Patterico's Pontifications

4/5/2009

Pres. Obama’s Lennonist Nuclear Policy

Filed under: General — Karl @ 12:49 pm



[Posted by Karl]

The Washington Post and Politico are among those covering Pres. Obama’s speech in Prague, calling for a world without nukes — a speech he chose to give as the nuclear rogue state of North Korea defied global warnings to fire a long-range rocket with the range to reach Hawaii and Alaska.

The WaPo highlights Obama’s comments on North Korea:

Obama said Sunday North Korea risks further isolation by pursuing nuclear weapons and the missiles to carry them.

“Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something,” he said to loud applause. “The world must stand together to stop the spread of these weapons.”

In reality, any meaningful action from the UN will likely be vetoed by China.  The Politico looks beyond North Korea:

Speaking to Iran, the other nation widely thought to be pursuing nuclear weapons, Obama reiterated his campaign pledge to engage the Tehran regime, winning applause for saying, “We believe in dialogue.”

But he said that they if they did not agree to inspections, Iran would face “isolation, international pressure, and a potential nuclear arms race in the region that will increase insecurity for all.” And Obama said he would continue to pursue a missile-defense system in Europe as long as the Iranian nuclear threat existed – but suggested he would abandon it if Iran abandoned its nuclear pursuits.

Going off script to borrow his signature campaign line, Obama acknowledged a nuclear-free world will not happen easily.

“I’m not naive. This goal will not be reached quickly –- perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence,” he told an adoring crowd that waved miniature American and Czech flags. “But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, “Yes, we can.”

In reality, Iran believes in dialogue as a way of fending off any alternative actions while it pursues its nuclear ambitions, which even Obama acknowledges are likely to ignite an arms race in the Mideast.  Iran knows that Obama has no interest in pursuing a missile defense system and thus does not see it as a bargaining chip.  Iran probably laughs at Obama’s flailing deployment of his campaign slogan, while taking note that the “perhaps not in my lifetime” displays his complete lack of seriousness.  Iran’s mullahs believe nukes are the change they have been waiting for.

Those who advocate fulfilling the promise of the Non-Proliferation Treaty need to explain to the American public why that promise has already gone unfulfilled for decades.  Obama’s nuclear policy is — and always has beenwishful thinking.  As such, its inspiration is far more the goofy utopianism of John Lennon than the Leftist totalitarianism of Vlad Lenin.  Unfortunately, it is no less dangerous to America’s national security interests.

–Karl

328 Responses to “Pres. Obama’s Lennonist Nuclear Policy”

  1. This is just more of Obama’s “success” – which to Obama means reading a vapid speech with a lot of applause lines off of a teleprompter.

    Hey, the speech is done! Miller time!

    SPQR (26be8b)

  2. Imagine there’s a Unicorn
    It’s easy if you do
    Its rider will pay your mortgage
    And fart out rainbows, too.

    nk (fb48f8)

  3. The only hope I harbor is that his strategy of dialogue with Iran is subterfuge regarding the isolation of the Mullahs with the Iranian people. It’s a wan hope, but there you are.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  4. Dmac, a forlorn hope since there is zero evidence of any actually attempts to separate the Iranian people from the mullahs. In fact, there is evidence that Obama has shut down the pathetically small efforts that were ongoing.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  5. Let’s suppose that you wanted to start WWIII without seeming to be the aggressor? What strategy would you follow?

    The sneaky Mediterranean nk (fb48f8)

  6. “I’m not naive…”

    Actually, you are—you cool, hip, kum-bah-yah dude now occupying the White House and Oval Office.

    And if the type of human nature that is commonly observed in most families throughout society — in which kids (particulary if they’re bratty) prefer turning to mommy instead of daddy when it comes to getting permission or for when punishment is being handed down — than Big Mama Obama is naturally going to be perceived differently by the “brats” of the world.

    Mark (411533)

  7. #2 nk:

    I want a puppy.

    Or maybe a hippopotamus.

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  8. Too disassociated from reality to be naive, perhaps. I’m reminded of Wizard’s First Rule:

    People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it’s true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.

    I forget which rule it is that says Wizards, too, are susceptible to the First Rule.

    htom (412a17)

  9. “I’m not naive.”

    Dude, wishful thinking is not a very effective strategy unless you’re convincing a bunch of morons to vote for you.

    “Words must mean something.”

    Yeah, get the U.N. to say stop again, this time in all capital letters. It worked so well with Saddam Hussein, what could go wrong with Iran and North Korea, especially with Hillary and Barack on the job with their majik ninja persuasion skilz.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  10. I think he mistakenly got the teleprompter from the Miss America contest.

    Huey (9d9aed)

  11. Fasten your seat belts. We are still dealing with the fallout from Carter’s presidency. Afghanistan and Iran for starters, not to mention inflation. It doesn’t end with the next election. It takes decades to clean up the mess.

    MIke K (2cf494)

  12. May it would work if the UN drafted a resolution and Obama sprinkled magic foo-foo dust on it…

    Paul (creator of "Staunch Brayer") (5c06a9)

  13. President Obama said that “Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something,” and then said he’d take this up with the United Nations Security Council, which means that Mr Obama just guaranteed that the rules were not binding, that violations would not be punished, and that his words mean nothing at all.

    The New York Times said:

    The Security Council may slap Pyongyang on the wrist, as it has before, but China, a permanent member, has often stood in the way of strong international action.

    I remember a line from Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham, in which she once said that calling a very light sentence given to a rapist a slap on the wrist was an insult to people who actually do get slaps on the wrist. I’m guessing that would apply here as well.

    Mr. Obama said he would push for strong Security Council action. “Now is the time for a strong international response, and North Korea must know that the path to security and respect will never come through threats and illegal weapons.”

    I wonder: just what does “strong Security Council action” mean? What does our 44th President expect the Security Council to actually do? If President Obama wants to do more than just utter tough words, he’ll have to take action almost unilaterally; going to the United Nations Security Council is the foreign policy equivalent of forming a commission — especially a “blue ribbon” commission — when it comes to actually getting things done.

    I, at the very least, expect that nothing will get done, nothing at all, unless, like our friends on the left, you count harsh words as doing something.

    The Dana with wide open eyes (82a421)

  14. The last guy that attempted to enforce a Security Council resolution was named Bush and we know how that turned out. Words do matter to Obama. That’s what got him elected.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  15. I think he mistakenly got the teleprompter from the Miss America contest.

    LOL.

    We are still dealing with the fallout from Carter’s presidency.

    That White House administration of over 28 years ago is like a gift that keeps on giving.

    Now in 2009, Jimmy Carter Redux:

    online.wsj.com:

    The Obama Administration wants to replace the soon-to-expire 1991 START treaty with a new regime that would set a ceiling of 1,000 nuclear warheads apiece for the U.S. and Russia. That would dramatically cut the two countries’ existing number of operational weapons…It would also exceed the terms agreed by the Bush Administration in the 2002 Moscow Treaty…

    As we learned in the 1970s, the devil of arms control often lies in the technical arcana of warheads and delivery systems, so we’ll await the text before pronouncing judgment. But the devil of arms control also lies in the overall concept, with its implicit assumption that the weapons themselves are inherently more dangerous than the intentions of those who develop and deploy them.

    We would have thought this thinking was discredited after the Second Lateran Council outlawed the use of crossbows in 1139, or after the Hague Convention of 1899 banned aerial bombardment, or after the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawed war. Nope. Mr. Obama has set the ultimate goal of eliminating nuclear weapons, and as one of his first official acts he pledged to “stop the development of new nuclear weapons.”

    What Mr. Obama wants to kill specifically is the Reliable Replacement Warhead, which the Bush Administration supported over Congressional opposition, and which Mr. Obama now opposes despite the support of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the military.

    The RRW is not, in fact, a new weapon; it has been in development for several years and is based on the W89 design tested in the 1980s. It is said to be a remarkably safe and long-lasting warhead, a significant consideration given the gradual physical deterioration of the current U.S. arsenal, particularly the mainstay W76.

    The irony is that Mr. Obama’s opposition is making substantial reductions in the total U.S. arsenal that much riskier. In the absence of actual testing, which hasn’t happened in the U.S. since 1992, the only real hedge against potentially defective weapons is a larger arsenal.

    The thinking [of Obama] is that somehow the American example will get Russia, as well as North Korea, Pakistan and perhaps Iran, to reject nuclear weapons. In fact, a U.S. nuclear arsenal that is diminished in both quantity and quality would be an incentive for these countries to increase their nuclear inventories, since the door would suddenly be opened to reach strategic parity with the last superpower. Mr. Medvedev, for one, recently announced Russia would pursue “large-scale rearmament” of its army and navy, including nuclear arsenals.

    Mark (411533)

  16. Or maybe a hippopotamus

    A regular army
    Of hippopotami
    All singing this haunting refrain:

    Mud, mud, glorious mud
    Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood
    So follow me, follow
    Down to the hollow
    And there let us wallow
    In glorious mud!

    Steverino (69d941)

  17. Millions of people will die for the hubris of one intellectually vapid man.
    It does not have to happen, but it will, because,
    we get the government we deserve.

    AD - RtR/OS (dbf3b6)

  18. “I’m not naive.”–The New Messiah

    Dangerously stupid is closer to the mark.

    Dave Surls (345656)

  19. Twain had it right- history more often rhymes than repeats itself.

    Right wing ‘Chicken Littles’ should revisit their history books, circa October, 1957, when conservative Democrats and Republicans clucked in collective panic when another red threat ‘tested’ an ICBM under the guise of trying to pop a satellite into orbit. Oh for the days of sputniks and muttniks.

