Noah Does the Math on Hillary’s Chances
From Timothy Noah in Slate: Hillary Clinton, Fairy Princess:
Here’s a rule I would like every political reporter, campaign official, TV talking head, and politician in the United States to follow. Go ahead and say, if you like, that Hillary Clinton retains a serious chance of winning the Democratic nomination. If you say this, however, you must describe a set of circumstances whereby this could happen. Try not to make it sound like a fairy tale.
He goes on to explore this in detail. For an Obama supporter, it’s a reassuring exercise.
May 4th, 2008 at 11:34 am
The one thing that Noah doesn’t take into consideration is how the general public including soft Republicans and Independents poll closer to the election. I think this will play more into the decision of the super delegates than the popular vote in the primaries or the pledged delegate count. Remember the super delegates were instituted by Democrats after the far left nominated an anti war liberal, Mondale, during an unpopular war. He was trounced, loosing every state but Massachusetts. The purpose of the super delegates is to keep this from happening again, they are for the most part political insiders who understand politics. It will be up to them to determine who is the most elect able.
May 6th, 2008 at 11:02 am
I predict a good size win for Obama in NC (+6 to +9 % pts)
narrow loss to Clinton in Indiana (+2 to +5% for Clinton)
the slugfest continues
unless the supers stampede over to the Obama camp (that has been slowly happening, tho stampede wouldn’t be accurate, more like whittling away at the Clinton ‘inevitability’)
The numbers don’t look good for HRC unless she can ramrod thru the Michigan vote (Obama wasn’t even on the ballot!) and the FL vote (hey, you wanted an early primary that wouldn’t count? well you got one that wouldn’t count, now sd&stfu). I predict the Clintons insist upon ‘going nuclear’ which is going to burn millions of voters and hand the election to McSame. Brilliant move fucktards (please excuse my language, just quoting the queen of civility)
May 7th, 2008 at 6:47 am
wow I was close in IN, but underestimated the Obama wave in NC
IN +1.8% Clinton
NC +14.7% Obama
Delegates IN Clinton 37, Obama 33
Delegates NC Obama 58, Clinton 42
net gain of 12 more delegates for Obama
The math for Clinton does not look good at all (unless she can break the rules and seat MI (where Obama wasn’t even on the *%&#^!% ballot!) and FL)
Expect more supers to move to Obama.
Either Dem will defeat McSame in Nov, but Obama will have giant coat tails helping to win many other Dem races. Rethugglicanism is dead, the rethugs killed conservatism with their greed, perversion, corruption, hubris and just plain stupidity. Good riddance @$$holes!
Maybe the race in 2012 will be Dems vs Progressives?
May 7th, 2008 at 7:05 am
Don’t get too cocky, look at what happened in the elections in England, the Labor party lost big, these things are cyclical.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:29 am
The cycle as you call it is still swinging hard to the left. Dem turnout is at record levels, dissatisfaction with the direction of the country is at an all time high, the economy is in tatters from mismanagment and corruption and your one big solution is to cut taxes? grow. the. fuck. up. will you? If this is the big civilizational war that you douchebags keep whinging about, then you 1%ers damn well better step up to the plate and accept whatever tax burden it takes to WIN the damn thing. I only mention the 1%ers because they are the ultra rich who actually set the course of the rotten ship Republicanism.
shrubbie is the most unpopular president in modern history. The R brand is so bad that even conservatives are describing it as dog food (tainted dog food that would be taken off the shelves to be more precise - google it).
rwnj - you should set your sights on the 2010 midterms and unseating President Obama in 2012. A good role for you wingnuts would be fiscal conservatives: restraining and focusing Fed spending so it isn’t as wasteful as it might be. The social stuff is laughably 18th century (eeek! a brown person!) so good luck with that in the globalized 21st century.
Personally I worry that you rwnjs are going to JFK BHO. The secret service lapses in Dallas (of all places) makes this a very real possibility. Especially once the new administration starts digging up evidence of the real corruption volcano that is the neocon/shrubbco regime.
May 7th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I think Hillary should finish out the rest of the primaries, and then gracefully step aside.
May 7th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Ok, so one of my bosses is a big Democrat, but a reasonable one. The scuttle butt he heard is that Hillary has worked out a deal with the Obama camp that will pay for the personal money she has put into the race if she will bow out in a few weeks. He said she dumped another 6 mil into the race just recently. Have you heard anything like that?
I told him I wouldn’t trust Hillary with that deal for all the tea in China. I can just see her in a couple weeks with tears saying it was the hardest thing she has ever done to quit the race, then a few weeks before the convention, after she has cashed the check come back with an announcement that Michigan and Florida count and she’s back!
May 7th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
shcb has a trusted source for scuttle butt. You get your talking points from Senator Craig?
shcb, I do not think your Hillary scenario is too plausible, see, there would have to be a number of people in on the plot and all would have to keep quiet for quite a long time, and Obamaa is much smarter than that. However, it is much better than some of your other wild conspiracy theories.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
But Knarly a conspiracy is usually an illegal act when it is discussed in a forum like this. A conspiracy theory is derogatory term for a goofy, far fetched conspiracy that only has a snowball’s chance in hell of being true. I don’t think there is anything illegal in the Democrats paying off Hillary’s campaign debts, even if they were to herself. It would probably be a fiscally wise move. Ten or twelve million to get her to go away would probably be cheaper than fighting her. And that doesn’t count the time Obama is wasting on Hillary that could be better used on McCain. From what I read today that seems to be what the Obama camp is doing, they are gearing up for the general election. But she is shrewd, I wouldn’t count her out yet.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:04 am
shcb, why the quibble? I was complimenting your improved ability to construct scenarios. There is no need for such a lame quibble as that you had presented a conspiracy to deceive theory rather than a conspiracy to commit a crime theory.
By either description, the conspiracy theory you have shown here is a great improvement from past attempt such as your conspiracy theory about 19 loser Arabs outwitting NORAD, the FBI, the CIA and others to completely destroy three skyscrapers in Manhattan, inflict massive damage to the Pentagon and crash flight 93 into a strip mine (yet send wreckage miles away) using nothing more than boxcutters and the magical ability to temporary suspend the laws of physics.
However, your conspiracy to deceive theory about Hillary, while an improvement on your silly official 911 conspiracy theory, still does not have the ring of truth.
Besides, if HRC is as shrewd as you say then she probably wouldn’t be losing in the first place.
As for this new conspiray to deceive theory you [present here, do you think Obama or his supporters are stupid enough to hand over millions of dollars to a Clinton when the race is already all but won? Also, even if that was in America’s greater interest to “pay her off” do you really think they would be so naïve as to do so without an iron-clad arrangement that would ensure that the slimy Clinton would keep her word?
May 8th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
There are no “iron clad” agreements with the Clintons. The agreement would probably be more with the DNC than Obama, but Obama would be involved in the negotiations because money is fungible and money that goes to her wouldn’t be going to Obama later on. I’m guessing she is using the 12 million from Simon and Schuster and by my calculations she only has about 3 mil left. I would think she will stay in until that is gone hoping for a scandal that would knock Obama out of the race, the Clinton camp is working around the clock trying to find or manufacture one. Then she will settle for 6 to 8 million for her next Senate run. I would think this is her only chance at the presidency so she may as well go for broke. She didn’t do much for the 12 million but S&S won’t make that same mistake twice so this is it.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:06 am
shcb,
Interesting theories. You obviously know more about this than I, so what would you say about my suspicion that Hillary has access to far greater $ resources than is publically known? That’s is just a wild speculation based on her connections.
Off topic, but I wonder if you are giving PR support to McCain?
His campaign office’s attack on Obama (because of Obama’s statement that McCain “is losing his bearings”) has all the characteristics of your usual comments. It is attacking a straw man argument, it is hypocritical by being a great example of exactly what it is condemning, it is relentlessly misleading).
Perhaps this is just all that Republicans still know how to do, or that all Republicans fight in this same dirty way? http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/05/mccain-advisor.html
May 9th, 2008 at 10:08 am
BTW, The Republican attack was easily repuilsed: “Clearly losing one’s bearings has no relation to age,” Burton said in an e-mailed statement.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:09 am
repulsed - thwarted
May 9th, 2008 at 11:33 am
I really don’t listen to much of the back and forth bickering in these elections, unless there is some substance to it. McCain is old and Obama is a Democrat, Democrats are perceived as being softer on defense than Republicans so our enemies would like that. Other than both statements being stereotypes what substance is there. Many Democrats have been strong on defense and many good leaders have been old in the case of FDR, both at the same time. An election is kind of like a sword fight, statements like these are like all the flailing around between lunges. They’re meant to test the opponent, see where his weaknesses are, what gets under his skin. It also tests what tweaks the voters, in either direction. The trick is to send out these test balloons without alienating voters that may vote for you. Like in the sword fight, you want to test your opponent without opening yourself up to a lunge.
