Month: April 2012

Must We Pay Them To Fight?

Syria is well….Syria.  And it has been in the news almost daily, even though American minds are on other issues……we hear candidates talking about what should be done….and Congress people have opinions……bloggers have a variety of opinions on the subject……but with all that what is to be done in Syria?  Do we stand by and left sh*t happen?  Or do we have an all out push to change the regime?  Should we target the bad guys with drones?  What is it that the American people want?  (that is a rhetorical question for those making the decisions could really care less what us mere mortals want on Syria or otherwise)……

Just to catch my readers up…….the al-Assad regime is killing everyone in its way to retain power….it is destroying towns, villages and lives……the world has put sanctions into place….the destruction continues…….the UN has sent a peace mission to Syria….and the killing continues….and now what will the end result be…a civil war…a peaceful conclusion to the hostilities…..a more democratic country?

To answer all those questions…..absolutely NO one can answer them but the Syrian people and so far we, the US, have know idea who they are……we are giving our undivided support to the resistance….problem there is….who is this resistance?

But we, the US, has joined into a new dimension to finding a solution to this situation…..guess what it is……

he United States and dozens of other countries moved closer on Sunday to direct intervention in the fighting in Syria, with Arab nations pledging $100 million to pay opposition fighters and the Obama administration agreeing to send communications equipment to help rebels organize and evade Syria’s military, according to participants gathered here.

The moves reflected a growing consensus, at least among the officials who met here this weekend under the rubric “Friends of Syria,” that mediation efforts by the United Nations peace envoy, Kofi Annan, were failing to halt the violence that is heading into its second year in Syria and that more forceful action was needed.

There remains no agreement on arming the rebels, as countries like Saudi Arabia and some members of Congress have called for, largely because of the uncertainty regarding who exactly would receive the arms.

Read More…

There is the answer to all our concerns….we will throw money at whoever the rebels are and we will be sitting pretty when they win……..also keep in mind that many jihadist have also joined in the fighting on the side of the FSA…..the same types that sided with the Afghans in their fight against the USSR.

My analysis of this turn of events……..ever hear of Afghanistan?

Let’s Talk Afghan Mission

Inkwell Institute

Preface:  After I wrote this posy the Taliban has had an 18 hour attack on the US and NATO….signalling the possible beginning of their Spring fighting season…..on a side note…..did you relize that an American dies abut every day and a half?

Since the recent debacle in Afghanistan….the US Army dude that went on a killing spree…….there has been much conversation about the Afghan Mission…..the Left wants us out…the Right wants us there until a final solution…..God only knows what that actually means……

But let’s be real……there is NO final solution!

There is a saying……Afghanistan: Place where empires come to die……..

There is an old Afghan saying…..”Beware, under each stone on every mountain lies a sleeping lion”

First, Romney recently talking about the mission kept calling the people Afghani……the people are afghans and the bank notes are Afghanis….I know a small thing but if this dude wants to bolster his foreign policy chops he might want to know what he is talking about…….

Sorry, I digress…..

The mission?  Is it to create a viable stable country where none has been in about 700 years?  Is it to see that AQ does not ever have a place to once again inflict pain on the rest of the world?  What will be the final solution?

A stable government?  They held elections and people participated….but that does not make for a stable government.  Pres. Karzai is about as popular with the Afghan people as a rattlesnake in heat.  He is little more than the president of Kabul once into the hinderland he is Not even close to representing the people.  plus the biggest cash crop in the country other than opium is corruption!

Ambassador Galbraith, with a sour taste in his mouth from his own experiences with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, insisted the war was doomed because our Afghan partners in the Karzai regime are hopelessly corrupt, inept, and illegitimate in the eyes of the Afghan population. O’Hanlon insisted that the new “counterinsurgency strategy” could work.

Then there is the continuing fear factor of a resurgent AQ…personally, I think AQ is a dead entity….it is so diminished that drones and special ops can handle anything that they dream up…..Our only strategic interest in Afghanistan is ensuring transnational terrorists cannot establish a haven from which they can launch attacks.  Through aerial drones and special operations forces, the United States has become adept at keeping al-Qaeda on the run. Al-Qaeda is not a sufficient reason to build a thus-far fictive Afghan state with a thus-far aspirational monopoly on violence in its own territory.

So what is the end game, the final solution?  Lots of lip service….but NO one and I mean NO one has any idea of what is the final solution or what it looks like.

What Of Iraq?

