Reading this, I felt a sense of dread – not just because I am familiar with the terrible situation in Afghanistan, and knew how the dead from both the attack and the protest were innocents. Rather, it reminded me of 1992-1996.
Now that you see the protests and a ham handed reaction by the current central government, I am reminded of one of the Taliban’s advantages. When the Talib swept up from the South and Southeast of the country to take Kabul and most of the rest of the country – the populace was bone weary of the constant violence and accepted the immediate calm they brought in their wake.
A difference now is that the Talib are responsible for most of the attacks and violence, rather than prime assholes like the recent returnee to Kabul, Hekmatyar Gulbuddin. Other scum like the Haqqanis have chipped in too. But when you cannot even carry on a normal day without worrying about being blown up, you get to be more amenable to accepting whomever can give you security.
I am not sure who will come out on top of this new round of murder and chaos – but I am absolutely sure of the losers. The people of Kabul (and elsewhere in country) are 100% sure to lose.
Hey, we’ll win eventually. Maybe it’s time for another surge.
Not gonna matter unless that surge works the way the Romans did Carthage…
I recently read The Afghan Campain by Steven Pressfield. It was a good book. I highly recommend most of Pressfield’s books too.
If Alexander the Great couldn’t hold Afghanistan, then I doubt anybody can.
Ghengis Khan did alright, but I don’t think we want to build a pyramid out of severed human heads.
Certainly not,… skull thrones are much classier.
Maybe you don’t.
Kipling had a poem about that very topic.
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_gravehundred.htm
The Achaemenids ruled Bactria before Alexander got there.
Alexander did hold Afghanistan reasonably well. His successors maintained control over the area until nomads came tumbling down from the North. The Muslims did it eventually, as well, and slowly but surely converted the natives (though, that wasn’t really intentional – Islam creates incentives for conversion for non-Muslims because its cheaper).
America fucked things up from the start using a minuscule force to invade and mostly relying on the Northern Alliance. We did nothing to stop the Taliban from doing what Afghans have done since the time of Alexander the Great and even earlier – run into their mountain strongholds, and wait people out. It’s a bit different today, but that is what allowed the Taliban to survive as an effective fighting force.
The other issue – America is a hamhanded conqueror whereas the Macedonians and Muslims just wanted their taxes paid and mostly kept to their own enclaves of civilization. They weren’t nation building. They were simply replacing or setting themselves atop an already existing power structure.
I’ve never been to Afghanistan. I know more about the historical campaigns than the current war.
Meanwhile on Saturday, Gen. Murad Ali Murad, deputy interior minister, urged demonstrators to disperse because of a high security threat level in the country. He also called on members of the public not to join the demonstration.
Coming soon to a country near you.
The antifa will make certain they’re the only ones who can protest.
Never ending battle, isn’t it? Those who’d beat the hell out of you in the name of nothing. I wish I had weed.
Damn, first time I’ve ever slept past sat morning links and there was even a mention of Archie’s favorite crappy football team. Last time I sleep in on a Saturday
It’s quite chilling to reflect how, anywhere in the world – in rich countries, too, but poor countries seem to get a disproportionate amount of this – you don’t just have the regular concerns of life but also the concern that there are people who believe killing you would be an awesome holy thing to do.
I wish they were thought to just kill themselves and spare everyone else their misery..
“The people of Kabul (and elsewhere in country) are 100% sure to lose.”
That is certain no matter what happens which is a good reason to gtfo and stfo.
They can go to Japan.
Hey! WTF did we do?
Something something fair share…
And you should be in bed, Mister.
Been a good night out with the brother. Unwinding with some shitposting before bed. Good for the apnea.
Shitposting a cure for sleep apnea? My wife will be most pleased.
Late morning.
Hey you guys, seriously, pulling out of the Paris agreement is totally about toxic masculinity. We need to feign being tough guys to talk down to these idiots and get them to vote for us.
/deep derp
ROFL.
There’s so much snark going around I don’t whether to take some unfamiliar tweedo seriously or not.
Wow.
So, first off, this is my shocked face at the Tweeter’s city of residence being Brooklyn.
The big takeaway is how clearly it illustrates what the whole thing is really about. It’s not about fucking gender studies. It’s about how wildly out-of-touch the progressive left has become with what most people in this country consider reality. And dude does it in like every single line. The big dumb white rednecks (or I guess cisheteroshitlords) that represent the guy who gave him a wedgie in high school don’t give a shit that someone’s gay or drives a Prius or drinks pumpkin-flavored beer. They care that a very visible group of people represented by those things very obviously hold them in contempt and want to tell them what they can and can’t do with their lives.
And to the point, that this clown and his fellow travellers think it’s a gender issue (or marketing issue?) is the real issue.
Given the massive computing power committed to climate modeling, I think it’s all about this.
https://youtu.be/qpMvS1Q1sos
What a fun way to make a living
This is fucking hilarious.
Whenever they think “We need better *framing*!!” they’re simply burying the question of “Why do people not like our ideas” deeper. Because its never their ideas, or the shitty people the hire (politicians) to deliver those ideas. No, its the *branding* that was wrong.
A giant turd covered with chocolate sauce and caramel is still a giant turd…
That’s their problem.
