From the “say anything to save the planet” department comes this wackadoodle idea from Weepy Bill. I’m sure ISIS will get behind him to drain our defense budget fighting mostly intangible threats.
Described by the Boston Globe as “America’s most important environmentalist”, 350.org founder Bill McKibben says America’s defense budget must “be put to work defending us against the most dangerous adversaries we face” — climate change.
BILL MCKIBBEN:
“It should be possible to build large quantities of solar panels and turbine blades, and it should be possible to put lots of people at work on good jobs doing that, okay? And it should be a huge priority, and if you think we don’t have the money then you’re not paying attention. We have things like the defense budget that need to be put to work defending us against the most dangerous adversaries we face. The conceit of that New Republic piece was that we are in fact already at war though we do not really recognize it. But, by all the measures that we normally count as warfare, that’s what’s going on. We’re losing territory day by day. People are being killed day by day in great numbers. There will probably be added to that death toll tonight someplace along the coast of Florida. We’re at war, we’re just not fighting back, and the time has come to do that, and it will take as the history of WWII shows, government leadership to make that happen. It will take a concentrated national effort and a concentrated international effort to make that happen. It won’t happen on its own, it requires leadership.”
Bill McKibben: The Hottest Fight in the Hottest Year – Oberlin College Oberlin, Ohio October 6, 2016
h/t to the Harry Read Me Files and Matt Dempsey
This is one dangerous and deluded liberal.
but you repeat yourself
Thricely!
I shall promptly report you to the Department of Redundancy Department immediately..
At least it’s a Non-Oxy-moron
Actually, it’s a tautology.
a taught ‘ology s a retired professor (:-))
Note that 350.org is financed at least in part by you you guessed it! http://www.rbf.org/grants-search?search_api_views_fulltext=350.org
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Don’t leave out George Soros. I think I remember that he’s also a big backer of 350.org as well. Something about birds-of-a-feather…
Yes, Many organisations such as 350.org have a “contributors” or “Donors” page. Possibly this is to meet US law requirements – but I don’t know for sure. However not all websites have this page and it is usually hard to find. A search of the site sometimes exposes it. Anyway it is possible to work from the organisation up to see where its money is coming from, and all sorts of name po up. Almost always the Rockefellers are there, but so is the Clinton Foundation and other similar. Sometimes to get to the source one can find that – for instance that a donor is itself financed by another donor who might be someone recognisable.
There is enough work there for a great academic paper on the subject.
However rbf are unique in that they list at least some of their donations in a searchable form.
Cheers
350.org ?? Sounds like 10 degrees short of a circle or one sandwich short of a picnic.
1 degree short of an education I would say 🙂
McKibben needs a study in morality as well. For instance I understand that in my country. his organization targets young adults who are blank sheets of paper and tend to have difficulty thinking for themselves.
For Instance – After a lot of searching I found the list of Donors on the Clinton Foundation Website.
Some familiar organisations there.
https://www.clintonfoundation.org/contributors?category=%2410%2C000%2C001+to+%2425%2C000%2C000
Cheers
Roger
Looks like “rbf”might end up funding a terrorist group:)
Dangerous, deluded, and utterly sold out. If you examine his reasoning, it is always about money. It is dolled up in lingo such as “redistributing wealth”, but it boils down to “Money! Money! Money!”
I wonder if these fellows are sensing the simple fact they have blown it all. The USA was once the richest nation on earth. If you add in our debt, we are now the poorest.
Good going, fellows.
I think the correct grammatical term is a pleonasm.
Heh, I learned a new word. Thanks!
Actually it was a redundant, tautological pleonasm.
Me too!
Neologism – that I’m fine with.
New words – OK
Recently created terms, phrases, and that – Yeah; I’ll go for them.
Apologies, it’s me underlining pleonasm to myself.
Wikipedia – I know, I CAN edit it, unless it is about weather or cl1m@te . . . . .: –
Pleonasm , meaning “more, too much” is the use of more words or parts of words than is necessary or sufficient for clear expression: examples are black darkness, burning fire, or people’s democracy.
Such redundancy is, by traditional rhetorical criteria, a manifestation of tautology.
That being said, people may use a pleonasm for emphasis or because the phrase has already become established in a certain form.
My paragraphing..
Downloaded AT 1952z 08 October 2016
Auto. Still learning
One from column A, one from column B, one from column C.
Same recipe that Mickey Spillane uses.
G
Maybe The Department Of Conversation should regulate redundancies.
Extreme ideologue. Way west of liberal.
Global warming is killing people???? Where?
The only deaths I know of are the thousands of people who couldn’t afford to heat their homes each winter.
Which tells one just how important environmentalists are.
***************************
(True “environmentalists” are better described by the term “conservationist”, these days.)
These people can’t come up with their own concepts. They have to steal them and then destroy them.
Yeah, they don’t like that “mentalist” tag.
Yes, Janice, thank you. I shall immediately start using the term “conservationist”.
More like “conversationists.”
All talk and no do.
Show me a progressive who ever made anything. Anything at all just by himself.
G
I used to (50 years ago) belong to the local Conservation League which sponsored protection of wild duck, wilderness, streams etc; hosted boy scout troops and where we sighted in our rifles and shot skeet; the lead falling into a lake from an abandoned quarry. I don’t think Bill would want to join such an organization; and thinking back to the grizzled outdoors men who ran the organization I don’t think he’d ever get in!
I think it would be more appropriate to say:
“America’s most dangerous environmentalist”
And hurricanes never happened during the little ice age?
In Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire, ‘urricanes ‘ardly Hever ‘appen . . .
But it t’was long before the LIA that the real damage began.
Thousands of hurricanes, just like the current Matthew, have occurred during the past eons. And the “visible” proof is obvious, ….. iffen ya just look at the “shape” of the East coast of Florida, Georgia and the Carolina’s.
Those past hurricanes have been “eatin away at da shorelines” for a long, long time.
Eritas
And continue up the coast to the Outer Banks barrier islands which were altered and benefited somewhat thanks to major storms carrying FL, GA and SC silt northward. Another interesting area of coastline recently(past 15-20yrs) affected by storms etc. is Sand Dollar Island, Marco Island, FL. which is really just a spit with filled-in area now connected to the main shoreline adding some 3 miles of contiguous beach.
I was curious about Eritas, does that mean you are of the family of Eri(as in the bible)?
@ Gary Lampkin – October 8, 2016 at 8:11 am
Nah, me thinks that only my 1st name is of Biblical origin. “Eritas” is my ‘sarc/’ tag, …. read it in reverse.
Reducing the overblown US military budget would be a good idea, but spending it on “fighting the climate war” would be just another waste of money.
ISIS would be most upset if the US reduced its military budget by no longer “accidentally” dropping weapons in ISIS held areas, or “accidentally” bombing Syrian government forces, or directly supplying their “moderate” allies.
Lockheed would be upset if the US stopped pouring money down the black hole of the F35.
But I suspect many American people would be delighted to see the military budget reduced to spend some of money on schools, roads, bridges, and so forth. These would help Americans and make the US seem like less of a threat to the world.
@RoHa: I have heard it said many years ago that we do not own freedom. The defense budget is just the rent we pay on it. I don’t recall who said that (maybe President Reagan). I agree with you however that more money spent on the climate alarmist religion is indeed a very stupid waste of money, and it is not surprising to see looney tunes Bill McKibben suggest taking money from defense to spend on it.
Having considered what you said however, the question then is: How much do you value your freedom and human rights? Based on your comment, I’m not sure how much you do. I however place a high value on them.
I don’t deny that some of what we spend on the defense budget probably goes down a black hole. But then that is true about much of what government does. How much $$$ goes down that black hole each year from the defense budget? I dont know, but I would argue that the nation’s defense is not something you can compromise on. I may be wrong, but I get the impression that this is what you are suggesting we do.
The $$$ for roads and bridges comes from state and federal taxes on transporation fuels, especially gasoline. If you want more spent on them, try advocating raising those taxes and see what kind of a response you get. More money for schools would probably require raising property taxes. Not exactly the most popular thing to do, is it?
CD in Wisconsin Across the board with the US budget but especially at Defense a survey with cost/ benefit and likelihood that we will ever need the technology needs to be done. There’s a reason that Defense is going willingly down the path led by wacked out futurists and climate changer nuts. The “redefinition” of defenses goals can’t be that our two main adversaries China and Russia will simply go away and allow us to fight them in proxy with our high tech gizmos without ever being prepared to have to put “boots on the ground” in China or Russia. We are the premiere military in the world and we are in danger of simply blowing it by poor management of the resource and allowing corruption of the allocation of resources to squander them.
“How much do you value your freedom and human rights?”
Very much, but US warmongering doesn’t do a lot for anyone’s freedom or human rights.
You and those like you should study some real history instead of spouting the propaganda that overthrowing governments and invading countries is keeping us safe. We lost 55,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands more in Vietnam to prop up a hated government that fell anyway. We backed a butcher in Korea who antagonized the North and got another war. We overthrew the elected government of Iran in 1953 and installed the Shah. We encouraged Saddam in a war with Iran and hinted we didn’t care if he invaded Kuwait so he did. We have overthrown governments in all but 2 countries south of our border to benefit our corporations and to keep the people barefoot, uneducated, and poor. We look at Venezuela and claim that socialism doesn’t work yet we have been trying to topple the government there almost from the day Chavez was elected. Now that they are in dire straights we declare them a danger to US security and put drastic sanctions on them rather than extending a helping hand. In 2009 almost every government on the planet and the UN condemned the coup in Honduras and demanded the president be reinstated. Hillary and Obama remained silent so now Honduras, and Venezuela, are murder capitals of the planet. The US spent huge sums in the 1960’s to keep Allende from being elected in Chile so the CIA arranged a coup that deposed him after he eventually won which resulted in a brutal 26 year military dictatorship. We supported brutal dictator Somoza in Nicaragua for decades and after he was tossed out by the people we allowed the Contras to sell crack in the US and sold arms to Iran to fund them as Congress would not. After the cold war ended we promised the Russians that we would not expand NATO or threaten them. We have expanded NATO and put weapons on Russia’s doorstep and wonder why they are rearming. We destroyed Libya on false claims and it is now a failed state infested with militias, Al Qaeda, and ISIS where none existed before. The uprisings in both Libya and Syria were started and funded by Qatar and Saudi Arabia with US permission and most of the “rebels” in Syria are imported jihadists and we support them. With “liberated” weapons from Libya Al Qaeda and Boko Harem in Africa went from near nothings to rapid growth mode. We recently sold our pal Saudi Arabia over a billion in weapons as they destroy cities and are target civilians in Yemen with a huge humanitarian crisis brewing and not a word gets uttered by Obama or Hillary. But boy, let a Russian bomb fall in Alleppo and Obama and Kerry are screaming war crimes. Until recently we had no troops in Iraq because the Iraqi’s kicked us out. They claimed we were worse than Saddam’s secret police. Now that we have troops in Iraq local militias, just as in Syria, are threatening to kill them. Surveys taken in Iraq and Syria have the vast majority of the people claim the US created and supports them. Qaddafi held down the refugee boat trade and worked with the US against terrorism and now that we killed him the boat trade is going wild and we have troops in Libya and are doing bombing against terrorists. Or the drone program that has people in over 7 countries daily living in terror of death from the skies that has killed thousands of innocent people and is the biggest recruiting tool for terrorists. We could go on all night with this stuff about how you ignorant people claim killing millions in other countries, or making them die slowly under undeserved sanctions, is preserving our freedom. But you won’t educate yourself because you wrap yourself in the flag and believe we are the exceptional and the chosen when the reality is the opposite. Most of the world considers the US as the greatest threat to peace and the biggest sponsor of terrorism. So keep your ignorance and blind faith as we kill millions more and bleed this country to fund US world hegemony and dominance as the country slowly falls apart.
