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May 27, 2009 03:29 PM UTC
30 Comments
from the Denver Post
This is awesome. Great job being done in one of the toughest teaching environments in the state. Kudos to all, especially the principal, teachers, & kids – but also to DPS (including the superintendent for most of this – Michael Bennet).
1. You cite 2008 vs 2006. What happened in 2007? More importantly, what about 2009? Frankly, citing figures that skip odd-numbered years suggests picking and choosing one’s figures to make a point…but maybe not.
2. What specific role did Bennet play? Or does he get credit for just being in office .. sort of like the bus drivers, janitors, Xcel (for supplying electricity), etc.? Does he get any blame for the 47.6% graduation rate in 2006?
This one’s for you.
Chicago radio host Mancow Muller, who (like our own KK) has argued that waterboarding is not torture, subjects himself to a session and learns something.
HT to SLOG.
http://gawker.com/5271813/did-…
Thanks, I won’t even have to do any more arguing about waterboarding undeniably being torture.
Seriously, do you even read this stuff all the way through?
Here’s a place where you can vacation without all the socialist-ic-y-ish-ness
h/t Steve Balboni
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I might have missed this the first 14 times its been posted at this site. not.
I guess this is one straw in the “slippery slope” argument that the government cannot dare to cut back any programs, lest Western Civilization grind to a halt.
You and me, we both know that cutbacks are necessary and appropriate.
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I just thought it was funny.
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on every thread.
No picking and choosing, going for the low-hanging fruit.
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and Mosul and Diyala and Kirkuk, etc.,
without actually moving anything:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20…
Golly, that President Obama and his Generals sure are clever!
Regardless of how they got promoted, and what they did to get promoted, they are now his Generals.
If he didn’t want someone who had used ethnic cleansing as a way to suppress and traumatize a civilian population as his top commander in Iraq, surely the “Commander in Chief” would have replaced him by now. Ditto for Generals who approved waterboarding, employing mercenaries, etc.
I wonder to myself, how would things be different in Iraq if Bush had been reelected ?
How would things be different in Afghanistan ?
So, how do we really know that Bush isn’t still in control ?
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C’mon, this isn’t about how the General Staff of CENTCOM is just doing business as usual. It’s about dealing with a hastily drawn-up SOFA agreement that was designed more for Political Cover than actually dealing with real issues.
Have you seen how big these FOB’s are? Drawing from your past life, could you move Camp Liberty Bell in 2 months? 6 Months? A Year?
We’ve gone back and forth on this – we can’t shut out the lights and leave Iraq overnight. And CENTCOM has got to deal with the fact that they’re stuck there until Aug 2010, and they can’t just photoshop the FOB’s off the map and then paste them somewhere else.
In principal, this is worse than the Soviets airbrushing out people from photos that have fallen out of favor. But if you were the 2-star in charge, what the hell would you do?
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Now I’ll spend my whole day imagining that my opinion counts, and that I can change the world.
At least the part of the day that I’m conscious.
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http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…
It’s so offensive and ridiculous and hilarious all at once. There’s just no way to respond. I guess that’s the strategy.
Charles Wilson famously declared in 1953 that “what’s good for GM is good for the country, and vice versa” while he was president of General Motors. He later became Secretary of Defense, having much earlier–1944–suggested that a “permanent war economy” was the only way to fend off a return to the Great Depression.) The point: the military-industrial complex was also the industrial-military complex, and GM was at the apex.
Ancient history! GM faces bankruptcy, a future as a much slimmed-down competitor with Toyota, Volkswagen, Hundai. One among many, and may the best car(s) win.
Is not the history of GM also the history of the United States? As GM began seriously sinking in the 70s, so was U.S. power pulled up short in Vietnam, for example.
But have we even begun to accept the notion that our days as the single superpower — or even as a superpower at all — are long over? That we cannot, should not, provide the vast bulk of military defense for our one-time Cold War allies and still address long-ignored problems without our economy, from infrastructure to education to health? That we are in no position to take the lead in Pakistan/Afghanistan, much less Iraq/Iran or Israel/Palestine?
What is it likely to take for this to begin to sink in?
However, you based your thesis on a faulty premise. The actual quote from the WIKI entry goes:
The true connotation being that he would first consider the county’s best interests, which he also felt couldn’t help but benefit his former company as well. Not, as implied by the commonly misquoted version, GM uber alles!
And actually, GM has had it’s ups and downs since the 1920’s, but actually averaged about 40%+ market share into the 1980’s. 1982 marks the real slide, not the ’70’s, so your second point is a little weak too:
OK, but to your real point — Is it time to call it quits and mothball the fleet? While I agree, our defense budget accounting for 50% of worldwide military spending is probably beyond our means, with that (or hopefully, a smaller, but more focused investment in strategic defense) comes control.