I am going to try and watch “War Machine” on Netflix this weekend. It is a fictionalized version on McCrystal. Not sure how good it will be but one line from the trailer sticks out. “You won all the victory you are going to in the first six months….now we are just hanging on trying to see how we can get out.”
Kicking the Talib in 2001 was justifiable and proper. Hanging out 16 more years “because” is just stupid.
Kicking the Talib in 2001 was justifiable and proper. Hanging out 16 more years “because” is just stupid.
Couldn’t agree more.
You might be interested in this review. A NYT writer and a retired Army Lt. Colonel watch it together. I found it informative.
So, it’s like getting the male and female perspective on the issue?
The NYT reviewer seemed to like it much less than the retired Army guy, because the NYT guy didn’t like how Pitt’ s character came off cartoonishly oafish.
Happy Ramadan?
Most everywhere else in the world, it’s easy to get a handle on what the various factions want and why they’re fighting. Even in a mixed up place like Syria, I have a pretty good sense of what ISIS wants, what the rebels want, what Assad wants, why Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia are supporting Assad, etc. We know what the Kurds want, what Turkey wants, . . .
There was always going to be chaos in Libya after the removal of Qaddafi from power like there was chaos in the former Yugoslavia after the Soviet Union collapsed, but the various factions in Libya don’t want eternal chaos any more than the various factions in the former Yugoslavia wanted eternal chaos. They may fight over what the new peace will be like, but they do want a new peace.
It doesn’t seem to be like that in Afghanistan.
If the people there will follow anyone who brings them peace, is that why all the factions who don’t control Kabul don’t want peace? I don’t know how you bring a conflict to a close when competing factions have shared objectives like keeping the capital in chaos. The Kurds wants a unified Kurdistan under a new peace, and the Turks want to prevent that from happening. When one of them prevails, there will be a new peace. Syrian rebels want Assad to fall before a new peace takes hold, and his supporters want Assad to remain in power over the new peace. When one of them prevails, there will be a new peace. In Afghanistan, if peace itself is the enemy of almost everyone outside of Kabul, I don’t know how a situation with a shared objectives like that comes to a close.
We should take a long hard look at what we Americans want in Afghanistan–our own objectives. When we talk about quagmires, what we’re really talking about is our own tendency to refuse to leave so long as everything isn’t perfect–once one of our soldiers is killed. Thank goodness we didn’t put any troops on the ground in Libya! It probably goes back to the influence of our Christian culture. We can deal with soldiers making sacrifices for a good cause–but soldiers having died for no good reason is like the unpardonable sin. If we pull out, then were all those soldiers sacrificed for nothing? That’s why we tortured ourselves over pulling out of Vietnam. In the end, though, it is possible to pay more for something than it’s worth. Our objective shouldn’t be to keep making sacrifices for Vietnam (or Afghanistan) until it’s worth what we paid for it, the question should be whether our objective is worth the price we’re paying. If Vietnam was an insignificant threat to American security–then whether it was run by communists shouldn’t be the primary consideration. What about the cost?
I don’t care whether the Taliban or someone else is in charge of Afghanistan anywhere near as much as I care that Afghanistan doesn’t represent a significant threat to American security. If we can’t leave so long as someone can run a campaign ad accusing the president of giving it back to the Taliban, then we may never leave, and if our presence there is a persistent destabilizing force, then Afghanistan may never stabilize. No, I don’t understand why most of the factions in Afghanistan are fighting, but we can account for our own objectives.
I’ll only support our continued involvement in Afghanistan so long as someone can persuade me that our leaving would present a significant security threat to the United States of America. Meanwhile, all the talk right now seems to be about doubling down.
If Reagan could just up and leave Lebanon, why can’t they do that in Afghanistan?
Reagan was a wise man–and he had some of the smartest military minds and foreign policy people on his staff the world has ever known.
It may have helped because our marines died as part of a multi-national force under the auspices of blue helmets–on a peacekeeping mission.
It may have helped that the general public was especially sensitive to getting sucked into quagmires again in the aftermath of Vietnam.
George H.W. Bush did the same thing in Somalia.
It can be done. It takes a pragmatic realist to do it. Clinton held us out of Rwanda for those kinds of reasons.
But it becomes increasingly difficult to leave as more soldiers die. You saw the big deal that was made over our ambassador in Libya. We had one American on the ground, too many. If we’d deployed troops in Libya, we’d probably still be there–because there would be more casualties, and Libya still isn’t a democratic and free country with gay marriage yet.
Reagan was man enough to admit when he was wrong. Not for political reasons or for capitulation to the mob. An honest admission.
What many people forget is that Bush II kept us out of the mess in Darfur. When the EU nations came bleating that we had to do something because of the “humanitarian crises” he told them- diplomatically of course- that we were already busy in Iraq and Afghanistan. He did tell them, that if the crises was grave enough to warrant their response that the US would applaud their efforts.
Funny how the great EU military and humanitarian response slips the wold’s consciousness.
Nothing in this comment should be seen as endorsing how badly the Bush II administration screwed up the Afghan War or endorsing the Iraq War.
If you are not going to fight to end the fight, once and for all, stay the fuck out..
That’s a big part of Powell/Weinberger Doctrine.
You don’t go in without an exit plan. That’s just good investment advice. You don’t buy into something unless you know how you’re getting out of it if and when things don’t go as planned. Partnership documents are basically prenuptial agreements.
