A World Without America
It might be a little late, but here's a link to 18 Doughty Street, a British conservative internet network, and its hit production A World Without America. Hit Read More if you want to watch the trailer.
posted by wretchardthecat at 2/23/2007 02:43:00 PM
133 Comments:
A world without America would immediately plunge into the greatest economic depression in history as the "market of last resort" no longer exists to soak up the products of a developing world which relied on blocking imports from America and flooding America with exports. One third of the world's total asset wealth would disappear. $14 trillion dollars in foreign claims on US assets would become meaningless overnight. All the dollars held by China in return for those cheap sneakers Americans bought at Wal-Mart would be so much monopoly money.
Russia would be unconstrained by the threat of nuclear retaliation and quickly move to re-establish the Soviet Empire and a ring of buffer client states even larger than the original Warsaw Pact, including an unarmed and united Germany. Only at France at Britain, who possess modest nuclear stockpiles of their own, would Putin call a halt to his advancing tanks.
With no U.S. nuclear umbrella protecting South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, an alliance of China and North Korea would move to sew up all of East Asia in a new Co-prosperity Sphere, which would threaten Australia from the north. Australia would begin developing nuclear weapons in defense, but a Chinese naval blockade would isolate them from mother England and begin to strangle their trade.
All the nations in Africa and Latin America who depended on US largesse for medical and humanitarian relief would begin to suffer like never before. Any tsunami in Indonesia would be greeted by a global shrug. Oil would crash to $6 a barrel as the biggest consumer of it disappears, and with it the funding for world Jihad. In places like Saudi Arabia the oil sheiks would flee to Europe to be closer to their Swiss bank accounts as the masses of people find that they can't eat sand. With no more funding from their Arab brothers, the Palestinians would be at the tender mercies of the Israeli population they had tormented for decades.
Yes, Terisita, how many of those who moan about the U.S. accounting for a quarter of the world's energy consumption or a quarter of its garbage -- take your pick -- know that the U.S. accounts for roughly a third of the world's ecnomic output including, surprisingly, more than a fifth of its manufacturing output?
Unfortunately, the only ‘America’ most people on this planet will ever see is presented to them through words and images selected and presented to them by newsroom editors, television producers and the politicians and opinion-makers their media choose to cover.
People the world over aren’t able to view American actions as would spectators at a sporting event, judging for themselves the quality of play. Instead, they must rely upon major media outlets for what they ‘know’ about the U.S. – and what they are told is almost uniformly negative and fails to acknowledge America’s complex and historically unprecedented role in global affairs, its unique responsibilities, contributions and burdens.
America is presented almost exclusively in the worst possible light, then Americans are blamed for the willingness of others to believe the worst about them. Hostility fomented by endless demonizing of America is presented by its critics as the sober reflection of a global public, unassailable confirmation of American waywardness. In the absence of a competing narrative to one of American venality, villainy and wickedness, the answer to the question ‘why they hate us’ is that ‘they’ are given precious little reason to do otherwise.
It is, in short, a Cultural Revolution-style ‘struggle session’ designed not to moderate the actions of the world’s only superpower or to provide fair input, but to isolate and cow its insecure elites and craven political classes to the designs of a short-sighted, stateless transnational elite – who will rule only as long as America’s real enemies perceive them to be useful.
Sorry for the rant.
Teresita said much of it. How about a few others - no GPS, for one. No hip-hop, rap or soul music. Cinema would exist -- mostly B+W with poor sound tracks. TV would be dominated by national stations singing the praises of their government and its leaders (think France). Diamonds would be cheaper than peanuts or corn. Computers? Internet? The auto industry (think India)? What would people do without Oprah or Superbowl? But it's not all bad news: no Al Gore.
Right now it is the Anglo-Sphere that is the light that pierces a dark age that is always there for the taking.
Yes, 'emphasis', if the US did not exist, the world would invent it - after a half century of darkness.
Athens did not exist after the Peloponnesian War - but there were humans groveling for grubs for centuries thereafter.
Rome did not exist after the valiant Guals swept south - but there were hundreds of years of misery, deprivation, and backwardness.
Now we are hopefully in the middle of an England - America - Australia era of light...
I really don't understand the desire for the dark, eh...
A world without America is a world without Texas.
We are describing a world that might exist were America to cease existing. The world that would exist had America never existed is much more fascinating. Have a Wonderful Life.
I grew up under the benevolent arm of the United States, in postwar occupied West Germany. From British comics to real life and beyond the U.S. was so much bigger than life in execution and ideals. I loved everything about it and there's still much to love.
I was fortunate enough to have a political mentor who taught me lots, argued ferociously, bought me books and threw everything in his library at me that he felt would teach me what is surely the definitive political paradigm after the industrial revolution. One year I think I worked through about 4 feet deep of American political history and literature (post war, I'm weak on those incredible founding fathers), from Ayn Rand to the Caro's LBJ trilogy (I'm not so keen on Texan Presidents).
There's no denying the awesome contribution made by this country, even your worst detractors gulp down Hollywood movies without the slightest whiff of paradoxical hate.
But here's the gig, if the U.S. needs to make a movie to remind people of the positive contribution it has made then I ask you are we drawing to the end of consumer culture and the econometric measurement of successful living. It stands to reason that in a world of finite resources that the notion of capitalism is redundant in it's present form.
It would be great if there were shades of grey to explore valid ideals worth pursuing but the lurch to binary ideology best articulated by 'with us or against us' and worst dramatised by the loathing of the right for the left leaves no room for dialogue.
It stands to reason that if the rhetoric (such as this video) is impervious to self reflection and appetite for change then the outlook is not optimistic.
No culture is perfect and the rift is opening up wide but slap bang in the middle are the apolitical masses who just want to take care of their families and provide for their responsibilities. On either side are the extremists who know exactly how far they can leverage the uniformity they seek.
Just my two cents worth.
"in the middle are the apolitical masses who just want to take care of their families and provide for their responsibilities"
And they need to understand that they have a stake in it all, that they cannot opt out without leaving politics to hustlers, ideologues and C-students, and that all they have can and will disappear if they do not contribute to its maintenance.
Unless, of course, they don't mind feudalism.
I saw parts of this video on FNC tonight - and I am afraid it is far more than just taking the present day world and subtracting the impact of the USA.
At the time the US created a Constitutionally based Republic with democratically elected representatives it was a radical idea completely beyond the pale. Great Britian was a Capital M Monarchy complete with "Off with his head!" coming from people wearing crowns. And it probably was the best of the governments out there. France was even worse and Russia worse than that. Germany did not even exist and finally adopted the same "popular" Royalty-based system. The rest of the world varied between a howling wilderness, outright feudalism, and people trying to take over the howling wildernesses and feudalistic areas for simple reasons of imperialism.
The largest free trade area in the world back then was ENGLAND! Not Great Britain, as in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, but JUST the part known as England.
The USA developed an unique new approach for government and the economy - and more importantly an underlying philosophy for all of it, and the rest of the world followed. A significant portion of the world eventually had to have that approach delivered under force of US arms - in some cases more than once. And the places were it was not delivered that way are not getting along all that well - but still are far better than they world have been otherwise.
The USA was an experiment and now the entire rest of the world is our experiment.
Speaking of England! Why have the British abandoned Basra to the Mahdi Army?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,468118,00.html
As an immigrant in this great country of ours, I would like to add this:
America on a bad day is better than the rest of the world and all the other countries on a good day!
"Why have the British abandoned Basra to the Mahdi Army?"
I wonder why you ask the question in such an accusatory manner. Aren't they doing exactly what you've been wanting them to do?
Mr. Frith, I believe "It stands to reason that in a world of finite resources that the notion of capitalism is redundant in it's present form" is your thesis sentence.
Please allow me to briefly remind that capitalism has an unmatched history of discovering and developing new materials and technology for the care and feeding of mankind, and ask you when, if ever, in history your thesis could not have been asserted with equal evidence.
reocon, Gateway Pundit's post today may enlighten you:
Isn't it amazing how the mainstream media and democrats, including golden boy Barak Obama, are spinning the news this week of the planned UK troop withdrawals? The media makes it sound like this is some kind of a sudden retreat from Iraq by Great Britain when actually it is a sign of the success for the young Iraqi democracy.
And Prince Harry is going to serve in Iraq soon; the British are our friends, and they have bravely stuck with us for as long as they can. Domestic support for the war has been dwindling in London, and especially damaging for Labour - which could get as little as 20% of the vote compared to the Tories under David Cameron with at least 40%.
I would not be so quick to call the British withdrawal "abandonment". Instead, one would wisely reserve it for our very own Democrats in Congress.
reocon:
Why have the British abandoned Basra to the Mahdi Army?
They already did. From the get go, the British let the Shi'ite militias have the run of the place. The article actually got it wrong on one issue. Basra is caught in a delicate balance of power between the Sadr and Hakim factions, and the main reason for Basra's relative calm has been al-Sistani's ability to broker truces between those two clerical Houses.
Politically speaking, Mr. Blair had no choice but to bring some troops home. And he hasn't brought all of them home, just enough to give his party some political cover at home. The Bush administration had to claim it was a good thing because it didn't want to embarrass Mr. Blair and because it wanted to defuse criticism within the United States. Besides, if certain people who oppose the war effort in Iraq get their way, the United States will follow suit and leave the rest of Iraq to the mercies of the militias.