Nice summary, snedly arkus.
OSS (What became the CIA) 1948?
Nice propaganda snedly. You need to organize your screed a little better, it’s not very comprehensible.
snedly arkus, ….. that was a really great summary of the dastardly deeds perpetrated by “The Ugly Americans”
But an important one you missed is the fact that we have literally spent billions to prop up and support the Arafat et el and other Palestinian regimes in their quest to destroy Israel and all of the Jewish inhabitants.
The Palestinians were the ones that invented ”suicide bombers” in their quest to kill Israeli Jews.
snedley arkus
The best propaganda touches on facts but lies on the whole truth. You are indeed an accomplished propagandist.
Our defense budget is more than the next 13 nations in the world combined. Realistically, defense should not be more than 4% of GDP (ours is 6%). Much of that money rewards campaign donors who are large military contractors.
However, cutting that 2% of GDP from our defense budget would not even close the deficit. One area we spend too little is infrastructure. How many more train crashes do we need to understand that idea? That would be the first place to spend any extra money. However, there is no extra money.
I’m always amused/appalled by those such as Snedly who complain when the US supports a less-than-perfect government — they NEVER mention the most odious government we ever supported, with aid that dwarfs all the others combined: the Soviet Union in WW2.
The Snedlys of the world also seem to believe that a handful of CIA agents in a country completely determine what happens there, but 500,000 US troops cannot control anything.
snedly arkus —
Instead of merely complaining about America you need to immigrant to one of the countries America is repressing and work for the betterment of that country from within. Renounce your American citizenship and become a citizen of the world. There is so much you could do if you just turned your words into action. When you decide to do so please inform us here.
Eugene WR Gallun
Ed Bo —
Simply and amusingly said.
Eugene WR Gallun
snedly arkus, given your intense dislike of the vicious regime that currently represses you, have you considered emigrating to North Korea?
I’m sure you would find the regime much more to your liking than that of any of the evil, warmongering, Western capitalist states such as the USA, the UK, Australia, or even China and Russia.
Go on, give it a try, you know it makes sense!
So sayith: Eugene WR Gallun – October 8, 2016 at 10:27 am
Gimme a break, ….. Eugene WR, …… what you have told snedly arkus he should do ….. would surely result in a CIA operative giving snedly the “needle”, ….. and that’s a fact, and no pun intended.
Cavorting with prostitutes is not the only thing those CIA operative are skilled at doing.
A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for “more-of-the-same”, such as, to wit:
====================
It is truly frightening the number of people that wants said “more-of-the-same” funded self-interests to continue unabated, with yearly increases of course.
I care about my freedom quite a bit but it’s my own government eroding it (I haven’t been repressed by any muslims). I like human rights as much as the next guy but I can’t legally go kill my neighbor because I suspect he beats his wife. Switch your use of defense with offense because that’s what the money is being used for. Attempting to be the world hegemon eventually generates a destructive blowback; Germany found that out. Cut the budget by half and you’d get better “defense” because we’re out of money, it’s time to think. Since our current M.O. is to destroy small countries and then unsuccessfully try to rebuild what we destroyed, I’d go with spending the money uselessly on trying to fix the non-problem of CAGW.
Warmongering??? There goes what little credibility you once had.
snedly arkus. You challenge others to study history, and then proceed to demonstrate that you know none yourself.
Samuel C Cogar, parnoid much?
So askith ….. MarkW – October 10, 2016 at 9:22 am
MarkW, ….. hopefully, ….. with age and maturity will come knowledge of different event “happenings” that occurred in recent US and world history (past 100 years)…… that you are adamantly refusing to believe ever happened when told about said, ….. which is surely the result of your p-poor nurturing and pathetic miseducation during your adolescent and/or schooling years.
How typical of a leftist.
Anyone who doesn’t buy into your paranoid rantings is just ignorant.
And what next are you going to mimicly “label” me as being, ….. a racist, a bigot, a sexist?
MarkW, ….. here are a couple quotes that you really should “copy” and paste on the front of your PC screen, ….. to wit:
and
And MarkW, re-reading those “quotes” just before you begin to tell someone “What’s what” via a posting to WUWT ……. should remind you to “put your brain into gear before putting your mouth into motion”.
Or you might think of our military budget in the way Robert Heinlein did. “There’s nothing more expensive for a nation than a military that is good, but not good enough to win.”
However, I have no interest whatsoever seeing my tax dollars spent on adventures like Invading Iraq in 2003, bombing Serbia in 1999, and fighting a meaningless battle in Mogadishu in 1993.
In America we have a military class that produces tactical geniuses.
We have a political and academic class that produces strategic morons.
Russia and China murdered some 120 million people domestically during the 20th century, all in support of the most blood-thirsty ideology ever. They employed sustained violence in their attempts to spread this ideology world-wide, using ironically called “wars of liberation” whose intent was enslavement of populations. They were stopped and freedom was preserved chiefly by the US.
Residues of this ideology persist in China and Venezuela, and especially in Cuba where political prisoners vastly dominate the incarcerated. And still, the same murderous ideology motivates progressives in the West, eager to remove freedom of thought and speech and ring down their moralizing tyranny on us all.
Meanwhile, in every single country housing a Muslim community, Islamists murder people in keeping with the violent religious intolerance embedded in Islamic doctrine and preached by mullahs everywhere. All in the interests of a triumphalist Islamic imperialism set on world domination and orthogonally incompatible with every humane value. In Islamic states where non-Muslims are unavailable (having been exterminated and/or expelled), Muslims murder one another over religious differences. And still progressives, hostile to democracy and individual freedom, rage to import Islam everywhere. They accuse with racism, anyone who desires to limit Muslim immigration on entirely rational and evidentiary grounds.
The US has been, and is, the only strong bulwark against any and all of this, so long as the Constitution reigns. And yet, in this world and despite all evidence, to RoHa, it is, “the US [that seems] like … a threat to the world.” Incredible. So go the mindless imbibers of progressive cant.
Making a list of all the things you hate in your country, as snedly arkus has done (I presume he/she is an American) is easy to do, and doubtless he/she will keep warm on winter nights by nursing his/her hatred. But you can do much the same thing for any other major nation in the last century – Russia, Britain, China, Japan, Germany, take your pick. What matters is not the quibbles you have with US foreign policy, but what the world would have been like without the US.
The US has encouraged the concept of an open society where, at least up till quite recently when the climate change police have been flexing their muscles, you do not have to look over your shoulder before expressing your opinions in case a police informer is listening. The US has been responsible for the vast bulk of the innovations that have created the modern world – computers, electronics in general, integrated circuits, the internet, not to mention Facebook, Twitter and all the rest of the social media. The only other country which has the same degree of uninhibited inventiveness is Israel, and no doubt snedly will have just as many harsh words to say about Israel. The US has sincerely, if not always effectively, tried to introduce democracy in other countries, and unlike many other nations, does not bear grudges against its former enemies (remember the Marshall Plan?).
Yes, the US has done things which it would be better if it had not. So, for that matter, have I, and so probably have you, snedly. Dwelling only on the things you dislike, many of which you have expressed as one-sided exaggerations, to the exclusion of all else, is the mark of a very small mind.
Roger, I would totally agree. I will also challenge snedly to find/name a country that he prefers over ours, and to list his reasons.
To Pat, Roger and Joe.- good comments.
I wrote this in 2013 and it seems worth repeating.
Best wishes to the USA on our Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.
– Allan in Calgary
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/04/ipcc-calls-off-planetary-emergency/#comment-1436427
Response to DirkH on October 5, 2013 at 4:21 am
How about some credible sources for your allegations Dirk? Like global warming mania, much of the radical left’s propaganda is fabricated in coffee shops and bars and has little or no basis in fact. However, it is effectively used by scoundrels and fervently believed by imbeciles.
I have a great-uncle buried in France in WW1 – no doubt that war was caused by Teddy Roosevelt – Bully bully!!! Shoot that duke!
My uncle survived Dieppe in 1942 – the only officer in his regiment to get back to England – he swam the first few miles, pushing a rowboat he filled with the only ten survivors from his regiment. We don’t blame the Germans for Dieppe; rightly or wrongly, we blame Lord Louis Mountbatten. It appears that global warming fanatic Prince Charles inherited his intellect.
I suggest that the USA’s Marshall Plan saved many millions of lives and entire societies across Europe, including West Germany. It was and remain the most enlightened and benevolent act in human history.
I travelled into Soviet East Germany through Checkpoint Charlie in July 1989, just before the Berlin Wall fell. It was an economic and environmental disaster! Nothing worked, and that included most of the people. There were no human rights, and human dignity had been crushed. And East Germany was by far the best place in the Former Soviet Union!
I have been back to Germany many times since then, both East and West. I like Germany and Germans, notwithstanding our past differences. But if they get into another war I hope they are on their own. We have lost too many fine young men saving Europe from tyranny, but frankly, it was not worth it.
