12:06 – We shipped more chemistry kits this morning, so we’re now down into single figures on CK01A inventory. Fortunately, we also just shipped the remainder of the virtual school AP chemistry kits, so that frees up my time to get more chemistry kits built.
It’s looking pretty certain that we’re about to attack Syria, again putting our troops in harm’s way for no discernible purpose or benefit. So I’ve come up with a modest proposal: put the names in a hat of every politician from Obama on down who supports deploying our troops abroad. Each time one of our troops is maimed, draw a name from that hat and maim that politician. Each time one of our troops is killed, draw a name and kill that politician. It’s only fair. If they support putting our troops in harm’s way, they should have to take the same risks. If my proposal is implemented, I predict that US forces will soon no longer be deployed abroad. In fact, I predict they’ll leave skid marks as they depart for home.
Agreed, 200%.
Because we have shit like this going on:
“Factors weighing into the timing of any action include a desire to get it done before the president leaves for Russia next week,” reports CNN, citing a “senior administration official.”
And last I knew, the Russians and Putin were violently opposed to us doing anything; ditto Iran. The Saudis love it, though. Our good friends, who finance madrassahs, and flog and behead women for minor infractions of however their imams and religious police choose to interpret their Q’u’ran on any given day. We also back the rebels in Syria, who torture and behead Christians in front of jeering, cheering mobs of men and boys, holding up cell phones to record it, a slow and grisly, agonizing process.
This WSJ scribbler was doing OK until the end, when he basically called for regime change there, i.e. toppling Assad, so we can have another civil war bloodbath and subsequent blowback terrorist activity that further endangers us.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324591204579039011328308776.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop#
Can’t wait for the heavily edited footage the State will allow us to see of these “brief and limited” strikes, millions of dollars a pop, which we’re paying for while lots of us are laid off or otherwise unemployed and eating shit.
Great! Now the neighbors are getting even more nervous and mobilizing:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISRAEL_SYRIA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-08-28-09-03-05
We really do not need to add any new fuel to that fire. Israel is watching the mild civil war in Egypt and the civil war in Syria with horrid fascination. Maybe Obummer should start stirring the pot in Jordan and Lebanon also to really get the ant hill stirred up?
Hmm. Iron dome has a 75% failure rate with four shots. Sounds like an ineffective system except to those people living in the path of the shot down rocket. Of course, somebody uppath of them might have gotten the rocket parts as a gift. Something goes up, something gotta come down.
Hmm. Iron dome has a 75% failure rate with four shots. Sounds like an ineffective system except to those people living in the path of the shot down rocket.
That’t not what the AP article said. All it said is that they shot down 1 of 4 rockets fired, not that they shot at all 4. The system is reportedly 90% effective. They only use it when the rocket will hit a populated area. Crops have to fend for themselves.
We don’t have any good options in Syria. The best might be a selected decapitation strike against Assad and his generals, combined with a strike on the gas weapon storage areas, although Israel took one out a while back. Also, clusterbombing the encampments of the mercenary jihadis sent by Iran might be a good idea. From what I have read at Strategy Page and heard on their podcasts, most of the upper echelons in the country already have their money and families out of Syria, though.
We shouldn’t do anything at all in Syria or anywhere else in the Middle East countries, bring all the troops home, close all the bases, and stop sending money and weapons to Israel AND the Arab countries, period. Just give them all a good leaving-alone. And to Hell with them all.
And eventually we will probably face a situation in this country when most of our own upper echelons have bailed with their money and families; it’s already been going on for a while now, anyway.
Hasan sentenced to death. Roll out Ole’ Sparky. Sooner the better.
When the Patriot system was first used for anti-missile, it couldn’t intercept shit. Software tweaks took care of that. Probably the same with the Iron Dome.
I think that a firing squad would be much better than old sparky. The first several rounds should be blanks.
I believe you mean aimed at the nuts, Lynn.
Researchers from Lund University in Sweden created a new element, known for the moment as ununpentium, by slamming atoms of one element, calcium, into atoms of another called americium. The newly formed element vanished quickly in a flash of radiation that scientists could measure. That flash, or “fingerprint,” confirmed the existence of an element with 115 protons at its center. That would give it the atomic number of 115 on the periodic table, the list of all elements known to humanity.
I think that a firing squad would be much better than old sparky.
Absolutely. Start at the feet and have the shooters work their way up the torso.
“Absolutely. Start at the feet and have the shooters work their way up the torso.”
That was my original idea a while back. Now I want him jolted like in “Taken” with Liam Neeson. Nails in each thigh with that unstable Euro-current flowing through it all day.
