08:15 – I see that asshole Obama now intends to remake America’s neighborhoods, making sure that every middle-class neighborhood will have plenty of poor people and gangbangers and other undesirables. For 50 years now, I’ve been saying that government is the enemy. More and more people are coming to understand that I’ve been right all along.
Decent people don’t want the underclass in our midst, and we keep taking steps to get away from them. Obama thinks we’ve been too successful, so his answer is to start distributing the underclass scum into nice areas, with the goal of turning those nice areas into underclass hellholes, spreading the misery as widely as possible instead of doing as he should and concentrating it into as few areas as possible. We used to call them ghettos.
If that asshole Obama could get away with it, I’m sure he’d like to put a gangbanger or other underclass scum in every spare bedroom in middle-class America. But he can’t get away with that, yet, so he’s going to do the best he can by using federal powers to mandate housing for underclass scum in nice areas. I don’t want underclass scum living near me. I don’t want underclass scum living, period.
So, what’s to be done?
Herr Schicklgruber had the solution for the German people back in the 1930s — round them all up and ship them off to the extermination camps. Is that what you really want ?? Guess you must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning ???
India had the caste system. We rounded up the native Americans and marched them to the reservations. Like Brad says, history may not repeat itself – but tends to “rhyme” !! (Good one Brad !!) You scare me sometimes with the things you write. Wish that I had a “good” solution, but sometimes things are just difficult until we learn a better way somehow. What I’ve noticed is that we sometimes take a couple steps forward, and then several steps backwards. And then vice-versa. Progress seems to just take a long time. And a lot of hard work too.
What in the hell are you talking about?
I don’t want to have any government at all, let alone a totalitarian Nazi government, which is what our federal government already resembles. I just don’t want this government shipping scum to my neighborhood, or any other non-scum neighborhood.
If you think that makes me a Nazi, you’re deranged.
Incidentally, “we” did no such thing. The federal government did. And the federal government does not and never has represented *me*.
It seems to me that having “no government at all” would end up either with total anarchy, or more likely rule by the strong & powerful. We don’t have a “democracy”, but we don’t really have a “republic” either. I agree with you that our government has become too strong and oppressive. A government does have to be strong, so that another country can’t come in and take control. Think “Alexander the Great” and Genghis Kahn. So there’s no easy solution. Alexander rationalized his conquests by claiming to spread Greek culture and civilization.
I’m wondering if the intention isn’t to try what was tried after Katrina in New Orleans. The families that lost everything in the hurricane were shipped around the country. Did that strategy work to eliminate the bad areas in New Orleans?
I know that you’re not a “Nazi”, I’ve always been impressed with the way that you try to help and work with your neighbors. Also your stated intentions to share your “prepper” food with friends, family, and neighbors. It’s just that there are occasions when you almost sound like one. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound so harsh.
No, it didn’t work. It never works. What it did was export scum, which proceeded to do what scum do, but in their new locations. Believing that can work is like believing that exporting cholera to uninfected areas will improve the original infected location.
You confuse anarchy with chaos, which are two very different things. Yes, anarchy would result in the strong and smart succeeding and the weak and stupid withering away. So what?
Another country coming in and taking control? You’ve been reading too much bad fiction. The US is uncontrollable, as the federal government seems determined to test. There are way too many guns and way too many people willing, if not eager, to use them. I like the original don’t tread on me flag. Live Free or Die. And if you die, take some of the bastards with you.
Funny, this plan has already been executed in Chicago.
I wrote a comment about it previously.
The land under and around the projects became valuable, so there was a move to reclaim that land for productive uses. It was all couched in pretty language, but the people of Chicago are pretty good at hearing past the BS and I don’t think anyone was fooled.
The upshot was that places like the Robert Taylor Homes and Cabrini Green were shut down and those people living there were dispersed into the surrounding communities. New development of $500k 3 flats were mandated to have low income housing literally in the basement. So you bought your new condo, and it came with a live-in gangbanger, 4th generation welfare parasite, gangsta rap aficionado, drug user, or career criminal. I wish I was making this up.
