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The feels when it turns out that actually knowing stuff is more effective and use than going off of a gut feeling.
..but who knew that ?
It's almost like things like international diplomacy are quite complicated and require careful thought and planning rather than gold breaks and chocolate cake.
Donald Trump has said his administration will not label China a currency manipulator, rowing back on a campaign promise.
The US president also left open the possibility of re-nominating Janet Yellen as the head of the Federal Reserve, despite having criticised her.
He made the comments days after meeting China's President Xi Jinping.
China has been accused of suppressing the yuan to make its exports more competitive with US goods.
Before the US election, Mr Trump likened this to "raping" the US, and promised to label China a currency manipulator on his first day in office.
That would have triggered talks between the countries and potentially led to US sanctions - something experts warned would have prompted retaliation.
But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Mr Trump said China had not been "currency manipulators" for some time and had been trying to prevent further weakening.
He also said: "I think our dollar is getting too strong, and partially that's my fault because people have confidence in me."
He added that a strong dollar had benefits, but would ultimately hurt the US economy.
"[It is] very, very hard to compete when you have a strong dollar and other countries are devaluing their currency."
'Respect' for Yellen
Mr Trump has been highly critical of Ms Yellen in the past, saying that the Fed's low interest rate policy had hurt savers.
He has also indicated that he would not nominate her for a second four-year term when her current one expires in February 2018.
But in Wednesday's interview he said he now liked "a low-interest rate policy" and "respects" the Fed chair.
He also said she would not be "toast" when her current term ended, although he added: "It's very early."
Mr Trump's administration was also said to be "very close" to filling three vacancies on the Fed's board.
... so just to check ;
ISIS haven;t been magically defeated. The muslim flight ban hasn't passed, the wall is still...well... TBC, obamacare hasn't been replaced , Hilary has not been locked up...
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
It's amusing how...cartoony some of these things are. Like...you'd expect statements and events like this from a parody show or sketch comedy, not real life.
And yet people vote for them...
IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.
New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights! The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.
and that released by the Chinese Govt. with regards to the same call
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
One is a professional, explanatory, and well written depiction of what happened and what was discussed. The other is the equivalent of saying "we talked about stuff".
Homosexuality is the #1 cause of gay marriage.
kronk wrote: Every pizza is a personal sized pizza if you try hard enough and believe in yourself.
sebster wrote: Yes, indeed. What a terrible piece of cultural imperialism it is for me to say that a country shouldn't murder its own citizens
BaronIveagh wrote: Basically they went from a carrot and stick to a smaller carrot and flanged mace.
One is a professional, explanatory, and well written depiction of what happened and what was discussed. The other is the equivalent of saying "we talked about stuff".
Or, to quote Wendy's ads from a few decades ago: "Where's the beef?"
"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds: Fire, walk with me." - Twin Peaks
"You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a naysayer and hatchetman in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method... is love. I love you Sheriff Truman." - Twin Peaks
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: The Soviet Union/Russia, have been allies with Syria for decades, going back to the days of Assad snr.
So, in this regard, an ally is threatened and Russia intervenes to support that ally. That makes perfect sense to me, and it makes even more sense that Russia, a country with its own problems over the years with radical Islamic extremists, would want to nip a potential source of terrorists in the bud.
Whether or not intervention makes sense to you, Putin, or to Putin's dearly departed grandmother means jack gak. "Well we go back a long way so we'd sure like to help you out" is a fething idiotic national policy stance.
What matters is what help is needed, whether the cost is worth the gain, and how capable a nation is of supplying that aid. The cost is 2,000 pounds of high end military gear airlifted in every day, with no foreseeable end date. The issue of whether the cost is worth the gain is very debatable, because Putin has a million outs that will give it close connections to a future Syrian government, albeit with a different leader. And finally, the question of whether
Do you get? So please don't try and explain to me that Russia and Syria have a long standing relationship, because fething duh. Think beyond that, think about what Russia is forking over in aid, think about the economic wasteland with the odd oil refinery that is the Russian economy, and think about all the times when an leader has lost legitimacy and then managed to murder his way back in to stable rule.
Putin has walked in to a giant money pit, and unlike the US he doesn't have near infinite dollars to pour in for a decade or more.