The real strategic question isn't about the present Baghdad troop surge. Irrespective of whether or not it is successful, the United States will need to focus on western Iraq (especially Anbar) in the next few years. If you can think of some realistic alternative to either letting al-Anbar become an al-Qaeda stronghold or turning it into a pro-American stronghold, please let me know.
I must be missing something.
How can a person recommend a pull-out, then when they get the pullout, turn around and demand "why are you pulling out?"
A reader sent me part of an document which suggests that the Iranians are now in a crisis mode over the President's aggressiveness. In particular there's a debate in Teheran over leadership. And the shakeup has been caused by the recent and unexpected American aggressive responses. The argument in the document is not that the surge made any military sense -- most of it hasn't arrived -- but that the US, just by changing its attitude and rules of engagement really put the hurt on the Iranians, at least psychologically. But it's effect has been to stimulate internal debate in Iran, apparently, over whether the time has come to conciliate with America.
Apparently, or so the document goes, the Iranians had always planned on encouraging the US to get into Iraq in the hopes they would expand their sphere of influence with the fall of Saddam. But as the the antiwar campaign got up steam, they sensed a vacuum in front of them, got greedy and went for the whole hog. And they thought -- thought -- they Iraq for the taking with the midterm election result. And they went even further than they planned and the miscalculation for this opportunism is apparently cause for recrimination in Teheran. Because the recent American response showed that nothing happened to change the power imbalance between the US and Iran on the ground. Iran is still as comparatively helpless as ever. Iran had not been winning any military victories in Iran, but thought they were getting recompense via a political windfall. Now it turns out their political bank balance wasn't as big as they thought it was. The check was in the mail, but they should have waited -- now maybe they will wait -- until Obama or Hillary have moved into the White House.
The presence or absence or British troops is not going to count as much as whether Washington or London finally make up their minds about Iran. Blair has already indicated that he won't fight Iran. The negotiations between the EU and Iran have exerted a strange gravitational pull over Iraqi policy towards Iran, in my own personal view. And I think the US has held back on Iran because of the linkage with the nuclear issue and Europe. Britain, it is now clear, has opted out of militarily confronting Iran and Tony Blair has openly said so. That being the case, the British Army cannot lean on the Iranians. So if the confrontation with Iran heats up, better the Brits were out of the way.
No hard feelings. The Brits must act in their national interest. And it's good that they are up front about it. And that's a whole lot better than the policy of announcing one is "supporting the troops" and announcing the "slow bleed" simultaneously.
Bottom line is the West is divided over what to do with Iran. Both in the wider Western alliance and in the two party arena of Washington. Maybe even within the Republican Party. The problem isn't fundamentally a military one, though there are military challenges. It is at least, for now, a question of undecided policy.
Buddy Larsen said...
I must be missing something.
How can a person recommend a pull-out, then when they get the pullout, turn around and demand "why are you pulling out?"
Mr Larson (I do like your formality) ref. the above. Did you never have a confused but frightened girlfriend? The above is so loaded with enough inadvertant innuendo that have no choice but to draw a parallel.
As for your earlier comment, believe me I understand your point, but apart from the dwindling resources (that's why we're in Iraq for f***s sake) the current model is to exploit finite resources till they're gone. If this was not the case we'd leave oil in the ground. Case closed.
Possumtater. Thanks for the recomendations. Is there any possiblity you could just order on Amazon and send me the necessary reading, and then I will DEFINITELY read them :)
There is one Benjamin Franklin quote I will never forget.
'Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety'.
This is all you need to know, it's the difference between right and wrong. Not the easiest of truths to digest.
Cosmo said...
And they need to understand that they have a stake in it all, that they cannot opt out without leaving politics to hustlers, ideologues and C-students, and that all they have can and will disappear if they do not contribute to its maintenance.
Cosmo, from where we stand, POTUS looks like one of those dangerous ideologues. All fundamentalist Christianity and it's unholy alliance with Neo Conservatism.
But just one thing, we are the apolitical majority. It's the extremists who want cut eachothers throats. I notice they never send their children to fight. Strange isn't it?
God Bless Prince Harry for having the moral convictions that may lose him his life. I doubt any of the current administration can say the same.
Lazlo. Wake up from the dream: America is not at war. The Marine corp is at war. America is at the mall.
http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/02/picture_of_the_year_so_far.php
Charles Frith said,
Cosmo, from where we stand, POTUS looks like one of those dangerous ideologues. All fundamentalist Christianity and it's unholy alliance with Neo Conservatism.
Translation: Right-wing Evangelicals like Bush inexplicably support the International Jew. We liberals can't understand this because our stereotype of any conservative is that they all wear white sheets and SS armbands.
But just one thing, we are the apolitical majority. It's the extremists who want cut each others throats. I notice they never send their children to fight. Strange isn't it?
In the Iran-Iraq war, children were sent out over minefields on motorcyles. In Palestine there have been nine documented suicide attacks involving minors (ages 16-18) between October 2000 and March 2004.
Wake up from the dream: America is not at war. The Marine corp is at war. America is at the mall.
Now that has the ring of truth.
Buddy Larsen said...
"I must be missing something.
How can a person recommend a pull-out, then when they get the pullout, turn around and demand "why are you pulling out?"
---
Don't, Stop!
Don't Stop!
Ugh Doug
Where's Cedarford?
Teresita, do mine, do mine, see if mine has the ring of truth:
Wake up from the dream: America is not a talking-point dumbass. The leftists are talking-point dumbasses. America is at the mall, creating an economy, bothering the talking-point dumbasses.
Mr. Frith,
Oil usage in the United States shrunk last year - about 1%, but it shrunk. And, the economy grew by 3.4%. How did that happen??? Can’t seem to get my brain wrapped around that in the zero-sum resource game. Why fight for oil when we can buy it? Why fight for oil when we can ignore it? Maybe we can rant and rave about Reagan’s military buildup or FDR’s Lend Lease or Lincoln’s stand for unity, or…
America is now buying Hybrid cars in large numbers that get 45 - 50 mpg. Without CAFE standards and big government interference. They are the hottest cars in the market. Love the technology. Please note the growth of Honda and Toyota - to the detriment of GM, Ford, Chrysler, MB, BMW and the rest who a few years ago kept making brilliant comments like 'we build the cars Americans want!!!' - as gas prices escalated.
The Europeans conserve gas by using diesel. Just went there last year. Most tool around in belching diesels, cars that get 8 mpg, or clapped out Fiats with fully formed carbon deposits falling out of their tailpipes. Smug in their smog cloud.
Mighty China is about 8 times less efficient than resource hungry America in its use of oil. And, they shut cities down because of their smug cloud.
So, I have to concur with Mr. Larsen. Capitalism is changing our consumption patterns – isn’t that what it is supposed to do. It is Europe and China and the other statist economies that are lagging – they are waiting for the government to invent something. Actually, they are waiting for the United States to invent a solution because their governments invent nothing.
And, joy of joy, imaging the love the Middle East toward America and the West when we bypass their little dumpy town as a result of paving some alternate fuel highway. Even higher levels of abject poverty will do wonders for their love of America.
Dont, stop!
Don't stop!
is succinct and pretty much the case.
Boghie is right--USA (capitalism) has doubled, in the last 20 years, the unit GDP/unit energy.
And I'm still waiting for Mr. Frith to tell me when in history his 'redundant capitalism' thesis could not have been asserted with equally valid supporting evidence.
Buddy Larsen said...
"Why have the British abandoned Basra to the Mahdi Army?"
I wonder why you ask the question in such an accusatory manner. Aren't they doing exactly what you've been wanting them to do?
Buddy Larsen said...
I must be missing something.
How can a person recommend a pull-out, then when they get the pullout, turn around and demand "why are you pulling out?"
One of the truly fascinating aspects of this form of communication is how flat it is. The brevity and tit-for-tat of comments transmit no tone, allowing commentators to project their own onto a post or comment. A simple question becomes an accusation, or even a demand. Truly, the elenchus continues to reveal so much.
Boghie said, And, joy of joy, imaging the love the Middle East toward America and the West when we bypass their little dumpy town as a result of paving some alternate fuel highway. Even higher levels of abject poverty will do wonders for their love of America.
I don't care how much or little they love us (same goes for the Germans, for that matter), the important thing is to drain the financial swamp of Jihad. And despite your list of the things capitalism is doing in the conservation world, as long as the Gulf sits on oil so plentiful and cherry that it's busting out of the ground, the market is going to favor that source.
Truly, the elenchus continues to reveal so much
My point, I think. I wish I knew what 'elenchus' means, but I agree that by our manner we reveal much (unless of course you meant what you said in the previous sentence, that the form reveals not too much but too little).
To All,
I don't know if this is a trusted site, but it does consolidate energy (and apparently other) statistics in very meaningful ways...
NationMaster - Oil Consumption.
One interesting factoid is just how dependent France is on Nukes. And, just how filthy French nukes are in comparison to American nukes.