Of course, there isn’t enough new development to house them all, so they get widely disbursed. Like into my parents far south neighborhood, where they live in rental houses that they destroy, or apartment complexes that immediately become just like the high rise ghetto they left–hotbeds of crime and misery. This brings down property values as everyone with sense rushes to get out while their home is still worth anything. The resulting death spiral is not pretty and it happens shockingly fast. If you don’t move quickly, you are stuck.
The problem is not the nature of the housing. It is the nature of the people. We are not supposed to acknowledge this, even when the evidence is clear. The people bring their problems with them to their new homes, and like dropping a turd into a punchbowl, it doesn’t make the turd into a lemon wedge, it makes the punch into sewage.
nick
I am confused by my “liberal” friends who like the “Give a man a fish feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him for life” proverb, but insist on the policies that perpetuate our underclass. Unlike Bob, I don’t want the underclass to die, I want them to go away. Where the preferred method of going away is to transform themselves into non underclass people.
Presidential candidate Ben Carson was once poor kid who had a single mother with a third grade education. I’m tired of “liberals” using our federal government to perpetuate policies which keep the underclass poor and dependent.
The government doesn’t have to be strong, the PEOPLE have to be strong. It wasn’t the government of Russia that fought the Nazis to a standstill, it was the people.
Our founders intentionally built a weak government. It worked for about 100 years, but people can’t leave well enough alone. We send “lawmakers” to DC and seem surprised when they make laws. We shouldn’t be, it’s in the very name they call themselves.
This is an example of controlling the language/control the thought. No one routinely calls them “representatives” any more, and they no longer even pretend to represent us. They are ‘legislators’ and ‘lawmakers’ and that is what they do.
It’s everywhere and the lack of plain language lets those who wish to shape and control do their dirty work. Homeless vs. vagrant, undocumented migrant vs. illegal alien, pretexting vs. lying, nuanced vs. filled with lies, Patriot Act vs. unconstitutional and illegal non-stop surveillance search and seizure act.
We currently live in a soft and decadent society where most people have never experienced true adversity or challenge, so the perversity of human nature requires them to make some up, hence “micro-aggressions”, “stare rape”, “hate crime”, and all the other minor calamities of the grievance culture.
That is going to change and the process won’t be pretty. And yes, some of it I desire greatly. I desire the result not the process. I like my comfortable life, where I’m safer and richer than every in history, better fed, and have a wider choice of amusements. Those things didn’t result by accident though, they are the result of CULTURE. When you change the culture, you will change the rest. The forces of evil have managed to break the western culture that brought us to where we are. Like a child turning on a parent, will we survive their rebellion and make it into the future intact?
nick
Thank you Dave B. and Nick. I think you have great insights into our problems. And I’m glad we are all having this conversation. Now we just need OFD to join in. 🙂
Although I pretty much despise the government, it somewhat worked when it represented the middle class. Since the liberals have taken over, they have decided that all people must be equal. Since they can’t elevate the underclass, they’ve decided the next best thing is to destroy the evil middle class and are well on their way to accomplishing their goal. Of course, they themselves will continue to live in their exclusive neighborhoods, hanging out with their own kind and congratulating themselves on the great job they have done achieving social justice.
@Al, I’m a little confused — are “liberals” a part of the middle class, i.e. a sub-class? Or are they a separate class of people? I also always thought the intention was that all people have equal opportunity (as much as possible), not that they are all equal.
Oh, I’m all in favor of equal opportunity, as long as it doesn’t infringe on individual rights.
As to killing off the underclass, I wasn’t suggesting doing that as long as they don’t bother me.
Apparently saying “equal opportunity” is now considered “micro-aggression” according to the Social Justice Warriors.
