Gas Bandit's Political Thread IV

[Dieb]

While most Americans can probably tell you every celebrity that attended Michael Jackson's memorial, I'm sure that few can tell you what Barack Obama pledged to do the other day in Russia.

Please Gas. Do you actually believe this guy? I mean, I could argue with almost all of your links, but this one really takes the cake. Obama agreed with Russia for both countries to cut their strategic nuclear weapons (ie, ICBMs) by about a 1/3rd, down to 1500-1675 weapons. You know, still enough to kill 99% of people on this Earth. And that's not even counting the thousands of sea based missles (ie, on submarines) that we retain.

I seriously don't see how anyone can be against this treaty. We save money. We restart up dialogue with the Russians. And we retain the ability to completely wipe out humanity. Why the fuck do we need more missles than the amount required to destroy our species? This guy is in some fantasy land. Oh no, the Russians have about 500 more ICBMs than we do! Ignore the fact that we have about a 1000 more submarine missles than they that are a much better deterrent than ICBMs!

I'm just about through with replying to this thread. It's just not worth it to respond to Gas' links any more. There are plenty of good, worthwhile conservative and libertarian articles on the world that I would love to argue against, but Gas never links them. He goes straight to dreck like this. So obviously factually wrong that it's hardly worth it to respond to.

 

[Covar]

If its not worth your time then how come you spent 3 paragraphs responding?

 

[Krisken]

If its not worth your time then how come you spent 3 paragraphs responding?

Sometimes you can't help but point out the shit someone is going to step in, even if they are already covered in it.

 

[GasBandit]

Dieb has his opinions, I have mine. I personally don't feel this is the time to be weakening ourselves any further militarily, having seen over the last decade how much less we can exert ourselves after Clinton gutted the conventional military. Before we rolled over Iraq without breaking a sweat (my father, who was there, called it a "gilbert and sullivan war"), this time it's called a huge drain on manpower.

Especially, as that writer points out, in times when Iran is on the brink of developing its own nuclear weapons and Pakistan is teetering on the edge of collapse, placing a completed weapon in the hands of anti-west radicals.

 

[Krisken]

Dieb has his opinions, I have mine. I personally don't feel this is the time to be weakening ourselves any further militarily, having seen over the last decade how much less we can exert ourselves after Clinton gutted the conventional military. Before we rolled over Iraq without breaking a sweat (my father, who was there, called it a "gilbert and sullivan war"), this time it's called a huge drain on manpower.

Especially, as that writer points out, in times when Iran is on the brink of developing its own nuclear weapons and Pakistan is teetering on the edge of collapse, placing a completed weapon in the hands of anti-west radicals.

When you only need a teaspoon of stuff to destroy the world, why do you need a swimming pool full?

 

[GasBandit]

Because, as we know, missiles never malfunction or miss, and warheads are never duds. That's why we sill issue six shooters and breech-loading rifles with no magazines.

 

[Krisken]

Because, as we know, missiles never malfunction or miss, and warheads are never duds. That's why we sill issue six shooters and breech-loading rifles with no magazines.

It doesn't matter with the numbers involved. Your analogy has no bearing.

Some fun facts Nuclear Weapons.

Of note:

2. Total number of nuclear missiles built, 1951-present: 67,500

9. Projected operational U.S. strategic nuclear warheads and bombs after full enactment of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty in 2012: 1,700-2,200

44. Number of U.S. nuclear bombs lost in accidents and never recovered: 11

It's not a six shooter when you have 1,700 nuclear warheads and bombs yet. Drop that to 1/10th and you still have more than enough to eradicate other people, not to mention provoke nearby countries into firing their own.

 

[GasBandit]

Lisa Jackson, Obama's hand-picked head of the EPA, admits that Cap and Trade will have zero effect on global emission levels. The Democrats have hit a little snag with their cap-and-tax bill. They are not going to complete work on it until after the August break.

Meanwhile, the healthcare bill suffered another setback yesterday as some Democrats are expressing reservations.

