patrick.net

The goal is not to avoid buying a fungible commodity from x, y, or Z. The goal is to drive the price down. That way, oil rich countries all take a hit regardless of who buys their oil.

YesYNot says

. Imo,

You persist in believing what you want to believe, what is politic and in your interest to believe, having apparently become more managerial than scientific. Go along to get along. You ignore so much about Islam and the differences between Islam and Christianity that it's hard to know where to begin. The Koran is the most widely read book in the Islamic world, and it is recited verbatim even to people who are illiterate. Unlike the Bible, the Koran has officially one author. To the extent different interpretations can be found, they are at the edges, like two KKKlansmen debating how many loops to use in a lynching knot: they both agree on the main result. It is frustrating to see you insist on ignorance and lies, maybe IRL you can order people to act as if they believe them but the lies remain lies. I remember your lies about refugees not becoming involved in terrorism, and you persisted in those too, claiming no refugees had been arrested for terrorism while linking a source that listed three. None so blind as those who will not see.

The difference between "radical" and "moderate" Muslims comes down to timing. Radical Muslims want to impose Sharia right now, by force. So-called "moderate" Muslims want to grow and spread Islam, increasing its power organically until resistance becomes futile, and then impose Sharia. You seem to promote the second strategy, which is an Islamic strategy, rather than standing for the Enlightenment.

curious2 says

That NATO MSM pretense fooled only NATO voters who wanted to be fooled, like what you said about people who imagine sugary soda

I think it also fools kids in our country who sign up for the military. Who would sign up to be a mercenary for grunt pay?

YesYNot says

kids in our country who sign up for the military.

They are a subset of NATO voters, so drop the "also." After seeing what Islam says and does, most Army and FBI voted for President Trump.

BTW, I updated my comment, will paste here too: The difference between "radical" and "moderate" Muslims comes down to timing. Radical Muslims want to impose Sharia right now, by force. So-called "moderate" Muslims want to grow and spread Islam, increasing its power organically until resistance becomes futile, and then impose Sharia. You seem to promote the second strategy, which is an Islamic strategy, rather than standing for the Enlightenment.

curious2 says

claiming no refugees had been arrested for terrorism while linking a source that listed three. None so blind as those who will not see.

I'm pretty sure that I agreed that the statistic that I read was misleading. It qualified terrorism as acts labeled terrorism on us soil iirc.

As for my opinions on Muslims, I've known quite a few Muslims who were basically typical secular Americans. My opinion on what would work the best is consistent with my views on people. I do think that Islam is a mess, and that would explain the higher rate of terrorism by Muslims.

So let's hear your strategy for convincing Muslims to abandon Islam.

curious2 says

rather than standing for the Enlightenment.

How do you do this?

For a start, see my comment above. America beat communism and fascism, though some of the latter came to America wrapped in an American flag. You have to start by recognizing the problem: Islam hates us. You don't win by importing "moderate" Nazis and claiming to respect Hitler while firebombing Dresden. We've been at war for 15 years, making matters worse, because we're fighting mostly on the wrong side; it goes back to Nixon's deals to expand the war in southeast Asia and the MIC.

YesYNot says

How do you do this?

See all of my comments. While you opine from ignorance and wishful thinking, I stick to evidence and reason.

I agree that we should celebrate blasphemy. That's just for the principle though. It's not going to get people to abandon their religion. Especially if it's the curious2 says

for them, religion is the founding assumption and ultimate conclusion, "the alpha and the omega

How does our funding of ksa compare with our help keeping the price of oil high?

curious2 says

While you opine from ignorance and wishful thinking, I stick to evidence and reason.

Don't break your arm or your back. I'd hate to hear about a Dr visit.

Meanwhile, in a random sweep, London Authorities arrested a man with a backpack full of knives for a Knife Intifada in London.

Here's his "Palestine Aid Convoy" Video from a few years back.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4455510/Westminster-terrorist-named-Mohammed-Khalid-Omar-Ali.html

Just in case you were wondering where all the Muslims in Europe got their ideas for truck and knife attacks, check out what's been happening is Israel these past few years.

Fuck Islam!

YesYNot says

How does our funding of ksa compare with our help keeping the price of oil high?