    Of course missile-laden Russian submarines routinely cruised off the American coastline for decades. Bombers, too. Conservatives will crow for yet another wasteful ABM system to try to knock down North Korean rockets. Star Wars Redux. Any excuse for a new, expensive project for a multi-trillion dollar military that is long overdue for a hard 25% across the board cut.

    Memo to North Korea: welcome to the door step of the 1960’s!

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  20. Commentary Magazine’s Contentions blog has a very good take-down of the peacenik and “soft power” pretentiousness today too. Don’t be afraid if you see the name Greenwald in the URL: it’s Abe Greenwald, not the infamous one whose name pops up here from time to time.

    JVW (bff0a4)

  21. Iran has nothing to fear from a US President who bows like a servant to a Saudi King.

    eaglewingz08 (93dbd9)

  22. “…missile-laden Russian submarines routinely cruised off the American coastline for decades. Bombers, too…”
    Comment by DCSCA — 4/5/2009 @ 4:30 pm

    Except, our hunter-killer subs shadowed every soviet boomer – mostly undetected. And, the only Soviet bomber that routinely left the confines of the USSR was the Tu-95 (Bear) assigned to the Naval Services for conducting anti-submarine warfare (they were looking for those pesky USN hunter-killers).

    But, keep trying. Apologists for the Soviet Union have been trying to justify its’ existence for its’ entirety, and the 18-years since its’ demise.

    AD - RtR/OS (dbf3b6)

  23. #16 Steverino:

    In glorious mud!

    LOL! Actually, the song I had in mind was Gail Peevey singing “I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas!”

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  24. ‘Right wing ‘Chicken Littles’ should revisit their history books’

    Doltish liberals should revisit theirs. The sky doesn’t fall. That isn’t real. However, people do use nuclear weapons. That is real. Liberals ought to know that, since they were the ones who used them, burning alive tens of thousands of Japanese civilians in the process.

    Now, thanks to the precedent set by quasi-sentient Democrats, the only way we’ll ever be safe from the very real threat of nuclear attack is to remain armed to the teeth and to build defenses, lest someone do to us what liberal Democrats did to the Japanese.

    Only an arrant idiot could fail to see this…or a liberal jackass (same thing, actually…see our alleged president for an example).

    Dave Surls (345656)

  25. Meanwhile, what did Obama get from Europe for Afghanistan? Obama’s brilliant rhetoric and non-cowboy attitude obtained … wait for it … 300 French gendarmes. 300 flics for Obama.

    Brilliant diplomacy there.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  26. People are going to DIE

    Lisa (f8a7db)

  27. Er.. Gayla Peevey…

    #25 SPQR:

    300 French gendarmes.

    You just are not gonna be happy until I have to see a sleep specialist, are you?

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  28. Si se puede, beeyotches.

    JD (b1f7fc)

  29. #28 SPQR:

    EW1(SG), have you met the dissident frogman ?

    I have!

    But it has been a while since I last visited: thanks for the tip!

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  30. glasnost seems to be getting sort of desperate in his comments lately.

    I sense some disappointment in Obambi.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  31. […] reducing, if not eliminating, America’s nuclear arsenal. Patterico likens the tactic to John Lennon’s utopianism and notes Iran will also likely be heartened by Obama’s call for dialogue. Obama asserted […]

    North Korea tests rocket and Obama to international concern « Wellsy’s World (45e6e8)

  32. The reason why Sputnik was a concern, was any booster powerful enough to send a satellite into orbit was powerful enough to send a passel of nuclear weapons, also the reason for the rise in bomb shelters, civil defense drills, do we really want to revisit that.

    narciso (996c34)

  33. I do believe last time we tried to enforce UN resolutions on a rogue nation….we went into Iraq

    Hawkins (3dd802)

  34. President Batshit ought to watch “Seven Days in May” to see what would happen when a naive president tries to dump nukes.

    Buchanan = No Longer America's Worst President (23e953)

  35. What’s wrong with basing your foreign policy based on Superman 4?

    God help us all for electing the first Anchorman President. Actually, God damn the journalists for forcing the obamanation upon us.

    Roy Mustang (075b1b)

  36. Obama (Dear Leader) is going to get tough. He’s going to be warning Kim Jong Il (Dear Leader) that he had better behave himself or he’s not getting any iPods, Region 1 DVDs or Overcharge buttons.

    Cap'n Spackle (d51df8)

  37. President 44 is a musical romance-no substance but nice songs for the audience.

    mike191 (628e36)

  38. Maybe Obama is counting on his alliance with the Klingon Empire.

    nk (837593)

  39. #7 EW1(SG)
    “I want a Puppy
    Or maybe a Hippopotomus,”
    Or maybe just a Guppy
    To swim down near the bottomus!

    GM Roper (85dcd7)

  40. #39 GM Roper:

    To swim down near the bottomus!

    Thank yew! Thank yew verrry much!

    Very cute!

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  41. a multi-trillion dollar military that is long overdue for a hard 25% across the board cut.

    This will be the next Obama policy change. You can see the anticipation on the part of the weenies who expect daddy to take care of them and keep the bad people away. Except there is no daddy anymore.

    Life’s a bitch when you have to grow up. What they don’t understand is that the grownups are getting old. It looks more and more like the Children’s Crusade.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  42. Thinkin’ hard about whirled peas over here, Boss!

    mojo (8096f2)

  43. What do you guys want him to do, invade North Korea?

    [Fighting to be heard amidst clamors of approval] Wait! Wait! I was being sarcastic!
    [Watching in dismay as the mob grabs their pitchforks and torches and heads southwest… WAY southwest] Where are you going? What’s going on?
    [Shaking head in quiet horror in the middle of an empty room] What have I done?

    Leviticus (96c2ef)

  44. Hmmm … Ronald Reagan had similar ideas.

    His goal at Reykjavik was to eliminate ballistic missiles, keeping SDI as insurance. In the end he settled for START, which drastically reduced ICBMs.

    What I find galling is that Obama seems to gloss over this, not wanting to be associated with the Gipper.

    Kevin Murphy (0b2493)

  45. […] Is coined by Karl at Patterico’s Pontifications. It rhymes with “Leninist.” But isn’t. […]

    The perfect term for Obama’s nuclear policy . . . | The Skepticrats (2f90ed)

  46. Kevin Murphy,

    Others have invoked the Reagan analogy in this area (kissinger being one). But it seems to me that a “trust, but verify” deal with the USSR is significantly dissimilar to our history with NoKo and Iran, where what is verified is their intent to not abide by their agreements or international law.

    Karl (f07e38)

  47. What do I want him to do, Leviticus?

    You mean, besides owning up to the fact that his campaign rhetoric was a huge lie? That his magic teleprompter won’t actually solve international problems.

    I’d like him to do more than the less-than-nothing he will actually do.

    Of course, the situation does not permit large scale military operations because the North Koreans in effect hold all of South Korea hostage.

    SPQR (72771e)

  48. Shaking head in quiet horror in the middle of an empty room] What have I done?

    Comment by Leviticus — 4/6/2009 @ 8:32 am

    Heh!

    Still, I don’t know that Obama’s that smart, but if I wanted a cassus belli handy when I needed to rally the country behind me, I might just act like a big sissy to tempt North Korea into a sufficiently provocative act. If nothing else, it would help me kill off some of that low-hanging fruit that voted against me in the last election.

    nk (71304a)

  49. Obama should move immediately to freeze NK’s assets and deny them access to financial assistance from rogue countries like Syria and Iran. Bush attempted to do something similar during his first term, but neglected to intercept clandestine shipments of nuke materials between the countries. If Obama instructs the Navy to do so, NK may be hampered in their future abilites to cause mischief.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  50. Of course, the situation does not permit large scale military operations because the North Koreans in effect hold all of South Korea hostage.

    That’s not so. Our cruise missiles could take out North Korea’s emplacements along the DMZ in about three seconds. China has always been the one to worry about.

    nk (71304a)

  51. I thought we still had roughly 50K troops stationed near the DMZ, nk. Regardless of taking out emplacements, that’s still a heck of lot of troops located in harm’s way, IMO.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  52. Not to mention Seoul is pretty darn close to the border as well.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  53. Karl–

    My point is more:

    1) This isn’t new and Obama stands on Reagan’s shoulders here, so his “Yes we can!” statement that ignores that history is annoying.

    2) A world without nukes is in US interests and has been for some time.

    3) We don’t need nuclear weapons to obliterate North Korea or Iran — the real dangers are China and Russia, who, having something to lose, are rational on these matters.

    Kevin Murphy (805c5b)

  54. nk, there are not enough cruise missiles in the world to take out all of the chemical weapon capable NKPA artillery within range of Seoul. That’s the bottom line.

    SPQR (72771e)

  55. Can’t they just hovercraft across the minefields, like in that James Bond movie? The one with the Korean bad guy that had diamonds in his face?

    If nothing else, it would help me kill off some of that low-hanging fruit that voted against me in the last election.

    That is cold, nk. Ice cold.

    Can someone put together a list of all the good stuff Obama has to show for his World Apology Tour? Other than, as SPRQ noted above, the 300 French gendarmes for Afghanistan?

