A dollar is now worth 2/3 of a Euro

Your misery sustains us. Muhahahahaha.

And its happened in peacetime and war. Its happened at the end of every recession and the beginning of every bull run. Sorry your vacation was expensive. Try the US for a change. How about New Orleans? They would love to see your good green dollars and of course pack those euros back in here as much as possible as they cause our dollar to rise and their economies in Europe to fall. I see that the Europeans are flocking to New York, Boston, Atlanta, Memphis, Chicago, and Los Angeles and dropping those 1.60 Eurobucks into our economy. Thanks EU.... We created a new United States of Europe and the ebb and flow of both economies is good. We are on the rise, they are going to have to start cutting their rates soon.

The reason its gone the way it has is that oil has risen thru the roof. The second was that the disaster started when the Societe Generale Bank started pulling money out of the US and in other markets to cover up their little bank disaster in France with their rogue trader. Little larger by a factor of 20 this time around.

Up in smoke by paying too much for oil and down the drain in blood... Seems those were the same reasons WWII started. But that was then and this is now. Sorry Revere. It just sticks in my craw when you start talking about the dead and forgetting the Iraqi dead that Saddam would have just have gone on with generational killing. Qusay alone was attributed to over 100 rapes and thousands of deaths. Then there is Chemical Ali. Wonder what his name was for unless it was for producing stuff that kills Kurds? I dont really think you defend them, I just think you pass the reasons for the Iraq war over and say it was only over oil. It was just one component of it. But its easy to forget 450,000 when its easier to say the US killed 600,000.... cant be anyone but the US.

If you are so concerned, I guess we could have just given Europe back to the Nazi's.

No matter where you go, there you are.

Randy: As you know, it wasn't a vacation. It was business (a scientific meeting). I stayed five days, was by myself, and came home as soon as I could. But that's irrelevant. The dolar is collapsing for many reasons and oil is one of them. And the cost of oil is tied up with a lot things, too, and one of them (not the only one) is Iraq. You are so predictable, though. GWB can do no wrong, has done no wrong and can't be blamed for anything. OTOH Clinton his his opposite number. I can't stand either one of them. They are both asshats, but no President will be judged as harshly by history as GWB, your view notwithstanding. He has been a catastrophe for this country in almost every respect.

On the other hand, it might help the trade deficit.

"It just sticks in my craw when you start talking about the dead and forgetting the Iraqi dead that Saddam would have just have gone on with generational killing."

As if generational killing isn't going to continue under whichever strongman takes power in the midst of the bloodbath. *rollseyes*

Really, you people will come up with anything to distract from the fact that your stupid fucking war went south.

What happened Tyler... PowerUp not keeping you busy today? Oh indeed we tried politically correct and it didnt work. Now when we are happy to simply drop a 500 pounder rather than stand back with Apache's and get pot shotted they are all on our side.

We will leave Tyler, but not until we are good and ready.

Revere, GWB has made plenty of mistakes. But so did his predecessor and in a BIG way. They knew exactly who attacked our embassies but they did nothing about it. It was indeed a law operation at that time, then they attacked the mainland of the US. I guess we should just go back to that rhetoric stuff, get rid of Homeland Security, and airport checks. I also disagree. One thing that hasnt happened and that is another attack. I guess you really liked Carter? If not him, who as President have you liked?

Talk about predictability. Every day its a GWB rant of some kind and how his Administration effed it up for everyone. Anyone who thought we werent going back to Iraq was nutz. It was political correctness that stopped us from unseating the bastard in the first place. Lets just say you are right about the 600,000. Thats 600,000 that didnt need to die or the people that died since we didnt take Saddam out the first time.

Predictability? Shit, this next four years after GWB is going to more than predictable. Only difference is that one of these little shitheads IS going to get the big potato (nuke or chem/bio weapon) and they will use it on us. Thats if McCrazy, Obombme or Hitlary goes in. I am not questioning the if, just more so the WHEN.

Randy: It's a good thing I like you, because you are one really crazy motherfucker. Out of curiosity, who was your Repugnakint candidate before Senator Insane became the default?

GWB can do no wrong, has done no wrong and can't be blamed for anything.

It's not GWB who can do no wrong, it's MRK. If Bush were wrong, Kruger would be wrong, so Bush is right. World without end, amen.