France:
Nuclear Plants - 59
Nuclear Waste - 2.18
Uranium Required - 10,245
Uranium Required/1 million people - 168.903
United States:
Nuclear Plants - 104
Nuclear Waste - 1.67
Uranium Required - 21,741
Uranium Required/1 million people - 73.5154
The stats are very ratio dependent - and must be so. Thus, thay will require much more study to break down. For example, the Uranium Required stat (which I was going to use to prove a point) reflects the fact that America has four times the population of France but only twice the number of nukes.
Regardless, the waste statistic is a ratio of materials used to waste products generated. Interesting that we ghoulish Americans are significantly more efficient than the statist Frogs regarding generation of nuclear waste! How did that happen? Certainly the savvy Frog Inteligencia was summoned by the Frog Socialist Bureaucracy to forever study and improve and enlighten the sod farmers of the world (America in the lead) in the proper and efficient use of nuclear power!
Some great points, C4, but any vision of an Anglospheric bastion has to provide for the long-term (say, 20 yrs out) military implications of a hostile Eurasian continent running for 20 years on relatively cheap plentiful oil, vs an Anglospheric bastion 20 years hence running on scarce expensive oil.
This of course involves not only the military-industrial complexes, but the supporting 'quality-of-life' realities that have for centuries created the western technological edge.
It is difficult to break down the stats from the site I pointed to above. Here are some interesting facts on energy usage per person in a few countries:
United States – 8.35 TOE/person
Canada – 8.16 TOE/person
Australia – 5.71 TOE/person
France – 4.25 TOE/person
Germany – 4.13 TOE/person
Japan – 4.13 TOE/person
United Kingdom – 3.89 TOE/person
Many factors are reflected. How do you account for the actual transportation costs of moving stuff and people great distances and correlate that to smaller nations? Canada may have the same problems as the US or they may be just as rapacious as the US in energy consumption.
In the end, I would be very interested in energy conservation measures in Australia (another large country). Germany intrigues me at the margin. They are larger and more populace than France but use less energy. They are worth looking at.
Basically, in the end, Americans should look elsewhere for energy conservation techniques (and potentially technology) and the elsewhere should look to America for energy efficiency – at least the use of energy by corporate America.
How does this fit this posts topic…
I don’t know…
Maybe because the World would be a worse place without American dynamism, and the World would be a better place if America (and Canada) took a longer view and not wait till necessity forces mamma to invent, eh…
BTW, Teresita, we got into a bit of trouble by ignoring wide swaths of the world and her peoples. If we have no connection with a people that does not mean they have no hatred of us. Envy does wonderful things.
The Borg must assimilate…
Assimilate…
Mr. Frith, I don't mean to pester, but in your long post upthread, you repeatedly use the phrase "it stands to reason" this, and "it stands to reason" that.
That phrase is why I keep asking you for some of this 'reason'.
My point is only that socialism per se doen't appear to me to involve any 'reason' at all, but rather matters of taste, fashion, and emotion.
IOW, it is entirely possible to logically object to such things as American capitalism, or even democracy itself, on the basis of a feeling that mankind is really better off under the control of some self-selected elite.
But if such a feeling is apart from the historical body of evidence, can it really "stand to reason"?
It can, of course, only if that elite's 'feelings' are 'reason' enough.
But even that 'will-to-power' concept has so far failed in practice, as evidenced by the recent falls of nazism and communism as 'scientific' doctrines.
IOW, those casting America as old & reactionary are following Lenin's successful casting of fascism as Nazism. Communism had to hide its own fascism, just as America-haters have to hide their own distaste for the world's new, radical, revolutionary, bottom-up political system, AKA "America".
I have long wished that Ayn Rand was alive today, so that she could write the sequel, "Atlas Shrugged, Again". This time, it's the US that goes on strike. The economic, social and security havoc would make that of the original book look like Galt's Gulch.
The question thus arises what Larsen conceived to be the justification of the elenchus.
For what end was it worth while to be so destructive and insincere, and to incur so much enmity?
---worst dramatised by the loathing of the right for the left leaves no room for dialogue.---
You expect people to give your post weight while only observing loathing on one end of the political spectrum? You said a fair amount I could agree with, too bad you couldn't maintain your momentum.
"But even that 'will-to-power' concept has so far failed in practice, as evidenced by the recent falls of nazism and communism as 'scientific' doctrines. "
---
But it has yet to be determined if Algore's will to power will be be enabled by the 'scientific' doctrine of Global Warming.
"The assertion here made is that elenchus supplies the wonder.
Though the passage contains no such word as 'curiosity', we can say without fear of 'misinterpretation by abstraction' that Plato in writing the Meno believed that curiosity is essential to the acquisition of knowledge, and that elenchus is the way to arouse curiosity.
Slipped on the ice the other day. Strained hell out of my elenchus. Embarrassing but not too painful. Doc says no Socratic dialogues for two weeks.
Wow an avalanche. I guess I deserve it coming here, but you'll be pleased to know I can't stand liberal blogs...I'm enjoying your manners all of you. It's a difficult format to address all the points without missing the occasional reply so apologies for that.
Terisita; That's a predictable and jaded politically binary deconstruction of my politics. So allow me to add some colour for you please. I'd cut government (and particularly the bloated government of the U.S.) by 20 fold overnight. How liberal is that. I also grudgingly adore some incredible Jews for their intellect and talents. And yes the Iranian clerics are nuts. Why would you not give those religious zealots enough rope to hang themselves with? I'd humbly suggest that the vast majority of Iranians have a closer affinity to U.S. ideals than ANY other M.E. country. Once again reactionary political elements in both countries squeeze the peaceful in betweens. As for those 16 year old Palestinians, why do they choose to blow themselves up with bombs against a nuclear power?
Doug: Thank you ;) I did try to weave some power play into the allusion.
oseaghdha - Interesting philosophical take. Money is not the driver for Islam. Econometric driven life values are not the raison d'etre for life actually. U.S. citizens often don't grasp non material values. Which is why they are now sacrificing freedom.
Which is ironic isn't it Cedarford? I'll read up on what you have recommended but there's a simple one called 'Do unto others...' I defer to your considerable knowledge though.
Mr Larsen, are you asking me to prove a negative? :) It seems reasonable to me that energy created the wealth and the energy addiction is the source of these problems.. Unless economic growth as the purpose is demoted, it's reasonable to assume that we're all in for some 'years of upheaval'. I realise that is heresy for you all.
Reocon, agreed about the dialogue restrictions (I'm exhausted) any ideas for discussing this in another media format?
..phew... tiring but not enough to send me to 'liberal' blogs.
Wow an avalanche. I guess I deserve it coming here, but you'll be pleased to know I can't stand liberal blogs...I'm enjoying your manners all of you. It's a difficult format to address all the points without missing the occasional reply so apologies for that.
Terisita; That's a predictable and jaded politically binary deconstruction of my politics. So allow me to add some colour for you please. I'd cut government (and particularly the bloated government of the U.S.) by 20 fold overnight. How liberal is that. I also grudgingly adore some incredible Jews for their intellect and talents. And yes the Iranian clerics are nuts. Why would you not give those religious zealots enough rope to hang themselves with? I'd humbly suggest that the vast majority of Iranians have a closer affinity to U.S. ideals than ANY other M.E. country. Once again reactionary political elements in both countries squeeze the peaceful in betweens. As for those 16 year old Palestinians, why do they choose to blow themselves up with bombs against a nuclear power?
Doug: Thank you ;) I did try to weave some power play into the allusion.
oseaghdha - Interesting philosophical take. Money is not the driver for Islam. Econometric driven life values are not the raison d'etre for life actually. U.S. citizens often don't grasp non material values. Which is why they are now sacrificing freedom.
Which is ironic isn't it Cedarford? I'll read up on what you have recommended but there's a simple one called 'Do unto others...' I defer to your considerable knowledge though.
Mr Larsen, are you asking me to prove a negative? :) It seems reasonable to me that energy created the wealth and the energy addiction is the source of these problems.. Unless economic growth as the purpose is demoted, it's reasonable to assume that we're all in for some 'years of upheaval'. I realise that is heresy for you all.
Reocon, agreed about the dialogue restrictions (I'm exhausted) any ideas for discussing this in another media format?
..phew... tiring but not enough to send me to 'liberal' blogs.
Elenchus: (noun) An argument which contradicts another argument by proving the contrary to its conclusion.
OK, having looked it up, I agree, it's a good word. Let me see if i can 'splain why i attempted such a thing, if that's what i did:
Reocon has been long-time steadily anti-OIF, by my reading of his distinctive postings. So when he gets what he has been after, that is, some degree of withdrawal, then what is the reasoning behind immediately pointing to a perverse consequence, that is, area control by mahdi army, of that thitherto serendipitous (one would surmise) event?
If the post hadn't been so reminiscent of the recent Democratic party cry of 'More Troops' having turned on Nov 07 to 'No More Troops', then I wouldn't've have remarked upon it at all.
*******
"What would you like for elenchus, sir?"
"Oh, ham on wry, of course".
After nearly a century, Israel’s first kibbutz calls time on communism
When Eliezer Gal arrived at Israel’s first kibbutz he had already served in the Red Army as a platoon tank commander at the siege of Leningrad, escaped to West Berlin after being marked down by Stalin for the labour camps and been turned away by the British when he arrived in Palestine aboard the Jewish refugee ship Exodus.
