Open Thread - 29 December 2011

Comments

[Maureen Lang]

May I remind the gentle (or not-so-very) readers of SST that Pat's Virtual Feast post over on The Athenaeum is languishing for sudden lack of down home recipes.
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2011/12/a-virtual-feast.html
My comment is actually a selfish one: I keep hoping for some more of your personal favorites to add to my recipe box, ladies & gentlemen!

[Fred]

My sister-in-law took up genealogy this past year and has been researching my family history. It appears one of our ancestors was Jean Mousnier de la Montagne, who settled in New Amsterdam and at one point owned property in what is now the North end of Central Park but was driven off the land by the local Indian tribes. Now about that 'right of return'........

[Dug FmJamul]

"Bipartisanship", does not mean abandoning constitutional principles to compromise with the democrats. The Tea Party supported Scott Brown because they believed he would uphold constitutional principles, not abandon them in the vain effort of reaching bipartisanship with the socialists in the Senate.

Senate Brown has voted on 33 of 68 pieces of Progressive Legislation and 30 of 52 Conservative pieces of Legislation, Scotty has voted for more progressive pieces of legislation than conservative! Jim DeMint has a positive Conservative Ranking of 90%, while Ben Nelson has a Progressive Ranking of 47% compared to Harry Reid's 90%.

Brown sits next to bottom of the Conservative Ranking List with his fellow RINOs Snowe and Collins with a negative ranking. That's pathetic; a negative conservative ranking is not what the ‘Tea Party’ had in mind when they threw their support behind Scott Brown. What's the point of having a Republican In Name Only if they are going to support the socialist agenda of Obama and his democrats?

If a Democrat wins in MA, so freaking what? For all practical purposes Scott Brown is a moderate Democrat, along with Snowe and Collins.

[turcopolier]

DFJ

"Obama's socialist agenda" Please describe this for us. He wishes to maintain the social safety net in things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance. are these what you have in mind and what others would you add? Who, in your opinion is your favorite president? If it is Reagan give us another as well. pl

[Martin Oline]

When I was a young boy my family went on vacation to San Francisco. When we went to Fisherman's Wharf there was a large crate of crabs on the dock for sale. They were roiling around and trying to climb up the sides. My mother went to take a good look and I pulled her hand, saying "Look out mom, Those crabs are gonna get out!"
The fisherman there laughed and said "Don't worry. They always get pulled back in by the other crabs"
His friend there laughed and said "Yeah, they're just like people"!
I puzzled about that for years but I've come to see he was right. Du Bois called it a crab cage. What we have today is a crab cage in Iowa with seven crabs a-roiling around and none coming out. What's really disappointing is all the young activist crabs you see today that don't want to see anyone else get out. Like Senator Brown of Boston.

[turcopolier]

Martin Oline

Yes. that is why one must disable a lobster's claws as well. Call me lefty. pl

[William R. Cumming]

The main story of the year was not the ARAB SPRING but Fukishima. Just see the validity of this statement by the end of the decade. Mankind sunk by his complex technology.

[YT]

Maureen,

A li'l something (primarily due to influence of Prof. Brenner with his recent articles on æsthetics Asian) for the Athenæum (apologies, I don't cook).

An American practicing calligraphy like a pro.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=artvirtue#g/u

http://www.art-virtue.com/

[Maureen Lang]

YT,

Thanks! That's one interesting youtube channel you've got there.

[Fred]

WRC,

More likely the automobile and not one power plant, unless you refer to the managerial and governmental incompetence in TEPCO, Japan (and our response also).

[J]

С Новым Годом (Happy New Year) everyone!

[J]

It is so interesting that how our nation's economy is so broke, yet our Congress (White House blessing) makes sure that $235 Million is 'earmarked' for Israel's defense system.