Keeping the price of oil high is the principal way in which America funds KSA and the Petrodollar baksheesh system, including the deficit spending on which many "intelligence" careers have depended. We borrow money from KSA and the whole world to pay for the military that protects them, and the Petrodollar system enables the borrowing.

curious2 says

Keeping the price of oil high is the principal way in which America funds KSA

Do you think the petrol dollar keeps the price of oil high or the price of a dollar high? What do you think a tax on oil and high cafe standards would do?

Our wars subsidize oil use. We might as well tax oil use and use the revenue to pay for the middle east wars.

YesYNot says

Our wars subsidize oil use. We might as well tax oil use and use the revenue to pay for the middle east wars.

Pollution subsidizes oil use too. We need a $3.00 per gallon tax on oil to pay for the health problems caused by pollution.

Strategist says

Pollution subsidizes oil use too

It subsidizes coal use too. Autos pollute diffusely, harming city and suburban people. Coal burning shits on everyone downwind. Public health expenditures subsidizes coal mine operators who treat employee health like somebody else's problem.

YesYNot says

Do you think the petrol dollar keeps the price of oil high or the price of a dollar high?

The USD. The wars keeping KSA's competitors offline (Iraq, Libya, Syria) keep both high, enabling the game to continue.

YesYNot says

What do you think a tax on oil and high cafe standards would do?

Either would reduce demand and thus prices. The W administration campaigned on the opposite, including a tax shift that subsidized SUVs weighing more than 3 tons, in order to increase demand and thus set record prices. The popularity of SUVs began during the Clinton administration, due partly to some regulatory decisions at that time. They are fundamentally inferior vehicles, using 2x more fuel to do essentially the same work, but their popularity increased oil demand and thus oil prices.

A generational shift occurred as the corruption of Nixon's Petrodollar deals spread through the government. As late as 1980, GHW Bush campaigned on taxing oil, even though he had made much of his own fortune in oil. By 2003, GW Bush was doing the opposite, increasing oil demand and fighting the Saudis' enemies for them, making everyone dependent on KSA oil and setting record prices. Also, as has been discussed elsewhere on PatNet, control of the oil makes higher prices advantageous for the patronage networks that control it. Some people say it's about cheap oil, but that's misleading. It's about controlling the places where oil can be produced cheaply, and then selling it more expensively, and thus maximizing the net revenues to the controlling patronage network. KSA was producing oil for $1/bbl and selling for over $140/bbl, almost all profit, and much of that $ got invested in buying America (including buying influence in America). Bandar Bush did a great job for his Saudi family, W got a second term, etc.

curious2 says

The USD. The wars keeping KSA's competitors offline (Iraq, Libya, Syria) keep both high, enabling the game to continue.

The first part of that is what I believe is driving our policy wrt SA.

I don't think that keeping Iraq, Libya, and Syria offline is a deliberate strategy to increase oil prices. I wouldn't be surprised, though, to find out that opposition to a gas tax or cafe standards has something to do with this issue.curious2 says

Either would reduce demand and thus prices....
GW Bush was doing the opposite, increasing oil demand and fighting the Saudis' enemies for them, making everyone dependent on KSA oil and setting record prices. Also, as has been discussed elsewhere on PatNet, control of the oil makes higher prices advantageous for the patronage networks that control it

At least we agree that cafe standards and an oil tax would be good wrt this issue. Trump is likely to reduce cafe standards, because he can. We'll see on the gas tax. Republicans were not OK with it 2 years ago, and Trump doesn't appear to have much sway over them.

YesYNot says

Libya

Think again, and notice the videos of Tony Blair meeting with Kadaffy, who made deals with Shell and wanted to make deals with American companies. The BBC had previously trumpeted a 2004 meeting, but that went nowhere with Bandar Bush in charge at the White House. The 2010 meeting should have launched a policy change, but Hillary Clinton (and the Deep State) intervened on behalf of her Saudi clients.

