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August 20, 2015 06:35 AM UTC

Thursday Open Thread

  • 73 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.”

–Charles Caleb Colton

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73 thoughts on “Thursday Open Thread”

  2. Verification of Compliance provided by Iran – What could possibly go wrong?

    Still waiting for the Nazi explanation about the unusual mortality rate experienced in Auschwitz.

    1. Using Nazi analogies shows desperation.

      I'll be on here less, as I am soon to be gainfully employed full time in indoctrinating the young into liberal orthodoxy – all union teachers have that as the first line of their job descriptions, right?

      so I'll leave it to the rest of the community to call you a pandering scumbag.

      1. So, nothing but name calling,huh?

        Great idea to have Iran decide if Iran is in compliance?

        You truly believe in the agreement, too?

        Perhaps you should ask your students what grades they should get?

        No need to worry about reality.

        1. Andrew: as one conservative to another, I don't engage in name-calling. But I will ask you what is your alternative to this deal? Several dozen prominent retired Israeli generals and leaders have endorsed this agreement. Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia also signed on.

          I find it amusing that the supreme leader Khamenei agrees with the leading Republican presidential candidates in that they don't like the agreement. Ted Cruz and the Ayatollah marching in lock-step. Who would have thought?   C.H.B.

          1. I think rejecting the deal and keeping sanctions in place is better than surrendering, and pretending that Iran is not going to take the freed up cash and supply more rockets to their proxies.

            Even a few Dem Senators are starting to agree with me.

            It is amusing to me that the Dem suck ups who pretend they support Israel can pretend that a country that calls for the elimination of Israel and has supplied weapons to attack Israel and US service members will all of sudden become choir boys because Obama says they will.

            1. Does that option have an realistic chance of Iran not developing a nuclear weapon?  Pretty much everyone agrees that it doesn't.  Instead, we end up with a nuclear armed Iran and the consequences that brings, which is ultimately a nuclear arms race in the Middle East between the Sunnis and the Shiites.

              The other option, asides from this agreement, that doesn't guarantee an nuclear arms race end-state would be the military option.  But this isn't the silly little air power campaigns that our political class constantly talks about that cannot destroy Iran's nuclear weapons capability.  The only military option to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon is the elimination of Iran as a nation state via conventional (the biggest war since Korea) or nuclear (a first strike via either the US or Israel).  

              It's amusing to me that all of the chest-thumping about this deal continues to skirt around this issue: it's either peace through negotiation or peace through total war.  But, once again, the political class sells war as something where the American populace doesn't have to participate or face any consequences.  Such is the cowardice and ignorance of our leadership.  Ignoring the consequences of war certainly makes opposing a negotiated peace easier, but it's not realistic. 

                2. The painful assumption in the peace through the status quo idea is that it's sustainable.  Russia and China are likely done with sanctions and wouldn't support an extension should this agreement not be ratified. They've got a lot of money to make in Iran (Russia selling weapons, China buying gas and selling everything else) and little interest in a stable, Western-oriented Middle East.  They would also benefit tremendously from a US that was bogged down in yet another SW Asia conflict and unable to counter both nation's attempts to grow their spheres of influence.  What' the more vital area of the globe for US interests?  SW Asia or SE Asia?

                  Should this agreement fail to be ratified, we're on an accelerated path to war with Iran.  

                3. First nobody expects anybody to become choir boys. Second you'd be surprised how common Death to Arabs chants are in Israel. In Iran Death to America and Death to Israel are pretty much like g'day in Australia.

                  This is a country with a sophisticated, educated middle and upper class both with a lot of good will toward the west.  The rulers use their crazies, not unlike the GOP uses there's but, unlike the GOP leadership, Iran's leadership is still in charge and they aren't looking for nuclear martyrdom.

                  In any case, since Israel already has over 100 nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them it's hard to imagine them allowing Iran to get to the point of attaining and launching anything against them even if Iran does somehow mange to attain their first bomb with the years worth of heads up this deal guarantees the world will have if push comes to shove.