File under ‘why we prep’
Millions of pounds ‘go missing’ after technical glitch makes 600,000 RBS payments ‘vanish’ overnight
‘I have a 12 month old baby in house. No money. No Gas or electric.. And your telling me what? It’s a “technical” glitch,’ complained Chad Roberts.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3127782/Millions-pounds-missing-technical-glitch-means-600-000-RBS-customers-payments-disappeared-overnight.html
And also maybe a sign of the coming financial world reality. As some have been saying for a while now, having your money in a bank means not having your money….
nick
I really like what Dave B. said … ” I don’t want the underclass to die, I want them to go away. Where the preferred method of going away is to transform themselves into non underclass people.” The difficulty, of course, is that “transformation”. Some people are able to do that by themselves, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps so to speak. Other times it takes the help of family or friends. But sometimes it takes law enforcement to “handle” the matter. I’ve known some “peace officers” who are basically just bullies and abusive of their power. But others I’ve known are both compassionate and helpful. And there are times when it truly does take a degree of coercion to “handle” the matter. I think the same applies to governments.
I suspect that involvement by friends and families tends to turn out better. But sometimes they just don’t have the necessary patience or resources to “handle” the matter. Involvement by law enforcement or by governments probably tends to turn out much worse, since they usually don’t “know” or understand the problem as well, and also tend to do what is most expedient or apply more coercion than necessary.
“… so he’s going to do the best he can by using federal powers to mandate housing for underclass scum in nice areas.”
The regime, as Mr. nick has pointed out, has already run “pilot projects” for this sort of thing in Chicago (run by the capo Rahm Emmanuel, for the time being) and other cities. It’s of course deliberate and done with malice aforethought, but Obola does what he’s been told. Evidently the gloves are coming off for the remainder of his term and he’s being allowed to ramp up the destruction.
My “solution”? It is like unto the camel’s nose under the tent, Grasshoppers; when the first denizens begin arriving in your ‘hood, they must be made to understand that not only are they not welcome, but that they should GTFO posthaste or suffer the consequences. If they are delivered in buses, say, with cop-thugs and other costumed servants of the State supervising the operation, I’d consider targeting said personnel and likewise the civilian bureaucrats who are overseeing it all. We need to start making THEIR lives as miserable as they are making, and intend to make, ours.
I don’t think I need to be more specific here; identify the local/regional bureaucrats who are running these capers in your area and proceed accordingly.
Read the late Solzhenitsyn on what the zeks wish they had done while still able to do so when the NKVD thugs showed up at their residences. With the understanding that if they had, perhaps the Gulag would never have been able to come about. Or watch the scenes in “Doctor Zhivago” where the local commissars have taken over the family property and turned it into a Bolshevik slum. I believe the Soviet communist analogies are more germane here than harping on the Nazis.
“If that asshole Obama could get away with it, I’m sure he’d like to put a gangbanger or other underclass scum in every spare bedroom in middle-class America”.
OFD for president!
@Sam, The country was created with the intent that all citizens would have equal opportunity to achieve or fail based on their own skills, capabilities and commitment. Liberals, at least to me, are people that have decided that the system is unfair and needs to be replaced with one whose primary function is wealth redistribution. With the old system, people were free. With the new system, achievers become cash cows to fund the lifestyles of people that the liberal elite decide are deserving. The liberal elite also have the annoying habit of placing themselves outside of the system while skimming off the best for themselves.
This is another reason why I strongly support real school choice and home schooling. The public schools are propaganda mills. See what’s going on right now with AP History.
I found out the opposite of a SJW (Social Justice Warrior) over the weekend in a conversation about the Sad Puppies that I started in rec.arts.sf.written. To my dismay, I do not know why I do these crazy things. I posted this in my conversation:
http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2015/06/anger-doubt-and-confusion-at-tor.html
Anyway, one of the SJWs called me a MCP. Male Chauvinist Pig. I feel so free now!
