I broke my rule of not lurking on the political boards, because a friend had just had her pet die, and wanted to see the response. It was sympathetic.
But in the process, I found out just who had had me banned from the board. Who it was, was not a surprise.
Now, more than ever, I'm glad I no longer need to participate in that insanity.
Showing posts with label My Other Posts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My Other Posts. Show all posts
Monday, September 19, 2011
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
My 2007 Prediction Evaluations
05-15-2008, 11:52 PM | ||
| | ||
 OK, the surge bought some time, which was wasted. Still have to give me a fail (D+). I underestimated Petreaus' deals with the Sunnis. Iraq is now deteriorating, again. Check on the limits of power, but not as spectacular as predicted. B-/C+. Notice the Russians started buzzing carriers? Dollar decline continued, and indeed, some capital flight started, as traders started to wind down dollar positions as the mortgage mess got worse. A- The recession DID start in mid-2007! And I got the predictions on denial right too. A+. Got the housing market right. A. Iran and Saudis do clash by proxy, but not as openly as I thought. The Iranians are playing a very smart game. C-. Basra occurred this year, not 2007. The Silents are done. McCain remains my barrier to an A+, as he came back from the dead in 2007. A-. I got the gimme of Bush putting things off on his successor. B. Correct on non-impeachment (a near-gimmee). B+. Got the false sense of security right, but the hurricane season fizzled. C-, at best. Got the gimme of consumer spending right. B. The DTV conversion *is* attracting people away from cable/sat, but not yet in large numbers. D+/C-. No media bustout in 2007. Damn. F. Overall, a C performance, at best. I challenge my Ignore list to attempt a similar exercise... |
Marginalized Out Of My Own Party
Originally Posted by Another Poster
Liberals and Democrats prefer progressive taxes. Republicans and conservatives strenuously oppose them. Over the last 30 years of conservative ideological dominance the notion that taxes in general and progressive taxes in particular were bad has taken hold.
Democrats and liberals believe tax revenues are necessary and so support what kinds of tax increases that are politically possible. Conservatives are opposed to all taxes. As a matter of compromise sin taxes, use taxes, and sales taxes which are less offensive to conservatives are often enacted.
Carbon taxes are a conservative nostrum that some Democrats support to address CO2 emissions. If conservatvies and Republicans became convinced that it was necessary to control CO2 emissions, carbon taxes is just what they would suggest. Liberals aren't fans of carbon taxes.
Of course, conservatives deny CO2 has a role in climate change and so believe that no action is necessary. Thus, they oppose carbon taxes, not because they don't think they will work, but because they believe there is no need to reduce CO2 emissions.
Having only lived during the post-1980 era, you cannot really see the true difference between left and right, because viewpoints on the left have been suppressed.
In today's world, people who were once centrists like me, without changing, have become considered as part of the left. The old left has more or less vanished and rightwing viewpoints that back in the 1970's I used to see only in conspiracy-mongering undergound newpapers are now mainstream and openly held by millions, including many at this board.
The result is the crazies from the fever swamps of the Left simply are not heard. What is called left is simply the old left of center and what is called liberal is the old center. Hence when people observed that reality has a liberal bias, it is actually true because those labled liberals are the same folks who always were in the sensible middle, the people who acted on facts and logic.
The country has moved so far to the right that the folks now owning the conservative label aren't the rock-ribbed conservative Republicans of my youth (people like John McCain) but the right-wing crazies of my youth. People who consider McCain, who personally experienced "stress positions" as a young man, to be "weak on torture".
Liberals and Democrats prefer progressive taxes. Republicans and conservatives strenuously oppose them. Over the last 30 years of conservative ideological dominance the notion that taxes in general and progressive taxes in particular were bad has taken hold.
Democrats and liberals believe tax revenues are necessary and so support what kinds of tax increases that are politically possible. Conservatives are opposed to all taxes. As a matter of compromise sin taxes, use taxes, and sales taxes which are less offensive to conservatives are often enacted.
Carbon taxes are a conservative nostrum that some Democrats support to address CO2 emissions. If conservatvies and Republicans became convinced that it was necessary to control CO2 emissions, carbon taxes is just what they would suggest. Liberals aren't fans of carbon taxes.
Of course, conservatives deny CO2 has a role in climate change and so believe that no action is necessary. Thus, they oppose carbon taxes, not because they don't think they will work, but because they believe there is no need to reduce CO2 emissions.
Having only lived during the post-1980 era, you cannot really see the true difference between left and right, because viewpoints on the left have been suppressed.
In today's world, people who were once centrists like me, without changing, have become considered as part of the left. The old left has more or less vanished and rightwing viewpoints that back in the 1970's I used to see only in conspiracy-mongering undergound newpapers are now mainstream and openly held by millions, including many at this board.
The result is the crazies from the fever swamps of the Left simply are not heard. What is called left is simply the old left of center and what is called liberal is the old center. Hence when people observed that reality has a liberal bias, it is actually true because those labled liberals are the same folks who always were in the sensible middle, the people who acted on facts and logic.
The country has moved so far to the right that the folks now owning the conservative label aren't the rock-ribbed conservative Republicans of my youth (people like John McCain) but the right-wing crazies of my youth. People who consider McCain, who personally experienced "stress positions" as a young man, to be "weak on torture".
Word. This.
Even us center-right types have been marginalized. The Letters To The Editor Page from the old Globe-Democrat (where Pat Buchanan got started) has taken over. That page is called Free Republic nowadays.
$1.4 Billion Smoking Hole
Too lazy too look up my original thread. The B-2 crash was caused by the lack of institutional knowledge. The sort of stuff I learned late night out on the ramp from SNCO's, and later on, by hangar flying with fellow aircrew. They never published a TO (Technical Order) or TCTO (Time Change Technical Order- an emergency "patch").
You Millies and X'rs learned not to trust Microsoft; we learned long ago not to trust the AF or the manufacturers.
Note that they intend to keep the airplanes in the inventory for the next fifty [b]years[/b].
As ordinary humans all too well know, if you leave something totally computer controlled, it's going to frakk up spectacularly. Fifty years of billion-dollar blue screens? AND putting too many eggs into too few strategic baskets.
CNN Story:
[url]http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/06/crash.ap/index.html[/url]
updated 8:47 p.m. EDT, Fri June 6, 2008
Air Force: Moisture caused $1.4 billion bomber crash
* Story Highlights
* Spirit of Kansas B-2 stealth bomber crashed on Guam on February 23
* Report blames crash on moisture that distorted three of the plane's 24 sensors
* The incident was the first in the fleet's 20-year history
* The aircraft was expected to last 50 years
HICKAM AIR FORCE BASE, Hawaii (AP) -- The Air Force said the first crash of a B-2 stealth bomber was caused by moisture in sensors and estimated the loss of the aircraft at $1.4 billion.
The Air Force stopped flying B-2 stealth bombers for two months after the crash.
The crash probably could have been avoided if knowledge of a technique to evaporate the moisture had been disseminated throughout the B-2 program, Maj. Gen. Floyd L. Carpenter, who headed an accident investigation board, said Thursday.
The Spirit of Kansas abruptly pitched up, rolled and yawed to the left February 23 before plunging to the ground at Andersen Air Force Base on the island of Guam. Both pilots ejected safely just after the left wing made contact with the ground; it was the first crash since the maiden B-2 flights nearly 20 years ago.
"It was just by the grace of God that they were safe, and the good [ejection] system," Carpenter said.
Water distorted preflight readings in three of the plane's 24 sensors, making the aircraft's control computer force the B-2 to pitch up on takeoff, resulting in a stall and subsequent crash. Video Watch $1.4 billion aircraft crash to the ground »
Carpenter said the pilots and crew followed procedures and "the aircraft actually performed as it was designed. In other words, all the systems were functioning normally."
However, a technique learned by some two years ago that had gone widely unknown and unadopted probably would have prevented the crash, Carpenter said. The technique essentially heats the sensors and evaporates any moisture before data calibrations.
Don't Miss
* Air Force officials ousted over nuclear gaffes
* Navy lags behind Air Force in use of drones
"This technique was never formalized in a technical order change or captured in 'lessons learned' reports. Hence, only some pilots and some maintenance technicians knew of the suggestion," according to Carpenter's executive summary of the accident.
The report said, "The human factor of communicating critical information was a contributing factor to this mishap."
The general said his responsibility was solely for the investigation of the crash and added that the report was forwarded to commanding officers to determine whether any disciplinary measures are required.
The sensors measure air pressure to help calculate everything from airspeed to altitude. Because of the bad data, flight computers had inaccurate airspeed and wrongly indicated a downward angle, which contributed to an early rotation and uncontrolled 30-degree pitch up.
Carpenter said the lack of altitude and airspeed prevented the pilots from correcting the aircraft.
Guam, 3,700 miles southwest of Hawaii, is known for its humidity. But the Air Force said water in the sensors never caused any problems.
The Spirit was delivered in February 1995 and expected to be in service for another 50 years.
The bomber had been returning to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, where the 21-plane fleet is based. The Air Force grounded the B-2s after the crash and resumed flying them in late April.
advertisement
Carpenter said procedures and policies are now in place to guard against similar crashes.