Europe is falling into the tyranny of a bureaucratic dictatorship through a failure of collective intellect, and it is probable that nothing will save them from themselves.
I am Canadian, and have lived in the USA and have done business on six continents. There are many worse countries in the world than the USA – more than 200 of them. In fact, Canada is blessed to have the USA as our closest neighbour.
When I encounter Pavlovian anti-Americanism here in Canada, typically among our lobotomized lefties, I ask them one question: Which large country would you rather have as your next-door neighbour? Russia? China? Who? ……… ……… Their stunned silence tells the answer.
***************************************************
Pat, Roger, Joe, and others…
Very good points, thanks.
‘snedly arkus’ wrote:
We lost 55,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands more in Vietnam to prop up a hated government that fell anyway.
“We”? Were you there? (Based on your spelling of ‘Viet Nam’, I doubt it.) I met many locals in Viet Nam in the late ’60’s, and not one of them ever expressed any ‘hatred’ toward their government. They simply didn’t look at their government that way; it was as far removed from the average citizen as the UN is from the average American. As usual, you attempt to make false equivalence between North and South Viet Nam, when North and South Korea is the relevant comparison.
The South Vietnamese knew without any doubt that the alternative (dictatorial rule by the North) would be far worse (which was confirmed by subsequent events).
South Viet Nam was successfully invaded and occupied due directly to the incessant ‘anti-war’ propaganda that began in U.S. government .edu factories. Along with the 24/7/365 drumbeat by the media, the ‘anti-war’ propaganda spread to much of the U.S. population. But if the U.S. had truly supported our ally like we supported South Korea, Ho Chi Minh’s plans would never have succeeded.
Yes, the media was culpable. During WWI, WWII and Korea, the media never posted daily and weekly body counts. That was intended to cause lots of hand-wringing—and it worked.
Soldiers die in every war. That should be a primary consideration for the President (LBJ) and Congress, whenever they contemplate going to war. But once the decision is made, the country should unite behind our soldiers. Our lack of unity was directly the fault of the insidious Left, which has infested our once great education system.
But because of the U.S. media’s undermining of our military (eg: Walter Cronkite, etc.), the South Viet Namese people now live under the dictatorship they feared. (Thanx, ABCCBSNBC, etc.)
I wonder if ‘snedly’ is aware that the U.S. mainstrweam media — all the major TV networks, the 50+ largest city newspapers, and most magazines, radio, and gov’t-funded NPR, are all controlled by just six (6) entities? And they all sing from the same hymn book.
And the same one-sided media talking points during the Viet Nam war are seen now in the mainstream media “climate change” narrative (formerly known as “runaway global warming”).
Next, ‘snedly’ says:
We backed a butcher in Korea who antagonized the North and got another war.
You really do have a revisionist view of history. Who is feeding you your misinformation?? North Korea invaded the South for one reason: to forcibly impose a Communist dictatorship on the peninsula. That invasion would have happened no matter who was President of South Korea.
The rest of snedly’s comments have been cut, pasted and re-written from Mother Jones or HuffPo, so there’s no need to deconstruct his false historical propaganda. But he also mentions “…the drone program that has people in over 7 countries daily living in terror of death from the skies…”
…like Julian Assange? Hillary Clinton pushed for a personal drone strike against Assange, but ‘snedly’ doesn’t mention that. I wonder why not?
And:
We could go on all night with this stuff about how you ignorant people claim killing millions in other countries, or making them die slowly under undeserved sanctions, is preserving our freedom.
Since I’m one of snedly’s ‘ignorant people’ who has never read that we’re “killing millions”, I think he must have the U.S. confused with some of his own heroes: Mao, Uncle Joe, Kim Jong Un, Pol Pot, etc.
The U.S. was trying to help relatively free people from being made into slaves of a dictatorship. But as usual, apologists for those regimes blame America for exactly what their side has done: murdered millions of people.
And ‘snedly’ says that the U.S. is causing people in those countries to…
…die slowly under undeserved sanctions.
‘snedly’ is just parroting the Left’s narrative. The fact is that the U.S. is not unilaterally doing anything regarding sanctions. That is the UN’s policy, which ‘snedly’ doesn’t understand (or worse, he does understand) that the Left’s “carbon” scare is killing more people than sanctions ever did. Psychological projection — as usual. Snedly ends with this nonsense:
Most of the world considers the US as the greatest threat to peace and the biggest sponsor of terrorism.
Isn’t it good to know that we have a commenter who speaks for most of the world? And here I thought Iran and North Korea were the ones doing the threatening. ‘Snedly’ adds:
So keep your ignorance and blind faith as we kill millions more and bleed this country to fund US world hegemony and dominance as the country slowly falls apart.
“US world hegemony”?? Snedly is just another ‘useful fool’ who parrots the left’s false narrative.
Our country does seem to be falling apart. But why is that?
Is it because a strong U.S. military has prevented WWIII for the past 70 years? Or, is it because the propaganda-infused snowflakes like ”snedly arkus’ incessantly try to make everyone believe their false narrative:
America… BA-A-A-AD!
Islam, BLM, Algore, etc… GO-O-O-OOD!
Their problem: they have it exactly backward.
dbstealy: In one breath, leftists declare that we should use sanctions rather than go to war. In the next breath they whine about useless sanctions.
Be a socialist, it’s easier than actually thinking.
SIPRI has a more reasonable estimate of Chinese military spending than does the IISS, but it still misses a lot, since so much of China’s industry is owned by the armed forces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
If however, in addition to China’s $215 Bln USD budget, it paid its service members as much as does the US, then its defense spending would zoom well over $415 Bln. Major exporter China and the rest of the world also free-ride on the US Navy, which keeps global sea lines of communication open.
RoHa October 7, 2016 at 7:15 pm
Hello RoHa .
What do you know of the Philippine winter campaign of 1941-42?
Perhaps the Singapore campaign of the same time.
My father as many others were out in the thick of it. He was USAAF enlisted prior to the war arrived at New Guinea early Feb 1942. They held the thin line with garbage because to many thought gee military R&D was not needed nor was procurement of modern equipment and munitions.
The military budget is anywhere from 30% to 60% under what we require.
Example Check the ship lists for the Navy we no longer have any Frigate class ships. These are the light units that would protect merchant ships.
Since the F-14s have been retired we have no long range interceptors for our aircraft carriers. We are using a strike aircraft the F18 for both.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
michael
“The military budget is anywhere from 30% to 60% under what we require.”
And yet far higher than that of any other country.
Are you serious? America currently spends $597 billion per year on the military (according to Wikipedia).
The next highest country is China who spend 215 billion. The USA’s figure is just over 1/3 of the total
for the world. And you are suggesting that the budget needs to be doubled. Halving the USA’s military
budget would still mean that it spends 50% more than China and would save $300 billion. And would
not noticeably reduce the USA’s security. It might even improve it since other nations would not feel
as threatened and so reduce their spend as well.
“The military budget is anywhere from 30% to 60% under what we require.”
And yet far higher than that of any other country.
————————–
Is that on a per capita basis or some other metric?
Because money’s being spent on the wrong things? Lots of sexy stealth planes, with limited capabilities. A replacement for the B2 at $80b. What would the F14 type be used for these days? Threats to the carriers will be either submarines or missiles, neither of which a long range fighter will be any use against.
You’ve no Frigates, because they’re not sexy toys for Admirals to strut about on.
Same here in the UK. We’ve got a couple of carriers being built. They won’t, at this rate, have any planes on them when launched, because we scrapped/sold-off the Harriers & are buying F35s at silly prices & as to when they’ll be in service, well, your guess is as good as mine.
Do we have enough ships to protect them? No. All money has been spent on the sexy big carriers. Probably we’ll struggle to put crews on them.
And yet far higher than that of any other country.
————————–
Is that on a per capita basis or some other metric?
Er, on a total spending basis. More than those of China, Russia, France, UK, India, Japan put together.
RoHa October 7, 2016 at 10:44 pm
Yes Roha Our budget is higher then any other country. That is because we pay our troops. We also feed them.
They are volunteers, and they reenlist time and time again. So others do not have to be drafted, or would you rather have a draft and pay them one tenth of what they now receive?
The cost of new and modern equipment is a small fraction of the over all budget.
Geronimo October 7, 2016 at 10:51 pm
Are you serious? America currently spends $597 billion per year on the military
Yes I am serious, pay attention the neglect has been so bad that that is what we are now faced with.
Lets see at the time the F-15 was rolled out we also developed the F-16 and F18 plus the A-10.
Now we are trying to make F-35 replace all. We cut R&D to the bone so now we have nothing in the pipeline.
The 30%-60% figure is due to past budget cut and during a time when we were fight wars.
The real question is will our enemies (Real military powers) give us the time. They have been building and testing, and the bulk of their spending has been on hardware. While we have squandered our wealth on irrelevant climate grants and useless and unnecessary renewables.
michael
The size of the military budget is determined by need, not by what other countries are spending.
I don’t think it’s as simple as cut the DOD budget equaling approximately 16%(includes the cost for veterans and foreign security) of our federal budget. During the Reagan years this figure averaged 21% and more recently averages are around 16-17% when we’re not fighting a war. Healthcare and Social Security are around one-fourth of the budget each, or say 50% together. Of course, WWII era spending was the highest pushing 41% for a few years in the early ’40s.
Under the Obummer years there has been a decline to approximately 14% FY 2016 from a high of 20%. President Trump is going to need some wizardry to get the military forces, and equipment levels back where they need to be, fix the VA problems and deal with the debt load all at the same time.
Hopefully he will cut the most insignificant and valueless entitlements, green energy subsidies(150 BBBBillion!) and tax benefits(9 BBBBillion!)and any asshat program supporting climate change. We spend 14 times more on green energy then we do on Embassy security- the families of the 4 murdered patriots in Benghazi should rest well knowing they lost loved ones because Obummer wants a longer lasting light bulb.
Based on current factors, federal spending on health care programs will more than double over the next decade, growing by $1 trillion—from $962 billion in 2014 to $1.9 trillion in 2024. Spending on Social Security, the largest federal program today, will surge by 77 percent, from $845 billion in 2014 to $1.5 trillion in 2024. IF, IF, IF the Co-Don of the Clinton Crime Family, who has echoed Obummer saying climate change is our no. 1 enemy, wins the WH. Sorry I got a little off the topic, but it always does come down to the filthy lucre.