The Blair visit was part of an international effort to rehabilitate Kadaffy's image as prelude to petrochemical deals off Libya. Kadaffy had been falsely blamed for blowing up a Pan Am flight over Scotland, when in fact there had been more to that story. The most likely organizer was the former President Assad (father of the current President), but he was protected by Russia, and Libya was isolated, so a decision was made to punish Libya instead, partly because Libya was isolated and had posed more of a threat to KSA market share and the Petrodollar. (The US DEA had also reportedly been involved in weakening security on the Pan Am flight, btw.) Following years of isolation and consequent poverty, the aging Kadaffy thought of his family's interests and agreed to take the blame and to deal with American and European companies on their terms.

Look at a map: Libya could have piped oil and gas to Sicily and then into mainland Europe at a lower cost than KSA. There are already subsea pipelines longer than that farther north, e.g. Russia-Germany. If they wanted, they could probably have piped directly from Libyan oil and gas fields across to the European mainland. Enter Hillary Clinton with Hillary's War on behalf of her Saudi clients, extending into Syria by shipping Kadaffy's arsenal to Sunni militias (including al quaida) in Syria. Patronage networks are primarily about loyalty, not ideology: KSA would have been happy with Bush or Clinton, but the Saudis do seem to like putting women in charge of NATO countries, partly for the same reason that KSA doesn't let women drive cars.

zzyzzx says

I feel safe already.

Leftists like Islam because subconsciously they're ashamed of how they look, and know that they'd look better wearing islamic clothes

curious2 says

You don't win by importing "moderate" Nazis

Excellent point. And Islam is inherently more violent and intolerant that Naziism.

Booger says

It makes sense once you understand that women secretly long for strong men to control them. It's right at the center of female sexual desire.

Some of them give in to this desire and run off to join Islam because it gives them a deep fulfillment of the biologically determined gender roles that the West is now too weak to admit is the obvious truth. These women have seen a future of weak feminized men in the West, and they reject it, knowing at a fundamental level that feminism is cultural suicide.

Ironically, feminists got what they asked for, a world where women and men are indistinguishable, and it is definitely not making them happy, so some of them are running back toward the past.

curious2 says

Enter Hillary Clinton with Hillary's War on behalf of her Saudi clients, extending into Syria

I don't know what part of HRC's motivation in Libya was hubris about the potential outcome or what part had to do with keeping the petrodollar deal going and currying favor with Saudi donors. The link to the guardian article regarding W. Clark and NATO after the link to your post had reference to:

a memo from the Office of the US Secretary of Defense just a few weeks after 9/11 revealed plans to "attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years",

I guess this would have been a plan from Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. It's readiness after 9/11 suggests that they were planning this out or at least daydreaming about it for some time prior to 9/11.

My take is that this is about right:

Much of the strategy currently at play was candidly described in a 2008 US Army-funded RAND report, Unfolding the Future of the Long War (pdf). The report noted that "the economies of the industrialized states will continue to rely heavily on oil, thus making it a strategically important resource." As most oil will be produced in the Middle East, the US has "motive for maintaining stability in and good relations with Middle Eastern states":

I would bet HRC thinks she is acting in the best interest of the US by slowly moving through the countries that the neocon Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz put on a list. I don't know if I agree with her, but the faster that we can get off of oil, the faster we can get the fuck out of the middle east. Prior to getting out entirely, if oil prices drop, SA's reserves (treasury bonds) will be liquidated. At that point and after the petrodollar falls, we will see how dramatically the petrodollar was (is now) propping up the US by keeping borrowing costs down. Since our borrowing is in dollars, we don't have to worry as much about our old debt as we would if we borrowed in somebody else's currency.

Back to the original intent of the thread. I read this summary of the Pew research study from 2013.
A couple of things jump out at me:
(1) There is a huge diversity of views within various Muslim communities. For example, in five of the countries, the percent of Muslims who wanted Sharia law to be the official law was 8-12%. In Afghanistan, it is 99%. In many other countries, it's more than 80%.
This supports my assertion that individuals tend to go along with whatever their peers believe. The beliefs of the masses can be set top down (from religious leaders) or bottom up (putting pressure on religious leaders to conform), but they are not strictly tied to a book. This applies to both Christianity and Islam.