"It's fortunate the crew was able to safely eject. It's unfortunate, however, that we lost one of our nation's penetrating bombers," said Gen. Carrol H. Chandler, commander of Pacific Air Forces.
You Millies and X'rs learned not to trust Microsoft; we learned long ago not to trust the AF or the manufacturers.
Note that they intend to keep the airplanes in the inventory for the next fifty [b]years[/b].
As ordinary humans all too well know, if you leave something totally computer controlled, it's going to frakk up spectacularly. Fifty years of billion-dollar blue screens? AND putting too many eggs into too few strategic baskets.
CNN Story:
[url]http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/06/crash.ap/index.html[/url]
updated 8:47 p.m. EDT, Fri June 6, 2008
Air Force: Moisture caused $1.4 billion bomber crash
* Story Highlights
* Spirit of Kansas B-2 stealth bomber crashed on Guam on February 23
* Report blames crash on moisture that distorted three of the plane's 24 sensors
* The incident was the first in the fleet's 20-year history
* The aircraft was expected to last 50 years
HICKAM AIR FORCE BASE, Hawaii (AP) -- The Air Force said the first crash of a B-2 stealth bomber was caused by moisture in sensors and estimated the loss of the aircraft at $1.4 billion.
The Air Force stopped flying B-2 stealth bombers for two months after the crash.
The crash probably could have been avoided if knowledge of a technique to evaporate the moisture had been disseminated throughout the B-2 program, Maj. Gen. Floyd L. Carpenter, who headed an accident investigation board, said Thursday.
The Spirit of Kansas abruptly pitched up, rolled and yawed to the left February 23 before plunging to the ground at Andersen Air Force Base on the island of Guam. Both pilots ejected safely just after the left wing made contact with the ground; it was the first crash since the maiden B-2 flights nearly 20 years ago.
"It was just by the grace of God that they were safe, and the good [ejection] system," Carpenter said.
Water distorted preflight readings in three of the plane's 24 sensors, making the aircraft's control computer force the B-2 to pitch up on takeoff, resulting in a stall and subsequent crash. Video Watch $1.4 billion aircraft crash to the ground »
Carpenter said the pilots and crew followed procedures and "the aircraft actually performed as it was designed. In other words, all the systems were functioning normally."
However, a technique learned by some two years ago that had gone widely unknown and unadopted probably would have prevented the crash, Carpenter said. The technique essentially heats the sensors and evaporates any moisture before data calibrations.
Don't Miss
* Air Force officials ousted over nuclear gaffes
* Navy lags behind Air Force in use of drones
"This technique was never formalized in a technical order change or captured in 'lessons learned' reports. Hence, only some pilots and some maintenance technicians knew of the suggestion," according to Carpenter's executive summary of the accident.
The report said, "The human factor of communicating critical information was a contributing factor to this mishap."
The general said his responsibility was solely for the investigation of the crash and added that the report was forwarded to commanding officers to determine whether any disciplinary measures are required.
The sensors measure air pressure to help calculate everything from airspeed to altitude. Because of the bad data, flight computers had inaccurate airspeed and wrongly indicated a downward angle, which contributed to an early rotation and uncontrolled 30-degree pitch up.
Carpenter said the lack of altitude and airspeed prevented the pilots from correcting the aircraft.
Guam, 3,700 miles southwest of Hawaii, is known for its humidity. But the Air Force said water in the sensors never caused any problems.
The Spirit was delivered in February 1995 and expected to be in service for another 50 years.
The bomber had been returning to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, where the 21-plane fleet is based. The Air Force grounded the B-2s after the crash and resumed flying them in late April.
advertisement
Carpenter said procedures and policies are now in place to guard against similar crashes.
"It's fortunate the crew was able to safely eject. It's unfortunate, however, that we lost one of our nation's penetrating bombers," said Gen. Carrol H. Chandler, commander of Pacific Air Forces.
The Stupidity Of BlackBerry Politics
Take *this*, Millies! :)
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/06/blackberry_politics_and_the_ca.html
June 5, 2008 11:35
BlackBerry Politics and the Campaign Ecosystem
Posted by Michael Scherer | Comments (85) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This
David Brooks introduced a wonderful phrase Sunday, in the round table discussion at the end of ABC’s “This Week.” The conversation had turned to John McCain’s embarrassing flub last week, when he falsely said the U.S. had “drawn down” troop levels in Iraq to pre-surge levels. Afterwards, the McCain campaign tried to get around his blown verb tense--the draw down is still in progress--without admitting any error. Brooks reacted this way:
Yeah, this is the stupidity of BlackBerry politics. They get caught in this day-to-day. No one's going to care what John McCain says about the [troop] levels. What they care is fundamentally who was right about Iraq.
If McCain keeps making small factual errors, Brooks may prove to be wrong about the latter point. Given the candidate’s age, and the baggage of misinformation from the current Republican president, McCain is in danger of giving the impression that he does not have a grasp on the facts, or worse, that he is trying to mislead voters. (Remember the last big flub, when he said Al Qaeda was training in Iran, instead of Shiite extremists.)
But Brooks’ answer also contained a gift, introducing a phrase that I have not been able to get out of my head ever since: “The Stupidity of BlackBerry Politics.” To explain my affection for these words, I must first explain my email inbox. On an average day, I will get about 20 emails before 9 a.m. from campaigns, political parties, and surrogates discussing the presidential race. By day's end, the emails in my inbox number in the many hundreds, which I scan for interesting tidbits. But I often wonder, If I closely read every email I received, would I be able to sleep, let alone eat, bathe, or do any other part of my job?
My inbox, of course, is not the problem. It is the symptom. Campaigns battle not just for the daily news cycle, but for the hourly news cycle, the blog hit cycle. Both campaigns have staff reading every major reported blog as it goes live, and then sending comments or criticism to reporters. Many Swampland commenters, who view their roles as press critics, fight the same battle, regularly accusing me of reportorial bias for failing to comment on the nano-scandal of the moment. (This is, by the way, the new trend in political press criticism. Reporters are not criticized just for what they write, as in days of old, but for what they do not write.)
And at some point it becomes absurd. Why wouldn’t the McCain campaign just admit that McCain blew some verb tense? Why fight on that issue? How many voters spend all day reading blogs and watching MSNBC anyway? Does it make sense that the Obama email response to John McCain’s Monday speech at AIPAC was 3,800 words long, longer than McCain’s actual speech, which ran about 2,800 words?
The answers are not hard to come by. Voters generally don't care about what happened in the last hour. They are rational people, with better things to do. But the nano-scandals, if left unspun, grow into narratives, which grow into news stories, which frame the campaign, which affect the election outcome. So there is no ending “the stupidity of BlackBerry politics.” But thanks to Brooks, I now at least have the vocabulary to call a spade a shovel. In the meantime, keep clicking on The Page, which is the best resource for following the BlackBerry spats in real time. I have no intention of blogging about every spat, but I know that the stupidity of BlackBerry politics is here to stay.
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/06/blackberry_politics_and_the_ca.html
June 5, 2008 11:35
BlackBerry Politics and the Campaign Ecosystem
Posted by Michael Scherer | Comments (85) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This
David Brooks introduced a wonderful phrase Sunday, in the round table discussion at the end of ABC’s “This Week.” The conversation had turned to John McCain’s embarrassing flub last week, when he falsely said the U.S. had “drawn down” troop levels in Iraq to pre-surge levels. Afterwards, the McCain campaign tried to get around his blown verb tense--the draw down is still in progress--without admitting any error. Brooks reacted this way:
Yeah, this is the stupidity of BlackBerry politics. They get caught in this day-to-day. No one's going to care what John McCain says about the [troop] levels. What they care is fundamentally who was right about Iraq.
If McCain keeps making small factual errors, Brooks may prove to be wrong about the latter point. Given the candidate’s age, and the baggage of misinformation from the current Republican president, McCain is in danger of giving the impression that he does not have a grasp on the facts, or worse, that he is trying to mislead voters. (Remember the last big flub, when he said Al Qaeda was training in Iran, instead of Shiite extremists.)
But Brooks’ answer also contained a gift, introducing a phrase that I have not been able to get out of my head ever since: “The Stupidity of BlackBerry Politics.” To explain my affection for these words, I must first explain my email inbox. On an average day, I will get about 20 emails before 9 a.m. from campaigns, political parties, and surrogates discussing the presidential race. By day's end, the emails in my inbox number in the many hundreds, which I scan for interesting tidbits. But I often wonder, If I closely read every email I received, would I be able to sleep, let alone eat, bathe, or do any other part of my job?
My inbox, of course, is not the problem. It is the symptom. Campaigns battle not just for the daily news cycle, but for the hourly news cycle, the blog hit cycle. Both campaigns have staff reading every major reported blog as it goes live, and then sending comments or criticism to reporters. Many Swampland commenters, who view their roles as press critics, fight the same battle, regularly accusing me of reportorial bias for failing to comment on the nano-scandal of the moment. (This is, by the way, the new trend in political press criticism. Reporters are not criticized just for what they write, as in days of old, but for what they do not write.)
