Turdsday Special

[Jimi]

Best to clarify before I am skewered for my rant.

 

My laughter is not a celebration of our dead bretheren, by any measure, though it is an unavoidable consequence. It is rather the laughter of exhausted irritation with watching someone fall into trap after trap after trap. The dog keeps trying to bag the porcupine, and comes home whelping and confused, night after night.

 

This is the story of us & Sadr. We were going to get him, "dead or alive." Then, we were going to launch an offensive, but then backed down. This was in late spring. Now, we're back to preparing to launch an offensive, and then stalling, and then watching the political consequences of this bewildering strategery and tactictings boomerang upon us.

 

Depends posted a picture of himself in Vietnam. I am grateful he came back alive, and certainly mean no disrespect to those who serve... especially those with delghtful little charts.

 

It is a serious matter to send those who volunteer, and those who are conscripted, to war to die. To do so casually or wrecklessly is of great dishonor--not by those who serve, but those who write the orders.

 

The only person in the administration who understands this is Colin Powell--sadly, about 24 months too late--which is why he has gone silent, and will not play a role at the Republican convention.

 

He has been party to great dishonor, and he knows it.

[NWD]

the Coalition of the Wilting will start playing, "Last One Out's a Rotten Egg." Helicopters will ingloriously depart the "Green Zone" in a rerun of the fall of Saigon.

Riddle me this: If US forces have to hightail it out of Iraq, what's that going to do to the foreign exchange value of the US$?

 

It hasn't been connected gold, or any other objective value, since '71. It rests on "faith."

 

I think part of that "faith" is the faith that anybody that crosses Uncle Sam is in for a butt whipping.

 

That faith may be severely tested in the next few months.

[Hypertiger]

the Coalition of the Wilting will start playing, "Last One Out's a Rotten Egg."? Helicopters will ingloriously depart the "Green Zone" in a rerun of the fall of Saigon.?

Riddle me this: If US forces have to hightail it out of Iraq, what's that going to do to the foreign exchange value of the US$?

 

It hasn't been connected gold, or any other objective value, since '71. It rests on "faith."

 

I think part of that "faith" is the faith that anybody that crosses Uncle Sam is in for a butt whipping.

 

That faith may be severely tested in the next few months.

 

Oil and the stalling of the debt growth rate is proping the dollar currently.

[HiHat]

Having Mandatory evacuation of almost 1 Million people.

 

Roads becoming clogged.......they be told .."just drive East"....

 

Gas stations are running out of gas..........ALL over............

 

Expecting.........after hurricane passes an 8' Tidal Surge..that will wash

right over whole coastal communities. they say some area be under

12' water....................

 

Police on TV saying once it sets in NO 911........you on your own.

 

not looking good...............................................................................

[The End]

Brian,

 

I will say this. If we fall apart tomorrow, I will curse Neely. If we bounce hard I will praise him. I will reshort back to 100% from my current 50% if we bounce to 1090 + over the next few trading days.

[NWD]

Oil and the stalling of the debt growth rate is proping the dollar currently.

Yes, I see your point. The rising crude price is sucking excess US$ out of everyone's pockets around the world.

 

But I figure that that mechanism can only work so long as the producing states continue to quote in US$.

 

I've read that Saddam's decision to start quoting in euros, and selling Iraqi dollar reserves, might have been a precipitant of the invasion.

 

If the US should come to be perceived as militarily impotent, I wonder if we might not wake up to discover middle east crude quoted in gold dinars, or renminbi or euros?

[depends]

The only person in the administration who understands this is Colin Powell--sadly, about 24 months too late--which is why he has gone silent, and will not play a role at the Republican convention.

 

He has been party to great dishonor, and he knows it.

Jimi - I suspect that Colon Powell is not as altruistic as you may think. As a Nam vet who has spent a great deal of time studying that illegal war I found information that leads me to believe that Colon may have issued to order to kill the civilians at My lai, and at least did try to cover it up. The man should have been tried for war crimes.

 

I learned this way before the internet, and there is very little information on the net relating to this.

 

I was front line infantry and had terrible leadership who shot prisoners of war and did other criminal acts. I only shot at soldiers. That was not a hard decision.

 

As you may know I am a rabid anti war person.

 

http://anderson.ath.cx:8000/Blair/bpowell.html

 

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/colin.html

[stained jeans]

I cchoose to vote for the party whose essential principles are closest to mine, and to work within that party to make it better represent the things in which I believe.

I respect this sentiment but my experience is that the politicians care more about the voters they don't have, than the true-blues already in their pocket.

 

Sort of like...

 

The boss who will not give you a raise until you have a competitor's offer in hand.

 

The credit card company that will not give you a lower rate until you switch cards.

 

The car dealer who will not come down on the price until you are nearly out the door.

 

The player who cares more about his next conquest than the nice girl he bagged lats Saturday.

 

The market maker who will not hit your bid until you attempt to cancel the order. *cough*. Not that that's ever happened or anything...

 

Under the current system, politicians care about getting elected and staying elected so they can keep their baleen in the krill stream. If you want to get their attention, you need to be willing to harpoon them every once in a while.

