board .. but we treat them like meat ….
(not
Yes, isn’t it horrible? And the same week we will be whining about China stopping riots.
i’ve read about the space elevator several times a few years ago. scientists claim it to be feasible. something about finally they are developing materials hard enough to take the stress of one end being anchored on earth and the other end floating in space and hauling loads into orbit that way. less than a year ago, i read japan was going to do more research on it. i haven’t heard a thing more about usa doing space elevator research since the banksters took everyones money. apparently this is not so impossible to dream about. this would be something worthwhile imho.
and CK….i know you used to sit up till almost dawn thinking….brooding with a drink of something expensive in one hand and a refreshing smoke in the other. like closing time at at ricks cafe or something….now don’t deny it, you are a deep person i can tell. so some day i want you to tell me your thoughts on what it all meant….what your life signified….whats it all mean, jean! what did it all mean. and let me know before you get so decrepit you can’t remember.
Reading this article and the comments leaves me feeling disturbed and sad. I have a friend who reads this blog religiously. She has a really nice life, but she can’t see the truth and I think it’s because of the negativity and anger she absorbs, daily, while reading your thoughts, Elaine, and all you others who leave comments. Everyone knows that the globe is in danger. Pick your Armageddon; there are quite a few theories to choose from. But is this the way you want to go out? Spreading rage and fear and paranoia?
My cartoons are funny, I think? HAHAHA.
About the other things: I warn people of obvious dangers not to make them scared but to show them how to do something about these things. This is why I endorse activism. Dealing with the very rich and the very powerful is very difficult. But we shouldn’t be ashamed of trying. We have to try.
As for wars: history is my guide. She is rather bloody, I fear. If she were peaceful, we would have gossip, not history. Gossip is when we talk about other people’s sex lives. True, that is most amusing. I like it, actually.
But when danger lurks nearby, ignoring it doesn’t cause it to go away. Far from it.
i don’t think its “that” so much that is upsetting to people deep down inside they know something is wrong that is more than rich bastards taking everyones money and sociopaths involving us in wars for no reason….i think there is something more that is wrong. i think maybe it is something like …. well the opposite of evolution….de-volution perhaps?
i graduated high school with the class of 1965. my i remember how we hated our fathers for being so stupid and our mothers for being so stepford…..i remember a early influencial book we had to read in school about the grey flannel button down corporation men and how stupid they were to live such a stupid life devoted to stupid corporations. and i remember how we weren’t to trust anyone over 30 years old back then.
well now the class of 1965 is 62 years old. and i am having trouble listing our accomplishments? remember how much we made fun of our fathers and their corporations that actually made lots of good shit that made our lives better? now they are gone and i am having problems thinking of what we replaced them with. i remember our stupid world leaders back then and how stupid they were and evil. remember giants like eisenhower and hitler and stalin and mao and churchill and kennedy? and the earlier generations had leaders like roosevelt and lenin and the queen. and our fathers and grandfathers had stooges like henry ford who actually built something worthwhile that changed the world. and rockefellers and people who built railroads and drilled for oil and made pan american airlines corporation work.
and i am having trouble thinking what our generation has done actually. we have bill gates….and we have bill clinton, al gore, and george bush. and? i know our generation lived in the time of music and film so we had lots of good music and movies. but thinking about it, most of the good music and the new music that changed our world was the last of the old generation like frank sinatra and elvis the pelvis and humphrey bogart and the platters…even the stones and beetles are the last of the older generation before the baby boomers.
know what i think. i think it is easy to find giants in the older generations we made fun of and incredible organizations and corporations and inventions they made that changed the world.
and we have viagra….and ? min guns? hell our fathers generation had atom bombs and we have min guns? oh yes, our generation not only lost everything our despised fathers and grandfathers generations left us, but we have spent everything our kids and grandkids generations will ever have too.
i thought at least pol pot was a larger than life member of our generation but i think he was the old generation too….elton john? merle streep?
well surely something positive will occur to me later. surely there is one larger than life representative we all can point to that is not dwarfed by comparison to our fathers generations accomplishments and hardships….surely…. did i mention that we seem to have lost not only our inheritance which we did absolutey nothing to deserve, but we also lost our kids and grandkids inheritances too? i mentioned that i think. so there is no reason for depression folks. none whatsoever….de-volution?
