text:
Shy and Retiring America
A perfect storm of events is eroding the perception of American deterrence—and the world will shortly become an even scarier place. The fiscal crisis has cast doubt on the government's ability to act forcefully, especially the president's emasculation during the entire process. These perceptions, of course, pale in consideration to the reality of out of control spending the first three years of the Obama administration that added almost $5 trillion to the U.S. debt and is both humiliating America and questioning whether it can still pay for its enormous military. Almost every day, we are borrowing $4 billion, enough to build a new fleet aircraft carrier (and, of course, are not building aircraft carriers with such daily deficits as we did in World War II).
Instead, defense spending is seen by the administration as the preferred target for cutting, especially in comparison to entitlements like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. That sometimes 18- and 19-year olds learn more in the military on a flight deck than taking 6-units of -studies courses per semester for 7 years on federal grants is near libel. No matter—defense is going to be cut and the perception that it is going to be cut will be almost as important as from where exactly the ships and planes are withdrawn.
Enemies as Friends, Friends as Enemies
But more importantly, the Obama administration, in four or five key instances, has signaled to the world that there are no advantages to being a nonjudgmental U.S. ally, and no downside to being an outspoken American enemy. Who has been more often on the receiving end of U.S. lectures—Netanyahu or Abbas? Eastern Europeans or Russia? Who has been the recipient of U.S. outreach? Iran or Israel? Syria or Egypt? It would be far better to be a totalitarian police state that practices institutionalized murder than a pro-American kleptocratic autocracy, at least as seen in the differing attitudes accorded a Tunisia in comparison to Syria and Iran. This administration has a bad habit of calibrating a regime's authenticity and legitimacy by the degree of its expressed anti-Americanism between 2001-8.
Internationalized America
In addition, to the extent that we use military force, it will be haphazard and questions of quitting will trump those of winning. International organizations—whether the Arab League or the United Nations—will win deference that neither the U.S. Congress nor American allies enjoy.
We see our fourth ground commander in Afghanistan, a war that was once deemed the "good" one by Obama—who ignored it for his first four months in office, then meditated for months on a surge, then escalated, and now talks of withdrawal. Obama can explain to us what victory won't look like, but not what it might look like. In Iraq, he left the Bush-Petraeus withdrawal plan in place—ignoring his own demands as a senator that all troops should have been out by March 2008, then by the end of 2008, then by the end of 2009, and so on. But such allegiance to stabilizing Iraq is nullified by his serial denunciations that the removal of Saddam and fostering subsequent democracy—today the only real functioning Arab democracy—was a terrible mistake.
Libya is a mess—no mission, no methodology, no outcome. The rebels are who—Islamists, incompetent reformers, Westernized intellectuals, students, terrorists? Who knows? They seem only united in hating Gaddafi's black African mercenaries and wanting to kill them all. "Leading from behind" was supposed to be a correction for admittedly costly and thankless "leading from the front" in past wars; but we can see now that when America does not lead, the Euros sputter, bicker, and now are divided and about to quit Libya.
Obama has done the almost impossible: he is losing a war to a country on the Mediterranean with less than 7 million people, and an almost perfect topography, weather, and location for NATO air operations. World War II American Liberators and B-17s on bombing runs from Sicily would have been more effective than Anglo-French jets. All that can be said for the mess is that Obama seems to have wanted to embarrass the usually parasitic, ankle-biting Europeans, and at least accomplished that—at the expense of Western military prestige. (The only thing worse than fighting a needless war against a savage weak regime is losing it to a savage weak regime.)
Is Guantanamo Open or Virtually Closed?
Obama confused the world about American anti-terrorism protocols. As a demagogic senator and candidate, he spent three years damning them as both ineffective and anti-American, and then embraced them all. But no one knows to what degree Guantanamo, renditions, tribunals, preventative detention, wiretaps, intercepts, and Predators are still Bush-Cheney war crimes or valuable American tools that will persist. If you engage in them, are you a patriotic overseas contingency operations fighter, or a future war criminal to be brought up later on charges by Eric Holder? Will those, who once sued on behalf of Guantanamo detainees, and now in government sue to justify Predator targeted assassinations—soon once again out of government sue on behalf of Guantanamo detainees? Was KSM virtually tried in New York in the fashion that Guantanamo was virtually closed ("virtually" defined as media agreement that Obama's wishing to do the liberal thing is better than actually doing it).
113 Comments, 44 Threads
1. cfbleachers
Let's speak plainly. This administration has been the most failed, incompetent, and irresponsible in the history of this nation.
The reason they seem to slap the faces of our allies and rub the tummies of our enemies may be found in their utterings when they do not recognize that they are being recorded. They agree with the enmity harbored by those who dislike us intensely.
They have not only have had all of their failings, fumblings and disasters completely covered up and whitewashed by their propaganda toadies in the media, academia and entertainment, they have been propped up and abetted in bringing this nation to the brink of annihilation.
They have implemented and prosecuted laws in a racist manner, have fanned the flames of racism and have pitted non-combatants against each other in a vile and despicable effort to divide us…as a crass political ploy. And, they put down that bloody sword only to pick up their shield….a race card pulled out to deflect any and every criticism of policy, plot, scheme or ploy.
The only assault on the people more constant and unrelenting than the phony and belligerent race card…is the class warfare shtick….that is so trite and puerile…that only a raging leftist would buy into it…but it never ceases, even for a moment.
This is an arrogant, smarmy, sniveling bunch and they should be defeated easily and exposed as the charlatans they are. Except…our team…the Washington Generals…appear to be there to do not much more than play the jester to the king.
Doddering old fools like McCain or weeping willows or stammering errand boys…the Republicans are so bad at delivering the people's message, they not only can't overcome the rigged propaganda slime of the media…they can't even get a message out to the few outlets that are inclined to give them a fair shake.
They are losing a message war to an obvious lie. How pathetic. And sad for all of us here in the middle of this farce.
July 29, 2011 - 9:05 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
You're right, of course. But the sun-tanned country club oligarchs who run the Republicrats don't agree with you. The real fault lies in the cowardice of the opposition. Why hasn't the opposition delivered VDH's denunciations line by line in the well of the Senate?
Once again I ask, Where is our Cicero?
July 29, 2011 - 9:30 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Not true! The ones completely responsible for this mess is US … WE THE PEOPLE who elected each and every one of these folks out of ignorance or uninformed misunderstanding. It has been a steady, sneaky decline since FDR, accelerated under GW through political pressure, and now, the lid has blown off under the current administration and the mask removed. Socialism disguised as compassion is embraced by those with no grasp of reality, and it has blanketed the nation and smothers our freedoms! There is still hope … if WE THE PEOPLE rise up!
July 29, 2011 - 10:12 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Where y'all been? It's been CASH that has allowed these felons in Congress to get elected and stay elected for the rest of their lives. Every American has bought these felons lunch, and sent them on an exorbitant vacation.
The rise of the TEA Party and the fortitude of it's proponents IS demonstrating that CASH does not always rule.
We cannot falter.July 29, 2011 - 10:44 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Really, Barbara? What about the 'dead' and 'Mickey Mouse' and other 'multiple' voters? What about the military votes not being counted?
Please. These assholes have been cheating the voting system for eons which is why we get so many Rino presidents if we are lucky to even GET a half-way conservative President.
July 29, 2011 - 12:35 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
And what about George Soros using his money to make sure that his democrats get to be secretaries of state and count those votes?
July 30, 2011 - 6:20 am Link to this Comment
donna quixote
I agree that the people of the United States are to blame for the current situation. However, even if they rise up, they must combat the esoteric "rules" of our government. Only those perfumed princes of congress and the military know how to get something through that morass. I don't think many of us realize how the current and past few wars are run by political cconsiderations. If we did, I think many would rise up to complain that we are spending far too much in lives and funding in situations in which we are not allowed to win. Saving the face of some arab potentate is simply not worth the legs or brains of some American soldiers.
Unless or until more American voters get more actively involved in our government, I think we will just have more of the same.July 29, 2011 - 2:21 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Dr. T
"… WE THE PEOPLE who elected each and every one of these folks out of ignorance or uninformed misunderstanding."
Not quite. The ignorance was WILLFUL. The misunderstandings arose because the majority of "WE THE PEOPLE" heard only what they wanted to hear. The biased mass media has had an easy time electing and promoting team Obama because Obama and his teammates say whatever will most please "WE THE SHEEPLE."
The sheeple's willful ignorance, avoidable misunderstandings, and greed are the main reasons why our representative democracy has failed. I hope to be living in Costa Rica before the USA's collapse.
July 29, 2011 - 3:38 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
We must accept some responsibility for the mess we're in.
In 2008, the voters didn't so much vote for Obama because they approved of him, but because they had gotten turned off to the GOP.
(In fact, that's usually the reason when the White House changes hands. Reagan didn't win because a majority loved him. He had to prove himself to them after he won. He won because people were sick of Jimmy Carter.)
And why did they get so turned off to the GOP in 2008? It was because we embraced TWO costly, difficult, and long nation-building ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, after Bush had campaigned in 2000 *against* nation-building. (In the 20th century, nation-building was always associated with Democrats, never with conservatives.)
And it was because the U.S. economy fell off a cliff in September 2008, just three months after Bush had assured the G-8 that America had "turned the corner" on the economy.
Unlike the 1980s, during which Reagan left the country in far better shape than he found it, this time around we conservatives let the country down. We stuck with Bush through some dubious domestic projects like Medicare Part D, putting aside our conservative principles out of personal loyalty to Bush.
Hopefully we will win back the White House in 2012. But this time let's remember that having power is not a license to do any damn thing that comes into your head. The same principles that conservatives believed in when they're out of power, should never be put in abeyance when they are in power.