Mr Gal took a lowly job in the cow shed for 18 years and married Michal, a daughter of the kibbutz’s founders, raising his family in the pastoral version of Zionist communism.
Now, aged 82, he is living one final adventure, which he and the other members of Degania call Shinui (The Change). The kibbutz has just voted to privatise itself and assume the trappings of capitalism.
His verdict? “It’s a lot more comfortable. We get a lot more independence, both economically and generally.
“I have seen the other world, I was born in a different world. When I came here it was the real, pure communism. But I knew then that it couldn’t survive forever because people abused it.
“I’m only surprised that it survived for so long. I came from the Great Mother of Communism and she only lasted 70 years. We made it to nearly a hundred.”
Mr. Firth, re It seems reasonable to me that energy created the wealth and the energy addiction is the source of these problems.. Unless economic growth as the purpose is demoted, it's reasonable to assume that we're all in for some 'years of upheaval'. I realise that is heresy for you all
Please, a few sentences on an alternative. Provide, in that alternative, for the global poor, only now emerging--on the back of global economic growth--from the shadow of famine & pestilence.
Mexico drills in the Gulf, as does Venezuela, and China will.
The left, defending gaia against global warming, insists that we NOT drill, while at the same time chanting,
"No War for Oil"
...but, doug, it's such a neat slogan--short, pithy, easy to spell. doesn't seem fair that it should also be required to make sense.
Doug, Buddy,
Let's declare war on Mexico and shore up the stability of our tortilla supply.
No war for carne adovada!
— Actress Sigourney Weaver left school in 1967 and went to work on a kibbutz: “I dreamt we’d all be working out in the fields like pioneers, singing away. Not at all. We were stuck in the kitchen. I operated a potato-peeling machine.”
— Comedian Jerry Seinfeld volunteered during the summer of 1971: "I didn't like the kibbutz. Nice Jewish boys from Long Island don't like to get up at six in the morning to pick bananas."
— Actor Bob Hoskins stayed in one during the 1967 Six-Day War: "I was very good at ploughing. I loved it — and the birds were amazing. I was happy being a kibbutznik but they said to me ‘You gotta join the army’ and I said ‘But I’m not Jewish’, and they said ‘It don’t matter’, so I left.”
— Duran Duran singer Simon le Bon wrote the song Tel Aviv about his time in Israel. The bed he slept in for three months in 1979 at Kibbutz Gvulot was later turned into a shrine. “My time here was . . . the first time I had lived away from my parents. So I have an affection for the country,” he said.
Intriguing idea--WalMart is already going great guns down there, the areas they've opened up are suddenly finding all local prices stabilizing.
Mortgage rates in the last 5 years have dropped from mid 20s to 7% and a nice new metro/suburban 3/2 1500 sq ft single-fam on a quarter acre can be had for $25K.
Lets think big, let's make 'em the 51st state, maybe it'd soft-land our housing bubble --?
Investing in Costa Rica
Real Estate Trends, Investments and articles of economic and cultural interest for the up and coming Costa Rican Real Estate Market.
Posted by 2164th at 7:42 AM
1 comments:
desert rat said...
What kinds of tariffs or fees on imported used equipment, boats, trucks, generators etc.
Business start ups, tent manufacturing, for instance, how much permiting and hassle is there to opening?
one less bandito in Costa Rico
Thoroughly Modern Mom:
"Ligia Herrera Mendez, the mother of the dead assailant, claimed the tourists of took the law into their own hands.
"We want justice, this can't go unpunished, because they could have saved him," she said in an interview in Limon. "If this had happened in the United States, the suspect would have been detained and wouldn't have left the country"
Aren't the Brits pulling out of Basra so they can go to Afghanistan and kill Taliban ... since no one else in NATO has a bullet (or the guts) to do so?
Cheney is in Australia asking Howard for more soldiers, and the Aussie's are all boo'ing and hissing, too -- and that's alright because they've done their share.
But really, we do need to be killing Taliban, especially now that Musharref is signing treaties with them , allowing them to continue to grow and take over.
If Iraq isn't mature enough yet to stand on their own two feet, maybe it's time they started learning.
Hey, they've only been building the relocated Taliban Training Camps for 4 years, or so, and they aren't in Afghanistan, at least.
Clinton was such an irresponsible Jerk for leaving them there, but these are different.
...and let's be sure not to disturb any Taliban Funeral Shindigs, no matter where they are.
C4, thanks for the detailed futurist riposte, much of which in a static world might under certain conditions come true.
You're right USA is in a tough place re labor costs, it's imperative that we continue to employ capital efficiently, or we will indeed fall back into economic ordinariness.
Re energy costs, you're right about western hemisphere fossil fuel deposits, but my point was to the relative costs per unit. All of our alternatives, from shale to tar sands to biomass, have to be produced per barrel in a sort of manufacturing process with costs input along the line. An enemy able to siphon from the ground into a tanker, virtually for free (after the paltry initial drilling cost), would have a tremendous advantage regardless of how much fuel we are able to manufacture. This contango mkt in a diminishing irreplaceable is why it's imperative, if the world is to avoid the conditions of another WWII-sized war, that we maintain a global open auction market to allocate the resource. In the meantime we of course need to shift toward the alternatives--as we are doing now, as, if you follow the mkts, you know.
Re relocating Israel, 200 or so IDF nukes say she ain't goin anywhere in any world recognizable enough to conform to the balance of your vision, so that's all pretty much moot.
re: power of the Jews
We are the Hebes
The mighty, mighty Hebes
Push the goyim
Push the goyim
Way back
LOL--Hebrew High School fight song, haven't heard it since summer of '67--
If oil is contango, is Yankee-centric geopolitical optimism backwardated?
Intro: This is a song, that uh, theres alot of Xmas songs out there, but not too many about Hanukkah, so I wrote a song for all those nice little Jewish kids who dont get to hear any Hanukkah songs--here we go...
Put on your yalmulka,
here comes Hanukkah
Its so much fun-akkah to celebrate Hanukkah,
Hanukkah is the Festival of Lights,
Instead of one day of presents, we have eight crazy nights.
When you feel like the only kid in town without a Xmas tree,
Heres a list of people who are Jewish, just like you and me:
David Lee Roth lights the menorrah,
So do James Caan, Kirk Douglas, and the late Dinah Shore-ah
Guess who eats together at the Karnickey Deli,
Bowzer from Sha-na-na, and Arthur Fonzerrelli.
Paul Newmans half Jewish; Goldie Hawns half too,
Put them together--what a fine lookin Jew!
You dont need Deck the Halls or Jingle Bell Rock
Cause you can spin the dreidl with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock--both Jewish!
Put on your yalmulka,
its time for Hanukkah,
The owner of the Seattle Supersonic-ahs
celebrates Hanukkah.
O.J. Simpson--not a Jew!
But guess who is...
Hall of Famer--Rod Carew--
(he converted!)
We got Ann Landers and her sister Dear Abby,
Harrison Fords a quarter Jewish--not too shabby!
Some people think that Ebeneezer Scrooge is,
Well, hes not, but guess who is: All three stooges.
So many Jews are in show biz--
Tom Cruise isn¹t, but I heard his agent is.
Tell your friend Veronica,
its time you celebrate Hanukkah
I hope I get a harmonica,
on this lovely, lovely Hanukkah.
So drink your gin-and-tonic-ah, and smoke your marajuanic-ah,
If you really, really wanna-kah, Have a happy, happy, happy, happy Hanukkah.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGI9KP3Ki6g
Good jingle, but you forgot Albright and Wes Clark. Accidently on purpose?
If the kid was here he could link the dreidl song at Southpark.
Ah well.
Perhaps Aristides will stop by, link it, and explain how it fits into the master plan which is rapidly approaching it's deadline.
Was Albright in that Centerfold of the Jewish Princesses of Belgrade?
...or am I confusing that with when the Female World Weightlifting Championships were held there?
"Doggie do would cover the Earth".
Highly radioactive, preferably.
People get ready for the trains a com'n...the world sans the USA, hey we're almost there, and I'd like to be the first to give the finger to all those shit countries that fucked off while the US did all the heavy lifting for the last fifty years plus. Here's a little Sam Nunn and then some more Sam Nunn with friends, like Warren Buffett and Ted Turner.
"America was lucky to survive the cold war, Nunn told an audience in Washington last month. “I don’t believe if you get another 7, 8, 10 countries with a nuclear weapon that you’re going to be so lucky.”
Now included in Sam Nunn's corner is Warren Buffett and Ted Turner who had this to say.
"And then I saw a report on “60 Minutes” about lax security in the former Soviet Union. There were 20,000 warheads and stockpiles of uranium and plutonium capable of making another 40,000 or more warheads scattered across 11 time zones, whose safety too often depended on lackadaisical guards, shabby locks and defective security cameras. There was another related problem: large quantities of uranium that could be used to make bombs were being stored at some 130 civilian nuclear reactors around the world, often under even more slipshod security. A small group of terrorists might break into such a facility and if they had basic engineering and chemistry skills could probably forge a crude nuclear bomb out of a grapefruit-size 30-pound lump of highly enriched uranium (to say nothing of a much simpler radioactive “dirty” bomb).
They got busy and formed the Nuclear Threat initiative NTI
Those of you who write very eloquently about what it will be like might want to start learning some survival skills. 500,000 illegals a year across our borders means a 100% chance there's dirty bomb material here now.