nobody has ever answered me….what happened to all our promise? who fucked things up i demand to know. it all can’t have been george bushes fault. i remember ronald regan got elected because jimmy carter could not think of anything else to do about the sad economy so regans cronies did something and it worked….it worked for awhile until our generation got to runing things and then of course we took it all to the outer limits and now look. fuck me i will never smile again. now i am depressed. marguerte thatcher? gordon. patten. while we got the fellow at me lie massacre in viet nam…speaking of which, our generation has been in a dozen or more wars and the only one we won was GRENADA!!!!! wtf!!!!
oh yes. i forgot. plastic tits and great big lips we got that too along with viagra. and debt…lots and lots of debts.
and now elaine says we can’t have decent cars like our fathers used to make in DETROIT MICHIGAN back when we took it all for granted. plus we are to disarm so our kids will have to pay taxes to FOREIGNERS to pay for all the bad debts their moms and dads ran up pleasuring themselves? wtf. wft. i am depressed now.
christine ..
Between the desire, And the spasm
Between the potency, And the existence
Between the essence, And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is, Life is, For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
—T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men” (1925)
Panglossianism.
Pangloss defends optimism. Whatever their horrendous fortune, Pangloss reiterates “all is for the best” (Fr. “Tout est pour le mieux”) and proceeds to “justify” the evil event’s occurrence. A characteristic example of such theodicy is found in Pangloss’s explanation of why it is good that syphilis exists:
… c’était une chose indispensable dans le meilleur des mondes, un ingrédient nécessaire; car si Colomb n’avait pas attrapé dans une île de l’Amérique cette maladie qui empoisonne la source de la génération, qui souvent même empêche la génération, et qui est évidemment l’opposé du grand but de la nature, nous n’aurions ni le chocolat ni la cochenille;
… it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not caught in an island in America this disease, which contaminates the source of generation, and frequently impedes propagation itself, and is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have had neither chocolate nor cochineal.[48]
Candide, the impressionable and incompetent student of Pangloss, often tries to justify evil, fails, invokes his mentor and eventually despairs. It is by these failures that Candide is painfully cured (as Voltaire would see it) of his optimism. wikipedia
midnight in the garden of good and evil ,,
it is the pits ,, having to live the human condition .. best to you and your friend
Christine:
I don’t usually like to guess about women’s ages. It’s a way for a man to get into trouble, but I will venture a guess that you are a younger lady.
I’m 64, and I’ve seen these crooked, evil elite jokers, the ones who now control Obama co., pull this crooked stuff on the US populace for my entire life.
When I was young, I felt that if I could just ignore it and do my own thing, it would eventually go away, but it never does, until someone, somewhere speaks the truth about it, and lots and lots of people become aware of what is going on, and pressure for change builds.
My own children sometimes feel the way you do when I bring up discussion about world affairs or politics at a family dinner….”Aw dad! Give us a break will you!” So, I shut up, but then later, son or daughter will read something and begin prodding me for an opinion…and I give them one, and I try to fit it into the context of their world view…so gradually, they become aware themselves, and are better able to face this world and see it as it is, so they can make decisions about real things that affect them.
Christine, we all want the world to be a good place, but reality interferes with this often.
Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher once remarked that the young are primarily interested in mating and reproducing, the middle age folks are primarily interested in meeting the challenges of life and proving themselves in the world, and older people are primarily interested in some security and safety in old age…and this is not bad. We all want safety and security for ourselves, for those we love.
I will go even further than Confucius. I’ve come to believe that there is no such thing as safety and security. We can be secure in our little life niche and living well, and in one fell moment, we can be uprooted and swept away by events that are not of our making…and this happens to millions of people daily, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, possibly in Iran, and in other places in the world.
As I grow older, I realize that the most important goodness that I can do in this world is to help ease someone else’s suffering…and to do this, I must see truth and I must be able to look at the suffering and bitterness that surrounds us in the world.
After how Obama talked in Russia while he kills people unnecessarily in Afghanistan, so an ally can dominate the Middle East, I will not ever vote for him because I know that he is causing a lot of unnecessary death and suffering in the surrounding world…looking for ways to force US will upon those who only want to preserve their homelands and live in peace just like I want to do.
That is the importance of blogs like this, searching for reality and trying to view it in the correct perspective and from different viewpoints held by different people. Then, making worthy value judgments that might just affect, in some very small, roundabout way, how the US treats others around the world. At least, that is my hope in going to the dark places that we go on this blog….but it’s what is real, and sometimes it’s not pretty, or safe, or warm, or loving.
Trying to look reality in the face is hard at first, but it gets easier, and then after you do it for awhile, it becomes a compulsion…what is this all about? What is the truth behind this?