    In Turkey today, the White House blog tells me that Obama continues on his tour that means to “address, face to face, the great issues of our time, without hesitation or equivocation.” And it got him what, exactly? Are the turks going to send 10 or 20 thousand troops to Afghanistan? Reimburse us billions for prolonging the Iraq war due to their refusal to accommodate our invasion force? Bupkus.

    I think that it’s cute of the White House to include (Applause) where appropriate in the transcript. Did Bush do this?

    As Obama might say – “Words. Just words.

    carlitos (ff752f)

  56. As for Obama’s pretty little speech on eliminating nuclear weapons … unless he can use the magic of his Awesome Teleprompter to repeal the laws of physics, its an asinine goal.

    SPQR (72771e)

  57. #22- Nobody is making ‘apologies’ for the Soviet Union. You are tilting at windmills. But alarmists and Chicken Littles on the right, such as Newt Gingrich, will and have fanned the flames of hysteria in desperation as the people of the United States turn their back on conservativism. Fortunately, Secretary Gates this very morning announced procurement cuts in extravagant weapons systems and proposes funding reallocations to deal with situations at hand.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  58. carlitos, it is more than words – Obama has found the bold font on his teleprompter. They are bold words.

    SPQR (72771e)

  59. #24- Americans fear foreclosure, job loss, tainted food, Wall Street and unchecked, unregulated capitalism a lot more than 1960s era missiles made in North Korea. We have conservativism to thank for that.

    Fortunately, the people of the United States have finally wised up and turned their backs on the rantings of the right. They’re a sad, sour group led by a fat, deaf, high school educated drug addict with several failed marriages, who sits alone, locked in a room, ranting to himself for hours on end beside a live microphone. In another era, that would be a cell in an insane asylum.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  60. #33- We have revisited the ‘duck and cover’ era and conservatives continue to fan the flames of fear associated with it. Consider the Days Of Duct Tape just after 9/11. Actually, the chief reason the Soviets needed a missile which, by coincidence, was powerful enough to loft a satellite in 1957, was because a single Russian atomic warhead was so heavy. American ICBMs were designed with less thrust because the warheads were lighter.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  61. This place needs fumigated, badly.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  62. #44– George Gipp was ‘the Gipper,’ not Ronald Reagan. And by many Notre Dame alumni accounts a less than stellar fellow, too. So if you insist on pulling frames of film reference for the dead president of the Screen Actors Guild, you might one to revisit one of his last (and best) serials in which Reagan, portraying a secret service agent, saved a secret ‘star wars’ like weapon from the bad guys. It’s where he stole the idea.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  63. the people of the United States have finally wised up…
    Along with:
    Americans fear foreclosure, job loss, tainted food, Wall Street and unchecked, unregulated capitalism…

    So they got themselves just edumacated enough to get scared?

    And you talk of rantings?

    By the way, you left off government from the fear list. Maybe you think nothing bad ever happens from the government.

    Apogee (f4320c)

  64. #55– A hovercraft? No. A Bond jetpack, yes! Expect Scaremonger Gingrich to evoke the North Korean missile test as research into said jet packs for Red troops to fly south over those DMZ minefields to rain commie terror on Seoul.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  65. DCSCA #60, by your little cheap reference to duct tape, you insult the people of Israel who were actually subjected to attacks by ballistic missiles from a nation known to possess chemical weapons. Israelis had duct tape on rooms in their homes because of a legitimate concern.

    You really are pathetic.

    SPQR (72771e)

  66. Reagan, portraying a secret service agent, saved a secret ’star wars’ like weapon from the bad guys. It’s where he stole the idea.

    You might not know this, but there was a semi-successful film in the ’70s that had the same name. Also, suggesting that Reagan came up with the concept of an anti-ballistic system on his own, and that no research had been done on such things before his Presidency reveals you to be the one who bases his reality on material from the entertainment industry.

    Apogee (f4320c)

  67. SPQR – It drops by from time to time to drop a deuce, or its little turdlets, and then it scampers away. It has all of the talking points from the last couple years down pat.

    JD (28c647)

  68. #64- Government bad? It can be with conservative control. See 2001 to 2008 for details. Or its closeted cousin, Germany, 1933 to 1945.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  69. “…led by a fat, deaf, high school educated drug addict with several failed marriages, who sits alone, locked in a room, ranting to himself for hours on end beside a computer.”

    Projection, thy name is DCSCA (Disturbed/Confused/Sociopath – Cum Arsehole).

    Dmac (49b16c)

  70. #67- Again, revisit the Reagan secret service serial. It’s actually quite entertaining. That is where the idea was lifted from.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  71. NAZIS !!!!!!!!!!! AND RACISTS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    JD (28c647)

  72. …It can be with conservative control.

    Thanks idiot. I knew you’d lap that up.

    So you better give the Democrats sweeping and omnipotent powers so they can keep those nasty Republicans out of office forever, right?

    Thanks for demonstrating why listening to people like you will lead to our destruction.

    Apogee (f4320c)

  73. Only 70 comments, and a dropper of turds goes all Godwin on us.

    carlitos (ff752f)

  74. #66- Israel was attacked on 9/11? Enlighten us when you finish sweeping out Cheney’s bunker.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  75. #67- Again, revisit the Reagan secret service serial. It’s actually quite entertaining. That is where the idea was lifted from.

    Comment by DCSCA — 4/6/2009 @ 12:22 pm

    Dude, do you see that “link” button there? That’s the one, yes. Feel free.

    carlitos (ff752f)

  76. #73- My. You are afraid… aren’t you.

    History often rhymes. Read Colliers, Autumn, 1941.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  77. Its turdlets get a little more fevered every time it drops by, you Nazi-lovin’ racist homophobes.

    JD (0d131e)

  78. DCSCA, did you see the words “ballistic missles” in post 66? Yes. Did you see the words “9/11?” No. That was the first Gulf War, numbnuts.

    Or are you suggesting that ballistic missles played a part in the events of September 11, 2001?

    carlitos (ff752f)

  79. #76- ‘Dude’… feel free? Are you Number Six or Number Eleven? Revisit Reagan’s last ‘secret service serial’ with Eddie Foy, Jr. It’s quite entertaining. And where he stole the concept for SDI from.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  80. Teh Narrative will not be deterred. Leftists like this assclown are still fighting Reagan and Bush. They could care less what Barcky is doing.

    JD (0d131e)

  81. #70- speak for yourself.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  82. Revisit Reagan’s last ’secret service serial’ with Eddie Foy, Jr. It’s quite entertaining. And where he stole the concept for SDI from.

    Comment by DCSCA — 4/6/2009 @ 12:32 pm

    So you say, without providing an iota of evidence. Again. Feel free, though, to make such an argument.

    Just a semantic point, I can’t “revisit” something that I haven’t visited. Maybe Sirius will run this gem on the classic radio channel?

    carlitos (ff752f)

  83. DCSCA, #75, besides being pathetic, you can’t read. Despicable.

    SPQR (72771e)

  84. #73- My. You are afraid… aren’t you.

    You’re missing the point, as usual.

    Let’s try again.

    Is the Nazi party illegal in Germany? – Yes.
    Why? – It proved ‘problematic’ the last time.
    Are the Germans afraid? – No, they’re just not stupid.

    How could the Nazis ever regain power in Germany? – People like you, DCSCA.

    Apogee (f4320c)

  85. DCSCA says that ballistic missles caused the Twin Towers to fall on September 11! OMG!#@!@

    carlitos (ff752f)

  86. #79- Conservatives always lseem to miss context. Did you notice the comment was responding to American response. My comments were pointed toward 9/11, not 20 years ago.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  87. DCSCA says that ballistic missles caused the Twin Towers to fall on September 11! ZOMG!#eleventy!!11!1@!@

    carlitos (ff752f)

  88. Apologies for the threadjack, but I’d like some comment on this AP story today that quotes Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as saying there’s a million megawatts of wind power off the Atlantic.

    Our paper may run this story — or not — and I am feeding info to my editor as to how well this story holds up, or not.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R., (f970c4)

  89. Heh. I made a shit sammich on duplicate-comment bread. Tasty.

    carlitos (ff752f)

  90. #81- When a ship sinks, a lot of wreckage floats for weeks– bodies and all. Now that conservativism has been sunk, there’s quite a 30 year mess to clean up.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  91. #83- It is fact. Fear it? Watch the film. See for yourself. And I mean it, he’s very good in it. It’s quite entertaining.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  92. DCSCA, by the way, the concept of SDI was not “invented” or “stolen” by Ronald Reagan. Besides the fact that the United States actually developed various ground based anti-ballistic missile systems in the ’60’s, the concept of space based systems had many roots. It had a lot of advocates in the ’70’s and ’80’s, including such people as General Graham and Jerry Pournelle who wrote several books and articles on the topic, as well as others. Robert Salkeld wrote a book in 1970 that proposed space-based defenses as an earlier example.

    Confusion and bile seem your only assets.

    SPQR (72771e)

  93. Bradley – I would suggest that they document how they plan to convert that and deliver it.

    DASCA is a raving lunatic.

    JD (0d131e)

  94. #85- My. You ARE afraid… aren’t you. Listen to Limbaugh from his Palm Beach bunker.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  95. It is fact.

    Sourcing material from TV is not an argument.

    It’s nice that you have your fantasy world. Just don’t ask others to buy into it.

    Apogee (f4320c)

  96. Brother Bradley, full disclosure, I don’t know anything about wind turbines. But I have a basic grasp of mathematics 🙂 Apparently, a little more than Mr. Salazar.

    Salazar could not estimate how many windmills might be needed to generate 1 million megawatts of power, saying it would depend on their size, and how near or far from the coast they were located.

