Friday, September 18, 2009

Comments on The Belmont Club
"Earnest"


Russia risked Washington’s wrath
That is the knee slapper line of the day.

Rasmussen calls for integrated Russia, US, NATO missile system
Why not add China to the control system and put the whole thing under the UN Security Council? We can have an incredibly sophisticated and complex universal defense system that will defend against nobody.

In fact I will now predict that a follow on to the Global Warming enthusiasm will be the Rogue Asteroid scare. We will face demands that we respond to an urgent global threat from outer space that can only be faced with a united world effort by placing our space and missile defense systems under the supervision of a body that represents all of humanity, plus Cass Sunstein's furry, finny or creepy friends.

Once again reality is ahead of me. A Youtube search of "asteroid threat" indicates that both sides are hyperventilating on this. The Globalists like the BBC are taking it seriously and the anti-globalists take it seriously as a wedge for another power grab.


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buckets,
(who supports. "informal cooperation among space-faring nations")
I generally concur with your position and I also support real research on biodiversity and climatology, neither of which should send a dime to Al Gore.

Regarding the threat of Iranian missiles the promise of future deployments of sea based interceptors is a red herring. I like sea based systems and want more of them and for countering the threat from North Korea they show real promise but if you look at a map then they just don't work in the Iranian case.

The correct response to the Iranian threat was the one put out by McCain.
1) Develop every domestic energy source, Alaskan, Coal, Offshore, Nuclear, Shale and exotic.
2) Strengthen links with America's allies, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Eastern Europe.
3) Isolate and destabilize the Iranian regime.

-------
Annoy Mouse,
Concur about Chechnya. We gained nothing by taking the high road.
Also about the Troll being our Gremlin from the Kremlin, Duh, Ya Think? The important thing is that they are back. That is a close leading indicator that something is due to happen. The surprise over the Summer was the dog that didn't bark. We did not have the agitprop visitors and the tanks did not roll. Why not? Maybe it was because they did not want to step on Obama's first efforts to get his agenda through Congress. Now that he has stalled things may be moving again. But delay can be expensive. The Germans lost 10 weeks invading the Balkans that cost them Moscow. If the Russians move on Georgia or the Ukraine this year then the Poles and Balts and Czechs and Hungarians will have a year to get ready.

At this point I can not think of a good reason for any country not to build nukes or if so small that they cannot secure them against a first strike then combine into a secure federation. That emphatically would not be the EU, which has not earned the trust of the Eastern Europeans. The nations of New Europe should be holding urgent consultations on closer integration. Perhaps they could honor their federation with the name "Rumsfeld League."

Sep 18, 2009 - 5:56 pm

4 comments:

  1. Why are you throwing this gratuitous and irrelevant abuse my way? I have been commenting on the Belmont Club for five years now although for the past couple of years I have not been around much due to the boring nature of partisan political discussions around election times.

    You on the one hand whine when people are not civil and attack your posts and then you turn around and feel free to call a long time commenter like me a KGB troll and beg Richard to boot me à la Charles at LGF.

    It is true that my comments almost never agree with the Richard’s posts but I think you will find that my comments are always well thought out and carefully argued. I very much respect Richard and think he is a wonderful writer and a very intelligent man. Where he gets into trouble is when he exaggerates for partisan reasons. We all know though that he has to throw some partisan red meat from time to time in his line of business. I try to only comment on every third post or so to not cause him too much trouble.

    When I comment I do not expect people to agree with me; what I do hope for through my comments to make some people think (many on political blogs are unable or unwilling to think critically). You are free to attack my comments on their merit but please stop the personal attacks. Five years would be a very long time for a KGB agent to sit in deep cover just to get in a comment calling for a Coalition of the Christians when the KGB is anything but a Christian outfit.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pity that you provide no means to communicate with you except on my blog. I take it that the "gratuitous and irrelevant" remark is a misquote from my post on "The Lost World" thread. That comment had nothing to do with you, although my comment on the "Earnest" thread was provoked by your conduct. Otherwise I am unsure exactly what you are referring to.

    If your conduct was as you now claim a heuristic device to engage in provocative discussion with other members of the Club then you have set a standard that you have singularly failed to meet. When the blog owner and most of the other blog commentators expressed concern about improper and abusive remarks, when indeed the blog owner created a special thread about the intrusion of intemperate remarks and their poisonous affects, and when there clearly was a sudden appearance of several commentators who are not native english speakers, and given the explicit references that were made to last years appearance of apparent foreign based agents, you choose to ignore all those facts in order to engage in a series of puerile attacks on other commentators.