And after you catch small glimpses of the truth, and are able to share it with others who are sharing their glimpses with you, you learn and seeing truth becomes instinctive, and your view of life becomes a little clearer for you, even in a complex world.
I must compliment Elaine on this. She cajoles, she baits, she frames the arguments, but then, lets you take the challenge and do with it what you will, and it’s up to you, and if you make some sense, readers just might make note of what you are saying…and it might cause a little change here or there…
Times change, people change, power structures change…there is always hope for change.
And the best thing of all is, we can do things! Even if it is just thinking something, that is an act, an accomplishment. Sometimes, I think, is the most difficult thing we can do….thinking, that is.
In the grand scheme of things, we have very little to show for very big labors. If we are lucky, our works outlive us but generally speaking, most of what we do is temporary. Collectively, we have grown in numbers and changed the face of the earth. This is no mean accomplishment. Especially when we consider how destructive we are. 🙂
Elaine,
It’s a shame that I have to read the following in Pravda and not in the US media.
Letter From Cynthia McKinny from an Israeli Jail.
http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/08-07-2009/108016-letterisraelijail-0
Christine,
When I first started reading this blog, I too was struck by the cynicism of the author. Lots of doom and gloom, yet there are other economics bloggers that are much worse, predicting complete collapse of the financial house of cards, and thus our world. Elaine’s greatest fear is WWIII / the end of humanity, and she believes she has special insight into this event. She is trying to warn us all about what is wrong with the world, and maybe how to fix it, and hopefully how to prevent a horrible collapse.
I agree reading negative, cynical commentary about all the crooks running our financial systems and our government is very depressing. But it is part of reality. It cannot be denied.
However, there is another side to reality: not everyone is a greedy crook! There are good people in the world, and if we/they do the right thing, the world will be OK.
One shouldn’t dwell on the doom and gloom, or become paralyzed by bad news. Maybe your friend should find another hobby that is more fulfilling than reading economic news with a negative slant. It’s important to have a belief system and course of action that lets us overcome all our fears. I hope you and your friend have one. Remember what’s really important – and it isn’t money or what someone else tells you about how screwed up the world is.
I think a number of economic commentators have gone overboard, lately. Like all the bizarre speculations about that bizarre Japanese suitcase of fake bonds story.
It is very easy to go off the cliff. Keeping a cool head is hard. Look at all the silly hysteria about a pop singer who hasn’t been able to sing for the last decade! Gah. Worse than previous hysterias over previous defunct pop artists.
We do many silly things because we are humans. Watching this leads observers to be rather cynical. 🙂
silly things
Mack Frankfurter July 08, 2009 safe haven
Oscar Mayer Dead.. today
things come in pairs ..
Half the lies they tell about me aren’t true. –Yogi Berra
Elaine commented on the US space program.
It’s old and its worn out and is, in my opinion, in its present form just a shrinking boondoggle…a waste of money designed to dispose of US tax dollars and create work for contractors that would otherwise be idle, and then, after NASA scientists and engineers develop valuable technology, these selfish contractors just sell it off without the US benefiting a lot from it.
I’m being very hard on NASA, but if we are going to continue with it, we need to create a new initiative with up-to-date science and innovations in technology….and then retain the proprietary rights of things we develop.
We have to begin looking out for ourselves and our own scientists and engineers at some point, or their work and genius will be completely lost, forever, or just given away.
But alas, our corporations are so damned short sighted that they just flit around and give our hard won technology to our manufacturing and military rivals all around the world…so, anything we do as a nation right now in our space program is pretty much useless until that is fixed.
Bush and his crowd, along with the US corporate world outsourcing US engineering jobs and manufacturing to foreigners, degraded US education and learning, especially in science and engineering, to such a degree that now we are behind everyone else, and are failing, and this is just showing up in the US space program. If it doesn’t have a military application, we don’t care to develop it, it seems, but even that is falling behind in our present world.
If our leaders intent was to destroy the technology producing things that made our nation a genuine world leader, they are doing a good job. Now we are becoming just a world class bully, armed with huge amounts of aging technology while developing nations are moving forward with innovations.
