Year: 2007

A Rundown on GOP Loyalty Oaths

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Grand Old Party of Stalin, I guess.

  • The Virginia Republican party is requiring a signed oath that you will vote for the Republican presidential nominee.
  • The Kansas state Republican Party is forming a loyalty committee to punish officials who endorse or contribute to the wrong people.
  • On Vice President Cheney’s recent trip to New Mexico, residents were allowed in to hear his Albuquerque speech only if they signed a loyalty oath swearing they “endorse George W. Bush for reelection of the United States [sic].”
  • PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — “I want you to stand, raise your right hands,” and recite “the Bush Pledge,” said Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: “I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States.”

These folks have a problem deeper than bad policies.

Pentagon Wants 50-Caliber Guided Bullets

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This is a stupid idea.

I understand the idea, that this will allow even longer ranger sniping, but this technology already exists in antitank guided missiles, out to at least 5000 meters.

If you replace the missile warhead with an inert one, it eliminates the collateral damage problem, and a 500 km/h 10 kilo missile hitting someone will make them even deader than a .50 cal round. It’s something like dropping a safe from a second story window on them.

This is just another hole in which the military dumps money so that generals can get cushy jobs after retirement.

London Tube Officials Have No Bloody Sense of HumoUr

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Voiceover artist Emma Clarke, who has recorded announcements for the tube, was given the sack (her contract was terminated) after 8 years for making spoof messages:

  • “We would like to remind our American tourist friends that you are almost certainly talking too loudly.”
  • “Would the passenger in the red shirt pretending to read the paper but who is actually staring at that woman’s chest please stop. You are not fooling anyone, you filthy pervert.”
  • “Would passengers filling in answers on their Sudokus please accept that they are just crosswords for the unimaginative and are not in any way more impressive just because they contain numbers.”
  • “Here we are crammed again into a sweaty Tube carriage … If you’re female smile at the bloke next to you and make his day. He’s probably not had sex for months.”

“London Underground is sorry to have to announce that further contracts for Miss Clarke are experiencing severe delays,” a TfL spokesman told the Evening Standard Monday.

Her recordings are here.

US Orders IsraeliActive Protection Systems

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About 18 months ago, there was a minor scandal when the Pentagon eschewed the already tested and ready for deployment Israeli Trophy active protection system in favor of the Raytheon APS system.

Given what was happening in Iraq, it was concluded that someone was to close to US contractors, and too distant from troop needs.

The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, has declared the system Technology Readiness Level 9, which means that it is ready for immediate deployment, and ordered a set.

Jesse Jackson Says Dem Candidates Ignore Black Issues, Except for Edwards

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Fascinating. It’s clear that he is criticizing Obama with this statement:

Yet the Democratic candidates — with the exception of John Edwards, who opened his campaign in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward and has made addressing poverty central to his campaign — have virtually ignored the plight of African Americans in this country. The catastrophic crisis that engulfs the African-American community goes without mention. No urban agenda is given priority. When thousands of African Americans marched in protest in Jena, La., not one candidate showed up.

Truth be told, I agree.

Among the serious candidates*, only Edwards is talking to issues of inequality and poverty.

In fact, Obama’s basic message, one of “bipartisan civility” pretty much excludes any discussion of the divide between the haves or have nots, because such a discussion would inevitably lead to people saying nasty things to each other.

This is why we do not need a conciliator in chief.

*Which excludes Kucinich.

This is Why You Talk With Adversaries, and Keep Your Word

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The Iranians have put it very clearly, they do not consider the United States, or at least the US as led by Bush and His Evil Minions™ to be a reliable negotiating partner. I agree with them Bush cannot be trusted to enter into good faith negotiations.

What’s more, this is a reasonable, and rational position.

“We don’t trust the United States,” he told McClatchy Newspapers after the IAEA Board of Governors finished its latest round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program. “We could suspend nuclear enrichment. We did it before for two and half years. But it wasn’t enough then, and wouldn’t be enough now. We will not suspend enrichment again because there is no end to what the United States will demand.”

I agree with Matthew Yglesias’s assesment, that it makes no sense to try to appease religious fanatics, so any confidence building measure is meaningless when the current US government simply cannot be trusted.

French Evaluate Mi-26 as Heavy Lift Helicopter

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The French are looking at ultra-heavy lift capability, so they had some crews operating the Halo for a few weeks to see the potential tactical applications.

If they were smart, the would buy Russian, either the Mi-26, or the successor that the Russians purportedly have in the works, because both solutions will be much cheaper than a from the ground up solution.

The Russians have been the only people doing these size helicopters for 40 years.

Ward Connerly’s America: It’s France

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They are having riots once again in France. This is a product of a number of things, but one of them is racism, and the unenforceable nature of anti-discrimination laws in France.

France has a policy that no official records are kept regarding racial or ethnic origin by the government. The idea is that everyone is French, not hyphenated French.

Ward Connerly, a Californian Uncle Tom who has become wealthy by being an uncle Tom, and from being the front man for faux minority contracting*, has been pushing the removal or racial and ethnic status from California state records for years.

You see the natural consequences of such actions in France: a permanent underclass living in slums who are destined never to be hired by bigots, because these bigots will never be caught.

*Cognitive dissonance: Required for the mental illness known as “Republicanism”.

Mental Health Outsourcing

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Overheard on Stellar Parthenon:

I was feeling depressed last week, so I called the mental health help line.

Like all other call centers, it has been outsourced to a third world location.

When I told the operator in Pakistan that I was feeling suicidal, he got very excited and wanted to know if I could drive a truck or fly a plane.

rimshot

Edwards Says He Prefers Obama to Clinton

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I’m not sure if his statement is some sort of back door endorsement, or idle musing.

“The differences between Sen. Clinton (D-N.Y.) and myself are much more dramatic than the differences between Sen. Obama and myself,” Edwards told reporters after receiving the endorsement of the progressive group Caucus for Priorities, which seeks a reallocation of defense dollars into social programs.

I think that there is a real “anyone but Hillary” Caucus among liberal activists, and it will be interesting to see what happens if Hillary loses in Iowa.

90% Plunge in the US Dollar Forecast

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So says Trends Research Institute Director Gerald Celente, he is forecasting a 90% plunge and Gold being at $2,000.00/ounce.

Personally, based on nothing more than my gut, I would say that this is unreasonable, I don’t see it dropping more than 50% long term $3.00=€1.00, with an overshoot to somewhere around $5.00=€1.00 at the height of the speculative frenzy.

Still, this guy did, “forecast the subprime mortgage financial crisis and the dollar’s decline a year ago and gold’s current rise in May”, though so were a lot of other people.

However, I agree that, “the subprime mortgage meltdown was just the first “small, high-risk segment of the market” to collapse”.