As for Ukraine, it's a murky mess with EU and NATO encroachment - no wonder Putin intervened in the Ukraine.
With all due respect, there are times when I am frankly astounded at the things you come up with. You've just blithely written off the entire notion of sovereign borders, and returned the world to some kind of colonial era 'spheres of influence' thing. Incredible stuff.
The USA in comparison is all over the shop.
Obama made some really strange calls on Syria. He ultimately responded to the issue through a domestic political lens, looking to pin Republicans in to one position. The Syrians were the victims of that. That was a screw up, but most US presidents average about one screw up on that scale. Think of Clinton in the Balkans or GHW Bush letting the Kurds hang as the US ended fighting with Iraq. Being world police man is hard.
The reason Obama's screw up in Syria looks bad is because it was the next screw up after GW Bush's Iraq. That colossal feth up is like a tent post, it raises the profile and perceived severity of all following screw ups. It's the feth up that will haunt US foreign policy for decades.
You've missed the key point about legitimacy. There is no argument that repressive governments can't go on, be stable and even prosperous. The point is once that government is no longer seen as legitimate in the eyes of the people, then applying more and more violence won't somehow end up with retaining stable rule.
Consider China as an example. They have a basic pledge to their people - the Chinese government will make you prosperous. That promise is enough for the people to accept the intrusion and repression, and even support it as they come to see dissidents as a threat to that promise of future wealth. North Korea has the total cult of leadership, where the state and thereby the Kim family is omni-present in the lives of citizens. But now consider Syria - what's the pledge Assad is making? "I killed a whole pile of you, and I'm gonna keep killing more until you accept me as ruler." That gak don't fly.
"Even in WWII chemical weapons were not used on the battlefield. Even in the Korean War, they were not used on battlefields. Since WWI there's been an international convention on this," said Defense Secretary James Mattis, later in the day during a Pentagon press briefing.
Kudos to you for getting the quote. By specifying WWII and Korea Mattis has excluded the Iran Iraq war, so that makes the claim not glaringly wrong. It's still wrong, because the Nazis used chemical weapons in limited tactical operations, but it's more of a technical kind of wrong.
And for what its worth, I still don't get why getting killed by a chemical weapon is meant to be so much worse than getting killed by artillery, but Mattis' answer that you posted does help me see the other side. The US isn't willing to lurch in to ending a whole civil war, but they can at least make sure that a long standing taboo against chemical weapons is maintained in the world. I don't necessarily agree, but I do understand the position a lot more now.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/04/13 17:25:07
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Also, interesting fact I just learned, the reason that the Nazis didn't use gas during the D-Day invasions was because they couldn't get gas-masks to work for their horses.
Automatically Appended Next Post: BTW, has anyone heard Trump's new tactic to get Obamacare repealed? He's planning to hold the subsides that help poor people afford assurance to get the democrats to give in.
I posted a little while ago about Kevin Hassett, Trump’s gakky pick for the chair of the Council of Economic advisors. Trump’s pick is a guy who’s only real contribution to mainstream economics was a book called DOW 36000, which said the DOW would quadruple in price in the next 3-4 years. The book wasn’t just completely wrong – instead of quadrupling, over that time periods stocks actually lost 25% of their value. He also managed to screw up one of the basic, foundational formulas in economics. Long story short, he managed to include revenue growth in the formula twice, thereby massively overstating the values of the assets.
Well, it turns out Hassett is proving to be a controversial choice among Republicans. But not because he’s got worse technical skills than an undergraduate with battling C grade average. It’s because Hassett says that immigration helps economic growth. This is a basic reality of economics – an expanding population encourages construction, and immigrants are almost all in the 18-55 prime working age, so of course it pushes up growth.
This is the state of the Republican party. They have no issue with an economist who can’t do undergrad work, but they freak the feth out about an economist who defies Republican dogma on immigration. This, quite simply, is why the modern Republican party sucks so bad. It’s why the ACA repeal was such a sorry mess. It’s why the infrastructure bill is caught in a limbo between incoherent and fictional. It’s why tax reform is steadily abandoning any actual reform, and is just reshaping as a big tax cut for the rich. Because this is a party that no longer has any means to engage in fact based policy debate.