To your question, yes she has money coming in from other places, but I think that 12 mil is all she has of her own money that she is willing to spend.
As to my predictions above about Hillary staying in to the bitter end, I don’t have a very good track record when it comes to predicting these things. The smart money says she is all but done, so if you have a trip to Vegas planned, take what I say and bet the opposite. It’s just too much fun to play the what if game, and I have nothing to lose by being wrong.
May 10th, 2008 at 6:38 am
shcb - you should know better than try to waste Knarly’s time with conspiracy theories. He doesn’t have time for that crap! :-)
May 10th, 2008 at 7:19 am
At least this one is plausible, and probably not even illegal.
May 10th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
That’s right Lefty, my times bin a’wastin sorting through so many of your administration’s stupid conspiracy theories, like all them Iranian explosives & other weapons flooding into Iraq:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/05/iraq-the-elusiv.html
No-one has any time left for all that Repugnant bushlit anymore. The clock is ticking, you rwnj’s better pull another 911 or you’ll never win the election this fall.
May 10th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
we aren’t going to win this year, unless the D’s give it to us, it’s cyclical. we’ll be back, we will win one of the houses in two years and an R will be president in 8. It’s cyclical.
May 11th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
shcb,
Looks like you got a keen sense of predicting past trends. I’m a sucker for forecasting more of the same (cycles) too.
Actually, I’ll give you more credit than that. I recall you have some theory about balance or a pendulum and the swing vote being those who eventually become disenchanted with the incumbants or something. Alex Jones or someone like that I think has a similar theory, except it is more like the people are being played back and forth with the press alternately demonizing the D’s or the R’s so that the sheeple think that they are voting for real changes.
An R will be POTUS in 8 only if the D’s can fix the current mess in that time. Things could be truly ugly what with the dollar dropping, little room to lower interest rates, oil at levels that no one believed would be reached (except for Michael Rupert who was forecasting these current oil and food price / problems back in 2002 or 2003, wish I’d paid more attention!), record deficits, etc. Expect some truly remarkable bad news about the economy once the D’s get a look at the books (any idea what’s being done with the M1 money supply, or is that still a secret since the R’s decided last year (or the year before?) that it was best not to let people know what they were doing to the economy? Anyway, what I’m trying to get to - and not being very convincing about it - is that there could be some real bad times blamed on the Bush legacy and if, a huge enormous if, Obama is the kind of uniter everyone hopes that he is (people are dreaming, it’s like LSD and 1968 all over again) if he is such a uniter then maybe there will be real reforms so that after 8 years the choice ahead will be clear. If Hillary is his VP I’d expect disaster.
Did any of that make sense?
May 12th, 2008 at 4:53 am
It didn’t make a lot of sense, but I know what you are saying. Obama isn’t going be a uniter, Bush wanted to be a uniter and he found out the people he wanted to unite didn’t want to. The old lead a horse to water can’t make him drink thing. Even if he could unite everyone the problems would be the same. We would all be looking at the problems in the same way, but that way may be wrong.
It also looks like the dollar is starting to show some improvement, the economy had a very small amount of growth last quarter, not even a full percent but it was a sign the economy might have bottomed out. Historically Democrat policies hurt an economy because among other things they raise taxes, Enky is going to send a bunch of stuff on the economies during Democratic administrations, which is why I was so careful to say policies, not administrations. Obama has already said he wants to raise the top marginal rate from 34% to 39%, and the D’s can’t wait to get rid of the Bush tax cuts including restoring the estate tax to its full glory, these changes will slow the economy just as it was making it’s turn. But McCain is a soft Republican without much knowledge of economics, so unless he hires Jack Kemp and listens to him, the result will probably be the same.
The solution to oil prices is fairly simple, drill some holes and build some refineries. But again Democrats are a poor choice if want results in this area. They are too tied to the environmentalists. R’s haven’t been much better because they are afraid they will lose elections if they drill holes, they lost anyway. So the economy will continue to founder and it will be blamed on Bush for a year or two , then the R’s will be in a position to promise more than they can deliver, people will be ready for “change”, they will believe the R’s, vote them back into power and the process will continue. It has nothing to do with the Mystical powers of press, just human nature.
May 12th, 2008 at 8:41 am
As a life-long progressive and Independent voter, I find your “us vs them”ism slightly tired (and indeed quite ridiculous). When Rs actually work at the problems facing our nation rather than pandering to the 3Gs (gunz, gawdz n gayz!) we might think about electing more of them. Giant giveaways to the very richest Americans hasn’t exactly been a huge success story (unless you are ultra rich, then you are probably thrilled to return a small % of those gains as campaign contributions)
Sadly, there are something like 25% of Americans who are just intractable idiots. These are the folks who think the sun goes around the earth. The morans who still support the Worst president of our lifetimes (you make Nixon look good).
To mis-quote the bard “we come to bury you, not to praise you” (if you know much about WS then you might spot the multiple ironies)
I want us to look back on the Republicans of the late 20th century (newt! raygun! nixon! dumbya!) as the overwhelming failures that they really were. The trend is towards liberal democracies. Not towards ‘unity executives’ dictators and GOOPrz.
Me, I want even more progressive, more liberal leaders, not red dog Dems who won’t vote for Jim Webb’s new GI Bill (McInsane won’t btw - moran). I get the distinct feeling that whoever Obama picks for VP better be ready to go from day 1, as the rwnjs are all too likely to JFK BHO (see Dallas, secret service ‘lapses’). Whut th hell do you think they wants all them boomsticks fer?
Oh and economics? WJ Clinton lead our nation during the longest strongest economic expansion in modern history. Heck if they could guarantee another Clinton Boom, then I’d be happy to vote for Hillary! (twice even! ;-)
May 12th, 2008 at 9:35 am
So to gain credibility all I have to do is give up all my core beliefs? Why don’t you give up your beliefs, then it won’t us against them, D’s against R’s we’ll all be one happy Republican family.
May 12th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
really? You admit R core beliefs are gunz, gawdz n gayz, tax giveaways to the richest, and the Sun goes around the Earth?
A refreshing burst of honesty shcb! There may be hope for you yet!
May 13th, 2008 at 4:34 am
Enky, yes those are a part of my core values, you have exaggerated them in a pejorative way for effect of course. Guns and God, traditional values, self reliance and a belief in the rights the constitution gives us, those are my core values. Gays, all men are created equal, but not more equal, marriage is between a man and a woman, again traditional values. The tax cuts for the rich is just a platitude unless you can give me an example, a house bill number would be helpful. I’m not sure what the flat earth stuff is all about, I guess it has to do with us R’s being stupid, If you wish to underestimate your foes that way I’m certainly not going to stand in your way. We’re just a bunch a hayseed plowboys out here in flyover country, dumber ‘n a box a rocks, not nearly as perty. Probly all that cross breedn’. (that was Knarly’s assertion).
May 13th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Sorry about that shcb, if I could take it back I would.
In my defence I learned most everything about Americans from Gilligan’s Island, Mayberry and the Beverly Hillbillies.
May 13th, 2008 at 8:40 am
wow, my posts were filled with typos! my apologies
the word “unity” in paragraph 4 from May 12 should read “unitary”
“gunz” should read “guns”
“gawdz” should read “gods”
“gayz” should read “gays”
other than typos, there isn’t anything pejorative about my 5/12 2:43 summation of your ‘traditional values’. You added a bunch of stuff (it is the Constitution - I assume you are referring to the sacred document rather than your health, the same US Constitution dumbya referred to as ‘jes a gawdam piece a paper!”)
dumbya’s tax cuts have benefited the rich more than the rest of us
youtube.com/watch?v=SA1f2MefsMM
view it thru about 6 to 7 minutes, but the whole thing is excellent!
I favor upping taxes on the richest 5% and when I get back to that level, I’ll thank President Obama for the extra taxes I’ll have to pay (which I certainly won’t mind, as I’ll be making much more than that in income - duh!)
I aint misunderestimatin hayseeds n zealots, racists, wackjobs, angry rwnjs and good ol Duhmurkkkin stupidity. Hence my reference to you 25%ers and your comical belief the sun goes around the earth - bible tells us so! - and that dumbya has been anything other than an unqualified disaster.
btw
Cross breeding increases genetic diversity - inbreeding (which you must be intimately familiar with judging from your posts) is a decrease in genetic diversity, health and fitness. You rwnjs really don’t understand genetics do you? Check the calendar: it is the 21st century. Get with the program.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:58 am
No problem Knarly, we all have our stereotypes and the reason they are stereotypical is, well, they are right. We went back to Kansas over Easter, we stopped in Tribune (pop 1100 or so). A customer walked in and said to another “well hey LeRoy, how’s it shake’n” in an accent that was right out of all those shows. I looked at my wife and said “so this is where rednecks come from” (a line from a country western song). But I still love those folks to death. You guys have made disparaging remarks about Canadians, ‘cause, well you is one. No harm no foul. Enky gets under my skin because there seems to be a raging hatred in his tone. If we were talking face to face maybe it would be different… don’t worry about taking it back, I couldn’t use it against you over and over again if you did:-)
Say a prayer for the folks in China, sounds pretty bad.