Inkwell Institute

Subject:  Middle East

There is so much insanity now in the media with the candidates sniping at each other and so far we know that each one thinks the other one sucks……and that seems to be what the unpaid surrogates in the blogs are echoing…..but as we Americans sloganize our selves into a stupor…….there is much happening in the middle east that could impact this country…..for that reason I will dedicate the next several days on posts about the ME and the problems brewing…….

I know that Americans right now are focused on whether a stay at home mom really works or if women that take the pill are sluts or …..I am sure if we wait a little longer another made up controversy will pop up……..but until then…..

Iraq!  Remember that one?  It was the hub of AQ activity in the world…..Saddam was in cahoots with them and there were WMDs lying undisturbed in the streets waiting for the moment to be used against the US.  Remember those days?

Let me share a few thoughts on Iraq from the days before the first war……the streets were virtually spotless, the people had total healthcare from cradle to grave, education was free and gas cost about 15 cents a gallon….the first gulf war made a mess of Baghdad….after the ceasefire and cleanup after wards returned Baghdad to the clean thriving city it was before the massive bombing and such…..

Then came the 2nd war and the total destruction of Baghdad and the rest of the country….and the US decided to re-build the country in the democratic image that is the United States….then came the fun (at least for the contractors like KBR, etc that would be making 10s of billions of dollars)……

But now we Americans are all but gone from the country (we will NEVER be gone as long as we are permitting contractors  to game their way to billions upon billions)…….and now the Iraqi people can get on with their lives as a free people and a birth of a Middle East democracy….and that is what the media and the administration would have us believe…….and so the saga continues, right?

My question was….will Iraq ever return to the days when the country’s people were well off and prosperous?  I found my answer in a copy of the magazine Foreign Policy………

Nine years after U.S. troops toppled Saddam Hussein and just a few months after the last U.S. soldier left Iraq, the country has become something close to a failed state. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki presides over a system rife with corruption and brutality, in which political leaders use security forces and militias to repress enemies and intimidate the general population. The law exists as a weapon to be wielded against rivals and to hide the misdeeds of allies. The dream of an Iraq governed by elected leaders answerable to the people is rapidly fading away.

The Iraqi state cannot provide basic services, including regular electricity in summer, clean water, and decent health care; meanwhile, unemployment among young men hovers close to 30 percent, making them easy recruits for criminal gangs and militant factions. Although the level of violence is down from the worst days of the civil war in 2006 and 2007, the current pace of bombings and shootings is more than enough to leave most Iraqis on edge and deeply uncertain about their futures. They have lost any hope that the bloodshed will go away and simply live with their dread. Acrimony in the political realm and the violence in the cities create a destabilizing feedback loop, whereby the bloodshed sows mistrust in the halls of power and politicians are inclined to settle scores with their proxies in the streets.

Both Maliki and his rivals are responsible for the slow slide toward chaos, prisoners of their own history under Saddam. Iraq today is divided between once-persecuted Shiite religious parties, such as Maliki’s Dawa Party, still hungry for revenge, and secular and Sunni parties that long for a less bloody version of Saddam’s Baath Party, with its nationalist ideology and intolerance of religious and ethnic politics. Meanwhile, the Kurds maneuver gingerly around the divisions in Baghdad. Their priority is to preserve their near autonomy in northern Iraq and ward off the resurrection of a powerful central government that could one day besiege their cities and bombard their villages, as Baghdad did throughout the twentieth century.

The country, Iraq, may NEVER return to the beautiful country I knew in my youth……..Iraq is destined to be a failed state and will be open to yet another dictator to come along…..and this cycle will most likely begin all over again….but for now…all the Iraqis have to look forward to is more misery and a failed state waiting for the next strongman to appear…..

A now it looks like he is trying to emerge from the shadows…….

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has demonstrated an increasingly authoritarian rule as he consolidates power over the country’s institutions and security forces. He has marginalized his political opponents through force and coercion, which has stoked sectarian tensions and even threatened a break-up of the nation. And Obama is supporting all of it.

Maliki, a Shiite, ordered the arrest of his Sunni Vice President Hashemi just as the last U.S. troops left Iraq. The U.S. ambassador to Iraq expressed approval in January of this quest to detain Iraq’s vice president on trumped up terrorism charges, despite a virtual consensus that it was a blatant attempt to eliminate a political rival.

Maliki also betrayed an agreement that would have limited his ability to marginalize the Sunnis and turn the military into a sectarian force and ended up arresting hundreds of former Baath Party members on charges that they were involved in a coup plot. Because of the turmoil, Sunni and Kurdish blocs in the Iraqi parliament committed themselves to a boycott, and later threatened secession.