And this really is the issue for Republicans today. You can just accept that this is all your party is capable of and reluctantly accept that when Republicans in power you get an embarressing shitshow that hopefully doesn't screw up anything major, or you can start demanding your party returns to being a party of adults. I know the latter will take hard work and stuff... but if you actually want a party capable of putting in place genuine, quality conservative initiatives you really need to get reforming.
Prestor Jon wrote: True. Both Parties seek to grow the govt they just steer the growth in different directions. Then as the pendulum of power swings between the 2 Parties over time we end up with a massively increased unwieldy govt leviathan that steamrolls over individual rights and harms us with unintended consequences.
No. no-one seeks to grow government. Each party seeks to solve certain problems, and often that involves growing government, either in a literal sense by hiring more people, or in the sense of new laws that intrude in to people's lives.
But you are quite wrong in implying this is a one way process. Old, intrusive laws are struck down, think of the blasphemy laws or sodomy laws that have now been wiped. And in terms of government size, despite the US population growing by 20 million under Obama, the total number of federal employees reduced by 600 thousand.
And you're also wrong in considering this to be a uniformly bad thing. Larger governments are an inherent part of larger, more complex economies. An advanced economy has a much larger infrastructure, not just physical infrastructure but legal and educational as well. High end companies like Boeing need physical infrastructure to support their manufacturing, they need to know there is a consistent legal framework applied and enforced by government that underpins all relationships with stakeholders, and they need a constant supply of university educated people to work in the company.
I am not for one second saying bigger government is better. There is a limit to how big a government should be. I am saying that there is a right size to governments, and that size tends to grow as an economy advances.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
reds8n wrote: The feels when it turns out that actually knowing stuff is more effective and use than going off of a gut feeling.
Seriously, we're watching Trump learn how things work in real time. You know how in that movie Dave, where the presidential look-a-like got thrown in to the job, and then did a great job by applying simple common sense solutions. That was a cute movie but it was a very silly fantasy. Trump is actually playing out the real world version of that, where his simple, common sense solutions are one by one explained to him to actually be very terrible ideas, because of lots of complicating factors about which Trump was completely ignorant.
The obnoxious line that his government pay isn't paid by taxpayers will get the attention, but I kind of think the more amazing bit of double think comes from his spokeperson;
“His aspiration is to be a career legislator and not a career politician."
Exactly fething how does one get to and stay in the legislature without campaign, dealing with the public, doing all the politician kind of stuff. Just wow.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
A Town Called Malus wrote: The fact that the White House statement is completely lacking in any substance?
The only thing Trump's summary mentioned was Mar-a-Lago. Nothing on policy. I'm surprised the summary didn't mention the chocolate cake again.
Anyhow, here's a summary of Trump's position on whether China are currency manipulators.
The whole thing is laughable, really.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2017/04/13 18:26:26
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds: Fire, walk with me." - Twin Peaks
"You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a naysayer and hatchetman in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method... is love. I love you Sheriff Truman." - Twin Peaks
Absolutely not. People keep thinking of Assad as this man who can return stability to the country. It's total fantasy. A ruler who has to resort to torturing citizens to death to maintain power is a person who will never regain legitimacy, who will always have to rule through brute force and who will always face resistance.
Putin by and large wandered in to this, a combination of national security concerns, the private interests of his oligarch supporters, a desire to score a win against America, and some really short term thinking has gotten Russia involved in a quagmire. They shipping 2,000 pounds of stuff in every single day in support of Assad. This isn't the blank check of American military support, this is a stagnant economy with a base smaller than Spain - this is not something Russia can do indefinitely.
His position, to put it simply, is fethed. Notice how Putin's various representatives are already putting out feelers - if you'll drop the sanctions and recognise Crimea, we'll cut Assad loose, ie if you give us two things we want then we'll do something we want to do anyway.
Trump is probably stupid enough to fall for this. Tillerson isn't, but that only matters if he finds time in his day to turn up to negotiations. But there's a whole State Dept that knows the score, so here's hoping Trump lets them lead the negotiations.
With all due respect, Sebster, this is hogwash from start to finish!
The Soviet Union/Russia, have been allies with Syria for decades, going back to the days of Assad snr.