This is why you don't want government running private enterprises. GM wants to close a dealership that is losing money, since they're desperate to save cash. Friends and family of people who work for that dealership go to their congressman and threaten to vote for the other guy if the dealership closes. Congressman tells GM they can't do that. Politics is now running GM and Chrysler. At least it's bi-partisan, I guess... the R's are getting into it too.

Openness and transparency: Obama's climate czar instructed auto industry execs "to put nothing in writing, ever" regarding secret negotiations on a deal to increase federal CAFE standards. That's Obama's open government initiative.

This report from USA Today says that stimulus money is being directed to districts that heavily favored Obama in the election. Obama supporting areas are getting nearly twice per person than "red" counties. I'm trying to hide my surprise here.

Barack Obama has been missing something when he visits foreign countries. Any guesses what?

Rep. Darrell Issa wants lawmakers who receive classified CIA briefings to submit to polygraph tests.

Independent voters are continuing their trend of buyers' remorse.

John Kerry wants to hold oversight hearings on the US involvement in Afghanistan.

Are new restrictive rules on US airstrikes in Afghanistan making things more difficult for Marines in the field?

Republicans plan to call a white firefighter whose reverse discrimination claim was rejected by Sonia Sotomayor to testify against her next week.

The number of US companies listed as a top 500 company fell to its lowest level ever, while Chinese companies appeared more than ever.

Tax increases in California are causing employers to lay off workers.

 

[AshburnerX]

Because, as we know, missiles never malfunction or miss, and warheads are never duds. That's why we sill issue six shooters and breech-loading rifles with no magazines.

IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER HOW MANY OF OUR MISSILES HIT OR GO OFF. In a nuclear war, there are no fucking winners, only losers.

I'm all for increasing the manpower and equipment of our conventional armed forces, but we simply do not need that many nukes. They only serve to antagonize other nations and with us stretched so thin already, it seems like a great idea to get rid of a few hundred of the ones we needed to get rid of anyway just to increase our good will with nations we have tenuous relations with.

 

[DarkAudit]

There's a nice little dittohead, Gas. You just keep repeating all your talking points from Karl and Rupert and Roger and forget that your digging your Libertarianism's own grave. :tongue:

 

[AshburnerX]

This report from USA Today says that stimulus money is being directed to districts that heavily favored Obama in the election. Obama supporting areas are getting nearly twice per person than \"red\" counties. I'm trying to hide my surprise here.

This probably has far more to do with the fact that poorer areas of the country (which is the target of the stimulus) are far more likely to be Democrats than it does with any willful attempt to exclude Republicans.

Rep. Darrell Issa wants lawmakers who receive classified CIA briefings to submit to polygraph tests.

Why? Polygraphs have been scientifically proven, time and time again, to be unreliable methods of discerning truth and that the person reading the data has far more influence on the outcome than the data itself. This is pointless.

Are new restrictive rules on US airstrikes in Afghanistan making things more difficult for Marines in the field?

The US needs to decide how it's going to fight a war... if it's more about propaganda and getting the enemy to convert to our viewpoint, then they need to start pulling troops out and focus on that. However, if they are more interested in punishing terrorist forces in the area, then they need to accept that some civilian losses are inevitable.

Republicans plan to call a white firefighter whose reverse discrimination claim was rejected by Sonia Sotomayor to testify against her next week.

This is a low blow, but it's within their right... and to be honest, she does have a lot to answer to with that ruling.

 

[SpecialKO]

This report from USA Today says that stimulus money is being directed to districts that heavily favored Obama in the election. Obama supporting areas are getting nearly twice per person than "red" counties. I'm trying to hide my surprise here.

This probably has far more to do with the fact that poorer areas of the country (which is the target of the stimulus) are far more likely to be Democrats than it does with any willful attempt to exclude Republicans.

That article sounds a lot like that time that people were freaking out about how so many GM dealerships owned by Republicans were being closed versus Democrats, until someone (538, I think), pointed out that most GM dealerships were owned by registered Republicans in the first place.

This is a low blow, but it's within their right... and to be honest, she does have a lot to answer to with that ruling.