Alaa Mekki, a senior lawmaker with the mostly Sunni Iraqiya bloc, said of the U.S., “Their goal of a united, democratic Iraq is now under threat because of what we describe as the dictatorship attitude.” Angered Kurds and Sunnis say their disenfranchisement has never been greater.

Read More…

Just wait!  Iraq has not been stabilized and the US has done what it does best…put strong men in power….and it could eventually bite us in the ass…

2012 Anal-Ocity #17

Here we go again…another sanctimonious asshat just had to open his mouth and prove what an idiot he really is….this time it is Mitt’s rocker bud, Ted Nugent……

The washed up rocker had plenty to say at the NRA convention, a place he is still a rocker, the rest of the world thinks he is a bad reality star….some his moronic comments….

Nugent called President Obama a criminal and denounced his “vile, evil America-hating administration” which is “wiping its ass with the Constitution.”

In addition to the remarks we reported yesterday, Nugent compared President Obama and the Democrats to a coyote that needs to be shot. He then told the crowd that “we’re Americans because we defied the king,” and we must be like Braveheart and “ride into that battlefield and chop [Democrats’] heads off in November.”

If that was not enough he had to add  his best quote about Obama and the Dems…….

If the coyote’s in your living room pissing on your couch, it’s not the coyote’s fault. It’s your fault for not shooting him. […]
Maybe he should take up with Victoria Jackson they seem to be a match made in Heaven (no pun intended)….

Guns And The 2nd Amendment

I guess it is no secret that my conserv friends think I am a Liberal…..I am more than that because to me a liberal is just a conserv that has been arrested….I am progressive meaning I want the country and government to progress forward to the future….and yes I am a radical….meaning I want real change to improve the country, not this willy nilly reform that we have had for the last 50 years…….but for some reason when I mention guns or the 2nd amendment all my friends get their conserv hackles up and tell me about how much safer the country with guns, or how much crime rate falls with the ownership of guns, or how it will be unconstitutional for any messing with gun laws……

Okay let me be clear!  Even though I am on the Left politically….I have NO problem with gun ownership and I in NO way condone the  “take my guns away” laws that some see lurking everywhere….In fact I have guns….blackpowder, shotgun and a pistol….I hunt but prefer bow hunting to guns…..so please believe me that I do NOT want to take your beloved guns away and would not support any action to do so….

I do have a problem with assault weapons and extended magazines…….there is NO need for either!  And NO one needs 20 or 30 weapons….if they are for a collection then lead the barrels and hang them on the wall!

I mean if one wants such for “home protection” and needs multiple bullets to get the job done…… then I suggest that if they are that bad of a shot to spend a little cash and get a shotgun….you get more coverage for the bang.  And if one would use such to hunt then I also suggest the local supermarket and save themselves the aggravation of trying to bag the game.

There is NO logical need for assault weapons and extended magazines in society…..if one feels that they cannot exist without these weapons then I have another suggestion…and if one wants to play Rambo…..JOIN THE MILITARY and live out your perverted fantasy.

See!  Not all us Lefties want to steal your cherished guns!

I just wished ALL Americans were as paranoid about the other amendments and their possible loss as they are over the 2nd.

How Many Communists Are There?

From the VOMITORIUM

How many of you saw the original “Manchurian Candidate”?  Not the cheap knock off with Denzel Washington.  In case you missed it (you missed a great movie) there is an idiot senator in the movie named Johnny Eislin (?) and his way of stay in the news was to accuse this department or that in the government that have card carrying Communists working there….keep in mind the first movie was made during the Great Red Scare of the 50’s and 60’s…….

I will bet that you are wondering where I am going with this post…….

There seems to be a return to the days of that scare…..

What’s the quickest way to get in the news? Say something unsubstantiated and controversial. In politics, the quickest way to get attention, besides a full-fledged sex scandal, is to call someone a derogatory name. Or, for results just as quick, label another politician a Socialist, Nazi, or Communist.

Rep. Allen West (R-FL), who is running for re-election, did just that this week at a town hall meeting. In fact, he labeled several dozen Democrats as communists…

The question posed was: “What percentage of the American legislature do you think are card carrying Marxists…?”

“That’s a good question. I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party,” West told the crowd of about a hundred at a townhall meeting in Palm City, according to the Palm Beach Post.

For several seconds after the answer was given, the crowd talked among themselves. Finally, after about ten seconds, West clarified just who he meant by Democrats that he thought were communists: “… It’s called the Congressional Progressive Caucus.”