Fish and Sausage Trader ,side order of enriched uranium..Nunn’s Nightmares
"Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency revealed that officials in the former Soviet republic of Georgia had arrested Khinsagov, a 50-year-old Russian fish and sausage trader, for attempting to sell 100 grams of highly enriched uranium to a Muslim buyer who, Khinsagov had been told, represented “a serious organization.” The price: $1 million. Khinsagov, who was caught in a sting operation, had nowhere near enough material for a bomb, but he claimed to have far more at his apartment. (Whether he actually did is unclear.) An American laboratory analysis indicates that the material most likely originated at a Russian nuclear facility."
So it looks very much like the world is going to get a big dish of a diminished United States. It hungers for it now if one believes the world press. Wait until DC,Wall Street,LA, and a host of other cities are hit with the "Tet" that is coming. So don't wait, join me now in raising that middle digit to all those friends and allies who are now "safe" at home.
Men speak of peace but there is no peace.
We are now back at Trinity site and the words from the Bhagavad Gita spoken by J.Robert Oppenheimer Bhagavad Gita
"If the radiance of a thousand suns were to
burst forth at once in the sky, that would
be like the splendor of the Mighty One."
"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
The words of Vishnu come to us as the clocks ticks toward the radiance of a thousand suns.
The point to be made, and made with no levity, is that "they" are coming after us with every resource "they" can muster.
Each of you are bright enough to fill in your own "they".
My favorite since 11/4/1979 is Iran. But others might favor Arabs as opposed to Persians. It is Islam, just as it has been since Mohammad decided the scimitar was the arbiter of a great religion.
Next year the favorite "they" might be Hugo and his purchase from a blackmarket dealer in fissile material and from the N.Koreans,Chinese,Iranians or other a rocket capable of reaching Dallas or DC....
An estimated 1.2 million illegal immigrants were arrested in 2005 trying to cross into the US via the border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
Later on Friday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is meeting her Canadian and Mexican counterparts - Peter Mackay and Patricia Espinosa - in Ottawa.
They are to discuss concerns that security measures put in place after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US may hamper trade between the three countries.
---
Well then, let the Bush Admin ignore them just as it does immigration laws, Mosques of hate, DC and NYC Traitors, and their oaths of office.
Al Qaeda Resurgent
Interesting thoughts above.
"A World Without America..."
“The world of Islam has been mobilized against America for the past 25 years. The peoples call, "death to America." Who used to say "death to America?" Who, besides the Islamic Republic and the Iranian people, used to say this? Today, everyone says this.”
- Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, June 24, 2004
“Such people are using words like ‘it's not possible'. They say how could we have a world without America and Zionism? But you know well that this slogan and goal can be achieved and can definitely be realized.”
- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, October 26, 2005
...Socialism is based on collectivism. Collectivism denies individualism. And anyone who denies individualism denies western civilization
...In an insightful essay exploring the alliance between the left and Islamic jihad, the socialist author Paul Berman suggests in Sayyid Qutb's writings about 'social justice' he was inspired by the 'universal declaration of human rights. Qutb did not incorporate the Marxist view of class conflict into his doctrines. However, a decade later Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini took this step of transforming Shia islam into a revolutionary force.
...Khomeini introduced into radical Islamic thought the Marxist concept of a world separated into oppressors and oppressed.
The goals of radical jihad are purification and social justice, both of which are to be achieved through the institution of Islamic law.
As long as America and capitalism continue to protect what the left and Islam regard as the global order of social injustice, all reforms and social advances within the existing structures of American democracy are illusory.
...There is the beginning of a permanent global war to cement the domination of the U.S. Government and its allies...Islam is being demonized, while racism and xenopobia are deliberately propagated...Opposition to the war is at the heart of our movement
- Social Movements Manifesto, World Social Forum, 2000
“The torment of the Iraqis, of the Palestinians, and even of the Americans are the direct outcome of liberal Western democracy, and this must serve as an important lesson to the rest of the world, [which must] open its eyes and understand that those who call themselves advocates of human rights and democracy are in fact the main supporters of crimes against humanity.”
- Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, May 20, 2004
Mr. Larsen, I'm only responding in a linear fashion to your comments. I'm guessing the 'don't stop' penny has by now dropped.
P'Tater-Uhm, hate to rain on your parade, but I am pretty sure you're overestimating the level of support for what you suggest might happen.
The US citizen of today is very, very different from the US citizen of fifty years back. Back then we had rugged tough guys as role models. Now we have metrosexuals.
The level of comfort fostered by the technologies and amenities of the 21st century have sapped the moral and mental fortitude of entire peoples. Those with fire in their bellies are few now, in all developed countries. It's sad but true.
How to change all that? Damn if I know.
mimidae wrote Good jingle, but you forgot Albright and Wes Clark. Accidently on purpose?
"If you try that road you'll find it scary, Senator Macaca and John Kerry!"
"How to change all that? Damn if I know."
The following would result in your paradigm shift:
1) A single WMD attack in the U.S.
2) Suicide bombings in the U.S.
3) IEDs in the U.S.
'The point to be made, and made with no levity, is that "they" are coming after us with every resource "they" can muster.'
Currently, "we", as Wobbly Guy notes, remain in our level of comfort; at least a large enough percentage to render us barely more than inert. "They" are counting on this. It's the old "how do you boil a frog" puzzle. What a large portion of "we" do not understand is that "we" are the frog. The reason: the level of comfort and the failure of a large part of "we" to understand that when "they" take over the level of comfort disappears; look around the World, everywhere "they" are in control, only the "few" are comfortable (NK being the most obvious example; France is not much different), which is pretty odd since "they" preach "they" are for the "common good", which "they" have yet to deliver anywhere...and Heaven help you for noting "their" failures(s), which, in the case of the jihadis and the Marxists, "we" do just by virtue of "our" existence. "They" must remove us ("we") from the face of the Earth. The problem is that "they" will remove the level of comfort the large portion of "we" sleep (Yamamoto allusion intentional) in and there will be Hell to pay.
Yamamoto worried about a terrible resolve and bin Hidin' and the genocidal-maniac Egyptian dwarf M.D. are correct in their estimation that the large portion of "we" could never get close to a terrible resolve as a result of a spiritual/emotional flabbiness borne of the level of comfort over here in "we"-ville. The mistake of bin Hidin' and the genocidal doctor and the rest of "they" is that "they" have no clue as to what replaces the lost "terrible resolve". "They" are betting a vacuum is created into which conversion or dhimmitude (whether to Islam or Marx; that question is not yet answered) will flow.
What "we" (the resolved part;we are small in number, but sufficient given our edge in tech) know is that "we" (the large part) are awfully immature and very unstable and if you confront them with a stark choice between iPod-life or conversion/dhimmitude a.) they'll fight for iPod-life; which means b.) they'll get out of the way of those of us "we" with the resolve already in place; and (worst of all for "they") they (as in the large portion of "we") will learn the terrible resolve and what to do with it.
w..."Khomeini introduced into radical Islamic thought the Marxist concept of a world separated into ...
oppressors and oppressed."
2/25/07
al-Sadr: Baghdad security plan is doomed
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer
The leader of Iraq's biggest Shiite militia complained Sunday that bombs "continue to explode" in Baghdad and that U.S.-led security crackdown is doomed to fail, issuing a statement the same day a suicide attacker struck outside a college campus, killing at least 41 people.
"I'm certain, just like all ...
oppressed
Iraqis are certain, that no security plan will work and no good will come of any occupier," al-Sadr said in the statement.
Allow me to second habu re 3case's clear and creatively-put analysis.
One small quibble, in the phrase characterizing us (we the iPod ummah) as "barely more than inert", would it not be more efficient to say "barely ert"?
Please allow me to third the bare 'ertness' of relevant right commentation.
3Case: While I don’t disagree with your analysis – indeed, this war is unique in that there are so many people trying to ensure that we don’t “wake up” – the oft-cited Adm Yamamoto quote about “waking a sleeping giant” is in reality entirely bogus. That quote was a complete fabrication created for the film “Tora Tora Tora” for the purpose of making the movie’s end less of a downer for US audiences.
I understand that Adm Yamamoto in reality said “For the first 18 months I will run wild but if the war continues longer than that I have grave reservations about our ability to prevail.” Almost exactly 18 months after Pearl Harbor the admiral was killed by USAAF P-38’s.
Two great links on that incredible mission:
link
link
eltadogTo me, the most astonishing aspect of the mission to shoot down Adm Yamamoto was that they actually consulted US military lawyers prior to launching the attack to confirm that the Admiral was a legitimate military target.
Very few people indeed realize that the wounding of Gen Erwin Rommel by fighter aircraft in 1944 was also a Yamamoto style of assassination attack. I don't know why that story has never come out, but perhaps one day it will. It is every bit as incredible as the one that took out the Admiral, if not more so - it just was not successful. He was on the ground, in a vehicle, rather than in the air, and that made it much harder to ensure that he was killed.
Buddy,
Thanks for the links. It was an incredible intercept and shoot down.
I always thought that P-38 was one of the niftiest aircraft we flew. I think Howard Huhes had a hand in it's development but I'm not gonna look it up.