The exchange rate I'm interested in is how many Iraqi lives one American life is worth. I keep asking, but no one seems to have any idea.

"...but no President will be judged as harshly by history as GWB, your view notwithstanding. He has been a catastrophe for this country in almost every respect."

Agreed, Revere.

It will be an enduring stain on our country's honor, for centuries to come, that this despicable, petty, delusional frathouse-asswipe was ever voted into (make that allowed to steal) the office of President of the United States of America. And that he has not been forced from office, and prosecuted for numerous war crimes, and assorted crimes against humanity, will ensure that this stain runs much deeper and broader than it might have. Why this person is not now in prison truly baffles me. He is personally responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent human beings, many of them US citizens; and he has been fundamentally instrumental in the destruction of countless other lives.

This is a truly vile, evil being, in my opinion. He enjoys what he does.

Why is this rabid, lunatic sociopath not in prison? Right now. Do people really fail to perceive this utterly soulless, self-obsessed feeder for what it truly is? This is Jim Jones, Jr. It's the messianic lunatic who took the Branch Davidian cult with him in death. It's Marshall Applewhite. Raised to a level that these people could never hope to approach. They, and a host of others. Only he is vastly more powerful. And vastly more dangerous, of course. Admiral William Fallon -- who once swore that war with Iran would not happen on his watch -- very recently quit his post. Abruptly. Unceremoniously. That is not a good sign. The frathouse asswipe can be tremendously, terribly dangerous in the remaining months of his Administration. Megalomania on that level knows no real, viable, extraneous constraints.

This fucking creep ought to conjure up vivid nightmares...for any thinking human being.

MRK, I really am glad that, as crazy as GWB has shown himself, he's not as crazy as you. Quite frankly, you sound like a raving psychopath.

It's a big world out there dood, 6.5 billion non-Americans and growing. It really isn't feasible to get our way by "dropping 500 pounders" whenever things in some foreign country aren't going our way. This is generally why we don't put 2-year olds in charge of our military.

Posted by: M. Randolph Kruger
..."We will leave Tyler, but not until we are good and ready"...

Reminded me of. . .

John Belushi
It's not over till we say it's over... Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor ? ? ?

*****

Dollar dropping because of rising oil prices??? The value of Revere's Euro hotel has increased from $260 in November now costs $328.... In US Dollars...

It's not the price of oil (or the room price) going up, it's the value of the greenback (US Dollar) dropping. . .

It is terrible what we have done with our money and power. SH kills 5 or 600,000 in twenty years and we add another 250,000 in five. I would say that that makes us the more efficient killers. And when we leave we will leave both broken as an army and broke as a nation.

For the half Trillion in direct cost and two Trillion in long term cost we could have we could have rained hundred dollar bills on Iraq from 2003 to doomsday. And still had enough money to repave every road, rebuild every bridge in the USA. Have you no pride Kruger? Doesn't it bother you that the US is so far behind in math, reading, high-speed internet access and health care?

Or that we paid for W's legacy by putting it all on our national credit card. Surely you can see that the only thing worse than 'tax and spend' is 'spend and borrow'. And that our outdated and moldering national infrastructure and lack of national health care is holding industry in the US back. Which is why the US dollar is rapidly becoming a joke.

These are the hidden opportunity costs of the war in Iraq.

Revere-Bill Frist.

And the rest of you who always come up with all the great ideas be sure to write often.I really dont know what you are going to do when GWB is gone besides rejoice.

Here is a news flash, you get a new one in January.... Then what?

I think 'bout my born 'n' bred NY cousins' children -- they are incredibly lucky to have wealthy parents -- but, what of their home ten years from now!?! Will an early 21st century American society (probably post-transgenic-pandemic) vaguely mirror the middleclass success of the late twentieth!?!

Think 'bout one trillion dollars invested in American infrastructure -- renewable energy, etc... A life of relative peace and prosperity for my family!?! This is why I signed on to Barack Obama's plan to end the war and make America safer:

Email-excerpt from Barack Obama entitled "Five years later": "Five years ago today, President George W. Bush launched a war that should never have been authorized based on faulty premises and bad intelligence.

This war has now lasted longer than World War I, World War II, or the Civil War.