And at some point it becomes absurd. Why wouldn’t the McCain campaign just admit that McCain blew some verb tense? Why fight on that issue? How many voters spend all day reading blogs and watching MSNBC anyway? Does it make sense that the Obama email response to John McCain’s Monday speech at AIPAC was 3,800 words long, longer than McCain’s actual speech, which ran about 2,800 words?
The answers are not hard to come by. Voters generally don't care about what happened in the last hour. They are rational people, with better things to do. But the nano-scandals, if left unspun, grow into narratives, which grow into news stories, which frame the campaign, which affect the election outcome. So there is no ending “the stupidity of BlackBerry politics.” But thanks to Brooks, I now at least have the vocabulary to call a spade a shovel. In the meantime, keep clicking on The Page, which is the best resource for following the BlackBerry spats in real time. I have no intention of blogging about every spat, but I know that the stupidity of BlackBerry politics is here to stay.
On Those Left Behind
I've just remembered an episode from my last day of Basic, after graduating, that reminds me of the Ignore List.
Cold, windy, winter's sunset on the plains of Texas. We had finally gotten to sew on our stripes on our blues (I already had E-3, college, honor grad), and were tired and delighted to be leaving Basic behind. I somberly noted that the T.I.'s had to stay, while we got to leave.
While being packed aboard the buses for our flight out, in full dress, travel orders in hand, two jokers packed our bags in the luggage area under the bus. They were in plain fatigues, without nametags, stripes, or any other markings. They kept saluting each other, and cracking up. They weren't too careful about their packing. Weird.
At the field, I asked the driver about the jokers. It turned out that they had failed Basic so spectacularly, for one reason or another, that they were being given other than honorable discharges. (Most who wash out get General Discharges) As punishment, they were stripped of all rank while the paperwork processed, and forced to load the luggage of those who had made it through Basic. As semi-prisoners, they were not allowed to speak to anyone, and not allowed to salute (being unworthy of respect). It was meant as a double object lesson.
That's what watching the suppressed posts of the Ignore List reminds me of. It is their shared pity party, and an example of what can happen to us all.
Cold, windy, winter's sunset on the plains of Texas. We had finally gotten to sew on our stripes on our blues (I already had E-3, college, honor grad), and were tired and delighted to be leaving Basic behind. I somberly noted that the T.I.'s had to stay, while we got to leave.
While being packed aboard the buses for our flight out, in full dress, travel orders in hand, two jokers packed our bags in the luggage area under the bus. They were in plain fatigues, without nametags, stripes, or any other markings. They kept saluting each other, and cracking up. They weren't too careful about their packing. Weird.
At the field, I asked the driver about the jokers. It turned out that they had failed Basic so spectacularly, for one reason or another, that they were being given other than honorable discharges. (Most who wash out get General Discharges) As punishment, they were stripped of all rank while the paperwork processed, and forced to load the luggage of those who had made it through Basic. As semi-prisoners, they were not allowed to speak to anyone, and not allowed to salute (being unworthy of respect). It was meant as a double object lesson.
That's what watching the suppressed posts of the Ignore List reminds me of. It is their shared pity party, and an example of what can happen to us all.
Dr. Strangelove And 12 Steps
Originally Posted by Another Poster
Kissov was a drunk. I don't know what medications Dubya is on or whether he is on any; that's a well-kept secret and I will be satisfied that it remain a secret. But I see in him many of the characteristics of an ex-addict: someone who loses much of his humanity when he gives up the addictive substances because the drugs entwine themselves with much of the capacity to feel and to enjoy life. Ex-addicts might function in a cut-and-dried environment (such as accountancy or engineering) if they were competent beforehand -- but don't expect them to appreciate art, music, or literature and above all don't expect them to show empathy for others.
As an ACA (adult child of an alcoholic) , I know this all too well. Hey, *I* am an engineer! Kissov was a drunk. I don't know what medications Dubya is on or whether he is on any; that's a well-kept secret and I will be satisfied that it remain a secret. But I see in him many of the characteristics of an ex-addict: someone who loses much of his humanity when he gives up the addictive substances because the drugs entwine themselves with much of the capacity to feel and to enjoy life. Ex-addicts might function in a cut-and-dried environment (such as accountancy or engineering) if they were competent beforehand -- but don't expect them to appreciate art, music, or literature and above all don't expect them to show empathy for others.
On a more serious note, in step 7, we ask our higher power to remove all our shortcomings. What is only rarely discussed is what to fill the void with. These behaviors have been part of the personality for so long, a psychic wound is opened. The dullness of abstinence, which you noted, is as a common defense. Abstinence is not recovery, but a step towards it.
It should be noted that Churchill and "that Man" drank like fishes, but functioned effectively. All my ACA alarms went off the first time I saw Bush speak.
Our political system is an alcoholic family. 4T is when the family hits bottom. Regeneracy is going to AA. And AA is nowhere near 50% effective, let alone 99.99%
At least 1/3 Americans suffer from some kind of mental illness during their lifetimes. A society is a collective personality. Facing up to the first meeting is going to be sheer hell.
06-22-2008, 09:18 PM | ||||
| | ||||
| Wally (chuckling darkly) If only you people knew just how many people with operational control of nuclear weapons (worldwide) suffered from psychological problems, and had to hide the use of meds to control them. Then add the political leaders. |
A Certain Frustration About Turning Theory
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Another Poster Also, as I've said elsewhere, it is getting to the point where The Theory isn't necessary to provide perspective and a hope that real change is possible. At this point even those who are not into the theory can see that real change is becoming necessary. Ten years ago we could discuss how the issues of the moment might fit into a hypothetical crisis. At this point, that seems unnecessary. One either sees significant problems that need solving or one doesn't. |
2008 Predictions
05-16-2008, 01:03 AM | |
| | |
| Barack Obama will get the Democratic nomination, after Hillary squeezes the last closeup moment she'll ever get until the last primary. See remarks steering supporters away from McCain. The Dems will greatly increase their margins in Congress in the November elections. Veto-proof is iffy, but an increase towards cloture in the Senate is possible. Retail gas will easily bust through $4, perhaps reaching near $5 in the fall. Consumer distress will become a major issue (as credit runs out). A major dollar retreat could occur in the fall. I've been wrong about market indexes having major declines (30%+), but many scandals are still out there. This has been such a wacky weather year, the hurricanes might FINALLY show up. Flooding in the interior of the CONUS will be a major issue. Bridge and other infrastructure failures are possible. We've already had an earthquake scare. All that is certain is that the infrastructure is weak. It won't take much. McCain and Obama will go down to the wire. Expect a very long night. Too close to call, at this time. More confessionals/apologias will start appearing, as military officers/politicians need to cash out, while they still have some shock value (see: Sanchez). Iraq will remain a mess, but the Iranians will hold off (or try to) major ops until the new POTUS is inaugurated. Same for the rest of the ME. Too tired for more, tonight. Wally. |
Army Offical History Vindicates War Critics
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/30/iraq.mistakes/index.html
updated 1 hour, 35 minutes ago
Army criticizes itself in Iraq invasion report
* Story Highlights
* Army history of Iraq war's first two years says U.S. was unprepared for chaos
* U.S.-led coalition didn't have enough troops after Saddam Hussein's fall, report says
* "This is a recipe for disaster," one general recalls saying of one decision
(CNN) -- The U.S. Army's official history of the Iraq war shows military chiefs made mistake after mistake in the early months of the conflict.
Iraqis watch as a statue of Saddam Hussein is toppled in Baghdad in 2003.
Failures to recognize the chaos engulfing the country and to send in enough troops to restore order after the 2003 invasion have long been highlighted by critics, but a new report shows the Army assessing itself.
Frank opinions from officers serving in the 18 months from the start of war to Iraqi elections in January 2005 reveal there were concerns at the time, not just about assumptions made by planners but at decisions taken once U.S.-led coalition forces had control of Iraq.
"I flipped," Gen. Jack Keane, then the Army's deputy chief of staff, told the historians of his reaction to a June 2003 decision to transfer control of all coalition troops away from the land forces command that had been preparing for the mission.
He recounted a conversation with Gen. John Abizaid, who succeeded the invasion's architect, Gen. Tommy Franks. "I said, 'Jesus Christ, John, this is a recipe for disaster. We invested in that headquarters. We have the experience and judgment in that headquarters."
Keane said it took the U.S. command between six and eight months to get the new headquarters up and running. During that time, troops in the field saw the mood of ordinary Iraqis turn against Americans and watched the insurgency take root.
"By the time we got a plan together to resource everything, the insurgents had closed that window of opportunity quickly," Col. David Perkins, a brigade commander in the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, told the historians. "What we started doing in September was probably a good idea to have done in April 2003."
Franks, who would soon retire and be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, said he ordered the transition to force the Pentagon to get leaders into the field to work with civilian occupation officials.
"That is a task that John Abizaid and I very simply laid on Washington and said, 'Figure it out. Do it fast. Get me a joint headquarters in here. We have a lot of work to do and [civilian administrator of Iraq] Jerry Bremer has a lot of responsibility and he needs help,' " he recalled.
The 720-page report compiled by the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, details the effects of having too few coalition troops on the ground when the reality after the fall of Baghdad was "severely out of line" with the anticipated conditions.
Previous experience "should have indicated that many more troops would be needed for the post-Saddam era in Iraq," historians wrote in the report, "On Point II: Transition to a New Campaign."