May 13th, 2008 at 10:37 am
hatred?
I am jes havin me a good ol time!
a lil levity (with some real world facts n figures on occasion)
You are just used to arguing with folks who insist on using sporks in a knife fight. Too many strawmen. The next 8 years should be quite an eye-opener, but I doubt it, too fixed in yer ‘ways’
I bet anything dear ol rwnj did not watch that video on dumbya’s tax cuts for the richest Americans. No need to take in information that doesn’t agree with your ‘values’. What is McSame’s slogan this year? More wars, fewer jobs, McSame! That’ll be a winner, fer sure.
-
The people in China need relief, not prayers. They need bulldozers and cranes and medical supplies. Open your hearts AND your wallets. Oh wait… ooops… the US is the stingiest country in the world based on per capita contribution to aid/dev funds (true we are nearly twice the total dollars of the second largest contributing country - but our economy is many times the size of Germany’s or France’s economy to be sure, tho with the incredible shrinking dollar… hey knarls, what is the CND$ up to now?)
globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp
May 13th, 2008 at 10:39 am
that should be “one of the stingiest countries”
May 13th, 2008 at 11:30 am
enk - Cdn $ is at par with US $ now.
Interest rates have not been dropping as fast as in the USA, that’s a big change we used to track your fed rate changes closely.
Fruits, veggies and other foods imported from the states have stayed about the same price even though the US $ has dropped 20 or 25% or so. Gas is $ 1.30 a litre which works out to about $4.30 a US Gallon.
If, as you say, the USA is being stingy, it’s only because the statistics do not include all efforts and money being spent to help free the Iraqi’s from oppression.
May 13th, 2008 at 11:56 am
I think I have heard those numbers before, the money Enky is talking about is government $, most relief money in the US is given in private contributions to the Red Cross etc. in European countries those contributions are made by the governments. Correct me if I’m wrong.
There was a great article written by a Canadian in the 70’s talking about all the good America has done, chastising Canadians for criticizing the Americans, I’ll see if I can find it.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
shcb,
I recall you’ve posted those before. I know how that works. Little Johnny gives away 50% of his $5 allowance for Myanmar, all the schools, orphanages and parishes around the country save a big portion of their measly funds for charity, while the guys working at (the former) Enron spend their paycheques on champagne and trips to Vegaas. Not a very enlightened approach to contributing to world crises.
The Canadian government has a tradition of making a certain level of donation for a crises and also matching private contributions dollar for dollar. So if the government initially underestimates the will of Canadians to contribute to a cause that gets taken care of when they match the private contributions. I’m not saying that’s good, that’s just what our gov. does. .
May 13th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
And I guess in the end as long as those in need get what they need that is all that matters. I prefer to know how much of my money is going where. If I want to sent $ to help the Chinese I can. I have something of a vested interest in the country now and have friends there so I will probably give a hundred or two to a charity sending relief to the area. If the same thing happens in Italy I probably won’t, but someone else will. I’m not totally against the government helping though, especially with things like airlifting those supplies our donations are buying. It’s another of those personal liberties things. How does a government know how much it’s going to need? How does it know what natural disasters are going to occur? If the disasters don’t happen do they give you the money back? Including interest? I would prefer to keep my money and then dole it out as I see fit, when the bad things happen.
Enky I watched some of the slide show, there is too much to explain, and you wouldn’t accept it anyway. The reason the population has expanded is primarily emigration, we have been at an almost 0 natural population growth for decades, the people that are emigrating are low income, but much higher income than where they came from. The middle class has gotten more affluent, I think that is a good thing.
You have to understand the “poverty level” in these examples is usually based on a percentage not abject poverty so by definition it never changes unless you move the bar. The mid/low income includes people just starting up the economic ladder, kids just out of school, that type of thing, or old people at the end of their careers, and with the baby boomers retiring, that number is increasing. That doesn’t mean these people are poor, they just have low incomes. The house is paid for, the car, all the toys, they have savings and portfolios that aren’t shown in these numbers, you get the picture. And in the end it simply is what it is, those that have, have worked for it.
It isn’t government’s place to take it from them just because someone else doesn’t have it. Unless you believe in socialism. Or in your case you just covet the stuff of anyone that has more than you, jealousy.
It simply isn’t worth the effort to explain it to you just to have you spit back a bunch of misspelled bile.
May 13th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
“It simply isn’t worth the effort to explain it to you just to have you spit back a bunch of misspelled bile.”
like you just did o bilious one?
You’re ‘explanation’ for the increasing poverty in America is all them illegal immigrants eh? You really need to get away from hate radio my friend, it is poisoning your soul. You see what you want to see and nothing else. But just keep smacking down those strawmen and convincing yourself it is always The Other.
But why use my words? How about the words of the US gov census folks?
“Almost one-third of the current population growth is caused by net immigration.”
census.gov/population/www/pop-profile/natproj.html
So less than a third of our population growth is due to immigration (legal and illegal one would assume). Let’s use the nice round numbers of 30% immigration and 70% birth rate. That doesn’t jibe well with your obsessions (I forgot immiGrants in my Guns, Gods n Gays description of your hot button issues).
Your analysis of people with low incomes is also fatally flawed (since you refuse to see anything that doesn’t support your strawmen). For example my parents are retired, and their income is very low (and taxed at low rates), but their assets are huge. They aren’t counted in the rising tide of the dumbya era poverty stricken. The middle class is shrinking, squeezed by rising prices and lower wages, the incredible shrinking dollar and mismanagement of our government and economy.
But just keep making stuff up
(I’m jealous of the richest 1%? If you say so pal! ;-)
and providing us with your usual schtick of rwnj hate radio talking points.
(ps - dumbya isn’t misspelled btw - and I can’t see any typos - who knows what you’ll complain about next!)
May 14th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Heady stuff to be sure, but I’m more interested in your earlier paranoi… I mean reasonably cautious statement regarding a possible JFK scenario involving Barrack Obama. You don’t think they’ll try to run him over with a tank, do you?
May 14th, 2008 at 9:14 am
…and SHCB, you really need to leave Inky’s spelling alone. He’s really touchy about that…
May 14th, 2008 at 9:58 am
star-telegram.com/667/story/486413.html
upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/02/21/report_security_relaxed_at_obama_speech/8649/
Of course the Secret Service denied this the next day (despite multiple Dallas police officers denying the denial). But lets stop to take a look at this for a second: 1) it is in the south (dumbyaland) 2) it is Dallas where JFK was assassinated by a rwnj 3) JFK was another inspirational figure, delivering change, making rwnjs look like the incompetent fools they really are 4) rwnjs love them some boomsticks…
Nothing to see here (of course).
Hey did you catch the news article about the goopr in GA selling Curious George t-shirts that say Obama ‘08? Nope, no racism here! At least you made the news lefty!
May 14th, 2008 at 10:13 am
LB, Enky evidently wasn’t schooled by nuns.
By today’s standards JFK was almost a conservative. I think he did a better job making Liberals look like fools.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Wasn’t Oswald a communist?
May 14th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Yes he was, for the record.
Inky - Since Obama’s in such danger, and the Secret Service isn’t doing their job (or is it…a conspiracy!) don’t you think you should step up to the plate and give the man a fighter escort?
…and yeah, I saw the shirt you’re referring to. I thought the monkey was you, until I realized that the object in his hand was a banana.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:01 am
…a banana …rather than a sword or the mighty pen?
So what’s your point Lefty? It seems you have resurfaced here to destroy the discussions with irrelevant and juvenile posts. If so, this thread is dead. Congratulations loser.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:07 am
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald
70% of Americans believe that JFK was assassinated as the result of a plot
didn’t you lose our wager lefty?
shouldn’t you be lurking in a men’s room someplace?
May 14th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Pork sword?
This thread was already irrelevant and juvenile before I happened along. If you guys haven’t killed it by now, I doubt I’ll have that chilling an effect.
Here’s an interesting question that should keep the hilarity ensuing at a feverish pitch - since we’ve established that Oswald was a left wing communist, rather than the right winger Chuckles the Factless tried to pawn him off as, the question arises: just how many right-wing nuts have tried to kill either the President or a presidential candidate in recent times? Since I’ve been around, the highest profile, would-be assassins have either been apolitical nuts or delusional left wingers. In fact, most of the assassination attempts I can think of have either been against Republicans (Reagan, Ford) or right-wing Democrats (George Wallace was crippled by an assassin.) Maybe it’s not the right wing nuts Inky needs to be so paranoid about.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Inky - I don’t know why you go on and on about this but I’ve told you, time and time again for months now that, even if I did lose some sort of wager with you or Knarly, I don’t want to go to the men’s room with you guys. Get over it. The closest public restroom to my house is fifty feet from a school, so you wouldn’t be able to go in there, anyway.
