94 Comments

1. Marie Claude:

“Blow to British forces as Afghanistan bombing kills senior officer http://tinyurl.com/mta692”

umm, forget about UK and France, I don’t see that we will renounce to our military potentiality

Jul 2, 2009 - 1:09 pm 2. Mongoose:

Well, these things never worked. It is a case of business as usual–that would be reality–intruding on the abstractions of our Democrat elites.

New deal policies were completely discredited in the Reagan years, nobody but the left ever believed otherwise. It is their attempt to bring them back that is a departure from business as usual.

Likewise if they would have left wall street alone, we would not have the problems we are having now. Wall street is “morphing into something else”? Sure it is, it is morphing into that form of crony capitalism that we once called fascism. If they just would have let markets alone last fall everything would be getting back to normal now. Any fool could see that. Where was the real crisis?
Well it evaporated once inauguration day rolled around. But now, now America is losing its status as the last safe haven and the last bastion of free enterprise. It is losing it status as the leader of the West. Look at the time scale on this.
It has happened ina matter of months.

The sad thing is that there propaganda efforts have stood reality on its heads in to many peoples minds. It may now be politically impossible to take the nessecary step in order to turn this all around. But then that was the idea, wasn’t it.

The Chinese? well that is a bipartisan failure. Can you imagine Reagan allowing that? Just wait till they have sub base there. But we are just hearing about this now?

The sad thing is that this all could be fixed. Even the economic problems.

There are not some sort of new rules that we have to learn. We just have to remember the old solutions.

I fear that we will not. It looks like we are spiraling down to a minor power.
And in really a matter of months.

But I must say Wretchard, you give Obama an great amount of credit. You seem to think that he is a misguided naif. He is a Marxist authoritarian, and he is the front man to some very bad people. All this New Deal stuff he is proffering is just a front. The case could be made that n the 1930’s the New dealers might have actually thought that this would work, but not know. It is just a cover for Communist Coup.

His models are Chavez, Mao and Stalin, not FDR.

It need not be.

Jul 2, 2009 - 1:47 pm 3. Al_Batross:

Kaplan: “It acted in a way so brutal that there are no lessons for the West”.

But that IS the lesson: war to the end, ruthlessly pursued to a final conclusion. If, for some reason, China had wanted the war to drag on for many years, then that would have been arranged just as ruthlessly, but China wanted it done quick, and so it was.
This is the how the future will be shaped, not just in Asia but in the rest of the world, unless the West wakes from it’s current bout of folly because, as Kaplan says: “China practices what I’d call a very bleak form of realism. It’s classic realism with no light at the end of the tunnel or any kind of sentimental or humanistic outlook”.
We urgently need, as Mongoose says, “to remember the old solutions”, thrift and hard work being close to the top of my list, but we are cursed in this generation of politicians…

Jul 2, 2009 - 2:12 pm 4. sirius_sir:

Al_Batross, correct.

The lesson is to be prepared.

Jul 2, 2009 - 2:26 pm 5. Mongoose:

would work, but not know.=would work, but not NOW.

Jul 2, 2009 - 2:28 pm 6. Mongoose:

Kaplan thinks that Global Warming, if true, will help the Russians?

Ha! He should spend less time talkingto the editorial staff at The Atlantic.

Jul 2, 2009 - 2:31 pm 7. PA Cat:

Is Barack Obama the Norma Desmond of American politics?

In some ways he’s more like Michael Jackson.

Jul 2, 2009 - 2:31 pm 8. Tony:

To paraphrase the Latin: HOPE for a world “without nuclear weapons” CHANGE for a world “with… nuclear weapons”.

If someday we are destined to be governed by institutions like the UN and the EU let’s be happy for this Independence Day when we still have the good ol’ US Navy and USAF.

Bill Gertz covers America’s new found confidence in our missile defenses, U.S. ‘ready’ for N. Korean missile -
Pyongyang expected to test ICBM.

Heck, I remember when all this stuff was “unproven” … way back, what, a couple of months ago? Suddenly, Missile Defense has taken on the sheen of undeniability that Global Warming gets in the press.

“The nation has a very, very credible ballistic-missile defense capability. Our ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, I’m very comfortable, give me a capability that if we really are threatened by a long-range ICBM that I’ve got high confidence that I could interdict that flight before it caused huge damage to any U.S. territory,” said Air Force Gen. Victor E. “Gene” Renuart, Northcom commander.

Some things take longer to get out-dated than other things, navies and air forces among them.

Jul 2, 2009 - 2:35 pm 9. Doug:

Here you go Mongoose:
—
Obama, the African Colonial

Many conservative (East, West, South, North) African-Americans like myself — those of us who know our history — have seen this movie before.

Here are two main reasons why many Americans allowed Obama to slip through the cracks despite all of his glaring inconsistencies:
First, Obama has been living on American soil for most of his adult life.
Therefore, he has been able to masquerade as one who understands and believes in American democratic ideals.
But he does not.

Barack Obama is intrinsically undemocratic and as his presidency plays out, this will become more obvious.”
Well, it’s already obvious to us.
All these czars that have no accountability to legislative forces? They are not approved by Congress like cabinet secretaries are. He’s announced 13 or 14 czars. He’s running the car companies.
He’s running the mortgage and banking business. He’s done this without the process of Democratic legislation.
He’s just declared it fiat, and his party is in power in the House so they’re letting him do this. “Second, and most importantly,” she writes, “too many Americans know very little about Africa. The one-size-fits-all understanding that many Americans (both black and white) continue to have of Africa might end up bringing dire consequences for this country. Contrary to the way it continues to be portrayed in mainstream Western culture, Africa is not a continent that can be solely defined by AIDS, ethnic rivalries, poverty and safaris. Africa, like any other continent, has an immense history defined by much diversity and complexity. Africa’s long-standing relationship with Europe speaks especially to some of these complexities — particularly the relationship that has existed between the two continents over the past two centuries. Europe’s complete colonization of Africa during the nineteenth century, also known as the Scramble for Africa, produced many unfortunate consequences, the African colonial being one of them.”

The African colonial politician (ACP) feigns repulsion towards the hegemonic paradigms of Western civilization.
But at the same time, he is completely enamored of the trappings of its aristocracy or elite culture.” She’s pegging Obama here, just pegging him.
He’s totally caught up in the trappings of aristocracy or elite culture, taking the plane up to New York, flying the kids over to Paris. This is the stuff about the job he loves, he’s enamored of it.

“The ACP blames and caricatures whitey to no end for all that has gone wrong in the world. He convinces the masses that various forms of African socialism are the best way for redressing the problems that European colonialism motivated in Africa.