Unless there was something incorrect about how testimony was taken, I'm not sure how calling a plaintiff on that case to her supreme court hearing is anything but trying to set her up as an "liberal activist judge" in the court of public opinion. And even were that the case, you'd be better off with constitutional law experts and analysts.

I wish someone would tell the Repubs (and the Dems, for that matter), that when it comes to judicial nominees, playing for political points is a disservice to the country. I'd much rather hear about how they're going to question her about her views on separation of powers, executive power, and the 4th amendment.

 

[North_Ranger]

I'd like to leave you with a quotation a visiting guest lecturer, a Professor of US History from the University of Arizona, gave us when he was lecturing about the Cold War - and particularly about the balance of terror:

"No matter how many nukes you intercept, no matter how many nukes are duds, it only takes one nuke to ruin your day."

Honestly, even with the proposed reductions, the US and other Western nations still have enough nukes to turn the planet into a ball of cinder - let alone a patch of poverty-stricken land ruled by a megalomaniacal midget or another bigger patch ruled by a populist prez.

 

[Dieb]

Dieb has his opinions, I have mine. I personally don't feel this is the time to be weakening ourselves any further militarily, having seen over the last decade how much less we can exert ourselves after Clinton gutted the conventional military. Before we rolled over Iraq without breaking a sweat (my father, who was there, called it a "gilbert and sullivan war"), this time it's called a huge drain on manpower.

I hardly even know. The ignorance is staggering. The Iraq war has been so much harder than Desert Storm because we're occupying Iraq. In 1991, we only had to deal with conventional Iraqi forces because we didn't invade their country. In 2003, we rolled over the conventional forces of Iraq just as easily as we did in 1991 (we were in Bagdad in, what, two weeks?) Are you seriously blaming the fact that Bush didn't know how to fight a war against insurgents on Clinton? That's just....wow.

Especially, as that writer points out, in times when Iran is on the brink of developing its own nuclear weapons and Pakistan is teetering on the edge of collapse, placing a completed weapon in the hands of anti-west radicals.

Because, as we know, missiles never malfunction or miss, and warheads are never duds. That's why we sill issue six shooters and breech-loading rifles with no magazines.

How many nukes would it take to send Iran or Pakistan into the stone age? 100? 200 at the very most. I mean, come on, one nuke destroys an entire city. So if we really wanted to kill every civilian in one of those countries (why the fuck we'd want to do that, I don't know) I'll say 500 nukes just to go for complete overkill. We have enough nuclear weapons (remember, ICBMs are just one component of our nuclear stockpile) to make Iran or Pakistan unlivable for the next century 10 times over. And you're worried about fucking duds?

 

[ThatGrinningIdiot!]

Gas, your political idealogy seems more in line with a Neoconservative than an actual Libertarian. That or you're a political antagonist, simply spouting rhetoric at will to instigate discussion or dissension.

 

[Krisken]

Gas, your political idealogy seems more in line with a Neoconservative than an actual Libertarian. That or you're a political antagonist, simply spouting rhetoric at will to instigate discussion or dissension.

 

[Jake]

That or you're a political antagonist, simply spouting rhetoric at will to instigate discussion or dissension.

Genius! How did you ever see past his clever ruse? :smug:

 

[ThatGrinningIdiot!]

That or you're a political antagonist, simply spouting rhetoric at will to instigate discussion or dissension.

Genius! How did you ever see past his clever ruse? :smug:

Years of playing Clue have sharpened this mind to a fine razor like quality, nothing gets past me, nothing! :smug:

 

[GasBandit]

Gas, your political idealogy seems more in line with a Neoconservative than an actual Libertarian. That or you're a political antagonist, simply spouting rhetoric at will to instigate discussion or dissension.

As the others are trying to clue you in (not to mention the warning under my avatar on the left), for me it's more about the argument than the resolution. But the reason I probably come off to you (and some others) as more "neocon" than libertarian is because the vast majority of my detractors are themselves liberal, and thus don't take issue with my stances on things such as abortion, gay marriage, drugs, etc. Thus, posting that sort of thing doesn't start an argument, which means I don't post it so often, and before long they forget that there are actually issues where they agree with me. Thus, I become that most hated epithet of all that is progressive, the "neocon."

