It is all business now that we have privatized war and killing. The business is spread all across the country to insure that no congress creeps will ever utter even a peep about it. When you turn war into a massive series of profit streams, you really have privatized and monetized death and destruction and made them a linchpin for our "economy". Any threat to the profit streams is of course intolerable because it will "hurt the economy". But the economy isn't the country and it isn't the people. It is something wholly distinct and disconnected from the people (except of course the oligarchs). Think of all those wonderful cost overruns and no bid contracts for the new nukes, since you don't have a whole bunch of companies that produce nukes. Oh, the profit streams! Don't pay any attention to the nuclear waste that keeps building up.
Wars feed and reinforce autocracy and governmental power. The Pentagon/national security state is essentially a 4th branch of government and arguably the leading one in America today. Fewer wars and less threat inflation will weaken it, which is why we see more wars and more threat inflation.
The arms trade is where the US has little competition...except for Israel and that is why in the ten year agreements to send that tiny country almost $4 billion a year, a greater and greater percentage of that money is required to be spent on US arms. I believe it is now over 25%, rising each year. US arms manufacturers were very upset that money was being sent to a competitor in the arms biz.
One of the roots of Mutual Assured Destruction, (MAD, yes the Russians still do it, too) is the RAND corporation.
In the late 1940's they hired a budding PhD from some famous eastern university name Tom Schelling he applied new mathematics that became "game theory". From it comes the "prisoner" and "burglar" games which rooted for MAD.
Subsequent debate the opposition posed that game theory that included destruction of civilized polity was both illogical and immoral.
The opposition to MAD made no one any money!
I spent too much time in SAC in late 70's early 80's!
Bill, thank you. You caused a flood of my own memories.
As a junior officer who did a tour on a "boomer" (our term for SLBM-equipped subs) - I recall one of our briefings before one patrol. The curtain was pulled back in a secure briefing room and we were shown the part of the SIOP covered by Atlantic fleet boomers. While none of us were allowed to closely study the map and specific targets, it was close enough to show the overall pattern.
Those of us who went to sea deluded ourselves that, by being willing to do our jobs, we were protecting the peace by supporting the MAD doctrine.
But I realized that there were actually people who had to sit in rooms and determine those targets. I am just glad those are memories I never had to carry.
Bear in mind, at one time we had over 20,000 nuclear warheads. The real problem for the Air Force planners was that there were far more nuclear warheads than there were valuable targets. When you look at the kill radius of a nuclear warhead, most of the really valuable targets would be destroyed with a single weapon - so what do you do with the rest of them?
I am a pre-boomer and grew up seeing the devastation caused by “regular” bombs. I will not forget the rubble that I saw in Mannheim-Ludwigshafen. I was too young to know about the new wonder weapon that America used against the Japanese. I do remember my parents dismay when the German post war military became a new factor in German life. I also learned by the late fifties and early sixties that the western leaders were the primary cause of a MAD ( excuse the pun) international policy. I met enough escapees from behind the iron curtain to convince me that the Soviet system was not as powerful as we were told by politicians and the news media. I also learned that the Soviet Union had no intention to invade western Europe. Stalin even offered to support a unification of Germany before his death in 1953. The only condition was German neutrality like that of Austria and Finland. When I started my teaching career in the seventies I told my students that U.S. military expenditures were a waste of money since the anti Soviet story just didn’t fit reality. The first Cold War was the result of American policies just as the current enmity towards China and Russia is based on similar false assumptions. The real reasons for international confrontation the American people will never be told.
The Kentucky farmer and prophet, Wendell Berry, rightly points out two important things. One, this country has long-funded war academies, but never a single peace academy. We see the fruits of this in many ways including our evolution of anti-diplomacy, which Team Biden has certainly mastered. Second, peace is not profitable to corporations. "That terrible doctrine--maximum force relentlessly applied"--which has even been applied to our crop lands.
And one can loose hope when fellow Americans are so blind to the present reality. Perhaps best shown from the social media post going around showing a picture of Joe Biden with these words: "He’s not the lesser of two evils. He’s the far better human and it’s not even close."
Can you say, "heads in the sand!?" Ninety-second-to-midnight Joe, and the clock could strike midnight at any moment, but in the meantime, genocide and proxy war death and destruction continue unabated. If that's the far better of our humanity, we're doomed.
The simple, undeniable, unequivocal, and inconvenient fact of the matter is as follows:
No matter who the next President is ~ Trump or Biden ~ NOTHING is going to change except to get worse.