Bush Jr’s didn’t believe in any of that. His idea was to burn the bridge behind him like Cortez scuttling his ships–so there’s no way but forward. The most useful aspect of the UN used to be as an exit strategy. How much better off would we be if we could have handed Iraq off to the UN?
Bush Sr. lived by Powell/Weinberger doctrine. If I disagree with a president on a foreign adventure, he or she can get a lot of credit just for exit strategy. Bush Sr. invaded Panama with no intention of staying there any longer than he did. Bush Sr. refused to topple the Hussein regime in Iraq because there was no good exit strategy.
Obama’s adventure in Libya was like that. We didn’t need an exit strategy–because we never deployed troops on the ground. Yeah, don’t go in unless you know how you’re getting out, and Bush’s ‘We’ll get out when democracy blossoms in the desert like my neocon buddies tell me it will’ exit strategy is horseshit. I was called a racist by neocons for asking what happens if democracy didn’t take!
Damn, Weinberger was smart. Yeah, he made mistakes, but then he was juggling dozens of flaming Molotov cocktails.
I made some tough calls ahead of the real estate crash and got a lot of grief about it at the time Un retrospect, no one gives you any credit for being prescient, too. The future was always inevitable–even back in the past, doncha know? Of course you saw the future, that’s your job!!!
Baloney. At the time, I was an idiot for saying not to deals that couldn’t be justified on a rent basis. I just didn’t understand that it was different this time!
In that spirit, here’s a quote for the ages:
“Their society is economically weak, and it lacks the wealth, education, and technology to enter the information age. They have thrown everything into military production, and their society is starting to show terrible stress as a result. They can’t sustain military production the way we can. Eventually it will break them, and then there will be just one superpower in a safe world – if, only if, we can keep spending.”
—Casper Weinberger, 1984
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_Weinberger#Secretary_of_Defense
That wasn’t said in 1989 or 1991 or 1997 or 2001. That was 1984. The elitists said he was nuts.
Matt Welch wrote a piece the other day in which he wrote about Trump blundering into a policy of pursuing a security relationship with Putin–which is actually something Trump campaigned on. How do you “blunder” into doing exactly what you said you were gonna do?
It reminded me of the way the press used to present the Reagan administration, as if they had no idea what they were doing, Reagan was just a B movie actor, oh, and in retrospect, he had Alzheimer’s!!! Only an idiot would do the things he did. He turned his back on Gorbachev at Reykjavik, which was so stupid. Then Reagan was skewered by his own party for turning around and embracing Gorbachev. He and his administration were soooooooooooooooo corrupt and stupid!!!
Reagan made mistakes. And Trump ain’t no Reagan. But I’ve seen the press go after people for doing smart things before. I bet there are very few journalists who could actually run a news outlet profitably. If they weren’t journalists, they’d be car salesmen, and they wouldn’t be very good at it.
Because Wolfowitz et al successfully poisoned the well. Any backing down is now viewed as capitulation and unpatriotic.
Sunk cost fallacy. At least the new guy has some management experience so he might be more aware of it at least.
random thoughts
Some nut planning to shoot Trump got caught. CNN once again described an AR-15 as an assault rifle
MSNBC had a segment about how ending the Paris Climate agreement with cost jobs. In big letters on the screen: “this study assumed that companies are static in response to regulatory changes”. I nearly spat out my drink.
On NPR, they were talking about the national debt and a possible govt shut down. The host asked the guest “but the govt can’t run out of money, they can always print more!”
This just in: University of Arizona denies ‘official’ relationship with trans-hippo visiting scholar
***
Morin begins “Ego Hippo” by describing how his identification as a water-dwelling ungulate allows him to “escape” classification from traditional binaries, such as gender, sexuality and age.
“I don’t have to be a boy or a girl, a child or adult, normal or strange,” Morin writes. “It brings me freedom, space, and a thrilling sense of possibility.”
The doctoral student explains that the hippo identity brings him “comfort” and makes him feel “safe.”
“I do strongly love when my friends call me ‘hippo,’ refer to my ‘paws’ and pretend that they see no difference between me and one of my stuffed hippopotamuses,” says Morin. (Hippo feet are known as hooves, not paws.)
Not only does Morin identify as a hippo – specifically a “baby hippopotamus” in his journal biography dated May 17 – he considers his “gender” to be hippo as well.
While his bio indicates Morin uses male pronouns, he writes in Angelaki that he enjoys correcting people who refer to him as a guy.
“When someone… calls me a ‘goofy guy’ I correct them by saying ‘you mean a goofy hippopotamus,’” says Morin, adding that by doing so, he is “attempting to intervene” in what other people “imagine to be my gender.”
***
https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/32896/
Assuming makes an ass.
Sounds like hippo appropriation.
He’s not a hippo. He’s a troll, and a damn good one.
Yeah, that was thought as well. Bravo.
Brother, if you’re a human being who wants people to think of you as a hippopotamus, you’ve already taken a pretty strong stand on that continuum.
I’m a hiphopapotamus.
“I don’t have to be a boy or a girl, a child or adult, normal or strange,” Morin writes. “It brings me freedom, space, and a thrilling sense of possibility.”
I find just not giving a fuck what other people think has much the same effect, with less energy expended.
