patrick.net

Policeman of the world is anxious to test new generation drones which are necessary to promote a new bestseller.

Bizarre to see the democrats frothing at the mouth, at the chance of more death and destruction

errc says

Bizarre to see the democrats frothing at the mouth, at the chance of more death and destruction

I'm still seeing Priuses with both "O" and "End this endless war" stickers on their bumpers during my commute. I wonder which sticker will they peel off first.

errc says

Bizarre to see the democrats frothing at the mouth, at the chance of more death and destruction

Democrats also started the Viet Nam draft, and Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat. I used to be a loyal Democrat, until Obamacare made me realize that both major parties are imperial patronage networks. The Democrats' neo-liberal coercive "generosity" is their answer to Republican neo-conservatives. Both sides try to save people from themselves, because that's a hopeless (and therefore endless) rationale for more money and power. The Capitol is an auction, and each faction needs a more expensive set of policies to beat the other faction. At least to the Democrats' credit they're not as nasty and hateful as the Republicans. Democrats appeal to principles like compassion (though Nixon's bipartisan drug war isn't really compassionate), while Republicans campaign on naked bigotry, fear and loathing.

I liked the flaming duck much more - it represented the current "on fire" real estate market better...

:)

bgamall4 says

Bigsby says

The UK and France are incapable of conducting a ground war in Syria. They are not 'hot for war.' They have, however discussed arming the opposition, which even you may be able to perceive is not the same thing.

No, I think they are hot for us to go to war. I read where they may assist the US warships, that could be destroyed by Syrian missiles BTW.

Obama needs to put a stop to all of this before it is too late.

Why do you think Obama is not hot for war? It wouldn't be hard for him to avoid war.

half off Renter,

Even though I am a life long Bay Arean, I am not a Cool-Aid drinker.

That said,

How old are you?

How long have you lived here in the Bay Area, Cool And Hip?

Do you work in the trenches of "tech"?

Have you worked (boots on the ground, not for meetings at palaces of potentiates) on assignments in Asia?

How connected are you to local K -12's, which like nothing else are a window to the community?

Just asking.

But it costs $400,000 to pay off the bureaucrat extortionists, environmental lawyers, and politicians, so after a minor 20% profit, we are at $520k average.

bgamall4 says

Prof, you wonder why Bob would take so much time defending a murdering piece of neocon crap.

Because I had absolutely nothing else to do while not able to sleep. Just reading your crap is usually a good cure for insomnia, but it doesn't always work. Responding to your stupidity always works. Where is your proof that refutes the SEC's filings? Oh right whackjob.com says it's not true. Do your parents know you are up so late using their computer. It's time for milk and cookies so you can get to 9th grade in the morning.

Are you and the professor dating? Take it off patnet and get a motel room please.

CaptainShuddup says

Get used to the Cure for all of America's problems being solved by corporations monetizing the situation.

Well said Captain. People need to wake up to the fact that America is being ruled by Banks, Corporations and Israel. And Not by the neocons or the liberals that the media have us believing in or has us divided.

bgamall4 says

Bigsby says

No Western power wants to put boots on the ground.

You don't know Republicans would have settled for no boots on the ground. And you don't know what risk a limited strike would spawn.

I don't read infowars, but I do know about Britam Defense and you need to know more.

You know next to sweet fa about Britam except that they were hacked and someone created a fake email (and have stumbled across the story a good 7 or so months after it happened, well done). Of course you think the email is real because that is your default position on anything like that.

John Bailo says

Builders could create new homes for $50,000 per unit

The house itself is not the major cost--it's the land below the house. I'm pretty sure lots in decent areas in CA. cost well north of $50K.

This whole thing is incomprehensibly foolish. We have no business sending military forces to Syria on unproven reports of small scale chemical weapons use against a faction that hates us, and will outlaw Christianity as soon as they come into power.
Why did we elect this moron? Oh right, the alternative was a wealthy blowhard who would do exactly the same thing. We are so effed, no matter what.

tatupu70 says

John Bailo says

Builders could create new homes for $50,000 per unit

The house itself is not the major cost--it's the land below the house. I'm pretty sure lots in decent areas in CA. cost well north of $50K.

Yep. Case in point. An average sized lot went on the market a couple of houses down from me the other day. $850K, for less than a quarter acre. Build a 2,500SF house at a low end $300/SF and presto, a 1.6M dollar house...Plus the builder has to make a profit so will sell for 1.8M at a minimum but probably more like 2M.

It's the United States of America, not the United States of Arabia.