I always felt some compassion (not one of my stronger emotions) for Yamamoto. He tried very hard to keep Japan from attacking the US. Tojo was the big bully, and got his wish, proving that one must always be careful what they wish for.
Charles Frith said...
It stands to reason that in a world of finite resources that the notion of capitalism is redundant in it's present form.
////////////
Resources are infinite. There are changes coming that are almost as big as the first industrial revolution when things like trains replaced canals and stagecoaches-- which technology had been around for 1000s of years.
Scientific revolutions tend to coincide with religious reformations. In the last 500 years there have two instances where these coincided. imho we are in the beginningsof a third.
The glory days of atheism from the fall of the bastile to the fall of the berlin wall--are over.
The best reformed (christianity) work being done in Germany right now -- as far as I know --is the Berlinprojekt
...but capitalism is religion Charles, at least to some -
"Democracy is the religion of the dollar and serves its global interests. This dollar has a spirited life - it is dear, honorable, and loveable. It gets vexed real quickly, get it? Dollar has a religion. The religion of the dollar is democracy. This applies to the entire world, because the dollar cannot thrive in dictatorial countries, but only in democracies. For the sake of their global economy, [the Americans] establish democracy."
Elijah said...
...but capitalism is religion Charles, at least to some -
"Democracy is the religion of the dollar and serves its global interests. This dollar has a spirited life - it is dear, honorable, and loveable. It gets vexed real quickly, get it? Dollar has a religion. The religion of the dollar is democracy. This applies to the entire world, because the dollar cannot thrive in dictatorial countries, but only in democracies. For the sake of their global economy, [the Americans] establish democracy."
///////////
An early (circa 1830's) famous observer of the USA was a frenchman by the name of de touqueville. He wondered where the power of the usa originated from. He went through a list of particulars including money but rejected them all. He concluded that the power of the USA came from american churches.
Now if you were to say that the interests of the American super rich coincided with the interests of European super rich-- I would agree. I would also add that the interests of the US super rich do not coincide with the interests of the US middle class--to the detriment of the USA. the middle class in europe--as far as I know--does not have a voice.
dxhYours is one view.
For another, Maximilian Carl Emil Weber - the Weber thesis
...In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber puts forward the thesis that Puritan ethics and ideas had influenced the development of capitalism. However, religious devotion was usually accompanied by rejection of worldly affairs, including the pursuit of wealth and possessions. Why was that not the case with Protestantism? Weber addresses this apparent paradox in the book.
He defines spirit of capitalism as the ideas and habits that favour the rational pursuit of economic gain. Weber points out that such a spirit is not limited to Western culture if one considers it as the attitude of individuals, but that such individuals — heroic entrepreneurs, as he calls them — could not by themselves establish a new economic order (capitalism). The most common tendencies were the greed for profit with minimum effort and the idea that work was a curse and burden to be avoided especially when it exceeded what was enough for modest life. As he wrote in his essays:
In order that a manner of life well adapted to the peculiarities of the capitalism… could come to dominate others, it had to originate somewhere, and not in isolated individuals alone, but as a way of life common to the whole groups of man.
After defining the 'spirit of capitalism', Weber argues that there are many reasons to find its origins in the religious ideas of the Reformation. Many observers like William Petty, Montesquieu, Henry Thomas Buckle, John Keats, and others have commented on the affinity between Protestantism and the development of commercialism.
The following would result in your paradigm shift:
3) IEDs in the U.S.
2/25/2007 06:38:00 AM
White House drill tests response to IED attack
February 25, 2007
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dozens of high-level officials joined in a White House drill yesterday to see how the government would respond if several cities were attacked simultaneously by the type of roadside bombs used against American troops in Iraq.
White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend presided over the three-hour exercise that brought the government's highest-level homeland security officials to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House. All Cabinet agencies were represented by their secretaries or other high-ranking officials, with about 90 participants, said Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman.
Thank you, all.
Thank you for the Yamamoto correction, rwe. It is amazing how many seek to prolong the "sleep"; upon what motivation?
BL, would have been more economical, but 'twould not have achieved the image I sought.
Elijah said...
dxhYours is one view.
For another, Maximilian Carl Emil Weber - the Weber thesis
////////////
It doesn't sound like you have a voice.
The problem with weber is the problem of socialogy and all soft sciences:political science, psyschology socialogy. Like astrology they are not real science. (I was a political science major myself. It took me almost two decades to get that language out of my head.)
I will generally tell secular humanist high school students planning to attend college that college at its best is designed to teach them how to think and write. (And if they're ambitious they learn how to speak)
If they want to learn to write they should take english or history. Or if your native tounge is something different then learn the literature and history of that language--as a way to master writing in that language.
If you want to learn to think --take a hard science.
Avoid the soft sciences as an undergraduate.
If you have any love for history, study the difference between the french revolution and the american revolution. they are very different animals.
Not just the english puritans were calvinists. the dutch reformed the german reformed , the scottish presbyterian and the french huegonaut churches in the USA were were calvinist. The largest of the european migrations to the USA in the 1700s were the Germans.
There are health and wealth churches around but they are not considered to be scriptural.
The last I heard there are something like 100 churches up for sale in Berlin. Christians represent a tiny minority in Europe today. The poor french don't understand that their atheism leaves them spiritually defenseless against the moslems. they have no invisible means of support.
3case-Awesome reply.
Charles-Not everybody has the time and aptitude to study hard science, and those that do, could hardly care less about the events unfolding around us.
I was an oddity, and still am. Hon in chemistry, along with a major in english. Most people who know of my peculiar views say I'm nuts.
Anyway, if Christianity regains its prominence, as an atheist I'll be a tad disappointed, but it's also by far and away the best other option available. I wish people could live good and proper lives without the carrot of an afterlife and/or the stick an angry God to keep them on the straight and narrow, but it's just human nature.
The French abandoned one religion and failed to replace it with a more fundamental truth, leaving themselves morally bankrupt and vulnerable. Too bad.
Capitalism is religion?
Bereft of spirituality I'd offer.
3Case:
In your portrayal of "they," you included bin-hidin and pygmy-Z.
Here is an update on the other big "they," The Mysterious Mullah Omar
---
More Taliban blood will be spilled, I just wish massive quantities of it and that of their supporters would be spilled quick-like on the Paki side of the border, care of truth, justice, and the American Way as delivered by the USAF.
Contented Frogs, indeed.
RWE,
We became good friends with a guy that built the sets for Tora Tora.
Had a neat place about a thousand feet above Hearst Castle. Great place for parties.
Built some nice houses in Cambria, others w/us in the area.
You had your scorched ert, and you got your barely ert.
I can bearly stand it.
We be prisoners, our fates mired in ert.
Doug,
Thank you for the one-eyed mullah update...looks like he needs punishing again (to borrow and bend RE Tyrell's 2002 metaphor).
A bit of pygmy-Z the genocidal doctor's resume online today.
Gotta be a helluva view 1000 feet above Hearst Castle!
Charles Frith said...
Capitalism is religion?
Bereft of spirituality I'd offer.
/////////////
This is reasoning by those who believe that the way to prosperity is by more taxes and regulations that especially benefit a nomenclatura.
capitalism is not a religion.
As for the virtue of EU taxes & regulation...consider the results of the great green EU project.
U.N. data show U.S. greener than EU
Charles is right. Nothing in capitalism requires faith-based reasoning.
In fact, there is no language more truthful than arithmetic--numbers 'are' truth. As Pope JPII himself replied to so-called the leftist liberation theology (such as now led by Hugo Chavez), capitalism is the best system for helping the poor.
IOW, it "delivers the goods", so that a body can dwell on something (perhaps his spiritual self?) other than how to feed his family and protect it from the diktat of those seeking to 'organize' his despair.
As a matter of fact, "it stands to reason" that for anti-capitalism to enable itself to ignore such fundamental aspects of human nature as material necessity and desire to be free of oppression, it (anti-capitalism) itself painfully obviously requires a faith that qualifies as a religion.
Hence, if either of the two great theories of economic man is a religion, then it would have to be the collectivism, rather than the individualism.
That is what "stands to reason".
18 WAYS TO BE A GOOD LIBERAL
1.You have to be against capital punishment, but support abortion on demand.
2. You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.
3. You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are more of a threat than U.S. nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Iran or Chinese and North Korean communists.
4. You have to believe that there was no art before federal funding.
5. You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical changes in the earth’s climate and more affected by soccer moms driving SUVs.
6. You have to believe that gender roles are artificial, but being homosexual is natural.
7. You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.
8. You have to believe that the same teacher who can’t teach 4th-graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about sex.
9. You have to believe that hunters don’t care about nature, but PETA activists do.
10. You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.
11. You have to believe that Mel Gibson spent $25 million of his own money to make "The Passion of the Christ" for financial gain only.
12. You have to believe the NRA is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.
13. You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high.
14. You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, Gen. Robert E. Lee, and Thomas Edison.
15. You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides are not.
16. You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn’t worked anywhere it’s been tried, is because the right people haven’t been in charge.
17. You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying drag queens and transvestites should be constitutionally protected, but manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.
18. You have to believe that this message is a part of a vast, right-wing conspiracy.
klni19. You have to prefer slavery and genocide to the wars that are necessary to end them.