What the fuck happened to imagination?? That’s where children go to have “freedom, space, and a thrilling sense of possibility.” Sometimes I think that people took Reading Rainbow a bit too seriously.
I think there was a time when a liberal like Maher would have been given a pass but I think those days are over.
http://hotair.com/archives/2017/06/03/video-bill-maher-drops-n-bomb-front-ben-sasse/
Calling himself a “house [very bad word]” – well, I’m sure they’d give a pass to Limbaugh or someone like that.
No doubt the left would be calling for Limbaugh or Coulters head on a platter. They wouldn’t really care that they said it. It would just be a justification to shut them up, which is the end game. Shut up everyone who disagrees with them.
Ask Kramer how that works out.
This is the case of a word which is toxic when uttered by a nonblack person in any context (exception: Latino rapper Cypress Hill).
I like the idea of having *some* taboo words, and since the f-word is no longer taboo, at least keep the taboo on this one, and close the “rapper loophole.”
I think it was poor judgement on his part but it should be left at that. It’s amazing reading the news and seeing the daily atrocities that are committed everyday with very little reaction, but someone inadvertantly makes an offensive joke and they need to be destroyed.
I suppose in this context you could say “what would a Republican expect going on a show such as that?”
But I’m not sure I like the idea that a prog gets to tell bigoted jokes about anyone he doesn’t like, including of course conservative black people – who are often mocked by leftists using Maher’s term “house [bleep]s.”
And it’s OK to talk like that, you see, because they’re simply pointing out how racist the *other side* is!
Too late. Destruction of your enemy for Bad Speech/Bad Shirt/Bad Thought has been a very useful tactic for years on the Left. The only sensible response is to adopt it and use it to scorch the earth.
Ace of Spades blog had a post on it
I’m the opposite: unless actively used in a discriminatory manner, the taboo of “nigga” is stupid to me. Put too much offense in a word and you give it too much power.
Me too. But race-based taboos are bullsh-, uh, bad.
Oh and BTW it’s more like an “any person of color or want-to-be person of color gaping hole you could drive a truck through” loophole, at least in my neck of the woods.
Wait, I thought the Senator was a black Republican, but he’s white?
1. Maher has said nigger before on his show and in his stand-up (to include televised specials).
2. Maher has, in the past, done his routine with the most godawful attempts to do black voices/impersonations. And they aren’t flattering ones when he’s done them. This shit has been broadcast on HBO within the last few years and while I can’t remember all the specifics, he likely used nigger in it.
No one gave a shit. This isn’t theoretical – he would have and did get passes in the past for this sort of thing. We’re becoming a far more pussified and censorious society. And while it’s funny to see an old lefty like Maher increasingly become alienated from the younger progtards but clinging to the notion that he’s still with it (only occasionally griping about them), this shit has to stop.
Maher is a hypocrite of epic proportions and an asshole. But he’s typically been good enough on free speech. I’m tired of the left claiming scalps for petty, stupid bullshit. Comedy that was maybe edgy in the ’90’s, but accepted is becoming complete taboo that can cost you your job. And the ’90’s weren’t some dark age here.
As seen in Swiss’s first link, Taliban finally escalated and blew up a funeral of a man who was killed in the protest.
I’ve long wondered why, when terrorists commit a swinery, they don’t follow up on the response. Murdering up Charlie Hebdo or concert goers is one thing. But blowing up next day’s candle vigil/We Are Not Scared rally would hurt twice as bad. Maybe because Lone Wolf is easier to pull off, no one is expecting it and so no followup?
Better-organized terrorists do.
Al-Q had a long track record of trying to do exactly that, to maximise casualties. Both the first attempt on the WTC, and the early Kenyan bombings, both had provisions for secondary-explosions intended to kill early-responders. And attacking funerals has been their M.O. in middle eastern countries for a very long time.
Right, I count the “blow up the first responders” as part of initial swinery. It’s quite effective, but hitting the Candle Vigil would be twice as good, especially if their goal really is to stir division and whip up hate against Muslims in “the West”.
Good point about attacking funerals – I remember that in Pakistan at some point it nearly became an SOP to bomb the Christian funeral after you murder some Christians.
The thing that makes ISIS a threat, over and above AQ, etc., is that they have effectively crowdsourced terrorist attacks. IS does the recruitment and indoctrination, and provides the information package, but they do next to zero real training and no networking. They don’t provide funding, safehouses, comms channels, or any of the other infrastructure that ‘traditional’ terrorist groups depend on. That gives them a very limited attack surface – there’s not much for law enforcement authorities to penetrate and roll up, and there’s never any connection between the foot soldiers and the shot-callers.
That said, the lack of training and support means less effective attacks. IS can run terror attacks by remote control with great efficiency and near-perfect safety, but the attacks themselves are not very sophisticated.
OT: I believe this article may be Peak Guardian
bungled the tags.
Because “fuck equality under the law”
Really, the left hates the idea of *real* equality. That’s why they love this term “justice” which is actually their term for “irrational revenge against our cultural enemies”.
This is depressing. Whatever evidence-based sentencing could mean in reality, I’m sure I’m for it. I would love to see all crime sentences require some sort of rational justification and cost-benefit analysis. We would sure have a lot less pot farmers in prison. But, here is the one guy in the world who runs something called the Centre for Evidence-Based Sentencing and he is a total maroon.