However, as opposed to really being a hard-core African Leftist who actually believes in something, the ACP uses socialist themes as a way to disguise his true ambitions: a complete power grab whereby the ‘will of the people’ becomes completely irrelevant.

Like imperialists of Old World Europe, the ACP sees their constituents not as free thinking individuals who best know how to go about achieving and creating their own means for success. Instead, the ACP sees his constituents as a flock of ignorant sheep that need to be led — oftentimes to their own slaughter.

Like the European imperialist who spawned him, the ACP is a destroyer of all forms of democracy.
Here are a few examples of what the British did in order to create (in 1914) what is now called Nigeria and what Obama is doing to you…

Jul 2, 2009 - 2:51 pm 10. Doug:

Our Decaying Nuclear Deterrent

A bipartisan congressional commission, headed by some of our most experienced national security practitioners, recently concluded that a nuclear deterrent is essential to our defense for the foreseeable future. It also recommended that urgent measures be taken to keep that deterrent safe and effective.

Unfortunately, President Barack Obama has adopted an agenda that runs counter to the commission’s recommendations.

Consider the president’s declaration, in a major speech this spring in Prague, of “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”
Will such a world be peaceful and secure?
It is far from self-evident.
In the nuclear-free world that ended in 1945 there was neither peace nor security.

Jul 2, 2009 - 2:56 pm 11. Kinuachdrach:

From the Article:
“So there are no lessons at all? Nothing for the U.S., Israel, or Pakistan?

Kaplan: No.”

I had not been impressed with Kaplan’s judgement over the last few years. Even less impressed after this interview.

There are several lessons the west could learn.

Wars (including insuregencies) end when someone wins & someone loses. That has direct application to the Palestinian situation.

The West now has no ability to influence events by shutting off arms supplies or by embargoes. That was obvious from Saddam’s Iraq, and the Sri Lankan situation reinforces it. Direct application to North Korea.

The media are important, and can be handled successfully in one of two ways. Either get them as card-carrying supporters (e.g., the BBC in the Palestinian situation) or kill them (as in Sri Lanka or Checnya). Direct application to how the West handles media in future conflicts.

But Kaplan saw none of that. Didn’t fit the left-wing, anti-US mold, I suppose.

Jul 2, 2009 - 3:22 pm 12. Doug:

Congress’s Travel Tab Swells
Spending on Taxpayer-Funded Trips Rises Tenfold; From Italy to the Galápagos

Jul 2, 2009 - 3:29 pm 13. OregonGuy:

Kaplan: “But if the ice really is melting, that’s going to provide a great benefit for Russia in the decades to come.”

If there were any sense to Al Gore’s assertion that increasing carbon dioxide will force the earth’s temperature to increase, the Russians would be engaged in building plants solely for that purpose.
.

Jul 2, 2009 - 3:47 pm 14. blert:

Decreasing Carbon Dioxide levels must lower agricultural output.

In any event India and China will never restrict their emissions so any economic pain we endure to reduce ours is functionally futile.

The Cap & Trade bill is larded with pork spending matched against its taxes. It’s Tax & Spend on steroids.

—–

Kaplan needs to read up on Sherman.

Describing the Tamil population as a vast human shield shows confused thinking.

——

Private industry has established domestic natural gas reserves in the last few years so large that the market crashed.

Using similar intelligent whip-stocking techniques has re-opened the Bakken making it the worlds newest super-elephant field. That’s why North Dakota is doing so well. On current trends, the Bakken will make the US the largest oil producer in the world.

Twentieth Century America was built upon cheap energy.

After H destroys the Democrat Party the Cap & Tax will be reversed.

The sunset provisions on W’s tax cuts kick in soon. IIRC 2010 is a great year to die: the inheritance tax is zeroed out for 12 months.

A wall of fresh taxes and a pit of meddling assures all and every that the economy will drop dead well before 2012.

Jul 2, 2009 - 4:47 pm 15. blert:

A crazy aspect of the Chinese commercial real estate market is that it is priced for Americans… not the locals.

The result is that China has a staggering inventory of see-through high-rises.

So her lenders, in what ever form, are in trouble, too.

China has been shoving money into the banks which has permitted a staggering load-up of commodities and a ramped-up stock casino.

A any time the music may stop.

Jul 2, 2009 - 5:13 pm 16. RWE:

Last night on Fox News they had a discussion of the Obama “Change” approach and how it is coming along. I think it was Fred Barnes that said that while Obama rode in on a promise to stop “Business as Usual” and to end the influence in lobbyists the exact opposite had occurred. Since the vast expansion of government under Obama started, lobbying had become a boom industry, with multiple private firms and special interest groups vastly increasing their lobbying efforts. As Fred put it “It’s new even more Business as Usual than usual.”

And that seems to be happening internationally, too doesn’t it? The more Obama asserts that he is going toward a new more pacifist way, the more other countries start rattling their sabers and planning to buy new ones. It’s even more Business as Usual than usual.

Jul 2, 2009 - 5:16 pm 17. blert:

The all too obvious government meddling in the financial markets…

The New York desk in conjunction with Government Sachs and JPMorgan are having a fine time ramping the Street.

Since GS is now trading an astonishing 20% of the NYSE action at its prop desk… volume isn’t quite all that real.

After throwing in the quant traders like Ren Tec…

True liquidity is a lot less than one might think.

Stirring the pot is not a sign of strong hands. Instead, such volume represents computerized front-running against institutional investors who are being clipped for nickels and dimes on an industrial scale.

——–

Jul 2, 2009 - 5:23 pm 18. Doug:

Blert:
Futile is our most important product.

Jul 2, 2009 - 5:39 pm 19. Doug:

“Obama rode in on a promise to stop “Business as Usual” ”

In fact, he rode in and stopped Business.

Jul 2, 2009 - 5:41 pm 20. Dave the Kapampangan:

Kaplan: “They succeeded, so there are no lessons for the West.”

Really? OK, how about this lesson:

If you keep on insisting there are NO lessons to be learned from less-than-perfect success, you’ll miss a whole lot of success stories. Stop hamstringing yourself by insisting on impossibly perfect Hollywood endings and implementation at the expense of feasible good endings and messy implementation.

In many world situations, if you do something, innocents will be screwed. If you do nothing, innocents will be screwed. Either try your best to save people less than perfectly or let Nazi goons triumph by pacifist default or neglect to do things because the moonbeam media calls for perfect storybook endings– and take responsibility for that neglect instead of pretending nothing happened and that you obtained a morally superior perfect ending by doing nothing. That’s the lesson, and none of it is pretty, but those are sometimes the hard choices of the real world.