                  The rest of the world isn't against anything Obama is for so, as ajb says, they wouldn't be joining us in sanctions which would not only render ours ineffective but empower our opponents, like Russia and China, who will be happy to deal with Iran with or without us and our lonely sanctions.

                  Saw a cute short letter in the Post today. Just said the best way to get this deal passed would be for Obama to be against it. Think about it. He could say he's changed his mind. Then you righties could point to all those generals and complain that Obama isn't listening to them.cheeky

              2. Andrew; you overlook the fact that Israel is a nuclear power with the means to deliver its weaponry. Even though some in the Iranian leadership may have a desire for nuclear martyrdom by bombing Israel if they get the bomb, Israel would make all of Iran a nuclear wasteland. And who's to say that Iran doesn't already have the bomb? The Islamic bomb has existed in Pakistan for 30 years, thanks to the Reagan administration looking the other way. While one is Sunni and the other Shiite, Iran and Pakistan do have a common interest in fighting militants in Balochistan (s.w. Pakistan, s.e. Iran).

            2. Sanctions weren't keeping up. Iran was continuing to gain capacity to refine nuclear material; they had completed assembly of a new generation of better centrifuges. They were well under a year away from having enough fissile material to make a bomb before the negotiations started.

              Even if all of the nations of the world continued with sanctions or toughened them, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon in a year or two. Our choice under the status quo would have been to let Iran gain nuclear weaponry, or to engage in a major war to prevent it.

              That's the status quo. Still want it?

        2. It doesn't matter whether I call you names, spend time working on a facty, link-filled post, cuss you out like Dawn Patrol,  cut you down to size with class like Duke, invent imaginative tortures for you like dustpuppy, make your argument ridiculous like Pcat, answer every question and smartly refute every falsehood you've tried to put over like Bluecat, attempt to elucidate a real conservative point of view like CHB, or post a zinger meme like Michael.

          We might do those things because we educate and entertain each other, but nobody thinks you'll ever change one iota of any GOP position you've taken.

          None of that makes the slightest bit of difference. You will never budge a millimeter from your original talking point, which in this case is: "Obama has betrayed us. We are DOOMED and should bomb Iran before they bomb us."

          Nothing has ever changed your mind a bit on any issue that I'm aware of. You come here to post your stuff and keep people engaged with your arguments instead of whatever else they would normally be posting about.

          2. I prefer to keep a civil tone personally, most of the time, online at least. I can and do curse like a newspaperman or a construction worker in private. 

            However, I value reasoned civil discourse. My point is that for discourse to meet the definition, there must be some give and take, and no one has seen any "give" on AC's part.

            Also, if there's too many "F*ck you dipsh*t!" in subject lines, the site will be filtered out of school internet servers. Colorado Peak never has any problem making it through.

      2. Congrats on the job MJ. The world could use a lot more MamaJ and fewer washed-up librarians. I had a couple teachers in school that made an indelible mark on me – as I know you'll be doing. Lucky kids. 

          1. Yay, Mama! I had a teacher like you in high school. Same subject, too. If I had had more teachers like her (and you) I wouldn't have felt like school was mostly a waste of time. 

    2. We never had an inspection presence in Nazi Germany. Didn't in fact concern ourselves with the holocaust to the point of not allowing fleeing Jews to disembark in our ports, none of which provides any analogy to the Iran deal.

      The answer to your question, AC, is that if it goes wrong, at the very first indication of non-compliance, all options, including re-imposing sanctions and every military option at our command, are still completely accessible to us.  As always, every military option is also available to Israel, the possessor of at least 100 nuclear warheads of which Iran is fully aware.

      So you should still be able to sleep at night. If you have any trouble try a night light and a Teddy bear. Maybe some Ambien. With some booze. Lots of it. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

      1. So Iran supplies more missiles to terrorists.  They fire them at Israel.  Israel bombs Gaza and nukes Iran and everything works out fine, is that what you believe?