As for the topic at hand, any federal monies going to Mr. McKibbles and Bits should be immediately halted, any spent grant money returned and then he should be brought to a state with the death penalty, and summarily executed for inciting treasonous acts.
We’re the world leader in military tech. We’ve hollowed out so many of our industries by shipping them overseas that I’m glad there is at least something that has to stay here for national security reasons.
The government had no problem bailing out GM and Chrysler, who promptly sold out to foreign ownership or shipped production to Mexico. Yes I’m sure there is some major waste in military spending, but we’re spending over $100 billion per year on waste fraud and abuse of government health insurance programs. At least with military spending it contributes to a constitutional imperative to defend the country, and like the space program there are many spin off benefits to our society over time. Darpa funding for the earliest foundations of the Internet for example.
Nobody has shipped our industries overseas.
To the extent that they have left it’s because government taxation and regulations make it impossible to stay in the US and continue to compete internationally.
Wrong, they did not leave because of government taxation and regulation, they left in pursuit of lower labor costs.
It really is sad the way some people insist on trying to squeeze the entire world into whatever one dimensional vision benefits them the most.
Lets see, according to you, companies don’t care how much money the government takes from them. But they will up and move in order to save a few pennies in labor costs.
Areas with low labor costs, also have low productivity. The two cancel out. However the economically illiterate can use it as an excuse to hate those who don’t give them what they want.
As a percentage of GDP, the defense budget is about as small as it’s ever been.
Freedom isn’t cheap, but some people who claim to love freedom are.
Well the US had a very minimal defence budget, right before WW-II it was.
The roads are already financed by gasoline taxes, so they are self sustaining.
And schools are a local issue so NOT the business of the Federal Government.
But Defence is the business of the Federal Government and one of the few they are allowed to lay taxes to pay for.
G
It is not ISIS that we need to be losing sleep at night over.
Romney was right. Obama is dangerously naive. Putin and Russia are the US’s most significant threat. Putin plays geopolitics and military power like it was a chess game and he is a chess master. Obama plays geopolitics like it is a game of tic-tac-toe where every game can end in a draw with little effort. Obama’s narcissism doesn’t allow him to admit Putin is eating his lunch and kcking sand in his face.
Joel…..you are delusional; the only reason Russia would be a threat would be for the U.S. to continue supporting ISIS and to attack Syrian gov’t forces or Russian forces. Turkey, Saudia Arabia, U.S., Qatar, and the European cucks to the U.S – NATO, are the evil forces in the MENA.
Koko,
Russia is the only country that can existentially threaten us.
Hillary and Obozo were blind to the threat. They think you can reason with a bully with anice big red rest button and appeasement.
ISIS are pissants. Like the Barbary Coast pirates of the 19th century, they threatened, and then we kick the living shit out them. Obama is delusional but still ISIS won’t destroy us. Externally, Russia is our biggest threat and adversary. Our biggest threat internally is from the likes of Socialist dictator-wannabe Obama and his divide and conquer race-baiting politics.
“Russia is the only country that can existentially threaten us.”
But it is the US that is threatening Russia. It is the US that pushes NATO forces up to the Russian border.
Russia will always be a threat to any one or any country that ponders “world domination” due to their FUBAR mindset.
Because they trusted Hitler, …. 26,000,000 (26 million) of their population died as a result of WWII.
And thus the Russians are not going trust another country and/or its leaders ever again and they will always be prepared to defend their borders, no matter what.
So, ya’ll might as well get use to that fact …… and stop posting of your silly commentary about what you think Russia should or shouldn’t be doing.
After Russia moves troops close to a NATO border. Also, The US isn’t threatening nuclear war.
kokoda —
Please explain to me how the US caused Russia to invade the Crimea.
Eugene WR Gallun
RoHa —
Those countries formally of the Soviet Empire opted to join NATO as was there right. NATO forces were not moved into those countries until Russia began massing troops along their borders. Even then the NATO forces were “show the flag” forces and not capable of attacking Russia or even of defending the country they were in. Get your facts right about who did what first.
Eugene WR Gallun
.
Eugene WR Gallun October 8, 2016 at 11:14 am
“Please explain to me how the US caused Russia to invade the Crimea.”
Because the Crimea and the eastern area of what is now the Ukraine was originally part of Russia, it was added to the Ukraine by Stalin so it would look like a legitimate country for voting purposes in the newly formed UN. Now the since the Ukraine wants to be in the European camp the areas that are predominantly Russian want to be reunited with Russia proper. And of course Russia has always taken on the roll of being protectors of the ethnic Slavs. See the Balkan wars of liberation in the 19 century and WW1.
michael
Mike the Morlock —
You don’t read very well. You gave me reasons why Russia wrongly thought it had the right to invade another country.
My question was — explain how the US caused Russia to invade the Crimea.
You blamed the Russia invasion of the Crimea on the US. Explain that
Also let me say that Russia may excuse its behavior by calling itself the protector of ethnic Slavs but Nazi Germany considered itself the protector of ethnic Germans. The Nazis invaded a few countries to “protect their own”.
Mike the Morlick, you defend the undefendable.
Eugene WR Gallun
Eugene WR Gallun October 8, 2016 at 9:28 pm
My question was — explain how the US caused Russia to invade the Crimea.
It was your question. Russia re-occupied Russian lands. They were always Russian. I defend nothing.
They from their point or view invaded no one.
By the way they were this counties first friend and ally. Yes I read quit well. Try being a little less political and more historical.
They wanted to reestablish the earlier friendship the two countries had before the communists took power.
This administration screwed that up like everything else.
michael
In other words, the way to peace is to give Putin whatever he wants.
RoHa, actually it is Russia that is pushing it’s border up to NATO forces.
So the only way to have peace with Russia is to make sure that they are the only superpower and nobody ever challenges them.
The Quislings are alive and well.
Mike the Morlock
October 8, 2016 at 5:07 pm
You have it bass-ackwards with regard to the Donbas. For that matter, much of present Russia across the Don was also originally Ukrainian, not Russian. Ukrainian is still spoken in the Southern Federal District of Russia and adjacent oblasts.
Before Russian Muscovy expanded into the area, the Donbas was a border region within the larger Borderlands, ie Ukraine. Two Ukrainian-speaking Cossack hosts met in the Donbas, the Zaporozhian Sich, based upon the Dnipro, and the Don Host.
Russia, Poland-Lithuania and the Ottoman Turks (allied with Crimean Tatar slave-raiders) fought over the region for centuries, but its people remained Ukrainian. In the 19th century, the Russian Empire moved Russians into the Donbas to exploit its coal reserves and develop industry, with foreign capital. Then, in the 20th century, the Soviet Union starved millions of Ukrainians to death there, moving in yet more Russians to replace them.
Even today, the rural population of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts are still Ukrainian, while the cities are dominated by Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians. There is a reason why Putin won’t allow free and fair plebiscite in the Donbas.
Might I suggest actually studying history rather than regurgitating Putin’s propaganda lies?
Please try to keep Russia and the old Soviet Union as separate entities.
The USSR included all kinds of states that were never Russia.
G
Wow you’ve swallowed Hillary’s bait…hook, line and sinker!
Putin and Erdogan and Duterte and Assad and all the other ‘strong men’ nut jobs who peoples will turn to such is the vacuum that Obama has created. This self important narcissist has Peaced on Our Time just like that other fantasist Chamberlain (although given the fresh, vivid and brutal memories of WW1 he at least had a reasonable excuse whereas Obama had memories of a nation with a stubbed toe by comparison.)
In fairness to Neville Chamberlain:
During World War 1 Chamberlain held the position of Director of National Service, with responsibility for coordinating conscription and ensuring that essential war industries were able to function with sufficient workforces. He was entirely familiar with the horrors of “The Great War”, having ordered millions of young men from all over the British Empire to their deaths or horrific injuries during WW1.
Half of the soldiers who participated for the full duration of the Great War were killed or seriously injured – many tens of millions of young men were destroyed. In Britain and the Commonwealth nations, entire regional regiments were wiped out, and whole communities had no young men left.
While I was five, I met Brigadier General Hammie Gault, who founded the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI), the last privately-raised regiment in the British Empire. The PPCLI were “First in the Field” of the Canadian regiments, and bore the brunt of the early fighting. Of the one thousand enlisted men of the original contingent, only about thirty survived. Of the one hundred officers, only two survived – Hammie Gault was one of them – he was wounded twice and had his leg amputated. Fully 97% of the original PPCLI contingent were lost, according to Gault’s biography. That is just the story of one regiment in WW1. There were countless others…
Britain was utterly unprepared for war in 1938 when Chamberlain signed the Munich Accord with Hitler. Had he declared war against Germany then, Britain would have been defeated. Chamberlain bought much-needed time, and history condemned him for it. He resigned in May 1940, and Winston Churchill became Prime Minister.
In his resignation broadcast, Chamberlain said:
“For the hour has now come when we are to be put to the test, as the innocent people of Holland, Belgium, and France are being tested already. And you and I must rally behind our new leader, and with our united strength, and with unshakable courage fight, and work until this wild beast, which has sprung out of his lair upon us, has been finally disarmed and overthrown.”
Chamberlain remained in Cabinet. Dying of cancer, he offered his resignation to Churchill on 22 September, 1940. The Prime Minister was initially reluctant to accept; but as both men realised that Chamberlain would never return to work, Churchill finally allowed him to resign. The Prime Minister asked if Chamberlain would accept the highest order of British chivalry, the Order of the Garter, of which his brother had been a member. Chamberlain refused. He said he would “prefer to die plain ‘Mr. Chamberlain’ like my father before me, unadorned by any title”.
A few days before his death, Chamberlain wrote:
“So far as my personal reputation is concerned, I am not in the least disturbed about it. The letters which I am still receiving in such vast quantities so unanimously dwell on the same point, namely without Munich the war would have been lost and the Empire destroyed in 1938 … I do not feel the opposite view … has a chance of survival. Even if nothing further were to be published giving the true inside story of the past two years I should not fear the historian’s verdict.”
His ashes are buried in Westminster Abbey.