Just like things got worse after Obama replaced Cheney/Bush II; like they did after Trump replaced Obama; and like they have after Biden replaced Trump.
"The Decline" of The American Empire has ended, and "The Fall" has begun in all its ugly manifestations. And with it, the End of the 248-year old Experiment called The United States of America.
Just another example of that fine line between "Pessimism" and "Realism."
The Air Force needs those ICBM's and bombers because it needs a reason to exist.
The Air Force is an anachronism. It never should have been created as it's only valuable mission is close air support for ground troops. For that, the Army Air Corps was totally adequate and would be adequate even today.
Bear in mind, prior to 1947 there was no Air Force. We won WWII without an Air Force and we haven't won a single war since it was created.
The only thing more useless than the Air Force is the newly created Space Force.
Reason Magazine’s JD Tuccille concludes his 3 Jun 24 article ~ WE’RE ALL BANANA REPUBLICANS NOW: Welcome To A System In Which Laws And Regulations Are Weaponized By The Powerful Against Opponents ~ as follows...:
GET READY FOR RETALIATION
Beyond short-term political gamesmanship, the larger risk is that we're normalizing by-any-means-necessary lawfare by those in power to kneecap opponents. It's a game that anybody can play, though we'll all be losers in the end.
"In order to prevent the case against Trump from assuming a permanent place in the American political system, Republicans will have to bring charges against Democratic officers, even presidents," University of California, Berkeley, law professor John Yoo, who served in George W. Bush's administration, urges.
[Note: Yoo is the author of THE TORTURE MEMOS which advised the CIA, DoD, and the White House “on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques—mental and physical torment and coercion such as prolonged sleep deprivation, binding in stress positions, and waterboarding—and stated that such acts, widely regarded as torture, might be legally permissible under an expansive interpretation of presidential authority during the ‘War on Terror’” in places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_Memos .]
YOO WILL LIKELY FIND A RECEPTIVE AUDIENCE IN THE FORM OF TRUMP HIMSELF, WHO HAS NEVER BEEN SHY ABOUT USING GOVERNMENT POWER AGAINST ENEMIES. HE ENCOURAGED HIS SUPPORTERS' "LOCK HER UP" CHANT AGAINST 2016 PRESIDENTIAL OPPONENT HILLARY CLINTON, PROMISED LAST YEAR TO ACT AS AN AGENT OF "RETRIBUTION" IF RETURNED TO OFFICE, AND VOWED IN NOVEMBER TO "ROOT OUT THE COMMUNISTS, MARXISTS, FASCISTS AND THE RADICAL-LEFT THUGS THAT LIVE LIKE VERMIN WITHIN THE CONFINES OF OUR COUNTRY."
DONALD TRUMP IS NOT A TURN-THE-OTHER CHEEK KIND OF GUY, AND MORE THAN WILLING TO WEAPONIZE THE STATE. ON THIS ROAD TO BANANA REPUBLIC STATUS, EACH MAJOR POLITICAL FACTION SEEMS EAGER FOR THE JOURNEY.
"Prosecuting current or past top officials accused of illegal conduct seems like an obvious decision for a democracy – everyone should be held accountable and subject to the rule of law," James D. Long, Morgan Wack, and Victor Menaldo of the University of Washington's political science department cautioned in 2022. "But there are consequences to prosecutions of these officials – not just for them, but for their countries…. If the prosecution of past leaders is brought by a political rival, it can lead to a cycle of prosecutorial retaliation."
I expect we're going to see exactly that in the U.S. It's a regular feature of some other countries' political systems. Costa Rica, for example, more or less offers prosecutions as parting gifts to its former heads of state. It's still a lovely country. And the bananas there are delicious.
AN UNSTABLE POLITICAL SYSTEM IN WHICH LAWS AND REGULATIONS ARE WEAPONIZED BY THE POWERFUL AGAINST OPPONENTS ISN'T THE END OF THE WORLD. BUT IT DELEGITIMIZES THE SYSTEM, TURNS COURTROOM PROCEEDINGS INTO AN EXPECTED PART OF THE ELECTION PROCESS, AND POSES SERIOUS LEGAL DANGERS FOR DISSENTERS.
By no means are all Americans sympathetic to the GOP. But we may all be banana republicans now.
