[Winstonm]

 mike777, on 2016-September-15, 15:47, said:

I did not exaggerate anything, you made the claim that the odds are low for attacks, I agreed. You just left out information, facts, and did not put it in proper perspective, I did.

Now you advocate for robots to do our killing rather than humans. You advocate for more robots to do the killing and fewer human ground troops .


At some point we need to discuss the ethical treatment not only of animals but of robots.

No, I simply pointed out that your claims of "fact" should always be taken with a grain of salt.

[kenrexford]

 hrothgar, on 2016-September-15, 15:39, said:

Ken, this would work much better if you were able to remember details of a discussion.

This all started when you made some laughably ignorant comments about inherent characteristics of Islam as a religion.
I countered by saying that you were conflating broader characteristics regarding the Middle East with Islam.

When you make comments like " The Middle East was a place of lunatics before any of this. Consider, e.g., Assyria. Lunatics. Islam did not create the lunacy. Islam arose from the lunacy and reinforced it." you are conceding my basic point.
If you agree to do so, we can then go and consider the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia (home to 80% of the world's Muslims and a much better place to consider the role of Islam in society than the Middle East.

Before doing so, lets examine some more of the gems of wisdom that you dispensed.

You criticize me for listing "ridiculous factors". To start with, this was a direct response to your own comment "What meteor hit the Middle East?"
I gave you five very big ones...

One of the (several) undergraduate degrees that I have is in history (I specifically focused in the Ottoman Empire)
Please trust me when I say that all of these events are considered as being quite significant.

As to some of your other pearls of wisdom

1. Yes, World War I and World War II devastated Europe. England, France, and Germany were destroyed as world powers.
How does that in any way negate my claim that the Mongol invasion had a similar impact on the Abbasid caliphate.

If anything, by claiming that major wars can devastate a region, you are supporting my main point.

Oh, BTW, while the Mongols did invade Europe, their impact was limited to Russia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary, and Turkey.
he first three were pretty much backwaters for the next 500 years.

2. The Ottoman's had a highly effective navies that operated in both the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. The issue here is not that the Ottoman's could not trade with India and China, rather, they lost their ability to extract monopolistic rents

3. There's plenty of good material out there discussion the Spanish price revolution

Here's one of the first sentences from wikipedia "The Spanish Price Revolution is overwhelmingly the most prolonged and influential occurrence of rampant inflation in modern history."

5. With respect to the curse of oil, wikipedia once again has a decent enough treatment

https://en.wikipedia.../Resource_curse

These aren't minor little things that I identified.

I was a history major, as well. We could probably dpend hours discussing the various nuances of various geographic zone and time frames, with all sorts of interesting insights. But, I always end up at the same point. Islamists are friggin nuts. That's my historiographic position. Violent crazies.

Sure, Indonesia is different, and perhaps there is a point to "arab islam" being the true crazies. But, as islam seems inherently middle eastern in origin and focus, indonesian islam seems like the exceptional.

I mean, christians are also nuts, but at least now not violent as much, by a long shot.

[Vampyr]

 Winstonm, on 2016-September-15, 15:51, said:

Gridlock fault lies on the right hand side of the isle.

Yes, the Republicans have been, er, refreshingly honest about their intentions, openly stating that their objective was to thwart Obama in every possible way. One might have imagined that their main concern was the well-being of the citizens of the country they have sworn to serve. Alas, no.

[hrothgar]

 kenrexford, on 2016-September-15, 20:07, said:

But, I always end up at the same point. Islamists are friggin nuts. That's my historiographic position. Violent crazies.
Sure, Indonesia is different, and perhaps there is a point to "arab islam" being the true crazies. But, as islam seems inherently middle eastern in origin and focus, indonesian islam seems like the exceptional.

Indonesia has roughly 13% of the world's muslims.
India has another 11% or so
Bangladesh close to 9%

In comparison, the entire Arabian peninsula is ~ 3%
Turkey, Egypt, and Iran are each somewhere around 4-5%

FWIW, I don't disagree that there are some strains of Islam that are pretty damn ugly.

Unfortunately, Wahhabism (which is probably the nastiest version that is around today) has been strongly identified with the Saudi Royal family since the early 18th century.
Normally, this wouldn't matter too much, but the Saudi's have been doing a lot to try to promote this particular version of Islam in other parts of the world.