"The coalition's inability to prevent looting, to secure Iraq's borders and to guard the vast number of munitions dumps in the early months after Saddam's overthrow are indicative of the shortage," the study found.
About 150,000 U.S. and allied troops were in Iraq after the invasion, at a time when war planners were assuming that Iraq's government would remain functional after Hussein's ouster and that there would be no mass insurgency.
"These factors were in line with prewar planning for a quick turnover of power to Iraqis and a quick withdrawal of U.S. forces, leaving Iraqis to determine their own political future -- options that proved impossible to execute," the historians wrote in the report released over the weekend.
"We had the wrong assumptions, and therefore, we had the wrong plan to put into play," Gen. William Wallace, who commanded the Army's V Corps during the invasion, told the authors.
But some of the most critical decisions were made between May and August 2003, which some participants called a "window of opportunity that could have been exploited to produce the conditions for the quick creation of a new Iraq."
Among those decisions were the frequently criticized dissolution of the Iraqi army and the order that barred former members of Hussein's Baath Party from public life as well as the change in plan over the joint headquarters.
updated 1 hour, 35 minutes ago
Army criticizes itself in Iraq invasion report
* Story Highlights
* Army history of Iraq war's first two years says U.S. was unprepared for chaos
* U.S.-led coalition didn't have enough troops after Saddam Hussein's fall, report says
* "This is a recipe for disaster," one general recalls saying of one decision
(CNN) -- The U.S. Army's official history of the Iraq war shows military chiefs made mistake after mistake in the early months of the conflict.
Iraqis watch as a statue of Saddam Hussein is toppled in Baghdad in 2003.
Failures to recognize the chaos engulfing the country and to send in enough troops to restore order after the 2003 invasion have long been highlighted by critics, but a new report shows the Army assessing itself.
Frank opinions from officers serving in the 18 months from the start of war to Iraqi elections in January 2005 reveal there were concerns at the time, not just about assumptions made by planners but at decisions taken once U.S.-led coalition forces had control of Iraq.
"I flipped," Gen. Jack Keane, then the Army's deputy chief of staff, told the historians of his reaction to a June 2003 decision to transfer control of all coalition troops away from the land forces command that had been preparing for the mission.
He recounted a conversation with Gen. John Abizaid, who succeeded the invasion's architect, Gen. Tommy Franks. "I said, 'Jesus Christ, John, this is a recipe for disaster. We invested in that headquarters. We have the experience and judgment in that headquarters."
Keane said it took the U.S. command between six and eight months to get the new headquarters up and running. During that time, troops in the field saw the mood of ordinary Iraqis turn against Americans and watched the insurgency take root.
"By the time we got a plan together to resource everything, the insurgents had closed that window of opportunity quickly," Col. David Perkins, a brigade commander in the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, told the historians. "What we started doing in September was probably a good idea to have done in April 2003."
Franks, who would soon retire and be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, said he ordered the transition to force the Pentagon to get leaders into the field to work with civilian occupation officials.
"That is a task that John Abizaid and I very simply laid on Washington and said, 'Figure it out. Do it fast. Get me a joint headquarters in here. We have a lot of work to do and [civilian administrator of Iraq] Jerry Bremer has a lot of responsibility and he needs help,' " he recalled.
The 720-page report compiled by the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, details the effects of having too few coalition troops on the ground when the reality after the fall of Baghdad was "severely out of line" with the anticipated conditions.
Previous experience "should have indicated that many more troops would be needed for the post-Saddam era in Iraq," historians wrote in the report, "On Point II: Transition to a New Campaign."
"The coalition's inability to prevent looting, to secure Iraq's borders and to guard the vast number of munitions dumps in the early months after Saddam's overthrow are indicative of the shortage," the study found.
About 150,000 U.S. and allied troops were in Iraq after the invasion, at a time when war planners were assuming that Iraq's government would remain functional after Hussein's ouster and that there would be no mass insurgency.
"These factors were in line with prewar planning for a quick turnover of power to Iraqis and a quick withdrawal of U.S. forces, leaving Iraqis to determine their own political future -- options that proved impossible to execute," the historians wrote in the report released over the weekend.
"We had the wrong assumptions, and therefore, we had the wrong plan to put into play," Gen. William Wallace, who commanded the Army's V Corps during the invasion, told the authors.
But some of the most critical decisions were made between May and August 2003, which some participants called a "window of opportunity that could have been exploited to produce the conditions for the quick creation of a new Iraq."
Among those decisions were the frequently criticized dissolution of the Iraqi army and the order that barred former members of Hussein's Baath Party from public life as well as the change in plan over the joint headquarters.
Judiciary- The Lagging Indicator
I remember certain posters laughing at me when I said the judiciary was the ultimate lagging indicator of political power...
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-na-judges2jan02,0,1283487.story?coll=la-home-center
Conservative courts likely to be Bush legacy
The president's success in getting judicial nominees confirmed gives the federal bench a decided GOP tilt.
By David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 2, 2008
WASHINGTON -- After nearly seven years in the White House, President Bush has named 294 judges to the federal courts, giving Republican appointees a solid majority of the seats, including a 60%-to-40% edge over Democrats on the influential U.S. appeals courts.
The rightward shift on the federal bench is likely to prove a lasting legacy of the Bush presidency, since many of these judges -- including his two Supreme Court appointees -- may serve for two more decades.
And despite the Republicans' loss of control of the Senate, 40 of Bush's judges won confirmation this year, more than in the previous three years when Republicans held the majority.
"The progress we have made this year . . . is sometimes lost amid the partisan sniping over a handful of controversial nominations," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, in a year-end statement.
This progress is not altogether welcomed by liberal activists, who have been frustrated in their efforts to block more of Bush's nominees.
"Some of the appeals courts will be quite far to the right for a generation to come. So why is the Senate rushing to confirm as many of these terrible nominees as possible?" asked Simon Heller, a lawyer for the Alliance for Justice, a liberal advocacy group.
He gives the Republicans more credit than the Democrats for adhering to the party line. "Republican senators have voted in lock step to confirm every judge that Bush has nominated. The Democrats have often broken ranks," he said.
Conservatives tend to agree on that point. They say the ideological makeup of the courts has grown into a major issue on the right, and it has brought Republicans together, whether they are social conservatives, economic conservatives or small-government libertarians.
"This issue unites the base," said Curt Levey, executive director of the Committee for Justice, a group that lobbies for Bush's judicial nominees. "It serves as a stand-in for the culture wars: religion, abortion, gay marriage and the coddling of criminals."
Nothing irritates conservatives more, he said, than having unelected judges decide politically charged issues that some believe should be left to voters and legislators. "Conservatives tend to blame judges for the left's success in the culture war," Levey said.
While Republicans find themselves somewhat divided heading into the election year, Bush is widely praised for his record of pressing for conservative judges.
"From Day One, President Bush made the judiciary a top priority, and he fought very hard for his nominees," said Washington attorney Bradford Berenson, who worked in the White House counsel's office in Bush's first term. "He was less willing to compromise than President Clinton. As a result, in raw numbers, he may end with somewhat fewer judges than Clinton had."
In his eight years in office, Clinton named 367 judges, according to the Federal Judicial Center. When he left office in 2001, Democratic appointees had a slight majority among trial judges and on the courts of appeal.
Among the 12 regional appeals courts, all but one are closely split or have a Republican majority. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals -- which covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington -- is viewed as the last bastion of liberalism, with 16 Democratic appointees and 11 Republicans. So far, Bush has named seven judges to the 9th Circuit, but he will not match Clinton's total of 14.
Does it make a difference whether a judge was appointed by Bush or Clinton?
Legal activists who closely follow the courts are convinced it does make a difference in a significant number of cases. "If you could pick only one thing, look at whether a case goes before a jury. The Bush judges vote to keep cases away from juries," said Judith E. Schaeffer, legal director for People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group in Washington.
In job-discrimination suits, for example, the employee who is the plaintiff typically wants his or her case heard by the jury. The employer -- usually, a business or corporation -- wants the dispute decided or dismissed by a judge, she said.
Schaeffer said her organization has looked closely at such cases and found that Bush's judges have made it harder for plaintiffs to sue or to win damages if they prevail. "That is the mind-set. They are bent on denying justice to ordinary Americans," she said.
Berenson, the former Bush administration lawyer, said conservatives and liberal judges differ mostly on their willingness to strike down laws.
"Liberals tend to celebrate judicial power; conservatives tend to be suspicious of it," he said. "Boiled down to its essence, conservatives want the judiciary to play a smaller role in our society. They want more room for democratic self-government. That means a conservative judiciary will defer to the executive branch on matters like the war on terrorism. And they will be more inclined to defer to the legislature on issues like abortion."
He cited the example of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed in 2003. In the past, the Supreme Court had struck down similar state bans, but last term, thanks to Bush appointee Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., the federal law was upheld, 5-4.
In the year ahead, liberal activists will be playing defense. They hope to block as many Bush nominees as possible from winning confirmation to the lifetime seats on the appeals courts. And since the Supreme Court's two oldest justices -- John Paul Stevens, 87, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 74 -- are its strongest liberals, they are hoping a Democrat will win the White House in November.