Winston Churchill eulogised Chamberlain in the House of Commons three days after his death:
“Whatever else history may or may not say about these terrible, tremendous years, we can be sure that Neville Chamberlain acted with perfect sincerity according to his lights and strove to the utmost of his capacity and authority, which were powerful, to save the world from the awful, devastating struggle in which we are now engaged. This alone will stand him in good stead as far as what is called the verdict of history is concerned.”
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I
The war had profound consequences in the health of soldiers. Of the 60 million European military personnel who were mobilized from 1914 to 1918, 8 million were killed, 7 million were permanently disabled, and 15 million were seriously injured.
Epilogue:
My grandmother’s youngest brother, Thomas Rodgers Sample joined the East Ontario Regiment in 1914 and was killed in action September 29th, 1918 near Arras, France, just six weeks before the Treaty of Versailles was signed. He was 22 years of age. He is buried at Bucquoy Road Cemetery, Pas de Calais, France.
Virtual War Memorial
http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/memorials/canadian-virtual-war-memorial/detail/179428?Thomas%20Rodgers%20Sample
I have a letter from Thomas Sample to his mother, discovered in the Sample family bible. Written in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the troopship prior to crossing the Atlantic, it promises his mother that he will soon be safely home again.
My father remembered, at the age of five, how his mother cried all night when the sad news came. This is but one story of the tens of millions of solder’s deaths in The Great War.
Neville Chamberlain did is best to prevent the repeat of this senseless carnage, and when that was impossible, he delayed the outbreak of war until Britain and the Empire were more prepared.
***************************************************************
Right you are Joel. Obummer believes his own pr and thinks his legacy will show him to be the great statesman[sic]. I was bored the other day so I perused the DSM-IV, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, to see what category(s) this ass clown would best fit. I think I agree with you that Narcissistic Personality Disorder fits him to a tee, but I’ll add comorbidity w/Dissociative Identity Disorder. In reality he’s a sheepherder from Kenya that has been a George Soros sock puppet for so long he doesn’t even feel the hand up his giggy hole anymore.
“Putin and Russia are the US’s most significant threat”
I think you have it backwards.
The USA and NATO are the most significant threat to Russia.
Remember, the Russians are in Syria at the behest of the democratically elected government, while the uninvited US is there with the explicit intention of supplying, training and using its air power to support the “rebels” who have been clearly shown to be predominantly ISIL, with a predilection for stunts such as putting seventeen Yazdi women in an iron cage and burying them alive.
Given the serious problems currently besetting the Middle East resulting from ill-considered and even more poorly implemented US interference in the affairs of the locals, displacing the local rulers and thus unleashing the many and varied violent factions they were keeping under control, why do you consider it is acceptable to directly oppose the Russians, the only state on Earth with both the will and the wherewithal to confront the problem of resurgent Islam?
Democratically elected government of Syria? Now that thar is funny. Saddam Hussein was likewise democratically elected, by 99.9% of the vote.
YHGTBSM!
The Alawite-dominated Ba’athist regime has never permitted a free and fair election since it came to power after three progressively more oppressive coups in the ’60s and early ’70s, for the good reason that it would lose overwhelmingly. Alawites number about 11% of the population, vs. around 74% for Sunni Muslims, including both Arabs and Kurds. A less democratic regime would be hard to find. Even Saddam enjoyed more support, as Sunni Arabs were over 20% of Iraq’s population.
Assad’s tyrannical regime slaughtered tens of thousands of Sunnis repeatedly, whenever they rose up. That’s how the Ba’athists remained in power, not by elections. Russia and China still recognize Assad, but the other permanent members of the UN Security Council don’t. France, the UK, the US and EU recognize the Syrian National Council, as does every Arab state except Iraq (and Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen) and every other Muslim majority state except Iran.
Assad would have been long gone but for support from Russia and since 1979 from Iran. The devastating war is his responsibility, and Russia’s and Iran’s. That Turkey, Arab states and later the West supported the rebels doesn’t explain why 100,000 ex-soldiers and civilian volunteer fighters rose up when they had they opportunity in 2011, as Sunnis had repeatedly done before.
The US in any case is mainly occupied fighting ISIS in Syria, not in supporting the Free Syrian Army. Our attempts to do so in any case have been ineffective.
This is getting way off topic, no further comments on this subject will be published.
Anthony,
Thanks for accepting my long reply on a tangential topic.
I note however that the Syrian Civil War has been blamed on climate change.
This person is seriously deranged. People like him and I dare say Clinton and Obama actually are hoping that there are multiple casualties from Hurricane Matthew . The more the better. This is the ammunition they need to fight this so called war and over the last ten to fifteen years they have been left short of bullets. The fanatics such as Bill McKibben are sinister with their anti human attitude. Hopefully Matthew will peter out and be another disappointment for these lunatic fanatics
McKibben is the autistic kid who gets kissed once, and decides he is an expert on women. Or something.
If you track back to 2008 Hansen was on a book tour and said the PPM had to go back to 350. There was this nitwit geek McKibben who was attending some Vermont college. He decided to make it a career. 350.org was born, when the PPM was like 385.
It is pathetic that the media treat this fool like he is an expert.
McKibben is in his mid fifties. Dad was a writer, and he was a writer from day one. Went to Harvard and then worked for the “New Yorker.” He was able to retire to Vermont in 1987 and was was aboard the Global Warming gravy train with Hansen from the very beginning. An armchair existence.
Once, to research a story about the homeless, he went out and camped on the streets. There he met his wife, a social worker. Not a very typical experience for a homeless man, but I suppose he now assumes he knows more about the homeless than the homeless do. He doesn’t.
To do what exactly? It’d be of more benifit to every one. To simply supply a cheaper and reliable energy source to the masses.
You know, like China and India do.
Our coal is demonized as is our gas in Australia. India China and Japan happily buy it for a pittance to help generate that cheap reliable power.All have economys going gang busters.
If America ever needs a more in your face example of what this tool is advocating. They need look no further than the state of South Australia who “practice” what he preaches. No industry and the lights out with every half decent storm. And let us not get into what my beleaguered brothers in South Australia are charged to turn the lights on.
Why if I make a profit from a gullible public, by selling something that does not deliver what I claim, am I charged with fraud?
It must be a terrifying world he lives in. Seek help Bill
It’s all a big lie though and he knows it. He’s just a whore, paid to lobby for more big money for other f-wit pretend professionals who neither can nor want to have real professions.
…. but yes, a career of lying about carbon dioxide must give him some pause if he ever looks in a mirror.
I really think these people at least halfway believe their own BS. The other half is self-delusion, or the ever popular “end justifies the means” which is where liberals have been for decades.
These people are convinced– the media lies have sold them. Luckily here in Vermont there’s a lot of opposition to windmills as the experience people have with them doesn’t live up to the feel-good hype, and as a result of the deceptions from big wind, allied with Vermont state government, people are starting to wonder if the whole thing isn’t just a crock. If you sell me BS about wind turbines and insist on it, how do I know you aren’t also selling me BS about warming?
The most important part of this war will be to declare all political opponents Traitors to the Nation and send them all to political re-indoctrination camps.
After reading his comments, I would have to say Bill McKibben is completely delusional when it comes to CAGW. I bet he stays awake at night worrrying about this. Wake up, Bill! Snap out of it!
A useful idiot to the ideologists pushing the AGW meme. He’s popular because he’s one of the chosen to proselytize.
As I always point out, McKibben is an English major from, God help us, Harvard. He thought the world would go to hell in a thermal hand basket if we passed 350 ppm of CO2. We’re at 400 and zero, zilch, zip, nada has taken place. When you tell people that 400 ppm is equivalent to 4 CO2 molecules for every 10,000 of other gases the panic level tends to drop a bit.
What took you so long to realize McKibben was ‘off the rails’? They may appear friendly, but they are more evil than ISIS – it just takes longer for the people to die.
The worst thing is that they think they’re holy.
“What took you so long to realize McKibben was ‘off the rails’? ”
Hint: He was never on them!
I was disappointed when Anthony broke bread with him and painted him reasonable. He’s clearly closer to Al Gore or what rational people call a Moonbat.
Exactly
I don’t view him as “reasonable” any more.
Sir, McKibbon is off the rails but some of the comments on this meme are also really out there. Of course no American office holder is going to adopt his extreme position. The angst of some commentators shows they have been listening to too much talk radio. America when it works is moderate and practical. President Obama and I expect Ms. Clinton will be the same.
The Clintons are already on the zero carbon band-wagon. So more of this is what can be expected if Mrs. Clinton is elected.
Then there is the Clinton, Gore, Branson association.
And Gore continues to defy a Congressional subpoena while at the same time campaigning for Clinton.
Before we use up the entire defense budget building “large quantities of solar panels and turbine blades,” let’s start with the budget of the Commander and Chief, including his travel and secret service budget. That way we can test the idea on a smaller scale and see how that goes first.
When the left has an idea they immediately want to jump all in and implement it on a grand scale without considering cost, viability, or unintended consequences. Obamacare is such an idea. So is the funding of Iran’s missile and weapons programs based on a vague and unenforceable promise to delay Nuclear research. Come to think of it, I can’t think of any leftist ideas we have tried, from the war on poverty to higher taxes and bigger government, that have actually worked and made the nation better.
What Nuclear Research are they delaying? They don’t have to do “research” to build a bomb. That is a known commodity. Just send a few guys to school in the US and they’ll get it figured out just fine. Pretty sure that their white coats know everything they need to know already. They just need the resources, not the research.
Testing the idea on a smaller scale is brilliant, common sense, and, alas, more commonly ignored.
The genius of limiting Federal goverment power, and state rights helped insure smaller scale testing of solutions to common problems. Regretfully this is just another fundemental US ideal, now ignored, untaught, and barely debated.
“Before we use up the entire defense budget building “large quantities of solar panels and turbine blades,” let’s start with the budget of the Commander and Chief, including his travel and secret service budget. That way we can test the idea on a smaller scale and see how that goes first.”
The idea has already been tested and found wanting. Look at the blackout in South Australia. That’s the future if we keep going down that road.
We shouldn’t build even one more windmill, or solar thermal plant. That leaves us with solar panels on the roof, and nuclear power, for the alarmists/Greens to implement if they insist on reducing CO2
Windmills and Solar Thermal are dead ends. A pipe dream. The sooner we realize this, the better off we will be.