20. You have to believe that since you are of the 'party of government', that the government itself is your rightful property, and that any officeholders from the opposition party are ipso-facto illegitimate, fraudulent, and oppressive, and that given that, there is no moral or practical limit to your political or personal behavior toward them.
21. You have to believe your rights come from the government and not God. (however, this is not funny )
22.) You have to believe that money inherently belongs to government and that therefor government taxation is merely the government taking what is rightfully their's to begin with. (This is not funny either.)
23. You have to believe "the 16 words" in Bush's 2003 SOTU are the only reason we went to war in Iraq, which of course disbelieving everything that happened in the 1990's.
24. You have to be either very young, or very dumb, or adore licentiousness, or enjoy having your hand in other folks' pockets, or be rich enough to have no money worries at all, or just really dig that picture of Che.
25. You have to believe that Bill Clinton was telling the truth and that everyone else was lying and that Hillary knew nothing at all about all of this.
25A. Unless you are in Hollywood in which case you NOW can believe that everyone including Bill and Hillary were lying and that YOU knew nothing about all of this.
26. You have to believe that the mere existence of US military power leads to terrorism but that the failure to use US military power leads to massacres such as in Bosnia and Darfur.
27. You have to not read the recently released international court finding that there was no state-sponsored genocide in Bosnia, let alone in Kosovo five years later. Otherwise, Clinton would have to have "lied" about the non-Congressionally and non-UN approved war on Kosovo.
charles - I'm enjoying your contributions but to backtrack the berlin project is for me 21st century Sangha. Bringing the community back into the community so to speak. Interesting but not revolutionary.
As for the stats you provided. I find they focus on recent performance efficacy. I'd call that biased data presentation.
As for your twenty good liberal points. To draw a parallel between a human being making the decision for their own womb and a human being asking the state to make that same decision. I don't think you grasp the plight of women and your reductionist thinking is veneer deep on an important subject. Before you holler I'm anti death penalty. I'm fine with it. I just ask that the victims of the condemned crimes do the hanging themselves and not make the state do it. State authorised but do it your God dam self if it's so important. Again binary views are highly evident on this blog.
Anyway to get out of this assertion dialogue, what are the top 5 changes you'd like to see?
charles
I don't see how you can say technology will always find a solution. Isn't the nuclear club a problem?
"Binary thinking"
is up-stinking
this thread according to Frith.
I wish I knew
how to change my view
so I could be smarter
forthwith.
The morally relative so want to be brainful,
but history's no mystery,
and their results are quite painful.
So given all this, might thinking in binary,
be a well-chosen act of enlightened refinery?
Well, yes and no...
Mr. Larsen
Binary message for you.
01110011 01100101 01100101 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110111 00100000 01101101 01110101 01100011 01101000 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01101100 01100101 01111000 01101001 01110100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100010 01111001 00100000 01100101 01111000 01110100 01110010 01100001 01110000 01101111 01101100 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110011 01101001 01101101 01110000 01101100 01100101 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01110011
Binary is: "That would depend on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."
This comment has been removed by the author.
Well, I wrote it in binary but evidently have to separate the letters in order to post. So, simple English it is:
A binary view of the world
has blacks and whites
But today we process it
by bits and bytes.
Binary is: "That would or wouldn't depend on what the meaning of the word 'is' is or isn't."
A commenter named Frith
likes to promulgate myth
on the blog named "Belmont"
(where he writes it in "font"),
And when challenged relies on "the Fifth".
:-D
If only Frith were Firth,
then he'd promulgate mirth.
Buddy, to clarify then:
28. Binary is's: "That would depend on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."
Two is's.
Your "Is and Isn't" is the Bhuddist Law of the Excluded Middle.
Binary is's are the opposite of the Excluded Middle, cuz once you forget the meaning of is, you're out there riding the Heisenberg Uncertainty trip.
Like supernumerary liberals.
Exactly!
Oh, who am i kidding--i can't comprehend that, all i can do is wonder what if you were in high school and the Principal's name was Heisenberg?
Nah, I was just trying to be funny as you, Buddy.
Ps. Hey, did you notice we just deployed our first 12 F-22 Raptors - to Okinawa? Now, what would they be doing there? According to the MSM, they're good for nothing and don't even work. Of course, in combat exercises last month in Alaska, against F-15's and everything else, a couple of them won 80-0. Now what would they be doing in Okinawa? Who lives near there?
Hmmm...pretty good location for such a long-rangey little beast. Capabilities are incredible, wish we were building more of 'em. 80-0 is *astounding* against Eagles.
:-)
Whoops, I misremembered the details, here's how Aviation Week tells it:
The gun kill is a capability Air Force planners hope their F-22s won't use. The fighter is designed to destroy a foe well beyond his visual and radar range. Within visual-range combat and, in particular, gun kills are anachronisms. In amassing 144 kills to no losses during the first week of the joint-service Northern Edge exercise in Alaska last summer, only three air-to-air "kills" were in the visual arena--two involving AIM-9 Sidewinders and one the F-22's cannon.
...
During a typical day in the Alaska "war," 24 air-to-air fighters, including up to eight F-22s, defended their aerial assets and homeland for 2.5 hr. Air Force F-15s and F-16s and Marine F/A-18s simulated up to 40 MiG-29s, Su-22s, Su-24s, Su-27s and Su-30s (which regenerated into 103 enemy sorties in a single period). They carried AA-10s A to F, Archers, AA-12 Adders and the Chinese-built PL-12. These were supported by SA-6, SA-10 and SA-20 surface to air missiles and an EA-6B for jamming. Each day, the red air became stronger and carried more capability.
Raptor Scores in Alaskan Exercise
updtiThank for the topic tony
....In particular, the F-22 radars are designed to accept modifications that would focus their beams to produce HPM energy spikes powerful enough to disable cruise, anti-aircraft, air-to-air and emitter-seeking missiles. Germany's Diehl is developing suitcase-size HPM devices that could be placed surreptitiously in a target building to damage electronics such as computers.
...The fighter is designed to destroy a foe well beyond his visual and radar range. Within visual-range combat and, in particular, gun kills are anachronisms. In amassing 144 kills to no losses during the first week of the joint-service Northern Edge exercise in Alaska last summer, only three air-to-air "kills" were in the visual arena--two involving AIM-9 Sidewinders and one the F-22's cannon.
The 27th Fighter Sqdn. aircraft--on deployment from Langley AFB, Va.--didn't get to show off their J-Turn and Cobra maneuvers or their high-angle-of-attack, high-off-boresight (which actually will arrive with the AIM-9X) and unique nose-pointing capabilities. The reason, those involved say, was because the victims of the three encounters, flying conventional fighters, never had a clue they were being stalked by F-22s until they were "killed."
Raptor pilots agree that their preferred location for the fighter while in the battlespace is at high altitude, well above the other fighters, where they can adopt a fuel-efficient cruise, sweeping both the air and ground with radar and electronic surveillance for targets. From a superior altitude, the F-22 used sustained supercruise to range across hundreds of miles of airspace before an enemy fighter could threaten friendly high-value surveillance, command-and-control and tanker aircraft.
Perhaps the most important revelation by the 27th Fighter Sqdn. was demonstrating the F-22's ability to use its sensors to identify and target enemy aircraft for conventional fighters by providing information so they could engage the enemy sooner than they could on their own. Because of the advanced situational awareness they afford, F-22s would stick around after using up their weapons to continue providing targets and IDs to the conventional fighters.
"We always left F-22s on station to help, but we didn't designate any one aircraft to provide data," says Lt. Col. Wade Tolliver, the unit's commander. "It was critical that every F-22 out there provided all the data he had."
With its high-resolution radar, the F-22 can guarantee target altitudes to within a couple of hundred feet. Its ability to identify an aircraft is "sometimes many times quicker than the AWACS," he says. "It was a combination of high-resolution sensors and being closer to the targets."
The F-22's radar range is described only as being more than 100 mi. However, it's thought to be closer to 125-150 mi., which is much farther than the standard F-15's 56-mi. radar range. New, active electronically scanned radar technology--optimized for digital throughput--is expected to soon push next-generation radar ranges, in narrow beams, out to 250 mi. or more.
The ability to close on the enemy without being targeted also allowed the F-22s to operate in threat areas where conventional fighters could not survive. This enabled the Raptor to engage targets at a greater distance from the aircraft and homeland they were defending.
Raptor pilots had all the available data on the airspace fused and displayed on a single, easy-to-read screen.
"When I look down at my scope and put my cursor over a [friendly] F-15 or F/A-18, it tells me who they are locked on to," he says. For example, "I could help them out by saying, 'You're double-targeted and there's a group over here untargeted' . . . to make sure we got everybody." F-15 targets will be latent because of the radar sweep.
However, these messages are less and less verbal. "When you watch [tapes of the Alaska] exercise, it's fairly spooky," says Gen. Ronald Keys, chief of Air Combat Command. "There's hardly a word spoken among Raptor pilots." That silence also previews some of the fighter's possible future capabilities.
"Because of the way the aircraft was designed, we have the capability to do more," Keys says. "We can put unmanned combat aircraft systems in there with Raptor. You've got three fairly low-observable UCAS in the battlespace. An air defense system pops up, and I click on a UCAS icon and drag it over [the emitter's location] and click. The UCAS throttles over and jams it, blows it up or whatever."