In the party caucuses and primaries, the issue of judges hardly raises a ripple, but that will change in the months ahead, activists say.
"Once the Republicans and the Democrats have selected their candidates, they will start talking about the courts as a major rallying issue," said Jay Sekulow, counsel for the conservative American Center for Law and Justice. "Look at the Supreme Court today, and you can say the next president will decide its future for the rest of our lives."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/court_may_represent_exiled_con.html
July 01, 2008
The Court vs. Voters
By E. J. Dionne
WASHINGTON -- If the long conservative era that began with Ronald Reagan's election is over, will the judges appointed during the right's ascendancy be able to block, frustrate and undermine the efforts of a new progressive majority?
Consider this analysis from two influential journalists describing Supreme Court justices as "the last hope of the conservative interests in the United States."
Imagine, they write, that a new liberal approach to the country's problems "had been overwhelmingly approved both in Congress and at the polling booths," so "conservative interests resorted to the courts, starting literally thousands of actions to stay the government's hand." Of the ensuing fight, they say: "The liberal justices themselves called their conservative colleagues arbitrary and madly unwise. But while the liberals warned, the conservatives laughed ... ."
Yes, we may go back to the future. Those words are from a still-compelling 1938 book called "The 168 Days" by legendary Washington journalists Joseph Alsop and Turner Catledge. They were writing about the conservative Supreme Court that struck down so much of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program and the effort by FDR to be given the power to name additional liberal justices to break the court's conservative majority.
Roosevelt's reach for expanded executive authority was unwise because he made it easy for his opponents to compare him to Hitler and Stalin. FDR lost the court-packing fight, but eventually got to name justices in the normal way, and conservative judicial dominance ebbed.
The spate of 5-4 conservative decisions during the Supreme Court term just ended should stand as a warning that we may soon revisit the fights of 70 years ago. Yet almost nobody is talking about this danger. To the extent that judges have been a campaign issue in recent elections, the focus has been on a few hot-button issues, notably abortion. After last week's sharply contested Second Amendment case, perhaps gun rights will join the list.
But the more important question is whether conservative judges will see fit to do exactly what conservative courts did for much of the New Deal era by using a narrow, 19th-century definition of property rights to void progressive economic, environmental and labor regulation.
Many judicial conservatives view the late-1930s period as a disaster because it marked the end of their power on the courts. After the court-packing battle, the Supreme Court began to defer to the democratically elected branches of government and their efforts to regulate the economy in the public interest. Property rights were well protected throughout this time, yet government was allowed to set rules on the uses of property that judicial conservatives of the pre-New Deal period viewed as suspect.
A new generation of conservatives wants to bring the old order back under the auspices of what's called the Constitution in Exile movement. Their driving idea is that the thrust of jurisprudence since the late 1930s voided the "real" Constitution.
As legal scholar Jeffrey Rosen noted in The New Republic, this movement favors "reimposing meaningful limits on federal power that could strike at the core of the regulatory state for the first time since the New Deal." He wrote that "justices could change the shape of laws governing the environment, workplace health and safety, anti-discrimination, and civil rights, making it difficult for the federal government to address problems for which the public demands a national response."
It's not hard to imagine the cases that conservatives would bring against laws passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by a President Barack Obama. Why wouldn't a movement that has tried to eviscerate wetlands laws and the Endangered Species Act challenge cap-and-trade legislation aimed at dealing with global warming?
If Congress ever passed a "card-check" law to make it easier for unions to organize, those who never much liked the minimum wage or collective bargaining would certainly try to overturn the new labor right in court.
And what would be the legal fate of new regulations on banking called forth by the economic devastation of the subprime mess, or bank bailouts that may be necessary to keep capitalism on track, or mandatory mortgage renegotiations to keep citizens from being thrown out of their homes?
The four conservatives on the Supreme Court, when empowered by the swing vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy, have already shown their willingness to overturn the will of Congress and local legislatures when doing so fits their political philosophy. The same majority could keep conservative ideas in the saddle long after the electorate has decided that they don't work anymore.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-na-judges2jan02,0,1283487.story?coll=la-home-center
Conservative courts likely to be Bush legacy
The president's success in getting judicial nominees confirmed gives the federal bench a decided GOP tilt.
By David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 2, 2008
WASHINGTON -- After nearly seven years in the White House, President Bush has named 294 judges to the federal courts, giving Republican appointees a solid majority of the seats, including a 60%-to-40% edge over Democrats on the influential U.S. appeals courts.
The rightward shift on the federal bench is likely to prove a lasting legacy of the Bush presidency, since many of these judges -- including his two Supreme Court appointees -- may serve for two more decades.
And despite the Republicans' loss of control of the Senate, 40 of Bush's judges won confirmation this year, more than in the previous three years when Republicans held the majority.
"The progress we have made this year . . . is sometimes lost amid the partisan sniping over a handful of controversial nominations," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, in a year-end statement.
This progress is not altogether welcomed by liberal activists, who have been frustrated in their efforts to block more of Bush's nominees.
"Some of the appeals courts will be quite far to the right for a generation to come. So why is the Senate rushing to confirm as many of these terrible nominees as possible?" asked Simon Heller, a lawyer for the Alliance for Justice, a liberal advocacy group.
He gives the Republicans more credit than the Democrats for adhering to the party line. "Republican senators have voted in lock step to confirm every judge that Bush has nominated. The Democrats have often broken ranks," he said.
Conservatives tend to agree on that point. They say the ideological makeup of the courts has grown into a major issue on the right, and it has brought Republicans together, whether they are social conservatives, economic conservatives or small-government libertarians.
"This issue unites the base," said Curt Levey, executive director of the Committee for Justice, a group that lobbies for Bush's judicial nominees. "It serves as a stand-in for the culture wars: religion, abortion, gay marriage and the coddling of criminals."
Nothing irritates conservatives more, he said, than having unelected judges decide politically charged issues that some believe should be left to voters and legislators. "Conservatives tend to blame judges for the left's success in the culture war," Levey said.
While Republicans find themselves somewhat divided heading into the election year, Bush is widely praised for his record of pressing for conservative judges.
"From Day One, President Bush made the judiciary a top priority, and he fought very hard for his nominees," said Washington attorney Bradford Berenson, who worked in the White House counsel's office in Bush's first term. "He was less willing to compromise than President Clinton. As a result, in raw numbers, he may end with somewhat fewer judges than Clinton had."
In his eight years in office, Clinton named 367 judges, according to the Federal Judicial Center. When he left office in 2001, Democratic appointees had a slight majority among trial judges and on the courts of appeal.
Among the 12 regional appeals courts, all but one are closely split or have a Republican majority. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals -- which covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington -- is viewed as the last bastion of liberalism, with 16 Democratic appointees and 11 Republicans. So far, Bush has named seven judges to the 9th Circuit, but he will not match Clinton's total of 14.
Does it make a difference whether a judge was appointed by Bush or Clinton?
Legal activists who closely follow the courts are convinced it does make a difference in a significant number of cases. "If you could pick only one thing, look at whether a case goes before a jury. The Bush judges vote to keep cases away from juries," said Judith E. Schaeffer, legal director for People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group in Washington.
In job-discrimination suits, for example, the employee who is the plaintiff typically wants his or her case heard by the jury. The employer -- usually, a business or corporation -- wants the dispute decided or dismissed by a judge, she said.
Schaeffer said her organization has looked closely at such cases and found that Bush's judges have made it harder for plaintiffs to sue or to win damages if they prevail. "That is the mind-set. They are bent on denying justice to ordinary Americans," she said.
Berenson, the former Bush administration lawyer, said conservatives and liberal judges differ mostly on their willingness to strike down laws.
"Liberals tend to celebrate judicial power; conservatives tend to be suspicious of it," he said. "Boiled down to its essence, conservatives want the judiciary to play a smaller role in our society. They want more room for democratic self-government. That means a conservative judiciary will defer to the executive branch on matters like the war on terrorism. And they will be more inclined to defer to the legislature on issues like abortion."
He cited the example of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed in 2003. In the past, the Supreme Court had struck down similar state bans, but last term, thanks to Bush appointee Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., the federal law was upheld, 5-4.
In the year ahead, liberal activists will be playing defense. They hope to block as many Bush nominees as possible from winning confirmation to the lifetime seats on the appeals courts. And since the Supreme Court's two oldest justices -- John Paul Stevens, 87, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 74 -- are its strongest liberals, they are hoping a Democrat will win the White House in November.
In the party caucuses and primaries, the issue of judges hardly raises a ripple, but that will change in the months ahead, activists say.
"Once the Republicans and the Democrats have selected their candidates, they will start talking about the courts as a major rallying issue," said Jay Sekulow, counsel for the conservative American Center for Law and Justice. "Look at the Supreme Court today, and you can say the next president will decide its future for the rest of our lives."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/court_may_represent_exiled_con.html
July 01, 2008
The Court vs. Voters
By E. J. Dionne
WASHINGTON -- If the long conservative era that began with Ronald Reagan's election is over, will the judges appointed during the right's ascendancy be able to block, frustrate and undermine the efforts of a new progressive majority?