If you were to modify your comments to discuss Wahhabism or Salafism I wouldn't disagree with you.
Those folks are nuts (Just as the ultra Orthodox jews are nuts and he Biblical literalists here in the US are nuts)

A pox on all their houses...

[Winstonm]

It is important to identify the enemy before setting out on a course of action. Iran appears less a threat to the U.S. than Saudi Arabia, yet we fear the one and cozy up to the latter. Perhaps Saudi leaders have read the advice to keep your friends close but your enemies closer.

[kenberg]

From WaPo, and presumably everywhere else, we have the DT quote:

Quote

"Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it. I finished it. You know what I mean," Trump said Friday morning at his newly opened luxury hotel in Washington. "President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period."

Shades of Bell Book and Candle, but finally we have an explanation. Hillary Clinton is a witch. In 2008 she made a toad and snail brew and set it on fire, while humming seductively to her cat Pyewacket. This spell caused Donald Trump to spout eight years of total nonsense.

Some may be skeptical of this explanation. We all recall that when Shep (Jimmy Stewart) explained to Merle (Janice Rule) that Gillian (Kim Novak) was a witch she dismissed this with "Nonsense, Shep, you just never learned to spell". But keep in mind that Sidney Reditch (Ernie Kovacs) had spent time in Mexico. For me, this clinches it.

[Winstonm]

 kenberg, on 2016-September-17, 07:41, said:

From WaPo, and presumably everywhere else, we have the DT quote:



Shades of Bell Book and Candle, but finally we have an explanation. Hillary Clinton is a witch. In 2008 she made a toad and snail brew and set it on fire, while humming seductively to her cat Pyewacket. This spell caused Donald Trump to spout eight years of total nonsense.

Some may be skeptical of this explanation. We all recall that when Shep (Jimmy Stewart) explained to Merle (Janice Rule) that Gillian (Kim Novak) was a witch she dismissed this with "Nonsense, Shep, you just never learned to spell". But keep in mind that Sidney Reditch (Ernie Kovacs) had spent time in Mexico. For me, this clinches it.

I keep forgetting: is the good witch from the Eastern block or the Western hemisphere?

[kenrexford]

In all fairness I think both of them are wrong. The original birther seems to have been Obama himself if I recall correctly.

[kenberg]

 kenrexford, on 2016-September-17, 16:08, said:

In all fairness I think both of them are wrong. The original birther seems to have been Obama himself if I recall correctly.

It doesn't matter. I am stunned, although with DT I should not be, that after eight years of birthering he gives it up and points at Hillary. To call this childish is to insult children.

[kenrexford]

 kenberg, on 2016-September-17, 16:37, said:

It doesn't matter. I am stunned, although with DT I should not be, that after eight years of birthering he gives it up and points at Hillary. To call this childish is to insult children.

Eh. In my opinion, a fair review of the auction:

1. Obama started with an interesting hand. He was dealt a father was not a US citizen and he happened to have been born in a relatively new town for him. He also grew up overseas.

2. Obama that psyched his opening, claiming through surrogates a foreign birth to gain Advantage for himself.

3. The Clinton campaign then jumped up on that during a fairly nasty Democrat nomination process in 2008.

4. Trump then went crazy because this was perhaps the most fun conspiracy theory in years, with bread crumbs left by Obama himself, coupled with smokescreens thrown up for no particular reason.

5. The auction then ended, and the psych was exposed.

6. Trump's partner in the bidding noted that Trump made several bids on the basis of the psych.

7. Trump noted that the first call made in reliance on the psych was hers.

After that review of the bidding, Trump may be "childish," but that is his best play because it is technically true. Clinton is childish because she is the hypocritical child complaining about little Donny playing with little Barry's toy more than she did, because little Barry did not want either of them playing with the toy he should not have left out.

Or, Hillary saus Trump is a big racist because he screams and yells and goes crazy over the information she Whispers about in polite company. Again however Obama didn't exactly help the cause when he claimed it himself.

[kenberg]

If we go with analogies, I was recently on a jury. I imagine a guy on trial for various things and the defense is "Let me tell you what X did in 2008".

Trump is an absolute master at this game. Sometimes what he says is true, even a total BS artist says something true on occasion. But the truth doesn't matter to him, he is after the distraction. And since the truth doesn't matter to him there is no reason for me get caught up in his distraction.

The way to avoid being played for a sucker at the slot machines is to not play slot machines. The way to avoid being scammed by Trump's distraction games is to refuse to play. I will not be looking up what HC did or did not say in 2008 any more than I will be sticking a buck into a lot machine.