Recently there has been an uproar because a CNN pundit made a comment about Anne Romney….let me interject here that it is unacceptable to criticize anyone who has chosen to stay home and raise kids…..but of course the Right has used this statement to strengthen there push to claw the gender gap closed……as they should…it is a perfect situation to further their attempts…..but NOT one GOPer has condemned West for his comments……he has accused elected officials of being communist and has not offered any proof other than his say so……the West people have tried to push back….but all you need to do is watch the video and tell me what he meant……..

Rosen’s comment was insulting…….Rep. West is not only insulting but an out right lie!  If everyone wants this type of bullshit to stop then man up and call it what it is….until that is done all concerned, notice I said ALL, are COWARDS!

2012 Thoughts Without Posts #2

Like I say….I make hundreds of notes a week and not all make it into the blog as a post…..so I try let my readers have a small glimpse into the sick mind of a radical……

1–Why is a tampon ad with a tall woman dressed in all white with flaming red hair a good idea?

2–What is a Brazilian butt lift?

3–Do you find it humorous that most SUVs are named after something outdoorsy?  I mean the closest that most of them get to nature is when hubby backs up through wife’s flower bad……

4–In College football….why does the Big 12 have ten teams and the Big 10 have twelve?

5–In my area a local gym is offering classes in Brazilian Ju-jitsu…..thinking…..what makes it Brazilian?  Do you practice in a thong?

6–A new hair dye for men says that it has an auto turn-off….it stops when it reaches the exact color you want……When did liquids become a thinking entity?

7–Did you see the original “Manchurian Candidate”?  Character Sen. Johnny Eislin (?) was always saying how many Communist there were in the government and never the same number……do we have an example of life imitating art?  Rep. Alan West says there are 78-81 card carrying communist in the congress.

8–DELETED!

9–American Nazi Party has a Washington lobbyist……Disclosure records show that John Bowles registered the party on Tuesday. According to the documents, he plans to lobby on “political rights and ballot access laws” — also listing “general lobbying issue areas,” including health care, immigration, the Constitution, agriculture and civil rights.  The party’s aim, according to their own website: “The American Nazi Party is a Political-Educational Association, dedicated to the 14 WORDS. We are committed to bringing American National Socialism, first created and embodied by our late Commander George Lincoln Rockwell, out of the past Phase One activities which at the time served their purpose well, and into the 21st Century.”

there are my notes….have any thoughts?

New Nuke On The Way

The weekend begins and time for the sciencey stuff…….

I am opposed to nuke power as we have it now…..yes, i know the energy i clean…..but the by-product is not…..and there is my problem with the energy….there is virtually no way to dispose of the waste material…..some of that stuff has a half-life of a bazillion years……

graphic novels and the SyFy network is always showing stuff like cool fusion and just how good it could be if it were ever invented……never fear…the future is near!

Nuclear fusion might be achieved in a preheated cylindrical container immersed in strong magnetic fields.  A series of computer simulations performed at Sandia National Laboratories show the release of output energy that was, remarkably, many times greater than the energy fed into the simulation.

Sandia researcher Steve Slutz, lead author of the paper published at Physical Review Letters said, “People didn’t think there was a high-gain option for magnetized inertial fusion (MIF) but these numerical simulations show there is. Now we have to see if nature will let us do it. In principle, we don’t know why we can’t.”  Take that to mean “might” moves to “could”.

The Sandia team is talking about high-gain or quite substantial returns past breakeven reactions.
Before we get too far let’s have a very brief refresher.  The two leading Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (ICE) paths are from Dr. Robert Bussard with quite a bit of design information and the Rostocker design handled quietly by Tri-Alpha Energy.  Add to those the plasma method gaining ground designed and led by Eric Lerner.  The easiest comparison is the Bussard confinement design – a semi spherical (essentially a cube) volume held by magnetic fields within which fusion is occurring and expected to get past breakeven.

This year the press release explains the MIF technique heats the fusion fuel (deuterium-tritium) by compression as in normal inertial fusion, but uses a magnetic field to suppress heat loss during implosion. The magnetic field surrounds a small liner so together they act like a kind of shower curtain to prevent charged particles like electrons and alpha particles from leaving the party early and draining energy from the reaction.

At the top and bottom of the liner are two slightly larger coils that, when electrically powered, create a joined vertical magnetic field that penetrates into the liner, reducing energy loss from charged particles attempting to escape through the liner’s walls.

Once set up the simulated process relies upon a single, relatively low-powered laser to preheat a deuterium-tritium gas mixture that sits within the liner.

An extremely strong magnetic field is created on the surface of the liner by a separate, very powerful electrical current, generated by a pulsed power accelerator such as the Sandia Z accelerator machine. The force of this huge magnetic field pushes the liner inward to a fraction of its original diameter. It also compresses the magnetic field emanating from the coils. The combination is powerful enough to force atoms of gaseous fuel into intimate contact with each other, fusing them.