So, in this regard, an ally is threatened and Russia intervenes to support that ally. That makes perfect sense to me, and it makes even more sense that Russia, a country with its own problems over the years with radical Islamic extremists, would want to nip a potential source of terrorists in the bud.
By backing Syria, Putin sent out a clear message: you can rely on me in a crisis. Compare and contrast that to Obama's feeble response when Assad danced on his red lines.
As for Ukraine, it's a murky mess with EU and NATO encroachment - no wonder Putin intervened in the Ukraine.
Russia has voluntary surrendered hundreds of thousands of square miles of territory without shot being fired, and yet, they are the 'new Nazis' as far as Western media is concerned.
I'm no Russia apologist. Putin and his gangster henchmen run a sinister regime, and I'm under no illusions about it, but as far as foreign policy is concerned, Russia's stance makes sense from a rational viewpoint, even though I don't agree with that.
The USA in comparison is all over the shop.
I'm sorry but you are wrong on almost every single point you've made. You're trying to force your "realpolitik" ideas to encompass a regime which is actively and demonstrably destructive and harmful to the world order. Even Trump has finally got this, yet you are still trying to defend this ludicrous notion.
You claim not to be a Russian apologist, but that's exactly what you are.
"All their ferocity was turned outwards, against enemies of the State, foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals" - Orwell, 1984
Prestor Jon wrote: True. Both Parties seek to grow the govt they just steer the growth in different directions. Then as the pendulum of power swings between the 2 Parties over time we end up with a massively increased unwieldy govt leviathan that steamrolls over individual rights and harms us with unintended consequences.
No. no-one seeks to grow government. Each party seeks to solve certain problems, and often that involves growing government, either in a literal sense by hiring more people, or in the sense of new laws that intrude in to people's lives.
But you are quite wrong in implying this is a one way process. Old, intrusive laws are struck down, think of the blasphemy laws or sodomy laws that have now been wiped. And in terms of government size, despite the US population growing by 20 million under Obama, the total number of federal employees reduced by 600 thousand.
And you're also wrong in considering this to be a uniformly bad thing. Larger governments are an inherent part of larger, more complex economies. An advanced economy has a much larger infrastructure, not just physical infrastructure but legal and educational as well. High end companies like Boeing need physical infrastructure to support their manufacturing, they need to know there is a consistent legal framework applied and enforced by government that underpins all relationships with stakeholders, and they need a constant supply of university educated people to work in the company.
I am not for one second saying bigger government is better. There is a limit to how big a government should be. I am saying that there is a right size to governments, and that size tends to grow as an economy advances.
The govt can only solve problems through increased govt control over the activities/circumstances that are causing the problem. In the US our 2 Parties have different sets of problems whose "solving" they prioritize so the 2 Parties extend govt control into different areas to "solve" various problems. That's why we don't get uniform growth of the Federal govt, we get growth into different areas but over time the net affect is growth everywhere. The Democrats give us the War on Poverty and the Republicans give us the War on Drugs, etc. We go through different administrations run by the different Parties but we get an increase in Cabinet positions, Federal authority, govt dependency and a decrease in individual liberty.
Government has a spectrum with complete govt control on one end and complete individual liberty on the other, totalitarianism and anarchy. It's likely impossible to push govt all the way to either end which is why we end up with a mix of both, some govt authority and some individual freedom. The govt can extend more control but can only get that control by reducing individual liberty because that govt control eliminates choices that used to be available to the individual. Likewise, in order to increase individual liberty the amount of govt control must be decreased, what used to be restricted by govt law becomes another opportunity for individual choice of actions.
Both Parties want to gain and maintain political power which is derived from govt control which can only be increased at the expense of individual liberty which is why both parties grow the govt. I'm not concerned with exactly how many people are employed by the Federal govt or exactly how many Federal agencies there are, I'm concerned with the amount of power they wield.
For example, Republicans are pro gun ownership but anti marijuana and same sex marriage whereas Democrats are pro same sex marriage and more permissive marijuana laws but want more restrictive gun ownership. Instead of being consistently pro liberty across the board the Parties pick and choose, in part so they can always oppose each other, so we end up with either a ban on assault weapons or a ban on same sex marriage depending upon who's in charge.