—–

As for the idea that “pulling the levers no longer works because the rules have changed forever,” I suggest that the kind of levers or that Team Obananarama is pulling actually NEVER worked in the first place. The “rules” are simply the same ones that have existed over the history of humanity, and the only thing “new” is the rediscovery of the old rules by arrogant, too-cool-for-thou elites at the expense of everyone else’s hard earned treasure.

Jul 2, 2009 - 5:53 pm 21. Unsk:

One of the great hallmarks of American Capitalism in it’s past heyday has been its amazingly efficient allocation of capital resources to the most productive uses in the economy. Now in the days of American Crony Capitalism, that function has clearly atrophied. When 40% of the profits of the listed firms end up in the hands of the investment bankers, and billions given to our President’s cronies, something is clearly gravely amiss.

Reading each of Simon Johnson’s “Quiet Coup”. Patrick Byrne’s Deep Capture story and Chris Whalen’s pieces, a pattern emerges of a government sanctioned and politician fed crooked casino where the investment banker dealers abetted by their associated and often mob run hedge funds friends all too often fleece the investors and particularly the small start ups needing cash, in elaborate market manipulation games ripe with fraud. These same crooked short sellers were clearly involved in the run on the Banks of September, that sent us spiraling into the horrible mess we are in now.

The Left, the mob, the drug dealers, the Russians and the Islamists all seemed to have wheezeled favored positions in this grand con game while the regulators, and those elected to protect us, have consistently looked the other way.

We have a foreign Agent Marxist President granting billions in payoffs to his cronies, cutting off entrepreneurs and the productive sector of the economy at the knees, and enabling our ever circling enemies at every turn. And we have the Fed, also sullied with similar manipulations, pumping in trillions we don’t have into the financial system, assuming great powers with little accountability , and still achieving little success in the battle to keep credit from declining.

So now at the time of our greatest need, our financial system seems thoroughly corrupted and broken, and seemingly unable of conjure up the great past creative financing that helped us escape the crisis of the past.

It seems only when we thoroughly clean both our political and financial houses, will we be able to restore the trust of the investment community that fueled the great Capitalist economy we once knew.

Jul 2, 2009 - 5:56 pm 22. Joshua:

RWE, #16: Last night on Fox News they had a discussion of the Obama “Change” approach and how it is coming along. I think it was Fred Barnes that said that while Obama rode in on a promise to stop “Business as Usual” and to end the influence in lobbyists the exact opposite had occurred. Since the vast expansion of government under Obama started, lobbying had become a boom industry, with multiple private firms and special interest groups vastly increasing their lobbying efforts. As Fred put it “It’s new even more Business as Usual than usual.”

Obama may have campaigned on “Hope” and “Change”, but it seems to me he actually got elected out of fear (of economic collapse, and the end to BAU that that entails) and anger (at the GOP who were perceived to have caused it, or at least allowed it to happen on their watch). Remember that McCain had slowly whittled away Obama’s huge polling lead over the course of last summer, and after recruiting Sarah Palin as his running-mate seemed to have Obama on the ropes. This, of course, was all before the financial meltdown began in earnest, generating a tsunami of the aforementioned fear and anger, and likely effectively ending the general-election campaign almost as soon as it had begun.

If Obama realizes this, that explains a lot of his going back on so much of what he campaigned for.

Jul 2, 2009 - 5:58 pm 23. blert:

Unsk…

hear, hear !

Jul 2, 2009 - 6:02 pm 24. Randall:

Think of Obama as the Gorbachev of the progressive movement.

Jul 2, 2009 - 6:11 pm 25. Mongoose:

RANDELL: Well, let us hope that he is not its Trotsky.

(Actually Doug may have it right, he not a progressive at all.)

Jul 2, 2009 - 6:47 pm 26. Lifeofthemind:

Al Franken , United States Senator, Democrat.
Need I say more?

Jul 2, 2009 - 6:59 pm 27. blert:

The best Senate money can buy.

Jul 2, 2009 - 7:09 pm 28. Derek:

The most interesting comment in the video is where the forecasts are noted to have all come from people who missed the downturn.

Foreign policy is being designed by those who missed the islamic threat.

There is no mistake egregious enough to get you run out of town except to prove the common wisdom wrong.

There was a comment recently that Iran was turning to the chinese to help them stabilize the situation over there.

Derek

Jul 2, 2009 - 8:26 pm 29. Fat Man:

“UN, if not as moribund as the League of Nations, may be in danger of becoming so.”

You are far too kind. The UN is worse than a failure. It is a front for evil.

Jul 2, 2009 - 9:12 pm 30. whiskey:

The lessons of Sri Lanka ARE applicable to the West. Eventually, Obama will fail, because his policies aim at punishing Straight White Men, and as good as women are in bloc voting and demographically greater numbers, they are poor in a street fight. All those unemployed Straight White Men, discriminated against by Obama’s Corporatist-Facist policies, which prefer non-Whites, Gays, and Women, are not going to disappear off the planet.

Think the 1932 Bonus Army. Only much larger, and ALL THE TIME. Particularly as the green taxes roll in. There’s precendent — NYC is a hell-hole during Puerto Rican Day. There’s no reason to think it won’t spread to other groups.

Eventually, Obama will fail hard and fast. His dream is Vichy America, but he’s just as likely to produce a “fighting retreat” and get yanked out of office by an angry, male-oriented bloc that has it’s way. Post-Obama America likely won’t tolerate the NYT, and could very well simply “legally shoot” much of it’s writers and editors and publishers.

That’s unthinkable … NOW. But say if NYC and Dallas were nuked, by Iran or some unknown group or some faction in Pakistan, things would change very quickly. A drum-head courts-martial to say, try and convict the elites of the Press, akin to Putin’s undeclared war on them in Russia, would be the Western Way of doing things. Similar to the Palmer Raids. Only with real, genuine fear behind them because nukes mean an ugly death for those who are not feared. And externally the response would be to simply wipe out, as much as possible, the nations that harbored whatever factions we suspected. It would at that point be required for national survival. Even if it took crash programs to re-nuke up.

At this point it’s inevitable. Obama wants the US nuked because he hates Whitey, America, and Americans, and is not a real American. Not culturally, not emotionally, and not logically. He wants to be Marshal Petain in Vichy America. His backers, Gays, Women, Blacks, and Hispanics, want the same thing because they see it as merely “plus up” the current situation, “teaching Whitey a lesson.” The various factions in Iran and Pakistan want it, because whoever nukes the US gains power and prestige and becomes national ruler. Or even amasses an exile army to take over say, Saudi Arabia or Egypt. No one fears the US response.