July 30, 2011 - 7:46 am Link to this Comment -
"And why did they get so turned off to the GOP in 2008? It was because we embraced TWO costly, difficult, and long nation-building ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, after Bush had campaigned in 2000 *against* nation-building. (In the 20th century, nation-building was always associated with Democrats, never with conservatives.)
And it was because the U.S. economy fell off a cliff in September 2008, just three months after Bush had assured the G-8 that America had "turned the corner" on the economy"
Americans got "turned off" because of a 24×7 marxist campaign led by the NY Slimes to slander Bush and lie about every single detail of the War on Terror, not an iota of which has been changed by the Liar who slithered his way into the presidency.
And the "crisis" of September 2008 was setup and triggered by the marxists beginning the very day that McLame took the lead in the Gallup poll. They gladly threw the world into a depression to sieze power, and it worked.
July 30, 2011 - 8:13 am Link to this Comment -
Proreason is right on. The MSM was unrelenting in painting Bush '43 and his economy as horrible and inept, when it is clear that was not the case. Remember all the bad unemployment stories from the early 00′s? I do, and we were sub 5%.
I almost restated everything Proreason typed, … Charles Shumner caused the run on Indy Bank which precipitated the fall of lehman Brothers. I would wager that the high gas prices of that summer were engineered by those friendly to the dems because they came at just the right time and evaporated when their damage was done.
43 million of us DID NOT vote for Obama. Don't throw me into the idiot pile please.
July 30, 2011 - 12:27 pm Link to this Comment
Worse than Carter.
But will that stop 45 percent of Americans from voting Democrat?
No. The Democrat Party is a cult.
July 30, 2011 - 5:01 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
cfbleachers: "They are losing a message war to an obvious lie. How pathetic."
How pathetic is right. An underlying reason why they're losing the message war "to an obvious lie," is that having foresaken the Judeo-Christian faith of their forebears, in mass numbers, the people can no longer distinguish between a lie and the truth. The gift of discernment of spirits — which are truthful and life-giving or which are mendacious and deceitful — seems to have been lost among the populace.
"Without a vision, the people perish" (Proverbs 29:18). This vision includes the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus — and without this vision, the people are incapable of discerning between lies and truths. That's the dilemma of the whole Western world — the States is not alone in this mire of confusion and indecision.
Our Western civilization, especially now that the mighty U.S.A. (I'm a Canadian) seems to have abdicated its moral responsibilities, is in dire jeopardy. Obama's administration has been a total disaster and the day he was elected, my heart sank. God bless America — and bring it to its senses and back to its Judeo-Christian sensibilities.
July 30, 2011 - 5:59 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
A Republic does require a moral people to sustain it.
August 4, 2011 - 9:41 am Link to this Comment | Reply
cfbleachers: "They are losing a message war to an obvious lie. How pathetic."
How pathetic is right. An underlying reason why they're losing the message war "to an obvious lie," is that having foresaken the Judeo-Christian faith of their forebears, in mass numbers, the people can no longer distinguish between a lie and the truth. The gift of discernment of spirits — which are truthful and life-giving or which are mendacious and deceitful — seems to have been lost among the populace.
"Without a vision, the people perish" (Proverbs 29:18). This vision includes the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus — and without this vision, the people are incapable of discerning between lies and truths. That's the dilemma of the whole Western world — the States is not alone in this mire of confusion and indecision.
Our Western civilization, especially now that the mighty U.S.A. (I'm a Canadian) seems to have abdicated its moral responsibilities, is in dire jeopardy. Obama's administration has been a total disaster and the day he was elected, my heart sank. God bless America — and bring it to its senses and back to its Judeo-Christian sensibilities.
July 30, 2011 - 6:01 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Could not have said it better myself ( and I didn't )
July 30, 2011 - 11:17 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
… failed, incompetent and irresponsible government in history: really?
Doesn't it depend on Obama' administrations intentions? CHANGE/transformation of the USA. To WHAT? Remember before you were born LBJohnsons "Great Society" while escalating a military "excursion" to full blown war without declaration of War, but glory of glories okay from the UN,(okay from the UN ?). A bit like Libya? Perhaps the media dubbing Obama as the New Kennedy was no accident?
Obama has made no secret, nor has the Democratic Party since at least the 1960 election of their intentions. Which as numbers of commentators have noticed were eagerly embraced by large parts of the population,no fools,voted and voted and voted for people in both major parties who promised the free lunch paid with other peoples' money. CHANGED over and over again the criteria for "need" and "disadvantage" and "entitlement". To ensure their intentions created a special group of privileged citizens in addition to the assured voting claque of dependent vassals.
A privileged group of citizens, in the USA where each person is equal in Law and dignity, calling this "affirmative action" for "the good of the nation". To further their aims institutionalised censorship of thought, opinion, criticism, assemblage calling it "political correctness".
Congress and Judiciary co-equal branches to Executive as parties in agreement with these clear abrogations of citizens RIGHTS. But Congressmen/Senators elected again and again by their constituents , e.g. N. Pelosi, H.Reid, Edward Kennedy, John Kerry etal and others who called themselves Republican.
Don't Congress and Judiciary understand, or care that one , if not CRUCIAL of their DUTIES if faithful to the oath they all take on taking up representation is to STOP/LIMIT arrogations of power by any officer/office who are SERVANTS, and NOT Masters of the citizens. When did that stop, and why. With whose consent?
I would add to your list of failed, incompetent and irresponsible, criminal.
July 31, 2011 - 4:41 am Link to this Comment | Reply
2. robert curry
Obama seems to me to be actually anti-American—and anti-Israeli and anti-British. I wish I could believe that he is only a misguided faculty type.
Thanks for a magnificent and scary consideration of our nation's increasingly dangerous situation.July 29, 2011 - 9:07 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Our Shaky Allies
Dr. Hanson's consideration of the situation was well-written, but he almost convinced me of the opposite: Maybe we are wasting our money on military activity overseas.
He rightly calls Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines "shaky allies." But I would call them shaky because Japanese, Korean and Filipino politicians run against and rail against American bases in their countries. We'll see how they feel when the Chinese take over our old facilities.
Germans are freaking out because they now have to carry slackers like Greece. But Americans have spent much more money protecting Germans, while their politicians run against/rail against America. And the Western Europeans all enjoy entitlements underwritten by the American taxpayers handling their defense.
So when Doctor Hanson worries that his "federally-subsidized hip and knee replacement" may "be sacrificed on the altar of frigates patrolling in the Sea of Japan," he should worry. At least entitlements are spent in the North American economy, not used to prop up "shaky allies" around the world.
July 30, 2011 - 4:18 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Policies of entitlements and vote-buying at home, today will beget danegeld and appeasement abroad, tomorrow.
The question you need to ask is, if peace is the goal, why is appeasement such a dirty word in American politics? Because we learned that one day, a price will be demanded that is too dear to be borne. On that day, there will be blood – and there will be more of it on that day, than if one had not appeased those making the demands in the days leading up to it.
July 30, 2011 - 11:36 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
3. stephen b
Entire Turkish general staff resign en masse: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/29/us-turkey-military-idUSTRE76S4NK20110729
July 29, 2011 - 9:34 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
4. R Richard Schweitzer
As has been the case increasingly for the last 60 years, the question that must be answered, the direction that must be determined:
What is the function of government?
July 29, 2011 - 9:34 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
5. Wigglesworth
Liberals(and a few conservatives too) either don't know history or purposely ignore its lessons. I'm reading your book "THE FATHER OF US ALL" right now.
July 29, 2011 - 9:39 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
6. proreason
I don't buy this faculty lounge explanation for a second. Even faculty aren't stupid enough to think that meliflous verbiage will defer or contain beligerant enemies.
When you go down the list of events on the Marxist in Chief's watch, the only decisions that are not clearly designed to weaken the US are the one's where he has continued the Bush protocols for fighting terrorism; and those are probably because he recognizes that another major terrorist attack would be the end of his bid for total power.
This guy has set out from the start to destroy this country. Whether it is out of hatred for America or a desire to ally with the one-worlders (and then problably become THIER pretend president) is the only thing that isn't clear.
But it is certainly clear that he is no friend of this country.
July 29, 2011 - 9:43 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
John B
You are correct.
These can be viewed as unfortunate, stupid, mistakes, but such a view is inconsistent if one accepts these are intelligent people. And intelligent they must be to have climbed the slippery pole to power.
The only reasonable conclusion is that the people running this show know more or less exactly what they are doing and that they are achieving their objectives.
It seems little changes in revolutionary technique. To quote Garet Garrett, who was writing at the time (1938) about The New Deal:
"Worse outwitted were those who kept trying to make sense of the New Deal from the point of view of all that was implicit in the American scheme, charging it therefore with contradiction, fallacy, economic ignorance, and general incompetence to govern.
But it could not be so embarrassed, and all that line was wasted, because, in the first place, it never intended to make that kind of sense, and secondly, it took off from nothing that was implicit in the American scheme.
It took off from a revolutionary base. Regarded from the point of view of
revolutionary technique, it made perfect sense. Its meaning was revolutionary and it had no other.