PS We acquitted the guy in the trial. Another story.

[hrothgar]

 kenrexford, on 2016-September-18, 08:06, said:

Eh. In my opinion, a fair review of the auction:

...

2. Obama that psyched his opening, claiming through surrogates a foreign birth to gain Advantage for himself.

Please provide any evidence what-so-ever that this claim is true...

[PassedOut]

 hrothgar, on 2016-September-18, 10:17, said:

Please provide any evidence what-so-ever that this claim is true...

Here's the foundation for that belief about Obama: Was Obama Born in the USA?

Quote

The claim is that Obama received a Fulbright scholarship for foreign students, proving that he is not a U.S. citizen and therefore not eligible to be president. Supposedly this was reported by The Associated Press. But the claim is false and the story is a hoax.

We contacted The Associated Press just to confirm what should be obvious, that no such news story ever appeared on the news agency’s wires. Jack Stokes, the AP‘s manager of media relations, gave us this statement:

Quote

AP: The story purported to be from The Associated Press on April 1 is fake.

Furthermore, the group that the fake story credits with gaining release of the supposed “smoking gun” documents is also a fake. Searches of news accounts and Internet sites showed no trace of any group called “Americans for Freedom of Information,” until recently. On May 6 such a group did appear, but only as a joke to make fun of anyone who had fallen for the April Fools’ Day gag.

Folks still fall for it. Great gag!

[PassedOut]

 kenrexford, on 2016-September-18, 08:06, said:

3. The Clinton campaign then jumped up on that during a fairly nasty Democrat nomination process in 2008.

Trump on Birtherism: Wrong, and Wrong

Quote

Donald Trump finally, definitively allowed that “President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period.” But his terse statement on the matter included two falsehoods.

“Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it,” Trump said in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 16. Neither of those things is true.

As we have written before, there’s no evidence that Clinton or her campaign had anything to do with bogus claims that Obama wasn’t born in the United States and thus was ineligible to be president.

What we do know, as we wrote in November 2008, is that some diehard Clinton supporters pushed that theory during that year’s presidential campaign. But again, there is no evidence that either Clinton herself or anyone on her campaign staff was involved in that.

Here is the Breitbart.com justification for the Hillary-started-it claims:

Quote

Doyle appeared about an hour later on CNN with Wolf Blitzer to address the issue once again. She denied that Hillary Clinton had started the Birther theory — then admitted that someone in the Clinton campaign had, in fact, been involved. Here is part their exchange (sic):

Blitzer: Someone supporting Hillary Clinton was trying to promote this so-called Birther issue? What happened?

Doyle: So we — absolutely, the campaign nor Hillary did not start the Birther movement, period, end of story there. There was a volunteer coordinator, I believe, in late 2007, I believe, in December, one of our volunteer coordinators in one of the counties in Iowa — I don’t recall whether they were an actual paid staffer, but they did forward an email that promoted the conspiracy.

Blitzer: The Birther conspiracy?

Doyle: Yeah, Hillary made the decision immediately to let that person go. We let that person go. And it was so, beyond the pale, Wolf, and so not worthy of the kind of campaign that certainly Hillary wanted to run.

Doyle went on to relate how she personally called Obama campaign manager David Plouffe to apologize, and he accepted.

That's it.

[kenrexford]

http://www.snopes.co...ers/booklet.asp

Now, I grant you that this was written off as a mistake. That's a pretty random mistake to make however. My idea always has been that the origin of the born in Kenya mythology is somewhat akin to the Elizabeth Warren Indian ancestry myth. Democrats like to be exotic. For example if a candidate for office could pull off a hoax claiming that he was a child conceived in a laboratory out of the fusion of DNA from a black Muslim lesbian and a Tibetan man who identified as a woman and the Native American hermaphrodite they would do so.

[kenrexford]

 kenberg, on 2016-September-18, 10:05, said:

If we go with analogies, I was recently on a jury. I imagine a guy on trial for various things and the defense is "Let me tell you what X did in 2008".

Trump is an absolute master at this game. Sometimes what he says is true, even a total BS artist says something true on occasion. But the truth doesn't matter to him, he is after the distraction. And since the truth doesn't matter to him there is no reason for me get caught up in his distraction.