There are unconfirmed reports that AbuG-Gitmo Yoo is on Trump's short list to be the next Attorney General if he becomes POTUS Maxximmuss XLVII.
Techniques of "enhanced interrogation" will be a very handy tool for this government as it sets about to deal with the growing scourge of 21st century American "Domestic Terrorism."
i'm curious, Dennis: Is it true what Bill says that You actually, really think that Trump is a "jerk," and have said so here on BV on several occasions?
Dennis is right, Jeff. How did we get from nuclear weapons to Trump-bashing? And what is the point of repetitive Trump-bashing and NOTC advocacy in nearly every comment stream, no matter the subject?
Dennis thinks Trump is better than Biden and would vote for him if he could. You reject Trump and Biden and prefer NOTC. I've read this probably 100 times now in various comment streams. Let's move on.
Bill: How we got from nuclear weapons to “Trump-bashing” started when i posted an idea i have about an ONION or BABYLON BEE piece i’m hatching about John Yoo:
“There are unconfirmed reports that Abu G/Gitmo Yoo is on Trump's short list to be the next Attorney General if he becomes POTUS Maxximmuss XLVII. Techniques of ‘enhanced interrogation’ will be a very handy tool for this government as it sets about to deal with the growing scourge of 21st century American ‘Domestic Terrorism.’"
To which Dennis responded: “Got a link to these unconfirmed reports Jeff? Or are you just posting them here to bash Trump AGAIN?” And that "POTUS MAXXIMMUSS XLVII" is personally insulting to him and Trump. Sort of like "Corporal Bonespurs," "MAGAts," and other similar terms of endearment.
And then i guess it went downhill from there. i suppose i should probably preface any attempts at political satire with a Reader’s Advisory.
In any event, that’s the last BV will hear from me re: NOTC until our website and 501(c)(4) is launched later this month.
Gee.... knowing how much that apparently irritates You, Dennis, dropping POTUS Maxximmuss XLVII might not be easy.
After all, Biden is POTUS Maxximmuss XLVI, and You don't seem to have any problems with that. Guess it's only offensive when it is applied to the most famous Corporal on the Planet since Adolf Hitler.
And it's not meant to be "funny." It's as serious as a heart attack. Hence the reference to Hitler.
And as far as those "unconfirmed reports" go: Isn't "Google Your friend" as You like to put it? Just like it is everybody's?
Before you go, can You confirm or deny that it is true that You really think that Trump is a "jerk"? Or at least have said so several times here on BV?
Knowing how President Reagan lectured from the UN General Assembly podium that the next war would be with people from other planets, his “appropriations” for “Star Wars”, given the adequacy of the atomic arsenal for the purpose of deterring the Russians that several contributors here have described, were in my view a front for the real- if difficult to comprehend - purpose of research toward achieving air parity with ET. To Oppenheimer’s recycled prophesy about being Death, the destroyer of worlds, he should have added in the Christian idiom: this prophecy is fulfilled in your hearing of it. ET has taken steps which you can read about in Budd Hopkins and Dr David Jacobs. They are building an army using materials available at destination ( Earth) using available local materials, in good NASA best practice style, to save having to bring them here, having perhaps exhausted their own resources at home. This army is to be built of later iterations of earth adapted hybrid human flesh. The only thing they seem to have trouble with us that the human parts of the hybrids need love, and it’s not all working out as they might have hoped.
Yes Dennis as a former Sky Cop of SAC I've seen things of unbelievable power and majesty like Fully Rolling & Take-off Klaxtons of whole Wings of B-52's & KC-135's. when I was doing my penal servitude on the Active Runways & Missile Fields of the Mid-West & Northern Tier States in the 70's. I couldn't hear or breathe the lingering smoke from the JP-4 for an hour afterwards! This is all fine & good, the thrills & chills but as awesome as it was to witness in person just think what all this could buy to feed, clothe, house, & educate the world explore together in peace both inner and outer space. Just have to choose between fear & ....!
Dennis, you mention the hypersonic missile would travel at low altitude, which I take it to mean within the lower atmosphere. Wouldn't the associated air pressure require a very large amount of fuel if the missile were to go very far? Then it couldn't replace an ICBM because of very limited range. That would mean the necessity of placing the launch pad fairly near the target, for example in Ukraine if the target is in Russia.
WJA's theme is well founded, we can't improve anything by improving nuclear weaponry and delivery vehicles -if anything, it only reduces the already tiny window of warning for a war that cannot be started.