For what it meant to do, it was from the beginning consistent in principle, resourceful, intelligent, masterly in workmanship, and it made not one mistake."July 30, 2011 - 3:30 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
What IS clear is that he in no American. He must not be allowed to finish his illegal presence in our Oval Office. What we need to agree to now, is what we are going to do with the current politicians who were in power when he was being groomed starting in Hawaii under the guidance of the Dunham family friend, also from Kansas, a commie who is likely O's father (looks just like him) and was activist on Chicago's southside; grooming continued at Harvard with the guidance of the Chicago Billionaire officer at Harvard, and her billionaire pals, all also pals with the Judge who started his "club" on the southside "club" for underprivileged youth (which were used as workers promoting Obama's Senate and Presidential campaigns. (They are now being shipped around the country to organize groups in various states, just like they did in first presidential campaign.) The politicians in Illinois knew his history, that he was not qualified. All National politicians knew he was not qualified to be President. Each and every politician during those time spans is a traitor. Some have said if they did anything to stop him now, the entire US government would fall. I SAY THAT IS A LIE. THE CORRUPT government would fall and never be allowed to rise again, and would give sunshine to the growth of the government of WE THE PEOPLE. There's more than one way to have a successful revolution, Americans. Read YOUR Declaration of Independence. The time is NOW.
July 30, 2011 - 6:05 am Link to this Comment | Reply
7. Hubbub
Iraq is not and will not be a beacon of Arab democracy in the Middle East. It is Arab and will remain true to its native calling, just as Egypt and Yemen and the other 'Arab spring' nations will remain true to their Islamic natures.
Must we continually fool ourselves?
July 29, 2011 - 9:57 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Dr. Hanson, isn't it time for some stark ideas and numbers? Start with those who use a TV, asking how many would actually be available for import if the US Navy were eliminated or pulled back to coastal defense. Long and learned discourses on the opportunity cost of US defense spending since WWII don't impress me as much as the fact that US consumers can still purchase goods made almost anywhere in the world. Those goods arrive here safely because the US Navy can still enforce, if necessary, freedom of the seas. Just me, I regard money spent funding the US Navy as one of the greatest bargains in world history. As opposed to domestic spending which rewards failure with exponentially increasing budgets, staff, salaries, and ideological entrenchment, the Navy has had to become ever more efficient in an adverse political and budgetary environment. I have seen the results of two "peace dividends" and they are disgusting. When the farmers drove tractors to the Capitol steps to protest Carter's policies, one popular slogan was " Don't complain about farmers with your mouth full". I would suggest that those who support cutting Navy strength and readiness and budgets not post comments while using imported keyboards or wearing imported clothing, etc. GBUSA
July 29, 2011 - 10:05 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
I agree. My assumptions are that overseas travel will get much more dangerous and that the slave trade will return.
July 30, 2011 - 4:30 am Link to this Comment | Reply
Recently, I went back through Samuel P. Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations…" to see how well his thoughts were holding up some 15 years after he sent them off to the printers. Toward the end of his book, there was a little gem about avoiding internecine Muslim conflicts, an idea that the Obama administration is either unaware of or has yet to, how shall I say it, operationalize. Pretty much everything Professor Hanson addresses was divine-able, without any assistant-oracle assistance from even a cursory reading of the book.
As Bob Dylan so ably sings, "It ain't dark, but its getting there".
July 29, 2011 - 10:08 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
10. raven
What if the increasing world instability offers Obama another "opportunity in crisis"? I maintain Obama will be looking for another Osama bin laden moment next year. It will be his only chance for salvation.
July 29, 2011 - 10:26 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
11. Libertyship46
What is even worse, the Obama administration, the SAME administration that keeps heaping even more money on gigantic social-welfare programs, is getting involved in even more military operations around the world. Obama gets a Nobel Peace prize, yet he starts a new war in Libya, is fighting a major covert war in Yemen, and is going to soon have to fight an even nastier war in Pakistan at the rate things are going.
And we haven't even talked about China, who's fleet is growing by the day as ours gets smaller, and nuclear-armed North Korea, which has a phsychotic dictator ready to pull the trigger on its neighbors in the region. But to Obama, "Smart Diplomacy" will take care of all of this. Just like it's taking care of the botched war in Libya, just like it's "stopping" Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, and just like it's stopping Egypt from being taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood. Our military committments keep on growing, but our defense forces keep on shrinking. And the world keeps on getting more and more violent by the day.
Wait, I've got an idea, let the French take care of it. Obama is salivating to turn the United States into a European-style social welfare state, so why not just let the French handle it all. If Obama would do that, I'm sure that it would be just be another example of "Smart Diplomacy."
July 29, 2011 - 10:31 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
"is getting involved in even more military operations around the world. "
I believe this is designed to keep the military largely too busy and too tired to do anything about the democrats final plan to seize control of this country. There is absolutely no other reason to be in Libya or Yemen.
July 29, 2011 - 2:37 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
12. Thomas_L......
Obama and fellow travellers think the world would be better off without the kind of U.S.A. that VDH laments losing. When the new Rome falls, how long will the dark ages last this time?
July 29, 2011 - 10:31 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
13. Sherab Zangpo
I insist, this administration of internationalist subversives is doing, from its point of view, an excellent job.
They are truly "professional revolutionaries" as Lenin wanted them.We can stop them, at the next presidential elections, and with a long term counter-insurgency work.
Yes we can.
July 29, 2011 - 10:31 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Indeed, Sherab, the fate of the nation and with it, the rest of the free world depends on the next election. The question becomes that of how much more mischief the extreme left wing of the democratic party can achieve in the next year.
July 29, 2011 - 11:35 am Link to this Comment | Reply
14. Old Soldier
Of course Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan can go nuclear in an afternoon. I'd be shocked if they didn't have the components laid out like a field-stripped rifle. And their techs could probably assemble them as quick as I could assemble my M16.
July 29, 2011 - 10:37 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
It's a good point. But they need delivery systems as well. It would be interesting to know whether they have them.
Another aspect is whether a retaliatory capability within a few days is enough to stop a preemptive strike. Perhaps it might be against a North Korea, which probably doesn't have the ability to wipe out an opponent completely. But China can probably wipe any of the three off the face of the earth. Unless they already have nukes assembled and deliverable, they aren't as safe as they woud be with the protection of the US.
It's an interesting thought exercise. As things stand now, why would China do such a thing? They might lust after any of the three's capabilities, but wiping them off the face of the earth negates that. Limited strikes, if the three have the ability to retaliate in force, would be even worse, assuming Chinese leadership is sane.
They might be as safe without an Obama-led US and with one. There is no way he would go to war with China to protect any of those three.
July 29, 2011 - 10:57 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Dr. T
Nuclear weapon delivery systems against China don't have to be missles. Possibilities include fast, small, low-flying jets, planes, or even helicopters (piloted or remote-controlled); submarine or freighter delivery to coastal targets; and pre-placement of backpack nukes by spies.
July 29, 2011 - 3:51 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
China is doing what it has always done throughout history. Waiting until it knows that it can win, no matter how costly, and then taking what they want. The advantage of having so many people. Up until now they weren't sure they could take us, but if they continue with their military build up, and we continue with our drawdown, there will come a time in the not so distant future when they decide we can be ignored or destroyed at their leisure.
July 29, 2011 - 2:55 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Bogdan from Australia
Not necessarily. That was the delusion that had kept Mao going until he realised that his dream was nothing more than a pile of rotten excements.
The skethchy reports about Chinese alleged ïndustrial prowess" tell about unworkable "state of the art" infrastructure, about the entire emtpy cities, about the unimaginable ecological disasters and thousands upon thousands riots that shake that commie concentration camp every year.
It is true that the hardware provided to the Chinese military represents better quality than the civilian one (it has always been like that in the communist system) but how it shall work in the realities of the war is unknown.
Appart from that, America in order to survive cannot allow herself to waste even a single dollar.
That means that the 250 billion dollar trade deficit with China must be eliminated or at least dramnatically reduced. That means the introduction of tarifs on Chinese crap that is flooding the American market.
Sarah Palin, for example, has signalled that the trade deficit with China MUST be addressed.
If America doeas that, the confused, bancrupt, dying EURABIA shall follow and the Chi-Coms will face a loss of perhaps half trillion bucks from their export.
The Chi-Coms will no longer have a buck to finanse their as brutal as expansionist policy where they are able to finance and support the most barbaric and genocidal regimes of the world and which they (the Chi-Coms) hope to use as the proxies against the US.
As backward as they seem the trade tarifs are simply unavoidable evil at this stage, even if not the only necessary evil that the Yanks will have to put in place to avoid a total melt down and have any hope of reindustrialising their country.
Ther is no doubt that the future is very dark and for my own EUNUCHALIA as well.
However there is still a light at the end of the tunel.July 29, 2011 - 11:54 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Bogdan from Australia
Apology for my spelling stumbles and typos. My English is entirely self-taught.
July 29, 2011 - 11:58 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
15. miriam rove
here we go again. blame game. that is why we are in such SH..hole. Bush could cured cancered they would still critize him. Obama could cure cancer you would be crtizing him. nothing you said in you article is new. zero%. how Stanford U justify paying you is another reason that we are soon going to speak chinese. and by the way while you are trying to do obama in, he was busy killing Bin Laden.
July 29, 2011 - 10:45 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Oh yeah, busy killing bin laden. You troll, I have a bridge I can sell you.
July 29, 2011 - 11:01 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
miriam rove
the moment somone does not agree with you guys he/she is a troll.
July 29, 2011 - 2:10 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Only one problem with your "he was busy killing Bin Laden" line. The information to find and kill him was found in Guantanemo, using techniques he criticized. Didn't he keep saying that place should be closed? If we had I guess we wouldn't have found Osama now would we?
Oh yea, did you know the administration is STILL pushing to find evidence they can use to prosecute the people that got us that information for using illegal techniques? Every time it gets thrown out for lack of evidence they reopen the investigation with "new" evidence. Since it has yet to reach the level of an actual court case it doesn't fall under "double jeopardy." There's some Obama justice for you!
July 29, 2011 - 3:01 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
You are not a troll because you don't agree, you are a troll because you believe and actually repeat the lies that are fed to you daily by the president and the state-controlled media.