I know, I know, you keep telling me that your…ahem…work…ahem…for the airlines has won you the the…ahem…friendship…ahem…of some important people in Congress, but I don’t think “Pooky” can pull the strings you think he can when it comes to registries and child welfare and stuff like that. I’m sorry to break it to you, but the only string that guy’s pulling for you is your’s…or is that the other way around? Maybe that wasn’t a banana in the monkey’s hand after all…
May 14th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
makes about as much sense as your “jimberjawedflopperrejuicenik”
(or whatever that babble was)
I had no idea that your men’s room had wifi lefty
now flush and slink back home to your cellar
May 14th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
meanwhile, back in reality
The Iraq War is expected to cost over $45,000 for every man woman and child in America. That number stuck with me and cropped up again when I read this article about solar power.
sierraclub.org/wecandoit/home/electric_cars.asp
Who do you think is more likely to change our policies on energy?
McBush? Hillary? Or curious george?
The math doesn’t look good for Hillary (unless she can seat MI and FL as is).
May 14th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Lefty probably thinks he’s smart, “hey guys let’s just figure out which political party the assassins belong to and then we’ll be able to tell who the bad guys are!” Another f*ckin brilliant idea from the 28 percentile fools, or has the percentile dropped to new record lows for any president, ever?
May 14th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
One small problem Enky, the CBO estimate is $1,866.00 for 5 years. As we saw from previous discussions, that number is really close. So for six years it would be $2,240. What logical fallacy is it when you exaggerate by a factor of 20?
May 14th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
I can’t dig up where I read 45,000 for every citizen - I might have confused it with 45,000 for a family of 4. Note that this doesn’t change the math really in my example: a family of four spends $45,000 on new PV panel system and RAV4EV and tells greedy oil tycoons to go fuck themselves (both texan and saudi).
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40043
“The total economic cost of the war in Iraq to a family of four is 16,500 dollars from 2002 to 2008,” the report asserts in its main conclusions. “When the war in Afghanistan is included, the burden to the American family is 20,900 dollars.”
“The potential future impact on the family of four skyrockets to 36,900 for Iraq and 46,400 dollars for Iraq and Afghanistan from 2002 to 2017,”
or
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War
“According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report published in October 2007, the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion dollars by 2017 when counting the huge interest costs because combat is being financed with borrowed money. The CBO estimated that of the $2.4 trillion long-term price tag for the war, about $1.9 trillion of that would be spent on Iraq.[5]
Stiglitz, former chief economist of the World Bank and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, has stated the total costs of the Iraq War on the US economy will be three trillion dollars in a moderate scenario, and possibly more in the most recent published study, published in March 2008.[6] Stiglitz has stated: “The figure we arrive at is more than $3 trillion. Our calculations are based on conservative assumptions. They are conceptually simple, even if occasionally technically complicated. A $3 trillion figure for the total cost strikes us as judicious, and probably errs on the low side. Needless to say, this number represents the cost only to the United States. It does not reflect the enormous cost to the rest of the world, or to Iraq.”
No word on the costs if McBush keeps us there for a hundred years. We are only talking the costs already incurred and the downstream costs of caring for 30,000 wounded US soldiers.
3.5 trillion dollars
heck of a job bushie!
May 14th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
your CBO numbers seem to be bunk - please cite a reference other than Macho Mike or Thrust Limp-baugh
thx
May 14th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Enk, I think he got the numbers from Lefty. Cheers, Knarl
May 14th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
These are the prewar CBO numbers, there was a recent New York Times piece that was complaining about the high cost of the war, 300 million a day I believe, that coincided with the CBO predictions before the war. Unfortunately I didn’t keep that link. We were talking about it a couple months ago if you want to look through the archives.
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=3822&type=0
The answer to the question of what is the payback: 28 years with financing and 20 years if he pays cash, which he almost did, they fail to mention he either put down $40,000 as a down payment, or he has a big balloon next year. Admitidly this does not take into consideration the savings of running his house totally on solar, I’m skeptical as to whether he really does. With the electricity savings the payback is 17 years (with financing).
May 14th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Knarly - I don’t see why it’s so absurd that I should try to label all the bad guys by party. JBC’s been doing the same thing for ten years, at least, and look at the rest of us swinging off his dick!
Inky - of course you can get wifi in a men’s room! I thought you were all learned up on this technology stuff now that you’ve moved away from your “genocidal Republican” father’s top secret militia installation. No matter - even if you don’t ever catch on to all this new fangled computer technology, your 23 brothers and sisters will probably learn it fairly quickly, now that the feds have raided ol’ Dad’s “compound d’amour” down there in Texas.
If it wasn’t for wifi, I’m not sure what I’d do while I was in the men’s room. I’m kind of a slower shitter, and I don’t have as much luck as you do meeting interesting friends in the john. That, and I think that I probably mean something a lot more innocent than you do when I say that I’m “fooling around with my laptop.”
70% of Americans believe that Kennedy was assassinated due to a conspiracy, according to Wikipedia, huh? Well, the Sci Fi Channel says 72% of Americans believe in UFO’s. Maybe Sasquatch shot John Kennedy, and now he’s after Obama, too. You better round up the rest of the Blackhawks for an emergency sortie over Roswell. HAWKAAAAAAHHHHH!
May 14th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
…and why is it you can spell “jimberjawedflopperrejuicenick” correctly but you can’t spell “moron?” Were you, in fact, taught by nuns? (I guess that might explain your apparent obsession with homo-sex in bathroom stalls, which are an awful lot like confessional booths, I would think, especially if you’re on the floor, looking up.)
May 15th, 2008 at 4:50 am
I’m not saying this solar car is bad idea here, I‘m just pointing out some of the things the Sierra Club glazed over or omitted. This is an advocacy piece not a technical analysis so they should be given some wiggle room. I think they took a little more than they should have but what the hey.
A couple other things. He hasn’t had much in the way of maintenance, but at seven years he is coming up on the life of the batteries. Now if these batteries are anything like a forklift battery, he is looking at a substantial bill, probably 4 or 5 thousand dollars. I didn’t figure that into my numbers above since I don’t know what the number is. But it will obviously make the payback quite a bit longer. Also the batteries at his house. If he is charging the car off batteries at his house the bank to charge the car would have to be larger than that in the car, there would also have to be several times more capacity to operate the house, these would also be in need of replacement.
A more likely scenario is he is putting power into the grid during the day spinning his meter in reverse all day while they are at work. Then he uses power from the grid like everyone else in the evening and to charge his car all night giving him a net zero bill. This is all fine as long as only a small number of people are doing it, when the amount of power being delivered this way gets out of the single digits the grid becomes unstable.
At some point technology may change this dynamic, learning whatever we are learning from this experiment is a good thing, but it is not practical on a large scale at this point, the Sierra club should have mentioned that.
May 15th, 2008 at 8:35 am
shcb - thx for taking the time to think about this without the partisan filter (if even for a moment)
I am not saying this is the one true solution, and I don’t think the sierra club is either. The point is the price tag $ number just happened to be the same as the costs of our current foreign fubar (or close enough, I was under by $1400, but close enough right?) The point being we had choices to make in 2002 and 2003: Afghanistan was the correct choice, but Iraq was not. At a cost of $45,000 per family we could eliminate consumer consumption of oil/gasoline. Entirely. With 10 year old tech. Believe me that people have been working on better lithium ion batteries (no lefty, not the kind of lithium you take in such massive quantities) or ultracapacitors or fuel cells or… With 3.5 trillion in gunmint money being spent on your wars (note that I am not opposed to the Afghan war, so call it 3 trillion), that choice has costs associated with it other than the hurling of bullets, bombs and blood. There are synergistic costs associated with developing new tech solutions to real world problems: jobs, infrastructure, science output, lower pollution and so on.
The grid becomes unstable? Solar works in the daytime, when folks are using electricity. We can start replacing coal fired plants (or at the worst, clean up the pollution from our current plants and not have to build as many new ones), if we have the national will to do so. Think of it like going to the moon.
Yes.
We.
Can.
And yes, we will.
And as to your CBO numbers, it is quite laughable that you choose to only throw out numbers from before the war started (2002? talk about ridiculous). I’ll stick with 2008 numbers. Real world numbers. Next year it’ll be 2009 numbers etc.
May 15th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Thanks for the last two posts Enk & shcb.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:49 am
shcb,
I thought you might get something out of this article. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/20797485/chinas_allseeing_eye/1
May 15th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I don’t know if you remember me mentioning it, but I could not get Lies.com when I was in China, Hong Kong yes, China no. It was a strange dichotomy, driving across the countryside our host asked if we knew some name, when we said we didn’t he proudly said it was China’s first president, obviously proud they had something like democracy. At almost the same time we asked what RMB, their currency, stood for. Just as proudly he said “the peoples money”. On one hand they want to be exactly like us, on the other they don’t. They seem perfectly accepting of more government scrutiny than we would. Maybe that will change as they get more freedoms. I don’t know if this is related but everything over there is fake. In this same trip a song was playing on the radio, out host said “that is Carlos Santana!” Tim and I looked at each other and said with our eyes “no it’s not” it was close, but it weren’t Carlos. As we listened to the music closer none of the recordings were the original artists even though they were singing in English. Boy they were good imitations though. We were polite enough to not say anything and Raymond never said anything like “we don’t have the real artists’ songs in China” or anything like that, so I assumed he thinks he is listening to the real thing.
