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Sulaco

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Everything posted by Sulaco

  1. Well - I tried this waterboarding thing - at least one or two methods that fall under the moniker - it's terrifying and I can see why its effective. Is it torture - perhaps. Should that per se preclude its use - well I am not so filled with dogma as to answer yes.
  2. I don't see why the two are exclusive even assumping your premise. As an atheist I would have no per se problem with supporting a religiously organized state. America owes a lot of its laws and much of its culture to Jews and Christians (and of course Pagan Greeks and Romans). As far as I know atheists are not stoned to death in Israel. In relative terms that alon makes Israel the beacon of hope in the region. And thus in relative terms I would prefer more Israel and less Saudi Arabia (or Iran or any other Muslim barbarism masquarading as state ideology). In fact, Jewish atheists seem to enjoy the same rights attendant with citizenship that Jews, Christians and Arabs enjoy. In the region, that is positively enlightened.
  3. And we know this because there have been so many recent nukings of non-nuclear nations.
  4. Their love of the practice of terror, and their single minded pursuit of political and literal suicide is best examplified by their assassination of an Indian prime minister (if memory serves me). India being the only state who might have had an interest in supporting the Tamils against the China/Pakistan supported Colombo. The pantomime of "liberal' forces who have never seen a "minority rebellion' - no matter how cruel and bloody - that they didn't like, attempting to push cease fire to give the Tigers breathing room to regroup was as disgusting as it was predictable. Colombo did not bend - and probably has defeated the Tigers for the time being. Now in victory is of course the time for magnaminity - as the US knew in WWII - we'll see what the follow up will be like.
  5. My response has always been "That's why we gotta take at least two eyes for every one lost."
  6. I suspect McCain would be carrying out very similar actions.
  7. A fool's dream. What is "objective evidence". A hypothetical: Assume you believe that wealth possession should be equalized. You find objective evidence that progressive taxation is the best path to this goal. Well that's great - now you've convinced all those who share your priority as to the path to take. But I would say you can take your redistributionist dreams and shove them. No amount of objective evidence as to the best mechanism for wealth-redistribution will convince me that your goal is right. Hypothetically - take your pragmatic non-partisanship and shove it. Pragmatism is meaningless without the context of goals. And goals are political, philosophical and moral. In my experience, more often than not, those who cry out for pragmatism instead of ideology have an ideology they are either trying to hide, or because they believe their ideology is so self-evidently true - they confuse their goals with facts.
  8. "Bi-partisanship as goal" as differentiated from bi-partisanship on specific legislation. This is not a strawman - it is amazing how often the latter is pushed. It is pushed now. It was pushed in reagrd to the shtimulush bill. Multiple studies show that people, per se, don't like partisanship - there is always this anti-democratic streak in the population that has to be contended with. In less stable democracies it has led to tyrannies.
  9. The partisanship will pay off if Obama drops in popularity. He seen favorably right now so the standard public respons is to want everyone kowtowing to him. A normal pattern. In Latin America this pattern has usually led to dictatorship or coup - with el Presidente declaring that the fractious infighting between the various parties has forced him to suspend legislative processes while he rulkes by decree. In the US this is more likely to resolve itself when Obam's popularity starts sinking. "Bi-partisanship as a goal" is a ridiculous concept. An anti-democratic one at that.
  10. Everything new is old. Every change is a change back. In other words - welcome back Nixon!
  11. Much of the fourth estate is losing it's jobs and joining the Obama administration.
  12. Bahahaha! At worst what is describned here is an opposition party organizing protests. These russkie ignorami compare that to a government in power roganizing demonstrations. But of course this gets better - because what the commies were really good at was discrediting their opposition by blaming its existence on shadowy conspirators from the west and from within the evil Russian bourgoise. Yes ladies and gentlemen - what we have here is thestandard tyrannical ploy - opposition to the government is besmirched by attacks claiming it is unspontaneous, manipulated, funded by outsiders wishing ill to the government. The question isn't whether these accusations are true - but if they are - what the hell is wrong with that anyway. Your post isn't merely ironic, it's rustic.
  13. Your ignorance arises out of your apparent single-minded focus on the "jewish question".
  14. ANd thus the US ends up being suckas agin! Now we wiull have to spend even more money to subsidize drug development that others will benefit from. I can't wait to see the socialized health care nation clamoring for same breaks - putting even more strain on the US consumer. And sooner or later it will all fall apart, because as prices in the US rise to cover big-pharma's choices to exploit Americans for the world's poor, the subsequent higher costs will result in health care nationalization in the States.