And yes, China and India are definitely up and comers as far as economic superpowers, if not quite there militarily. Should Germany, France and Italy take a bigger share of defense around the world? Sure, but I doubt we would find it desireable to stop driving the bus from a policy/strategy standpoint. That’s why we pay the big bucks, and for better or worse, our allies seem to more than happy with the status quo.
The issues you raise are huge, and far beyond the scope of my reply, or the purpose of this site. But the bottomline for me is: Should we dial back our defense spending though a thorough review of our strategic needs, cutting out bloated expenditures designed for fighting 20th century wars?
You bet! But we’re not at the brink of total collapse/capitulation, a’la the imperialist British Empire after WWII.
… I need a WYSIWYG editor to catch the typos
Thank you David
Vietnam.
Iraq.
Afghanistan.
Pakistan.
North Korea.
Cuba.
Nicaragua.
Guatemala.
Chile.
Iran.
Now, starting with the Babylonians, can you name all the mistaken overreachs of every dominant power for the last 5000 years?
Or how about the mistakes the Chinese or other future Superpowers will inevitably make in the next couple of centuries?
Yes, with great power comes great responsibilities. So the objective is not to cede power/control to others that may be occasionally reckless, but to ensure the cultivation and election to offices great and small, persons with the skills and wisdom not to abuse that power.
At the risk of being obnoxious, my sense is that your replies were essentially preprogrammed. The cliche “misunderstanding” of the famous Engine Charlie quote is entirely beside the point (the “misunderstanding,” incidentally, involves dropping, or ignoring, the vice versa at the end). The same with your observation that whereas the loss of Vietnam occurred in the early 1970s, GM’s decline didn’t start until a decade later. Really? Was it not the Arab/OPEC oil embargo of 1973 that tipped the balance away from GM’s big cars to smaller, more efficient ones made by Toyota et al.? Was the decline in U.S. industry, notably steel production, not noticeable by the early ’70s?
However, one sees what one wants to see, which is often dictated by what one has seen in the past–or been told to see in the past–and letting new data interfere with old conclusions can be difficult indeed.
The point of my list, of course, was not that errors will be made. The point was that military might does not bring “control.” That is the fundamental lesson of Al Qaeda following on the Viet Cong following on the PLO/Hezbollah/Hamas that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld & Co. (and, apparently, harrydoby) could not, would not, accept. Evidence to the contrary? Oh, just the odd misadventure or mistake–certainly not something to cause one to question the underlying premise!
GM bankrupt? Trade deficits in industrial goods, not just cheap trinkets, as far as the eye can see? A hint of the end of the dominance of the American military-industrial/industrial-military complex? Nah. We’re in control, JO, can’t you see that? Just a second while I put on my rose-colored glasses–I’m sure they around here somewhere!
Go back again and carefully re-read your version of the quote and that from the WIKI. I know it’s subtle, but apparently world views hinge upon the nuances contained within it.
I’ll try to come back tonight after work and continue this discussion.
Thanks,
Harry
Your challenge to my assertion that
You confuse opportunity with outcome. This is where we differ.
Our military clout enables us the opportunity to set policies and implement our strategic vision. Of course if you have bumbling fools and Banana Republic dictator wannabes running things, outcomes tend to be bad.
Thus my original point that we do need to maintain as much world leadership as we can afford for as long as we can.
But it is critical that we do a much better job changing the political landscape to support quality leaders. That’s where having an informed and activist electorate is key. And if the GOP continues on it’s path to self-immolation, then we also need another major party to act as a counterweight to a single dominant party (of which I am a lifelong member).
If that’s putting on rose-colored glasses, well, I can live with that.
And hopefully, this study in contrasting views will cause anyone that happens upon this thread to reflect on their assumptions and the filters with which they view the world.
Whatever works best for each of us…
A sincere thanks for providing a sounding board.
Charles Wilson invented the electric starter for gasoline engines. It made the latter a viable alternative to the dominant electric and steam cars. Now, women could drive gas powered cars. (My mother’s mother had a knot on her shin until her death from when her crank went back and whacked it. That was common in those days.)
He also invented the diesel-electric locomotive. While we may lament the lose of the steam engine, it was an environmental nightmare.
His quote that I love – and the Germans obviously never heard – is “Parts that aren’t cost nothing and never go wrong.”
Every engineering student needs to spend a month parsing that one.
…nothing and never go wrong.”
Less wine, more editing.