Record levels of poverty in the U.S. that continue to rise, and our geniuses in D.C. declared, yes 'declared' that they'll earmark $235 Million for Israeli weapons systems. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4165744,00.html

The majority of this U.S. money will be devoted to the David Sling with its primary use being inteception of cruise, long and short range incoming projectiles. It also goes to the the Arrow Systems 2 & 3 that are designed for LRBMs.

Israel's Iron Dome came online back in March to protect southern areas from Palestinan projectile attacks. Boy those Palestinan sling-shot rocks sure must hurt, so multi-million dollar systems are deployed to counter hand-held sling-shots.

U.S. national debt is estimated at $15 Trillion which rounds out to $130,000 per U.S. Citizen/Taxpayer, and yet for some reason the wonder-children in the Congress decide to more than double the U.S. amount for the Israeli sank-hole to the tune of $235 Million, meanwhile U.S. Citizens are living in poverty and struggling to get even low-paying jobs (flipping burgers, cleaning fish, picking up other people's trash, etc.)

Back in 07, the Congressional wonder-children in D.C. 'pledged' $3 Billion to Israel for a 10 year period.

Two outstanding U.S. items still remain with Israel, Israel's attack on the USS Liberty in 67 killing 34 and injuring 170 U.S. Military Personnel, and Israel's intentional withholding of Intel that resulted in the Beirut Barracks bombing in 83 killing 241 U.S. Military Personnel.

[fred]

J, you left out the sale by Israel of the national security secrets to the USSR; the one's reulting in Jonathan Pollard's conviction, imprisonment in the US and his reward by our 'best' ally with citizenship in their country

[James ben Goy]

I'm quite surprised there was no discussion in this forum of the recent terror suspect military detention law. I thought you all would be all over that like stink on you-know-what. It was a coup, I believe, & that 'our' elected representatives have handed complete legal cover to the military & encouraged it thereby, to exercise total supremacy over the rest of us. Of course, none of them believed it would ever be used against any of them. Since the definition of material support for terrorism seems to be ever expanding, it is easy, however, to imagine the coming abuses everyone else may be subjected to, except now with no legal recourse. Happy New Year!

[Mark Logan]

James,

The law was effectively nullified by language inserted at the end of it by the Senate. I was drawn to the debate as party lines appeared close to meaningless, and dug into it a bit.

A mean-spirited and ugly thing, IMO inspired by a combination of the incalculable danger posed by those scary Mooslems and distrust in the civilian court systems ability to handle such. The intent was to force all such cases to military courts, where they would presumably be interrogated by manly men, like Jack Bauer, or perhaps Bill Kristol.

I think a true legal scholar should check me on this, but it appeared to me the Senate monkey'd around trying to amend the thing with the normal protections that are the work of 200 years of case law, which do not exist in the military courts. Too big a task, so they just inserted a bit of "nevermind" language at the end. The option to decide whether or not to send these case to civilian courts remains open, as it should, as most of US citizens involved to date have been more isolated and deranged than anything else.

Happy New Year.

[William R. Cumming]

Checking the active military service records of the candidates and their male offspring now elgible or in the past might be of interest. Also their foreign travel and knowledge of languages.

Happy New Year's to this blog owner, family, and friends and all readers.

[Nancy K]

Colonel Lang, I wish you and your family a very happy, healthy New Year.
Thank you for all that you do.

[Charles I]

Happy New Year to our proprietor and community.

Close the Borders! Defcon High Dudgeon!

We are about to defeat and thereby transmogrify your Junior hockey team into the state predicated in last year's jape - which I stole from erstwhile Austrian Schwarzenegger.

Dunno how its said in Czech.

[YT]

"gentle (or not-so-very) readers"

Maureen & Col. Lang,

I must be of the latter category.

Anyways,

Bonne année et bonne santé.

J,

С Новым Годом to you too.

Май простых людей России-матушки благословение с хорошей вестью для будущего.

("May the hoi polloi of Mother Russia be blessed with good tidings for the future". That about right?)

[Fred]

Sent a few coins your way for the New Year. At least I know my COIN gets results (even if it is a bad joke).