    A million megawatts is a lot of power. The most famous wind turbine project, Cape Wind, proposed to generate, on average, 170 megawatts using a grid of 130 turbines, about 1/2 mile apart. To generate one million megawatts would therefore require about 6,000 Cape Wind-sized projects. So, if we can find room for about three-quarters of a million turbines, half a mile apart, yet concentrated in the optimal place to capture these ocean winds…. Oh, and not disrupt transport on the entire eastern seaboard If Cape Wind is too big for the Kennedys’ views to be sullied, I have a hunch that there may be some NIMBY problems with finding sites for another 750,000 turbines.

    Cape Wind will be rated to produce up to 468 megawatts of wind power as each wind turbine will produce up to 3.6 megawatts. Maximum expected production will be 454 megawatts. Average expected production will be 170 megawatts which is almost 75% of the 230 megawatt average electricity demand for Cape Cod and the Islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

    carlitos (ff752f)

  97. #94- My. You ARE stupid…aren’t you.

    And unoriginal.

    Apogee (f4320c)

  98. #92- Again, revisit Reagan’s final ‘secret service serial’ with Eddie Foy, Jr. It’s quite good. Rather than quack blindly about it, just get the DVD (or video if you’re over 45) and see for yourself. Or check YouTube. It is where Reagan stole his idea for “SDI” from. Virtually word for word. And again, it is VERY good entertainment.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  99. #95- It’s a film. One of Reagan’s best.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  100. #92- You seem to know a lot about confusion and bile. Conservative, I see. I may have read Salkeld’s book back in the early 70s. I’ll have to check the basement library. ABM systems and such are particular systems but Reagan’s generalized ‘missile shield’ proporal which he was prepared to share with other nations, was a seeded right out of his Hollywood serial days. Get the film and watch it.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  101. DCSCA I read all of your comments and those who responded to the stuff you wrote. You must hold a Ph.D. in education to write what your write. No human living in the real world could be that F**king stupid. If you truely believe what you say, seek help, quickly.

    Zelsdorf Ragshaft III (e461c0)

  102. #97- Speak for yourself.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  103. Assertion of opinion as fact based on a 70’s movie. Niiiiiiice. Convinced me.

    JD (0d131e)

  104. DCSCA, you simply are wrong. Those of us who were actually a part of the Space Society through which Pournelle and others popularized the issue know that you are just making up stuff to feed your bile. Despicable.

    SPQR (72771e)

  105. #101- Brain damage isn’t a crime so fear not, you won’t be arrested.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  106. carlitos,
    Thanks. Salazar’s numbers looked really off to me. If the AP is going to convince news outlets of its value, it will have to do more reporting, and less stenography.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R., (f970c4)

  107. DCSCA, #105, finally something you can comment upon with first hand knowledge.

    SPQR (72771e)

  108. DCSCA, Not that I expect you’ll heed this message, but just in case. If your plan is to pick through a thread and knock off comments individually, you should refer to the time stamp, not the number. Moderation and other delays causes previously not-seen comments to appear, and thus the numbers to change. You could even link to the comment for others to follow.

    Example:
    Hey, DCSCA @ 1:01pm, you still haven’t told us the name of the movie, a plot synopsis, or where we can find it! This is the internet, where people link stuff they want others to see and believe!

    carlitos (ff752f)

  109. #104- I am correct. See the film. One of Reagan’s final b-serials. Why resist the truth. There’s nothing wrong with it. Books nad films have been the genesis for many grand realities. Those of us who’ve actually participated in ‘the space society’ know it.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  110. #108- Do your own homework.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  111. This one has joined glasnost in the Asspulls-R-Us Club.

    JD (0d131e)

  112. No problem Bradley. I hate these grand pronouncements of green energy from this administration (which will create jobs!) almost as much as I hate mangled statistics. The AP serves up heaps of both.

    carlitos (ff752f)

  113. DCSCA, You are not correct. There were scores of people advocating space based defense systems in the ’70’s. People like General Graham, who co-authored many articles with Jerry Pournelle, were advisors to Ronald Reagan. We know where the ideas came from you blithering idiot.

    SPQR (72771e)

  114. #107- Get the film.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  115. I’ll have to check the basement library.

    Only if the orderly says you can.

    So an ABM system is not a ‘missile shield’? Your semantic dancing is pathetic.

    Apogee (f4320c)

  116. #113- I am correct. The concept is not particular to the 1960s or 1970s. Reagan lifted the idea from his last serial film. Get it and see for yourself.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  117. National Space Society publication listing the many sources of the ideas for SDI.

    SPQR (72771e)

  118. An instant classic.

    I work here is done. Good day, sirs.

    carlitos (ff752f)

  119. DASCA makes assertions and it is up to carlitos to do the homework and prove the DSCSA is a raving lunatic. Odd, that.

    JD (0d131e)

  120. Those of us who’ve actually participated in ‘the space society’ know it.

    Sure. Just another hack who would like everyone to believe that he’s a has-been, when in reality he is a never-was.

    Apogee (f4320c)

  121. DCSCA, here’s an incomplete list of topics on which you should refrain from claiming superior knowledge:

    Biology
    Medicine
    Psychology
    Jurisprudence
    Research and citation requirements
    DOT and ICC regulations
    Aerospace

    I know I’m leaving out areas of expertise covered by the frequent commenters on this site, but that’s a starting list where your knowledge is woefully short compared to the regulars here.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  122. IT IS FROM THE MOVIE BEKUZ I SAY SO DAMMIT. DON’T YOU RECOGNIZE MY AWESOMENESS ?!

    JD (0d131e)

  123. #113- A postscript. Only a conservative would be so resistent to accepting that Reagan could lift a fictional idea from and old movie of his and propose it as a possible reality.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  124. DCSCA, a post script: only someone as dishonest as you would deny the immense bulk of literature that was published on the topic in favor of a ridiculous reference to a movie.

    SPQR (72771e)

  125. #120- when you talk to crews on orbit, let us know.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  126. Only a liberal could be as pompous, arrogant, uninformed, and condescending while demonstrating a tenuous grasp on reality.

    JD (0d131e)

  127. #121- Speak for yourself. If you were an ant, the Empire State Building would be your space program.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  128. #126- Only a conservative could fear the truth.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  129. #124- A ridiculous reference to a movie? yes, well, Reagan made it. Get the film. see for yourself. It’s quite good.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  130. SPQR – He’s not dishonest, he’s unintelligent. Dishonest ones know when they’re losing.

    Factor in the apparent belief in a ‘race’ of conservatives who all think and act the same, when even a cursory examination of the posts and comments on this blog would provide overwhelming evidence of the fallacious nature of that idea, and you have someone who is obviously lacking in intellect.

    Apogee (f4320c)

  131. Yeah, I know this is playing “whose belt is longer” (to borrow from a Boy Scout camp skit), but I’m sure someone besides me could list the people tied to the areas of expertise I mentioned.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  132. This really has to be a joke. Right? It is basing its asspull on Reagan having been in a movie once? And we have seen this mental midget before. It really loves its ant/Empire State Bldg joke, despite it being the only one to enjoy it. Make shit up, assert it as fact. Wash, rinse, repeat, and cite the original assertion as evidence of the twoooof of the assertion.

    JD (0d131e)

  133. #117- As a founding member of the NSS (when it was the NSI with Von Braun, who I’ve met) I can tell you the concept of an ‘spacial shield’ of sorts is not paticular to the 1960s or 1970s. Again, see Reagan’s serial. It’s quite good.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  134. 124- A ridiculous reference to a movie? yes, well, Reagan made it. Get the film. see for yourself. It’s quite good.

    Comment by DCSCA — 4/6/2009 @ 1:29 pm

    See, this is why it’s funny. #124 on my screen is a post by … DCSCA. He’s telling himself to go see a movie. Great. Hey, what was the title again?

    I heard that Obama got the idea for the porkulus from Tom Hanks’ The Money Pit. All that spending is stimulus!

    carlitos (ff752f)

  135. DCSCA No Ph. D. you. You are the least intelligent poster ever. Here. Perchance, go back and read your drivel. Experst have told you where the idea of SDI comes from yet you insist Reagan stole it from a movie. Funny, your knowledge of Reagan’s thinking on the matter is superior to those who have experience on the matter, but then your are a liberal, not.

    Zelsdorf Ragshaft III (e461c0)

  136. when you talk to crews on orbit, let us know.

    Did you use a radio, or was that something else that’s all in your head? You seem to have skipped over discussion of SPQR’s 1:16 link to the space society site. Or is that because it completely destroys your assertion?

    But I thought you were ‘in’ the space society? Right? Or were you just in the space society until someone enforced the restraining order?

    Apogee (f4320c)

  137. John Hitchcock, I claim expertise in no field, but after a couple of mezcals I have spoken to “crews in orbit.”

    carlitos (ff752f)

  138. I wish we could agree on whether Reagan was a senile old coot or that he remembered plot details from 40 years ago.

    carlitos (ff752f)

  139. #134- Experts? Get the film. Why conservatives fear that Reagan could lift an idea from one of his film and try to make it a reality is really quite amusing. He lifted a pseudo nickname, ‘the gipper’ from one of his films. ‘Dutch’ suited him better.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  140. And I’ve met Jerry Pournelle and Gen. Daniel O. Graham.

    Neither of which changes the fact that they and scores of others popularized the idea of SDI and fleshed out its technical challenges for Ronald Reagan to propose.