Nearly four thousand Americans have given their lives. Thousands more have been wounded. Even under the best-case scenarios, this war will cost American taxpayers well over a trillion dollars.

And where are we for all of this sacrifice?"

The tailors of Bangkok have voted with their purses:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/19/us-peso-deathwatch-t.html

"And the rest of you who always come up with all the great ideas be sure to write often.I really dont know what you are going to do when GWB is gone besides rejoice."

Oh? And what have you been doing other than being GWB's ass-licker? If you love Bush so much, why don't you go to Iraq and die for him? Better you, an old fart, than America's youth.

Awesome! All my debt is in dollars. I could totally move to Europe and pay off my debt by cleaning rooms.

don't rely on Mary Kelly.
There is a fixed exchange-rate dollar versus Euro or Yen
and movements are not as big as with some other currencies.
In general there should be no problems to change,
and if, it's probably not related to the weak dollar.
It can go down further or recover, no one knows...
(although many statements)
the actual rate anticipates the expectations.
Everyone is free to change to whatever currency.
If you knew, that Bush's election would result in
a dollar-decline, then I'm surprised that you didn't
profit from that knowledge.

The dollar went south thanks to all the crazy gambling that's gone on in the stock market and subprime mortgages. When gambling has huge leverages going on and it doesn't work out, guess what happens? It collapses because there's nothing backing it up. That's why gold and oil have shot up recently. People no longer have faith in the Us economy and are worried about the huge losses NOT being talked about. When we go back to sensible trading and stop exporting all of our jobs, thing will get better and those bubbles in oil and gold will collapse. Thanks GW. Quite a legacy in history you will be leaving.

And its happened in peacetime and war. Its happened at the end of every recession and the beginning of every bull run.

No. No. Throughout this time, the US$ was worth about 2 1/2 times as much, in European currencies, as it is today -- and there has never been deflation in Europe.

Also, has oil really shot through the roof? In it has risen much less than in $: a liter of gasoline used to be around 1 , when the Iraq war started it climbed to 1.30, and now it's around 1.45. During the same time frame, the "doubled" from 0.82 $ to 1.64, even though inflation keeps going at the usual 1 to 2 % per year. Clearly, oil (and gold and pretty much everything else) has not so much shot through the roof as the $ has shot through the floor.

And why exactly did you change the topic to the Iraq war in the 3rd paragraph? Did you even notice you changed the topic? Surely you don't mean to say that this stupidest of all wars since 1812 is among the reasons for the price of oil...?

anon: I'm not a business person, looking to make a buck wherever I can. I'm a scientist who blogs. Anyway, if we knew before what we know after, we'd all be rich.

There is a fixed exchange-rate dollar versus Euro or Yen

What have you smoked, and can I get it legally in the Netherlands?

If you knew, that Bush's election would result in a dollar-decline

A decline relative to what? From 1999 to 2002 the declined faster than the $, so much so that it dropped from 1.17 $ to 0.82 $. Only then did the European recession stop and the effects of Dubyanomics got through.

Also, how does one cash in on such a thing? Not everyone is a professional broker.

BTW, you don't need to hit Enter, line breaks are made automatically; and a comma before "that" is German.

FO-been there and done that. Most of the troops are re-enlisting now so being sideline shitsucker is not what I have been, unlike most.

Thats what I really like, those that pontificate without having all the facts in. Just saying that Iraq is a disaster doesnt make it so. Most of the guys that I know and many that I trained are on the ground there. They are now carrying pistols rather than M-16's unless on patrol. That give you a clue?

You could always have Saddam back and having to cover that at a cost of who knows how much money each day.

History may later show that GWB and the crew sandbagged us. But thats what history is for. He who wins gets to write the first draft.

Dylan-Fallon was put in because he was next on the list. I hadnt worked for him but I had seen him. His first order of business was to pull Petraeus a highly decorated Marine into a meeting and call him a suck up and boy. Fallon has been in there for about a year and half and Petraeus got to go to Congress and get Waxmanned. Fallon who was his commander was not a very good choice. Still a good commander, but not the right guy. You want some who is both dictator and benevolent at the same time. If someone raises their hand in an attack you smake them so hard that they wont even think about doing anything. Hand them a carrot first and then a flyswatter if they dont take it... Behavior modification.