The other day, I needed to order dental floss. I had been buying stuff from a US company in Tulsa, OK. But they discontinued the product I bought in the past. I went on Amazon and found Chinese made dental floss for 1/3rd the cost per foot. I went for it.
The US is earning foreign exchange through war-inviting weaponry. China is earning foreign exchange through consumer products across a very wide range to which Americans are addicted. Imagine that supply on which you and I depend is cut off. And we make noises about taking on China. It is absurd on the face of it, just as absurd as building for a war that cannot be fought.
And a final thought. Should WW3 start, all of us would be quickly cut off from online communication. All of us here on BV would almost immediately be severed from exchanging thoughts, and it would not be restored. The extremely small percentage of our population that knows how to fix things would be hopelessly overwhelmed if they were not dead or seriously injured directly. Social media, cable and satellite TV, gone. Let alone the incredible destruction and nuclear winter, the communications we know would end. The world would go from familiar to incomprehensible and unmanageable. The immediate neighborhood would suddenly be all we would know, as firefights break out at the local grocery store.
But nobody thinks of this, only of profit to be made, which is at the bottom of our dilemma. Our world exists for profit and the means to destroy it is very profitable. On we go. We really should stop wondering why we can't find intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. "Know Thyself" it was said in ancient Greece. The evidence of what we are is all around us, but we ignore it as we move ever faster, even enthusiastically toward our fate.
Americans have proven that ignorance is bliss, not realizing that there is a cost that goes up the longer the bliss is maintained. Nobody can deny we live in a consumer's paradise but it tends to put people to sleep about reality.
It is all business now that we have privatized war and killing. The business is spread all across the country to insure that no congress creeps will ever utter even a peep about it. When you turn war into a massive series of profit streams, you really have privatized and monetized death and destruction and made them a linchpin for our "economy". Any threat to the profit streams is of course intolerable because it will "hurt the economy". But the economy isn't the country and it isn't the people. It is something wholly distinct and disconnected from the people (except of course the oligarchs). Think of all those wonderful cost overruns and no bid contracts for the new nukes, since you don't have a whole bunch of companies that produce nukes. Oh, the profit streams! Don't pay any attention to the nuclear waste that keeps building up.
We can't afford a profit stream "gap"!
I wonder when they are going to start worrying about the "mine shaft gap" (maybe a good time to rewatch Dr. Strangelove).
That's hyperbolic but he has a point.
Wars feed and reinforce autocracy and governmental power. The Pentagon/national security state is essentially a 4th branch of government and arguably the leading one in America today. Fewer wars and less threat inflation will weaken it, which is why we see more wars and more threat inflation.
The arms trade is where the US has little competition...except for Israel and that is why in the ten year agreements to send that tiny country almost $4 billion a year, a greater and greater percentage of that money is required to be spent on US arms. I believe it is now over 25%, rising each year. US arms manufacturers were very upset that money was being sent to a competitor in the arms biz.
One of the roots of Mutual Assured Destruction, (MAD, yes the Russians still do it, too) is the RAND corporation.
In the late 1940's they hired a budding PhD from some famous eastern university name Tom Schelling he applied new mathematics that became "game theory". From it comes the "prisoner" and "burglar" games which rooted for MAD.
Subsequent debate the opposition posed that game theory that included destruction of civilized polity was both illogical and immoral.
The opposition to MAD made no one any money!
I spent too much time in SAC in late 70's early 80's!
Bill, thank you. You caused a flood of my own memories.
As a junior officer who did a tour on a "boomer" (our term for SLBM-equipped subs) - I recall one of our briefings before one patrol. The curtain was pulled back in a secure briefing room and we were shown the part of the SIOP covered by Atlantic fleet boomers. While none of us were allowed to closely study the map and specific targets, it was close enough to show the overall pattern.
Those of us who went to sea deluded ourselves that, by being willing to do our jobs, we were protecting the peace by supporting the MAD doctrine.
But I realized that there were actually people who had to sit in rooms and determine those targets. I am just glad those are memories I never had to carry.
Bear in mind, at one time we had over 20,000 nuclear warheads. The real problem for the Air Force planners was that there were far more nuclear warheads than there were valuable targets. When you look at the kill radius of a nuclear warhead, most of the really valuable targets would be destroyed with a single weapon - so what do you do with the rest of them?
The fight that matters most to these people is the fight for taxpayer dollars.
And that fight MUST be won.
It always is.