This is normal. People create “institutes” and “Centers” and “coalitions” to make their narrow-activist-issue seem more like a scientific process which has institutional validation.
See = Center for Science in the Public Interest, Southern Poverty Law Center, etc.
often they’re run by a tiny group of people, if not one dude. Wasn’t Richard Spencer’s racist “National Policy Institute (sp)” basically a one-man band for years?
Here’s what I don’t get. This paragraph appears late in the article:
Outside of the first sentence (giving “preference”, for lack of a better term, to female offenders in sentencing would certainly prejudice male offenders), the rest of that paragraph is correct. That’s the way sentencing should be. So why did he spend the majority of the article talking about how women should be treated differently?
If it’s helping everyone it’s not really progressive.
When even the comment section of The Guardian is calling out your article as being batshit progressivism, you know you’ve gone too far.
You missed the best part:
“And US studies show that when in prison they are three times more likely to be victims of sexual abuse than male prisoners.”
a ctrl+f search for “rape” turned up nothing
“Sentencing systems around the world should be radically reformed to start with the assumption that women should not be sent to prison for their crimes”
DEFENDANT: “Your Honor, before you pronounce sentence on me for forcible rape, I just realized that I identify as a woman.”
If they’re going to go out on a limb and assert that relatively low crime groups should be sentenced differently to reflect their diminished predilection for heinous crimes, then Asians and whites should get lenient sentences too since Hispanics and blacks commit crimes out of proportion to their numbers relative to the Asian and white rates. Do they really want to open this can of worms, group specific sentencing guidelines that are graded on some kind of curve? I don’t think they’d want to go down that path once they see where it leads.
Alternet headline:
http://www.alternet.org/food/if-you-eat-these-popular-candies-youre-also-eating-insect-secretions
If You Eat These Popular Candies, You’re Also Eating Insect Secretions
Shhhh. No one tell him where honey comes from.
And I used to take them seriously… (OK, no I didn’t.)
Chocolate covered crickets are actually delicious and PETA can pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Slurm Queen: Is it? Honey comes from a bee’s behind. Milk comes from a cow’s behind. And have you ever used toothpaste?
Fry: Whose behind does that come from?
Slurm Queen: You don’t wanna know.
I don’t think milk comes from a cow’s behind.
Well, it doesn’t come a cow’s front.
They focus on insects, but no mention of rat feces?
SJWs have Maher in their sights.
https://thinkprogress.org/bill-maher-racist-history-b1d9c74283cd
Whiny prog writes:
***
He routinely denigrates the Quran, Muslims, and Islam—occasionally under the guise of a joke, but often in outright statements of naked bigotry.
***
Why do progs worry about offending Muslims? Oh yeah- because it’s somehow racism.
Reza Aslan on twitter: I can’t believe Bill Maher said something racist, said no Muslim ever. #realtime
2:20 AM – 3 Jun 2017
I feel a little bad for him. Perhaps if he had spent more time mocking SJWs, he would not be in the position he is now.
Well, he probably wouldn’t have a show so you’re technically right.
Maher has told them to fuck off at times, but embraces them in other ways (calling himself a feminist – which is fucking laughable). He’s a guy whose time has past in the leftwing movement. He’s aged out of the Democratic party, but doesn’t realize it. There’s basically nothing about Trump’s policies he disagrees with besides maybe the border wall.
I’ve always envisioned him as a cynical asshole who on at least some level knows he’s a hypocrite and full of shit. And when the cameras are off he’s fully aware of how derpy the SJW movement is.
Also don’t think that Bill would be too into the “war on regulations” or the fight against the AGW establishment, but only the most blue-dog of blue-dogs would be.
Is Trump really into a war on regulations or is that the slight influence of Bannon? Maher goes all in on global warming bullshit. I don’t have any argument there.
Trump’s distaste for regulations is real. Trump was talking about it way back in 2012, when he endorsed Mitt Romney:
Nothing is real with Trump besides self-interest. On some level, he understands that regulations sucks because he’s a real estate mogul of some kind. On the other hand, he’s a cronyist and he’s flip-flopped on just about everything countless times.
Trump has been everything at some point. And what he’s willing to say can change on a dime which can then influence policy. Which is why the establishment hates him so much. For whatever reason, he hated Obama.
He hates Obama because he and Seth Meyers made sport of him. “Maybe I’ll run for President, that should stop those cunts up!” And then he did.
A Headline that is supposed to suggest ‘obviously bad thing’ =
Farmers decry Trump plans to cut agriculture subsidies
That article was totally fair and balanced.
If Trump is really for cutting agri-subsidies, my vote’s 120% secured, but I know what happened to Mr. Huelskamp when he tried to do the same thing. Just not enough on the right team, unfortunately.
*If* Trump keeps this kind of thing up I’m going to have to seriously consider voting for him in 2020.
That’s my feelings too right now. Though I have to admit, I’m also really leaning towards just not voting anymore, given it’s entirely a feels based action that won’t change the outcome of anything I vote on.
Which is why libertarians never, ever win.
Is it just my imagination, or is this a giant non sequitur?
Headline:
Americans are taking their sweet time paying taxes, and the government is running out of cash
Article opens with:
Wealthy Americans and business owners are putting off paying taxes in the hopes that Republicans will deliver big cuts, leaving the government increasingly short on cash and accelerating its crash into the debt ceiling.