One last thing, before you enter the country you have to sign a paper that says you will not say or write anything critical of the government, or anything that will reflect on China’s image negatively. The threat is real, what constitutes the infraction is vague.
May 15th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Good observations.
Your last line applies to what some credible people say about The Patriot Act; law enforcement think that run of the mill protest groups are prime picking for, at the very least, monitoring which includes infiltrating as if they were criminals or potential terrorists. There’s been a few good video’s on agent provocateurs lately, but the first I heard about that was in MM’s F911 where a San Fran pro-peace group found out later that one of their former members was an undercover FBI agent scoping them out (he was not suspected at the time even though he never once brought cookies to their meetings like everyone else did.)
Please read the article if you haven’t, I think you could get a lot out of it. After reading your comments, one of the things I recalled from the article was this:
Then it continues…
May 15th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I’m already starting to see the Dems starting to strongly unify. John McCain is f*cked.
May 15th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Enky first.
You aren’t a few hundred dollars off, the total cost of the war is under $2,000 per person not 45, or even 8. The GAO estimate has proven to be accurate. The NYT article was about the same amount, the change in GDP percentage for defense is in line with a half trillion not 3.5 or 12. think about it the total budget of the United States is around 3 trillion. In perspective the cost of the war is a little over what his wife would have spent on gasoline in her Rav4 in a year at $3.50 per gallon, or half the cost of the replacement battery, not the whole system. That is for the whole war. You are right about solar working when people need electricity, business people. But the car is at the office when he has power so he has to charge it from the grid when his wife gets home. His system can’t exist without the grid to support it. If everyone, or something over 10 percent of everyone were using power at night and pumping power into it in the day, the grid will become unstable. If you don’t understand why let me know and I will explain.
Knarly,
We should be vigilant of course but there is no comparison between the Patriot act and China. Our facility there is four or five buildings on maybe 80 to 100 acres, enough for probably 10 more buildings with a village in the middle of it. They had been in their offices less than a week when we were there in July last year. There were 40 people working there with plans for 300 by now. That sets the stage. I’m guessing there were 6 to 10 guards for the 40 people. Here we are used to seeing an old retired police officer behind the front desk. These guys were all young, they had impeccable uniforms and red berets. Two to four of them greeted our bus every morning. As you were walking between buildings if you encountered one of them and made eye contact, they went into a ritual, feet came together, pointed in the direction you were going to be, arms slowly went to the side, slightly bent, heels came together, the right arm was raised slowly until it was 6 inches from the cap and them snapped to the brim in a perfect salute. The salute was held until you broke eye contact. After a couple days we realized if you ignored them they would not salute. But they never ignored us. They were always around.
We asked our hosts if they worked for the company, were they military, should we salute back, were they allowed to talk to us (they didn’t seem to, not even a smile). We never got an answer, nothing, our hosts who were so friendly and helpful in every way ignored our questions. Pretending to not hear or not understand. We knew going in we were in a place unlike any we had ever been, we never felt threatened, in fact I hope to go back later this year or early next. But you realize quickly you’re not in Kansas anymore.
May 16th, 2008 at 9:08 am
no
you simply aren’t using facts
2003 - Director, OMB
“The administration’s top budget official estimated today that the cost of a war with Iraq could be in the range of $50 billion to $60 billion, a figure that is well below earlier estimates from White House officials.
In a telephone interview today, the official, Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., director of the Office of Management and Budget, also said there was likely to be a deficit in the fiscal 2004 budget, though he declined to specify how large it would be. The administration is scheduled to present its budget to Congress on Feb. 3.
Mr. Daniels would not provide specific costs for either a long or a short military campaign against Saddam Hussein. But he said that the administration was budgeting for both, and that earlier estimates of $100 billion to $200 billion in Iraq war costs by Lawrence B. Lindsey, Mr. Bush’s former chief economic adviser, were too high.”
I am sure someone with more time could find plenty of YouTube clips of dumbya admin toadies saying this in front of a camera.
2008
The war now costs $12 billion a month and rising. Those are just the moneys directly allocated for the Iraq War, it doesn’t include the cost of replacing the equipment, the stateside care of the 30,000 wounded, swollen DoD budget, and the interest on the national debt (since this war is financed with debt, not including this cost is simply not correct on a accounting basis).
Let’s take grandpa McBush at his word and say we are out of there or in a reduced presence by 2013. At an average of $12 billion a month, $144 billion a year and then another five years, we are talking something like $1.5 trillion just in direct war supplemental funding requests. Since we are half way through I might expect the $12 Billion/mo. cost to be about the median for the entire conflict.
The damage dumbya has done to America, is even more staggering. From our relationships with allies (other than good ol Israel!), to our inciting and inflaming islamic extremist nut jobs (ienjs, the counterpart to good ol rwnjs), to our occupation of a country that didn’t attack us, didn’t have the means to do so and didn’t have them scary WMDs that rwnjs are now so strangely silent about (other than to say “it was the global intel consensus!” to which anyone who bothered to check the facts in 02 and 03 would politely reply “bullsh*t”).
And dumbya’s damage to America as a nation? Nearly beyond price: our Constitution in tatters (or as dumbya proclaims “jes a gawdam piecea paper!”), our debt soaring, prices of basic commodities rising sharply, stagnant wages, below inflation stock markets and rising inequality.
Really, heck of a job bushie! But just keep calling anyone who disagrees with y’all a “nazi appeaser”. It worked back in ‘02, right?
May 16th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Obama just verbally bitch-slapped Bush and Grandpa McCain for that.
It was sweet.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Your early quotes don’t specify how long those making the estimate thought the war would last. The CBO is very careful to say the costs are per month, and make no prediction as to the length of the war.
So let’s recap, the war is costing us 13.5 trillion ($45k per person times 300 million persons). Then it is costing us 3.5 trillion (13.5 divided by 4 people per family) now it is costing 1.5 trillion. We evidentially are getting more efficient. That 1.5 tril is for the war and the aftermath. Now if we use the CBO numbers which have proven to be pretty accurate, the cost so far is 560 billion, if we occupy anther 5 years, assuming the Iraqi’s can handle the bulk of the fighting, which they seem to be doing, the total cost will be 800 billion (that is the high estimate it could be as low as 620 billion) that is $266 per person per year. Not a small amount of money but not three quarters of all the money spent by the government either. Total expenditures of the government 2002-2006 inclusive were 19 trillion adjusted to 2007 dollars.
Deficit spending is certainly too high, but it is in line with the first few years of the Clinton Administration, those golden years.
I read the statement Bush made in Israel, sounded reasonable to me.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:44 am
no one would ever think of making a joke about assassinating a leading democratic candidate… nope…
politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/05/16/huckabee-jokes-about-obama-ducking-a-gunman/
Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.
“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he’s getting ready to speak,” said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”
har har har!
quite the rwnj kneeslapper
May 16th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
wrong again rwnj
$1.5 trillion in direct war funding (thru 2013 or if we get the hell out now, $1.5 trillion in money already spent and ‘incidentals’ as listed above, not that adequate medical care and anew GI Bill are incidental, they are required if you really support our troops)
$46,400 for a family of four (same family of four who said goodbye to oil for $45,000)
Other costs that rwnjs don’t put into their ‘numbers’ could be as much as another $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion
war supplementals are as follows (not counting all black box stuff, off the record graft, DoD bloat or interest, all real world costs that shrubco doesn’t include):
via wikipedia
$666 billion in direct appropriations just for Iraq (there are many other costs that would have to be added to just the raw costs to keep our men and women fed clothed, housed, and armed/armored adequately). I could have included the Afghanistan costs in all of those numbers, but I used the split out numbers for Iraq where available, one might argue we would have a lower cost in Afghanistan if we had stayed on target - plus Osama would be dead (but you rwnjs need your bogeymen)
So approx $750 billion dollars in 5 years and another 5 years to go for McBush’s grand vision of whatever, to the tune of another $750 billion add all the ‘incidental’ costs I meantioned above (the ones with dollar signs, like the new GI Bill the Rs are opposing, or decent medical care etc etc etc) and we are easily at or above the estimates I outlined.
But just stick with your 2003 numbers and ignore reality.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
shcb, of course what Bush said sounds reasonable to you and the other 24% like you. That’s not the point.
But Obama sure put those two old-timers in their place.