    Sheesh, what a troll.

    SPQR (72771e)

  141. Over on imdb, there is one review claiming the same thing that our poster here is claiming. For what it’s worth. They are a zero-star reviewer, meaning it’s a hit-and-run.

    carlitos (ff752f)

  142. #136- The correct phrase is ‘crews on orbit.’ Clearly you haven’t.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  143. DCSCA: We mustn’t forget the idea of the flip-fone that could be used anywhere came from James Tiberius Kirk.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  144. #142- I’m sure that would amuse Dick Tracy and Flash Gordon fans.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  145. Alright, Carlitos, I was thinking of the likes of Eric, Patterico, Stashiu3, Mike K, etc, etc.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  146. ZOMFG – You are all teh SuXor. Reagin was a dipshit and ASPCA has pwnEd you repeatedly. Ronnie Raygun got that idea from a freakin mooovee and you Nazi loving racists just lap it up. Mmmmm mmmm mmmmm. You are bedwetting cowards to not admit to the brilliance and visionary thought that is ASPCA.

    JD (b8d7fe)

  147. Oh, and DCSCA, there’s a reason Democrats took the Donkey as their mascot while Republicans took the Elephant as theirs.

    Ba dum bum

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  148. This is one of those dunderheads that dresses up like a wookie and attends ConvoCon or GenCon and never breaks character for several days, isn’t it?

    JD (b8d7fe)

  149. #139- Your resistence to accepting that Ronald Reagan could lift an idea from one of his old movies and ask contemporaries in later times to try and make it a reality is quite amusing. Get the film. See for yourself.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  150. DCSCA, my “resistence” comes from the fact that that is not what happened. You’ve made that up.

    All you are is a Monty Python skit.

    SPQR (72771e)

  151. How dare you question ASPCA’s brilliance? By virtue of the fact that you are teh suxXor and refuse to believe his assertion proves how bedwetting skeered you are. Why is it that you neo-theoconz have to base your entire existence on the idea that an actor stole from a 70’s movie? Any argument with my assertions proves my assertion to be true, BTW, and also proves how skeeeered you are that your bubble may burst. Losers!!!!!!

    JD (b8d7fe)

  152. Comment by John Hitchcock — 4/6/2009 @ 1:20 pm

    You forgot History, of which it is abysmally ignorant!

    AD - RtR/OS (37be1b)

  153. AD – It is not ignorant of history, it just thinks it gets to make up history as it goes along. No need to be ignorant of same when it is simply subject to Teh Narrative of the day.

    JD (b8d7fe)

  154. #148. Get the film. See it for yourself. Frankly, it speaks well of Reagan to have the imagination to want to take a fictional idea from his FDR New Deal days and want make it a reality.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  155. DCSCA, I’ve provided references. You’ve provided only your repetitive lies.

    SPQR (72771e)

  156. DCSCA: I’m serious, there is at least one person very closely tied to aerospace (or was previously) here. Your proclaimed superiority of information utterly fails in his presence.

    Aside from that, you took the bait hook, line and sinker. I provided information showing science has indeed followed science-fiction (which is a form of fiction). You countered that my proof of science following science-fiction was wrong because I chose the wrong science-fiction that the science followed. That means you admitted common, everyday technology (science) has indeed followed science-fiction. And yet you continue to try to mock someone who you claim tried to pull something out of science-fiction to put into science?

    The dichotomy in your mental acumen is a massive expanse. Even allowing for your assertions, which have been shown to be woefully false, the pail of your mockery has been shown to be wholly sieve-like.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  157. This is quite possibly one of the more aggressively ignert trolls we have seen in a while. Actually, it reminds me of EfP in the way that it simply asserts over and over its asspull as fact. Much like glasnost in that regard as well. It’s insistence in the face of evidence to the contrary, and its ability to simply ignore all evidence to the contrary is predictable, but awe inspiring nonetheless. Congrats, ASPCA, you are a mendoucheous asspuller of the highest order.

    JD (b8d7fe)

  158. Whereas Obama is trying to remake The Day The Earth Stood Still without Gort. Even Keanu Reeves knew better.

    Karl (f07e38)

  159. #153- Get the film. See for yourself. Why you’d dispute Ronald Reagan proposing an idea in the 1980s sparked from a fictional weapon in a film he was in 40 years is quite amusing.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  160. I love how it keeps referencing people to get the film, even better when it refers itself to get the film.

    I have a simple question. Were I to go get the film, and watch it, how exactly would that prove you to be correct?!

    JD (b8d7fe)

  161. I could happily discuss and even accept such an idea as being presented. My threshold for evidence is a little higher than ” I met von braun” says its true.

    carlitos (295979)

  162. I never thought about supporting HIV patients until I did Philadelphia.

    Tom Hanks (b8d7fe)

  163. #154- Nobody disputes s/f as a resource for sparking future realities. We know what makes a balloon go up… hot air. So what’s holding you down.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  164. I liked insurance companies until I did John Q.

    Denzel (b8d7fe)

  165. JD 1:44 – This is one of those dunderheads that dresses up like a wookie and attends ConvoCon or GenCon and never breaks character for several days, isn’t it?

    No JD, he’s a confused old man who was in academia or who had a friend or brother involved in the space program – just enough to learn some things (see his 1:41) – and he’d like to pretend that he was at least important and an intellectual.

    His ruse falls apart when he comments on ‘conservatives’, attacks Reagan or insults the other commenters – one quickly realizes that his inability to engage in a coherent argument betrays a lack of logical thinking that one would assume necessary to engage in the activities that he claims.

    Of course there’s a possibility that he actually did participate in what he claims, but is just socially retarded.

    Apogee (f4320c)

  166. My entire existence is based on comic books and sci-fi movies, therefore I assume everyone else is just like me.

    ASPCA (b8d7fe)

  167. Comment by JD — 4/6/2009 @ 1:55 pm

    It is still as dense as when it was doing a tag-team act with IIRC “Jarhead” last summer on some subject that related to the election.

    It is just in full-arguement mode and reason has no place in its intended level of activity.

    AD - RtR/OS (37be1b)

  168. I liked curling until I did Friday Night Lights.

    Billy Bob Thornton (b8d7fe)

  169. #160- Gee, Tom, remember our talk at the premiere of ‘From the Earth To The Moon?’? What was that catch phrase you used with everyone? Recall it?

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  170. You do realize that I was freakin’ mocking you, right?

    Tom Hanks (b8d7fe)

  171. I never wanted to make sweet sweet love to a volleyball until that movie about the deserted island.

    Tom Hanks (b8d7fe)

  172. Probably more than one, John, as in the early ’80’s I was working at Rockwell Downey in their Space Shuttle Operations group.

    SPQR (72771e)

  173. “I’m paying for this microphone!”– Spencer Tracy, ‘State Of The Union’ 1948; line lifted and used by Ronald Reagan during GOP primary debates, 1980.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  174. This assclown is so far beyond parody that simply find it fascinating. I wonder what else is included in its Unified Field Theory.

    JD (b8d7fe)

  175. #167- You do realize I wasnt. The phrase was “Aurora, Revell.” Tom’s a nice guy, for real.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  176. Gee, Tom, remember our talk at the premiere of ‘From the Earth To The Moon?’? What was that catch phrase you used with everyone? Recall it?

    Was it “Someone get security over here right now!”?

    Apogee (f4320c)

  177. carlitos
    The AP sent off a couple of revisions to that wind power story, with some skepticism thrown in. Still needs improvement, but better than before.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R., (d1f258)

  178. ‘…”Aurora, Revell.”…’
    Comment by DCSCA — 4/6/2009 @ 2:12 pm

    Why are we talking about model/toy companies?

    AD - RtR/OS (37be1b)

  179. I thought that the 4 restraining orders and the beat-down would have been enough to keep this one away. Persistent one, it is.

    Tom Hanks (b8d7fe)

  180. #173- Ahh, that was you they hauled out. Al Franken was amused.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  181. 175- ‘we’ arent.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  182. Why are we talking about model/toy companies?

    We’re not. The correct term was actually “Au Revoir, no, really, it’s time for you to go. Please don’t touch me.”

    Apogee (f4320c)

  183. DCSCA – 2:18 – references himself by using #173.

    For a technical kind of guy, even after someone’s explained it (see carlitos — 4/6/2009 @ 1:34 pm), you’re really kind of lost.

    Aren’t you?

    Apogee (f4320c)

  184. DCSCA wants to mock someone for supposedly coming up with an idea for real life that came out of science-fiction when history proves many real life inventions came from science-fiction ideas. His idiocy would be immense if that was all there was to it. But that’s not all. His information has been proven wholly false, by someone who knows, and yet he continues to arrogantly stand by his ignorance. As I said, there’s a reason Democrats chose the donkey (jackass) as the Party mascot.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  185. DASCA is apparently modeling itself after one of 2 characters :

    1) My boating performance @ Katrina, or
    2) My character in “I Am Sam”

    Sean Penn (b8d7fe)

  186. #181- My. Conservatives are fearlful, angry fossils these days. The only person who sees mocking Reagan in referencing his use of an idea from an old film is you.

    Beware, the cousin to the elephant is the woolly mammoth– now quite extinct.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  187. Bradley,

    Perhaps someday the AP could move to a model where the skepticism and testing of claims could be added to the story before printing. Perhaps they could call this process “editing” and the work could be done by a “writer” and “editor” not some silly-named internet blog thingie.
    – – – –
    ASPCA’s comments being lobbed at comment numbers which do not match the comments described is still getting to me. At 153, he says “get the film,” then at 157, he points at 153 and tells himself to “get the film.” Hey, what was the name of “the film” again?