I am a pre-boomer and grew up seeing the devastation caused by “regular” bombs. I will not forget the rubble that I saw in Mannheim-Ludwigshafen. I was too young to know about the new wonder weapon that America used against the Japanese. I do remember my parents dismay when the German post war military became a new factor in German life. I also learned by the late fifties and early sixties that the western leaders were the primary cause of a MAD ( excuse the pun) international policy. I met enough escapees from behind the iron curtain to convince me that the Soviet system was not as powerful as we were told by politicians and the news media. I also learned that the Soviet Union had no intention to invade western Europe. Stalin even offered to support a unification of Germany before his death in 1953. The only condition was German neutrality like that of Austria and Finland. When I started my teaching career in the seventies I told my students that U.S. military expenditures were a waste of money since the anti Soviet story just didn’t fit reality. The first Cold War was the result of American policies just as the current enmity towards China and Russia is based on similar false assumptions. The real reasons for international confrontation the American people will never be told.
And the real reason for that, Karl, is that the American People have never DEMANDED to be told.
And the likelihood that they ever will make that DEMAND of their Ruling Political Class is slim to none.
The Kentucky farmer and prophet, Wendell Berry, rightly points out two important things. One, this country has long-funded war academies, but never a single peace academy. We see the fruits of this in many ways including our evolution of anti-diplomacy, which Team Biden has certainly mastered. Second, peace is not profitable to corporations. "That terrible doctrine--maximum force relentlessly applied"--which has even been applied to our crop lands.
And one can loose hope when fellow Americans are so blind to the present reality. Perhaps best shown from the social media post going around showing a picture of Joe Biden with these words: "He’s not the lesser of two evils. He’s the far better human and it’s not even close."
Can you say, "heads in the sand!?" Ninety-second-to-midnight Joe, and the clock could strike midnight at any moment, but in the meantime, genocide and proxy war death and destruction continue unabated. If that's the far better of our humanity, we're doomed.
The simple, undeniable, unequivocal, and inconvenient fact of the matter is as follows:
No matter who the next President is ~ Trump or Biden ~ NOTHING is going to change except to get worse.
Just like things got worse after Obama replaced Cheney/Bush II; like they did after Trump replaced Obama; and like they have after Biden replaced Trump.
"The Decline" of The American Empire has ended, and "The Fall" has begun in all its ugly manifestations. And with it, the End of the 248-year old Experiment called The United States of America.
Just another example of that fine line between "Pessimism" and "Realism."
2240 warheads on 14 subs - disturbing!
The Air Force needs those ICBM's and bombers because it needs a reason to exist.
The Air Force is an anachronism. It never should have been created as it's only valuable mission is close air support for ground troops. For that, the Army Air Corps was totally adequate and would be adequate even today.
Bear in mind, prior to 1947 there was no Air Force. We won WWII without an Air Force and we haven't won a single war since it was created.
The only thing more useless than the Air Force is the newly created Space Force.
Reason Magazine’s JD Tuccille concludes his 3 Jun 24 article ~ WE’RE ALL BANANA REPUBLICANS NOW: Welcome To A System In Which Laws And Regulations Are Weaponized By The Powerful Against Opponents ~ as follows...:
GET READY FOR RETALIATION
Beyond short-term political gamesmanship, the larger risk is that we're normalizing by-any-means-necessary lawfare by those in power to kneecap opponents. It's a game that anybody can play, though we'll all be losers in the end.
"In order to prevent the case against Trump from assuming a permanent place in the American political system, Republicans will have to bring charges against Democratic officers, even presidents," University of California, Berkeley, law professor John Yoo, who served in George W. Bush's administration, urges.
[Note: Yoo is the author of THE TORTURE MEMOS which advised the CIA, DoD, and the White House “on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques—mental and physical torment and coercion such as prolonged sleep deprivation, binding in stress positions, and waterboarding—and stated that such acts, widely regarded as torture, might be legally permissible under an expansive interpretation of presidential authority during the ‘War on Terror’” in places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_Memos .]
YOO WILL LIKELY FIND A RECEPTIVE AUDIENCE IN THE FORM OF TRUMP HIMSELF, WHO HAS NEVER BEEN SHY ABOUT USING GOVERNMENT POWER AGAINST ENEMIES. HE ENCOURAGED HIS SUPPORTERS' "LOCK HER UP" CHANT AGAINST 2016 PRESIDENTIAL OPPONENT HILLARY CLINTON, PROMISED LAST YEAR TO ACT AS AN AGENT OF "RETRIBUTION" IF RETURNED TO OFFICE, AND VOWED IN NOVEMBER TO "ROOT OUT THE COMMUNISTS, MARXISTS, FASCISTS AND THE RADICAL-LEFT THUGS THAT LIVE LIKE VERMIN WITHIN THE CONFINES OF OUR COUNTRY."