Here is some commentary about these impending war crimes by the old Reagan Storm Trooper (who has since taken the Red Pill) Paul Craig Roberts:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org

Update:
"The war criminals in Washington and other Western capitals are determined to maintain their lie that the Syrian government used chemical weapons. Having failed in efforts to intimidate the UN chemical inspectors in Syria, Washington has demanded that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon withdraw the chemical weapons inspectors before they can assess the evidence and make their report. The UN Secretary General stood up to the Washington war criminals and rejected their demand. However, as with Iraq, Washington's decision to commit aggression against Syria is not based on any facts."

This war or child beating as it really is, is nothing more than a ploy to bring down the markets, and raise the commodities back into unaffordable levels so Bernanke doesn't feel like a lying sack of shit, when he keeps telling people and reporters that know better, that he needs to stay the course with QE.

No, it is an indirect method to take down the Iranian regime.
Get your foot in the door with Syria.
Cut off Hezbollah's supply lines..
Isolate Iran as we isolate NK...
The nukes are coming to Iran, quicker than you think.
Syria is just our door into disrupting Iran without bombing the shit out of them.
If Iran goes nuclear, the only strategy short of war is isolation.

CaptainShuddup says

This war or child beating as it really is, is nothing more than a ploy to bring down the markets, and raise the commodities back into unaffordable levels so Bernanke doesn't feel like a lying sack of shit, when he keeps telling people and reporters that know better, that he needs to stay the course with QE.

It's none of what you state.
The real objective is isolating and strangling Iran.

Quigley says

This whole thing is incomprehensibly foolish. We have no business sending military forces to Syria on unproven reports of small scale chemical weapons use against a faction that hates us, and will outlaw Christianity as soon as they come into power.

Why did we elect this moron? Oh right, the alternative was a wealthy blowhard who would do exactly the same thing. We are so effed, no matter what.

SoftShell says

it is an indirect method to take down the Iranian regime.

Wasn't that the goal of invading Iraq while still occupying Afghanistan, surrounding Iran on two fronts? Most Americans can't even find Iran on a map, and we seem to be getting farther away with each attempt.

Probably one of our goals.
But it did not stop the flow of arms to syria and hezbollah.
Time to try a different angle...
Or we can just give up and let israel and iran have at it.
and then pay 20 per gallon..
and watch the world economy go down the tubes, making today's economy seem like a boom cycle...
From a moral pov, it sucks, but in the end the needs of the many (the world) outweigh the needs of the few (arab states).

curious2 says

SoftShell says

it is an indirect method to take down the Iranian regime.

Wasn't that the goal of invading Iraq while still occupying Afghanistan, surrounding Iran on two fronts? Most Americans can't even find Iran on a map, and we seem to be getting farther away with each attempt.

SoftShell says

the needs of the many (the world) outweigh the needs of the few (arab states).

I think you meant to say, the campaign "donations" from the merchants of war outweigh the lives of everyone else.

The Afghan and Iraq wars didn't need to be botched, but they were, and that should tell you something about who was really in charge and what their goals were. In the wake of the cold war, the U.S. has become the world's largest exporter of weapons, everything from ATF gunwalking (how many thousands of Mexicans have been killed by that now, and Congressmen pretend to be outraged about one American?) to foreign "aid" that consists almost entirely of yet more American weapons.

War always has a constituency, because it involves so much money and power. The worse the strategy, and the more complicated and vulnerable the logistics, the more money and power the war can make. So yes, after failing to reach Iran after surrounding it on three sides, of course we are told that we need "a different angle" through Syria instead.

SoftShell says

one of our goals

War is the goal. "Winning" is beside the point.
Raytheon, KBR, Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop Grumann, General Dynamics, Honeywell, General Electric, Pratt & Whitney, and DynCorp always win.

I think Iran going nuclear trumps the war machine. Remember, nuclear states cannot be attacked by conventional weapons. Cold wars form. syria goes under the Iranian nuclear umbrella. whose gonna attack them at that point?

You think Israel will keep it's syrian attacks up, with iranian nukes pointed at it?
Once the umbrella forms, the doors wide open for hezbollah to flourish without threat of israeli attack.

The war machine sells conventional weapons. More states under the nuclear umbrella of others will deter conventional attacks, thus the war machine loses customers.

Better for the war machine to eliminate the possibility of nuclear umbrellas forming...top priority is to take out Iran. Syria is just a stepping stone to this objective.

curious2 says

War always has a constituency, because it involves so much money and power. The worse the strategy, and the more complicated and vulnerable the logistics, the more money and power the war can make. So yes, after failing to reach Iran from next door, on both sides, of course we should "a different angle" through Syria instead.