The Parties claim to want to solve problems but the govt really isn't good at solving problems because the default govt solution is to throw money into a one size fits all solution to placate a constituency, which is rarely an effective solution to anything. Look at Congress, it's full of people who aren't experts at anything other than winning elections. These are not our best and brightest people with the purest motivations but they are the ones making policy decisions and pretty much every time Congress appoints a commission of actual experts to study a problem and make recommendations to address it, Congress will ignore or alter those recommendations to suit their political needs.
Look at the War on Poverty, it's been going on for over 60 years and was supposed to help the urban poor. Instead it created govt dependency based on counter productive assistance programs which penalize self improvement and trap families into cycles of poverty creating a de facto underclass. You can have govt housing, govt food stamps, govt welfare payments but it's contingent on you not getting jobs and trying to improve your situation because if you earn money, even wages lower than your cumulative assistance, the govt withdraws assistance (which is incredibly stupid, the programs should keep supporting people so they can continue to work towards better opportunities and reach a point of self sufficiency) leaving the people the govt is supposed to be helping worse off. Urban areas have the most extreme wealth inequality and education gaps. Poor urban families have to send their children to poor performing public schools while affluent urban families send their children to good public schools or private schools. The urban poor are still poor and their prospects of becoming wealthy or at least not poor are still weak but they're now dependent on govt programs and have become reliable Democratic voters. Since their voting allegiance can be won without really solving their problem the Party doesn't need actually solve their problem just politicize it to the point that the ineffective "solution" in place is valued enough to keep them pulling the correct lever in the voting booth.
For the Democrats, this urban ascendency holds some dangers. Despite all the constant claims of a massive “return to the city,” urban populations are growing no faster than those in suburbs, and, in the past few years, far slower than those of the hated exurbs. This means we won’t see much change in the foreseeable future in the current 70 to 80 percent of people in metropolitan America who live in suburbs and beyond. University of Washington demographerRichard Morrill notes that the vast majority of residents of regions over 500,000—roughly 153 million people—live in the lower-density suburban places, while only 60 million live in core cities.
This urban economy has created many of the most unequal places in the country. At the top are the rich and super-affluent who have rediscovered the blessings of urbanity, followed by a large cadre of young and middle-aged professionals, many of them childless. Often ignored, except after sensationalized police shootings, is a vast impoverished class that has become ever-more concentrated in particular neighborhoods. During the first decade of the current millennium, neighborhoods with entrenched urban poverty actually grew, increasing in numbers from 1,100 to 3,100. In population, they grew from 2 million to 4 million.Some 80 percent of all population growth in American cities, since 2000, notes demographer Wendell Cox, came from these poorer people, many of them recent immigrants.
Such social imbalances are not, as is the favored term among the trendy, sustainable. We appear to be creating the conditions for a new wave of violent crime on a scale not seen since the early 1990s. Along with poverty, public disorderliness, gang activity,homelessness and homicides are on the rise in many American core cities, including Baltimore, Milwaukee, Los Angeles and New York. Racial tensions, particularly with the police, have worsened. So even as left-leaning politicians try to rein in police, recent IRS data in Chicago reveals, the middle class appears to once again be leaving for suburban and other locales.
Geography seems increasingly to determine politics. Ideas on climate policy that seem wonderfully enlightened in Manhattan or San Francisco—places far removed from the dirty realities of production—can provide a crushing blow to someone working in the Gulf Coast petro-chemical sector or in the Michigan communities dependent on auto manufacturing.
It’s more than suburban or rural jobs that are on the urban designer chopping block. Density obsessed planners have adopted rules, already well advanced in my adopted home state of California, to essentially curb much detested suburban sprawl and lure people back to the dense inner cities. The Obama administration is sympathetic to this agenda, and has adopted its own strategies to promote “back to the city” policies in the rest of the country as well.
But as these cities go green for the rich and impressionable, they must find ways to subsidize the growing low-paid service class—gardeners, nannies, dog walkers, restaurant servers—that they depend on daily. This makes many wealthy cities, such as Seattle or San Francisco, hotbeds for such policies as a $15-an-hour minimum wage, as well as increased subsidies for housing and health care. In San Francisco, sadly, where the median price house (usually a smallish apartment) approaches $1 million, a higher minimum wage won’t purchase a decent standard of living. In far more diverse and poorer Los Angeles, nearlyhalf of all workers would be covered -- with unforeseen impacts on many industries, including the large garment industry.