DONALD TRUMP IS NOT A TURN-THE-OTHER CHEEK KIND OF GUY, AND MORE THAN WILLING TO WEAPONIZE THE STATE. ON THIS ROAD TO BANANA REPUBLIC STATUS, EACH MAJOR POLITICAL FACTION SEEMS EAGER FOR THE JOURNEY.
"Prosecuting current or past top officials accused of illegal conduct seems like an obvious decision for a democracy – everyone should be held accountable and subject to the rule of law," James D. Long, Morgan Wack, and Victor Menaldo of the University of Washington's political science department cautioned in 2022. "But there are consequences to prosecutions of these officials – not just for them, but for their countries…. If the prosecution of past leaders is brought by a political rival, it can lead to a cycle of prosecutorial retaliation."
I expect we're going to see exactly that in the U.S. It's a regular feature of some other countries' political systems. Costa Rica, for example, more or less offers prosecutions as parting gifts to its former heads of state. It's still a lovely country. And the bananas there are delicious.
AN UNSTABLE POLITICAL SYSTEM IN WHICH LAWS AND REGULATIONS ARE WEAPONIZED BY THE POWERFUL AGAINST OPPONENTS ISN'T THE END OF THE WORLD. BUT IT DELEGITIMIZES THE SYSTEM, TURNS COURTROOM PROCEEDINGS INTO AN EXPECTED PART OF THE ELECTION PROCESS, AND POSES SERIOUS LEGAL DANGERS FOR DISSENTERS.
By no means are all Americans sympathetic to the GOP. But we may all be banana republicans now.
Full article at https://reason.com/2024/06/03/does-donald-trumps-conviction-in-new-york-make-us-banana-republicans/ ; EMPHASES added.
There are unconfirmed reports that AbuG-Gitmo Yoo is on Trump's short list to be the next Attorney General if he becomes POTUS Maxximmuss XLVII.
Techniques of "enhanced interrogation" will be a very handy tool for this government as it sets about to deal with the growing scourge of 21st century American "Domestic Terrorism."
i'm curious, Dennis: Is it true what Bill says that You actually, really think that Trump is a "jerk," and have said so here on BV on several occasions?
Yep. On both counts.
Dennis is right, Jeff. How did we get from nuclear weapons to Trump-bashing? And what is the point of repetitive Trump-bashing and NOTC advocacy in nearly every comment stream, no matter the subject?
Dennis thinks Trump is better than Biden and would vote for him if he could. You reject Trump and Biden and prefer NOTC. I've read this probably 100 times now in various comment streams. Let's move on.
Bill: How we got from nuclear weapons to “Trump-bashing” started when i posted an idea i have about an ONION or BABYLON BEE piece i’m hatching about John Yoo:
“There are unconfirmed reports that Abu G/Gitmo Yoo is on Trump's short list to be the next Attorney General if he becomes POTUS Maxximmuss XLVII. Techniques of ‘enhanced interrogation’ will be a very handy tool for this government as it sets about to deal with the growing scourge of 21st century American ‘Domestic Terrorism.’"
To which Dennis responded: “Got a link to these unconfirmed reports Jeff? Or are you just posting them here to bash Trump AGAIN?” And that "POTUS MAXXIMMUSS XLVII" is personally insulting to him and Trump. Sort of like "Corporal Bonespurs," "MAGAts," and other similar terms of endearment.
And then i guess it went downhill from there. i suppose i should probably preface any attempts at political satire with a Reader’s Advisory.
In any event, that’s the last BV will hear from me re: NOTC until our website and 501(c)(4) is launched later this month.
Gee.... knowing how much that apparently irritates You, Dennis, dropping POTUS Maxximmuss XLVII might not be easy.
After all, Biden is POTUS Maxximmuss XLVI, and You don't seem to have any problems with that. Guess it's only offensive when it is applied to the most famous Corporal on the Planet since Adolf Hitler.
And it's not meant to be "funny." It's as serious as a heart attack. Hence the reference to Hitler.