But it will come, as Iran’s nukes took the most feminized, “soft” nation on the Planet, Israel, from Tivni Lizni (or whatever her name is too lazy to google her) to Bibi Netanyahu, a man whose political career was considered over just a few years ago. Survival and the wish not to die, is the most powerful motivating force there is.

The corollary of course is that after a city gets nuked, international trade simply ends. Too much of a risk, and we see a global collapse of trade. It’s happened before. The world will be much poorer. Everything will have to be produced locally. International trade will be a trickle, mostly agricultural goods air-freighted. Everyone will nuke up if they can. War will be a lot more frequent, as nations grab resources/territories. NGO-istan will be as useless and forgotten as the Holy Roman Empire, never mind the League of Nations.

And Sri Lanka showed the way. Kill the elite. Kill the enemy. Use military power to do both. Don’t care about soft power which does not exist.

I don’t find these “good” things. Merely likely ones.

Jul 2, 2009 - 9:54 pm 31. Suka2Kamu » Belmont Club » Does business as usual work?:

[...] More Here: Belmont Club » Does business as usual work? [...]

Jul 2, 2009 - 10:03 pm 32. toad:

Louis the 14th started a system called the Intendant system. Intendants were appointed by the King to rule specific areas in France in the name of the King. They were not noble and owed their positions to the King alone. The nobles and local parliaments grew to hate them.
It may be just me but Obama’s Tzars are just a minor variation on this system.

I too have noticed a growing anger and angst among not just blue collars but also middle class professionals, even the ones with jobs, toward Obama. One said “It looks like my kids will not have the opportunities I had growing up.” In private conversations the talk of violence is rising. “If you are “white” between the ages of 20 and 40 you are screwed.” “If me and mine have no future why should “they” be allowed a present.”

Jul 2, 2009 - 10:13 pm 33. Doug:

Washington Post cancels lobbyist event amid uproar
For a price, the paper offered lobbyists off-the-record access to
“those powerful few.”

Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive “salon” at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to
“those powerful few” — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its
“health care reporting and editorial staff.”

With the Post newsroom in an uproar after POLITICO reported the solicitation, Weymouth said in an email to the staff that “a flier went out that was prepared by the Marketing department and was never vetted by me or by the newsroom.

She made it clear however, that The Post, which lost $19.5 million in the first quarter, sees bringing together Washington figures as a future revenue source.
“We do believe that there is a viable way to expand our expertise into live conferences and events that simply enhances what we do – cover Washington for Washingtonians and those interested in Washington,” she said.
“ And we will begin to do live events in ways that enhance our reputation and in no way call into question our integrity.”

Jul 3, 2009 - 12:44 am 34. RCM:

Has anyone ever thought, in your most cynical of moments, that this whole situation has been carefully planned, down to the panicky willingness of the Bush Administration’s knee-jerk decision to actually believe what his financial types were telling him about “imminent doom?”

I’m not even suggesting that Bush was in on it; on the contrary, I’m wondering if this whole thing was an “October Surprise” on steroids and it worked so well stampeding the herd that the Dems just decided to push ahead the time-table for sealing elections for the future.

The name George Soros keeps coming up in my mind…

Remember that very curious thing that Emanuel said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mzcbXi1Tkk

Was that Freudian or what? My creep meter just pegged out.

Jul 3, 2009 - 1:13 am 35. RCM:

Yikes! Read the comments after the video.

People are not happy…really not happy.

Jul 3, 2009 - 1:32 am 36. Doug:

People Improving Communities Through Organizing (PICO)

What Is Faith-Based Community Organizing – PICO National Network
PICO was founded in 1972 under the leadership Father John Baumann, a Jesuit priest who had learned community organizing in Chicago.

Jul 3, 2009 - 2:16 am 37. Doug:

Pastors urge health care reform in radio ads

This campaign is a follow-up to ads that ran over the Memorial Day recess and is sponsored by PICO National Network, Faith in Public Life, Faithful America, Sojourners, and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

Listen to the ads…

Jul 3, 2009 - 2:16 am 38. Doug:

Ad Update: Religious Groups Back Reform, Unions Target Senators’ Tax Plans
PICO National Network

“Labor unions are showing their increasing displeasure over [health reform] financing proposals that target their healthcare benefits by launching attack ads against key lawmakers, causing the Senate’s leading advocate of taxing such benefits to seek an end to one especially aggressive campaign,” Congress Daily reports.

Jul 3, 2009 - 2:18 am 39. Doug:

blert:
‘Rogue broker’ blamed for oil spike

The startling spike in oil prices to their highest level this year on Tuesday was caused by a rogue broker who placed a massive bet in the Brent oil market, triggering almost $10m (€7m) of losses for his company.

Prices rose in one hour from $71 to $73.5, the highest level for the year, according to Reuters data. In total, futures contracts for more than 16m barrels of oil changed hands in that hour – equivalent to double the daily production of Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer, and far more than the traditional 500,000 barrels for that time of the day.

Jul 3, 2009 - 2:34 am 40. John Williams:

Obama wants the US nuked because he hates Whitey, America, and Americans, and is not a real American.
————————-

One would think that condemning America to such events would be conductive for his own well-being, to say the least of whatever he had planned. As long as America slowly falls from prestige without a nuke being slammed into it, it’s all good.

Jul 3, 2009 - 2:48 am 41. blogstrop:

Lesson for the West? Fait accompli. Realism.
How reminiscent are China’s actions? Sri Lanka may be for them what Singapore was for the British. Who steps forward to lecture them on the evils of expansionism in the colonialist mould, or even about their assaults on Gaia? The same people who feminised the west, taught it to be politically correct and to eschew dominion over women or foreigners while abdicating their own sovereignty and manhood. The game goes on.

Jul 3, 2009 - 5:36 am 42. Neil Craig:

Only thousands of civilians. So it looks like an order of magnitude less than the number of civiliians NATO helped the Croatian Nazis kill in Krajina?

So nothing the west needs to learn then.

Jul 3, 2009 - 6:21 am 43. James:

Nassim Taleb claims that all financial models are harmful and that traders did better without them, including dealing with systemic risk.

Jul 3, 2009 - 6:28 am 44. Mongoose:

Boy that PICO stuff is scarcely. Do not tell me that this is not coordinated–these people have no decency whatsoever. There is no level of cynicsim that is not too low for them.