(2) Many dislike or are worried about ISIS.

that most people in several countries with significant Muslim populations have an unfavorable view of ISIS, including virtually all respondents in Lebanon and 94% in Jordan.
...
In many cases, people in countries with large Muslim populations are as concerned as Western nations about the threat of Islamic extremism, and have become increasingly concerned in recent years. About two-thirds of people in Nigeria (68%) and Lebanon (67%) said in 2016 that they are very concerned about Islamic extremism in their country, both up significantly since 2013.
...
Our 2011 survey of Muslim Americans found that roughly half of U.S. Muslims (48%) say their own religious leaders have not done enough to speak out against Islamic extremists.

This supports my assertion that what ISIS says reflects what ISIS believes. It doesn't reflect what most Muslims around the world believe.

(3) Muslim religiosity in the US is about the same as Christian religiosity.

What this means is that in a secular country with a low Muslim population, most Muslims do not believe it's their way or the highway. About 30 to 35% of the people in each religion think that theirs is the only true faith. Muslims in the US are even coming around on homosexuality. Now, 39% think it should be accepted in society.

Now, I don't think this means that Muslims in an Islamic country would accept me or treat me well. I fully realize that there are plenty who would behead an atheist like me. Many of these countries are living in the Islamic dark ages, and I'd never go there. In others, I'd go, but not waive an atheist flag, and I'd never live there. My biggest concern about importing a huge number of Muslims into the US is that in large enough numbers they'd try to bring us down into that mindset. It's bad enough that we have so many Christians who are denying science because of their beliefs. We don't need some even more backwards beliefs to overcome. But that doesn't mean that we need a religious test on all immigrants either.

YesYNot, if being religious and wanting to kill blasphemers and apostates is the same to you, yes, there is no difference between Christianity and Islam.

StrictReason says

religious and wanting to kill blasphemers and apostates is the same to you

Obviously, being religious doesn't mean that someone wants to kill all blasphemers and apostates. But one who wants to kill all blasphemers and apostates has to first be religious.

It's hard to imagine that someone wants to kill blasphemers when they don't even think that their religion is the one true faith. That's just nonsensical. So, part 3 is of interest to our debate about how to address Islam in the West. There are about 2 million Muslims who currently live in the US and think that Christianity is a true religion. Should we be trying to convince them that the Koran tells them to kill us?

I also find it astounding that out of 100 self-identifying American Christians, only 30 actually believe that their religion is objectively true.

YesYNot says

What this means is that

you're cherry picking statistics to support your prior assertion, and allowing yourself to lose sight of the forest for the trees, like a tobacco executive trying to minimize the hazards of smoking. "Look, most smokers die from something other than smoking, pay no attention to the causal links between smoking and cancer, emphysema, hypertension, stroke, etc."

A large percentage of American "Muslims" are what might be called Kwanzaa black power and/or black nationalists: Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan (who seems to be drifting towards "Christian Science"), etc. For them, Islam was primarily about black identity and getting out from under what Nietzsche would call the 'slave morality' of Christianity. Their views on homosexuality adjusted somewhat due to President Obama and Attorney General Holder saying that gay couples have a Constitutional right to get married. If you want to see what happens in secular countries when you import actual Muslims from Muslim families in Muslim countries, look at the British Muslims, who are getting worse, the younger being more intolerant than the old. The other secular countries on the Pew list had officially atheist governments during the Soviet era, and Turkey which was crushed in and after WWI and made briefly secular by Ataturk but is now already backsliding. Like the black "Muslims" came from mostly Christian families, Muslims in officially atheist countries had plenty of atheist friends and family. That doesn't last when you get too many Muslims around, especially in the information age where the Sharia patrols can pick off the disbelievers one by one. The gravity of Islam re-asserts itself, dragging everyone down either to Islam or the grave.

We had a similar interaction regarding education and wealth increasing the risk of Muslim terrorism. You kept insisting the opposite, based on wishful opinion and contrary to data. It felt like reading someone insist that smoking reduces the risk of CV problems due to relaxing people so they feel less stress. You cling to a cherished fantasy and try to cherry pick data supporting it. You've been apparently hypnotized into ignoring the basic fact: you are worse off if you have more people around who believe that you must be killed and who are likely to teach their children to kill you and yours.