NASA had their funding cut a long time ago, there was even some news that reported it asked for funding from civilians for its space program
@OH
Those are still the best hours of the day, only now I am sans smokes. I have found that substituting a cinnamon stick for the missing cigarette is not a superior solution. I don’t know what it will all mean until after it is over, until then it is process and flow. Today will be a lot like yesterday and a bit different, yesterday was a lot like the day before and a bit different. Eventually the bits add up to today being not at all like graduation day in 64 but a bit similar. One cannot step into the same stream twice, for the stream changes and the stepper changes during the interim. So one both goes with the flow and moderates and changes the flow as one goes. What is it all about? Things occur during the flow, sometimes there are rocks, sometimes schools of trout…one makes the rocks into gravel and profits and dinner of some of the trout and profits. What is it all about? Giving out more orgasms than you have yourself. Having more time to allocate to yourself and needing less time to produce the quotidian requirements. Stealing memories from people and making them into stories, stealing stories from others and making them into your own memories. Pissing into the wind, tugging supermans tights down to his ankles, messing around with Mother Nature and making her smile afterwards. Short selling your soul to the debbil and backing the sale with AIG insured CMBS. It is all about whatever you want it to be about tomorrow. History is for other folks to write, biography is for trite liars, autobiography is fiction with real geography. If it is somehow contradictory then so be it for I am a human and full of wonder and contradiction.
@Christine:
Yes yes a thousand times yes, spread mayonaise instead. I have mashed potatoes with a white gravy, wonder bread with mayo and vanilla ice cream please. Such a meal All the flavours of bland wrapped up on a plate. Without rage, without paranoia, there is no piquancy, no taste to life. You misread one thing, elaine may spread a bit o rage and a chunk o paranoia but she is not a fearmonger and will not be until it is her turn to run for elected office.
It is something of a blast to be surrounded by old farts. ASL anyone? ( oh lordy that does give away my age in computer years doesn’t it.)
It does me ( an old fart ) good to remember that Socrates was one of the first to announce that the children of his age were revolting. ( They were wearing their togas way too short and showing too much ankle strap on their sandals I think ).
You know the only thing less surprising than that children are revolting is that old farts complain that they never really accomplished anything. It is possible that the summation of the accomplishments of folks does not meet up to some greater than yourself image. Tough floppy tits. Each of us is accomplishing what we want and what we are still capable of. If I tell you that I found a way to reduce my quotidian requirements by 1 second a day just the other day, would it impress you? Would it be considered worthwhile in some grand summing of disparate data across divergent individuals?
1 second a day, 7 seconds a week, 28 seconds a month, 336 seconds ( 5 minutes 36 seconds a year ), almost 8 hours in a lifetime … all mine, free and clear of claim, total profit. We were the Boomers. And as a group we turned out as many LeMays and Torquemadas as any other generation, as many Ford’s and Goldman Sachs as any other, as many McNamaras and LBJs as any other. As we cleaned up the poop left by our folks, the serfs behind us in time will clean up the poop we leave, and our grandkids will ( if smart ) euthanize themselves and let mommy nature clean up the residual poop. Or maybe Mommy Nature will just fart one day and all the poop cleaning worries will be irrelevant.
how is it that all of you people are so alive and interesting and cantankerous and what i know of our leaders they are so …. bleh? did everyone here for some reason self-select themselves to be ordinary little people or what? or are you really “ordinary”? maybe you are actually “watchers” instead? heh? as far as i can tell, the ordinary people living around me don’t think much about too much and seem to be unaware…worse than unaware of anything much. is that the way you all seem to outsiders in your real life away from here? or are you all shipwrecked castaways alone in a strange world….
i will never forget years ago, the series of photographs of a peasant farmer in el salvadore i think and “rebels” came upon him working in his jungle and someone with the rebels took a series of photographs of them making the farmer dig his own grave in the jungle and then someone else jumped down into the grave with the farmer and stabbed him many times and left him in the open grave. to me, this always has meant something about life….death that is.
Elaine: “I think a number of economic commentators have gone overboard, lately. Like all the bizarre speculations about that bizarre Japanese suitcase of fake bonds story.”
—
You mean like this? 😉
cc – those certificates looked pretty good to me.
-ken
but I haven’t watched it all yet.
I was it my wits end the other day, but I’m not now.
Looking forward to going to TN.
Vacation-time!
I don’t get depressed by Elaine’s blog. On the contrary, it gives me a sort of cosmic feeling that’s almost peaceful. The goddesses of Infinity and Zero, the goddess of balance, and the tricky little gnomes. You can almost get to like the despicable characters in the news. The reality and the mythology blend so neatly, and play off of each other.
If there’s devolution going on, it’s just European imperial civilization going the way of empires before it. These things happen, we’re told. No system is proof against corruption. France was the great power of the 18th century. Britain in the 19th, America in the 20th. It’s not the end of history.