Have a look at that Catholic group that wants to get people involved in “Social Justice”. This is against Catholic Doctrine. The Vatican has spoken out against “Liberation Theology” and has firmly said that the Church is not involved in Marxism.

Jul 3, 2009 - 7:16 am 45. Mongoose:

RCM: As far as I am concerned it definately was a plaaned October surpise.

One thing though, we do not know the details of what came at Bush, but it well could be true that he was played. I doubt he was in on it. He would not consciously hurt the country like that.

Jul 3, 2009 - 7:23 am 46. tehag:

“It acted in a way so brutal that there are no lessons for the West.”

I’d be curious of Kaplan’s opinion of the mass death of civilians in WW2. The German and Japanese government didn’t ‘place them in way,’ but we massacred them anyway: that’s the purpse of terror bombing, nukes, de-housing-to make a people “feel the hard hand of war.”

The lesson is obvious: victory.

tehag

Jul 3, 2009 - 7:33 am 47. buddy larsen:

RCM/34; –i’ve been studying that question a lot –a WHOLE lot –i mean, as inside out as i can, trying to find any sort of line of reasoning that would otherwise explain the long train of personnel and detailed phenomena. No soap so far.

The next thought is that Cloward-Piven is value-neutral, that it has merely exposed what it has claimed all along, that there is a fatal weakness –an ‘unsustainability’ –in the western system.

The truth, however, is that the weakness in this case has been not in design but in execution –we haven’t observed our own laws (cough SEC cough).

To that, they will say that that itself is a proof, that human nature held to a certain standard IS the base unsustainability.

So the battle comes down to finding an answer to a left saying “We, by being part of the system, make it unsustainable”.

To finding an answer to ‘rule or ruin’.

Jul 3, 2009 - 8:04 am 48. Beaglescout:

The crony capitalism on Wall Street, aka economic fascism, is the biggest problem we have. Mostly driven by Goldman Sachs, which has been busy creating bubble after bubble (in the last twenty years: IPO & dot-com, housing, derivatives, oil, monetary inflation) and is now working on creating a market and bubble in carbon credit trading, the financial sector with its un-auditable free money from the Fed has been manipulating the markets and stealing the equity out of Americans homes, budgets, bank accounts, and retirement. GS needs to be punished. Forced into receivership. Fined trillions of dollars for the damages it has caused. With executive officers and even employees included in a lawsuit to strip them all of all their illegally gotten gains from the last fifteen years. Jail time for market manipulation by GS and beltway fatcats would not be inappropriate.

And it’s funny to see how even when Cianfrocca tries to get it right he still gets something wrong. He thinks that the solution to bringing the economy back is to cut corporate direct taxes and onerous regulations (indirect taxes) plus restoring a zero percent window from the fed. While the tax ideas are good, because corporations are responsible for all the useful things we intentionally buy and they need their earnings intact to invest and employ, the zero percent rate set would simply add more debt to a system that has collapsed because of too much debt. You can’t borrow your way out of bankruptcy. It just makes things worse. What we need is savings, and that requires people to be able to spend less than they make, and that requires regulatory and other changes that allow prices to go down, rather than monstrosities like cap and trade that will drive electricity rates to the stratosphere. How can you save money when your electric bill and fuel bill double and all other costs go up because businesses must pass on their cost increases? Unless salaries go up by a lot more, which they are unlikely to do in the middle of a depression unless you have union representation to force salaries up in denial of economic reality, there will only be belt-tightening and a severe reduction in our standards of living.

We will move to smaller houses. Eat less meat and produce, and less all around. Travel less. Live closer to our jobs. Vacation in the back yard. Use less A/C or heat. Unless, that is, we have a job in the federal government or some other protected industry. Then we’ll do fine, and we’ll wonder why the private employees keep griping about tax hikes when our cost of living increases make our situation just peachy. That’s the Obama future, in which we are all forced into unions or government jobs for our economic self-protection. And if you’re in a union or a government job, you had better be registered with the correct political party!

Jul 3, 2009 - 12:28 pm 49. mariner:

RCM @ 34:

Yes, I DID think so. That’s what I thought even as it was happening. And I’m no genius.

Gasoline prices were another manipulation. In the run-up to the 2004 election gasoline prices increased about 30-40%. Once the election was over they went right back down to pre-election levels. That was no accident; it just wasn’t big enough to win the election for Kerry.

This time the leftists did a much, much better job.

And this time it worked.

Jul 3, 2009 - 1:59 pm 50. buddy larsen:

Really well put, beaglescout. Your You can’t borrow your way out of bankruptcy needs the caveat that you can if the borrowed money makes a positive return. Growth is more than just ‘more’ –it’s the only force that allows a 20 yr old to finance a car and a 30 year old to finance a house, and the only force that creates broad upward mobility so that a virtuous circle can take hold, rather than a communist gallows and confiscation.

This of course is the basic poison gas emitted by the politcal green movement –to turn growth’s wealth-creation (the collective profitability of both capital and labor) into something bad. As something bad, the virtuous circle dissolves and the future is suddenly up for grabs.

Jul 3, 2009 - 2:02 pm 51. Doug:

“ So the battle comes down to finding an answer to a left saying “We, by being part of the system, make it unsustainable”. ”
There you are in the Belly of the Beast, and can’t see the broth through the potatoees?
Secession

Jul 3, 2009 - 2:08 pm 52. Doug:

We are Carbon-based lifeforms.
CO2 causes Climate Change.
We Are Bad
QED

Jul 3, 2009 - 2:11 pm 53. Doug:

Interactive Graph of Stimulus and Fed Expenditures

Jul 3, 2009 - 2:14 pm 54. Doug:

The Fed’s Cash Machine
The fiscal stimulus is puny compared with the actions the Fed has been taking behind closed doors.

Jul 3, 2009 - 2:15 pm 55. Doug:

Arnold Speaks:
We have every intention of fully reimbursing you.

Jul 3, 2009 - 2:20 pm 56. Eggplant:

Wretchard quoted:

“Sri Lanka defeated, more or less completely, a 26 year-long insurgency. They killed the leader and the leader’s son. But there are no takeaway lessons for the West here. The Sri Lankan government did it by silencing the media, which meant capturing the most prominent media critic of the government and killing him painfully. And they made sure all the other journalists knew about it.”

What we are seeing in Sri Lanka in terms of Chinese involvement and the suppression of the Tamil Tigers are examples of “Real Politic”. As was stated in the Michael Totten interview, the Sir Lankan government opted to survive. They did so by pushing their local moonbats aside and suppressing their own MSM. Their methods were ugly but allowing the Tamil Tigers to prevail would have been uglier.