“The liberal elite also have the annoying habit of placing themselves outside of the system while skimming off the best for themselves.”
Indeed. Exactly like the old Soviet nomenclatura. It’s more than annoying; it’s highway robbery and the former penalty for suchlike was hanging.
“The public schools are propaganda mills.”
Since the days of Dewey and Mann; we imported the educationist theory crap from Germany and applied it here, followed by the depredations of the Long March from the 1950s onward. It has been disastrous for multiple generations of American children. Again, deliberately and with malice aforethought; we have now a couple of generations who simply have a different worldview and grasp of reality than we did/do; a bunch of stuff is just accepted as The Way Things Are and they look at any questioning of it or dissent as crazy. Our kids fully accept the ideas of Affirmative Action, Diversity as a valid and critical human need and goal, the warmist agitprop, and that human nature is malleable and can be changed to whatever the egghead elites think is the right way to do it. And that Western civilization and American history have been an evil blight on mankind.
How do we fix all that? We can’t really, except hope that our kids will someday wake up, but we can at least pull the current generations out of the public skool plantations and generate more activity in the home-schooling area for the future. The unfairness and obscenity of it all was most graphically illustrated for me and many of us a long time ago when we saw the forced Federal busing operations in Boston and the terrible consequences of yet another libturd social experiment, while the children of the perpetrators went off to safe private schools. While at the same time, working- and middle-class neighborhoods were razed and replaced with urban highway systems and underclass tenements.
Now, as RBT has pointed out, the current regime is exasperated with the decades-long movement of “white flight” from those cesspools and intends to bring the cesspools out to the rest of the country. They are sowing the wind and we all know what happens after that, don’t we?
It’s all my fault that I didn’t vote that we have Obola as President and I won’t vote again and it will be all my fault that we get Lady MacBeth of Little Rock for eight years.
“Sure, you get to engage in the most demeaning exercise of casting a ballot so that one of these people can steal half of your money and use it to make you less free. They call that ‘voting,’ and we’re told it’s our civic duty. But it’s just an illusion.”
http://www.sovereignman.com/trends/america-youre-fired-17164/?inf_contact_key=b0e0f7e839ccfb11a19e2ec07d61a01e8d0407f9b928c1c96e4173f5ed942b27
“the current regime is exasperated with the decades-long movement of “white flight” from those cesspools and intends to bring the cesspools out to the rest of the country.”
It was one thing when the middle class could peacefully remove themselves from the cesspool that our overseers created, but now that the powers that be are insisting that the middle class also live in the cesspool, it’s quite another. I’m hoping that this will be the straw that breaks the camels back and bring some sense back to the country. (although my hopes aren’t very high. The Government may not be good at much but brainwashing seems to be their forte.)
It’s all my fault that I didn’t vote that we have Obola as President and I won’t vote again and it will be all my fault that we get Lady MacBeth of Little Rock for eight years.
I knew it! I knew it! Thanks a lot Mr. OFD. At least the Beast of Benghazi will bring us civil war in our times. Yahoo! A bunch of us old geezers bringing the hurt on the gummint.
“The Government may not be good at much but brainwashing seems to be their forte.”
You are correct, sir; their forte was enabled and accelerated through the publik skool systems, colleges and universities and the compliant and eagerly subservient media. It continues today and the worn-out phrase of a nation of sheep, or “sheeple,” is still appropriate, sadly. They won’t wake up until the Hurt kicks in good and hard on them.
“A bunch of us old geezers bringing the hurt on the gummint.”
You jest a little bit, but folks should not count out us old geezers just yet; we are still capable of a ton of stuff and may be the catalyst to get things going faster.
I would like to be your door gunner/crew chief on your chopper as we cruise above the lovely Potomac (or Hudson, take yer pic!). Just don’t make any sudden turns while I’m hanging out the hatch, bro; the last clowns who tried that had an M60 pointed at them with a stern rebuke from this 20-year-old.