What they get is an implosion, everything crashing in rather than exploding out.  The product we’re interested in is heat, and the new work shows there is a lot of it.

Heat released from that reaction raises the gaseous fuel’s temperature high enough to ignite a layer of frozen and therefore denser deuterium-tritium fuel coating the inside of the liner. The heat transfer is similar to the way kindling heats a log: when the log ignites, the real heat – here high-yield fusion from ignited frozen fuel – begins.

Tests of physical equipment necessary to validate the computer simulations are already under way at Sandia’s Z accelerator.  Sandia engineer Dean Rovang expects a laboratory result by late 2013.  Sandia has already performed preliminary tests of the coils. Portions of the design are slated to receive their first tests this month and continue into early winter.

Physics is just cool!  Thoughts?

It’s Poverty—-Again!

If it is not education…… it is poverty…..do not misunderstand me….I think poverty should be eliminated completely….but that is wishful thinking…..why?  For one, capitalism needs poverty….and two, if it was eliminated, what would politicians have to talk about?

First, we have had programming after programming on what should be done in this country to bring our educational system up to where it belongs…..but instead we here what programs are working in New York or what school is graduating what skilled people or …..well, you get the point……yes there are successes but none of this programming will ever complete the job that is needed, a massive job, I may add…..all it does is give some person who has written a book or who is looking for a job an outlet…….

Let us not forget the next big issue that gets lots of lip service but NO action…..”Going Green”…..another attempt to be relevant but falls short, way short……the channels zero in on this business or that attempt or this person….and yet….NOTHING is being done other than some lame stop gap measure……they can change the color of their logo and give us all kinds of programming….but if NO one is listening or cares….then “green” is just another bumper sticker…….

And now I see lots of programming on poverty and the costs to the nation…..I think it is a lovely gesture to zero in on the problem….but we have done all the talking that is required and anymore talking will NOT make poverty a thing of the past….once again NO one is listening and at worse, NO one cares…..

Poverty is ever expanding and until the nation makes it priority to eliminate then all the well meaning talk is in the end….just well meaning and falling on deaf ears….I regret to say…..in a country that worships the creation of wealth….poverty is just NOT that important.

If you think I am mistaken then look at the campaign stuff…..there is NO one that is talking about poverty….only some vague idea on how to avoid it……

Castro–A “What If”

I would like to try something new for Info Ink….hopefully my readers will find it interesting and thought provoking……it will be how one minor decision could have changed history……I wish I could say that this is an original idea but it is not…..several noted authors have written along these lines……from time to time it is fun to re-write history…i mean…if politicians can do it why not us mere mortals?

From time to time I do take some time away from the endless political mierda that the media would have us to believe and some times it is just not what is real…..during this time I think of “what ifs” in history, just how things might have turned out differently if another choice had been made…..

During this election season the GOP has started bringing up Castro again….it seems to be inevitable that Cuba’s leader ill be brought up, especially in a Florida campaign with its massive amounts of Cubans living in Southern Florida….so with the disingenuous subject made me think of one of my “what ifs”…..

There is a myth that was flying around that back in the 1950’s that Fidel Castro had a try-out with the Washington Senators as a pitcher.  Now, what if Castro had tried out and signed with the Washington Senators……..he would not have lead the 1959 rebellion against Batista, who would have remained in power and a friend to the US….without the rebellion there would have been no need for the Bay of Pigs and without the bay of pigs there would have been no Cuban Missile crisis…..and Cuba would today be the most sought after vacation spot in the Western hemisphere…..

Batista would have probably been ousted by the CIA because he was a cause for concern……Cuba would have become more democratic but still with problems but nothing the CIA could not handle…….without the rebellion there would have been no massive Cuban immigration into South Florida….without that immigration there would be NO huge GOP voting bloc in the 1980 election and Jimmy Carter would have eeked out a win…….with a win in 1980 and the hostage thing settled Carter would have turned his energy into finding a solution for the Israeli-Palestinian problem……and the middle east would have been a quieter place…..

And if Carter had won re-election we would have a better alt energy policy and our dependence on foreign oil would be considerably less……

These are just a few things that would have been altered if Castro had been signed by the Washington Senators……just a ‘what if’ but it illustrates that even one minor decision could have changed the world considerably…….

I will be posted these types of ‘what ifs’ from time to time….gives my mental processes a break from the mind numbing ‘political crack’ that is US politics……hope it was enjoyable.