Consider this analysis from two influential journalists describing Supreme Court justices as "the last hope of the conservative interests in the United States."
Imagine, they write, that a new liberal approach to the country's problems "had been overwhelmingly approved both in Congress and at the polling booths," so "conservative interests resorted to the courts, starting literally thousands of actions to stay the government's hand." Of the ensuing fight, they say: "The liberal justices themselves called their conservative colleagues arbitrary and madly unwise. But while the liberals warned, the conservatives laughed ... ."
Yes, we may go back to the future. Those words are from a still-compelling 1938 book called "The 168 Days" by legendary Washington journalists Joseph Alsop and Turner Catledge. They were writing about the conservative Supreme Court that struck down so much of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program and the effort by FDR to be given the power to name additional liberal justices to break the court's conservative majority.
Roosevelt's reach for expanded executive authority was unwise because he made it easy for his opponents to compare him to Hitler and Stalin. FDR lost the court-packing fight, but eventually got to name justices in the normal way, and conservative judicial dominance ebbed.
The spate of 5-4 conservative decisions during the Supreme Court term just ended should stand as a warning that we may soon revisit the fights of 70 years ago. Yet almost nobody is talking about this danger. To the extent that judges have been a campaign issue in recent elections, the focus has been on a few hot-button issues, notably abortion. After last week's sharply contested Second Amendment case, perhaps gun rights will join the list.
But the more important question is whether conservative judges will see fit to do exactly what conservative courts did for much of the New Deal era by using a narrow, 19th-century definition of property rights to void progressive economic, environmental and labor regulation.
Many judicial conservatives view the late-1930s period as a disaster because it marked the end of their power on the courts. After the court-packing battle, the Supreme Court began to defer to the democratically elected branches of government and their efforts to regulate the economy in the public interest. Property rights were well protected throughout this time, yet government was allowed to set rules on the uses of property that judicial conservatives of the pre-New Deal period viewed as suspect.
A new generation of conservatives wants to bring the old order back under the auspices of what's called the Constitution in Exile movement. Their driving idea is that the thrust of jurisprudence since the late 1930s voided the "real" Constitution.
As legal scholar Jeffrey Rosen noted in The New Republic, this movement favors "reimposing meaningful limits on federal power that could strike at the core of the regulatory state for the first time since the New Deal." He wrote that "justices could change the shape of laws governing the environment, workplace health and safety, anti-discrimination, and civil rights, making it difficult for the federal government to address problems for which the public demands a national response."
It's not hard to imagine the cases that conservatives would bring against laws passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by a President Barack Obama. Why wouldn't a movement that has tried to eviscerate wetlands laws and the Endangered Species Act challenge cap-and-trade legislation aimed at dealing with global warming?
If Congress ever passed a "card-check" law to make it easier for unions to organize, those who never much liked the minimum wage or collective bargaining would certainly try to overturn the new labor right in court.
And what would be the legal fate of new regulations on banking called forth by the economic devastation of the subprime mess, or bank bailouts that may be necessary to keep capitalism on track, or mandatory mortgage renegotiations to keep citizens from being thrown out of their homes?
The four conservatives on the Supreme Court, when empowered by the swing vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy, have already shown their willingness to overturn the will of Congress and local legislatures when doing so fits their political philosophy. The same majority could keep conservative ideas in the saddle long after the electorate has decided that they don't work anymore.
Change At The Top
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1813068,00.html
In the 35 years following its 1947 creation, bomber pilots—think of the cigar-chomping Curtis LeMay—largely ran the U.S. Air Force. That changed starting in 1982, when an unbroken chain of nine fighter-pilots-turned-four-star-generals took charge. Which is why Monday's announcement that Defense Secretary Robert Gates was tapping General Norton Schwartz, currently running the Pentagon's globe-girdling transportation network on land, air and sea, to be the beleaguered service's 19th chief of staff, meant more than your average military promotion.
For the first time in history, the Air Force is about to be commanded by a C-130 cargo plane pilot—albeit one with extensive special operations and multi-service war-fighting experience; among the cargo planes and helicopters Schwartz has piloted is the deadly AC-130 gunship with its 105mm howitzer protruding from its belly. Still, some Air Force officers were quick to grumble, though privately, over the prospect of having a "C-130 driver" in charge". But others, like former chief of staff Merrill McPeak, think that is shortsighted. "Norty is a good guy, though obviously not cut out of the mold as a fighter pilot," says McPeak, himself a one-time lead solo pilot with the Air Force's Thunderbird fighter-jet flying team. "The important thing is to have a feeling about airpower and its capabilities, not to come from any particular piece of it."
Schwartz's feelings about the Air Force's mission, however, could represent a real shift from those of the service's traditionalists—which is precisely what Gates was looking for. Schwartz didn't hesitate to pounce into a professional debate last year in which he deliberately distanced himself from pure Air Force "airpower advocates" who persistently argue that their skills are under-appreciated. In the pages of Air Force Magazine he challenged the assertion that ground troops too often are eager to fight and therefore deny the Air Force the chance to prevail solely from the sky. "Does anyone believe that the United States Army or the United States Marine Corps actually encourages such a notion today in Iraq or Afghanistan?" Schwartz wrote in the magazine, published by the pro-service Air Force Association. Then he delivered a stinging blow, referencing perhaps the darkest day in the Air Force's recent history, when trigger-happy fighter pilots in broad daylight killed 26 U.S. troops and their allies flying on a routine mission after mistaking the choppers as Iraqi. "We as an Air Force have had our own painful experience with eagerness for contact," he said. "Some have suggested, for example, the shoot down of two UH-60 helos in Northern Iraq in 1994 as a case in point."
Gates nominated Schwartz following his decision last week to oust General T. Michael Moseley and his civilian boss, Secretary Michael Wynne, for their service's sloppy handing of nuclear weapons and their components. (Gates also nominated top Pentagon bureaucrat Michael Donley to succeed Wynne). Both appointments require Senate approval, and Schwartz's nomination apparently came just in time. His biography on the Transportation Command website— which lists his first big military mission "as a crewmember in the 1975 airlift evacuation of Saigon," [b]a sign of humility rarely witnessed among fighter pilots[/b]—had the words "Retiring effective Jan. 1, 2009" at noon Monday, but that line was gone by day's end.
Schwartz's ascension comes at a critical time for the Air Force. Beyond loose nukes, it has been dealing with fallout from its decision to award a $35 billion next-generation aerial tanker contract to a firm partly-owned by a European consortium instead of the Boeing Co. That choice has generated howls from Capitol Hill, and the Government Accountability Office will rule on the propriety of that award later this month. Gates has been upset over the Air Force's failure to provide more unmanned drones to funnel additional intelligence to the U.S. troops now fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead, the Air Force has been arguing that it needs to buy more F-22 fighters beyond the 180 already ordered—even as Gates has made clear 180 is sufficient and charged the service with a case of "next-war-itis."
Widely viewed as an astute manager, Schwartz is just the kind of officer to make such changes. In his role as chief of the U.S. Transportation Command, he has been in the middle of dealing with the skyrocketing cost of oil. One way, he suggested, might be to return to a way of flying largely abandoned before the birth of both the Pentagon and the Air Force—balloons, blimps and dirigibles. "Lighter-than-air technology," Schwartz told a Philadelphia audience May 27, "has the promise of lifting large quantities with much less reliance on hydrocarbons." If that sounds unconventional to you, imagine how it sounds to former Air Force generals, many of whom are turning over in their cockpits at the prospect of one of their own not flying highest atop the service.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/opinion/07sat1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
Editorial
Raising the Bar at the Pentagon
Published: June 7, 2008
It’s not often in American politics or government that officials are held accountable these days, so Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s decision to fire the top two Air Force leaders on Thursday was as surprising as it was commendable.
Mr. Gates made accountability a priority after taking office 18 months ago, and he removed senior Army officers following disclosures of deplorable conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. But never before had both a service secretary (the Air Force’s Michael W. Wynne, a civilian) and a service chief (Gen. T. Michael Moseley) been forced to resign simultaneously. It was an absolutely necessary move.
The conditions at Walter Reed were bad enough. The reasons for dismissing Mr. Wynne and General Moseley were also alarming and intolerable: systemic problems in securing nuclear weapons and components, a primary Air Force responsibility.
The problems first surfaced when it was disclosed last year that the Air Force unknowingly let a B-52 bomber fly across the United States carrying six nuclear-armed cruise missiles. Then in March, it was discovered that four high-tech nose cone fuses for Minuteman nuclear warheads were sent — a year and a half earlier — to Taiwan in place of helicopter batteries.
The dismissals were ordered after a Pentagon inquiry found “a pattern of poor performance” by the Air Force in securing sensitive military components. The decline in Air Force standards had been identified as a problem but had not been effectively addressed for more than a decade, it concluded.
That’s more than a little unnerving. Since 9/11, President Bush has repeatedly said keeping nuclear weapons safe and out of the hands of terrorists and other adversaries is a priority. That is why the United States has spent millions of dollars trying to secure nuclear stockpiles at vulnerable facilities in Russia and other countries. Now, as we have seen not once but twice, America’s own vaunted military failed to perform one of the most essential missions required to protect the country — securing the nuclear arsenal.