    John Hitchcock, I am an expert in a few fields, but I really don’t like to put the old resume online here, what with the 9/11 conspiracy loons that met Von Braun, etc.

    carlitos (ff752f)

  188. Utterly discredited, shown to be making up stuff out of whole cloth, and yet continues to defend his discredited claims regardless of how often they are shown to be false and without any basis – must be an Obama voter.

    SPQR (72771e)

  189. #184- Yes, you’re a master of insignificance. Get the film. And learn to read. They still have classes for that in some states.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  190. I met the actual Jim Lovell once. We had Manhattans. I am an expert at those.

    carlitos (ff752f)

  191. SPQR – No doubt that ot worships at the altar of Teh One.

    JD (b8d7fe)

  192. I like how it just called itself a master of insignficance. Priceless.

    JD (b8d7fe)

  193. Clearly it is modeling itself after my Katrina boating character.

    Sean Pemm (b8d7fe)

  194. I’m so confused. Now at 187, he calls himself names at 184. I presume he meant to insult me and that I can’t read, and that he means to claim that he has named said film, from which our national missile defense was inspired.

    Let’s see – apple + f, type in “Murder in the Air“, press “next” … Nope, the name of this wonderful film is “not found” on this page. I guess I can still read. Boy, for a second there, I felt really insulted, and by a really smart guy, to boot!

    Our resident windmill-tilter needs a new Panza.

    carlitos (ff752f)

  195. It is true !!!!!!!!!!!!! Watch the movie you idiot neotheoconz! Ejukate yourselves. ASPCA told you, so it must be true.

    JD (b8d7fe)

  196. ZOMFG you knuckle dragging mouth breathing neanderthals really do not need to reproduce or go out in the real world. Stay in your little bubbly echo chamber and tell each other how great you are all while ignoring the wit and wisdom that is ASPCA.

    JD (b8d7fe)

  197. What color is the sky in your world, DSCAC

    JD (b8d7fe)

  198. My threshold for evidence is a little higher than ” I met von braun” says its true

    I remember that classic well – after being confronted with evidence from experts on the subject, he kept yammering about this mythical “meeting” in his dorm room – hilarious.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  199. Why do you all hate movie characters ?!

    JD (b8d7fe)

  200. Leave the fracking troll alone.

    Kevin Murphy (805c5b)

  201. #89 Bradley J. Fikes:

    quotes Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as saying there’s a million megawatts of wind power off the Atlantic.

    To follow up on carlitos, who pointed out how staggeringly large such a project would be if using wind turbines, let me point out that Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant (hey, it’s near the Atlantic!) produces approximately 1700 MW of electrical energy~meaning the Secretary is proposing that we harvest almost 600 times the energy from the wind as we can produce at a nuclear power plant.

    Sumthin’ don’t smell right.

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  202. #197 Kevin Murphy:

    Leave the fracking troll alone.

    I’m with you, but its kind of like watching a litter of puppies with a stuffed animal whose stuffing is coming out…

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  203. arf arf (nonchalant disinterest tone)

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  204. EW1(SG), sorry I got slobber all over my chew toy.

    SPQR (72771e)

  205. A relevant message for less than amusing trolls (H/T: The Rhetorician)
    “…You know, for a political faction that is ‘irrelevant’ and ‘out in the wilderness’, the Right seems to really get on the Left’s nerves. It’s like the Left isn’t quite convinced that the current state of things will last very long. And who knows? They may be right…”

    AD - RtR/OS (37be1b)

  206. arf arf

    Oh don’t get me wrong! Its a lot of fun to watch!

    And there is stuffing all over the place!

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  207. I am sure that your references to stuffing are some kind of racist code words.

    JD (fc72cc)

  208. EW1(SG),
    That was the first thought of my editor — something didn’t smell right about this wind-power story. Later editions of the AP story included critical comment. But that was mostly from the coal industry, which could be dismissed as self-interested. More neutral sources are available. The reporter should have had enough knowledge to be immediately skeptical about such grandiose claims.

    Such flubs are taking place while the AP is desperately trying to retain its members. This includes a Quixotic attempt by AP prez Dean Singleton, a notoriously bottom-line and unimaginative slash-and-burn destroyer of newspapers, to blame the Internets.

    Gawker takes aim at Singleton’s misinformation:

    Did the AP really just say that it wanted to come up with a competitor to Google News? That’s hilarious — especially considering how, for any given AP story, you’ll find hundreds of identical copies online — posted by all of its paying customers, including newspapers and TV and radio stations. We can’t wait to hear Singleton presiding over a meeting to decide which member’s website gets the top link. It’s all kind of ridiculous, since Google only recently started selling advertising on Google News, and directs massive amounts of traffic to newspaper websites.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R., (d1f258)

  209. Well, since you like seeing the stuffing all over the place, I’ll chase that rabbit a bit more.

    Beware, the cousin to the elephant is the woolly mammoth– now quite extinct.

    Comment by DCSCA — 4/6/2009 @ 2:32 pm

    Ahh, but a close relative to the donkey by inter-species activity is the mule, a wholly infertile creature.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  210. The reporter should have had enough knowledge to be immediately skeptical about such grandiose claims.

    To assume anything like that from what we call the AP is akin to tilting at windmills, Bradley. This is the same outfit that’s admitted using fictitious stringers on their “news stories” about Iraq, along with the infamous “blue helmet” aid worker – you know, the one who appeared in numerous photos, some taken at the same time in places almost a thousand miles apart.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  211. Dmac,
    Point taken about AP, believe me. The clients of AP will have to push it to improve, or cancel it out of frustration. But I don’t have much hope for AP as long as Internet-stupid journosaurs like Dean Singleton are charge.

    I should have attended that AP convention in San Diego. It would have been quite amusing, in one sense, but despair-inducing, in another. These nitwits are killing their (and mine) industry.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R., (d1f258)

  212. This DCSCA chap is quite a bore, isn’t he?

    Next he’ll be retelling his stories about oil barons in the Middle East and how his family was almost killed by Libyan assassins while he was sodomizing Prince Charles. I didn’t think he was due back on rotation yet.

    -Yawn-

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  213. What would you expect of William Ayers’ butt-buddy, Barry Soetoro, but a rush to fight the 1970’s nuclear fight? This dude is still lost in the nuclear-free zones and acid-trips. How out of touch does Barry sound still raging about that issue? What’s next a national pet-rock day?

    Ayers lost so I guess Obama thinks HE can have the US surrender to the Soviets, only does he even know the Reagan kicked the Soviets arses already?

    LogicalSC (3dfff0)

  214. #187- Gee, I met the 11 crew 90 days after they returned from the moon. Keep trying.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  215. #209- I see your parole came through.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  216. The chew toy is not banned yet?

    SPQR (26be8b)

  217. #213- Find that Reagan film yet? Great viewing.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  218. Master Gingrich wanted to zap the North Korean missile with ‘fricking laser beams.’ Fantasy from a fanatic. Keep trotting him out. Great theatre. President Obama keeps hitting home runs and conservatives complain about the price of beer at the ball park. Stop drinking and enjoy the game.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  219. DCSCA, you continue to make up stuff I see.

    And you call “fantasy” things that actually exist. You are a clown.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  220. What do you constitute as a ‘home run’ ASPCA?

    JD (241e9b)

  221. DCSCA calls shooting down the North Korean missile with lasers a fantasy. However, once again we see that DCSCA is the one without a grip on reality.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  222. Did the mental ward have a bus trip to the local public library today? Is this Take-a-Lunatic-to-the-Web-Day or something?

    LogicalSC (3dfff0)

  223. 1+1 = 11 DCSCA

    Lessons in Obama math.

    Poppycock, pure poppycock is what you spew out your cakehole here.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  224. You’re not gonna get anywhere with DCSCA, guys. Obamaphilia is not curable. No paraphilia is. For example, I have an otherwise sensible person telling me that Mayor Daley’s Magical Buttboy is a “self-made man”.

    nk (f3fac6)

  225. #217- Irritating conservatives hourly. All you can do is throw everything and every body– from Jindhal to Kantor – to Gingrich et al up against the wall to see what sticks. Nothing does. The Republican Party has a chance to survive as soon as the conservative corpse is jettisoned. AS of now, the chicken with its head cut off is running around the barnyard led by the fat, deaf, high school educated drug addict with several failed marriages who sits alone, locked in a room, ranting to himself beside a live microphone. Who’s left– or right, as itr were… Palin? Bring her on!

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  226. #216- It is fact, sport… or spork.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  227. DCSCA, did your pharmacy run out of anti-psychotic drugs? You ridicule the idea of shooting down a missile with lasers as a fantasy, when in fact the US has such an airborne laser system undergoing final testing.

    You are a clown. Ignorant, clueless, psychotic, and mendacious.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  228. Irritating conservatives hourly.

    No, you irritate just about everyone, and that’s about all you’ve ever done, which explains the constant attempts at self-aggrandizement.

    Apogee (f4320c)

  229. “All you can do is throw everything and every body up against the wall to see what sticks.”

    DCSCA – Your mistake, pudpuller, is that you believe somebody needs to be annointed leader on the right. The self-destruction of the power-hungry America hating left needs no leader from the right to continue unabated. Time and again, the left has not missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. I fully expect history to repeat itself.