Dog experts say that you never really know your dog until you see your dog with at least six other dogs. Then you see the pack behavior. You can't possibly know what Islam says and does because (a) you refuse to read what it says and (b) you refuse to look at a map and see the overwhelming correlations. 100% of the countries on earth that criminalize apostasy have Muslim majorities. 100% of the countries on earth that have marriage equality have Christian majorities. You quote out of context that some Muslims consider Christianity in some sense true, which ignores the role of subjugated dhimmi in Islam: the charlatan Mohamed hijacked the god of Abraham and told his followers to subjugate the Christians and ultimately kill the Jews; of course some Muslims can acknowledge some truth in Christianity, just as hijackers can acknowledge the utility of a 767. You opine from ignorance and wishful thinking, not evidence and reason.

As for limiting immigration, we have not had open borders in more than a century. We limit immigration continuously. We are deporting illegal immigrants right now, but most of them are Christian. The Democrats campaigned on paying to import Muslims. You would exclude the vast majority of the human race but allow the one subset that believes they are personally commanded to kill you, and to teach their children to kill you. That is hypnosis performed by people highly paid to mislead you, functioning like toxoplasma gondii leads mice to cats. It is not compassion, not "liberal."

As for Hillary Clinton, countless YouTube mashups show she has a long record of saying whatever she believes will be to her advantage. Her Saudi and corporate clients paid her and her family and their foundation tens of millions of reasons to go along with their agenda.

zzyzzx says

curious2 says

you're cherry picking statistics

I went with the data that were available in my limited research. That's not cherry picking. The data were not exhaustive, but were enough to prove my point. curious2 says

That doesn't last when you get too many Muslims around

Glad that you agree with me.curious2 says

You opine from ignorance and wishful thinking, not evidence and reason.

You should stick to the points at hand (there were 3 of them in my last post backed up with data) rather than reasserting that I'm not using evidence or reason..curious2 says

The Democrats campaigned on paying to import Muslims. You would exclude the vast majority of the human race but allow the one subset that believes they are personally commanded to kill you, and to teach their children to kill you.

Your failure to quantify anything is a problem. Clinton suggested that we admit 65,000 syrians on top of the 100K non-syrians we admit each year. I would presume that the majority would be Muslim. You seem to conclude that that is enough to turn us into Sharialand. You present no evidence for this. To me, that seemed like a reasonable approach. I never advocated it, mind you. I was happy with Obama's approach, and think that Trump's approach is counterproductive. Time will tell.

curious2 says

Their views on homosexuality adjusted somewhat due to President Obama and Attorney General Holder saying that gay couples have a Constitutional right to get married.

WTF? Make shit up much? The whole country's views changed on Homosexuality during the last 8 years. These things change quickly, because people go along with society. They don't like to rock the boat. Do you assume that all of the white people changed their minds based on analysis, but the black Muslims just do what Obama and Holder told them to do?curious2 says

We had a similar interaction regarding education and wealth increasing the risk of Muslim terrorism. You kept insisting the opposite

You might have me confused with Marcus. As for my own arguments on that, I'd say that the US bombing (killing) and making people poorer in other countries might contribute to terrorism. But I don't confuse the wealth of the actual terrorist leader with the quality of life of his tribe. If I were a rich terrorist or religious huckster, poor people would be a fertile recruiting ground. Why don't you look at the wealth of most ISIS members, and report back about how rich they are. Those are also not the sole control nobs for terrorism, either.

YesYNot says

Clinton suggested that we admit 65,000 syrians on top of the 100K non-syrians we admit each year. I would presume that the majority would be Muslim. You seem to conclude that that is enough to turn us into Sharialand.

The problem with Islam is that it is an infectious mental disorder, which not only demands that its followers kill you and your family, but also aggressively attempts to infect as many people as possible with the same ultra-violent behavior.

The most clever part is that if YesYNot says "yes why not?" and joins Islam, then he will be exempt from being murdered, conditional on proving the sincerity of his conversion, the best test of which is that he himself has become eager to murder non-Muslims.

It is analogous to importing 65,000 stray dogs with rabies and letting them loose, because you know, rabies is latent at first, and the animal does not want to bite you right away. Might even be grateful for food and water, at first. Importing only the ones that are not yet foaming at the mouth is not a wonderful way to protect yourself.

https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/transmission/body.html

The ICM poll contracted by the Guardian UK had 5% - that's 1 in 20 - UK Muslims believing the 7/7 attacks were justified.

