There has never been such a fascinating US Presidential race, both I a good way and in a bad way. I would never have believed somebody as genuine and bright as Bernie Sanders could get this close to becoming President. I would never have believed something as florid and off the wall as Donald Trump could become this close to becoming President.
One of the things that makes both Trump and Sanders so entirely different from the mainstream US political class is that neither of them genuflects to Tel Aviv and both of them take the idea that Palestinians have rights too. In fact the only chance of Israeli dominance of US foreign policy appears to rest with Hillary Clinton. She may be Goldman Sachs’ dog in this fight, but she is also Tel Aviv’s.
Unfortunately, despite continuing wins and trouncing Clinton in debate, it seems most unlikely Sanders will get the nomination. Clinton control of party machinery and firm position with those who have made an extremely fat living for themselves personally out of identity politics (sorry heroes of the civil rights movement), should ensure that. Can I commend you to read The Catholic Orangemen of Togo to see how just one ride in a car with Jesse Jackson put me right off him.
It is extraordinary that, with Trump riding a wave of anti-Establishment populism that is undoubtedly a global political phenomenon, the establishment should choose to put up against him the most corrupt, compromised and untrustworthy figure available (except for Henry Kissinger. But don’t worry, he is in there advising her). Hillary is the unacceptable face of unacceptable faces. Her insincerity shines through every word, every gesture, every breath.
With Trump we are left with the hope that he does not actually mean what he says; that his right wing populism and blustering persona is just a brilliant act to get elected. With Hillary we have the stone cold certainty that she does not mean a word she says, that she is triangulating to the left to counter Bernie, and that she has no interest at all except furthering the interests of banks and big corporations.
If I were absolutely forced, under pain of death, to have dinner with either Trump or Clinton, I would choose Trump. Wouldn’t you? Presuming suicide is not an option?
Seals, with bomb. So much simpler. Where’s that energy calculation? How much fuel does your imaginary laser need to make a big bang at faultline zero? The plane’s only 9m long, ffs, and the cargo bay’s less than half that. With insulation, cryogenics and transfer pumps,halve the capacity again*. Ok, you’ll use Semtex** instead to power the fantasy laser? Wouldn’t it be so much infinitely more effective if you just put that on the ground near Izmir?
I use my imagination all the time…
Conceded.
*One reason, probably, that the kite itself uses H2O2 as oxidant: you don’t have to keep it cold.
** Or whatever.
Trowbridge: “You are just a troll.”
Come on now, that’s a little unfair. Ba’al is a very thick scaled old cynic, but definitely no troll.
Not according to former DCI and SOD Robert Gates who said that Danny Stillman’s “…ability to adapt the latest advances in science to solve unmanageable problems and to analyze foreign technologies made him an invaluable asset to the Intelligence Community.”
Oh, Glenn, why does everyone get away with making out or claiming that I am one?
https://theintercept.com/2016/03/10/hillary-clinton-stalwart-friend-of-worlds-worst-despots-attacks-sanders-latin-american-activism/
No. Wouldn’t want dinner with her. At least Trump is a transparent liar…
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/09/469775355/trump-doesnt-own-most-of-the-products-he-pitched-last-night
Oh, and… the first flight of the X37b was in 2010, so that satellite had to wait a while for refuelling, didn’t it?
Ba’al Zevul, some days ago you asked for evidence that Western / US powers had been arming or funding the moderate extremists in Syria. So far I have the following, more soon –
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military
Trowbridge, you aren’t a shill, you certainly aren’t a troll. You’re just wrong, and distracting because you’re so insistent. I dare say you’re good at finding obscure sources about secret operations but you need to learn some actual science and get the feel for real maths.
Ba’al Zevul’s no troll.
Trowbridge: “Oh, Glenn, why does everyone get away with making out or claiming that I am one?”
I don’t think you’re a troll either, for what it’s worth.
Ba’al, Judicial Watch, a group of conservative US lawyers, used FOI requests to winkle out a 2012 DIA report –
http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf
Here’s an article about it –
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-west-saw-isis-as-strategic-asset-b99ad7a29092
Trowbridge, please don’t take offence when I say “wrong” – being wrong is bound to happen sometimes to anyone who makes an effort. When I want to be insulting, I say “not even wrong”.
The Boeing X-37B took off four days before the Tohoku earthquake, and it help make sure that the earthquake-creating sub, either the USS Jimmy Carter or Connecticut, didn’t over do it as the Carter had done in 2004 with the earthquake off Aceh in Indonesia.