These radicalizing trends are likely to be seen as a threat to Democratic prospects next year, but instead will meet with broad acclaim among city-dominated progressive media. Then again, the columnists, reporters and academics who embrace the new urban politics have little sympathy or interest in preserving middle-class suburbs, much less vital small towns. If the Republicans possess the intelligence—always an open question—to realize that their opponents are actively trying to undermine how most Americans prefer to live, they might find an opportunity far greater than many suspect.
Look at the voting in the 2016 election and how slightly lower turnout in supposed Democrat strongholds allowed Donald Trump to become president.
Student loans are another prime example of unintended consequences and govt induced problems. State govts administer state universities to provide college educations for students. The state legislatures want to win elections so they want to keep funding programs that help win them the support of the constituencies behind those programs. Every govt dollar spent has a constituency behind it. States are constrained by state budget laws so legislatures have to rob Peter to pay Paul. Consequently state govt reduces funding to state universities to have money to spend elsewhere. Therefore state universities raise tuition costs to offset lower state funding levels due to budget constraints. Students complain that they can't pay the higher tuition costs so the Federal govt offers students loans to cover the increased cost of tuition. Since universities can now recoup their costs via Federally subsidized tuition hikes tuition costs skyrocket resulting in students burdened by large student loan debts from the Federal govt. Now students complain to the Federal govt to fix their burdensome student loans that are wholly a creation of failed govt solutions to problems. It would be better if legislatures cared more about governing than campaigning, it would be better to prioritize state university funding properly, it would be better for the Federal govt to give money to the schools directly rather than loaning it to the students. Of course that's not the world we live in because the govt is run by politicians who care about doing the most politically advantageous thing not simply the best thing. The people who suffer the most are the students, the people who are supposed to be the people the state and Federal govts are supposed to be concerned with helping and they're getting screwed instead.
d-usa wrote: Looks like the internet is buzzing about the US dropping a MOAB on ISIS.
Have we not used them before?
Do you think this was a "remember, we don't have to go nuclear to feth gak up" reminder to certain folks?
As I understand it the planning started months ago under Obama and it wasn't a direct authorization from Trump, so I would think it's more of a military application than a political one. It certainly does serve as a reminder as you said though.
I too am puzzled by the hulabaloo over the use of the MOAB. It's a single big piece of ordnance, yeah its big, but we routinely drop equivalent destruction with lots of smaller bombs all the time.
IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.
New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights! The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.
Vaktathi wrote: I too am puzzled by the hulabaloo over the use of the MOAB. It's a single big piece of ordnance, yeah its big, but we routinely drop equivalent destruction with lots of smaller bombs all the time.
It's our biggest non-nuclear bomb. Big bombs are impressive.
d-usa wrote: Looks like the internet is buzzing about the US dropping a MOAB on ISIS.
Have we not used them before?
Do you think this was a "remember, we don't have to go nuclear to feth gak up" reminder to certain folks?
As I understand it the planning started months ago under Obama and it wasn't a direct authorization from Trump, so I would think it's more of a military application than a political one. It certainly does serve as a reminder as you said though.
Yeah, but Trump will still get the credit for it.
"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds: Fire, walk with me." - Twin Peaks
"You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a naysayer and hatchetman in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method... is love. I love you Sheriff Truman." - Twin Peaks
d-usa wrote: Looks like the internet is buzzing about the US dropping a MOAB on ISIS.
Have we not used them before?
Do you think this was a "remember, we don't have to go nuclear to feth gak up" reminder to certain folks?
As I understand it the planning started months ago under Obama and it wasn't a direct authorization from Trump, so I would think it's more of a military application than a political one. It certainly does serve as a reminder as you said though.
Yeah, but Trump will still get the credit for it.
Yeah, but if it turns out badly then it will be his fault. It's a double edged sword that comes with the presidency.
Vaktathi wrote: I too am puzzled by the hulabaloo over the use of the MOAB. It's a single big piece of ordnance, yeah its big, but we routinely drop equivalent destruction with lots of smaller bombs all the time.