Think about that. How many people voted for Jill Stein or Bill Weld. Now add them together.

Half of all British Muslims thought the extreme "Hate Preachers" practice "Mainstream Islam" and a quarter thought the Charlie Hebdo massacre was justified.
http://www.comresglobal.com/polls/bbc-radio-4-today-muslim-poll/

WOW.

Do you know how many assassinations related to abortion there have been since 1990? Ten (10). In almost 30 years, and most of them were in the 90s.

More people were murdered in San Ber or in Orlando in each event singly, than 3 decades of anti-abortion violence. And while the abortion murderers were recruited from a pool of about 200 Million, and the vast majority of the population by religion and race, the Islamic Terrorists in past couple of years came from about 1% of the entire US population.

YesYNot says

You might have me confused with Marcus.

No, you are obviously much smarter than Marcus, even though you do share a tendency to elevate favored opinion over observable evidence, at least on this point. Here is the comment I was referring to. I know all too many Democrats who are basically hypnotized by people who are highly paid to mislead them. "60 Minutes" had a report recently studying "fake news" and who falls for it, and on the left the biggest risk factors were college degrees and affluence. That report was primarily about totally fake news, but included the sensationalizing and polarizing that Mark Zuckerberg wrote about, where people echo a preferred subset of facts instead of looking at overall data. I've seen it IRL with friends who refuse categorically to read anything other than the false or misleading Gospel according to the BS networks (CBS, PBS, etc.). If the multi-million-dollar/yr anchor said something happened and we must go to war over it, they're all for it. If the anchor didn't say it, then it didn't happen. They put their fingers to the wind, and opine popularly within their chosen partisan/sectarian tribe; they don't actually read data.

Ani DiFranco will never write a song about San Bernadino, or the scores of kids lured by chips and murdered by a roadside bomb in Syria by a group affiliated with the "Moderate Rebels Jihadis", or the Orlando Shootings.

Nor will the Boomtown Rats.

I don't like Ramadan, I want to shoot, oo - oo -oooot, the whole month down.

curious2 says

Here is the comment I was referring to.

At least we are consistent. You were quoting this thread where I wrote:

but describes 3 types of ISIS fighters. Foreign psychopaths, true believers, and pragmatists. The pragmatists make up the majority of ISIS fighters, and are basically going along the path of least resistance.

The point being that a lot of people just go along to get along.

As for the rest of your comment, it's ironic that you cite 60 minutes to complain about 30-50 yr old democrats believing what they hear on (CBS, etc.). That aside, there's nothing there. I could cite a bunch of articles showing that Trump voters were more likely to believe fake news, and you know it.

I'll leave with this: YesYNot doesn't mean that I'm going to join a psychopathic group. It means yes, go ahead and take a risk. Contrary to curious2's comments about me or my cohort not reading data, the reason that I'm willing to take on the risk of 65K syrian refugees is that I've calculated the risk based on our Muslim immigrant data to date. The risk is really fucking small, and there are way more important things to fixate on. rando says

Islam is that it is an infectious mental disorder

All religions are a infectious diseases. Islam just happens to be invoked as a reason for violence at the moment, and is generally in a terrible state.

Lashkar_i_Trumpi says

I don't like Ramadan

I don't care for it either. A bunch of people not eating all day leads to bad breath. I suffered through a 20 minute conversation with a Muslim graduate student during Ramadan, and I still remember the breath. Terrible.

Fortunately, Christians just make you suffer through a 'thank you Jesus' sermon or two before you eat. I'm going to write a grace where I thank the heavenly father who art in heaven for all of the atheists who show us that empathy, morality, and kindness are human characteristics and do not require external rules and thank him for providing all of the scientists to show us that the earth is round and revolves around the sun, that the earth is not 6000 years old, and that co2, ch4, and nitrous oxide are causing global warming. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen

Ironman says

What's 7% of 65K?

What's 7% of 3 million? Do you really need to post a picture of candy for the 100th time to make a point? You waste more internet bandwidth than... You know how this ends.