July 30, 2011 - 6:35 am Link to this Comment | Reply
Your profane and dim witted post says more about our condition than anything else.
July 29, 2011 - 11:14 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Read this, please: English Grammar for Dummies
July 29, 2011 - 1:19 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Fred Beloit
miriam: "…nothing you[Victor] said in you article is new. zero%."
Also by miriam: "by the way while you are trying to do obama in, he was busy killing Bin Laden."
miriam, there is nothing in this statement of yours that is new. zero%.
July 30, 2011 - 6:22 am Link to this Comment | Reply
16. Menachem Ben Yakov
Obama is the logical conclusion of affirmative action. He passed through system like a well oiled turd.He is also the end product of gender confusion- while male, he has no balls. His intellect was trumpeted yet no one wondered how he could intellectually buy the bull shoveled by a Jeremiah Wright for twenty plus years.
The truth may be that he is simply incompetent. The endless rounds of golf, the $50,000/week vacations, all evasive tactics that avoid dealing with a job that must be done. He knows he is not up to it. He has neither self confidence or strength. Without someone putting words in his mouth his vocalizations are only so much blather. He has no loyalty, empathy or belief system. He is of the moment. It sounds good today , it feels right today, it must be good policy. He is inept, a bungler who leads us to disaster in every sphere.
The King has no clothes.
July 29, 2011 - 11:35 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Your second paragraph is very close to the mark, methinks.
He is also, politically, of the very far left. So maybe we are lucky that he *is* so incompetent.
July 29, 2011 - 12:21 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
What is sad is that there are people on the left that consider Obama centrist. I'm talking people that actually BELIEVE that, not just saying it to garner support.
July 29, 2011 - 3:04 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
If someone misses the dart board 100 times in a row, they aren't incompetant.
He doesn't intend to hit the board.
July 29, 2011 - 12:27 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
You are exactly correct, and the sooner the conservatives accept this, the more effectively they can deal with him and neutralize him. Obama seems like a bumbling idiot, and his wife is wallowing in the lap of luxury at our expense, but it isn't because he doesn't understand or won't listen. It's because this is the plan he had all along, and he is accomplishing the destruction of America where large countries have failed to do that for many years. He has successfully embedded like-minded destructionists in his administration, and it will be difficult to weed them out if he is successfully booted out in 2012 (or before). The Alinsky methods got him into power so he can follow the old Communist Rules for Revolution that Holly Swanson writes about in her book "Set Up & Sold Out." He's nearly completed the list, with the main ingredient, gun registration and confiscation, yet to go. With the financial support of the new owner of the Democrat Party, George Soros, he just may succeed.
July 30, 2011 - 9:53 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Obama is the dumbest in US history ever to occupy the White House. If he is re-elected then Iran will attack Israel. If Obama can not calculate, then Iran can. Why fear a country that can not even defeat Ghedafi. As to the Osama bin Laden assassination, this was a mere political calculation. If he had scrubbed the mission and that fact got out he would have suffered very negative press which even the MSM would have found hard to spin. The assassination offered instant backbone with little effort – all planning and practice done months/years before under other leadership – on his part. The danger that this man poses is backing us into a disaster. At this he gets high marks.
July 30, 2011 - 11:16 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Menchem Ben Yakov
All the comments have validity and if their is a plan then I think Obama is merely the puppet.
Isn't it strange that his University work has never been released? Would plagiarism be that easy to prove?
July 30, 2011 - 7:30 pm Link to this Comment -
Buckeye Abroad
"As to the Osama bin Laden assassination, this was a mere political calculation."
No, Obama was dragged off the golf course, took up a stool in the corner and informed of the ongoing operation as it unfolded (complete with a stupid look on his face).
Leon Panetta made the call, got political backing from Hillary Clinton and went forward. Obama was informed after the fact, but it didn't stop him for taking credit off others actions. A parasite doesn't know anything else.
August 4, 2011 - 3:15 am Link to this Comment
sotto voce
I've often thought that Obama as President is the ultimate and tragic result of of 50-plus years of America's misguided experiment with affirmative action. Your first sentence puts it perfectly. His behavior is that of someone who has advanced solely through sinecures and now, for the first time in his life, real work is demanded of him and he's incapable of performing it.
July 31, 2011 - 4:41 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
17. davelnaf
Any American pull back from around the world (except the oceans of the world) will be a good thing for us (and the bad part goes without saying). If the worst case scenario comes to pass rich countries overseas will have only themselves to blame because they were warned decades ago (and since) that this might happen.
Yes, China will draw on a seemingly bottomless well of historical angst and strike back at its neighbors first (for practice) and then at the hated West (read USA) at some point. But unless the political and military rulers of the US at the time are foolish enough to play the Chicom game there is no possible scenario where the Chicoms win with their weaker military capability. All of the possible adverse case scenarios have already been war-gamed many times. But there is always the possibility that the Chicoms might have some Pearl Harbor-like surprise in mind to even the field and even tilt it to their advantage.
July 29, 2011 - 11:58 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
While we rightfully worry about muslim infiltration.. the Chicoms are quietly building their institutes at every university possible..
July 29, 2011 - 12:19 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
18. David W
Carter was an idiot who believed, I think, that man was inherently good. Obama is an idiot to believes that he and a few others are inherently good and are the only ones who know what is right. Doesn't matter if most of the country is having to dig through garbage to find food to eat. He'll know what to do.
July 29, 2011 - 12:10 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Respectfully Dr VDH, would you please make your wisdom available to congress. Volunteer your presence to congress, at least the Republicans, who are all over the place but seldom in the right place and would actually be noplace without the Tea Party. I have often commented that you talk too much but do too little. It doesn't mean much to be right if you are not heard by those in power. We readers, this reader, appreciates your insights and warnings while it appears that congress is largely preoccupied with keeping their jobs. Please speak up where it might make a diference. Thanks for your good work.
July 29, 2011 - 1:01 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Obama isn't competent or incompetent. If he were the latter, he could take advice from those who are competent. But he has a history of dismissing the recommendations of others, both individuals and commissions and committees.
Obama is psychologically pathological. If he'd been left as a local figure, as a community organizer, or even as a constant 'voting present' in the Senate, he would have been relatively harmless. But, to promote someone with his deep pathologies (he's a clinical narcissist) into a position of power – and a power over a great many people – turns this pathology into a state of paranoic psychopathy.
As a clinical narcissist (and this isn't your ordinary case of egoism) Obama needs to feel in control of the reactions of other people to him. He's managed to achieve this by developing a behavioral mode of constant misinformation (aka he's a pathological liar), emotional manipulation..and..if he feels he can't control you – he ignores you. You don't exist.
This means that Obama lives, not in the real world of objective hard facts and real people who are equal to him..and he must interact in a direct way with these facts and people. He can't. Obama lives in a virtual bubble. A world of words; that he alone controls. That means he doesn't and can't interact directly with anything or anyone. Facts are irrelevant. What people say is irrelevant. All that matters is: Can he control you.
Put him in as President and the scope of control he needs to 'feel safe' explodes. As Obama keeps reminding us, 'I'm the President' (aka Sovereign)..and he feels that trumps all critique and issues. But Obama can't control everything. So, he's tried to ignore Congress – insisting that it pass His Bills without reading them. He ignores laws – setting up the EPA to do His Will even though Congress rejected Cap and Trade…And so on.
Now, as Obama loses more and more control, he turns to rhetoric about how great it would be if he didn't have to deal with Congress. He doesn't want the people to have any strength either; Obama wants people to be dependent on him and His government. He's destroying the middle class, he's destroying small businesses (which are all in the 200,000 income range…a range that Obama is attacking).
Obama's only focus, now, is on his re-election. He wants to destroy the Tea Party, for they represent the will, the independent and free spirit, of the American people. This debt default crisis is about Obama's agenda of destroying the Tea Party..and buying the 2012 election.
Obama wants a default. He'll blame the Tea Party.
Then, Obama wants not merely the debt increase but, no budget cap..and he wants more taxes. He'll use both to buy his re-election.That's all he cares about.
And Obama certainly doesn't care about the international world, for he feels that other world leaders feel equal to him. Obama cannot handle this equality, so, he both ignores them, and even hopes that they will fight amongst themselves.
July 29, 2011 - 1:11 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Good grief, ETAB.
"Obama isn't competent or incompetent. If he were the latter, he could take advice from those who are competent."
So incompetent people know that they are incompetent and therefor take advice from those who are competent? Jimmy Carter was incompetent, so his policies were based on the advice of competent people?
Do both competent and incompetent people take advice from those who are competent? If so, we live in the best of all possible worlds.
Skimming the rest of your post, what is your opinion of amateur psychologists?
(For what it's worth to you, I have nothing but contempt for Obama.)
July 29, 2011 - 2:27 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
I said he 'could' take advice, not that he 'would' take advice. A lot of people who know they have no expertise in a certain area have the grace and humility to acknowledge this – and accept advice. Obama is incapable of this.
You are ignoring the 'hubris' of Obama a state of arrogance wherein he refuses to accept advice from anyone. Are you aware of how many 'commissions' he has set up – and how many of their reports they have submitted – that he totally ignored?
Therefore you are ignoring the source of Obama's hubris/arrogance – which I claim (and I'm hardly alone in this) is due to this pathological narcissism, a psychological state that means that he cannot accept anyone as equal to him. Again, put someone with this pathology into a powerful role, and the need to reject and denigrate others explodes exponentially.
Could you provide some evidence of my being an amateur?
July 29, 2011 - 3:03 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
I think your analysis of Obama is probably pretty close to right. But, some of the most successful people in America are the very same. When people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, the facebook dork and so many others feel that they are without peer and are almost unbearably arrogant about proving it it's hardly a good argument that such people are incapable of good leadership. If Obama has this type of personality (and I think I disagree that it's a mental illness, I think it's a personality type) then the only reason it's a big problem is that he isn't anywhere near as good as he thinks he is.