I'm not sure about this, this bomb has a half mile radius explosion, which is pretty insane. It also penetrates pretty deep. I'm no expert on ordinance, so I have no idea what the equivalent would be in smaller bombs but it sure seems like it would take a lot.
Vaktathi wrote: I too am puzzled by the hulabaloo over the use of the MOAB. It's a single big piece of ordnance, yeah its big, but we routinely drop equivalent destruction with lots of smaller bombs all the time.
I'm not sure about this, this bomb has a half mile radius explosion, which is pretty insane. It also penetrates pretty deep. I'm no expert on ordinance, so I have no idea what the equivalent would be in smaller bombs but it sure seems like it would take a lot.
Eh, it's equivalent to about 11 tons of TNT, it's a big bomb to be sure, but it's also not a mini-nuke, it's packing about as much total ordnance power as a full combat load of conventional 500lb bombs for something like an A-10, maybe a little more. It actually isn't really a penetration weapon either, it's just got a big focused shockwave. It's really a dick-waving weapon to trot out and drool over, and to make a really big intimidating Boom on the battlefield to shock opponents, and the reason it isn't used more often is because a clutch of smaller and dramatically cheaper 500lb bombs (at ~$2k apeice as opposed to the $16 million unit cost of a MOAB) do the trick of actually destroying things just as well or better in almost every case, and can be deployed from a far wider variety of platforms.
In this case it sounds like it was either pulled out for one of three reasons. Either the cave system this was deployed against was particularly favorable to the deployment of this weapon for whatever reason over multiple smaller conventional munitions, or it was used for image purposes, as intimidation and projection of strength or small political distraction.
IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.
New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights! The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.
There is no published unit cost for the GBU-43/B as they are manufactured by the military and subject to the same itemization for component costs as something manufactured by a contractor.
d-usa wrote: "When the Internet sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending posters that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing strawmen. They're bringing spam. They're trolls. And some, I assume, are good people."
sebster wrote: And for what its worth, I still don't get why getting killed by a chemical weapon is meant to be so much worse than getting killed by artillery
Getting killed by artillery is generally pretty quick, whilst chemical weapons can take a long time and be utterly horrific to suffer though.
Seriously, we're watching Trump learn how things work in real time. You know how in that movie Dave, where the presidential look-a-like got thrown in to the job, and then did a great job by applying simple common sense solutions. That was a cute movie but it was a very silly fantasy. Trump is actually playing out the real world version of that, where his simple, common sense solutions are one by one explained to him to actually be very terrible ideas, because of lots of complicating factors about which Trump was completely ignorant.
possibly.
The learning curve appears to be much steeper than Trump & Co. were expecting anyway.
Be prepared, there is a small chance that our horrendous leadership could unknowingly lead us into World War III.
One is starting to wonder if Trump has in fact been cursed by like an evil Fairy Godmother or a mystical genie --possibly one trapped in an old arcade machine or something -- to slowly have to live out all the dumb tweets he has made in the past.
It would explain a lot.
media coverage of the raids has been..welll kinda creepy really :
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The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
So the US military just dropped a giant dildo on Afghanistan.
Weighing in at a ton and reportedly costing $13 millions dollars a go, 36 militants are said to have been killed by it. Leaving aside the propaganda on the news, how do they know it was 36 militants killed?
I doubt there would be much left of them after that.
So, 36 militants killed, at $13 million a bomb = 361,000 dollars to kill a militant.
If I were a American taxpayer, I'd be demanding my money back.
After 16 years of bombing a desert, the USA is exactly where it was 16 years ago
It's fantasy politics from start to finish. Arguably one of the most powerful militaries the world has ever seen,
and it ends up in the hands of a man with the mind of a 10 year old...
God help us...
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
That bomb is not designed to kill a lot of people, it is designed to take out hardened targets such as bunkers. It is a successor to weapons such as Grand Slam from WW2, whose main aim is not destruction of personnel but the destruction of installations.
Looking at the effect of a strike purely in terms of body count is laughably idiotic.
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The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
him in the 
4000+
6000+ Order. Unity. Obedience.
Thousand Sons 4000+