    Pip, pip.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  230. Master Gingrich wanted to zap the North Korean missile with ‘fricking laser beams.’

    Powered flight was once viewed with the same disdain.

    Michael Ejercito (7c44bf)

  231. If we were meant to fly, we would’ve been born with Delta Airline tickets.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  232. Careful there, we’ve got a “Metaphor Alert” @ 6:41 pm.

    On my last trip to Mexico, I had the pleasure of watching someone try to tame a mule. It was a lot like this, but beatings were administered with a stick instead of cyber-commentary.

    carlitos (c834bc)

  233. Eventually, every troll reverts back to squealing about Rush. It is a scientific fact.

    JD (241e9b)

  234. So far no assertion by DCSCA has been shown to be factual.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  235. Braniff – Believe It!

    carlitos (c834bc)

  236. Sorry, that last one was meant for the wingless John Hitchcock.

    carlitos (c834bc)

  237. SPQR, to be fair, Ronald Reagan’s nickname was Dutch.

    carlitos (c834bc)

  238. Didn’t Braniff go under? Or was that a different one?

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  239. I SAW IT IN A MOVIE IT IS TRUE YOU RACIST WINGNUTS YOUR HERO RONNIE RAYGUN WUZ A STOOOPID ACTOR RUSH IS A DRUG ADDLED SERIAL DIVORCER AND THE SNOWBILLY HILLJACK IS THE BEST YOU HAVE LEFT DRAG THE CARCASS OF COBSERVATISM TO THE LANDFILL !!!!!!

    Someone’s village is missing its idiot.

    JD (241e9b)

  240. Yeah, Braniff is long gone. A long way from when they were partner with BA on the Concorde Trans-Atlantic routes.

    I was on a United flight recently, and one of their more seasoned flight attendants mistakenly said over the intercom that the “Eastern” connection desk would help with any transfers. So afterwards, I asked where the Braniff lounge was and she wasn’t amused. I guess I’m not funny.

    carlitos (c834bc)

  241. So an Obama home run is ‘irritating conservatives.’ We must have different standards for hiring Chief Executives.

    carlitos (c834bc)

  242. Carlitos – I have a self imposed lifetime ban on flying United. I would have settled for even one below average experience on even one flight. Seasoned – too funny. The exact opposite of the Southwest crews I have flown with recently 😉

    JD (241e9b)

  243. I hear ya JD. I used to be Premier Executive on United, when I was doing a lot of international travel. I aimed for code-shares with Lufthansa, Thai, SAS, Singapore Airlines, etc. Unfortunately, I lost all my status and now I’m cattle class on Mexicana every other week.

    carlitos (c834bc)

  244. carlitos – I am becoming a devotee of Southwest. There is something to be said for taking off on time.

    JD (241e9b)

  245. I flew out to Europe once with a flight outbound on Luftwaffe and a flight back on United due to code sharing … boy, the flight home was torture.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  246. Were you a passenger in a Stuka?

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  247. No, a Luftwaffe 747.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  248. I am biased being closer to Midway, but I always take Southwest for short hops and to Vegas or San Fran. A no-brainer.

    SPQR – sample flight attendant comment upon boarding the United portion of that Frankfort-Chicago flight: “You aren’t going to put that in the overhead, are you?” After a week in Europe, it’s good to hear English at all, but geez. Sample dialogue from the Lufthansa portion outbound from Chicago – Would you like some champagne? A cocktail? May I hang your coat?

    carlitos (c834bc)

  249. Guess I laid an egg on that one.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  250. Is this “Lufthansa” anything like Luftwaffe?

    SPQR (26be8b)

  251. heh

    carlitos (c834bc)

  252. ( John – I always call Lufthansa “Luftwaffe” in remembrance of my best friend’s father who spent nearly 3 years in a Luftwaffe prisoner of war camp after bailing out of a B24. )

    SPQR (26be8b)

  253. It’s just a game, Fokker!

    carlitos (c834bc)

  254. Carlitos – Roger that. Incomparable in what they do, even with the cattle call boarding. We once had the good fortune of booking a hotel in St Louis where the hotel serves as the host for the overnight SWA flight crews.

    JD (241e9b)

  255. #204 JD:

    I am sure that your references to stuffing are some kind of racist code words.

    Probably.

    I denounce myself.

    Not to interrupt the stream of consciousness posting there, but its difficult to take anybody who describes the Third Reich as “conservative” as anything but a buffoon. I mean, if you’re gonna get something that simple so wrong…

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  256. No disrespect JD, but the American Airlines crews in Latin America, and those on LanChile, Aldeasa, etc. — it’s another level.

    EW1(SG) – this thread was a Godwin victim 9 or 10 hours ago, so now it’s a place to chit-chat and trade the occasional recipe. In another month, it will be all Lol!t@s 4U and Cheap v1agr@!!!

    carlitos (c834bc)

  257. Carlitos – The crew on my trip to Brazil was breath-taking.

    JD (241e9b)

  258. Speaking of Godwin, I can’t wait to find out what tonight’s Gregalogue will be about.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  259. Fokkers to the left of me, fokkers to the right.

    Fokkers everywhere.

    David Schuster ripping and reading Kos, just like Olby, blaming the Pittsburgh shootings on the right. The dood hated the Jooos just like a good progressive fer chrissake!

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  260. #251 JD:

    Incomparable in what they do,

    Even with the cattle call boarding, it’s much easier to check a firearm with Southwest than just about anybody else. Saves a good amount of time over the others.

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  261. #238-Apparently so. Seems President Obama was right about the North Carolina tonite as well.

    Conservatives prefer inarticulate, provincial, dry drunks who cannot speak the Queen’s English in complete sentences… nor read it– even from a teleprompter– over a well educated man who can communicate well, articulate clearly and inspire millions.

    Then there’s McCain. A blast from the past who never held a private sector job in his entire life– not even a paper route– with the vision of Mr. Magoo and the judgment of Herbert Hoover. Conservatives should feel right at home with President Obama. He generates fear in them.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  262. JD, one day I’ll buy you a diet Coke and we can cover my Peruvian distributor / Salsa-dancing with stewardesses in Lima story. Money quote from carlito – Isn’t this a little bit cliche?

    /3rd person

    Michigan State showing signs of life, still down by 19.

    carlitos (c834bc)

  263. #227- yes, it was. By conservatives. They resist change, you know. Of couse you know. Thank France for the early exploition of the aeroplane in the first two decades of flight. Eddie Rickenbacker would concur. He flew French built planes.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  264. and inspire millions

    to _____________________________________?

    Please fill in the blank. What are millions inspired to do? Thanks.

    carlitos (c834bc)

  265. #231: Spork, 1+1 = 2, not 11.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  266. Seriously, dude. There is also a “quote” button. Either that or the link might make your rantings easier to follow.

    Obama inspired Merkell to lend 20,000 troops to Afghanistan, right?

    carlitos (c834bc)

  267. Who is DCSCA addressing?

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  268. I uhhh remember ummm the first uhhh time my ummm daughter uhhh had a ummm an asthma attack. I uhhh rushed her ummm to the uhhh hospital so she ummm could uhhh get a breathalizer.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  269. #261- Reject conservativism for a start. He hae repeatedly stated the boom-bust cycle of failed Reaganomics will be stopped. Revisit Collier’s, April, 1941. President Roosevelt spelled it out in a series of articles. History rhymes again.

    Michigan hasn’t rotated their GM team in yet. once they’re on the court — or in bankruptcy court as it were– they’ll get flushed for sure. President Obama knows his NCAA basketball.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  270. This DCSCA chap is quite a bore, isn’t he?

    blah, blah, yada, yada, Rush, Bush, McCain, Palin, blah, blah, yada, yada

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  271. Who is DCSCA addressing?W

    with the post numbers and the weird oblique references, it just isn’t possible to ell. That equation wasn’t anywhere near 231. I can only guess the voices in his head.

    Hey, see how I quoted what I was referencing? It makes it easy to follow, no? Just think how well I could do this if I was a PhD rocket scientist!

    carlitos (c834bc)

  272. He hae repeatedly

    Aha! A clue – Apparently, he is a Scotsman.

    carlitos (c834bc)

  273. 266- Not bad. SNL needs an Obama upgrade. Give Lorne Michaels a call. Palin is spoken for.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  274. DCSCA,

    and inspire millions

    to _____________________________________?

    Please fill in the blank. What are millions inspired to do? Thanks.

    Were European leaders ‘inspired’ to lend troops to our efforts in Afghanistan, for example?

    carlitos (c834bc)

  275. ASPCA realized that there were at least 4 talking points / memes that it had not touched on yet.

    Carlitos – deal.

    JD (241e9b)

  276. Yeah, DSCRAP, it really took a rocket scientist to pick Carolina to win the tourney.

    JD (241e9b)

  277. ASPCA thinks he makes a good BHO stand-in?

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  278. #271- Twain was right. So is Europe. History more often rhymes than repeats itself. Suggest you revisit the history of Afghan conflicts. President Obama inherited quite a treasure from the Big Dubya. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World after all.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  279. #273- A President of the United States, too.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  280. #263- ‘dude’? Your bong need cleaned?

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  281. 267- No need to type the transcript of right wing talk radio. Most Americans can hear it just fine before switching it off.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  282. It is arguing with the voices in its head again. Sad, that.

    JD (241e9b)

  283. #

    #273- A President of the United States, too.