And it’s apparently a bit late for me, Clark, as I am 86, and have no intention of going back to school to get another Ph.D. from Columbia.
Clinton, Obama, and central america;
Not sure if this has been cited, before;
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/15360d62c9646e67
For me, the most noteworthy moment of last night’s Clinton-Sanders debate was the response to an awkward question about her trustworthiness posed by the Washington Post moderator.
The transcript excerpt below reveals Clinton’s trademark elusiveness but obviously it cannot convey her uncomfortable posture. I watched as her eyes shifted all over the place in stark contrast to that familiar steely glare when she feels she has got the upper hand. It was a priceless moment:
KAREN TUMULTY: Secretary Clinton, a Washington Post poll just yesterday found that only 37 percent of Americans consider you honest and trustworthy. Now, when you’ve been asked about this in the past, you have said that this is the result of many, many years of Republican attacks upon you. But Americans have also had 25 — more than that — years to get to know you for themselves.
Is there anything in your own actions and the decisions that you yourself have made that would foster this kind of mistrust?
CLINTON: Well, first Karen, obviously it’s painful for me to hear that. And I do take responsibility. When you’re in public life, even if you believe that it’s not an opinion that you think is fair or founded, you do have to take responsibility. And I do.
(My note: HC “takes responsibility” and that’s it. No attempt to answer the question/analyse why she is overwhelmingly mistrusted. She probably wanted to bring in the “vast right-wing conspiracy” but Tumulty was clever enough to pre-empt that nonsense)
CLINTON (cont.): And I also have, you know, very much committed to the best of my ability my energies and efforts to helping people. That’s something that I care deeply about. And I will continue to do that, to demonstrate by my past actions and my present levels of commitment and plans that people can count on me.
That is certainly what happened to me in New York, where people got to know me. They saw me in action. And they did.
Look, I have said before and it won’t surprise anybody to hear me say it, this is not easy for me. It’s not easy to do what I think is right, to help people, to even the odds, to hear a story like the woman’s story we just heard. And to know that I can make a difference and I want to in every way possible.
I am not a natural politician, in case you haven’t noticed, like my husband or President Obama. So I have a view that I just have to do the best I can, get the results I can, make a difference in people’s lives, and hope that people see that I’m fighting for them and that I can improve conditions economically and other ways that will benefit them and their families.
“CLINTON (cont.): And I also have, you know, very much committed to the best of my ability my energies and efforts to helping people. That’s something that I care deeply about. And I will continue to do that, to demonstrate by my past actions and my present levels of commitment and plans that people can count on me.”
Not everything is anecdotal. In 1993 my former spouse and I had two businesses in BK. The Trustee took a dislike to us for some reason and gave us nothing but grief. After several insulting encounters we were accused of not showing in court. Had to pay attorney for court appearance so he could state that as our lawyer and a witness, that we definitely appeared for all our court dates. We wrote a snail-mail letter to Hillary and within two weeks the court contacted us requesting we appear. The Trustee fell all over himself apologizing for a clerk that was burying paperwork. He cleared our BK and that was the end of that, except that as we were preparing to leave the Trusted asked us who we k new in DC. People do change when DC gets their hands on them. Just sayin’.
Thanks for the links, Clark. (I hope Trowbridge can overcome his distaste for supporting evidence to follow your example.) The case for assuming active US support for an undeclared Sunni war on Shias is strongly supported by the evidence, then, as it is by this further link:
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/pentagon-plan-divide-and-rule-muslim-world-1690265165#sthash.N7UEf4Dc.dpuf
The Boeing X-37B took off four days before the Tohoku earthquake, and it help make sure that the earthquake-creating sub, either the USS Jimmy Carter or Connecticut, didn’t over do it as the Carter had done in 2004 with the earthquake off Aceh in Indonesia.
And it’s apparently a bit late for me, Clark, as I am 86, and have no intention of going back to school to get another Ph.D. from Columbia.
We weren’t discussing the Tohoko earthquake, but the Izmit one. What I said stands.
It is the last recourse of the pontificator to pull academic rank, Trowbridge. I’m glad you showed your true mettle.
I find your persistent fantasising inexplicable other than in one of two contexts:
1. You are attempting to acquire data on posters here by provoking them into revealing replies to your absurdities. From which I hope you will have now gathered that I am a nuclear physicist (with at least two PhDs) working on optical-energy delivery systems for North Korea. Or:
2. In order to discredit only-moderately-loony – and possibly even tenable – theories proposed in these comments, you advance and strongly argue for barking-mad proposals which can be loosely and superficially linked to them in the mind of a casual reader.