How did the Air Force miss that message? Or was everybody at the Pentagon — starting with the former defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld — just too focused on waging an unnecessary war in Iraq?
We applaud Mr. Gates’s quick and decisive action in this case. Now, the special task force he named to propose security upgrades must complete its work as soon as possible so President Bush, or his successor, can implement them with as little delay as possible.
In the 35 years following its 1947 creation, bomber pilots—think of the cigar-chomping Curtis LeMay—largely ran the U.S. Air Force. That changed starting in 1982, when an unbroken chain of nine fighter-pilots-turned-four-star-generals took charge. Which is why Monday's announcement that Defense Secretary Robert Gates was tapping General Norton Schwartz, currently running the Pentagon's globe-girdling transportation network on land, air and sea, to be the beleaguered service's 19th chief of staff, meant more than your average military promotion.
For the first time in history, the Air Force is about to be commanded by a C-130 cargo plane pilot—albeit one with extensive special operations and multi-service war-fighting experience; among the cargo planes and helicopters Schwartz has piloted is the deadly AC-130 gunship with its 105mm howitzer protruding from its belly. Still, some Air Force officers were quick to grumble, though privately, over the prospect of having a "C-130 driver" in charge". But others, like former chief of staff Merrill McPeak, think that is shortsighted. "Norty is a good guy, though obviously not cut out of the mold as a fighter pilot," says McPeak, himself a one-time lead solo pilot with the Air Force's Thunderbird fighter-jet flying team. "The important thing is to have a feeling about airpower and its capabilities, not to come from any particular piece of it."
Schwartz's feelings about the Air Force's mission, however, could represent a real shift from those of the service's traditionalists—which is precisely what Gates was looking for. Schwartz didn't hesitate to pounce into a professional debate last year in which he deliberately distanced himself from pure Air Force "airpower advocates" who persistently argue that their skills are under-appreciated. In the pages of Air Force Magazine he challenged the assertion that ground troops too often are eager to fight and therefore deny the Air Force the chance to prevail solely from the sky. "Does anyone believe that the United States Army or the United States Marine Corps actually encourages such a notion today in Iraq or Afghanistan?" Schwartz wrote in the magazine, published by the pro-service Air Force Association. Then he delivered a stinging blow, referencing perhaps the darkest day in the Air Force's recent history, when trigger-happy fighter pilots in broad daylight killed 26 U.S. troops and their allies flying on a routine mission after mistaking the choppers as Iraqi. "We as an Air Force have had our own painful experience with eagerness for contact," he said. "Some have suggested, for example, the shoot down of two UH-60 helos in Northern Iraq in 1994 as a case in point."
Gates nominated Schwartz following his decision last week to oust General T. Michael Moseley and his civilian boss, Secretary Michael Wynne, for their service's sloppy handing of nuclear weapons and their components. (Gates also nominated top Pentagon bureaucrat Michael Donley to succeed Wynne). Both appointments require Senate approval, and Schwartz's nomination apparently came just in time. His biography on the Transportation Command website— which lists his first big military mission "as a crewmember in the 1975 airlift evacuation of Saigon," [b]a sign of humility rarely witnessed among fighter pilots[/b]—had the words "Retiring effective Jan. 1, 2009" at noon Monday, but that line was gone by day's end.
Schwartz's ascension comes at a critical time for the Air Force. Beyond loose nukes, it has been dealing with fallout from its decision to award a $35 billion next-generation aerial tanker contract to a firm partly-owned by a European consortium instead of the Boeing Co. That choice has generated howls from Capitol Hill, and the Government Accountability Office will rule on the propriety of that award later this month. Gates has been upset over the Air Force's failure to provide more unmanned drones to funnel additional intelligence to the U.S. troops now fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead, the Air Force has been arguing that it needs to buy more F-22 fighters beyond the 180 already ordered—even as Gates has made clear 180 is sufficient and charged the service with a case of "next-war-itis."
Widely viewed as an astute manager, Schwartz is just the kind of officer to make such changes. In his role as chief of the U.S. Transportation Command, he has been in the middle of dealing with the skyrocketing cost of oil. One way, he suggested, might be to return to a way of flying largely abandoned before the birth of both the Pentagon and the Air Force—balloons, blimps and dirigibles. "Lighter-than-air technology," Schwartz told a Philadelphia audience May 27, "has the promise of lifting large quantities with much less reliance on hydrocarbons." If that sounds unconventional to you, imagine how it sounds to former Air Force generals, many of whom are turning over in their cockpits at the prospect of one of their own not flying highest atop the service.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/opinion/07sat1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
Editorial
Raising the Bar at the Pentagon
Published: June 7, 2008
It’s not often in American politics or government that officials are held accountable these days, so Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s decision to fire the top two Air Force leaders on Thursday was as surprising as it was commendable.
Mr. Gates made accountability a priority after taking office 18 months ago, and he removed senior Army officers following disclosures of deplorable conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. But never before had both a service secretary (the Air Force’s Michael W. Wynne, a civilian) and a service chief (Gen. T. Michael Moseley) been forced to resign simultaneously. It was an absolutely necessary move.
The conditions at Walter Reed were bad enough. The reasons for dismissing Mr. Wynne and General Moseley were also alarming and intolerable: systemic problems in securing nuclear weapons and components, a primary Air Force responsibility.
The problems first surfaced when it was disclosed last year that the Air Force unknowingly let a B-52 bomber fly across the United States carrying six nuclear-armed cruise missiles. Then in March, it was discovered that four high-tech nose cone fuses for Minuteman nuclear warheads were sent — a year and a half earlier — to Taiwan in place of helicopter batteries.
The dismissals were ordered after a Pentagon inquiry found “a pattern of poor performance” by the Air Force in securing sensitive military components. The decline in Air Force standards had been identified as a problem but had not been effectively addressed for more than a decade, it concluded.
That’s more than a little unnerving. Since 9/11, President Bush has repeatedly said keeping nuclear weapons safe and out of the hands of terrorists and other adversaries is a priority. That is why the United States has spent millions of dollars trying to secure nuclear stockpiles at vulnerable facilities in Russia and other countries. Now, as we have seen not once but twice, America’s own vaunted military failed to perform one of the most essential missions required to protect the country — securing the nuclear arsenal.
How did the Air Force miss that message? Or was everybody at the Pentagon — starting with the former defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld — just too focused on waging an unnecessary war in Iraq?
We applaud Mr. Gates’s quick and decisive action in this case. Now, the special task force he named to propose security upgrades must complete its work as soon as possible so President Bush, or his successor, can implement them with as little delay as possible.
Equipment Use
While you guys were arguing about the Second (Amendment Decision):
Military may face $100B in repairs
Equipment costs may jeopardize expansion USA Today 06/26/2008
Author: Tom Vanden Brook
(Copyright 2008)
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon faces a bill of more than $100 billion to repair and replace worn-out or destroyed equipment, said the chairman of the House panel that oversees defense spending.
Paying for it may endanger plans to boost the size of the military, Rep.
John Murtha, D-Pa., and other officials said. The military is scrambling to re-equip because the Pentagon failed to plan for the long and expensive war in Iraq, Murtha said.
That failure, he said, makes the Pentagon's plan to add 92,000 new soldiers and Marines unrealistic. Although new troops would help reduce repeated, lengthy deployments, he said, there are more pressing demands.
"It's going to come from personnel cuts," Murtha said. "That's where it's going to come from. They know it."
Pentagon leaders realize they face a choice between a larger military and improved equipment, said Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"We must reset, reconstitute and revitalize our ground forces," Mullen told a Senate panel in May. However, the costs "will force us to a smaller military or force us away from any kind of modernization or programs that we need for the future."
More than five years of simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have ground down military equipment. Humvees, for example, travel as much as 100,000 miles a year in Iraq, five times the peacetime rate. Heavy armor strains engines and axles. Military operations have cost $572 billion since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Pentagon records show.
Cost estimates for the various services include:
*The Army wants $17 billion a year, for as many as three years after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan end, to re-equip itself. Since December, the Army has issued repair contracts worth more than $1 billion for armored Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
*The Marine Corps estimates it will cost $15.6 billion to replace its damaged or destroyed equipment, including light armored vehicles "lost in combat."
*The Air Force puts its costs at $10 billion. Sue Payton, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, told Congress that the wars'
demands have "taken a toll on our airlift and air-refueling aircraft."
Murtha said the Pentagon will need much more. He put the cost at more than $100 billion. "We went unprepared. And we're paying a heavy price for it."
Repairs have skyrocketed in recent years. The Army repaired 6,000 rifles and handguns per year before the Iraq war. This year, that number jumped to 200,000, said James Dwyer, with the Army Materiel Command.
Just how high the bill will go depends on when U.S. troops leave Iraq and how much equipment is upgraded rather than repaired, said Andrew Krepinevich, executive director of the Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessments.
Military may face $100B in repairs
Equipment costs may jeopardize expansion USA Today 06/26/2008
Author: Tom Vanden Brook
(Copyright 2008)
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon faces a bill of more than $100 billion to repair and replace worn-out or destroyed equipment, said the chairman of the House panel that oversees defense spending.
Paying for it may endanger plans to boost the size of the military, Rep.