Remember when the mad emperor Caligula declared war on Neptune and ordered his army to attack the sea and gather up shells as spoils? That seems almost like a level-headed foreign policy now.
At least he had something to show for it.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/dec/14/politifact-sheet-our-guide-to-military-spending-/
Excerpt from the Politifact piece link above:
“…..Has the military budget dropped under Obama, and if so, who is to blame?
Overall spending on national security includes the Pentagon budget as well as spending by other agencies, such as the Energy Department’s work on nuclear weapons. Spending increased in 2010 and 2011, but it has fallen every year for four years since then by a cumulative 15 percent.
Other ways of looking at the question show declines as well. National security spending made up 20.1 percent of the federal budget in 2010, but in 2015 it was 15.9 percent. Over the same period, spending fell from 4.6 percent of gross domestic product to 3.3 percent……”
“Has the military budget dropped under Obama, and if so, who is to blame?”
The military budget has dropped because Obama and the Republican Congress wanted it to drop. The supposedly conservative Republican Congress signed off on all this. Then they complain Trump is not conservative enough for them. Trump is going to increase military spending, if elected. Who is more conservative?
Mr. McKibben is as honest in his current endeavor as he was when he pretended to be a Native American.
“Mr. McKibben is as honest in his current endeavor as he was when he pretended to be a Native American.”
I wonder if he is related to that fake Cherokee Indian, Senator Elizabeth Warren?
fauxcohantas
Bill appears to be at war with reality, perhaps even sanity.
The real question in the US is how much real influence McKibben has on Hillary Clinton. Is she stringing him along, or does she believe? The most recent Wikileaks dump has Hillary admitting a “public position” and a “private postiton” as her practice. I think HRC is scarier if she really is a true beleiver in CAGW.
As an outside observer of the US, I would say she believes in Hilary, and everything and everyone else is expendable.
I think you have it right, Felflames. It’s all about Hillary, in her mind.
And Hillary has an entire criminal enterprise already organized and ready to go, as soon as she gets in Office. Can you say “Totalitarian” takeover?
If you think Obama abused the U.S. Constitution, you haven’t seen anything yet. I really fear for the future if she gets elected.
Hillary and her latest Bill get along just great.
McKibben is an ideologue. Most politicians are practical. They may give lip service to nonsense but usually know what is too extreme. Liberal and conservative are buzz words. Usually we elect moderates who lean a little one way or the other.
None!
I suppose in their view, it’s a quick way of getting $500B and a couple of million people for the AGW cause
And 350.org continues to defy a Congressional subpoena along with others such as Al Gore and Greenpeace.
These organizations must have plenty of backing in the U.S. Congress and Senate to get away with this.
They are gambling on the outcome of the November U.S. election.
Unfortunately, it’s probably a good bet.
Re: Branson
opencorporates
Virgin Unite USA, Inc., Est. c. 2006, parent organization in the U.S.
Incorporated: Wilmington, DE, USA, Listed as a ‘Foreign’ corporation.
Entry for information:
https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_nm/4887115
Follow the links and more information is online.
Re: Branson & Gore
Internet search:
Virgin Unite and/or Virgin Earth
Much more information online.
Completely nuts! The most obvious and useful thing to do is JUST PLANT TREES! Have a national campaign to put the tree cover back with the appropriate native species where it does not conflict with food production and other human or environmental needs. The armed forces would keep fit should they be called into REAL action. Have a nation building-planet saving focus on something actually useful, keep the environmentalists content with putting habitat back for wildlife and enhancing the landscape. These are the things they probably really wanted before becoming confused and used by the Renewables scammers. Yes clean up real pollution like that from vehicles, industrial run off, smokey flues etc but please someone stop them prattling on about life-giving carbon dioxide. This gas was selected as the SCARE THE POPULATION gas as it is the common denominator to all human activity! Not because it is actually dangerous. Water vapour is the essential and significant ‘greenhouse’ gas and natural cycles dominate overall climate change as it always has and always will.
As a bonus, putting the tree cover back will help soak up the scary carbon dioxide, calm the populace, provide limitless human amenity, promote wellbeing and even provide a genuinely renewable energy, (but don’t send it to Drax).
And planting trees is very cheap too. Collect seeds (great fun), plant in recycled plastic trays in compost made from human waste, grow on for a couple of years, plant in the ground, protect with a recycled plastic tree tube supported with a recycled plastic tree stake. Weed and water if necessary and enjoy the fruits of your labour. Do this across the nation/planet a few trillion times instead of making inefficient solar panels and blades for those ridiculous fairground spinning bird slashers and you have your environment back, everybody benefits and in the meantime fund the engineers to develop safe nuclear energy generation. Take the emotive word ‘nuclear’ out and call it ‘Thorium Heat’ (or whatever) and all of a sudden it sounds warm and comforting!
Recognise that human populations stabilise in wealthy ‘developed’ nations and support third world development to reach this stage. Fund tree planting, education, health, infrastructure etc and discover that once developed the population will have the means to protect the world they live in and as a bonus…well…plant more trees!
I normally read posts and seldom contribute, but having heard that ridiculous Christiana Figueres on the BBC yesterday trying to point at hurricane Matthew as an example of what will happen if we don’t put windmills up I am spurred into action. She is a complete nutter!
Thank you for reading and please pass this world-changing post onto the White House, Pentagon, UN HQ etc.
Join Arbor Day Foundation. As far as I can tell, they do good work for little cost. I have many trees from them growing in my yard.
Edward, your post makes WAY to much sense to ever be implemented. Logical inexpensive solutions to non problems are the LAST thing goverment politicians want.
The US is already a net reducer of CO2. There has been enough regrowth that it exceeds harvesting by nearly 50%. Trees are naturally spreading everywhere they can grow, although adding greenery in cities would be good. Basically from the Mississippi west to the Sierra Nevada mountains the climate/plant cover gradually changes from primarily forest to semi arid to desert in the Southwest. The eastern half of the country is especially green. Remember that most of the forest in the US was logged for building and to clear space for farming back when 95% of the population farmed the land for a living. Currently barely 1% of the population farms, and the number is going down. Farmland is ~40% and going down very gradually.
Countries like Haiti, primarily through bad governance, burnt all their trees. The Dominican Republic, on the same island, had the good sense to start burning fossil fuels instead of their trees many years ago. The most sensible foreign aid for Haiti probably would be to just ship them propane stoves and tankersful of propane for free. We’d probably spend less and in 10-20 years they’d have an economy again that we could buy stuff from them.
Of course, no sensible politician would want to have anything to do with fossil fuels, at least not in public!
A tree takes time to grow, but we don’t have time anymore, don’t we; and – didn’t Reagan himself say it – trees are the biggest polluters. They will also attract men with ear-deafening leave-blowers, or do you really want to see your old mother or your young daughter raking leaves mind-numbingly for hours, only to watch one of the extra hurricanes blow away the heaps, clogging up gullies and leading to even more flooding. Furthermore, trees will be felled by the odd beetle, virus or, well, hurricane, all of which have increased dramatically due to Global Change, pardon me, Climate Change. Any tree left will be cut down mercilessly by chain-saw wielding men, who take no consideration of owls, other rare birds or aforementioned beetles. Do you really want your daughter to be taken to task for this in school?
Apart from that, trees, plant cover and water make a good climate and environment. That is obvious to every reasonable being. Tree planting is giving, but for Global Change to happen, that is, to control people, you have to take away something and ration what you left them, utilizing their nether instincts. They are still fighting „Capitalism“ (which exists nowhere) and their weapon is energy-rationing.
Solar and wind power require lots of treeless land, including for access roads and transmission lines, meaning plenty of chopping down of trees. So, not building stupid, unreliable and expensive “renewable” energy plants would certainly mean more trees. As far as planting more, it sounds good in theory, but probably isn’t very practical. If people want more trees on their land, they will plant them, simple as that. No “campaign” is needed.
All around the Mediterranean, forests grew by the score. The Phoenecians came and went, the Greeks came and went and the Romans came and went. And with the Romans went the forests. Today, in the area karst is predominant, or desert (Northern Africa).To reforst that area ought to be primary target, not the hunt for some Co2 molecules that are so rare in the air but yet give a fine pretext to draw public money for “research” purposes. That money, used for reforestation, is a much better investment. Just sayin.
I love it. There is not a shred of evidence that we are at war with any changes in the climate. They yell shrilly that we have to fight but against what? They see their scam going down and are pulling out the stops to try to convince the public that they are telling the truth. Desperation has a smell and he stinks.
The Obama Administration has already wasted millions of scarce DOD dollars on green projects. Solar panels are going up at military bases to demonstrate a “commitment” to green energy. The Air Force and Navy are already being forced to test-run ships and planes on fuels adulterated with obscenely expensive biofuels. It’s all been a fiasco.
http://www.wnd.com/files/2015/01/toon012815.jpg
I could see this moron being Hillary’s EPA head.
Nonsense!
The reality is that the climate change we are experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate. There are many good reasons to be conserving on the use of fossil fuels but climate change is not one of them. Our federal government is broke and deep in debt with no money to spend on anything let alone waste it on climate change which we cannot affect no matter how much money we spend. According to Obama’s economic “plan” the federal government is suppose to be posting annual surpluses to be used to start paying down the debt but that is not happening. To date Obama’s economic “plan” has failed completely. We have yet to bring the troops home in FY 2014. The President has failed to come up with the budget cuts that are suppose to have gone along with the tax hike on the rich and the ACA taxes as part of the President’s balanced approach to deficit reduction. Then what about the President’s “free preschool for all” that is still awaiting funding? We are so deep in debt we need to be spending less money and not more. Spending all the money in the world will have no effect on climate because we do not know how to intimidate the sun and the oceans to provide the ideal climate all the time We have not even defined what the ideal climate is let alone figured out how to achieve it. Turning all CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere to O2 and graphite will not stop hurricanes from forming, It would end life on Earth as we know it but have no effect on climate.
McKibben says what millions of his supporters believe, or close to it.
But there are so many in line to divert the defense budget for things like education and infrastructure
Chicken Little is on the loose, good luck getting Bill back on his meds.
The primary requirement to survive global warming or global cooling, whichever occurs, is cheap, reliable energy.
Do you really expect that a member of the American Academy should know that? It might smash his “Weltanschauung”, so he prefers to ignore it. That’s how these cloud-cuckoo-landers are.