Thanks to Herbie and Clark for pointing out that no, I am not a troll. I just hate seeing people post utter rubbish.
Love it, your claiming that you didn’t bring up the role of Boeing X-37B when you talked about the problem of recharging a chemical laser in space, and I answered that It can do it, along with supplying radar info about the sea floor, as it did in helping one of America’s special attack subs cause the Tohoku earthquake.
And Clark did say that I was wrong about almost everything, stating that I should learn the basics about almost anything, especially math, which obliged me to state the basics about me.
And then you go on about topping me with at least two Ph.Ds in nuclear physics, working for North Korea to help it destroy its enemies from space.
Concluding, of course, that you are still no rambo troll.
For posters interested in the truth, just read Jeff Hecht’s Beam where he discussed the tiny laser that Theodore Maiman had developed for Hughes with no government money, the press conference concluding with Maiman, after being asked repeatedly if it could be used as a weapon, like a ray gun of science fiction, admitting that it could be. (pp.191-2)
Trowbridge, I didn’t say you were wrong about everything. I just think your physics is weak, and maybe someone has used that to mislead you.
Ba’al’s bit about two Ph.Ds was just him joking.
Trowbridge, what’s your Ph.D in?
My Ph.D is in politics, or political science as many say, and my dissertation is about Henry Brougham, claiming that political historians of the period, and current political scientists have it most wrong in trying to outdo each other.
The dissertation was published in an expanded version by Barry Rose, and the journal Government & Opposition had an article by me, explaining my theories.
I found higher education most dubious and difficult about new theories and ideas,.
Trowbridge, thanks. I thought your studies would be related to recent history.
I think you should take advice about physics and engineering matters. I studied physics a bit, I’m good at such subjects, and what I was taught has proven to be consistent with the physical world. Mostly I repair or make technological things. I recognise good sense when I see it, and Ba’al’s understanding of physical matters seems sound.
Industrial lasers are used for cutting etc. so yes there’s potential for use as a weapon. But you’re still up against conservation of energy, and that’s particularly a constraint in orbit.
Hey Trowbridge, you seen the “Z Machine” before? Very big image, takes a while to come through –
https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6109/6288961527_cbc42801bc_o.jpg
If that link gives you a “security certificate” warning it’s safe to create an “exception”, or you can enter by the front door –
https://www.flickr.com/photos/sandialabs/6288961527/sizes/o/in/set-72157627572349422/
My studies did concern current events, took exams in comparative politics and political theory, and taught courses in introduction to comparative politics, comparative politics of major European powers, comparative politics of its minor powers, British politics and foreign policy, Soviet politics, French politics, etc.
You don’t have a clue about what getting a Ph.D. entails, and what it permits, once one attains one.
Still nothing about the history of the laser, and its current capabilities.
Trowbridge H. Ford, I acknowledge your great superiority over myself.
OK, happy now?
No, I have no interest in being superior to anyone.
Just want serious talk about the development of lasers, and how they have now the capacity to do what are equivalent to what nuclear weapons can create without all the fallout and human losses.
Trowbridge, you’re so close to working out the human problem. Above, you wrote –
…and that’s the human condition. We all try to outdo each other. We can see when others do it to us or to each other, but we’re blind to it when we do it ourselves because it’s subconscious.
Everyone feels superior to everyone else. This is why humanity constantly make war upon each other, and at the other end of the scale it’s why, when you post that lasers are used to trigger earthquakes or pull lightning through a conductive aircraft fuselage, no amount of reasoning can sway you one bit.
Still, I don’t have a clue about what getting a Ph.D entails nor what it permits once obtained, so this comment is bunkum. Oh poor, blighted humanity 🙁
I was talking about political scientists versus political historians when discussing modern Britain, not the human condition.
And I have seen no reasoning about what lasers are capable, and are doing, only endless denials, irrelevant claims, pathetic jokes, name-calling, etc.
Please read this interview with Diana Johnston. She is spot on!
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/10/hillary-clinton-the-queen-of-chaos-and-the-threat-of-world-war-iii/
The Pentagon’s air and undersea laser weapons still exist, as the Tohoku earthquake, and Fukushima nuclear disaster well illustrated a few days ago as it is still going on after five years, and no amount of denials and insults will explain away.
Looks like you, Craig, will get your meal with Trunp without any guns being involved, as he was the big loser last night, having to face Hillary in November.
She will beat him handily, and he can only hope that he doesn’t become the Republicans’ George McGovern.
Trump will be looking for anyone’s company then.