July 29, 2011 - 3:51 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
I think that with Obama, this psychological 'trance' has gone beyond a self-assertion and belief in his own superiority – and that is indeed a common state among many high achievers..It's gone into a pathological need to reduce others to subservience and helplessness, to control their actions and minds.
People like Gates etc..have, in addition, obvious objective accomplishments. Obama? Nothing. We have no record of any achievements, nothing written as an academic, no key bills when in Senate (instead merely voting 'present'). In other words, unlike these other high egos…with their obvious high accomplishments, with Obama, there is nothing.
And, with Obama we have an obvious need to denigrate others, to maliciously mock and sneer at them, ignore them…whether it's insulting Paul Ryan sitting in front of him, insulting Netanyahu, insulting the PM of Britain, insulting Americans as 'rednecks', insulting members of the Tea Party…etc. And, we also see his habit of dividing populations up into adversarial groups: he brings up ethnic conflicts, encouraging hispanics to fight the enemy (white America?); partisan politics (GOP should sit in the back of the bus..how's that for a racial metaphor?)…and so on.
So, I don't compare Obama to these men with accomplishments. And I do think that he has a deep psychological aberration that has increased as he moved into a more powerful role..but one which meant that he was less able to control other people. Obama can't handle not controlling others. He can't interact as an equal with others and can't allow others to interact equally with him. That's not a simple personality quirk; that's pathological.
July 29, 2011 - 5:10 pm Link to this Comment
21. Gaffe Prices
The american military guarded two oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific, for sixty five years, and provided that nations in that sphere, South Korea. Taiwan, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Western Europe could all join the family of man and prosper in all that time. I guess the feeling, "the consensus" is that the military has reached retirement age too and can now just pick up its social security check and live on a pension and the world be guarded by cardboard teleprompter messiahs and dowager empresses such as Valerie Jarrett.
July 29, 2011 - 1:44 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
22. Jeff
I thought Russia tested the waters with their invasion of Georgia … I have to assume they felt that the water was fine as they are still there …
July 29, 2011 - 1:49 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
23. eon
On defense spending, Obama is giving the internationalists on the far left what they want- an American military that is incapable of "interfering with the inevitable march of World Socialism". The fact that it isn't their brand of socialism that is on the march is a fact they simply reject as impossible. (Apparently, the fate of Iran's "progressives" and Communists at the hands of the Islamists in 1979-80 hasn't registered on them yet.)
In the process, Obama is (however inadvertently) also giving the isolationists on the far right what they want (sort of). They want a "Fortress America"- Obama is OK with that, except it won't have any walls. Or a roof.(Or even any border fences.)
The shape of the post-Pax Americana world Dr. Hanson predicts will, as he says, look a lot like the world of the 19th Century. Obama likes that idea, on "anti-colonialist" grounds. In his mind, as long as those doing the "colonizing" are just using the threat of military force to exact tribute, and they are more-or-less "locals" re their victims, it isn't really "colonialism".
His romance (it is now beyond mere infatuation) with radical, anti-American, aggressive regimes' is simply a logical expression of the academic left's romance with anything Eastern and mystical going back to the Sixties. To them, the imams in Iran, their like-minded friends in Turkey, and the Muslim Brotherhood everywhere else in the "Muslim Crescent", are the same as the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi- and no amount of examples of the differences will convince them, or him, otherwise. Their hatred of Israel, us, the West in general, and modern civilization in toto is, in his mind, proof that they are "more enlightened" and "on a higher moral plane" than anyone else. Except himself, of course.
Unfortunately, I see no evidence that Obama, or his enablers, believe that reason and dialogue trump deterrence. Anymore than I see that he feels that reason should guide the budget process. It's all about "feelings", to him and all his academic ilk. They "feel" that the world should be run on mystical grounds. And that they should be able to spend any amount of money they please, on things they consider "good", with no need to consider where the money comes from, or even if it actually exists.
And they believe that no one- no one!- should be allowed to disagree with them. On anything.
This is beyond "political dogma".
We are experiencing the politics of madness. With the insane running the asylum.
clear ether
July 29, 2011 - 2:04 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Great comments, eon.
I completely agree with your comments about the left, and Obama, functioning in the (Edward Said, Lawrence of Arabia, pre WWII films) romanticism of the Orient – the mysticism that 'their way', the Islamic and Asian way, is 'higher than the use of reason', and submission to the higher powers…is The Way.
Remember, that with Obama, the Higher Powers means – Him. He feels that he and his Gang have a special conduit to godly wisdom. I maintain that his ideology of his supremacy is based within his psychological pathology wherein he must control all interactions he has with the external world and with people.
And yes – Obama believes that no-one should be allowed to disagree with him. That's why this current debt crisis is about, not simply his insane spending, but also about his need to crush the Tea Party..and free Americans. Note how he and his Gang are blaming the Tea Party for the crisis – ignoring that all that the Tea party and GOP are trying to do – is to reduce his destruction of the economy and the future of our nation with his spending; and to insist on a reasonable budget (Obama refuses a budget); and insist on caps to spending.
But Obama is interfering in the working of Congress. That's outrageous, absolutely outrageous. He is sending tweets and emails to people urging them to fight against the GOP's bill in the House. How dare a President interfere with the free workings of Congress? How dare he?
And – he's openly declaring…manipulating the people he asks to tweet..that thE GOP bill 'will not pass him'.How dare he manipulate the people of America, interfere in their right to make up their own minds..and how dare he interfere in the workings of Congress.
July 29, 2011 - 2:19 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
What I see is that, probably mostly through Saul Alinsky, they have discovered they can get away with almost anything, and are like kids in the candy store merrily doing so. The day they siezed office I felt like they were teenagers bursting giddily though the paper mache doors of the country, grabbing everthing of value and holding their trophies above their heads like crazed drug addicts. Not a thing has changed in 30 months.
Executive orders, stiff the bondholders, thumb their noses at Israel, seize this, seize that, pass unread legislation, hidden taxes, hidden fees, hidden mandates, hidden death panels, criticize the other party's plans without having a plan, joy ride on Air Force One, Cap and Trade through the EPA, unaccountable czars, recess appointments of critical positions. The list is in the thousands.
Except for a few times when the media was directly given the finger, they say nothing about any of it. And all of it is unprecedented.
Essentially, they have ignored every boundary there is for governing this country, with impunity. The Constitution, after all, is just a piece of paper. If nobody stands up to enforce it, it is a worthless piece of paper. That realization is their single stroke of genius.
Their crimes of tyranny are far beyond what George III ever conceived.
Meanwhile, the tiny sliver of the country that is engaged in politics runs in circles debating a foregone conclusion. Of course, the debt ceiling will be raised, and of course, nothing will be done about the spending. Anybody who thought anything else is a naive fool.
July 29, 2011 - 3:28 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Exactly right proreason. Exactly.
And I can't get over how outrageous Obama is behaving over this debt crisis. He is interfering with Congress. He constantly threatens to veto the GOP bills; I haven't noticed him threatening the Democrat bills…oh…the Democrats have cleverly refrained from putting forth any policies, any measures..to deal with the situation.
But how dare a President interfere with Congress and tell them that he disapproves of their policies? He's the LAST vote in the process. Instead, Obama is making himself the FIRST vote. That's Obama – the pathological emperor.
I maintain Obama wants this crisis; he wants a default. So that he can blame the GOP and above all, the Tea Party. He has, being Obama, only one interest and focus. Himself. He's out to Bash the Tea Party…as a major election ploy of his re-election campaign. After all, Obama isn't the president of America; he's a constant campaigner, campaigning to reduce the people of America to silence, to poverty, to dependency, to submission to Him.
July 29, 2011 - 5:00 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
24. Craig
I disagree with you on a few points but overall I think you pretty much nailed it!
This administration has a bad habit of calibrating a regime's authenticity and legitimacy by the degree of its expressed anti-Americanism between 2001-8.
I wonder where that attitude came from? :o
That's OK though. Obama won't be in office forever. After Carter, we got Reagan. Obama is worse than Carter. Maybe his successor will be better than Reagan. It could happen. We can always hope, anyway.
As for China, the Chinese don't worry me so much. Amongst their neighbors are the Japanese and the Russians, both of whom have proven in battle that they are not to be trifled with. Then there's the Vietnamese who forgot more about dirty fighting than the Chinese ever learned. And etc. I wouldn't want to be China if it turns into a gang fight. Particularly if the US jumps in, too. On that note, though, I have to say I don't want the US way out in front when it comes to China. I think that would encourage some (or all) of China's neighbors to leave it to us to fix the problem. China's neighbors have more at stake than the US does, so they should take the lead with US backing in my opinion.
July 29, 2011 - 2:24 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
25. Elle
"I understand why Obama, like most all who are products of the university and government, believes reason and dialogue should trump deterrence. I wish that he were correct, and the humane rules of the Harvard Law School lounge were those of the international community. It would certainly be cheaper and safer if logos rather than pride, fear, and perceived self-interest adjudicated relationships between powers. Eloquence should outweigh muscularity; and listening at times is as critical as acting. But the problem is that the world beyond our shores is largely non-democratic, poor, tribal, zealous, and angry, and wants the sort of power, affluence, and influence that we long ago took for granted as our birthright—and it looks for ways of fulfilling its agendas, often at the expense of weaker others."
Based on the human product produced by the kings and queens of the Harvard Faculty Lounge their rules are not humane but mean, petty,elitist,and cowardly. I would also reverse a lot of your paragraph in terms of real US interest i.e. Muscularity is more important than eloquence in the face of serious conflict.Acting is more important than listening especially when endless listening is the coward's rationale for inaction.