  15. And so to make things equal again it's time to re-ghettoize European Jews yet again. In a serious answer to your question - Gypsy victims are not so well known because the Gypsies are not in a position to point out their victimization. They remain outside society - they are nomads with low levls of literacy or general education, little beyond oral histories, so on so forth. Can't make your history known when you choose isolation. And regardless of our hand-wringing the Roma do choose isolation. They choose not to assimilate. In that they very much differ from Jewish communities today. I don't hold that against them, but I am also not going to place all the blame on European countries for their continued "ghettoization". It is largely self-imposed - though don't get me wrong the Roma have ample reason to distrust their hosts. Those valid reasons reasons for mistrust do, however, cut both ways. Interestingly - the Roma are not the only group who choose isolation over assimilation. It's a choice, like any, that has its price. That price might be low in a place with ample room - like the US (see the mennenite, hacidic etc. communities), but in Europe the friction necessarily is rougher.
  16. I don't know what that means. Was it him that turned these men and women over to the IRS coyotes? In what sense is his behavior different from the behavior of any president past - except that his vetting seems not to have included tax reviews.
  17. You are as tiresome here as you are elsewhere. As a general comment: B_C2004 is of course correct. The way to fix the US economy, and the way it will ultimately be fixed, is by having the dollar devalue and thus fixing the trade imbalances. Now don't get me wrong - China's investment in the USD has been wonderful. They have taken a cut of their production (basically our money spent on Chinese products) and have used it to prop up the USD so as to maintain their exports - thus returning to us a portion of what we spent. They and others, addicted to selling in the US, have subsidized our high standard of living for decades. That cannot last forever. The dollar will drop - especially if Obama can get this package in now - China will be left holding a large amount of worthless reserves, the US market will close to despotic regimes everywhere simply by the functioning of economics. Savings rates will finally go up here. The enviros will be happy in the short term as the US ends it's horrible consumption (in the long term of course the US will be far lest interested in greenism). The socialists will be happy as America's economic imperialism will end - it will make much more sense for domestic companies to invest in the US once the dollar drops, instead of lining the pockets of various potentates through "economic imperialism". And the ROW can rot. As I said - they hoped for this, and pretty soon they will get it. Meanwhile I will no longer be able to buy giant TV's but I live in a wonderful land - it'll still be pretty good.
  18. In other words we get pissed on for being economically successful. Now that we ain't we get pissed on again. C'est la vie. No one likes to look at their own backyards.
  19. Bahahahaha! For the last eight years I've been reading on these internets about a large number of America-haters who were gleefully rubbing their hands with the hope that the US economy would collapse. It's coming now baby. Take your medicine.
  20. Except that in the long term velocity is likely to increase again - at least once the banks clear up some of the issues that are causing them all to clam up right now. And the Fed cannot control velocity. Once velocity increases, the increase in the money supply will become highly noticeable. These graphs are meaningless today, but they might be very meaningful a year or two from today.
  21. http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/10/blackwater-well.html "Security analysts and the Somali government are publicly flirting with the idea of hiring mercenaries to stop the pirates that are terrorizing east Africa. Now, the notorious guns-for-fire at Blackwater are responding to the call, with a resounding arrrr!!!!!"
  22. Republican ticket four years from now if Obama wins - Romney/Jindal. Palin and Rice both will have their chances - Palin because four years from now the media will be feeling surprisingly gulty over this cycle (I suspect). All this is predicated on a fusionist victory within the Republican party of course. I suspect objectivist and fusionist conservative intellectuals are going to have a lot of currency given the ridiculous manner in which McCain ran his campaign, and the way the Rockefeller republicans have thrown their lot in with Obama. The wildcard will be this growing social conservative populism a la the Huck, and the support of that wing for the Rockefellers. Still - Romney/Jindal in 2012. Obama isn't going to lose so the analysis for the dems is pointless and I don't plan to invest any energy in it.
  23. A surplus of trouble for which we are still paying. Peace is always paid for in blood sooner or later. 8 years of the peace surplus has now cost somewhere around 8k US lives and billions upon billions. This new recession is but a tail end of the 90's. Bush's administration's low interest rates were, perhaps, a mistaken attempt to provide a soft landing for the dot.com bust. Strangely though, while I say Clinton left a surplus of trouble I don't specifically blame him for it - let's admit it - the 90's were nice - and now we pay the price for them in this current decade. It was kind of a given that we would. Bush has managed the trouble we pay with now in a mediocre manner - but not a terrible one. There is no question, however, that the Clint was one lucky mofo. His 8 years ended at just the right time for him.
  24. Given that most of them sit in Siberia these days that would be hard to achieve.
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