In the real world, sometimes all of the possible options for a leader are terrible/immoral with the worst option of all being to do nothing. This is a concept way beyond the comprehension of the moonbat who believes all decisions can be easily parsed between good and evil.

I should add that the ethical contradictions raised by the necessity of Real Politics maybe the root reason behind why democracies are unstable. The ancient Romans recognized this contradiction when they created the special office of “Dictator”. Of course it was that very same office that ultimately brought the collapse of the Roman Republic. We need a better solution than the Roman one but I have no clue what that solution is…. (maybe there isn’t one)

Beaglescout said:

“The crony capitalism on Wall Street, aka economic fascism, is the biggest problem we have. Mostly driven by Goldman Sachs, which has been busy creating bubble after bubble (in the last twenty years: IPO & dot-com, housing, derivatives, oil, monetary inflation) and is now working on creating a market and bubble in carbon credit trading, the financial sector with its un-auditable free money from the Fed has been manipulating the markets and stealing the equity out of Americans homes, budgets, bank accounts, and retirement. GS needs to be punished. Forced into receivership.”

IMHO, there is a combination of fact and fallacy in Beaglescout’s comment. It is true that Goldman Sachs is manipulating the markets using Federal Reserve money. However Goldman Sachs is doing this with the knowledge and consent of the federal government. One can be certain that Goldman Sachs has all of the necessary “Get Out of Jail Free” cards signed in triplicate by Bernacke and Geithner. Throwing Goldman Sachs under the bus is not an option because they would simply produce the necessary e-mails, signed documents and video tapes that would exonerate themselves and thus pass blame back to the federal government.

Also Beaglescout’s comment is incorrect that crony capitalism is the “biggest problem we have”. Crony capitalism is a symptom of a greater disease, i.e. Many (most) of us thought that we could get something for nothing. We deluded ourselves into thinking we could maintain our high standard of living by not actually working for it through creation of the bogus Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate (FIRE) economy. We thought that the riches handed to us by our fathers and grandfathers were inexhaustible. We also forgot that “Freedom isn’t Free” and our way of life was a consequence of winning more wars than we lost. Due to stupidity, greed and too much easy living, we walked off a cliff with eyes wide shut. We’re now in free fall and wondering when we’ll hit bottom.

Jul 3, 2009 - 2:40 pm 57. Doug:

Modified Loan Default Rates
If we extend this out to another year and break the data out by Alt-A, subprime, and prime I bet you would see in some categories a 90 percent plus re-default rate.

Jul 3, 2009 - 2:47 pm 58. Doug:

The data is telling us this is a waste of time. It seems like people are hell bound to repeat the lessons from Japan.

Jul 3, 2009 - 2:48 pm 59. buddy larsen:

I wonder what stopped the great Depression unemployment at around one in three. If there was some sort of immutable base economic law, such as perhaps two in three means the one working gets et.

Jul 3, 2009 - 2:56 pm 60. Mongoose:

Buddy: You realize, of course, that that is exactly how the USSR worked?

We may just be a year or two away from this. Do not kid yourself. Look at Venezuela–look at how rapidly its population was enslaved.

We have a political party that will destitute the country in order to stay in power. They will leave her open to enemies, weaker her to the point where she is no longer a superpower, or even a world power, and humiliate her internationally so that they can lord it over her citizens.

The response to the political crises in Iran and Honduras tells us all we need to know about these people: They are Bolsheviks, pure and simple, and they now feel so confident that they can let the mask drop a bit. Wait until they have absolute power.

How chilling to the the POTUS support a wannabe Socialist tyrant in Latin America. The nation should be outraged! But is it?

Their intentions could not be clearer!

So while you are making a list for Goldman Sachs you might make one for the Democrat Party. You cannot just blame GS; their government enablers must be held accountable too.

We are in big, big trouble. Once that sort of power is achieved, there will be outright oppressions. There will be disappearances, there will be the knock on the door in the night. There will be camps.

One wonders how the Democrats can live with themselves. Those that do have trouble with this will be the first to go in the purges that must surely follow. They are in for the same shock that the Old Bolsheviks had when Stalin went after them.

The amazing thing is the ease of it all. At least Lenin and Mao had to fight a civil war to win. These folks just kick the market in the shin and away they go.

We will turn out to be one of history’s greatest puzzles. And you know, it wlll set back freedom for centuries. We will be the cautionary tale of the failure of Liberal Capitalism.

If we do not stop it now, all of this is exceedingly likely to come to pass.

The question is, how do we get this out there?

Truly, the Cold War was not won when the Soviets fell.

Jul 3, 2009 - 2:59 pm 61. buddy larsen:

doug/57; remember that old term from last year, “moral hazard”? K12 ought to be teaching what it means, except i doubt if the edu coleges are advancing that pedagogy.

mongoose/60; as has been oft pointed out, when Communism “failed”, the communists didn’t go anywhere. They more or less stayed put –only now with western money & technology, given over by a now sleeping west.

Jul 3, 2009 - 3:01 pm 62. Doug:

K12, the perfect example of moral hazard.
A Nationwide Monopoly of Tenured “Teachers”
aka Democrat Election Workers
—
Boom, Bust and Blame – The Inside Story of America’s Economic Crisis

Jul 3, 2009 - 3:15 pm 63. Eggplant:

I neglected to mention:

“How do we get out of this mess?”

We need to follow Karl Denninger’s suggestions over at Market Ticker (google it). We need to allow market forces to do their work and enable price discovery to take place. All the toxic assets need to be revealed and passed through some sort of legal default process. Banks and companies with more liabilities than assets must be allowed to go through bankruptcy. This cleansing process must also be applied to our political system. The welfare state is not only bankrupt, it has been obviously bankrupt for decades.

Yeah, sure, a whole lot of grandmothers are going to be tossed into the snow but you know what: Grandma was going to end up in the snow anyway. The whole crooked system that the liberals cooked up in the 1930s was doomed to fail. Likewise, Reaganomics, Laffer Curves and the rest of that garbage was also doomed to fail. Both systems were examples of delusional ideology trumping honest pragmatism. You can’t get something for nothing. We need to be brutally honest with ourselves and rid our society of “political correctness” in all its different forms. Our glorious leader, Obama is the very crystallization of “political correctness” and public delusion. The healing process begins when the political and economic forces behind Obama and Ronald Reagan (two sides of the same coin) have been sent to History’s Junk Yard.