So suddenly he resigns over differences with the Administration with less than 9 months to go. Me, with the exception of FDR I always considered the Dems to be those who want to fight limited wars. Wars that never impose our will on those who we are shooting at and guarantee another one in the future. Korea, Vietnam are good examples. If you have to fight a war then you dont use a bullet when a 500 pounder would do. Pax Americana? yeah probably but Rome fell because they had lost their edge.

Nukes? Maybe... but keep the options open. I can assure you that we will be hit again, hard and soon.

Coming to a city near you.

MRK - please tell us who is going to hit us hard and soon, and how you know. It's a big country, so how do you know it's going to be near me.

You sound like you're just trying to make us all afraid of an imminent, undefined, local attack. I just don't see how it's possible. And if it were possible, why you would know about it ahead of time.

Steph

Nukes? Maybe... but keep the options open. I can assure you that we will be hit again, hard and soon.

Coming to a city near you.

<insert photo of snarling Darth Cheney>

Be afraid. Be very very very very very very very afraid.

Steph-you obviously missed the posts of the last few weeks. The FBI released a list of thwarted attacks and attack plans and it wasnt just here. Aussieland, the UK, Spain.

You also missed that there was an attempted hijacking of a Chinese airliner too. The plan, drive it into a building.

But everyone just forgets after a while that this is an ongoing battle.

Jonny ole son, Howdy. I am sorry but Barack hasnt got a clue what to do about Iraq. This guy has a lot more questions to answer than Hillary and now she has problems with a lawsuit that was filed to get access to her phone records.... McCain doesnt make me feel safer, but I can say he would be better than either of the other two. You also assert that GWB started a war based on flawed intelligence... Okay, but if thats the only reason we hit Saddam then you would be partially right. WTF are the WMD's that the UN verified. He had enough VX if properly applied could have been a human city weed killer. Those little gentlemen that drove into the WTC's had been to Baghdad and it wasnt for a vacation. Al Qaeda is in Venzuela and have set up camps. So with all due respect the assertion that we shouldnt have gone to war is simply not correct. I would have hit the sonovabitch for genocide... Kind of like the Jews. If we had gone in 37-38 WWII would have not been as big a killing field.

I said it before to Revere. Is there ANY issue or thing that would make you go to war? Genocide? Attacking your allies? Bombing trains in Spain? Hitting WTC's? Harboring known terrorists and training them? I mean really, they can call Bush all sorts of names but the bottom line was that we had a ship attacked, two actually. We had embassies bombed... money trail led back into Ethiopia and then into Baghdad. Found that out post of 9/11 under the intelligence gathering proviso's. Our initial response was to violate foreign airspace with a cruise missile attack. For me I would have used a tactical nuke to hit Afghanistan to get Osama of the neutron variety. Cheap.. didnt and dont need to go to war. Those that would die would do so quickly and it would let them know that to harbor people like that has consequences.

I know this will light a few people up. But you think that this election is going to end it and you'll just go back to negotiating with these people until one day, and soon you'll get to see another WTC or worse event. The Russians found out, we are finding out. Its the politics that will be inserted in between this and the inevitable and that is that Iraq is and was just round one. Round two starts when the next President takes office. If its Barack he will say pull them out right up until the politics starts to weigh in. If its Hillary its going to be lets negotiate with them.

Status quo is not going to be maintained in this.

David.... Each day that passes puts Cheney farther and farther into the history books along with the "shadow government" that he is supposed to be running. Its not borne out at least where anyone can see it. No matter who goes in next its not going to be a kinder, gentler Administration. The next one had better be tough as nails and God help me for saying it. If its not McCain it had better be Hillary because that is one cold bitch and would do anything to maintain her image.

It's amazing how responding to Randy can make a thread go off the rails like this, which is whay I quit bothering with his posts.

Sorry Rich but as one of he few conservatives here you guys get to hit me multiple times, I only get to hit back once or twice. I am used to that though.....

It is a left wing blog and its hard to get past a lot of the noise and rhetoric especially on Iraq. I dont like having guys that I trained in the military getting shot at by direct enemies and those back here. They are all there by choice and not by the draft.