-- Mon Jul 13, 2009 4:00 pm --

A few links today... kinda running behind because prego-TD is sick again, having to cover -

The plan to pay for state run health care? Soak the evil rich, of course.

Gore finally admits what I have been telling you all along - climate change has nothing to do with the environment; it has everything to do with power. Gore says that the Congressional climate bill will help bring about "global governance." And if you don't play ball, they want you to believe that if they don't pass their tax-and-cap bill, "there will be dire results: droughts, floods, fires, loss of species, damage to agriculture, worsening air pollution and more."

The end of Obamamania?

Obama wrote a piece in the Washington Post adjusting the expectations for his economic stimulus plan. Didn't he just last week say it was "working as intended?" I wonder if Gordon "Abashi" Wrinn helped him come up with that. Biden was a little more candid.

 

[JCM]

A lil present for Gasbandit, one of the men who created the whole enviromental movement, now speaking out against it.

http://www.ted.com/talks/stewart_brand_ ... esies.html

 

[DarkAudit]

If Holder stands firm with what he knows is right in the face of resistance from the administration, those neocons will have another name fairly soon... inmate.

 

[GasBandit]

The Democrats are now saying that their economic stimulus bill didn't work as planned because ... they cut too much in taxes.

Some Q&A on the trillion dollar deficit.

Sotomayor Circus, day one.

Timothy Geithner said that the economy "is going through is a very necessary and healthy adjustment as [Americans] go back to living within their means." Too bad those who were living within their means all along are getting screwed to bail out those who weren't.

New Hampshire received over $400 million in stimulus money to create 50 jobs. You do the math on how much each of those jobs is costing the taxpayers.

Dumb - Fall in an open manhole. Dumber - Because you were too busy texting to watch where you were going. Dumbest - plan to sue the city for negligence because you were too busy texting to watch where you were going.

Always fans of shaking their left while jabbing with their right, Democrats are going to unveil their healthcare plan bill today, while everybody's paying attention to the Sotomayor confirmation.

 

[Krisken]

 

[DarkAudit]

Some Q&A on the trillion dollar deficit.

It's called digging out of an 8-year hole, bonehead. That trillion dollar deficit is all on Dubya and Cheney's war.

Always fans of shaking their left while jabbing with their right, Democrats are going to unveil their healthcare plan bill today, while everybody's paying attention to the Sotomayor confirmation.

None of this crap is any different that what the GOP pulled before them, and the Dems before that, the GOP before that, and so on. Stop acting like it's all one party.

Really it's all just talking points from Rush/Rupert/Roger/Karl when you haven't got a leg to stand on and you know it. Gas, gas, and more gas. Doing nothing put polluting the air.

You've admitted yourself that this is nothing more than a trolling thread. So why continue the charade?

To Dave: Why not call it what it is? He doesn't believe half this shit anyway.

 

[GasBandit]

Some Q&A on the trillion dollar deficit.

It's called digging out of an 8-year hole, bonehead. That trillion dollar deficit is all on Dubya and Cheney's war.

Except it's not. FTA:

Until President George W. Bush's last year in office, the deficit had been shrinking, hitting a five-year low of $161.5 billion in 2007. But that was followed by the record deficit of $454.8 billion in 2008, the budget year that ended on Sept. 30 of last year.

That actually surprised me, because I also thought Bush was spending like a maniac (but no, not just on the war. I love how you moonbats think that the only financial problem is the war, the delusion is almost cute). But despite Bush's spending like crazy, Obama has already outdone 8 years of Bush spending with one year of Obamanomics. It's not digging OUT of an 8 year hole, it's upgrading from a shovel to a backhoe and digging at 8 times the speed.

[quote:21jmf95a]Always fans of shaking their left while jabbing with their right, Democrats are going to unveil their healthcare plan bill today, while everybody's paying attention to the Sotomayor confirmation.