“The public schools are propaganda mills. See what’s going on right now with AP History.”
Amen, sir. I’m just a dumb ole AP Physics teacher and even I can see what is going on.
… in a conversation about the Sad Puppies that I started in rec.arts.sf.written
Wow. Usenet is still up and running? I used it back when the “September Effect” was a thing. I also ran a newsgroup split that was responsible for rules changes on how they were done.
Not sure how I’d get to a newsgroup feed today……
There appear to be web sites that will give you a portal to them, but they seem to be focused on porn, and specifically the kind of porn that will get you sent to prison.
Something worthwhile must still be ongoing, but not worth any risk for me to poke around.
nick
I just pasted the name of the group into Google and the first hit was Google Groups, with that thread at the top.
Obama now intends to remake America’s neighborhoods, making sure that every middle-class neighborhood will have plenty of poor people and gangbangers and other undesirables
BTW, got URL? I only found a bunch of older articles such as:
http://www.westernjournalism.com/obama-wants-to-move-the-hood-into-your-neighborhood/
The problem with moving poor families into the suburbs is that they are already here and getting displaced by new housing communities. All of the new homes in these areas are way out of their reach in cost. And, there is no public transportation in the suburbs (and people will vote to keep it that way).
My father-in-law rented one of his homes under section 8 for a while. He won’t make that mistake again. I helped them clean it up. It was ghastly, I do not think that the tenants threw anything away for six months. When we went in, there were lawn sized trash bags everywhere. And they were moving with all of the rotten food and bugs. My MIL could not believe what had been done to her house as it took us two weeks to clean it out.
Well, Chuck can keep his beloved Germany. While I like the country to visit, I would not want to live here. There are too many rules, signs to tell you about signs, small signs that are difficult to see that provide important information. Traffic sucks, parking sucks even more. Driving her is a cooperative experience rather than a competitive experience which is good but necessary because of the narrow roads, parking problems.
Top it off with some really butt ugly cars, cramped houses with little privacy and small yards, security shutters on all the lower floor windows and high prices. If crime is so low in Germany why do all the bicycles need locks? A bike should not be a high value target when there are millions of them around.
Trains are nice but DB goes on strike much too often. Annoying teenagers in second class that talk loud and play music on Bluetooth speakers (they like the music, shouldn’t everyone?).
Graffiti on almost any flat surface. Bridges and other structures that are public are prime targets. Even some private structures have been emblazoned. Maybe it is part of a big city and is a problem world wide but it sure is noticeable in Germany,
Yes, there are some good things about Germany. But give me the US and my big pickemuptruck rather than some butt ugly cramped pill box with wheels that does 0-60 in 3 days.
Free usenet servers using a product like Mozilla Thunderbird:
1. I use http://www.eternal-september.org/ but it requires an account
2. http://aioe.org/ does not require an account
Wow. Usenet is still up and running? I used it back when the “September Effect” was a thing. I also ran a newsgroup split that was responsible for rules changes on how they were done.
Free usenet servers using a product like Mozilla Thunderbird:
1. I use http://www.eternal-september.org/ but it requires an account
2. http://aioe.org/ does not require an account
Wow. Usenet is still up and running? I used it back when the “September Effect” was a thing. I also ran a newsgroup split that was responsible for rules changes on how they were done.
Free usenet servers using a product like Mozilla Thunderbird:
1. I use Eternal September but it requires a free account
http://www.eternal-september.org/
2. AIOE does not require an account
http://aioe.org/
Wow. Usenet is still up and running? I used it back when the “September Effect” was a thing. I also ran a newsgroup split that was responsible for rules changes on how they were done.
Free usenet servers using a product like Mozilla Thunderbird:
1. I use Eternal September but it requires a free account
http://www.eternal-september.org/
2. I use AIOE as a backup news server which does not require an account
http://www.aioe.org/
Wow. Usenet is still up and running? I used it back when the “September Effect” was a thing. I also ran a newsgroup split that was responsible for rules changes on how they were done.