Federal data and anecdotes from tax advisers reveal that a significant number of taxpayers are postponing cashing out on investments and other financial decisions, hoping to pay less later if the White House and congressional Republicans pass a huge reduction in tax rates.
Oh, no! Rational behavior.
NOT OKAY.
It’s complete horseshit. The federal government doesn’t “run out of cash”.
Oh, WaPo. I understand now.
To paraphrase Michael Moore : “These big companies, like Apple and Microsoft are just sitting on big piles of cash. They’re flushed with cash, and they’re just hoarding it. We have so much cash in this country and people are starving. They took our cash and we want it back.That’s your cash!” —he said to a bloodthirsty band of kulak hunters.
Staaaaaaarving
If he’s worried about people starving, how about he give them some of his food?
OT: local sporting goods store is shutting down their gun department. Went in for a can of shoe polish and found out about while I was there. Made the mistake of browsing the cases, then remembering Walther is offering a $100 rebate on top of the store’s 15% off. One brand new PPS M2 LE edition came home w/ me. Thinking about going back for another now.
Good choice. I’d head back for the second one…
Shit.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40146916
Is it weird that I’m an open borders guy, except for Muslims? It’s the one area where I’m completely willing to breach my principles.
It’s not even just the terrorism. There’s a shit ton of less flashy issues where significant fucking portions of these barbarians are just awful. I’ll take the women, and that’s about it. And that’s not even innuendo.
As long as the welfare state is small and immigrants can’t suck on that particular teat, I see no problems with looser immigration requirements, Muslim or not. With the welfare state the size that it is right now, however? That’s a different story.
At the end of the day, the welfare state’s flaws aren’t going to get me to say no to people who are trying to improve their lives. I’m also not partial to they took our job arguments.
But it’s not just the welfare state. Various regulations make hiring illegals and working off the books more attractive. I’m well aware that it’s not fair, and that our Southern neighbors are basically broken states. That’s not enough for me to want to fuck over individual people who have nothing to do with it. Plus, Mexican food is great.
Unless you’re able to convince a lot of Americans that they can’t have the standard of living their parents were used to, that argument isn’t going to go away.
As long as you didn’t engage in the Great Ebola Panic of 2014.
I feel bad for those tens of millions of Americans who died like the closed-borders people said would happen.
That is honest…and rational.
Great Moments in Remove Kebab
The Siege of Szigetvár
***
The Ottoman army swarmed through the city, drumming and yelling. Zrinski prepared for a last charge addressing his troops:
“ …Let us go out from this burning place into the open and stand up to our enemies. Who dies – he will be with God. Who dies not – his name will be honoured. I will go first, and what I do, you do. And God is my witness – I will never leave you, my brothers and knights!… ”
Zrinski did not allow the final assault to break into the castle.[7] As the Turks were pressing forwards along a narrow bridge the defenders suddenly flung open the gate and fired a large mortar loaded with broken iron, killing 600 attackers.[7] Zrinski then ordered a charge and led his remaining 600 troops out of the castle.[7] He received two musket wounds in his chest and was killed shortly afterwards by an arrow to the head.[7] Some of his force retired into the castle.[7]
The Turks took the castle and most of the defenders were slain. A few of the captured defenders were spared by Janissaries who had admired their courage,[7] with only seven defenders managing to escape through the Ottoman lines. Zrinski’s corpse was beheaded and his head taken to the new Sultan[28] while his body received an honourable burial by a Turk who had been his prisoner, and well treated by him.[7]
Before leading the final sortie by the castle garrison, Zrinski ordered a fuse be lit to the powder magazine.[4][Note 8] After cutting down the last of the defenders the besiegers poured into the fortress. The Ottoman Army entered the remains of Szigetvár and fell into the booby trap;[6] thousands perished in the blast when the castle’s magazine exploded.[29]
The Vizier Ibrahim’s life was saved by one of Zrinski’s household who warned him of the trap when the Vizier and his troops searched for treasure and interrogated the survivors. While inquiring about treasure the prisoner replied that it had been long expended, but that 3,000 lbs of powder were under their feet to which a slow match had been attached.[7] The Vizier and his mounted officers had just enough time to escape but 3,000 Turks perished in the explosion.
***
Turks: 30,000 dead. Hungarian and Croat defenders: 3,000 dead.
[Nelson laugh]
wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Szigetvár
You’re a national treasure.
Yes, again. And again. And again.
I am looking at the idiot box now and see they had another one over in old Pommyland on the London Bridge.
They are a fucking blight on the face of the earth. Everywhere they go indiscriminate murder and the rape of children become a problem. Let’s get Hillary to bring a million of them over here. That’s the smart thing to do.
The problem gets just that much harder to solve for every single one of them admitted to the western countries. Worse yet if it’s a jus soli territory.
Jesus. Three sites, unknown numbers of assailants.
If there’s any comfort in the bullshit that goes down, it’s the fact that it’s incredibly easy to do and there are still relatively few incidents. But people rightfully have little tolerance for it because the motives are so fucking predictable and stupid.
I keep hearing people say, “Eventuallly people won’t take it anymore and the response is going to get ugly”.
But I haven’t seen anyone do jack shit, and why should I expect them to start now. It’s like ho-hum, here’s another attack.
But what are people supposed to do?
But what are people supposed to do?