    Comment by DCSCA — 4/6/2009 @ 8:25 pm

    You ridiculous person with your references to post numbers, we can’t follow what you’re saying if you keep referring to numbers. Here is post 273:

    #

    ASPCA realized that there were at least 4 talking points / memes that it had not touched on yet.

    Carlitos – deal.

    Comment by JD — 4/6/2009 @ 8:17 pm

    What you posted makes no sense. Not just in the logical, “I’m right; you’re wrong” sense, but I can’t follow what you’re saying. Many times, you refer to posts that were written by you yourself. What the hell?

    carlitos (c834bc)

  284. I’m getting just a bit tired of shooting fish in a cracker barrel.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  285. #

    267- No need to type the transcript of right wing talk radio. Most Americans can hear it just fine before switching it off.

    Comment by DCSCA — 4/6/2009 @ 8:31 pm

    On my screen, right now, #267 was written by … DCSCA. I can’t believe that a “smart” person would continue this nonsense.

    carlitos (c834bc)

  286. He’s like MKDP, only without the horse whispering and sniper frogmen.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  287. It is like performance art, a bizarre surreal act. Except I think this one is actually trying.

    JD (241e9b)

  288. You know, behavior like that in public would get you committed to at least a 72 hour hold, DCSCA.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  289. #285- A spork doesn’t know what to be. Listen to Rush tomorrow. He will keep leading you… alas, not to the salad bar.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  290. #281- Crackers and barrels. Fine dining and home furnishing to the conservative mindset below the Mason-Dixon Line.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  291. DCSCA, since I don’t listen to Rush, you are still on a roll of 100% false comments.

    Now how about you quit listening to Art Bell reruns.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  292. #282- On my screen, 267 is written by daleyrocks. You must have a North Korean monitor or a Chinese flat screen. Next time, buy American.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  293. DCSCA is aggressively dishonest and intentionally obtuse. We’ve seen him before I’m sure. This is probably some petty revenge for being banned before or some other childish reason. Ignore him. He just enjoys disrupting the threads.

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  294. #288- Of course you don’t, spork. No conservatives listen to Limbaugh… and no Germans were Nazis.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  295. #290- Dishonest? Obtuse? Impossible. I am not a conservative.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  296. DCSCA, lying and namecalling. That’s what we expect from you, DCSCA, because you have nothing.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  297. It is a bigot too. Shocka.

    JD (241e9b)

  298. Ignoring trollish behavior.

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  299. #293- Lies? Namecalling? Impossible. I am not a conservative. Get the film, spork. Discover the genesis of SDI in Reagan’s mind.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  300. It is a bigoted broken record that does nothing other than spit out talking points, memes, and Leftist canards, along with its own asspulls. It is the least self-aware Leftist to come round recently, no small feat.

    JD (241e9b)

  301. I’m still waiting for the reprise of the Libyan assassination squad or the Russian microdot ubrella team.

    Too many martoonis for Lord Blah Blah again.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  302. DCSCA is aggressively dishonest and intentionally obtuse. – Not to mention his level of discourse is strictly at the elementary school level.

    That’s because he can’t put together a cogent argument, demonstrating to all that his boasts are complete fabrications.

    SPQR – It isn’t that he has nothing, it’s that he is nothing – and knows it.

    Apogee (f4320c)

  303. DCSCA, actually I’ve established about three brazen lies on your part in this thread.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  304. DCSCA, actually I’ve established about three brazen dozen lies on your part in this thread.
    Comment by SPQR — 4/6/2009 @ 9:32 pm

    Fixed it for ya SPQR! 😉

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  305. I just watched Schuster on Hardball. I now know where people like DSCRAP get their talking points.

    JD (241e9b)

  306. Schuster and his leftist guest had the temerity to complain about people using fascist imagery about Barcky on television, as he has apparently never watched the network he is working for. Good Allah, the self-lefteous outrage was sublimle in its unintended irony.

    JD (241e9b)

  307. carlitos (at 8:14 pm) – I denounce you !

    As a genuine Scot, I must point out that Scots are rational folk, for the most part … and that doesn’t include the likes of DCSCA …

    Though I do suppose he could be a Gordon Brown sock-puppet … he does seem to have a similar grasp of Logic and Rhetoric …

    Alasdair (6b086e)

  308. Sorry Alasdair. Maybe he’s just drunk on Scotch Whisky then? A drunk chimpanzee could take advice on how to refer to timestamps or use the ‘quote button.

    carlitos (c834bc)

  309. Interesting point in WSJ piece, that Obama impliedly attacked Harry Truman’s use of nuclear weapons to end WWII.

    “he President went even further in Prague, noting that “as a nuclear power — as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon — the United States has a moral responsibility to act.” That barely concealed apology for Hiroshima is an insult to the memory of Harry Truman, who saved a million lives by ending World War II without a bloody invasion of Japan.

    SPQR (72771e)

  310. #302- Schuster is an alumnus of Fox News.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  311. #305- As a Brit, we tend to ignore Scots. A rather cheap and cheeky clan.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  312. #307- Spork, stop flappin’ and quackin’ and just get the Reagan film. Enjoy it. See how his mind worked when it was intact. It’s a good flick.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  313. Good Allah. Do you write “breathe in” and “breathe out” on the backs of your hands?

    JD (1653ac)

  314. See the movie !!! Google it !!! Fire never melted steel !!! Wingnut snowbillies !!! It is a farkin broken record.

    JD (1653ac)

  315. Sheesh, someone’s pharmacy definitely ran out of stock …

    SPQR (72771e)

  316. ASPCA – When you manage to walk and chew gum at the same time without choking, does your orderly give you a gold star?

    JD (1653ac)

  317. #306- Now that the waters of the WSJ have been well tainted by Rupert The Bear, very little on their yellowed, crusty ol’ editorial page carries much weight with the well informed moving forward in the world. No doubt the neutered newsies of the right will cry, “He’s a Muslum and a Nazi” when some one sneezes on Air Force One and President Obama politely says,”Gesundheit.”

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  318. DCSCA, you fail to deal with the actual substance and the quotation from Obama.

    But that’s because you are incompetent.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  319. #316- Incompetent? Impossible. I am not a conservative.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  320. DCSCA, plainly not impossible, since you’ve demonstrated your incompetence a score of times. And been caught out making up stuff as often. Several times in this thread alone.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  321. #318- Oh, spork. Saying it is, doesn’t make it so. Such is the epitaph of conservatism.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  322. Oh, I think it’s time to haul out the following type of information once again. Because if people of the left are devoid of common sense on most occasions — which they are — and aren’t even truly compassionate or generous (or aren’t as humane as they fancy themselves to be), then they really are 0 for 2. IOW, they aren’t worth a damn coming and going.

    Bleeding Heart Tightwads

    By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
    December 20, 2008

    This holiday season is a time to examine who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but I’m unhappy with my findings. The problem is this: We liberals are personally stingy.

    Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates.

    Arthur Brooks, the author of a book on donors to charity, “Who Really Cares,” cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. A study by Google found an even greater disproportion: average annual contributions reported by conservatives were almost double those of liberals.

    Other research has reached similar conclusions. The “generosity index” from the Catalogue for Philanthropy typically finds that red states are the most likely to give to nonprofits, while Northeastern states are least likely to do so.

    The upshot is that Democrats, who speak passionately about the hungry and homeless, personally fork over less money to charity than Republicans — the ones who try to cut health insurance for children.

    “When I started doing research on charity,” Mr. Brooks wrote, “I expected to find that political liberals — who, I believed, genuinely cared more about others than conservatives did — would turn out to be the most privately charitable people. So when my early findings led me to the opposite conclusion, I assumed I had made some sort of technical error. I re-ran analyses. I got new data. Nothing worked. In the end, I had no option but to change my views.”

    Something similar is true internationally. European countries seem to show more compassion than America in providing safety nets for the poor, and they give far more humanitarian foreign aid per capita than the United States does. But as individuals, Europeans are far less charitable than Americans.

    When liberals see the data on giving, they tend to protest that conservatives look good only because they shower dollars on churches — that a fair amount of that money isn’t helping the poor, but simply constructing lavish spires.

    It’s true that religion is the essential reason conservatives give more, and religious liberals are as generous as religious conservatives. Among the stingiest of the stingy are secular conservatives.

    According to Google’s figures, if donations to all religious organizations are excluded, liberals give slightly more to charity than conservatives do. But Mr. Brooks says that if measuring by the percentage of income given, conservatives are more generous than liberals even to secular causes.

    Conservatives also appear to be more generous than liberals in nonfinancial ways. People in red states are considerably more likely to volunteer for good causes, and conservatives give blood more often. If liberals and moderates gave blood as often as conservatives, Mr. Brooks said, the American blood supply would increase by 45 percent.

    Mark (411533)

  323. […] right direction.” After all, Obama recently reaffirmed that he would like a nuke-free world and acknowledges that Iran’s intransigence threatens to set off a Mideast arms […]

    The Greenroom » Forum Archive » Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program, Uncovered by Democrats (e2f069)

  324. […] with the current administration. Obama’s call for a world without nukes was meat with a North Korean missile test. His outstretched hand to the mullahs running Iran has been met with another missile test. And […]

    The Greenroom » Forum Archive » Democrats close national security gap, follow evil Bush policies (e2f069)

  325. […] with the current administration. Obama’s call for a world without nukes was met with a North Korean missile test. His outstretched hand to the mullahs running Iran has been met with another missile test. And […]

    Patterico’s Pontifications » Democrats close national security gap, follow evil Bush policies (e4ab32)


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