Our own people think that this terrorist stuff is about nothing. That I can assure you is flatly wrong as I personally saw an attempt right here in good ole Tennessee and you never heard about it. Probably better that you didnt because then some politician would be saying we werent doing enough. There are plenty that lurk in the bushes (no pun) here that never post up because of the snarky attitudes.

They can go home to their husbands, wifes or talk to their bosses to get that kind of response.

Randy: And you missed the stuff on the news indicating that most of those reports were bogus or unsourced. How many arrests and convictions resulted?

MRK,

While there are a few who make sweeping generalizations concerning the mentality of our troops, most bemoan the current use of them by our current president. Human life in general is considered to be valuable here, and to have a few thousand of them wasted based on what is appearing to be a fruitless war whose premise was false makes some of us upset with the current CIC.

The dollar is now near record lows. That's what happens when you send your gross domestic product up in smoke and send it down the drain in blood.

I agree with this assessment of the economic situation in the US, but I don't think most Americans will be motivated to try to change anything, as long as we can keep doing what we want to do. Yes, it's more expensive to travel in Europe, but that doesn't stop many Americans from planning vacations and attending meetings there. I can think of half a dozen colleagues in my department who will attend scientific meetings in Europe this year, and half a dozen others who will vacation in Europe, in spite of the tanking dollar. They'll still go to Europe, and just whine more about the cost on their return. "European vacation photos...now with added whining!"

Same phenomenon with the rising price of oil and gasoline. Many Americans feel that they're specially justified in complaining about the cost of gas, even though Europeans have been paying much more for years, because "our country is bigger and we have to drive greater distances". While the distance comparison is valid, it's also true that Americans are more likely to drive gas-guzzling SUVs, and to zoom around for the sole purpose (apparently) of masturbating with a subwoofer. Gas has topped $3.00 per gallon here in Texas (I'm expecting frogs and minnows to rain from the skies any moment), and yet many find the money to drive around aimlessly in a Chevy Tahoe, with a stereo speaker the size of a tapir in the back. In the presence of such, I would be embarrassed to complain about the price of gas to any European visitors.

>Dylan-Fallon was put in because he was next on the list. I hadnt worked for him but I had seen him. His first order of business was to pull Petraeus a highly decorated Marine into a meeting and call him a suck up and boy.< Randy

You are astonishingly -- and profoundly -- (though not surprisingly) ill-informed. Petraeus is an Army General. The encounter that you allude to occurred between Fallon and Peter Pace; Pace is a genuflecting, sycophantic Marine General whom the Chimp installed as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. To the Marine Corps, Pace is an embarrassment of monumental proportions. He was once a junior member of Fallon's staff; Fallon recognized him for what he was -- a slimeball ass-kisser -- and rightfully despised him. And told him so to his face.

I'm an ex-Marine grunt, and Vietnam combat veteran, by the way.

I forgot to mention that Pace is no longer the Chairman of the JCS; it seems that he was jettisoned, once it was clear that he was no longer useful.

What a fucking surprise!

Correction: I just reviewed all the material, and Randy was correct about the encounter between Fallon and Petraeus (still wrong about Petraeus' service affiliation, though). But Fallon was still correct; Petraeus was -- and is -- an ass-kisser of the first order. Very smart ass-kisser, though. If a Republican gets the front office, he is very obviously first in line for the Chairman of the JCS...how unfortunate.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/09/12/report-fallon-derided-pe_n_641…

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-fallon13mar13,0,469138.story

http://www.eturbonews.com/1634/airline-crew-thwarted-china-hijack-bid

http://moderate.wordpress.com/2008/03/07/centcom-commander-fallon-may-b…

Congratulations on making it Dylan from Vietnam. You above all should know that I spent a lot more time in than the 1 year in the bush.

You are right about the military service of Petraeus, I was thinking of Pace and transposing Petraeus in his stead. Fallon was going to be relieved if he didnt resign his post. He was simply next in line for a command and he got it, tried botching it by opposing the surge and he got handed his hat. You might be right about the JCS. It would be unusual though for him to go to that level direct from a 3 to a 4 and then auto-JC. Congress which is Democrat might have something to say about it in between their global warming rants....

The only real ass kisser here that isnt mentioned is Wesley Clark. BTW Dylan if Bush is a Chimp what did that make the Clingons? We all kiss ass in some way or form to get where we are Dylan. This is a fine art in the military.