    A perceptive debater would have paid attention to what other commentators were concerned about and would have addressed those issues. It would have cost you nothing, indeed would have strengthened your position, if you had stopped and spoken to the wide spread concern with abuse and manipulation that could threaten the integrity of the entire community. As a domestic partisan you should have been especially offended at the possible appearance of an orchestrated overseas attack on The Club and you should have risen to our defense.

    Instead you plunged ahead heedless of anything except the barbs that you were working out to deliver. In doing so you resembled the self absorbed student who sits with their hand up, ignoring everything else and even unaware of what the instructor is talking about because they only want to hear their own voice.

    You may think that your arguments "are always well thought out and carefully argued" but that is an assertion not a proof. Your resort to the shabby rhetorical device of "We all know ..." does not speak well for your skills as a logician or as a debater.

    Regarding the charge that I am trying to turn the BC into another LGF, you show a singular lack of attention to my own comments on exactly that issue. It pleases me to hear that you are not an agent of the Lubyanka and it is your responsibility to find a way to post and defend contrarian views in a manner that does not give cause for that confusion.

    The good news for you is that you undoubtedly overstate my influence with Mr Fernandez.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Pity that you provide no means to communicate with you except on my blog. I take it that the "gratuitous and irrelevant" remark is a misquote from my post on "The Lost World" thread. That comment had nothing to do with you, although my comment on the "Earnest" thread was provoked by your conduct. Otherwise I am unsure exactly what you are referring to.

    If your conduct was as you now claim a heuristic device to engage in provocative discussion with other members of the Club then you have set a standard that you have singularly failed to meet. When the blog owner and most of the other blog commentators expressed concern about improper and abusive remarks, when indeed the blog owner created a special thread about the intrusion of intemperate remarks and their poisonous affects, and when there clearly was a sudden appearance of several commentators who are not native english speakers, and given the explicit references that were made to last years appearance of apparent foreign based agents, you choose to ignore all those facts in order to engage in a series of puerile attacks on other commentators.

    A perceptive debater would have paid attention to what other commentators were concerned about and would have addressed those issues. It would have cost you nothing, indeed would have strengthened your position, if you had stopped and spoken to the wide spread concern with abuse and manipulation that could threaten the integrity of the entire community. As a domestic partisan you should have been especially offended at the possible appearance of an orchestrated overseas attack on The Club and you should have risen to our defense.

    Instead you plunged ahead heedless of anything except the barbs that you were working out to deliver. In doing so you resembled the self absorbed student who sits with their hand up, ignoring everything else and even unaware of what the instructor is talking about because they only want to hear their own voice.

    You may think that your arguments "are always well thought out and carefully argued" but that is an assertion not a proof. Your resort to the shabby rhetorical device of "We all know ..." does not speak well for your skills as a logician or as a debater.

    Regarding the charge that I am trying to turn the BC into another LGF, you show a singular lack of attention to my own comments on exactly that issue. It pleases me to hear that you are not an agent of the Lubyanka and it is your responsibility to find a way to post and defend contrarian views in a manner that does not give cause for that confusion.

    The good news for you is that you undoubtedly overstate my influence with Mr Fernandez.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Why are you throwing this gratuitous and irrelevant abuse my way? I have been commenting on the Belmont Club for five years now although for the past couple of years I have not been around much due to the boring nature of partisan political discussions around election times.

    You on the one hand whine when people are not civil and attack your posts and then you turn around and feel free to call a long time commenter like me a KGB troll and beg Richard to boot me à la Charles at LGF.

    It is true that my comments almost never agree with the Richard’s posts but I think you will find that my comments are always well thought out and carefully argued. I very much respect Richard and think he is a wonderful writer and a very intelligent man. Where he gets into trouble is when he exaggerates for partisan reasons. We all know though that he has to throw some partisan red meat from time to time in his line of business. I try to only comment on every third post or so to not cause him too much trouble.

    When I comment I do not expect people to agree with me; what I do hope for through my comments to make some people think (many on political blogs are unable or unwilling to think critically). You are free to attack my comments on their merit but please stop the personal attacks. Five years would be a very long time for a KGB agent to sit in deep cover just to get in a comment calling for a Coalition of the Christians when the KGB is anything but a Christian outfit.

    ReplyDelete

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