John Murtha, D-Pa., and other officials said. The military is scrambling to re-equip because the Pentagon failed to plan for the long and expensive war in Iraq, Murtha said.
That failure, he said, makes the Pentagon's plan to add 92,000 new soldiers and Marines unrealistic. Although new troops would help reduce repeated, lengthy deployments, he said, there are more pressing demands.
"It's going to come from personnel cuts," Murtha said. "That's where it's going to come from. They know it."
Pentagon leaders realize they face a choice between a larger military and improved equipment, said Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"We must reset, reconstitute and revitalize our ground forces," Mullen told a Senate panel in May. However, the costs "will force us to a smaller military or force us away from any kind of modernization or programs that we need for the future."
More than five years of simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have ground down military equipment. Humvees, for example, travel as much as 100,000 miles a year in Iraq, five times the peacetime rate. Heavy armor strains engines and axles. Military operations have cost $572 billion since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Pentagon records show.
Cost estimates for the various services include:
*The Army wants $17 billion a year, for as many as three years after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan end, to re-equip itself. Since December, the Army has issued repair contracts worth more than $1 billion for armored Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
*The Marine Corps estimates it will cost $15.6 billion to replace its damaged or destroyed equipment, including light armored vehicles "lost in combat."
*The Air Force puts its costs at $10 billion. Sue Payton, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, told Congress that the wars'
demands have "taken a toll on our airlift and air-refueling aircraft."
Murtha said the Pentagon will need much more. He put the cost at more than $100 billion. "We went unprepared. And we're paying a heavy price for it."
Repairs have skyrocketed in recent years. The Army repaired 6,000 rifles and handguns per year before the Iraq war. This year, that number jumped to 200,000, said James Dwyer, with the Army Materiel Command.
Just how high the bill will go depends on when U.S. troops leave Iraq and how much equipment is upgraded rather than repaired, said Andrew Krepinevich, executive director of the Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessments.
Military Balance Of Power, 2030
Military Balance Of Power, 2030
OK, next 1T (Author: First Turning) should be starting. Here's a look at the players:
The Pan Europeans from OGRE will exist in fact, and possibly in name as well. Their concerns will be Africa and the ME. The long border with Russia will be the scene of economic warfare, and occasional ethnic clashes of ethnic Slavs within Europe, covertly aided by the Russians. Refugees from Africa will be a major problem.
The Russians will have mastered the oligarchy of crime method of government. The strategic forces will be smaller, but first-rate. Except for subs to maintain a second strike, the navy will be greatly reduced. The only area of concern is the scramble for arctic resources. The Red Army (I can't resist) will be facing, in order, China, India, and the ME (the CIS will have ceded much area to the Islamics, in exchange for stability).
China will have had some kind of reckoning with food and employment. It will ape the Russian oligarchy. The Chinese will have put much of their strategic force at sea, avoiding the problems of regional feuding. The army will be smaller, but more capable. A takedown of North Korea may happen. Taiwan may be assimilated, much like Hong Kong, after the economically forced withdrawal of the US from the Western Pacific. The Chinese air force will be large, and quite robust at operating in austere conditions. The Chinese will be facing the Japanese to the east, Russia to the west, and India to the south.
Japan will re-develop it's military. The result will be a sort of Super-Israel, particularly at sea, and in the air. It will not be expansionist. It will have dominant economic power. It will also have nukes (at sea). South Korea will be a client state, as possibly will the PI. Taiwan/Formosa will be the main sticking point with the Chinese. Japanese power will halt Chinese expansion at the current DMZ in Korea.
India will continue to grow, but population growth will slow as economic gains take hold. A home-grown technology base, combined with nukes, will hold off China. The main problem will be with the ME mess (with African refugees thrown in). Most world observers believe this to be the next flashpoint.
A New Diaspora from Israel will begin, as the smart ones get out, while they still can. The ME and Africa will be going to hell at the same time. The religious fundamentalists from the US will try to fund some filibustering, but will find themselves quite outmatched by all players. The now-secular US will be accepting refugees from Israel, and trying to deport televangelists to Israel...
Brazil will dominate the southern hemisphere. A benevolent criminal oligarchy will control a navy, and a small strategic nuclear force. Much economic development will take place in South America, relieving many pressures. The main problems will be in damage control to the ecosphere, followed by African refugees and the remnants of American Exceptionalism. Regional squabbles will also take place, as will the Portuguese/Spanish divide. The worst will be in Central America, particularly Mexico's horrendous 4T aftermath.
The US will retain some minor outposts, after the Second Great Slowdown, as well as ANZUS and some ties to the Europeans. While there will be much public laughter, NOBODY wants to test the US's fury. The USN/USMC and USAF will still be the premiere fighting forces on the planet. They will have the cream of the population to choose from. The Army will have been much reduced, punished for it's failures. The US Strategic Command will have further extended it's reach into space, and the strategic triad will have been modernized and improved. The US will still be capable of killing every living thing on the surface of the planet, and no one wishes to provoke the ruling Millennial Generation into a Day Of Infamy. The rising Homeland Generation will seek prosperity, not conflict.
The Pan Europeans from OGRE will exist in fact, and possibly in name as well. Their concerns will be Africa and the ME. The long border with Russia will be the scene of economic warfare, and occasional ethnic clashes of ethnic Slavs within Europe, covertly aided by the Russians. Refugees from Africa will be a major problem.
The Russians will have mastered the oligarchy of crime method of government. The strategic forces will be smaller, but first-rate. Except for subs to maintain a second strike, the navy will be greatly reduced. The only area of concern is the scramble for arctic resources. The Red Army (I can't resist) will be facing, in order, China, India, and the ME (the CIS will have ceded much area to the Islamics, in exchange for stability).
China will have had some kind of reckoning with food and employment. It will ape the Russian oligarchy. The Chinese will have put much of their strategic force at sea, avoiding the problems of regional feuding. The army will be smaller, but more capable. A takedown of North Korea may happen. Taiwan may be assimilated, much like Hong Kong, after the economically forced withdrawal of the US from the Western Pacific. The Chinese air force will be large, and quite robust at operating in austere conditions. The Chinese will be facing the Japanese to the east, Russia to the west, and India to the south.
Japan will re-develop it's military. The result will be a sort of Super-Israel, particularly at sea, and in the air. It will not be expansionist. It will have dominant economic power. It will also have nukes (at sea). South Korea will be a client state, as possibly will the PI. Taiwan/Formosa will be the main sticking point with the Chinese. Japanese power will halt Chinese expansion at the current DMZ in Korea.
India will continue to grow, but population growth will slow as economic gains take hold. A home-grown technology base, combined with nukes, will hold off China. The main problem will be with the ME mess (with African refugees thrown in). Most world observers believe this to be the next flashpoint.
A New Diaspora from Israel will begin, as the smart ones get out, while they still can. The ME and Africa will be going to hell at the same time. The religious fundamentalists from the US will try to fund some filibustering, but will find themselves quite outmatched by all players. The now-secular US will be accepting refugees from Israel, and trying to deport televangelists to Israel...
Brazil will dominate the southern hemisphere. A benevolent criminal oligarchy will control a navy, and a small strategic nuclear force. Much economic development will take place in South America, relieving many pressures. The main problems will be in damage control to the ecosphere, followed by African refugees and the remnants of American Exceptionalism. Regional squabbles will also take place, as will the Portuguese/Spanish divide. The worst will be in Central America, particularly Mexico's horrendous 4T aftermath.
The US will retain some minor outposts, after the Second Great Slowdown, as well as ANZUS and some ties to the Europeans. While there will be much public laughter, NOBODY wants to test the US's fury. The USN/USMC and USAF will still be the premiere fighting forces on the planet. They will have the cream of the population to choose from. The Army will have been much reduced, punished for it's failures. The US Strategic Command will have further extended it's reach into space, and the strategic triad will have been modernized and improved. The US will still be capable of killing every living thing on the surface of the planet, and no one wishes to provoke the ruling Millennial Generation into a Day Of Infamy. The rising Homeland Generation will seek prosperity, not conflict.
My Other Posts
I used to post a great deal to other websites, and I thought I would share with you some of my ideas from them. No other posters will be used (except in quotes).They range over a large number of subjects and topics. Part of the purpose of this blog is to centralize my ideas, and see if they are worth stealing... :)
Note: Personally identifable information will be removed, where possible. Many of the posts refer to Strauss and Howe's Generational Theory. They retain all rights to that theory and intellectual property. Respect for intellectual property is policy here, and items such as quotes from media sources are for informational purposes only. No commercial use is permitted. this applies to all sources. For a closer look, the formal website is:
http://www.fourthturning.com/
The book, "Generations", is a must-read.
Each post will be seperate, and I apologize in advance for length. Original post dates will be included, where possible.
Note: Personally identifable information will be removed, where possible. Many of the posts refer to Strauss and Howe's Generational Theory. They retain all rights to that theory and intellectual property. Respect for intellectual property is policy here, and items such as quotes from media sources are for informational purposes only. No commercial use is permitted. this applies to all sources. For a closer look, the formal website is:
http://www.fourthturning.com/
The book, "Generations", is a must-read.
Each post will be seperate, and I apologize in advance for length. Original post dates will be included, where possible.
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