None of this crap is any different that what the GOP pulled before them, and the Dems before that, the GOP before that, and so on. Stop acting like it's all one party.[/quote:21jmf95a]Yes, because just like the republicans have this time, last time the democrats voiced their concerns while publically vowing not to filibuster the nominuuuhhhWAITASEC...

Really it's all just talking points from Rush/Rupert/Roger/Karl when you haven't got a leg to stand on and you know it. Gas, gas, and more gas. Doing nothing put polluting the air.

Standard lefty comeback #4. English translation "Oh shit, he's got my number and there's nothing I can do to engage intellectually, so I better start shouting "ROVE TALKING POINTS."

You've admitted yourself that this is nothing more than a trolling thread. So why continue the charade?

To Dave: Why not call it what it is? He doesn't believe half this shit anyway.

Here we go again with the "I hate it so a mod must kill it because everybody sees through my psychotic, slobber-mouthed leftist fainboism!"

 

[Krisken]

:blue:

 

[DarkAudit]

Such a nice little dittohead.

No matter how much you try to scream "libertarian", there's no one who can prevent any of your favorite planks from being stolen by the GOP. No one at all.

You're a tool, a troll, and a tool. You try to deny with one hand while the other faps to the sound of Rush's voice.

 

[GasBandit]

Well, I'm certainly glad you came back to refute the assertions of the links, and the subsequent arguments I made, instead of just plugging your ears and repeating a previous ad hominem while invoking an overused cop-out smiley. OWAIT...

 

[Krisken]

Well, I'm certainly glad you came back to refute the assertions of the links, and the subsequent arguments I made, instead of just plugging your ears and repeating a previous ad hominem while invoking an overused cop-out smiley. OWAIT...

Everything the post deserved. :slywink:

 

[Shakey]

So that secret wiretapping program that Bush had to have turned out to be pretty useless. The program was so secret that not even the people that got the information from it knew where it came from. This led to people disregarding the information and sticking to the more familiar intelligence gathering techniques.

The report notes that even for the few working-level CIA folks who were read in, \"much of the PSP reporting was vague and without context,\" so they wound up relying more on other, more familiar and accessible analytical tools and sources. The briefing that CIA folks were given on read-in didn't tell them much about how PSP worked or how to use its products, and without that knowledge the output of the program was of limited intelligence value.

From the report:

CIA officers also told the CIA OIG that the PSP would have been more fully utilized if analysts and targeting officers had obtained a better understanding of the program's capabilities. There was no formal training on the use of the PSP beyond the initial read-in to the program. Many CIA officers stated that the instruction provided in the read-in briefing was not sufficient and that they were surprised and frustrated by the lack of additional guidance. Some officers told the CIA OIG that there was insufficient legal guidance on the use of PSP-derived information.

 

[Covar]

I love the term dittohead. its so silly

 

[DarkAudit]

Well, I'm certainly glad you came back to refute the assertions of the links, and the subsequent arguments I made, instead of just plugging your ears and repeating a previous ad hominem while invoking an overused cop-out smiley. OWAIT...

Your admitted purpose is to stir up shit, nothing more. So why should I feel the need to post more than when is enough? :moon:

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again (and I even expressed this in the podcast) - The political thread is here because if it wasn't it would probably spill over everywhere. Everyone is free to express themselves, cajole and otherwise rant here, but the politics thread stays.

 

[Krisken]

I've said it before and I'll say it again (and I even expressed this in the podcast) - The political thread is here because if it wasn't it would probably spill over everywhere. Everyone is free to express themselves, cajole and otherwise rant here, but the politics thread stays.

I don't mind it being here. I'll counter with the same level of enthusiasm put in the original posts though I just don't have the energy to build a meaningful post that will just be responded to with the same tired talking points. Especially if all he really wants is

 

Some of his points are obviously still valid, as are those of DA. Plus I agree with DA a lot more than Gas. But I also think GB wouldn't put that much effort into it if he didn't believe it a little (or a lot at times).