Free servers using a product like Thunderbird:
1. I use Eternal September but it requires a free account
http://www.eternal-september.org/
2. I use AIOE as a backup news server which does not require an account
http://www.aioe.org/
Man, something I am doing is triggering the spam filter in WordPress. I was trying to post how I get on usenet now.
Wow. Usenet is still up and running? I used it back when the “September Effect” was a thing. I also ran a newsgroup split that was responsible for rules changes on how they were done.
Servers using a product like Thunderbird:
1. I use Eternal September but it requires a unpaid account
http://www.eternal-september.org/
2. I use AIOE as a backup news server which does not require an account
http://www.aioe.org/
Obama wants to reengineer your neighborhood
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-wants-to-reengineer-your-neighborhood/2015/06/15/f7c0c558-1366-11e5-9518-f9e0a8959f32_story.html
Thanks for the six duplicate posts, Mr. Lynn. 🙂
Maybe if somebody like Trump was elected he would shitcan all these Executive Orders and “You’re Fired!” all the political appointees. That would be interesting.
Hey I would like to report a spammer who appears to be operating from the Sugar Land area of Texas! This guy is a nuisance! Can we get MrAtoz to swing by in his chopper and punch this guy’s ticket?
Trump? What a gas that would be! With Ivana as SecDef or sumthin. Who cares? Laissez les bon temps rouler, mes amis!
Oh wait—I fucked that up and forgot:
Deja que los buenos tiempos, mis amigos!
Hey we need more diversity in education:
http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/teacher-i-dont-teach-newton-because-hes-white-t16470.html
I am in awe of your Google Translate foo.
Thanks for the six duplicate posts, Mr. Lynn. 🙂
Thanks, I try. I guess that I crashed @Bob’s wordpress. Sorry about that, I thought that I was trying to get around the spam filter so I was trying all kinds of combinations. Sort of a modern day Colossal Cave game.
Hey we need more diversity in education
lol Next it will be “live White Dudes”. I’d be OK since I identify as a trans-racial Black man. Call me Caitlyn.
As it is, the atmosphere on many college campuses over the past quarter-century has been absolutely toxic for straight white males, as I have personal cause to know. I could feel the seething hate every day, like walking on eggshells, and I’m quite sure it’s far worse now, from what my nieces tell their parents.
Like I’ve said, I’d close 90% of them forthwith, plus I’d shut down the entire publik skool system in this country at the same time. And good riddance to bad rubbish. Wanna learn some stuff? The means are more available now than ever before in human history; who needs these careerist apparatchiks anymore?
Do the SJW’s hold any kind of regional meetings, where there’d be a lot of them together in one place?
So, Ars Technica had some interesting tidbits in their article on the OPM data breach hearing in Congress. They did some asking around and found out that:
– on some of the Unix boxes, the contract sysadmin was in Argentina and his assistant was in the PRC. So, both had root access.
– some of the DBAs had PRC passports.
Wow. What an epic breach of security. The malware could have been planted from the inside and been sitting there for years. No need for a phishing attack.
Hey we need more diversity in education:
OFD, that post is a satire. A takeoff on a real WaPo article on not teaching Shakespeare.
Isn’t Washington DC about 98% SJW?
“OFD, that post is a satire. A takeoff on a real WaPo article on not teaching Shakespeare.”
Yes. It’s from the Peoples’ Cube site, which is often side-splittingly hilarious. Their stuff often comes across as though it’s for real, like The Onion.
Rest assured that beotches like that one won’t be teaching Newton, either. They’ll go with whichever warmist scientist is currently the hot celeb in their circles.
“Do the SJW’s hold any kind of regional meetings, where there’d be a lot of them together in one place?”