Jul 3, 2009 - 3:20 pm 64. Doug:

Reagan didn’t nationalize Healthcare!
—
Politico: Hospitals Near a Deal with WH

You’ll see the news that the American Hospital Association or whatever it’s called has now aligned itself with Obama, that Walmart’s lined itself up with Obama on his health care plan, and this is certainly him taking advantage of the fact that he knows that everybody is scared to death of him, and that everybody is scared to death of massive federal power being wielded against them.
– Limbaugh

Jul 3, 2009 - 3:39 pm 65. buddy larsen:

doug, great news, the NEA has finally decided to raise those SAT scores!

They’re gonna submit a purchase order for 100 million pencils (@ only $25.00 per pencil, from some firm in frisco) and they’re going to use the pencils to erase the old SAT scores and write in new, higher, ones (1600 if your parent –or parents, ha ha –contributes to The Party).

Presidunt Obama has released a statment singing off on this inn ovation, saying “The American people elected me to get things done, and this is getting something done about those SAT scares, uh scores, which as you know I inherited the tired old falling off of.”

Jul 3, 2009 - 4:31 pm 66. Mongoose:

Eggplant.

How is Reagan the “other side” of Obama?

Here are the key points of so called “Reaganomics”:

1. reduce the growth of government spending,
2. reduce income and capital gains marginal tax rates,
3. reduce government regulation of the economy,
4. control the money supply to reduce inflation.

(from Wikipedia)

(and we all know, that “reduce the growth of government spending” is really code for “if we could actually reduce it all together, we would”.)

What exactly do you find fault with here?

(And throwing up Reagan’s necessary wheeling and dealinf, the necessity of a military spending, or the democrats welshing on their promises, or the absolute impossibility at the time of rolling back government programs are not honest critique and are specious criticisms of Reagan’s notion of how our economy should work. )

How is this, “the other side of the coin”? Seems to be to be completely opposed to the Obama POV. How is this “delusional ideology”? It is standard Conservative pragmatism is it not?

Also sounds like a reasonable approach to me.

The Laffer curve? Well this has been pretty much proven has it not?

How is the Laffer Curve an “ideology”? How is it “garbage”?

Are you saying that decreases in tax rates does not stimulate business and therefore eventually provide more tax recipes? Are you agreeing with the Democrats?

You may say that people should not be taxed at all, or the structure of the taxation is wrong, or take issue with how these taxes are spent, but this is hardly a valid criticism of the Laffer Curve.

How is all this “garage”? How is it “politically correct” How is it “delusional”?

How did Reagan want “something for nothing”? What was Reagan’s “system”?

What were his “delusions”?

Jul 3, 2009 - 4:39 pm 67. RCM:

64. Doug:”You’ll see the news that the American Hospital Association or whatever it’s called has now aligned itself with Obama, that Walmart’s lined itself up with Obama on his health care plan, and this is certainly him taking advantage of the fact that he knows that everybody is scared to death of him, and that everybody is scared to death of massive federal power being wielded against them.”

- Limbaugh

Cowards selling their souls…and their childern’s souls. All so predictable, once men choose to worship men.

Jul 3, 2009 - 4:42 pm 68. Doug:

Jeeze, just when more kids than ever qualify for college, colleges are reducing enrollments in reaction to the economic “dip.”
We need Comprehensive Educational Reform!
With Obamaclass and Obamacare we’ll ALL be healthy and well-educated.

Jul 3, 2009 - 4:47 pm 69. Doug:

Swami Vivekanada (p.27) Disagrees with Eggplant:

“A householder (as opposed to a monk) who does not struggle to get wealth is immoral. If he is lazy and content to lead an idle life, he is immoral, because upon him depend hundreds. If he gets riches, hundreds of others will be thereby supported.”

(should be ammended to include monks and community organizers)

Jul 3, 2009 - 4:49 pm 70. Doug:

Mongoose:
Michelle is doing the tax recipes!

Jul 3, 2009 - 4:53 pm 71. Mongoose:

oops. Say, would that be an ideology?

Jul 3, 2009 - 4:57 pm 72. Doug:

That would be lunch, for Michelle.
Since that’s how she’ll have us.

Jul 3, 2009 - 5:26 pm 73. Mongoose:

Ah…food for the gods…

Jul 3, 2009 - 5:33 pm 74. Doug:

To Serve Man

Jul 3, 2009 - 5:39 pm 75. plumpplumber:

Wretchard, (1) the lesson couldn’t be clearer. It has always been the same – only those who are trully committed will win. The basic white male in the USA has been neutered. For crying out loud, boys are being prosecuted as dangerous felons for being boys. I figure that the Romans found out too late that they had ruined their warrior class. Can you “imagine” your basic liberal woman defending herself? Hardly…..but she would surely like to try to talk to the barbarian who wants to kill her. When the Chinese decided to win, well, that’s what they did. Did you notice that the took care of the press? Here, our problem is that our “press” has abandoned any pretense of fair play. That will be paid for in the future, and when it is paid, I reckon that examples will be made.

At the risk of starting a firestorm, I have a question for the readers of your fine creation. As we are considering that the rules have changed, and what’s more, as we see that liberal(marxist) thought is going to destroy our country, when are we going to rebel against what is coming? The Founding Fathers knew that at some point we would have to fight and kill the enemies of our Republic, be they foriegn or domestic. 2nd amendment, and all that…..So, what do we have in common with Marxism? Are we willing to fight to prevent that from happening here? Be certain in your hearts that the Marxists are willing to fight and kill us.

If a nuclear weapon is used on our soil, drumhead justice will prevail. I can see the media personalities being shot for treason. My, that sounds harsh, doesn’t it? IMHO, this country was founded with good principles, but with the realization that the only good enemy is a dead one. What happened to the “civilians” in Sri Lanka is an object lesson for those who have any testosterone left. I’m forming the opinion the Neville Chamberlain has risen from the dead and is among us again. Do you see any way to avoid a civil war? There are some very intelligent posters, and I wonder if it’s too late?

As for the situation about the huge deficit, it’s really plain what is gonna happen there. It simply won’t be honored. No way. I figure it will be some variation of the Argentine gambit, writ large. Oh, by the way, wars and civil wars have a way of cancelling debt. My contention is that Obama has no intention of paying that debt. Comments? Does that sound insane?

Jul 3, 2009 - 5:53 pm 76. Eggplant:

Mongoose ask:

How is Reagan the “other side” of Obama?

They’re both demagogues. They both have or had a hypnotic power over the masses (an uncanny ability to turn people’s brains off). Obama appealed to the left wing’s extreme while Reagan appealed to the right. Obama rose to power through the MSM’s connivance while Reagan succeeded (though his ideology was antagonistic) because he was “entertaining”.