This guy looks like one of those creepy clowns .
Senile
Oops, left out a few words on my above post. The vast majority polled in Iraq and Syria claim the US created and supports ISIS. In Yemen Saudi Arabia is destroying cities and targeting civilians with near 10,000 civilians dead. Drop a bomb near a hospital in Allepo and Obama and Kerry are screaming war crimes yet the Saudi’s are intentionally destroying hospitals and medical facilities in Yemen and no one says a word. 55,000 dead Americans in the Vietnam war with hundreds of thousands maimed or cancer ridden years later from agent orange. Over 3 million civilians dead in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia either from US actions or from the US destabilizing the area. Lots of Vietnamese cancer cases from agent orange. More tons of bombs dropped on Laos than in all of WW2. Afghanistan elected a socialist government that had goals of educating it’s citizens and elevating healthcare but the US created Al Qaeda to create a situation that would draw the Russians into the conflict. Zibignew Brezinski admitted that was the goal of funding of what would become Al Qaeda told Jimmy “peacemaker” Carter when he signed the bill. Most of the governments we overthrew south of our border promised to educate and lift their citizens, which US corporations did not want, and we installed brutal dictators that collectively killed millions of innocent people. People claim socialism does not work so why did the US depose, or attempted to, every socialist leader south of it’s borders shortly after being elected. What was the US afraid of?
…Gee, I bet you think Venezuela is a paradise !! D’oh !!
Ah, good. Now, could you get back to why mcFibben’s wanting to spend 600 Billion on a non-issue is not a good thing?
Snedly, do you live under the freedoms and protection of the USA and its Constitution? Or are you sufficiently armed with your moral fortitude to live in another country, one, preferably, that shares your disdain for the USA?
You can both be right. Yes, you have the freedom to speak your mind in the U.S., but that doesn’t invalidate Snedly’s collection of historical facts.
I also wouldn’t jump to conclusions about Snedly’s regard for the U.S. in general, or even about his living in the country. Sometimes the most ardent critics of someone or something are the ones who care the most.
If he cared the most, Michael, he wouldn’t leave crucial historical details out of his ‘critique.’
Yes, Otter. He left out Lincoln’s illegal war against Southern Independence that has led to Southern Cultural genocide that continues to this day.
snedly’s facts are either wrong, or completely out of context.
“Oops, left out a few words on my above post. The vast majority polled in Iraq and Syria claim the US created and supports ISIS.”
You need to substitute “Obama and Hillary” for “US”.
Obama and Hillary did enable ISIS with their pacifist “cut and run” policy, but they didn’t create it.
Nonsense!
Sorry hb, but that is completely correct, no matter what your professor told you to think.
Well snedly, your propaganda screed hasn’t improved… you really need to work on it. Hopefully, since you have such disdain for the US, you live in some other country.
snedly arkus —
There is a little poem that goes —
Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away
You are haunted by your delusions and the America you think exists has no more reality than the man upon the stairs.
I bet this moron felt that polls conducted in the former Soviet Union were perfectly accurate as well.
Sheesh, the ability of some people to believe whatever they need to believe.
I’d really like to know why presumably intelligent people such as Bill can so adamantly make ridiculous statements such as this. I really doubt he believes in the words coming from his mouth but he (and countless others) just keep saying them. It cannot be just for the money, there must be something else.
The latest “leaks” of Hillary speeches also explains McKibbon. “..you have to have a Public position and a Private position”. The public position is what was tested by focus groups to be “convincing” even if you don’t believe it yourself, as long as it advances your agenda.
On the other hand, each may be true believers in their respective “causes” (prevent CAGW, or in Hillary’s case the US becoming part of a global, socialist world order – as also revealed in the leaked speeches.)
Just look at snedly.
Pssst, Bill…
Bomber Barry and his Green/Left government are already spending around $600 billion a year (disclosed) on non-threats. You want to attack the climate when it’s being all warm and fuzzy and quaintly medieval?
Do we really want to spend more money on schools and education?
To date we have spent zillions of dollars on this, yet the results of all this spending are both a disgrace and an embarassment. And each year it gets worse. I have just read an article that claims 30% of college graduates are functionally illiterate and innumerate.
Better that we cut spending on schools and education by 50%, and force those that really want an education to pay for it.
I guarantee this would immediately purge the system of most of the garbage that is being passed off as education, and most of the left wing lunatics who are masquerading as teachers will discover what unemployment is.
there are some crazy things going on in British politics, the USA is catching fast, I wonder is this just an Anglo-Saxon thing, or something to do with decline in the sunspot count /sarc
Nah – it’s a more general western European thing. The Germans are even loopier than Obama, and the Brits aren’t far behind. What is hilarious is that moonbats (George Monbiot will have an esteemed place on history for being the inspiration for this term) like weepy Bill can’t, won’t or don’t notice that the rest of the major powers (Russia, China, India, even Japan) are completely ignoring him. And these powers are the ones driving carbon dioxide emissions.
V, I think we had all best fasten our seatbelts because the ride is going to get really bumpy
Bill McKibben is mentally handicapped. He is a typical Global Warming / Climate Change Alarmist, like Hillary Clinton and Bark O’Bummer, who are all constantly looking forward to the next climate/weather disaster. They are hoping for huge numbers of casualties and enormous damage to property and community. Hurricane Matthew is their latest vehicle. Meanwhile warmer weather and increased CO2 increase crop production and food supply, reduce the number of hurricanes hitting America and green the Earth
To snedly arkus
Your long list of the alleged foreign policy crimes of the USA is too long to reply or rebut
one by one
But let me focus on just the Korean war in which you join with Gore Vidal in attributing to American aggression supporting a south korean dictator (Syngman Rhee)
Fir a start It was the well armed North which invaded the south
After some time the UN sought to intervene
So it was not just the US
Some 21 nations supported the UN response
Of these 19 nations sent troops led by the US
Just some of the nations who fought were
Commonwealth nations
UK
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
South Africa
Non Commonwealth
USA
Thailand
France
Belgium
Philippines
Turkey
So just that one example of Korea suggests
A certain bias in your post
Ignoring the full story in order to pull down the United States is a big thing these days. SJWs do it in spades. I’m sure he also ignores that Iran’s economy was Booming under the Shah and they were right up there with Israel in their relationship with us- which is why islam needed to tear it all down.
Thomno and climateotter are correct IMV. Korea can be well defended. Our cold war action in Iran somewhat defended bases on results and regional stability. Vietnam can be defended somewhat, and no, the US is not responsible for Cambodia. Iraq, under Bush, can be poorly defended, under the O, not at all.
However I have no respect for what Obama and Hillary have done in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lybia, and what they failed to do in Egypt. In every case elements of radical Jihad gain power, influence and violence, death and poverty result. There is a reason 75 percent of the citizens in Alepo have fled to territory controlled by Assad.
Korea does happen to be one of the better examples. Just compare the standard of living in the south to that of the north. I would guarantee that most in the south are glad we intervened.
“Korea does happen to be one of the better examples. “
Indeed.
Apart from which, the Korean war was actually a United Nations gig – not a US one, and one of the very few successful ones, too.
“Bark O’Bummer”
I like that! He does bark, doesn’t he.
This moderate democrat believes that AGW is exaggerated. Most American do as well. Insulting people who are allies is no way to advance your position.
Accepting the lies of your allies in order to not insult them is no way to live.
This is for Weepy Bill
Towards 700+ppm
Let the planet’s biosphere FLOURISH.
I would add:
One Molecule at a time.
I can just see Josh having great fun with this one. Imagine, the military (it’s their budget, after all) responsible for building wind turbines and solar farms.
The wind turbines would be armour-plated and the towers would double as rocket silos; the solar panels would be disguised laser arrays designed to shoot down enemy aircraft/pigeons. And the whole lot of them would be gold-plated, made with million-dollar hammers and wrenches. The military sure knows how to spend. And, of course, all turbines and PVs would have to be upgraded on a rolling schedule of designed in obsolescence.
Seriously, all McKibben is promoting is the employment of half the population to fill in the holes dug by the other half. That’s full employment, by his lights.
According to the President’s economic “plan” all of our off shore military personnel were to have come home before the end of FY 2014. so our military budget should already be at a minimum. Just half of the savings is suppose to be enough for the federal government to start paying down the debt starting in FY 2015. That means that just half of the savings is suppose to be enough for the federal government to post annual surpluses starting in FT 2015. That is a lot of savings. The other half of the savings is suppose to be invested in infrastructure. So what ever savings are realized by changing our military budgets, the money has already been spent many times over. Before we start to consider any new spending we need to pay off our debts.
Ya know that tipping point they keep talking about? I think he reached it and went right over the edge
Bill McKibben ‘Use America’s defense budget to fight climate war’
Slow down McKibben, sceptics have a horse in this race too
http://www.drjeffcornwall.com/don%20quixote.gif
Great comment, but this has gotten way off subject, with an interesting dying (?) hurricane maybe a little similar to others. Need to get back to basics. I spent much of WWII staying at my grandparent’s (He was in WWI) farm while my father and uncle were overseas. I was almost in the Korean War, have been in several hurricanes, remember Earth Day, but took a thermodynamics course instead.
I know what a crisis is.
I just wonder if McKibben’s sponsors feel they’re getting their money’s worth.?
I mean – it isn’t like he’s lavishly funded from a public subscription perspective is it?
Who picks up the not inconsiderable tab for 350.org?
Soros
Yeah ….. not much of a stretch to see that I guess
I though off-their-Rockerfellas were also quite chummy with Batty Bill
I’m for shifting $10 billion a year from the military budget to a nuclear plant construction program. This will enhance energy security and increase employment. Another budget item that needs priority is a border defense system to ensure unauthorized individuals don’t enter the country carrying WMD components. I don’t think this is an issue which needs to be discussed with neighbors, nor do we have to make stupid comments like Trump did about others paying for USA national defense. Trump is an idiot and a baiter, but the security deficiencies associated with an undefended border aren’t acceptable.
+1
Let’s play the global warming game with the liberals: letting in millions of legal and illegal aliens is going to kill the planet because they will be polluting the atmosphere. Heck, humans in general are bad for Nature so…we know the end to this ideology.
Stop Big Climate now, before it is too late – oops….
So what does the Defense Dept think about the threat of climate change?
http://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/612710
“The report finds that climate change is a security risk..”