Seriously, Obama is going to destroy McCain in debates.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
666 billion seems like an appropriate number for this endevour.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Well Enky I come up with 474 billion for Iraq, not counting 2008, we were talking 5 years, so we add another 100 which is more than the previous years, and we are at 574, about the amount I have been citing. Since we are winning now and the Iraqi’s are taking a much bigger role one would think the costs will start to go down. (that is what the CBO said)
NL, in the Washington Post article I read they said Obama has repeatedly said he will not negotiate with terrorists, but he has said he wants to open a “dialogue” with Iran, what are they going to do exchange meatloaf recipes? If America wants to go soft on terrorism, and vote in someone like Obama that’s ok, we may or may not pay for it later. Bush and McCain are telling it like they see it, and citing historical references that are similar to today’s situation. Obama can rebuff them if he wants, but he may be wrong too. Let the voters decide.
May 16th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Enky,
what “other” costs are going to treble or quadruple the direct costs?
May 17th, 2008 at 8:42 am
NL,
McCain will suddenly develop a coherent, logical speaking pattern for the debates, just as Bush did at times when his suit “buckled” into the shape of box on his back. i.e. McCain will have high tech help. So, it is not that Obama will destroy McCain, it is that Obama will destroy McCain and all his backstage handlers too
Is it true that McCain supports all the propoganda about Iran too? Paul Roberts tells it like it is: http://www.rense.com/general82/lies.htm
May 18th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Oh, the voters will decide.
Because they know that closing your eyes and ears and pretending something isn’t there isn’t effective foreign policy.
And they have the last 8 years of evidence to prove it.
May 18th, 2008 at 9:01 am
I know that trying to develop effective diplomacy between cultures may sound a bit out there, but diplomacy has to be more effective than using the Quran for target practice.
h t t p ://w w w . c n n . c o m /2008/WORLD/meast/05/17/iraq.quran/index.html
May 18th, 2008 at 10:02 am
You mean like the threat Islamofascism poses?
May 18th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
huh?
May 18th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
NL,
I’m referring to:
It seems to me the left are the people that are closing their eyes and ears. Effective foreign policy isn’t the absence of war either. Effective foreign policy is a bit of both depending on the situation. Libya for instance was open to negotiation, we negotiated. We have been in negotiations with Iran since well before 911. Our first and nonnegotiable item is the Iran and the other Islamic states must acknowledge the right of Israel’s existence. They don’t have to be buddies with the Jews, but their stated mission in life can’t be the destruction of the Jewish state either. Iran has refused this reasonable condition to further dialogue. If Obama wants to drop that condition, I’m sure Ocy-Jahd would love to sit down give his other conditions for our surrender. Obama could then return to the United Stated with an envelope raised high over his head proclaiming he has a deal that will prevent further war.
http://www.zionministry.com/PlanofGod/Chapt10/Image232.jpg
That is what Bush was referring to. I’ve seen people post comments here that say maybe we should let the Jews fend for themselves, on this thread in fact Enky says
It seems some don’t care if history repeats itself.
http://www.beth-elsa.org/be_s1112.htm
Only this time the Arabs may finish the job Hitler started.
May 18th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
What the hell you talking about shcb? Condensed version please, and leave out the wiping Israel off the map, NO-one here believes that is a good thing; and Ahmidijaan (sorrry PM Iran) was talking about wiping Zionism off the political map (not Israel) like we now see neo-cons wiped off map (well PNAC is Kaput, but that’s just becaaaause they achieved all their objectives including wealth unimaginable from war profits and high oil prices)
Some day Barrack and Ahmidijan and a new ISraeli Pm might be signing a new 1000 year peace plan from the Mount in Jerulalem.
Sorry for all the spellign, beer got to my fingers…. shcb, please explain in brief what the heck you wuz talking about then I’ll go back and read your links in more detail… for example, what was the picture of?? ?
May 18th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
It’s Neville Chamberlain as he’s getting off the plane on his return to England. The treaty in his hand is one he and Hitler signed, the Munich Agreement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement
Of course history now tells us that Hitler had no intention to abide by that silly piece of paper, or any other (Treaty of Versailles) he just needed time to mobilize his forces. He invaded Poland 11 months later and 50 million people died. Of course you don’t want Israel wiped off the map, the Arabs do, they have said so repeatedly, appeasing these people will make wiping Jews off the map that much closer to a reality, it was in the original mission statement of Hamas or Hezbollah, forget which. There have been comments here on Lies.com that Israel may not be worth the effort to defend, just like no one wanted the St Louis, the Jews weren’t worth it, and we all know what happened to those Jews. If we don’t stand by them they will meet the fate of Czechoslovakia in 1938. The Arabs don’t want to wipe Zionism off the political map, whatever that means, they want the Jews dead, and they have said so.
I’ve read quite a bit lately on the mind set of this enemy. In one book the author said they only see honor in winning, there is no honor in abiding by an agreement with your enemy. Agreements with the enemy are only used as a tool to gain an advantage by lulling you adversary into a false sense of security. If Obama seriously thinks he can get the Arabs to stop killing us and the Jews with a piece of paper (like Chamberlain) then he is dangerously naïve, but he is electable. I think he is smarter than that. I agree with the Rev Wright, Obama is just another politician that will tell you whatever you want to hear to get your vote.
May 18th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Thanks shcb.
So, who is your enemy? Shiites, Sunni, other Muslims? Iranians? Some Arabs, all Arabs?
Hamas?
Who exacly are you fighting? (Other than the people whose land you are occupying now.)
Are you afraid they want to convert you to Islam or kill you? How do you know this is what they want (whoever “they” might be.)
May 19th, 2008 at 4:33 am
That’s the problem who are we fighting? And how do we know if we have won? Hamas and Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, those are pretty obvious. But who are even those groups? Members come and go they switch sides. This is the hard part of fighting a bottom up movement. Our system, the worldwide system, UN and such is set up with imaginary lines of countries they, ignore these boundaries, they ignore any kind of international treaties or laws, national or international. Now the thing that makes a bottom up movement so dangerous also limits its ability to pull off a major attack like 911. On a scale we are all interested in all we can do is limit the help these small cells get from countries, because those countries have the ability to produce arms, ammunition and such. The battle against the cells is fought on a much smaller scale, that is where the war is won, and in the hearts of the locals. While terrorists aren’t guerillas they use guerilla tactics and depend on the local population for some support, willing or unwilling.
I’m not afraid they will convert me or kill me. They kill and maim every day because that is what they want to do however. They disrupt the fabric of society for this silly notion that everyone should think like they do, they won’t succeed, but they will leave a bloody trail trying.
Here is the worst case, they get a nuke and decide if they level a big part of a major city we will all convert. They kill a hundred thousand or so, we don’t convert, we retaliate, we kill 10 million, they finally give up. And for what, so we replace dusty Bibles in our homes with dusty Qurans? On a conventional military scale all we can do is keep countries from giving the big guns to the radicals, and the small guns as well. The reason this war is going to take so long is to win we have to change attitudes, and that takes generations. In the meantime all we can do is play defense, but sometimes the best defense is an offense.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:03 am
sorry for the delay, was away on a 3 day camping trip w my eldest and some friends
shcb your numbers are just plain flat out wrong
Direct war supplemental of $162.6 billion to continue funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan well into 2009. Once again, this is just the money to keep operations supplied etc over there. This number simply does not include equipment losses/replacements, care of wounded, bloat in DoD budget, black box stuff, interest on money we are borrowing to finance dumbya’s folly. I have listed these ‘other’ costs several times, but you refuse to read or understand or whatever.
the costs are going UP, not down
as to your whole islamonazi bullhooey, riiiiight… if we didn’t buy gigadollars worth of oil from these idiots their foolishness would be a quaint aboriginal footnote. Solution: reduce our dependence on ME oil. Drill in ANWAR, go solar, go green, raise the CAFE standards, manhattan project for alternative energy etc etc etc. Dumbya is wasting $1.5 to $3.5 trillion dollars searching for his WMDz, can President Obama spend $1.5 to %3.5 trillion getting us off fossil fuels? Thanks!
Second solution, broker a lasting peace between Israel and her neighbors, you know like the Camp David Accords? 30 plus years of peace between Egypt and Israel is a good start (for a piece of paper). Clinton got the Jordanians on board, now we just need to convince the Syrians and the Iranians we want an equitable peace and Obama will go down in history as one of our greatest leaders (like Carter, Raygun and Clinton). Force Israel to the table and to get out of most of the Occupied Territories.
But your solution seems to be if we immolate 10 million of them damn dirty apes then the whole problem will disappear in a puff of (radioactive) smoke? No wonder so many people see rwnjs as genocidal idiots: you are genocidal idiots!
May 19th, 2008 at 10:06 am
or even more
That would bring the total Iraq – Afghanistan war supplemental for military spending to $178 billion (with more no doubt to be appropriated after the next President assumes office in January 2009). And don’t forget that in a series of votes in October, November and December 2007, Congress already appropriated $86.8 billion for the Iraq – Afghanistan war for this fiscal year.