Maybe there were never ‘great men’. Just eras in which the myths of great men flourished. You can now read ‘revisionist’ histories in which the geniuses of the past don’t sound like marble statues anymore. Edison stole inventions from others; MLK perhaps plagiarized his doctoral discertation. Howard Zin says the American dream was often a nightmare, and even the World Bank tells us that rags to riches doesn’t happen nearly as often in the United States as its citizens typically believe.
Tricksters everywhere. Devious little gnomes manufacturing our reality. As Camus said, it is the duty of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners. It’s a duty to resist the gory manipulations of these creatures. But thanks partially to Elaine wrapping them up in myth, I don’t have to hate them.
Many stories are actually recreations of ancient myths. We decorate these with new details. But the stories are nearly always the same, over time. This fascinates me greatly!
@BKen: the case looks pretty good too, eh!? 🙂
@CC:
Do the letters BCCI ring a bell?
The Atlanta branch of Banca Nazional de Lavorno
The Atlanta branch of the Fed Res
Marc Rich
Does Air America ring a bell?
Air America, Nugan Hand Bank, Castle Bank, BCCI, the good old days when the “grey people” actually could pull off a decent conspiracy.
And all made possible because heroin is illegal.
Without the legally imposed profitability of heroin and now cocaine, most of the crap the USA gets up to overseas would not be possible.
Which explains why it is soooo important to keep up this war in Afghanistan and to keep the poppies growing. The Taleban made the mistake of stopping the poppies. There is no foregiveness for making that kind of mistake.
Correct, CK!
@OH: “It’s all about me” had prewar roots.
Check out Orion’s “The Gospel of Consumption.” A good article how corporations got the masses to spend, spend, spend. And you now these same whore-porations sooner rather then later got around to soothsaying, “It’s all about yoooouuu…”
Link: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2962/
@OH: Concerning your devolution posts: the baby boomer generation was the very first generation to grow up and come of age completely immersed in the marketing schemes worked up after the advent of the theory market psychology in the 1920s (due to the GD, it was not implemented on a continously saturating and pan-national scale until after WW2). Of course, there was a chance that the tail end of the boomers (that is, we surplus boomers) would give rise to a Franklin-Delano-Roosevelt-like figure in the same manner the last boomer-like generation (FDR’s) did. Unfortunately, that chance appeared to have died with JFK Jr when his plane crashed into Buzzards Bay just west of Martha’s Vineyard. 😦 So what do we have instead? Obama, who’s only apparent forte is that he can spin a good line and give pretty speeches. And turn into a house negro for the elites.
@ken-
Those bonds were obvious fakes! What tipped me off was that they looked TOO good. That, and MS Times New Roman and MS Univers used to set the typeface, HAHAHA.
Hey, we all forgot Honduras! Down there, the campesinos are demonstrating because the Military staged a coup and evicted a duly elected President, all because he wanted an amendment to that country’s constitution. And the military is cracking down on them! Yet not a peep out of Obama’s mouth over this. Or McCain’s. Even though Barack Insane Obama chastised the Iranian authorities for cracking down on the protestors THERE and John Sidney McInsane criticised the O-man for not being tough enough on Ahmadinejad and the mullahs!
“That, and MS Times New Roman and MS Univers used to set the typeface, HAHAHA.”
Yeah, I noticed that. Hey, laser printers are everywhere, no?
@CK: Absolutely. We are ruled by the mob no doubt, and not the Sicilian type, eh? But less and less are believe the Illusion anymore. Have you seen the ¥? Things are very fluid, viscosity is thinning quickly, yes?
“You won’t see THIS on FOX: Afghan Children Left to Die After US Bombings (Clip 3)”…
http://tinyurl.com/ms3a3f
“Active duty Army suicide rate on record-setting pace”…
http://tinyurl.com/m6ozah
CK
You are spot on.
CK
By the way lets NOT forget the UKs part in all this…The USAs little lap dog. Or if truth be known they are as one in all this.
The Queen is an ill tempered Pekinese lap dog. 🙂
the queen is history!
Just like the one-time monstrous British navy!
The best navy guards the coast religiously!
“Just like the one-time monstrous British navy!”
buffalo _ken
“It is a song of protest re. English Lords & merchants cutting down all the choice hardwood trees in Portmore County, Ireland. Their use was primarily shipbuilding, to maintain Britain’s supremacy on the sea, which lasted well into the 20th. century.”…
Jennifer McNeil… Bonny Portmore…
http://tinyurl.com/bpe4p3
The scars run DEEP…over many centuries 😥