July 29, 2011 - 6:23 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
"When one is dealing with brutes, verbal ingenuity is not always sufficient."
– B. Banzai
July 30, 2011 - 4:00 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Yes, but can we "handle" the truth? Can we anymore, kick Tyrants out of our government, can we, like Franklin queried, KEEP the Republic. I answer Yes. We cannot converse with commies, we knew that for generations. We must act in strategic methods isolating them. Refrain from sending communications to them, but if you do, simply ask them to step down they have proven their votes to be anti-USA. Don't give them topics or anything to tally and manipulate to their own purposes. Let their inboxes receive only comments from their supporters. Of course there are other actions approved by our Declaration that we must use. Visual strategies such as picketing and protests give publicity whereas electronic or other communication remains hidden from public knowledge. What strategies do you suggest? We are definitely in a war and we must fight to save our country.
July 30, 2011 - 6:21 am Link to this Comment | Reply
26. Harvard Yard Conservative
"After me, the deluge."
July 29, 2011 - 7:24 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
27. Voyager
I got into the first paragraph, right up to the carrier analogy. Just the realization that we are spending the equivalent of two Ford Class super carriers every day, I'm just gobsmacked.
Those things are big.
July 29, 2011 - 9:25 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Not spending that much every day—We are BORROWING that much every day.
The difference is everything.
July 29, 2011 - 11:42 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Yes. Considering that our daily borrowing is 40 cents of every dollar the Federal government spends, the actual spending is more like five CVANs' worth every day.
And to the President and his cronies, that's not nearly enough. Hence the new demands (from him) for more "stimulus". And more "programs everybody wants". To say nothing of "high-speed rail", "green jobs", etc.
And it's pointless to tell him it can't be done. You may as well tell a gambling addict there's no more money in the bank, while he's spending two weeks in Vegas.
Except that in Obama's case, the vacation from reality never ends.
clear ether
July 30, 2011 - 6:54 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
28. parasitic,ankle biting european
B17s and liberators may have been more effective than the efforts of anglo/french jets but then the requirements for avoiding civilian casualties were rather different when they were employed! Rather than blame the aircrews who are working hard to minimize the activities of Gaddafi's forces I would put the blame on the incompetence and lack of leadership in the rebels campaign.
It was a half-hearted campaign from the start,reckless assumptions were made and the usual overvaluing of technology over strategy.July 29, 2011 - 10:56 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Agreed. Not to mention the questionable strategic sense of the governments involved, who spent almost three decades developing super-fighters for air superiority and air defense, which ended up (like most such programs) delivering the goods late, fewer than needed, and at an inflated price. And then finding out that the "air threat" they were prepared for doesn't really exist. And that what they really needed was long-range strike aircraft, that didn't even necessarily need to be supersonic. To say nothing of heavy logistics transports to forward-support them, and helicopters to deliver airmobile forces.
(Some people have figured it out. The U.S. Army last year ordered 1,200 more UH-60 Blackhawks from Sikorsky; which surprised the heck out of Sikorsky, who were about to shut down the assembly line because they didn't see any potential new sales coming along. They can't say that now; instead, they are busting their butts to make deliveries ASAP.)
And let's not even talk about the "ministries'" tendency to buy too many planes and not enough bombs, missiles, etc., to hang on their hardpoints. All of which reminds me of the "Shells Scandal" in Britain in 1914-15, due to the General Staff drastically underestimating the expenditure of artillery rounds in modern warfare. You'd think somebody would have learned their lesson by this time; I mean, it's only been ninety-seven years or so.
The combat aircrews are making the best of a bad setup. Their superiors (the ones in Paris, London and, yes, Washington) have some explaining to do as to why the crews' tails are in this particular crack.
July 30, 2011 - 7:09 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
29. Steve Withers
I'm amazed anyone blames Obama for the monster deficit the US now faces. This was programmed in by the Bush White House and Obama had very little to say about any of it.
The Bush tax cuts turned surpluses into deficits overnight. That the tax cuts were implemented in a downturn just made it worse.
Bush's war of choice in Iraq has cost the US dearly. Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11.
Bush's Medicaid programme has cost a huge amount of money.
Bush's bailout of the Wall St banks in the last days of his administration put the icing on the cake.
None of that had anything do with Obama…..
I find it bizarre that people either know so little or have such short memories that they can lay this at Obama's door with a straight face and apparently without shame.
I'm not a partisan at all…..I just know what happened and who did what.
Let the truth set you free.
July 30, 2011 - 5:05 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Fred Beloit
Wow, Steve, thanks for showing up to present the argument that Obama after over two and a half years has still not grasped the reigns of government and is living off what Bush made. Your position speaks for the extreme spendists and extreme borrowers. Your underlying assumption is that every dime the government spends is necessary, there is no room to cut, there is only room to squeeze more taxes from "others" and spend that on new stupidities. Failing higher taxes, it is perfectly OK to keep on borrowing because the maw of the beast is forever starving for more. Wise up.
July 30, 2011 - 6:40 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Don't bother to examine any data.
You won't understand it.
And it might interfere with your fantasies.
July 30, 2011 - 8:01 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Hey look! Vivo's named Steve now. Boy all this trouble just to try and look smarmy.
July 31, 2011 - 7:24 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Don Rodrigo
Thank you foreign guy for setting everything straight.
August 1, 2011 - 3:33 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
30. Time of truth
If Obama wins reelection in 2012, the United States of America will from that moment on be under attack, violently and relentlessly, in every which way possible. Each and every last American who voted for him will aid and abet those attackers within and without, until their fully shared aim of destroying the America they so hate and despise is finally realized.
If Obama doesn't win in 2012, the same things will happen, but the final outcome above is much less likely.
July 30, 2011 - 5:08 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
31. BqrbaraS
Obama seems to me to be actually anti-American—and anti-Israeli and anti-British.
Ya think?
July 30, 2011 - 6:25 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
32. Who Knows?
Rights AND responsibility!
They go together like self AND other, and as should be well known, wherever there is such a split, fear arises. Why?
Because every other has POWER, and they can ruin you, as a self, into the void from which you mysteriously came!
Maybe there's a cycle, spanning hundreds or even thousands of years, for societies. Ah, memories!
In a first-year anthropology class at the U. of Oregon, third term, way back in 1963, we were even taught in detail about the cultural "swings" in families of China. From dire and pressing need to survive, it's work, work, work and save, save, save. Second generation doesn't feel such need, and holds on. Third one, well—hello dissipation!
Just so, America.
With two out of three citizens ALREADY either fat or grossly fat, the heavily on-the-ground visible and UGLY truth is there for all with eyes to see!
It is pretty well known that the less educated one is, the less one tends to eat well. So, blacks, as a class, led the way, twenty or thirty years ago, and NOW the rest of the people are demonstrating THEIR own under-educated state.
Fat is, as FAT does!
One way or the other, then, a great American "colonic" is going to have to happen. Actually, it's ALREADY been occurring, for quite a while, and all that's truly taking place is scaling it up—way up!
Individuals who overeat, and demonstrate their ignorance and/or childish lack of discipline, still attached to mother's tit, sooner or later, depending on their individual genetic makeup, suffer debilitating conditions. By ONLY exercising rights, they become the responsibility of OTHER people, and live their lives as sucking dependents to society, only to die.
Think of the Black Death, or all the plagues of the Middle Ages. How's it going to play out, when a growing ( VERY fat GROWING!) majority of Americans are not taking care of themselves, as they get fatter and fatter, sicker and sicker, with fewer and fewer responsible workers to keep them alive?
The BLACK humor of it all is epitomized in the tendency of overeducated idiots, who use Libertarian arguments, to defend the RIGHTS of companies that advertise and sell all the junk "food", as well as those of the people who "choose" to eat them.
We are FREE to eat ourselves to an early death—whoopee!!!
That's the America we've become.
A modest thought experiment—pretend that conventional wisdom has become that eating is for survival, mostly, so that almost everybody eats well.
That is, flip reality around, so that instead of five percent of us eating super foods, practically all the time, ninety-five percent do, and the "losers" who still eat lousy "foods" are as mocked as vegans are today.
Yes, as a vegan, myself, very much in the current minority, it's quite easy to deepen and extend the dear Doctor Hanson's dyspeptic take on America—-
The excrement is ALREADY hitting the fan!
Indeed, I long ago realized that fat and grossly fat people were simply animated out houses, walking—and, these days, in wheel chairs, more and more often—around in public. What else does an expanding epidermis contain, but loads of WASTE? And, it's truly dying to get out.
Get it—"out" houses?
Out, damned spots!
July 30, 2011 - 7:28 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Fred Beloit
Who? says: "Because every other has POWER, and they can ruin you, as a self, into the void from which you mysteriously came!"
Well, I don't know about you, hoo, but personally there was nothing mysterious about my arrival; I was born. I'm not going to spend any more time with your "thoughts" because they seem to me to be as nonsensical as the example above. May I recommend, though, that you share your comments with the first lady. I'm sure as a certified Reach Out professional she will be glad to join your efforts on behalf of grass-munchers. Best wishes, ever your friend, Fred.
July 30, 2011 - 8:39 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Who Knows?
Best to you, too, Fred.
So, you KNOW you were born, eh?
Who, or what, or where were "you" BEFORE "you" were born?
"You" don't know? Is that a mystery?
It's ALL a mystery to me!
Wait a minute—can I even KNOW it's a mystery?
Return to what you were before your mother and father were born—that's my recommendation.