This is a far cry from the $50 to $60 billion they promised us.
heck of a job bushie!
May 19th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
shcb,
Is Hamas and Hezbollah engaged in operations against America, or is it more of a cold war? snicker.
Why so many soldiers in Iraq if the enemy is in Palestine? snicker.
Sounds like your big enemy is a criminal element, al Qaeda, not a major political force. If Al Qaeda nukes something in the USA then you are going to kill ten million (innocent people???) in retaliatiation by a nuclear weapon aimed WHERE??? What if an Al Qaeda terrorist cell, based in New Jersey, gets a suitcase nuke and blow up Washington, are you going to nuke New Jersey???
You said to win we have to change attitudes. The only attitudes you are trying to create in these people is to be subservient and very scared of America, like a whipped dog. Whipped dogs just lie in wait wait for their best opportunity to bite back. You want to change hearts and minds? Start by acting like a moral and civilized people who do not torture and get your military out of lands they have no business being in.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Whoa knarls whoa!
Not every American backs bushie’s grand misadventure in Iraq.
And (as every rwnj is eager to tell anyone who will listen) we are winning the hearts and minds Over There with incredible cross-cultural outreaches like this one:
cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/19/iraq.quran/index.html
We are electing a new set of reps, senators and a CinC/top nitwit this November. If the Diebold machines don’t steal the election, it should be a landslide for Obama. Just look at three recent special elections, the last one in a MI district that went for bushie big time in the last two elections, the D won in all 3. Now the Ds have to deliver (or clean up after Rs, again) and we can start building out better progressive and liberal ideals like universal health care, green energy, high paying jobs (not just CEOs), smarter taxes, improving education (step one: new GI Bill), a cleaner environment and a humbler foreign policy (no more invasions under false pretenses, k?)
May 20th, 2008 at 4:41 am
Ok, I’ll play the straight man and answer your questions, these are so elementary I’m sure you’re just fun’n me.
This is a world war, it is being fought on many fronts by many countries. It is being fought with police and military depending on the situation. Israel is fighting the two H’s we and the Canadians are fighting in Afghanistan, we and the Brits in Iraq. The Russians are fighting Muslim extremists in Chechnya, we are helping the Philippines on their soil, China, France, and Denmark are all having their own problems. This war is being fought by America and our allies, and in some cases our enemies.
See above
That may be what it comes down to. We would rather not turn them into whipped dogs for all the reasons you state, that is why it is so important to win this war in the manner we are winning it. Turning them into whipped dogs will just perpetuate hatred as you say, but if you kill enough of them, civilians included, the will to fight will cease, that is what they are trying to do. We will just be doing it in more a conventional way on a larger scale. The whole idea of terrorism is to kill a few people to intimidate the majority. That is why it is used by weak forces, it is a force multiplier.
We will as soon as they surrender, leaving sooner would be us surrendering.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:20 am
So your solution is incinerating 10 million muslims and they will ’surrender’? I think it safe to say that will have exactly the opposite effect. But in your world, ienjs murdered 3000 Americans so we are justified in invading any country we don’t like (or that has things we want, like oil) and we can kill (or be responsible for the deaths of) anywhere between 100,000 and a million (or two?) innocents, and this is your best option for ‘winning’?
And will you ever address the Iraq war costs? Nope, because your numbers just aren’t based in reality. You are too busy falsely conflating Neville Chamberlain giving away Czechoslovakia with Obama trying to open up some sort of dialog with people we don’t like, we don’t agree with, but must share the planet with (unless McBush goes your route of nuclear holocaust). RWNJs see every problem as a bullet that must be fired to kill The Bad Guy, then reload (and repeat endlessly). Put down the gun Tex, your aim is way off.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:41 am
That’s the way the world works.
I didn’t address the Iraq numbers because there is nothing else to add. My numbers check out in several different ways and yours are based on a bunch of what ifs that haven’t happened yet. Also mine have not varied, you started out 12 times over where you ended and are still off by a factor of a few.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:49 am
shcb,
Thanks, I think I understand your thinking about “the enemy” and can safely say that it has virtually no relation to reality.
I’m not surprised, given that this is who you, and the other 28%rs, want to be your next leader:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c
May 20th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Direct costs of the Iraq War
So… rwnjs in the dumbya admin promise $50 to $60 billion, but you think they are right on with your low ball On indirect costs of the Iraq War
I’ll try to use small words for rwnj, but I have gone over this a couple times already: this war is being paid for almost entirely with credit. A strict accounting of the costs of the war must include its financing. Similarly, you can’t leave the 30,000 wounded soldiers with no healthcare, so their care will be a future or indirect cost (I know how fervently rwnj support the troops blah blah blah so I am sure he is behind Jim Webb’s new GI Bill, funny how the rwnjs in congress aren’t). Other costs like DoD budget bloat, black ops, replacing all the equipment, replacing manpower and so forth simply aren’t in the numbers you use.
Here is a link on DoD bloat: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
btw - we spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined (not sure if this included the hundreds of billions a year for Iraq/Afghanistan, probably not)
A conservative estimate of the current Iraq War costs would be $750 billion for 5 years in direct costs and a similar amount in indirect costs (unless you also plan on incinerating wounded US soldiers with those 10 million Bad Guys). Future costs for another 5 years would be at least what we have spent so far (direct and indirect). Probably more, lots more.
The McBush Magical Ponies Plan
If we stay in Iraq for 100 years like gramps McBush wants us to do, we are looking at anywhere from (low side - and here I am cutting in half even your low ball $#s) $50 billion a year x another 100 years = $5 trillion up to (high side) $150 billion a year x 100 years = $15 trillion in direct costs. Indirect costs (which you magically disbelieve) would double these totals. Hmmmm, $10 trillion dollars so rwnjs don’t have to say they fucked up. Or a high side of $30 trillion or more that rwnjs can blame on Dems, sounds like a bargain, eh? If we take the increasing cost trend lines of the last five years and extrapolate them out over 100 years (not generally acceptable accounting principles) the numbers get even bigger and more ludicrous.
Of course this 100 years of ponies exercise doesn’t include the care and feeding of all the ponies and unicorns and magical goodness that is just going to come pouring out of the Middle East. Hooray!
May 20th, 2008 at 11:03 am
sorry to post twice but a greater than symbol mangled the start of my post
Direct costs of the Iraq War
So… rwnjs in the dumbya admin promise $50 to $60 billion, but you think they are right on with your low ball $500 billion to date. The 2007 supplemental alone was about $170 billion (see reference above). The CBO says we have spent about $666 billion so far in Iraq (see numbers and refs above - some part of this is for Afghanistan, but it is a small part that wasn’t broken out in the last few years of those ref #s) with some estimates going as high as roughly $750 billion for 5 years so far. The cost trend is increasing, but estimates put the direct costs of the Iraq War at $1.5 trillion thru gramps McBush’s promise of ponies for everyone in 2013 (5 more years of multi-billion dollar boondoggle).
On indirect costs of the Iraq War
I’ll try to use small words for rwnj, but I have gone over this a couple times already: this war is being paid for almost entirely with credit. A strict accounting of the costs of the war must include its financing. Similarly, you can’t leave the 30,000 wounded soldiers with no healthcare, so their care will be a future or indirect cost (I know how fervently rwnj support the troops blah blah blah so I am sure he is behind Jim Webb’s new GI Bill, funny how the rwnjs in congress aren’t). Other costs like DoD budget bloat, black ops, replacing all the equipment, replacing manpower and so forth simply aren’t in the numbers you use.
Here is a link on DoD bloat: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
btw - we spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined (not sure if this included the hundreds of billions a year for Iraq/Afghanistan, probably not)
A conservative estimate of the current Iraq War costs would be $750 billion for 5 years in direct costs and a similar amount in indirect costs (unless you also plan on incinerating wounded US soldiers with those 10 million Bad Guys). Future costs for another 5 years would be at least what we have spent so far (direct and indirect). Probably more, lots more.
The McBush Magical Ponies Plan
If we stay in Iraq for 100 years like gramps McBush wants us to do, we are looking at anywhere from (low side - and here I am cutting in half even your low ball $#s) $50 billion a year x another 100 years = $5 trillion up to (high side) $150 billion a year x 100 years = $15 trillion in direct costs. Indirect costs (which you magically disbelieve) would double these totals. Hmmmm, $10 trillion dollars so rwnjs don’t have to say they fucked up. Or a high side of $30 trillion or more that rwnjs can blame on Dems, sounds like a bargain, eh? If we take the increasing cost trend lines of the last five years and extrapolate them out over 100 years (not generally acceptable accounting principles) the numbers get even bigger and more ludicrous.
Of course this 100 years of ponies exercise doesn’t include the care and feeding of all the ponies and unicorns and magical goodness that is just going to come pouring out of the Middle East. Hooray!