Very well said, dummy (you ain't no dummy :wink2: ).

 

Doc's strategy of working within the Dem party would make sense to me if I wasn't so convinced that the Plutocracy owns both parties...

[threadbare]

Uhhh--About pharmecueticals in Canada, correct me if I'm wrong. The govt places caps on what its willing to pay the large pharmas for any particular drug. Anders, this is actually govt intervention going head to head with pharma oligarchy in the U.S. Capitalism good--govt bad, is an oversimplified false dichotemy. You are seeing that play out in pharma in a so called free market.

 

Brian, Think doctor's wages are capped in B.C. I remember about 10 years ago, anyway, they weren't allowed to make over 350,000. per year(poor bast***s!) It was assumed that they were overbooking and not delivering quality care, if they were raking in more than that.

 

It's certainly not a perfect system, up here and the doctors are very regulated and here's why. About 15 years ago, my doctor told me that he was the only one many elderly had to talk to and if that's all they needed, he'd make appointments just so they could shoot the breeze! Very irresponsible, he should have sent them to the many volunteer agencies to help them address their lonliness. He also had a little notice posted in his office that patients with multiple problems should set up separate appointments for each defineable ailment. Ha ha. If doctors can't control themselves when they're in the govt. employ, they have to be controlled. If they don't like it, they can always move to the US and pay onerous malpractice insurance.

 

The idea that govt always does a poorer job than private industry, depends on the particular govt, particular industry, national temperment. People up here are socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Try to swindle a Canadian, on any level, and you'll be beaten to death with a dead fish or stale french toast. We also have more of a feeling that the govt is us, not "them"and have zero tolerance for corruption.

 

This sounds like a real -Lar te dar, aint it superior to be a Canadian type epistle. We do actually feel a little superior in some ways, sorry to say.

[Guest]

Full court PR press to invade Iran in progress as we speak.

Yes, they have been pounding the war drums pretty hard for a couple of weeks now.

 

W.

 

Condi.

 

Rummy.

 

Bolton in the State Department.

 

Unnamed "senior US officials."

 

But I ask myself: who are they going to get to do this "invading" part? The way things are going, they'll have to militarize and arm the meter maids or the 4-H Club.

 

Israel has declared quite openly that it's working on a plan to hit various Iranian nuclear facilities by sending F-15 tactical bombers through Turkish airspace.

 

USA contribution might consist of just giving them the nod to go ahead and do it. Or possibly infiltrate some special forces troops for various tasks.

 

I see horrendous complications from this.

Uh...it seems to me that if you manage to bomb nuclear facilities, and potentially light up a nuclear warhead or two in the process, the need to invade with ground troops becomes moot. They are growing tired of this flase concern for humanity any way.

[RockLedge]

ps -  I can afford a Ferrari if I wanted to get from point A to point B and look like a rich asshole.

But the damn insurance on the thing is what kills. Teens are being pushed to lease cars they normally couldn't afford to own. Then they find the insurance bill for full coverage and it's higher then the monthly payment for the leased car.

 

At least, as far as I know, the health insurance doesn't go up for having a cold or breaking an arm.

 

Depends, stay away from Vegas when it's a 115 degrees outside. Cars are left running all the time. It's crazy!

[brian4]

Thread two thumbs up-well said. Doctors are no longer capped it is now strictly fee per patient but they are audited continously for uneccesary procedures. I agree also with Jimi and Depends with an exception sometimes when diplomacy fails the world has to act as they did in Bosnia and many other Hell-holes. When they act under the U.N. and you wear the Blue Helmet you are not perceived as a Cowboy but rather as a Peacemaker and then a peace keeper, there is a difference when the world acts together.

[machinehead]

We also have more of a feeling that the govt is us, not "them"and have zero tolerance for corruption.

An enlightening statement, Tbare. A lot of Americans lost that feeling in the Fifties.

 

Even at the local level, the adminstration of taxes and fines is quite impersonal ... little feeling of community. We're just human livestock to them.

 

At the airport, we don't even aspire to the level of livestock ... :cry:

[Captain's Log]

At MacDill Air Force Base on Tampa Bay, only essential personnel will remain on duty, spokeswoman Lt. Erin Dorrance said. MacDill is home to U.S. Central Command, the nerve center of the war in Iraq.

From ABCnews.

 

If I was superstitous,I'd make a correlation here but I am not. Sometimes, sh1t just happens all at once.

 

Seriously, I hope nothing comes of the hurricane and it all "just blows over". I take no schandenfreud here.

 

I"ll say one thing 'bout US. When you have bad weather it is BAAADD weather. First time over here I couldn't understand that people why people were getting worked up about the coming storm that was about to hit Dallas. It is just a bit of rain I thought. When it happened. JEEEZ. Within minutes, trees were bending over, there was lightening in every part of the sky which had changed to a horrible dark green and it was pissing down with rain where you couldn't see 15 feet in front of you. Wow, I thought. 30 minutes later it was sunny again but erily quiet...

[brian4]

And Log being a good Brit you opened your umbrella-Right!