Revere-I posted the link about thwarted attempts.

http://www.naiop.org/membersArea/government/reisac070807.pdf

Bogus or unsourced...? And by your own admission most. Would one airliner be enough or is two too many? There are a lot more out there that I am aware of but until they break in the news, well read this little jewel and let it go at that. Lets put it this way... I work in the aviation business and I havent been on an airliner in a year. I drove from here to New York a month ago. Draw your own conclusions from that.

Been on a train lately? They are now doing them like they do the airlines because of specific possibilties but no direct threats. They know that the rails are being surveilled by suspected terrorists. Besides when you get ready to bomb something nowadays they dont phone them in anymore, they just do it.

Kind of like that 500 pounder arriving on Al-Zarqawi's doorstep.

BGT-Again, no one made them sign the paper to be there. They did it on their own. I am appalled by the lack of support to win it on the parts of many. Just leave and like Vietnam, leave American blood on a country that right or wrong we invaded. Then we just up and leave? Uh-uh.... Anyone thinking that Obama is going to get a phased withdrawal across 18 months is full of crap. The Iranians and Syrians will be in country and in heavy strength 15 minutes after we leave. It also ensures the partitioning of the country. Oh its a mess alright, but it could get a lot more messy. But as the 3rd Herd is on the ground the least I can do is make sure they are taken care of here. I dont want to leave until the last shot is fired by us. Anything after that can be the ISF kicking the shit out of them. If they need a little airstrike every now and then to ensure their success then I dont mind lowering on whomever they want.
]

afterwards people often claim to know the reason why something had happened.
That is not very much credible, when they did not act accordingly.
Where are the people, who told us the $ would go down, when Bush was
elected ? Was it Bush's plan ?

MRK,

Your ignoring my point completely, and it is difficult not to simply insult you for it. If these people are willing to volunteer, then their commander should damn well not waste them without a good reason. I made no statement about who should be our next president, or how we should handle the situation while we are there, so your statements really do not address my point.

As far as a draw down of troops, I don't have an answer, but it damn well can't be three months, and doubtfully twenty four. We will need to be there in some form or fashion for years to come. Hopefully, the next jackass we put in office won't be quite as deluded as Bush, and will make sensible decisions, regardless of their party affiliation.

(And before you make the claim that I think Democrats are inherently better than Republicans, I think you need to look up H.L. Menckens qoute about Americans electing who we deserve. That would sum up my thoughts about politics rather succinctly.)

Think 'bout one trillion dollars invested in American infrastructure -- renewable energy, etc... A life of relative peace and prosperity for my family!?! This is why I signed on to Barack Obama's plan to end the war and make America safer

Ah. Yeah. About Obama and that "renewable" energy.

Let me take you back a few short years, when the federal ethanol mandate for motor vehicle fuels was first being voted in.

Ethanol proponents made a bunch of clearly stated, empirically testable predictions about how it would work. They said that it would hold down gasoline prices at the pump relative to the cost of crude oil. They said that it would improve the environment. They said that there was plenty of spare agricultural capacity, and that food prices would not rise.

Detractors [among whom I have the honor to be numbered] said that food prices would of course go up (and, given the fungibility of food, the program would help starve the Third World poor). They noted that there would likely be unanticipated and possibly severe environmental side effects. And they disputed the lavish fuel price claims.

Now, today, we see that the ethanol proponents were wrong on every single count. Every. Single. Count.

The detractors? Correct down the line. In fact, they even nailed it on the unanticipated side effects. Paul Creutzen, a chemist who holds a little thing called the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, has now pointed out that if you sum all inputs and effluents across the ethanol cycle, you get WORSE global warming forcing than before, primarily due to the large increase in nitrous oxide output (N2O being a quite potent greenhouse gas).

So: ethanol is a total disaster. Not renewable. Not green. Not economic. Cruel to the hungriest. What a great plan!

And where's Obama on this? Foursquare for more of this demonstrably insane policy. More and more ethanol!

What's really depressing is that I genuinely wanted to have a candidate I could vote for with some enthusiasm at the end of the squalid Bush years. (I volunteered and voted for John Kerry four years ago with no particular elan.) There is, regrettably, no such candidate in the race. We are down to having three completely bought-off and deluded clowns in the running. No matter who wins in the fall, we all lose.