Well historically they get fed up and this happens.
I keep expecting it. But if the breaking point hasn’t come now is it ever gonna?
Pogroms don’t happen over night. They’re long in the making and often require the right set of circumstances. We just lose sight of that fact. The low intensity string of terror attacks in Europe is relatively recent. It took them a long time to start killing Jews.
Europeans are far from enlightened. Americans actually are cut from a different cloth. Shit is going to go bad. The Islamists are determined enough to make it happen, and there’s a very far line between right and left over there.
There’s also the issue that Islamic terrorism is relatively new to the West, but pogroms happened after hundreds of years of anti-semitism. Thirty years ago if you saw a report about something like this, you would probably assume it was the Irish, now we guess it was the Amish. And probably Amish already known by the police.
Bin Laden thought that was going to be the immediate response in America right after 9/11. Riots and/or pogroms aren’t exactly rational things, they can be set off by some random bullshit.
Weren’t pogroms kind of ‘official’ though? With the State doing it or tacitly approving of it?
Maybe the British think their government is going to address it and keep them safe
Varied between support, approval and backing the fuck away to let people get it out of their systems.
The thing with the attacks now is that there’s a distance between them and the average citizen, and their portrayal is sanitized by the media. Take away that distance by making them more common and nearby while also lifting the veil on the media portrayals (photos of mangled kids always work) and I think you’ll see a much darker outcome.
I’m trying to figure out the five-dimensional chess the terrorists are playing whereby they seem to want the pogroms to happen.
Unite the Islamic world against the West, validate their ideology, play the Clash of Civilizations. At least that was Bin Laden’s idea, he was hoping that America would be massacring Muslims in the streets, making American Muslims and every other Sunni country on earth throw their support behind him and embrace his particular brand of crazy.
Or this. Thankfully we had a more civilized response available to us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MYEZbyyBJw
There are a disproportionate number of bad ones it seems, enough where followers of Islam should be kept out. Let them clean up their own house and reform their own religion without the safety valve of immigration that allows the problems to persist and spread.
Especially when you read up on how the Saudi Royal family spends BILLIONS of dollars to export their particularly intolerant and hate-filled version, wahhabism (aka salafism). They set up hard-line schools all over the world and send out tracts and korans. They fund terror. And we sell their country advanced weaponry.
They have bought so many American politicians that they now literally get away with murder.
And yet we continue to support the Saudis against the Shia, who tend to be more tolerant than the Sunnis, and just kiss their bloodstained asses in general.
The photos of W. Bush holding hands with a saudi prince and Obama bowing to one both turned my stomach. This is why we need to drill for our own oil!
Hopefully, like last time, the Metropolitan Police will focus on what’s important here: Making sure that nobody’s posting any hate speech on twitter.
The Amish are restless.
I don’t think it’s possible to defeat the Taliban without obliterating Peshawar and Quetta. As long as they have a safe haven in Pakistan, they can always rebuild their forces and keep fighting.
I’m of the opinion that both Afghanistan and Iraq could have gone far, far differently if they had been planned properly. But then again, so could have Vietnam. Democracies produce poor military leadership – especially in peacetime. The idiots who get promoted are done so on the worst basis possible. They’re fixated on war gaming the last war which they still haven’t figured out while signs of the new one brew. And even when they may have some answers, they tend to be politically unacceptable.
Who is trying to defeat the Taliban?
Oh, they’ve got plenty of safe havens in Afghanistan too.
At this point, it’s lost without a real commitment to cleaning the country up. You have to move district by district. That’s my hunch. Between the warlords and the true believers, they’re entrenched. No one is (rightfully) willing to make that commitment.
I don’t believe any war is unwinnnable, but certain wars are lost very early on.
Elsewhere in the UK: Far-right, anti-fascists clash in Liverpool protest
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2017/06/03/Far-right-anti-fascists-clash-in-Liverpool-protest/5991496519871/?utm_source=sec&utm_campaign=sl&utm_medium=2
***
Police in Liverpool, England, said they arrested 12 people after left-wing protesters and demonstrators involved in a planned far-right march clashed on Saturday.
The English Defense League, a far-right organization, planned the march in the city center to protest against a number of issues, including Islamist terrorism. About 600 activists described as anti-fascist by local media met up with the estimated 140 EDL protesters in defiance of their views.
Merseyside County police made the decision to disperse the crowd after the interaction turned violent and threatened the residents and businesses in the area. Members from both groups threw items, including bottles, and set off what was believed to be fireworks.
…
“At some points, members of the left wing were seen to throw darts and flares were also activated,” Deputy Chief Constable Carl Foulkes said.
Foulkes said the EDL marchers were moved to a different area of the city and all involved were ordered to leave the city center.
…
Video of the event showed counter-protesters singing Liverpool-native John Lennon’s “Imagine” and cheering to celebrate disrupting the EDL march.
***
So the antifa assholes were throwing shit and they kicked out the EDL?
Also, not sure EDL counts as far right. Or that Antifa is anti-fascist.
All I know about EDL is that the founder Tommy Robinson left it years ago because he thought it was going far right extremist, so maybe?
Isn’t the EDL basically English football hooligans who follow politics?
Hooligans without a soccer team trying to get laid by the tattooed bird that caught their eye? When I was a young “socialist” it was more meet, greet and skeet rather than any firm political views. Tons of tail and all for a pittance, wear the right t-shirt and you were in like Flynn.