July 30, 2011 - 3:21 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
33. Scott Chester
When are jerkoffs like you, the writer of this article, going to stop calling Social Security an "entitlement"? It is NOT an entitlement, it's money that was paid into a trust fund by employees & employers. The only way it becomes an entitlement is when the frigging gov't starts handing it out to illegals & others who have absolutely no claim to the money. Get it right or STFU.
July 30, 2011 - 7:35 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Exactly right. Yes, Scott, we must stop the PC stuff when scolding people who mislead, whether unintended or purposeful. Words were made to convey ideas. We have tolerated use of wrong words basically because of the handcuffs on free speech called Political Correctness. "They" crushed simple manners by slipping on the PC bracelets. Use of term entitlement puts SS into an entirely deceitful category that makes it easier for politicians to play with like taffy. Please do not use the lie "entitlement" because those programs are EARNED and PAID for by employees and employers. It is the same quagmire of disinformation that the terms Illegal Aliens, Illegals, Immigrants, Illegal Immigrants relative to INVADERS who INVADE our country have put us in. Think about your words. There are reasons for PC trick vocabularies. Those are two prime examples. Using term entitlement gives politicians a foot on the neck of the citizens. Using the trick terms regarding our border puts the politicians foot holding down the "fence" on our border and protects the politician, enabling them to proceed with destroying our sovereignty and building the transit road from Mexico to Canada through Kansas as the Hub. Pretty boys McCain and others have held down that fence for years. Certainly the one-world govt sneak Rick Perry is working hard to help them. Check out his part in the highway. Make them use correct term. There is an INVASION on our southern border by INVADERS. Check that against the Oaths of Office the polyticians swear to… they promise to protect citizens and sovereignty, but their oaths say nothing about immigration, illegal immigration, illegals, Aliens, Illegal Aliens. Ahhh, those politicians are happy, coast (border in this case) is clear. Get it? Stuff those trick words back in their lying mouths and make them speak ENGLISH and send troops to the border to protect us against INVADERS.
July 30, 2011 - 8:36 am Link to this Comment | Reply
34. Steve, UK
Agreed, agreed and agreed.
But this kind of thing is a regular event; as VDH says, we're back in 1937. Maybe this is what happens when there is no threat. As the Log Lady said to Coop, 'You move so slowly when you're not afraid'.
So maybe when there's a big event like a terrorist attack in New Yor –
OK then, maybe when there's a massive financial meltd –
Just don't give up, OK?July 30, 2011 - 8:46 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
35. john
Excellent article. Only ever seem to comment on good articles so feel like i ought to add that part.
I've heard a lot more derogatory references to the US from my European acquaintances than from the Filipino people I have known. Or European. Or to a lesser extent Japanese or Korean but in the latter case there is definitely a sense of reality that is missing in the silly Marxists. By derogatory I mean sneers about Iraq, Capitalism, Materialism, Microsoft , Militarism, Cowboys, Six Guns and so forth.
After 911 we went to visit friends in Mexico. Way more American Flags bumper stickers on pickups in Mexico that on anything in San Francisco.
No statistics but that is my sense. Too, leaving the airport in Dresden I recall driving down Karl Marx Strasse. Going to the City Walk in Manila I drove by a statue of MacArthur. Something about that.
Working with technical people in the Philippines is more nearly like working with fellow American Engineers than is the case of many other countries. Again just my feeling no statistics. More likely that agreements reached in meetings or over the phone will mean the same thing to both parties.
So. Please don't abandon the little island in the great pull back. Plus its a good place for a Naval Base if and when the Chinese get bored and decide to nuke Taiwan.
July 30, 2011 - 9:34 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
36. sh
I believe that in light of the recent developments as gathered by KForce, the last line of their Egyptian summary should be as follows:
US leaders should expect… [un]democratic elections that bring anti-US, anti-modern and anti-Israel Islamic fundamentalists to power… throughout the entire Western Asian, Southern European and Northern African continents.
July 30, 2011 - 10:54 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
37. chambers
The 1960′s generational elites have completed their long march thorugh our institutions and those institutions are now pretty much wrecked. We are broke, demoralized and in the hands of a pathologically narcissist ruling class that is concerned about nothing except it's own status and power. We can't even topple a third-rate dictator/madman even WITH that "broad international alliance" so beloved of the left.
To put the cherry on the parfait the best we can hope for out the the debt ceiling "debate" is a deal that merely maintains our current situation where 40% of government spending comes from borrowed money. I am ashamed of my generation (Baby Boomer – natch!) which has squandered the patrimony left to us by better men and women in what must be, in historic terms, record time.
July 30, 2011 - 8:20 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
38. Warren Bonesteel
Retreat from military committment? I stopped right there. VDH, I love ya, buddy. You've done a helluva job over the years, but that's just insane. How many wars are we involved in, now? Four? or is it five? By some accounts, it's actually six. How many other places are soldiers, sailors and Marines in harm's way? A dozen? How many miltary bases around the world and around the nation are enough? 1.000? 1,500? 2,000? How many? How much federal spending on the DoD is enough? Half a trillion? A trillion? Two trillion? Mebbe we need a few more SWAT teams roaming the streets of the US. Is that enough military committment for ya? I know! Bomb, bomb, bomb. Bomb, bomb Iran!
If we go to war, break all their toys, kill them – and keep killing them – until they don't want to fight anymore. Then, take anything that isn't broken or nailed down…and come home.
War is serious business. The last three adminstations – and Congresses – have treated it as some sort of kid's game. Arguably, they've done this since at least Korea.
July 30, 2011 - 8:44 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
The recipe for Viet Nam evolved to where a marriage has certainly taken place between the US military and our Peace Corps. Princeton Petraeus's creation of COIN is a perfect example; what has his "bastard" child really done outside of draining our treasury, wasting our youth (note the most recent Medal Of Honor warrior has had 8 deployments to a war zone) and giving us no clear definition of "victory" outside of some collegiate classroom notion, term paper!
Want to be a "professional politician" then go to a law school to learn 1)How to admit nothing, 2)How to deny everything, and 3)How to talk around any subject!
Passive aggressive behavior reigns supreme for these people.Wait till you see the "lawyer language/games" this debt ceiling "solution" provides…much like a 2500 page plus Health Care bill! Games dear boy, games…
July 31, 2011 - 1:02 am Link to this Comment | Reply
A "bipolar" President, who is driven by the ghost of his father, and by those who mentored him in hatred for Imperial America, knows nothing but his arrogance as defensive armor while he fights his internal war, much like our citizens fight this male/female dynamic socially and politically.
Who will run our family? Will it be from a female point of view, or male? Doubt there is such a reality, do you? Balanced, partisan, or what?
Entitlements, male or female directed? Let's talk it out…male perspective or female?
What happened to Obama's father? Was there anyone in Obama's mentoring group who truly loved America, who gave this special person ("I have a gift") a unique vision of America?
Has our voting citizenry "projected" onto Obama, while his own malignant narcissism has mirrored back to us, this dual conflict?
To wit: Just how effective has Hillary Clinton been? Her whole life? Isn't she really, in all reality, just a pumped up "punching bag" and nothing more? Does she not now look like a person who has been hit once too often?
Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Diane Finestein, Wasserman-Schultz, et al. all belong to that "feminist revolution" coming out of the 60′s when the pill gave them sexual freedoms from pregnancies, etc. Do they give you the impression of truly loving men, the males of our world?
Look at these emasculated males, such as Harry Reid, Dick Durban, Barak Obama, Barney Frank…who's kidding who here? Gays wanting to be "married" is nothing more than a lawyer's game which erodes the primary structure of unity for the protection and raising of children. Remember, a gay couple by definition cannot and do not create children…they represent a force, albeit deeply known in one's psyche, of species extinction. Abortion, as a solution to a narcissist's problem. drives many shouting freedom politically.
Spend too much, get too much credit…and never have to pay a price for doing so? Who's kidding who here? Will "Whitey" be the new "bond slave" for Obama? Mommy will come, mommy will come…what happens when she doesn't?
You may buy a book for its cover; you read it, then keep it for its content.
Obama's veneer was his mirror for a majority of voting Americans. Today, they may not like what they have seen.
Anger and fear create a lot of problems. Obama and his cohorts seem totally driven by such forces.
Time to change out this group of so called leaders. I, personally, never liked any of them from the get go!
July 31, 2011 - 12:54 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
40. Michael
Of course "We The People" are at the core of the matter, but "We The People" have been carefully educated to make these decisions since the mid-60′s. I first noticed this when I visited one of my old high school teachers whilst on leave from the US Army. She had a student teacher at that time, from the University of Michigan, and we were both aghast at what she had to say. I must admit that I did not recognize the fact at the time but over the years the thing became apparent to me.
A nation, once it gives up greatness never returns. Example is the French. Every once in a while they try to pretend to be a Great Power…. to the world's amusement. Then after a while they go away and have a croissant or something.
President Obama, either by intent or ignorance, is in the process of giving up our Nation's greatness as pointed out above. He is turning the Nation into a second rate banana republic with aging atomic weapons which may or may not work. The example of Russia comes to mind as illustration.
But the President is wrong. The world will not then move to one of equals. A new "superpower" or "superpowers" will emerge. And we, along with the rest of the nations, will kowtow to them.
My personal opinion is that the next nation to strut on the world's stage will be China. I do not know if in the long run this will be a good thing or a bad thing. In the short run I am not hopeful. But I have been known to be wrong…but then it don't make no never mind what I think.
It is what it is.
July 31, 2011 - 9:06 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
41. Noblesse Oblige
Another dreary but accurate look at the world by VDS. The world is indeed a more dangerous place and becoming more so. Both friends and foes will be encouraged to take more risks, with unpredictable and potentially/likely calamitous results.
July 31, 2011 - 11:31 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
42. Dave Surls
"Obama has done the almost impossible: he is losing a war to a country on the Mediterranean with less than 7 million people, and an almost perfect topography, weather, and location for NATO air operations."