In Alaska, because the F-22 remained far forward at high altitude, with an advanced radar it could monitor rescue missions that the AWACS 150 mi. away could not. "We could see the helicopters down in the valleys and protect them," Tolliver says.
In addition to AWACS, the F-22 also can feed data to the RC-135 Rivet Joint signals intelligence aircraft to improve situational awareness of the battlespace.
"If a Rivet Joint is trying to get triangulation [on a precise emitter location], he can get more [voice] information" from an F-22, Keys says. "If an AWACS sees a heavy group 40 mi. to the north, Raptor can come up and say it's two F-18s, two F-15s and four F-16s."
Moreover, Keys says, modifications are underway to transmit additional target parameters--such as sensitive, high-resolution infrared data--from the F-22 with a low-probability-of-intercept data link.
"Getting data into an F-22 is not hard," Keys says. "Getting it out [while staying low observable] is more difficult. We bought the links, but we just don't have them on yet."
The F-22's advanced electronic surveillance sensors also provided additional awareness of ground activity.
"I could talk to an EA-6B Prowler electronic attack crew and tell them where a surface-to-air missile site was active so they would immediately know where to point their electronic warfare sensors," Tolliver says. "That decreased their targeting time line considerably."
In addition, the F-22 can use its electronic surveillance capabilities to conduct precision bombing strikes on emitters--a capability called destruction of enemy air defenses.
"And future editions of the F-22 are predicted to have to have their own electronic attack capability so that we'll be able to suppress or nonkinetically kill a site like that," he says.
The F-22's advanced electronic surveillance sensors also provided additional awareness of ground activity.
"I could talk to an EA-6B Prowler electronic attack crew and tell them where a surface-to-air missile site was active so they would immediately know where to point their electronic warfare sensors," Tolliver says. "That decreased their targeting time line considerably."
In addition, the F-22 can use its electronic surveillance capabilities to conduct precision bombing strikes on emitters--a capability called destruction of enemy air defenses.
"And future editions of the F-22 are predicted to have to have their own electronic attack capability so that we'll be able to suppress or nonkinetically kill a site like that," he says.
The F-22's operating altitude and additional speed during the Alaska exercise also garnered praise.
"We stayed high because it gives us an extra kinetic advantage with shooting, speed and fuel consumption," Tolliver says. "The Raptor typically flies way higher than everybody else and it handles like a dream at those altitudes." Tolliver wouldn't confirm the operating altitude, but Pentagon officials have put it at 65,000 ft., which is at least 15,000 ft. higher than the other fighters.
"There were times we went lower, maybe to visually identify a threat or if we were out of Amraams and there was a bandit sneaking in at low altitude," he says. "The Raptor would roll in and kill him with a heat-seeking missile."
The lopsided combat ratio resulted because, "they never saw us," Tolliver says. "We got there without being detected, and we killed them rapidly. We didn't do any major turning. It's not that the J-Turn maneuver isn't fun, but we didn't get a chance to use it."
The F-22's Mach 1.5 supercruise capability also got a workout in Alaska. Because only eight F-22s were ever airborne at once during the exercise, four of them were constantly involved in refueling from tankers flying orbits 150 mi. away. Supercruise got the fighters there and back quickly. On station, the fighter would conserve fuel by cruising at high altitude.
"We also used supercruise quite a bit because the fight was on such a large scale," Tolliver says. "The airspace was roughly 120 mi. by 140 mi. We could sit up at high altitude and save our gas and watch. We don't hang out at Mach 1.5. With our acceleration, when we saw the threats building, because we could see them so far out, we'd dump the nose over, light the burners and we were right up to fighting speed."
During a typical day in the Alaska "war," 24 air-to-air fighters, including up to eight F-22s, defended their aerial assets and homeland for 2.5 hr. Air Force F-15s and F-16s and Marine F/A-18s simulated up to 40 MiG-29s, Su-22s, Su-24s, Su-27s and Su-30s (which regenerated into 103 enemy sorties in a single period). They carried AA-10s A to F, Archers, AA-12 Adders and the Chinese-built PL-12. These were supported by SA-6, SA-10 and SA-20 surface to air missiles and an EA-6B for jamming. Each day, the red air became stronger and carried more capability.
As a result of all the emitters in the battlespace, the F-22's ability to map the electronic order of battle (EOB)--what's emitting and from where--proved critical.
"I love intel, but it's only as good as the last time [analysts] got a data update, which could have been hours or even a day earlier," Tolliver says. An F-22 "gets rid of the time delay. I can plot an EOB in real time. I'm not saying we're better than a Rivet Joint, but I can go places that it can't. If he's 150 mi. away, he's probably not going to be able to plot a high-fidelity threat location as quickly as I can."
The adversaries were wily and didn't want to lose.
"We had guys running in at 500 ft. off the deck," Tolliver says. "We had guys flying in at 45,000-50,000 ft. doing Mach 1.6, trying to shoot me before I know they are there. They would mass their forces and try to win with sheer numbers. None of it worked."
A tactic used by the F-22s was actually developed and practiced in smaller scale at Langley before the exercise. Raptors worked in pairs, integrated with F-15Cs or F/A-18E/Fs.
"I could help target for them from behind and above," Tolliver says. "We really don't have a name for what we were doing other than integrated ops. I was able to look down and smartly target F-15s or F/A-18s to groups at ranges where they could not yet [detect] the target."
Yet, there are a number of F-22 capabilities that are shrouded in mystery, including electronic attack, information warfare and cruise missile defense.
"It's no secret that one of our mods is to put electronic attack on board and then we will play a role in combating networks," Tolliver says. "We're already involved in the collection part. When we come back from a mission, we have the ability to download EOB data that's turned into intelligence pictures. This makes us an intelligence platform doing nontraditional ISR by bringing back emitter data so that teams can go out and conduct information operations."
The next step will be to pass the detailed information about surface-to-air missile locations, capabilities and emission details (called parametrics) .
"If I have characterized, say an SA-10, I can send it verbally to AWACS and they can send it out to other platforms," says Maj. Shawn Anger, an F-22 instructor with the 43rd Fighter Sqdn. at Tyndall AFB, Fla. However, "I can't pass the parametrics characterization. Hopefully, we'll be able to shoot it up the radar"--a new capability for the radar, which is being developed to send large, high-bandwidth imagery files.
sorry tony, pasted your article instead of the one intended below
Heard anything about the F-22 and combined operations with platforms such as the MQ-9 Reaper, X-45 J-UCAVs, and B-2s ?
I understand there have been advancements since the article below in the area of 'Intelligent Controls for Unmanned Vehicles' and 'Small Aircraft Adaptive MANETS' -
....The Boeing Joint Unmanned Combat Air System X-45 is an unmanned combat air vehicle being developed for strike missions such as Suppression of Enemy Air Defence (SEAD), electronic warfare and associated operations.
The Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) program began being managed by DARPA, but was handed over to a joint US Navy and Air Force office in October 2005. The two principle systems being developed under the first phase of the program, the Spiral 0 phase, are the Boeing X-45 and the Northrop Grumman X-47. The J-UCAS program combines the programs previously conducted under the DARPA, USAF and Boeing X-45 UCAV program and the DARPA, USN and Northrop Grumman X-47 UCAV-N program.
In March 2004, the X-45A completed a ten-day schedule of test flights including dropping a 250lb inert Small Smart Bomb (SSB) at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards Air Force Base, California. The X-45A air vehicle released the unguided weapon from its internal weapon bay at an altitude of 35,000ft and speed Mach 0.67 (about 442mph). In August 2004, the first test of multi-vehicle operations took place. Two X-45A demonstrators were controlled by a single operator/pilot. X-45A flight tests were successfully concluded in August 2005. The first flight of the larger X-45C will be in early 2007.
It's reasonable to assume that binary thinking might have helped you from the stone age to say the bronze age. You know. Stone not so good. Bronze, looking better.
Here's a post I just stumbled across and thought of the wannabe poets in the house:
http://www.noahbrier.com/archives/2006/10/binary_code_and_ambiguity.php
Incidentally the binary code does have a message. Google an online binary to text converter.
Okay, but after we copy/paste this and google/decode that, can we proceed to Idea 14347 ?
Elijah,
Nice stuff, eh? I think I have read of the F-22 serving as networked asset, like a Mach 1.5 supercruising AWACS.
AWST knows what they are doing, leaving us hanging on the idea of that magic new radar as a long-range energy weapon. Let's say a prayer it works on re-entry vehicles. Who needs the AirBorne Laser, THAAD, Patriot, Standard, etc.?
Now, that would be cool.
Jeez...what a thought--
qjctony -
"F-22, networked asset"
for expansion on the network centric approach
See my Elephant Bar posts for
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Ms Rice yesterday - Iran and Syria would be invited to a "neighbours meeting" to discuss efforts to stabilise Iraq.
Is this the same military hardware that fared so poortly in Iraq?
Careful, Frith--such transparent provocation attempts can cost credibility. C'mon, you can do better than that.
Yeah Frith,
The Russians made the F-22's and the Iraqis flew them in OIF.
Has anyone told you that this is not a Bicker Blog?
What! No Robert Johnson, Miles Davis or Duane allmans!
Don't mess with my world man.
Post a Comment
<< Home