No, it’s true. The communists have always been anti-fascist. It’s just that they’re as bad in almost every way that counts.
Interesting trend: Many leaders of EU countries are childless.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May
German Chancellor Angela Merkel,
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte
French President Emmanuel Macron
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven
Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon
Italy’s Paolo Gentiloni
Switzerland’s Simonetta Sommaruga
I wonder if this affects their thinking.
Been watching Stefan Molyneux?
I haven’t watched him in a few months.
“Childless” is the new tonsure. You are so convinced that the world is going to hell in a chuck-wagon that you daren’t leave any progeny behind to sift through the ashes. It’s the ultimate virtue signal or conversely, you are so fucked up that you can’t even get this one, simple thing right.
The nation’s people are their children. (barf)
It absolutely has an effect on thinking, world view etc. Anyone who has children knows how profound that effect is.
Anyone who has friends with kids knows how profound it is too. They get all lame and ‘responsible’.
Some of us are already lame and (kinda) responsible. No kids needed. Never understood the desire to have kids, personally.
Basic biological impulse?
That explains sex. It doesn’t explain why people today, with all the ways we can have sex and not make a baby out of it, want to have kids.
You come with an expiry date and you have a pathological natural desire to keep your genes going. Still biological impulse.
I think the “basic biological impulse” you’re referring to is separate from any desire for kids, even if that is often the end result.
I’m referring to gene selection/Selfish Gene theory. Genetic egoism and all that.
Fair enough. It wasn’t a statement that I intended to get an actual answer to. I get the whole biological impulses and desire to continue ones genes and speciesfrom that angle. Just wondering what happened to me that I have never desired to pass on my genes.
Still, the deliberate separation of “cause” and “effect” has thrown a monkey-wrench into that imperative.
It’s like the putative “God gene” – most people have it. Some don’t.
Well clearly you’re self-correcting evolutionary mistake. Duh.
“Helen Lovejoy to the white courtesy phone”.
today in demoralization: Gyrating drag queen’s erotic performance shocks audience at grade school talent show
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/06/02/erotic-drag-performance-at-grade-school-talent-show-shocks-parents.html
***
Parents are furious after children as young as 5-years-old were exposed to an erotic drag show performance at what was supposed to be a school district talent show.
…
The New York Daily News described the lewd performance as “complete with gyrations, tongue gymnastics and a flashed G-string.”
The May 25th performance shocked and enraged parents who could not believe the school district would allow a grown man to spread his legs and display his crotch to wide-eyed children.
…
The talent show was emceed by District 4 Superintendent Alexandra Estrella. And the individual who performed in drag was identified as the president of the Public School 96 Parent Association.
“The school district told me the performance was about LGBT awareness,” she said.
***
Why is an adult performing at a grade school talent show in the first place?
to raise LGBT awareness
I get that. I always thought talent shows were to showcase the talent of the students.
To raise hackles, to make a “statement” as it were.
This is much more woke than the stripper-pole performances at every other cishetero grade school talent show.
It’s not a “real” performance until she shows some slit so we’re basically comparing potatoes to kumquats at this point.
Sex-ed.
I love that movie. We piled into my buddy’s truck, smoked joints with abandon and headed down the hill to watch that one in the theater. When I say piled in there were twelve of us sitting in the bed of the truck. Times have changed.
Oh for the days of “Smear the Queer”… When I was in elementary school we played “Murderball”. Basically rugby but without rules and no defined scoring system. We’d run and bash and play and cry and then we’d go back to class and sit fairly quietly for the next two hours. My 1970’s educators were onto something.
Sounds like these parents need to get woke and leave their bigotry behind.
Sounds like these parents should withdraw their kids from the system and leave public school funding behind.
“…the performance was about LGBT awareness.”
Well, they accomplished that. Re: my rant the other day – Keep it up motherfuckers. You are doing a beautiful job.
It is delicious, watching the mother cat eat her own spawn.
It’s actually disgusting. I saw a mom-cat chow her baby when I was 8. Sorta scarred me. Scarred me for life!
Louise Mensch is a lunatic. This is from an hour ago:
?????????????????????????????
How is it even possible to think any of that?
If Putin is really that powerful and omnipotent, there really isn’t a point to fighting him. We should all just embrace our future as his servants. Less trouble that way.
Mensch may be controlled opposition (Milo supposedly outed her a few days ago), would explain a lot.
That’s interesting and obviously hard to substantiate… #RapeMelania seems like it might be going a bit too far, though…
There is a photo of them together that was used as “proof”, but you’d think if she really were, then she’d close it down after being outed. So I’ve now moved onto the idea that someone found that photo and it was Milo’s effort to ‘poison the well’ with her. I’m not sure it got enough play to work though.
I remember when Leftists used to count on the Soviet Bear as a friend, a benefactor. It’s all gone topsy/turvy and they are the monster under the bed again. Democrats are acting like 13 year-old girls with their in and out groups. Now that Trump is in power the 17 different intelligence agencies are a “good” thing. Shake my head until the marble makes some sense of the spray can that is my poor decrepit mind. Covfefe.
And Covfefe to you, my brother. Peace Be Upon Trump.
And Covfefe upon you as well, Tovarich!