As for Europe?

Prosperous for now. Doomed, in its present secular shape, in the long term and probably even in the quite near term. (When the freaking Archbishop of Canterbury speaks glowingly of the introduction of shariah law to compete with the civil law, you know you are hearing the Cheyne-Stokes respiration of a dying culture, the last rattling gasps of a failed society.)

Which is an awful shame. It took Europe millennia to achieve peaceful secularism, after having experienced endless hideous wars of faith and crushing clerical totalitarianism, and they have now thrown it all away by admitting millions of high-fertility foreign fanatics who care not a whit for peace nor for secular governance. It won't end well.

I know a man who at a dinner party in London in 1985 predicted that the UK, as a result of its then-building Islamic immigrant wave, would have within a quarter of a century a situation where honour killings, forced marriages and clitoridectomies would be routine in British cities. He was shouted down by the Englishmen at the table as "talking science fiction".

He was wrong, after all. He was too optimistic about the timetable. It took only fifteen years for this to happen instead of twenty-five.

There are still people who think this is science fiction (despite their having been totally wrong so far, as wrong as were the ethanol pushers).

What I would say to them is to contemplate the unsettling lessons of history. Note that in 1908, the Continent was at the apex of a century of rough but rapid social and intellectual progress, and radical change for the worse was quite unimaginable. Things were only going to get better. Guess what? In less than a decade, things got profoundly worse, and catastrophe engulfed the whole of Europe, shattering societies which had been stable for hundreds of years previously.

I am guessing that the advent of Eurabia -- as violent and intolerant in its outlook as late 20th century Europe was peaceable and tolerant -- will be this century's European disaster. But the 20th century ended well for native Europeans. This century will not.

--

marquer: I'm not the biggest Obama fan (although he is now my preferred candidate), but in fairness to him, when the Science piece came out calling into question whether ethanol netted out positively he said that if that was true he'd have to rethink his position. Can you imagine George W. saying that? No. He'd say it was all about freedom for the Iraqi people.

Randy: Out of curiosity, who was your Repugnakint candidate before Senator Insane became the default?

His reply: Revere-Bill Frist.

Randy: Does that mean you are soft on the Taliban?

http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/ap/2006/10/02/asia…

When Frist made that statement it was and still is correct. They and the Pashtun are very uneducated. As Marquer said up above a group that ensures by the laws of every country that Islamists gain control of Europe by the uterus. The same applies to the Catholics here in the US via the south of our border folks. They come in and have a baby. Instant citizen. Perhaps we should start seizing the children and sending them back....

As for Frists statement that it cant be won its contextual. I could win it in a day and ensure that we had cheap oil, and one shit load less terrorism.

How? Nuke 'em or use chemical weapons. Poison the earth upon which they stand and kill them all. Not that I advocate that, but it is do'able. Frist taking a look at the situation spoke it up bluntly. It would be far easier to get them into government than it would be to spend a lot of money bombing the piss out of them. I saw his statement a long time ago and had forgotten it. I think his intent was to say that taking total annihilation off the table the only true options were continuous military operations against the Taliban, or continuous policing operations and then letting them know that if they participated there were rewards. If they didnt, there were consequences.

There is a difference between negotiating and dealing with terrorists. The Taliban followers know only what their Imam's tell them and they do it via fatwah. Kind of like Pat Robertson... and we know what kind of terrorism he spouts. He foresees a great war beginning. I do too unless we quit being politically correct and smack those down that oppose us. I am not talking about invasions, just bomb the piss out of them and leave. It creates generational war but this nation building stuff is just way too costly.

BGT-Menkens has a point but its only one and I think he was pretty much on and that this government always needs to be centrist. We rarely if ever get it because of the swings generated by the right and left. I had to read his stuff in college and he was funny as shit. He hated FDR... I didnt hate him but he was the first Clinton. Our media is responsible for all of the problems we have and they quit reporting the news a long time ago. Doesnt matter what network.

Its all a political commentary now and Mencken was a MSM of his time.

Ethanol is as bad if not worse than oil BTW... Pollution on a huge scale from used mash.