The way to avoid being played for a sucker at the slot machines is to not play slot machines. The way to avoid being scammed by Trump's distraction games is to refuse to play. I will not be looking up what HC did or did not say in 2008 any more than I will be sticking a buck into a lot machine.


PS We acquitted the guy in the trial. Another story.

You don't see the irony in your analysis? Hillary Clinton has been slammed repeatedly for all sorts of lies and Corruption. The only person I've seen the lie more obviously and more frequently for no particular reason at times is a drug addict. Pushed up against the corner she says Trump is a birther nut case.

Now I fully agree that Trump has a history of being a birther nutcase. I also think however that getting sucked up into birther nutcase Theory is less problematic than the things that are tripping up Clinton. However you feel about it the result is the same as what you were claiming. Hillary's defense 2 repeatedly lying under oath and to her own followers and two decades of corruption is the throw out but the prosecutor is a goofball. True no one disputes that. But you are a crooked liar.

[Winstonm]

 kenrexford, on 2016-September-18, 16:58, said:

http://www.snopes.co...ers/booklet.asp

Now, I grant you that this was written off as a mistake. That's a pretty random mistake to make however. My idea always has been that the origin of the born in Kenya mythology is somewhat akin to the Elizabeth Warren Indian ancestry myth. Democrats like to be exotic. For example if a candidate for office could pull off a hoax claiming that he was a child conceived in a laboratory out of the fusion of DNA from a black Muslim lesbian and a Tibetan man who identified as a woman and the Native American hermaphrodite they would do so.

Now your bias is starting to show.

[Winstonm]

 kenrexford, on 2016-September-18, 17:06, said:

You don't see the irony in your analysis? Hillary Clinton has been slammed repeatedly for all sorts of lies and Corruption. The only person I've seen the lie more obviously and more frequently for no particular reason at times is a drug addict. Pushed up against the corner she says Trump is a birther nut case.

Now I fully agree that Trump has a history of being a birther nutcase. I also think however that getting sucked up into birther nutcase Theory is less problematic than the things that are tripping up Clinton. However you feel about it the result is the same as what you were claiming. Hillary's defense 2 repeatedly lying under oath and to her own followers and two decades of corruption is the throw out but the prosecutor is a goofball. True no one disputes that. But you are a crooked liar.

And now it sounds like your information sources are from Fox News. That doesn't help the legitimacy of claims.

[PassedOut]

 kenrexford, on 2016-September-18, 16:58, said:

http://www.snopes.co...ers/booklet.asp

Now, I grant you that this was written off as a mistake. That's a pretty random mistake to make however.

I knew about that one too, but from your post it seemed that you were referring to the April Fool hoax.

The booklet wasn't just "written off" as a mistake:

Quote

The booklet, which was distributed to "business colleagues" in the publishing industry, includes a brief biography of Obama among the biographies of eighty-nine other authors represented by Acton & Dystel.

Miriam Goderich edited the text of the bio; she is now a partner at the Dystel & Goderich agency, which lists Obama as one of its current clients.

"You're undoubtedly aware of the brouhaha stirred up by Breitbart about the erroneous statement in a client list Acton & Dystel published in 1991 (for circulation within the publishing industry only) that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me — an agency assistant at the time," Goderich wrote. "There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more."

A New York Times article about Barack Obama published in 1990, a year before the Acton & Dystel promotional booklet was issued, correctly identified his birthplace as Hawaii.

I don't see why you think that a fair reading of the April Fool hoax, plus an understandable error by a publishing assistant--with no input from Obama--is that Obama himself started the birther foolishness.

The way Hillary Clinton handled the situation--by letting go immediately the volunteer who forwarded the nutcase email--stands in marked contrast to what Trump did: Romney Advisor Says Trump Suggested Birther Movement Because "Rightwing Crazies Will Believe It."

Trump pushed for years what he always knew was a lie.

[hrothgar]

 kenrexford, on 2016-September-18, 17:06, said:

You don't see the irony in your analysis? Hillary Clinton has been slammed repeatedly for all sorts of lies and Corruption. The only person I've seen the lie more obviously and more frequently for no particular reason at times is a drug addict. Pushed up against the corner she says Trump is a birther nut case.

For *****s sake Ken, compare Clinton's record for telling the truth with ANY other candidate running for the presidency in 2016.
She scores much much better in any of the usual sources that fact check the candidates.

The fact that you say say that a pathological liar like Trump is more honest shows that you are completely deranged...