And as far as those "unconfirmed reports" go: Isn't "Google Your friend" as You like to put it? Just like it is everybody's?
"Goodbye"??? Promises, promises, promises.
Before you go, can You confirm or deny that it is true that You really think that Trump is a "jerk"? Or at least have said so several times here on BV?
I thought the Triad was the Republicans alternative method of birth control?
good one, toma! love your levity.
Knowing how President Reagan lectured from the UN General Assembly podium that the next war would be with people from other planets, his “appropriations” for “Star Wars”, given the adequacy of the atomic arsenal for the purpose of deterring the Russians that several contributors here have described, were in my view a front for the real- if difficult to comprehend - purpose of research toward achieving air parity with ET. To Oppenheimer’s recycled prophesy about being Death, the destroyer of worlds, he should have added in the Christian idiom: this prophecy is fulfilled in your hearing of it. ET has taken steps which you can read about in Budd Hopkins and Dr David Jacobs. They are building an army using materials available at destination ( Earth) using available local materials, in good NASA best practice style, to save having to bring them here, having perhaps exhausted their own resources at home. This army is to be built of later iterations of earth adapted hybrid human flesh. The only thing they seem to have trouble with us that the human parts of the hybrids need love, and it’s not all working out as they might have hoped.
Yes Dennis as a former Sky Cop of SAC I've seen things of unbelievable power and majesty like Fully Rolling & Take-off Klaxtons of whole Wings of B-52's & KC-135's. when I was doing my penal servitude on the Active Runways & Missile Fields of the Mid-West & Northern Tier States in the 70's. I couldn't hear or breathe the lingering smoke from the JP-4 for an hour afterwards! This is all fine & good, the thrills & chills but as awesome as it was to witness in person just think what all this could buy to feed, clothe, house, & educate the world explore together in peace both inner and outer space. Just have to choose between fear & ....!
So nice to know these missiles still work, isn't it, Dennis?
Another reason to get rid of them, Dennis.
No one can say whether a nuclear "exchange" is or isn't going to happen.
I will say it's possible, and that the likelihood increases as the Russia-Ukraine War escalates.
Doctorow has a feel for the thinking behind MAD.
He hopes that sane heads avail!
They choose not to look, Dennis.
Dennis, you mention the hypersonic missile would travel at low altitude, which I take it to mean within the lower atmosphere. Wouldn't the associated air pressure require a very large amount of fuel if the missile were to go very far? Then it couldn't replace an ICBM because of very limited range. That would mean the necessity of placing the launch pad fairly near the target, for example in Ukraine if the target is in Russia.
WJA's theme is well founded, we can't improve anything by improving nuclear weaponry and delivery vehicles -if anything, it only reduces the already tiny window of warning for a war that cannot be started.
The other day, I needed to order dental floss. I had been buying stuff from a US company in Tulsa, OK. But they discontinued the product I bought in the past. I went on Amazon and found Chinese made dental floss for 1/3rd the cost per foot. I went for it.
The US is earning foreign exchange through war-inviting weaponry. China is earning foreign exchange through consumer products across a very wide range to which Americans are addicted. Imagine that supply on which you and I depend is cut off. And we make noises about taking on China. It is absurd on the face of it, just as absurd as building for a war that cannot be fought.
And a final thought. Should WW3 start, all of us would be quickly cut off from online communication. All of us here on BV would almost immediately be severed from exchanging thoughts, and it would not be restored. The extremely small percentage of our population that knows how to fix things would be hopelessly overwhelmed if they were not dead or seriously injured directly. Social media, cable and satellite TV, gone. Let alone the incredible destruction and nuclear winter, the communications we know would end. The world would go from familiar to incomprehensible and unmanageable. The immediate neighborhood would suddenly be all we would know, as firefights break out at the local grocery store.
But nobody thinks of this, only of profit to be made, which is at the bottom of our dilemma. Our world exists for profit and the means to destroy it is very profitable. On we go. We really should stop wondering why we can't find intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. "Know Thyself" it was said in ancient Greece. The evidence of what we are is all around us, but we ignore it as we move ever faster, even enthusiastically toward our fate.
welcome to the extended version of gaza and the west bank, cliff, and we deserve it, whereas the gazans and west bankers do not.
Americans have proven that ignorance is bliss, not realizing that there is a cost that goes up the longer the bliss is maintained. Nobody can deny we live in a consumer's paradise but it tends to put people to sleep about reality.