Reagan is credited with ending the Cold War. Though Reagan did play a role, it was Gorbachev who initiated the process that ended the Cold War. If a Stalin or a Lenin had been running the Soviet Union during Reagan’s term, I suspect Reagan’s policies would have resulted in Mutual Assured Destruction through nuclear war. President Carter though a good man was one of our worst presidents. One of the few good things attempted during Carter’s administration was his program to end dependence upon foreign petroleum. One of Reagan’s first acts as President was to shutdown almost all of Carter’s alternative energy policies. Our dependence upon foreign oil was one of the root reasons why our economy is in the toilet today.

When I hear a paleoconservative warbling about Reagan, it sounds just like a moonbat shrieking about Obama.

Jul 3, 2009 - 8:00 pm 77. buddy larsen:

Carter though a good man was one of our worst presidents
–egg, you need to straighten out that little brain tangle. By definition, a good man does not get himself elected president and then do to his country what Carter did. You might as well say that Jack the Ripper was a good man but was too hard on prostitution.

And you should read up on FERC and Synfuels, too, if i may suggest. And sure, RR went for growth –just as GWB did, undoubtedly too much so as it evolved. But neither could see any way out of a coming financial crash over SocSec and Medicare, unless (1) the Democrats quit being Democrats, or (2) USA grows and grows its economy. Thus the pressure to bring on cheap energy and cheap money –they allow growth, heck, they even allow (for awhile anyway) a nation to afford Democrats.

Jul 3, 2009 - 10:09 pm 78. Eggplant:

Buddy Larsen said:

“By definition, a good man does not get himself elected president and then do to his country what Carter did.”

IMHO, Carter’s failing as President was due to incompetence and not due to personal immorality. Carter’s incompetence extended to the point that he could not see his own morality preventing him from being an effective President.

Buddy Larson also said:

“And you should read up on FERC and Synfuels, too, if i may suggest.”

I’ve studied synfuels. I’ve commented more than once in this forum that nuclear energy and coal based synthetic petroleum are the best immediate solutions for America’s energy crisis. I believe Carter also understood this but was too incompetent to implement an effective long term policy. I should add that Carter’s support of synthetic petroleum cost him the support of the environmental movement (Sierra Club, etc.) even though Carter did almost as much as Theodore Roosevelt to set aside wilderness for long term protection. During the 1980 presidential campaign it was the Sierra Club’s position that there was no real difference between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. Such laughable stupidity! Ronald Reagan was a staunch opponent of wilderness preservation and famous for saying “You’ve seen one redwood tree, you’ve seen them all”. I immediately canceled my membership with the Sierra Club after that little trick.

Jul 3, 2009 - 11:38 pm 79. Beverly:

“Liberation Theology (TM)”, like all the Left’s coinages, is the exact Opposite of what it says: it’s neither liberating, nor theological.

“Health Care REFORM (TM)”: if we keep referring to “nationalized health care” as REFORM, we’ve lost the game before it begins.

Because, who can be against “reform”? Only those mean old hateful Republicans!

Folks, please pay attention to the Propaganda War, and try not to use your opponents’ terminology. The Left eats the patriots’ lunch Every Time with this tactic.

Thatisall….

Jul 3, 2009 - 11:57 pm 80. Beverly:

One other thing: we really need to make a habit of never alluding to, or even glancing at, their counter-arguments or terminology. It just gives them air time, folks.

They’re SO much better at this than we are. Some samples of their tactics:

“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”

“How fortunate for leaders that men do not think.”

“All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.”

“He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.”

“It is always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge.”

“Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.”

“The man who has no sense of history, is like a man who has no ears or eyes.”

“I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.”

“I do not see why man should not be just as cruel as nature.”

“The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.”

– quotes attributed to a certain chancellor of Germany

Jul 4, 2009 - 12:00 am 81. buddy larsen:

well, eggplant, i’ve been reading you with interest & enjoyment over a long time so i’m not gonna pick a fight. The situation itself is unresolvable by argument –petro prices are good and bad both when low and bad and good both when high –you know what i mean –it’s crazy-making; we could go at it til the cows come home and still end up where we are now.

Jul 4, 2009 - 1:22 am 82. Doug:

It’d give the cows something to home in on, tho.

Jul 4, 2009 - 2:54 am 83. Spearweasel:

I have a feeling that all of this is setting the stage for the return of the Gods of the Copybook Margins.

Jul 4, 2009 - 9:14 am 84. buddy larsen:

Doug/82; well i detected an egg that for the moment had rolled off into the single-issue corner. Where a RR is no good because he tried to focus on something besides a tree. I thought i’d just shaddap until he returned to the omlette of context & proportionality.

Jul 4, 2009 - 9:53 am 85. Doug:

Who the heck is Spearweasel?

Jul 4, 2009 - 10:09 am 86. Doug:

I think Beverly is fixated on “the opponents.”

Jul 4, 2009 - 10:14 am 87. Eggplant:

Buddy, Thanks, I’ve also read your comments with interest & enjoyment. I’m not interested in picking fights and besides this comment thread has almost expired.

Have a happy Fourth of July!

Jul 4, 2009 - 11:02 am 88. Spearweasel:

I’m a regular reader, but I only rarely comment. Why do you ask?

Jul 4, 2009 - 11:39 am 89. buddy larsen:

Backatcha, Eggplant –Happy 4th!

Spearweasel –that was a doug way compliment (he wasn’t raised properly, you know).

Anyhoo, re Gods of the Copyook Margins, take a look at the entries @ 05/22/09 and 08/29/08.

Jul 4, 2009 - 12:56 pm 90. buddy larsen:

Spearweasel, re “Gods of…” you might find edifying the entries here of 05-22-09 and 08-29-08.

Jul 4, 2009 - 1:01 pm 91. Doug:

…I’ve never met a Spearweasel and I didn’t recognize the reference, but I was interested in both. (blush)
Now Buddy’s given me a four hour reading assignment.
(I’m going to simultaneously read the cap and trade tomb)

Jul 4, 2009 - 3:47 pm 92. buddy larsen:

tome. tomb is related, tho.

Jul 4, 2009 - 8:23 pm 93. JMH:

Spearweasel, I believe it’s Gods of the Copybook Headings. Wouldn’t want to, ahem, marginalize Kipling.

Jul 5, 2009 - 10:33 pm 94. buddy larsen:

93, (*groan*)

Jul 6, 2009 - 1:50 pm

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