I think it can be safely stipulated that Obambi ain't exactly Scipio Africanus. He more closely resembles Karl Mack von Leiberich. Luckily for us, the Libyans are far too weak to actually defeat us, though they aren't too weak to carry out reprisal attacks like the one that took place over Lockerbie. Thanks to his unbelievable incompetence and utter lack of concern for American lives, Obama has put us into a position where such an attack is quite likely.
This is what happens when you place little boys in opositions of power and responsibility.
July 31, 2011 - 1:07 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Agreed. The One also bears an amazing resemblance to two of the Renaissance's lesser lights in the military/political sphere. Namely Charles the Bold of Burgundy and Alexander Farnese, the Duke of Parma.
In Chapter 8 of his Book "Connections", James Burke describes Charles the Bold's military and territorial aspirations- and his utter incompetence at achieving them- in hilarious detail. Not to mention how his profligate lifestyle, and even more profligate borrowing, wrecked not only his kingdom, but his banker, one Tommaso Portinari, a junior partner in the Medici Bank- run by Lorenzo the Magnificent. (Anyone knowing Lorenzo's usual methods can just about guess what happened to Portinari.)
As for Parma, he was the military and diplomatic incompetent largely responsible for bringing Spanish rule of the Netherlands to an end, principally by first annoying the locals no end with his political "inspirations", and then losing the resulting war. His "masterpiece", to put it politely, was trying and failing to have William the Silent "done away with" five times, with only the sixth attempt succeeding. By which point, in spite of King Philip's admonition to him to not get caught at it, everybody from the Kattegat to Calais knew who was responsible. And the Dutch, under William's son, Maurice, were out for payback, and got it in no uncertain terms.
I'm sure that, a couple of centuries from now, Obama will be viewed with equal parts amusement and disbelief, just as we view Charles and Parma now. But in their own time, those on the receiving end of their idiocies (principally the Swiss and the Dutch) failed to see the humor in any of it. Anymore than we see anything amusing about Obama's lunacies in the present.
clear ether
August 1, 2011 - 8:02 am Link to this Comment | Reply
43. The Story of O
O's superiority masks his deep-seated sense of inferiority and self-contempt. He despises himself as the child of a promiscuous white slut who eventually dumped him, and he's not sure who his black father was. The pain he feels knowing his Kenyan father ran out on him when he was a baby, turns into horror remembering his other black father sexually abusing him as a boy.
The rest is history, much of it still under wraps.
August 2, 2011 - 8:47 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
44. Leone Kernagis
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January 1, 2012 - 6:01 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
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text: Marshawn Lynch sports gold cleats for Super Bowl warmup... Marshawn Lynch sports gold cleats for Super Bowl warmup... Spurs' Tim Duncan sues financial advisor for more than... Spurs' Tim Duncan sues financial advisor for more than... Space Jam Inspired Art Exhibition Hits NYC Space Jam Inspired Art Exhibition Hits NYC SMU notified of allegations by NCAA SMU notified of allegations by NCAA Chargers WR Keenan Allen potentially out for rest of th... Chargers WR Keenan Allen potentially out for rest of th... Jon Lester featured on this week's Sports Illustrated c... Jon Lester featured on this week's Sports Illustrated c... Marcus Mariota shines on Letterman Marcus Mariota shines on Letterman Close Tweet0 Share0 Comment0 Share0 Share0 Stumble It0 Print0 More SI Wire Lawrence Taylor on Jonathan Martin: 'If you are that sensitive and weak-minded, then find another profession' by Erin Weaver Email Posted: Sat Nov. 9, 2013 Lawrence Taylor said Jonathan Martin should have stuck up for himself, and now Martin can't be trusted among players. (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)Giants legend Lawrence Taylor told the New York Daily News that Jonathan Martin should have kept his issues with Richie Incognito inside the locker room.Taylor, who spent his entire NFL career with the New York Giants from 1981 to 1993, played when the Giants kept all of their issues in-house. The Hall of Famer said that while he does not condone Incognito's behavior in the Miami Dolphins bullying case, he would welcome Incognito back into the locker room before Martin. From the New York Daily News:"Martin wouldn't be allowed back in my locker room," Taylor told the Daily News. "I understand Incognito may be a bad guy, but all that stuff should have stayed in the locker room. I don't know if I would let Incognito back in the locker room either, but he would be allowed back in my locker room before the other guy would. They are texting each other like two women. I don't understand that."If you are that sensitive and weak-minded, then find another profession," he said. "That's the way I feel about it. This is the NFL. This is football. This is not table tennis. This is not golf. I don't know how you bully a 350-pound player."SI WIRE: Report: Jonathan Martin likely done with the DolphinsThe Dolphins suspended Incognito last Sunday, a week after Martin left the team. Incognito was suspended after the team became aware of a voicemail Incognito left Martin that used a racial slur and threatened Martin and his mother.Taylor said the n-word was often used in the Giants locker room, and Martin should have addressed the issue with the team. From the Daily News:"I have a lot of friends on the team who used the word [expletive]. You know where they are going with it," he said. "If they used it in a derogatory way, then we got a problem. You don't have a problem with just Martin, you got a problem with all of us. That's how you stop that [expletive]."DOHRMANN: Former Dolphins: Incognito violated code by continuing to haze Martin Promoted Stories Comments

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I'm a Magpie
This seems like an odd time to mention it, but today's my mother's birthday. Happy birthday, mom! Thank you for introducing me to the Odyssey, the poetry of Ezra Pound, and all the other interesting things in the world. |
I'm a librarian. Special skills include dog charming, brochure writing, slapdash cooking and long-winded nattering. I also enjoy watching the sunset's reflection in the tall buildings downtown.
For a while there, I taught classes on Classical literature, philosophy, and the history of religion at New College of California. I have an MA and an MFA in Writing, and live on a boat in Sausalito, CA.


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Hair Studio 9 @ Jungceylon
Categories: Health & wellness > Hairdressing salons
Address: 2nd floor, Silang BLVD., Jungceylon Shopping Mall, Rat-U-Thit 200 Pee Rd., Pa Tong, Kathu, Phuket 83120 Thailand See map
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The hair studio9 opened its first shop at Jungceylon shopping mall in 2006 and taking care of customers from all over the world. In 2010, they opened their second shop and hair academy at Karon and opened their third shop at Bangla Mall in Patong on March 2012. The salon provides a wonderfully peaceful atmosphere, creating a perfect environment. Hair studio 9 offers the very best color available in the industry. Their approach reflects the latest in great looks, and fashion from around the world. Their color lines are manufactured by experts in the field of Professional Brands: Paul Mitchell, Loreal, Wella, Scwharzkopf, Kadus. More information, visit http://phukethairstudio9.com.
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Jesus billboard turns heads
Image of heavily tattooed Jesus Christ has Lubbock, Texas buzzing. Alex Zielinski reports.
Lubbock, Texas — (KCBD) Billboards showing Jesus covered in tattoos have popped up all around Lubbock, Texas
"I really didn't know what to think," said Lubbock resident Zachary Martinez. "I've never heard of the organization...but it really did wow me."
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If you look closely at the tattoos, all of the words are different. Outcast, addiction and faithless are displayed among others. If you go to the organization's website you are greeted by a video that shows Jesus changing the tattoos of people who come in with those same words.
Read more: http://bit.ly/164WjKe


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General Mills, Hain Celestial, Boulder Brands Seeing Green in Gluten-Free Food
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- People with certain allergies are finding relief eating gluten-free food. That has put some of the biggest players in the food industry into an area where they can expect a substantial increase in revenue and volume sales for the next few years.
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The recently released Global Gluten-free Food Market 2014-2018 report from by Research and Markets, says the market's compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in terms of revenue will increase by 11.4% while volume CAGR will rise by 9.9% over the period of 2013 to 2018.
The combined effect of changing consumer lifestyles and increasing number of celiac disease patients contribute to the global gluten-free trend, which is most popular in North America.
Market research firm Mintel said the P10.5 billion industry grew by 44% in sales between 2011 and 2013 alone. And when it comes to size, it should be pointed out that 24% of consumers eat or have someone in their household who eats gluten-free food.
A gluten-free diet, which first gained prominence as a way to deal with celiac disease, has become extremely popular among health buffs who believe that it helps alleviate abdominal and intestinal problems, among other things. An earlier release by Mintel said the gluten-free food and beverage market will grow as much as 48% from 2013 to 2016, to a $15.6 billion industry, at current prices. Such figures are not surprising since new surveys show the general populace has a favorable view of the trend. The NPD Group said its survey revealed that one in four consumers believe that a gluten-free diet is good for everyone, even those without celiac disease. Besides General Mills and Hain Celestial, sellers of gluten-free food include privately held Amy's Kitchen, Boulder Brands (BDBD), Domino's Pizza (DPZ), Kellogg (K) and Raisio (RTHVF). General Mills has a gluten-free alternative in almost all of its Betty Crocker baking products and Chex cereals. Its first marketing shift to gluten-free food was in 2008 when it came out with Rice Chex. Its baking products followed suit.Check Out Our Best Services for Investors
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Archive - Board Orders (April 2006 - June 2006)
Not all Orders listed in the Daily Summary of Filings and Orders will be posted here for downloading or viewing. For information regarding an Order not posted, please contact the Records Center at 515.725.7337.
Cert. No. 0305
MidAmerican Energy Company Order Establishing Procedural Schedule, Proposing to Take Official Notice and Notice of Hearing
Orders issued prior to April 12, 1999 are not available for download from this web site. Please contact the Records Center at 515.725.7337 for copies of Board orders issued prior to April 12, 1999.
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