It doesn't fix anything. It is not designed to.
It is designed to legitimately get our foot ( and our allies ) in the door so we can gain more influence and justify further attacks down the line, this time hitting arms convoys going from Iran to Syria, or taking out some syrian leadership 'accidently'. Once we start the bombing, we just start changing targets.

Granted if they go through the russian port, we have no influence there. Maybe the higher ups are privy to intelligence that the majority of arms are not going through that russian port.

Straw Man says

I fail to see how dropping couple of Tomahawks on Damask fixes the problems of open eastern border and free passage through Iraq territory as well as Russian cargo ships able to freely go into their Tartus naval base.

They won't win if Iran goes nuclear, and provides the umbrella to syria and other hostile states in the region.

Robert Sproul says

War is the goal. "Winning" is beside the point.

Raytheon, KBR, Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop Grumann, General Dynamics, Honeywell, General Electric, Pratt & Whitney, and DynCorp always win.

We support your 'War of terror!' ;)

Robert Sproul says

War is the goal. "Winning" is beside the point.

What's the old saw? A war during a recession brings recovery; a war during prosperity brings recession?

Anyway, it was a crackpot theory my 8th grade US history teacher proposed.

When determining US strategy, it's wise to look 50+ years ahead...
Yeah, this company or that one will prosper due to war in this decade...that's the immediate short term effect and one to bloviate on.

However, the people in charge have to grapple with the limited proven world oil reserves, and who will be in control of it. Most likely that country/corporation will have the world by the balls looking 40-50 years ahead. And by then there will be no military intervention as the reserves will be guarded by nukes.

Now is the time to sow the seeds for controlling that supply.

Recent Dow day is Wednesday, August 28, 2013 __ Level is 94.7

The United States of America is in one of the most geographically defensible positions of any nation in the world, ever! Isolated from other powers by thousands of miles of ocean, hedged in securely between friendly countries to north and south, and separated from its enemies by half a world, it truly has nothing to fear from invasion. In fact, it has to import it's invaders, calling them immigrants, from countries that hate us (hello Arabs, Persians, and Palestinians!).
But that's essential because it gives the bloated department of homeland security something to do, as well as the NSA and all other spy agencies. They must work hard to keep a tabs on all the freshly minted Americans of questionable origin.

Since we are so impregnable to straight invasion, and yet so strong in arms manufacture, we will always have to make wars to keep our military industrial machine churning. The wars won't come to us, we have to manufacture these crises, preferably half a world away, so we can keep selling arms.
It's the curse of being so secure.

SoftShell says

When determining US strategy, it's wise to look 50+ years ahead...

Yes, it would be wise, but it isn't how things work. Wisdom would be using biotech to make foreign oil irrelevant, but that doesn't get campaign contributions from ExxonMobil, Raytheon, etc. The Capitol is an auction where entrenched patronage networks bid for more revenue and power. It's bipartisan: each party has its own patronage base, and the centrists take from both sides; PhRMA+NRA=yet another example of how politics makes strange bedfellows.

Nukes bring peace. Lack of nukes is an opportunity for the war machine. The world would be safer if Iran had the bomb.

Quigley, most defensible, really?

A taxicab driver from Pakistan told me he walked across the border in the desert southwest. Jumped ship from the freighter he worked on in a Mexican port.

In the hands of sane people.
In the hands of religious fanatics, all bets are off... ( Iran )

Quigley says

Nukes bring peace.

Wisdom would be to pursue both angles, proven energy sources and possible alternative energy sources.

The Biotech angle is being invested in heavily

http://fs-unep-centre.org/sites/default/files/publications/globaltrendsreport2012.pdf

But it is not proven that this will provide enough energy to fuel the future. You have to keep your hand in current proven energy sources (oil) in case the biotech angle doesn't pan out...

curious2 says

SoftShell says

When determining US strategy, it's wise to look 50+ years ahead...

Yes, it would be wise, but it isn't how things work. Wisdom would be using biotech to make foreign oil irrelevant,

SoftShell says

religious fanatics

The fuckers, and after all we have done for them.
I wish the Shah could have ramped up to whatever brutality was necessary to maintain power, so that our resource extraction could have proceeded without this bullshit.

Oh...you mean like Assad and nerve gas?? I see.....

Robert Sproul says

I wish the Shah could have ramped up to whatever brutality was necessary to maintain power,

Straw Man says

B.A.C.A.H. says

A taxicab driver from Pakistan told me he walked across the border in the desert southwest.

Try this with an army and see what happens.

I think a terrorist with WMD will not need an army.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/J2LG-ASco6o

Straw Man says

we don't really have a predator of our size on our continent and oceans are still pretty good obstacle for predators from other continents to reach us.