Watched “Taken 2” the other day. While “Taken” is a classic, don’t waste your time with “Taken 2”. Except the scenery of Istanbul is amazing. I must admit that I do like seeing far off places in detail on the movie screen nowadays.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-fort-hood-hasan-sentence-20130828,0,977286.story
Which is why they should just lock him away in solitude to rot. All this will do is keep his cause going.
(BTW I’m all for hanging him as Pournelle says “…wheelchair and all.” but hate to see him made a hero to muslims.)
I still want his superior officers brought to account. I don’t care what happens to the main perp, whatever kind of death or life in a deep hole somewhere, whatever. I want the fuckers who enabled this piece of shit. How come we never get THOSE guys???
Powell was instrumental in the Army chain of command that deep-sixed My-Lai and the only guy who got jammed up was a second looey cretin who’d fuck up a soup sandwich. Yet Powell gets to be Chair, JCS, etc., etc., and pals around with Reverend Wright and Farakhan. Amazing.
They nailed a woman brigadier for Abu Ghraib; how about the theater commanders? How about the SecDef? Does the buck stop anywhere these days???
Lynn wrote:
“I think that a firing squad would be much better than old sparky. The first several rounds should be blanks.”
I’ve always thought the firing squad was a comparatively honourable way to go. I say hang him, but not from a normal gallows. Just noose him and pull on the rope ’till he strangles.
Well, as long as we’re getting creative, how about hamstringing him and tossing him in with the pigs as their dinner?
tossing him in with the pigs as their dinner
You will have to find pigs with very low standards.
I oppose the government-inflicted death penalty on both philosophical and practical grounds. Philosophically, the question is, what is moral for a collective that is not moral for an individual? My answer is, nothing at all. If I am not allowed to coldly murder someone, neither is the state. Practically, of course, there’s pervasiv corruption and incompetence on the part of state actors, political aspirations in prosecutors, overreaching laws, and a pile of other reasons not to trust government with any power at all, let alone life and death.
I’ll admit that in cases like this, where you have to search very hard to find anything resembling excuse or mitigation or alternative explanation, the justification for government death penalty is on firmer ground. Nonetheless, I’m sticking to my guns.
Also, if you’re going to execute someone, do it quickly and cleanly. Torturing someone to death is gauche. I suppose you could say that horrifically torturing a convict to death would deter others, but I’m not sure of that logic. I am sure I wouldn’t want to live with a government in which people in power would calmly and deliberately sentence someone to death by torture.
I tend to agree with SteveF on the death penalty as inflicted by the State but in this case and others like it, where he is demonstrably completely guilty, and where we can’t really count on the State to keep him confined for the rest of his life, then go ahead and whack him. But like SteveF says, clean and quick. Let’s not stoop to their level. Do him like you would a rabid dog or coyote.
After all, this regime may decide that me, or SteveF or Bob are terrorists; the fuckers just make shit up as they go along, right? Then they torture us to death. That would suck.
No! Don’t descend to his level. Quick and painless death. That’s one thing the Chinese got right – pistol bullet to the back of the head.
Of course, do make sure you let him and his family and co-religionists know, before his execution, that certain small parts will be removed, cremated, and the ashes flushed down several different city’s sewers. And that he’ll then be buried with a pig’s pecker pushed up his pooter and another down his throat, his eyeballs replaced with pig’s eyes, with his body wrapped with pig manure and dog droppings in cardboard from boxes that contained ham and bacon, and now has been soaked in lard. If he wants his virgins, let him find out what species they are, and who’s to be on the receiving end.
My oh my. And who would go through all those tasks with a dead body, I wonder. I say just use CGI/special effects and make a tape and broadcast it to the relevant parties as though we actually did those things. Otherwise just dump it in a hole somewhere and fill in with larded cement.
Also, if you’re going to execute someone, do it quickly and cleanly. Torturing someone to death is gauche.
I have to agree with Steve here. If the point is to get rid of a criminal, do so efficiently. Any thing else smacks of vengeance, which really has no place in a justice system.
I do agree that the death penalty can be appropriate, when (a) one is absolutely certain of someone’s guilt and (b) the person has committed crimes such that they can never be released from prison. The problem is with (a). How many death row cases have suddenly been reversed, because suddenly new evidence came to light.
I am reminded of the black guy in Greenville, TX thirty years ago. He was one of very few black residents of the town, when a black was seen robbing a store. The witnesses all identified him with absolute certainty and he was sentenced to life in prison. You see where this is going, of course. It was a case of “all blacks look alike” and he was released a year later when the evidence of his innocence couldn’t be denied any longer. In other words, absolute certainty often isn’t, cases are rarely black and white, and the decision to execute someone can quickly stretch into the dark-gray zone…then the medium gray…