What does the US Navy think?
“Climate change is not only a threat to the environment but a threat to our national security. Coastal military bases and U.S. Navy missions on seas are at risk. Military readiness could be compromised by these environmental changes. Read about the challenges the Pentagon faces posed by a changing climate”
https://cleantechnica.com/2015/02/18/us-navy-reacts-blockbuster-rolling-stone-climate-change-story/
“Tina Casey specializes in military and corporate sustainability, advanced technology, emerging materials, biofuels, and water and wastewater issues. Tina’s articles are reposted frequently on Reuters, Scientific American, and many other sites. Views expressed are her own.”
Great sciencey source Griff
…Griff, are you really that stupid ?? You know damn well they MUST do and say what ever their liberal masters tell them….Grow up !
Griff October 8, 2016 at 4:38 am
“What does the US Navy think?”
Well truthfully I don’t think you will find it in any touchy feely publications. They follow orthers and are true to their oaths.
Perhaps it would be best to go outside on a quiet night and ask the ghosts of Taffy 3.
michael
orders
must spell check
It is good that DoD is thinking about the effects of climate change on defense requirements and capabilities. The danger is that they believe they can prevent climate change instead of merely mitigating its effects, whatever they are.
The politicians at the top of the military command structure repeat what they are told to repeat.
The armed forces do as ordered. Obama has ordered them to regard climate change as a greater threat than China, Russia or Iran, so they obey.
you can weep all you want about the past and post whatever revisionist histories you feel compelled to believe. It is freedom of speech. I for one don’t think that trying to make democracies out of theological dictatorships or tribal based politcial systems has a lot of hope. We are having enough trouble trying to keep our current government from routing us into a tribally based poitcal system by using identity politics as the basis enforced with a large dose of political correctness for the guilt trip. Having said that if we take milatary actions let us do it with punishment in mind and then get out leaving wreck and ruin as an object lesson. This takes things (equipment and systems) that WORK and are not just sexy new toys to play with. Obama still has not learned you can bomb or shell anyone out a position – it takes the ground pounders to do it right and guess what we are reducing now. The subject [OH NO Mr. Bill !!!] would “save the planet ” at the cost of our liberty and subject us all to a theocratic based dictatorship – “As long as the planet is safe”. to borrow someone elses motto – “Live free or die”
All real democracies are ‘home grown’ entities. And most last only so long before turning back to tyranny. In the US, we still have ‘elections’ but these are increasingly controlled by the elites and proof is obvious, for example, Hillary was supposed to ‘run’ against no one in the Democratic side. Sanders got pissed about this and ran quite successfully against her but the media hated him and the DNC guys attacked him and protected Hillary and now we are stuck with her. The Clinton controls will be reimposed on us all.
I agree. Besides I never could understand why we were pushing democracy when pure democracy as a form of government was proven unworkable in our early colonies and we don’t even have one ourselves. After all we are a constitutional republic (or constitutional federal representative democracy as WAPO would call it).
Sorry – Obama still has not learned that you CAN’T bomb or shell anyone out of a position.
Some day I will learn to proof read correctly – hard to do during a rant.
9 out of 10 leftist agenda items are hidden anti-war efforts trying to loot the military budget. There was a documentary made way back in the 1980s titles Iron Mountain Blue Print to Tyranny that outlined how the left wants to create booby men to unite the world against a common enemy so they stop fighting themselves. The Alien Threat, The Coming Ice Age, etc etc are all efforts to distract the people and unify them against a common goal.
https://youtu.be/VAcNFQGKWPs
In the UK, the main opposition party supports building nuclear submarines, sailing the seas fully equipped for a nuclear war, but without carrying any warheads.
“A common danger unites even the bitterest enemies.” – Aristotle
The problem is that whenever this principle is applied proactively, those who are seeking to force the unification of the people end up being perceived as the common danger.
Actually, since our Real Rulers are plotting WWIII, forcing them to disarm and do something, anything different, is good! Radicalized Islam: NATO created this to attack Russia way back in the USSR days. Then, it turned against the West and then died off nearly entirely until the US decided to illegally attack Iraq, an innocent bystander, after Saudis attacked us on 9/11. So now we are off the cliff in this business while at the same time, our Real Rulers who live in palaces and fly all over the planet and whose carbon footprint is the size of Godzilla, want to hector us about global warming…I hope they get their way and we see a full revolt of the peons! It will happen, of course. All these palaces will be burned down and looted.
Wow, is there anything you know that is actually true?
If radicalized Islam had died down before 2003, please explain the many al Qaeda attacks on US targets at home and abroad in 1992, 1993, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003. Thanks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_al-Qaeda_attacks
To which could be added Mogadishu, 1992. The clan which attacked US and UN forces there learned how to use RPGs against helicopters from bin Laden’s operatives.
wackadoodle was entered into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2014.
It is a word, for real.
I would love to play a word-association game with Bill McKibben.
I cannot anticipate the connections he would make.
I foresee a Hasbro game or app called McKibben wherein the objective is to make a sentence out of random words. … madlibs …oh…ok it has been done.
Here… you too can pretend to be Bill McKibben:
http://www.madlibs.org/cgi-bin/madlib?physics.ml2
here you go back- pretend to be willis!
http://www.phrontistery.info/
Any war created by the government whether a War on Drugs, Poverty, Terrorism, and now CO2 are just conduits for theft and corruption by politicians and their cronies like McKibben. All any war does is take away my property and freedom
This is the climate war.
Bring it on, Reichsfuhrer McKibben
Apparently Mr. McKibben got a degree from Harvard but missed getting an education there. If he had he would have read about King Canute, or he would know: “Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws.”
We don’t control the world or its climate. Never have, never will.
Well stated. Question. What is more arrogant, man caused CAGW or man can stop CAGW?
Depends on what education means. Today it is more like indoctrination.
Is there a budget in there to direct the enemy to the solar panels to be fried by the heat or toward the turbines to crash the planes? That’s the only possible “defense” usage of these items. In reality (where McKibben seems to have escaped from), that is probably the only real use for the panels and turbines. As a secondary use, the panels and turbines employ people overseas in countries where mining and manufacturing are not regulated so the cost is held down while the planet is poisoned, and they transfer huge amounts of taxpayer money to the ultra-rich, like Buffet and many power companies. Oh, and they kill those pesky eagles and the endangered desert species that used to live where the solar panels are. Funny you can’t clear cut a forest except for turbine installation and you can’t walk on the fragil desert but you can plaster the area with tons of metal and glass. Again, these people do not live in reality.
Obviously Obummer’s Chief of Staff for War Time Policy.
It’s even worse-r than we thought, we thought!
Bill needs to pull his head out, and get some fresh air. Oxygen deprivation appears to be setting in.
There’s always plexibody surgery. It doesn’t do much for the oxygen deprivation though.
If this guy truly believed what he was saying he’d be weeping.
Building all those wind turbines will require a lot of steel– thus a lot of energy, a lot of coal, a lot of iron…
The America First movement never really went away, it went dormant like Peak Oil. The doomsday clock is really driven by them as best exemplified by the thought experiment of what would have happened if America First had keep the U.S. out of WW2 for one additional year. The super weapons would have been in mass production the world would be very different today. Only the madness of another rouge state attacking Pearl Harbor upset the doomsday clock.
hmmm such a massive operation would see emissions skyrocket.. seems legit
If the threat is as serious as Bill McKibben indicates, perhaps we should drastically cut HIGHER EDuCATiON budgets to fight climate change.
Looks like the Green Establishment is going off the rails and in full metal panic with Saint Mathew “Global Human Climate Sharknado” did no kill all the White and Jewish republicans who Obama hates so much.
If the election does not go for Hillary and the Supreme Court is again deadlocked Obama will just have to declare himself “Governor” of U.S.A. and start building the crematoria on U.S. Army bases to deal with the “newly minted non immigrants” in the U.S.A.
Ha ha
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/eaus/h5-loop-wv.html
Holdren, “THIS INSULT WILL NOT PASS.”
Next week in D.C. land should be lots of laughs! 🙂
We have money to fight climate change. It’s just that we’re spending it on defense, by Kenneth Pennington
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/08/climate-change-defense-spending-fighter-plane-climate-change-defense-spending-fighter-plane-program
Kenneth Pennington was Bernie Sanders’ digital director during his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. Bill McKibben was one of 5 Bernie appointments of the DNC. I don’t know how many articles on this theme ‘they’ submitted to major media outlets but it looks like the Guardian was the only one to host this policy.
Wow…..Anybody who needs any more proof that this guy is absolutely NUTS must be mentally deficient themselves..
‘it should be possible to put lots of people at work on good jobs doing that’
It’s always “good” jobs they are going to create, never crappy ones, like I envision installing solar panels.
RoHA and Snedly Arkus:
ON October 7, 2016 at 10:42 pm, RoHa says:
“How much do you value your freedom and human rights?”
Very much, but US warmongering doesn’t do a lot for anyone’s freedom or human rights.
On Oct 7 at 7:15 pm he says:
“These would help Americans and make the US seem like less of a threat to the world.”
So sorry RoHa, but I find it fascinating and incomprehensible that you somehow consider democratic governments (or at least ours here in the U.S. anyway) “warmongering” and “..a threat to the world”. A look at history shows us that the major wars of the last century were started by non-democratic governments. WWII Nazi Germany and militarist Japan, North Korea in the early 1950s, the German and Austria-Hungarian Empires of WWI. It is not democratic governments that were responsible for mass killings and deaths in the last century as were Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, Pol Pot in Cambodia, etc.
As Roger Graves said above, our foreign policy behavior has not been exactly perfect over the years. The paranoia of the Cold War did drive us to do a lot of things we probably should not have done. And I do question the wisdom of the second Iraq War where we overthrew Saddam….there were no weapons of mass destruction, and Iraq has been unstable ever since.
But we did these things out of fear for our survival, not out of a desire to be “warmongering” or “a threat to the world”. That is what I think you and Snedly Arkus may not understand…democracies do not think and normally behave the same way as and totalitarian dictatorships and non-democratic empires do.
If you and Snedly Arkus (and his screed was even worse than what you said) dislike your country that much, you are both free to emigrate. No one is forcing either of you to stay here.
And BTW Snedly, did you ever hear of a concept called a paragraph? They usually teach it in schools at the elementary level.