        The problem with the deal is there are no compliance issues with sending arms to terrorists.  In fact, it is encouraged by providing funding for it and they have already said they are planning on doing it.

        1. What some in the Iranian leadership say they will do, and what they actually do, are two different things. The mullahs are sitting on a domestic powderkeg, with a population of 80 million, the majority of whom were born after the late 1970s revolution. The young want internet access, they want a better economy, and they want freedom. Even the Revolutionary Guard is concerned about their position in the Iranian economy once sanctions are lifted. President Rouhani has realized this and seems focused on repairing the battered economy.

          There also are issues with some of their surrogates. As an example, many Hezbollah militants are beginning to question how many more of them must die in supporting the Iranian effort to prop up the Assad regime. In short, Andrew, the whole scenario surrounding the proposed agreement is far more complex than you think, and does not lend itself at all to credible soundbite analysis on Fox News  

          1. "The whole scenario  . . . is more complex than I think?"

            Oh, enlightened one, tell me of the complexities?

            Are Hamas and Hezbollah going to lack resources when the country is flush?

            Oh, I get it, the burgeoning middle class will disavow their theocratic leaders and embrace a pluralistic peaceful coexistence?

            They stone gays and imprison religious minorities there. It ain't happening.

            I think their society is a long way from hope and change part deux.

             

            1. "Oh, I get it, the burgeoning middle class will disavow their theocratic leaders and embrace a pluralistic peaceful coexistence?"

              I realize that hasn't been the case in Colorado Springs.

          2. And remember, Bush/Cheney had this same opportunity to stop Iran's nuke program in 2003, but they were too busy chasing WMD in their "Good Idea" Iraq war, instead.

            1. I just told you of the complexities. I don't think you have a good understanding of Iranian society.

              "rejecting the deal and keeping sanctions in place…….."   Means the US will then go it alone. Our five partners in the deal (Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia + the UN Security Council) are already signed on to the deal. What's the chance that any of the other five countries will agree to keep sanctions in place?  Slim and none, I'd say.

              Netanyahu opposes the deal. But dozens of retired Israeli military and other leaders support it. The deal has its issues, but is the best we can get. 

      1. AC much prefers hysterical spreading of misinformation over simple facts.  He doesn't get paid to incite rational discussions — Republicans always lose those arguments.

        1. Like the rational war on women argument.

          How did that work out for ya?

          Ex Senator Udall pays his female stall about 2/3 of his male staff and claimed now Senator Gardner, who paid his female staff more than his male staff, of not supporting equal pay.

          So much for Dem rational discussions.  You sure won that one.

          1. Did your keyboard get ahead of your brain with that frothing reply? 🙂

            BTW, the GOP talking point was that Udall paid his female staff 85% of what his male staffers earned.  That is not 2/3rds.  So back to remedial arithmetic class for you!

            So I assume you took Lying 101 instead of Statistics, where you would have learned how to weight data by grade and seniority, thus explaining the "discrepancy".

            So when you look up and see a moron in the mirror, just wave hello to yourself.

            Only a bozo like you repeats exaggerated, and debunked talking points and thinks they won the argument, which is basically all you ever bring to the discussion.

  5. Are you just a Human Resource who can be relieved of your duties tomorrow if your Manager finds another cheaper Resource, be that here or in China or India or Brazil:

    Ah, but "Modern Times" was 80 years ago. And now? The New Yorker's John Cassidy observes that this weekend's New York Times article about Darwinian workplace conditions for white-collar workers at Amazon under Jeff Bezos has drawn more comments to the Times' website than any other it has published. Cassidy writes:

    Perhaps Times readers, who tend to be well educated and reasonably well off, like reading about bad things happening to people like themselves. But I think it goes deeper than that. As the “New Economy” celebrates its twentieth anniversary—on August 9, 1995, Netscape’s initial public offering took place—it is becoming harder to ignore some of its negative aspects. Behind all the technological advances and product innovation, there is a good deal of old-fashioned labor discipline, wage repression, and exertion of management power.