Let’s see, the colleges and universities and media are rife with them anyway, why have meetings? It’s to them like the air we all breathe. Mordor is not so much full of SJWs as it is stuffed with maniacally ambitious power- and money-grubbing goblins; decent people who go there and manage to keep their wits, are shocked and dismayed and can’t GTFO fast enough.
“Yes. It’s from the Peoples’ Cube site, which is often side-splittingly hilarious.”
Thanks OFD! new site for me – it has made my sides split for the last 1/2 hour reading this:
http://thepeoplescube.com/paul-krugman/ask-people-s-economist-t187.html
May not have pasted that link right but it is late for me…
In Canada, with strict handgun control laws:
18yo white boy shot to death by 3 black men while trying to retrieve his lost phone.
High school grad, 18, who was tracking his lost smartphone gets shot dead after app led him to a gunman in a parking lot who refused to give it back
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3129023/Teen-gunned-phone-thieves-used-tracking-app-lost-device.html
Words fail me.
nick
Words seldom fail me.
1.) A lost cell phone is hardly worth being blown away. He was gonna hang onto the fucking car door and try to get it back? What was on it, the combination to Fort Knox? The secret to world peace forever? God’s phone number?
2.) Naturally O Kanada’s gun laws suck rocks, and so do almost all of our own down here. But that never stops goblins, gremlins, terrorists and underclass scum. It just leaves ordinary citizens defenseless. And that’s how our rulers north of the border, south of the border and in between the fucking borders like it.
WTF led that skinny white kid to think he could take on the 3 guys?
WTF, if a phones not worth dying for, it certainly isn’t worth killing for. WTF led the shooter to a place where he’s ok with shooting someone over a phone?
WTF, who takes their sister on a vigilante mission?
So much wrong in the story, I didn’t know what to start with.
I know where it ended. Kid with bright future dead, 3 savages with short futures barely into their third decade, already at the point of casual killing.
Where this happened is near where I used to work, when I worked in Canada. Outside the projects which are a blight no matter what country you are in, it’s a pretty nice area.
nick
One nice thing about Trump though. With a net worth of nine billion dollars, if you want to bribe him, you better bring your BIG checkbook.
A government does have to be strong, so that another country can’t come in and take control.
Um, no. We’ve got these two giant moats around the USA. Most people like to call them the Atlantic and Pacific. Once you get your forces over those then we are going to drone the invaders to death.
http://prtl.uhcl.edu/portal/page/portal/USN/TheSignal/News?articleId=436
OFD for president!
@OFD, you have a vote! I know that you don’t have two votes since you won’t vote for anyone.
Wow, I log out yesterday evening with one comment on the Wednesday thread. Wake up this morning and…wow, great conversation. I was making a couple of notes to chime in, but every point I thought about making, someone has already made. The disadvantage of living in a different time zone (am I the only European here?).
So I’ll pick up Chuck’s role of answering Ray’s comments about Germany:
Germany does love its rules, no doubt. Once you get used to it, it’s comfortable: A place for everything and everything in its place.
The houses are a lot smaller than in the US, everywhere in Europe. Coming the other way, what the devil do you do with all that space? I am reminded of my cousin’s McMansion, where – while showing me around – he discovered that his dog was using one of the rooms as a toilet. They hadn’t been in that room for a couple of weeks, so they had no idea.
The train strikes in Germany have been absolutely nutty this year. The problem, as I understand it, is this: There are two unions for train workers: a newer one for all professions except the train drivers, and an older, small one specifically for the drivers. The train system has said that they are tired of negotiating separate contracts with both unions, so henceforth they will be ignoring the old union and negotiating only with the new one. Which is a death knell for the older union.
The problem is: it is apparently the oldest union in the country. This gives it a lot of public support, just out of tradition. So they strike, and strike, and strike, because they have no other chance of survival as a union. They’re pushing it to the limit: seems to me it’s long past the point where the train system should have just fired the striking drivers and hired new ones.