Randy: I'm sure you weren't talking about the "typical Catholic from south of the border" or the "typical Islamist." I know how much you objected to that when Obama talked about "a typical white person" and you wouldn't ever -- EVER -- do something like that, now would you? BTW, Bill Frist's family got tagged for defrauding you and me once upon a time, right?

Have to describe it somehow Revere and its again contextual. I can tell you that the statements out of the Vatican havent made me too happy lately...Now there are typical Catholics. As of late I am not sure what a "typical" Islamist is. I can say that Islamic people run airplanes into buildings screaming Allahu Akbar, they blow up planes in the desert of Jordan, they blow them up in Saudi Arabia, they also attack ships at sea and those in harbor. They attack trains too. Typical Islamists? They seem to be into transportation of all kinds.

Bad analogy for sure but if you know of another way please do tell. Obama is playing both ends of the fence and he is getting caught in the barbed wire doing it. He is going to have to suffer some cuts. He also is going to have to suffer the gauntlet to be president and I dont think he is up to it. But thats just me.

Also, Humana that the Frist family and many others have board seats. None of them were held for fraud. Nor were they even questioned. They did question one regional office and not the others. It was a civil matter and not criminal. There was no admission of guilt by Humana. They settled out of court for 14.5 million. 7.5 million in actual costs. There were no criminal charges as best I can tell from any of it. Its parsing I know, but DO keep the facts straight. The Frist family didnt defraud anyone. The corporation did or didnt legally if you read the transcript. If there had been a way for them to get them they would have.

Marquer though is pretty close to the mark on whats happening in the EU. They fucked up and now they got a big problem they are having to deal with. To me it ensures that there will be a religious war in the near future. But thats an opinion. A friend in the Netherlands tells me that the same thing is happening there and they are slowly seeing their country disintegrate within.

My opinion of GWB as a person is fairly high Revere-BGT. As a commander in chief I can safely say he has done more than most and that in particular was a product of the surge. We were getting pot shotted and were spread too thin. I am personally glad that Fallon is gone. I wasnt too terribly happy with the situation as I didnt see much combat experience on his bio. Pace didnt like him much either. But I am sure Petraeus should never ever have had the name Betrayus put on him.

Revere of all people should know about commanders involved in waste of US soldiers. But they are big boys and again they signed the paper when they knew a dust up was underway most of them. If you take the time alone that has transpired there isnt an enlistment out there now for the last 6 that didnt know what was going on.

In some other countries they would have found the opposition hanging from the trees for that kind of statement. I dont mean any disrepect for Fallon, he was there too when the country needed people to stand up. He could have retired four or five years ago. Sometimes though you have to back a bad plan and thats what the post war on Iraq was. No surge? No response? Just let the country disintegrate? Regardless of the reasons we are there that couldnt be allowed to happen.

But its the "typical" Democrat response. Defeat at all costs. Reminded me of the Balkans as the ethnic cleansing started. We made a miscalculation on the people and where they were and it was simply wrong. Milosevic was killing people about 15 minutes after Yugoslavia broke up. The EU did nothing, and we had to truck 6000 miles when it became an issue written on the Presidential penis but only after that and 7 years. Nice one Bill.

No GWB gets a full blown C from me because he either knew about what was going on in post war Iraq and did nothing, or he didnt and that to me was a lot worse. Bad call in a big game.

But we have had dips and rises in history for the dollar and it will be back. I dont fear at all for it. It is close to where it was when Reagan took over from Carter.

If it was bad for the exchange rate then thats the way it was then and they way it is now. I can also remember when it was extremely high only 10 years ago and the economy tumbled as a result. Not from GDP/GNP. Nope, it was from the government not paying its bills.... Tit for tat, they sued and they just had to pay the people that the USGovt defrauded and led to the Prompt Payment Act.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/31/usc_sup_01_31_08_III_10_39.html

By not paying the bills, WJC and company deferred the payments until the next president came in and was able to say he, " balanced the budget." That by the way accounted for a whopping 1/5th of the budget of the US as they quit paying Medicare, Medicaid, DoD, etc. Ruben had them hold the money in the treasury and wouldnt disburse it to the federal agencies. They covered the paychecks only. Slick Willie. It extended the recession by a full six months.