    Supporting the websites of the New Economy are a lot of old-economy infrastructure: people, trucks and warehouses. In them, Amazon is not competing against Apple or other tech firms, but against Walmart and other low-wage, no security employers. (I agree and have never considered Amazaon a "high tech" company.-Z) Unions organized to oppose oppressive pay and workplace conditions a century or more ago. Will they come back now?

    Amazon, for its part, has long resisted efforts to unionize its workforce, both in the U.S. and abroad. This battle is still ongoing. After theTimes article came out, an official at a big British labor union, the G.M.B., which is seeking to recruit some of the roughly seven thousand people who work at Amazon’s U.K. distribution centers, accused the company of treating its staff like “robots” and imposing work conditions that often lead to physical and mental illness. A petition authored by the G.M.B. cites a survey of Amazon staff, which found that seventy-one per cent of them reported walking more than ten miles a day at work, seventy per cent felt they were given disciplinary points unfairly, and eighty-nine per cent felt exploited.

    Yeah, Unions are old hat and déclassé. That stupid Hubert Humphrey probably supported unions. You guys all should be able to fight for yourselves.

    And if you're only worth minimum wage, or less, it's your own damned fault. 

    Let the Free Market prevail!

    1. "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."  – George Santayana

      Unfortunately, we have several generations who know nothing about labor history.  We fail to teach this in our schools.  Conditions are returning to those which spawned the labor movement.  I guess this generation will have to learn the lessons all over again.

      "May you live in interesting times." – Chinese curse.

      1. yes, sir, you are correct. 

        Part of the JeffCo school board attacks on AP History curriculum is to remove references to sweatshops, child labor, safety and health conditions that were so horrible in the 1900s. It's to remove the knowledge that unions and labor brought us the 40-hour work week, vacation time, sick days, overtime pay, minimum wage, Social Security, and on and on and etc………

        It's amazing how truly hateful and ignorant and destructive are the actions of those idiots who believe all the RepubliCon nonsense about The Free Market®. Yet they are on a mission from God and/or the Koch Brothers to just do something about it.

  7. The biggest flaw in the anti-treaty argument is the notion that the U.S. can go it alone and make sanctions stick.   Our five partners in the negotiations: England, France, Russia, China, Germany, have all blessed it, as has the UN Security Council and such economic mainstays as Japan, India and South Korea.   All of these nations will lift the sanctions against Iran.  If the U.S. does not, then our unilateral sanctions will fail.  That will leave no alternative for the Ted Cruzes of the world to a direct military strike on Iran. There won't even be a fig leaf like the "coalition of the willing."  Make no mistake — to reject the treaty is to embark on a unilateral war against Iran incurring the contempt of some of our oldest and strongest allies in the process.   Our only supporter on the world stage would be Israel, and a deeply divided Israel at that.

  8. Make America Great Again …

    “America. We used to bestride the world like a colossus, a leader among nations, smarter, faster, braver, more forward-thinking than our rivals. Once, we were great, inventive and nimble, always pressing fearlessly ahead in the name of progress. Eradicating polio, inventing the airplane, the chicken nugget, the music video. Going to the moon.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/20/opinion/the-ashley-madison-hack-shows-were-too-dumb-to-cheat.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

    . . . Please!?!

    1. If you want a recommendation on a great read that identifies the cancer on our economy (and how we 'could' be great again),  check out Andrew Yang's "Why Smart People Should Build Things Again". 

  11. (Another) great move by Sanders:

    This is a bold move by a federal legislator as the prison industry is a hugely profitable part of the U.S. economy. The top two private prison companies in the country, Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group, have a combined annual revenue of over $3 billion, much of which is spent lobbying elected officials to protect their bottom line. While some states, such as New York and Illinois, have enacted laws to ban the privatization of prisons, for-profit prisons have tragically remained a staple of the American criminal justice system, in large part due to the country’s skyrocketing incarceration rates made possible by the War on Drugs.

    http://marijuanapolitics.com/bernie-sanders-announces-bill-to-abolish-private-prisons-hints-at-marijuana-policy-platform/

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