May 20th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
So let’s look at your latest numbers. If we have spent 750 billion which sounds reasonable, then we have spent $2,500 per person total. If the total cost of the war including health care for the injured and such is double that over the next couple decades, again reasonable, that is about $250 per person per year, $20,000 for a family of four in 20 years, still half or one eighth your original assertion depending on whether the $45,000 was per person or a family of 4. (And I’m giving you the 20 years, our discussion was 5) So let’s go long term, 30 trillion over 100 years is $1000 per person per year still a long way off from your assertion. Now this doesn’t include increases in population that too would help me.
One would think replacement costs would be included in the direct cost. Long term costs (100 years) wouldn’t be included in the cost of the war unless we were still fighting an active war which is highly unlikely. The ongoing cost would be for maintaining and staffing bases in the area. This would be included in the normal operating budget. Soldiers have to serve somewhere, whether it be Iran, Iraq, Germany or Alabama.
So why do I keep pressing on this issue? Because it is so typical of liberals. Why is it you guys insist on exaggerating facts so? 13 trillion for the war, 650,000 killed, or was it a million, or 1.3 mil? The amount of life and treasure is huge even without exaggeration, this war has cost more than the GNP of Argentina, it is costing enough to pay for Canada’s entire defense budget for the next 50 years (operating costs of one carrier battle group is more than their whole budget, and we have 12 or 13 Nimitz class carriers). I’m baffled, you guys can make good arguments without exaggeration.
May 20th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
correction, we have 10 Nimitz class carriers, I think I was thinking of Ohio class subs. I was wrong even there, we have 18.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Lies the media tells us, exposed. Look at the McCain Paul comparison. Cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iW5kOB1pmg
May 20th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
what’s the cost of US military labour? $50,000 x 150,000 troops serving in Iraq? It’s peanuts (billions of peanuts) compared to the Billions of choppers, humvees bombs etc. getting blown to bits or warn out and left to rot in the sands.
May 21st, 2008 at 4:41 am
Its about 7.5 billion, so what’s your point? We have about a million and a half soldiers on active duty with about the same number in reserve. It takes a bunch people to support one soldier, I forget the number but it was 4 or 20, something like that, enough to make you go “wow”. Of course how you account for those support people and other things is why numbers of the cost vary. If a tank or plane is destroyed but it is just a couple years from being replaced with a new model do you write off the original purchase price, the cost of the new model, or prorate it somehow? You have an accounting degree, you understand there are proper ways to account for things because those methods just make sense, but there is some wiggle room at the margins. The main thing is to be consistent, this war is going to cost what ever it will cost, all these numbers are just to compare it to other wars and other budget items.
A company is hiring a new CEO, they have three candidates, an engineer, an accountant, and a guy from marketing. They are all fairly equal in qualifications so the board of directors asks them all for one more interview, the question asked each is “what is two plus two”. The engineer spends several frantic minutes punching numbers into his calculator, looking at tables and such and finally looks up and declares “4.02”. The marketing guy asks an array of personal questions from the board, confers with his assistants who are on their laptops doing market research while he stalls, in the end he proudly states they can have 2 plus 2 for only 3.98. (but only today). The accountant ponders the situation for a few minutes, scrunches his eyes a bit, tips his head to the right just a little and says “what do you want it to be?”
May 21st, 2008 at 8:11 am
my numbers are:
roughly $750 billion in direct costs so far (wiki says $500 B thru fYr 2007 ending in 3/08, with another $170 B+ for fiscal Year 2008)
indirect costs of approx $750 billion so far
total $1.5 trillion
neocon estimates were $50 to $60 B… total
McBush sees us in Iraq for at least the next 5 years (perhaps as many as 100 magical pony filled years!), so double those numbers (ignoring the plain fact that the costs are rising, not falling) $3 trillion dollars.
Siglitz says the true numbers may be even higher, but I am using conservative estimates throughout. The costs are horrendous and debilitating to America and the world economy. This is the second most expensive conflict ever (only conflict more expensive on inflation adjusted dollars is WW2).
But just keep pretending you are the one pressing the issue (actually I am, and I finally have you agreeing the war is about $750 B direct thus far but you still magically disbelieve any costs not directly associated with the $750 B in direct expense budget supplementals). Is it any wonder I added the satyrical 100 years of magic ponies in Iraq part? RWNJs just can’t use real world numbers without partisan distortion.
And the answer to your little fable is 4.
I am sure this is quite the surprise to you. 2+2=4
But please continue to act like a child and the libs n dems n progs n greens and the good and true heartland of America will sweep the corrupt remains of the Rethugs into the trash bin come November.
May 21st, 2008 at 8:35 am
Are the costs going up into perpetuity (my exaggeration) the same as JBC’s comparison with Vietnam and Iraqi death counts mirroring each other? Didn’t happen by the way, only wishful thinking on anti war types. That monthly comparison kind of petered out didn’t it?
May 21st, 2008 at 8:48 am
enk,
take it easy on shcb, it is sad enough for him that his political heroes are being stampeded by the voters to a buffalo jump; if they are not frog marched out of office first.
shcb,
What’s my point? Pretty much the points that you raised. Glad we’re on the same page.
By the way, accounting is a long way away from economics. The economist would tell you that 2+2=5.05, because there is a “lost opportunity cost of 1 from the suboptimal use of the first ‘2′ - since that ‘2′ could have been used for a more profitable / productive calculation, and because using the first “2″ in the equation causes an inflation so that the true cost of the second “2″ is actually 2.05; therefore 2+2 = 3+2.05 = 5.05
May 21st, 2008 at 9:25 am
“That monthly comparison sort of petered out didn’t it?”
Yes, it served the purpose(s) that jbc stated in each introduction to the graphs.
And you are right that it did not serve the purpose proposed in your straw man argument against it. Congratulations for acheiving nothing except our dissappointment in your incessant attempts to re-frame arguments into cartoonish partisan paradigms.
By the way, how are the totals for the last couple of months? Hopefully they are still trending down…
May 21st, 2008 at 9:31 am
Question:
What do McCain, Bush and Osama Bin Laden have in common?
Answer:
They won’t talk to their enemies.
May 21st, 2008 at 10:08 am
NL, um, they are all extremist nutjobs?
rwnj - perpetrating a nuclear holocaust against 10 million (mostly innocent) muslims is just going to piss off the other 1 Billion muslims, big time.
They won’t ’surrender’, they will simply ask the Pakistanis for their nuke arsenal to use against US coastal cities. What then? Do we incinerate another 10 million innocents? Another 100 million?
Negotiation and talks are not the same as appeasement, despite your islamonazi wetdreams.
The ienjs are criminal fringe elements that you rwnjs are giving power to, they would be marginalized and powerless without the big bad Satan to rail against. Force the Israelis and arab nations to the peace table and don’t stop until we have the Camp David Accords II. That will take most of the wind out of the ienjs. Sure they don’t like western culture (neither do rwnjs for that matter), but the future marches on. Get with the program: more freedom, more liberal societies, more trade, more interdependence, more tolerance of other cultures etc.
May 21st, 2008 at 11:11 am
Enk,
You reminded me of a thought percolating for a while. That is that the projection (through the mass media) of rwnj fears about a miniscule portion of the Arab population onto virtually the entire Muslim world has created a self-perpetuating and growing problem that is only benefitting: (i) the most radical extremists who can use abuses like Abu Ghraib for promoting their causes; and, (ii) those who want to hold on to power in the USA and those who profit from war. rwnj’s do not understand that ignorance begets fear which begets intolerance and intolerance begets violence and violence begets violence ad nauseum.
May 21st, 2008 at 12:58 pm
enkidu - your answer would be acceptable as well.
May 21st, 2008 at 2:05 pm
actually NL, I’m an Independent voter (actually NA or No Affiliation, or as I like to call it “None of those Assholes”) and to be quite honest I think McBush is the least extremist nutjob of the three.
But after watching him dry hump dumbya’s leg for the last 8 years, there is no way in hell I’ll vote for him. 2000? He would have been a much better R candidate. It would have been a real toss-up for me back then… Gore? McCain? I prolly still would have voted for Gore, but dumbya? A dry drunk jesus freak with a spotty military record and a cocaine problem? It would have taken a Diebold machine for my vote to register as ‘for’ dumbya.
May 21st, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Knarly,
I like that, you probably learned that in economics 101, I’ll bet it got real screwy after that. Some of the justifications I’ve seen companies use must have come from guys with doctorates. One division renting space from another to the point the renter was inefficient, that sort of thing. :-)
It’s my contention JBC had ulterior motives, kind of like when liberals say they support the troops right before they trash them, or conservatives say they are against corporate welfare as they are lobbying for another pork project that will enhance their company’s bottom line. I think he was hoping the Iraq death toll line would rise, without wishing ill on any soldiers.
I haven’t looked at the numbers for quite a while.
May 21st, 2008 at 2:28 pm
for what it’s worth