Rick Perry vs. Barack Obama

[hrothgar]

Iraq was the most prosperous and secular country in the region before the war criminal Dubya invaded.

 

Are you on crack? Turkey and Israel both dwarf Iraq in terms of per capita GDP and have for decades.

Iraq's economy was crippled by the Iran - Iraq war back in the 80s, followed by the first Gulf War, and then years of sanctions.

Iraq's economy has actually grown since the war criminal Dubya invaded...

 

The Gulf states also enjoy much higher per capita GDP.

Admittedly, many of these should be excluded based on your use of the word secular;

however, I'd be hard pressed to claim that - say - Kuwait is noticeably more religious than Iraq.

 

If you're going to try to post "facts" get a ***** clue because comments like this last one are just plain embarrassing...

[jonottawa]

Are you on crack? Turkey and Israel both dwarf Iraq in terms of per capita GDP and have for decades.

Iraq's economy was crippled by the Iran - Iraq war back in the 80s, followed by the first Gulf War, and then years of sanctions.

Iraq's economy has actually grown since the war criminal Dubya invaded...

 

The Gulf states also enjoy much higher per capita GDP.

Admittedly, many of these should be excluded based on your use of the word secular;

however, I'd be hard pressed to claim that - say - Kuwait is noticeably more religious than Iraq.

 

If you're going to try to post "facts" get a ***** clue because comments like this last one are just plain embarrassing...

 

U mad, bro? Anyway, this is off-topic so I'll just summarize with this and give you the last word if you want it.

 

"Iraq, despite the brutality of Saddam Hussein, was a prosperous country with a highly educated middle class before the war. Its infrastructure was modern and efficient. Iraqis enjoyed a high standard of living. The country did not lack modern conveniences. Things worked. And being in Iraq, as I often was when I covered the Middle East for The New York Times, while unnerving because of state repression, was never a hardship. Since our occupation the country has tumbled into dysfunction. Factories, hospitals, power plants, phone service, sewage systems and electrical grids do not work. Iraqis, if they are lucky, get three hours of electricity a day. Try this in 110-degree heat. Poverty is endemic. More than a million Iraqi civilians have been killed. Nearly 5 million have been displaced from their homes or are refugees. The Mercer Quality of Living survey last year ranked Baghdad last among cities-the least livable on the planet. Iraq, which once controlled its own oil, has been forced to turn its oil concessions over to foreign corporations. That is what we have bequeathed to Iraq-violence, misery and theft."

[hrothgar]

"Iraq, despite the brutality of Saddam Hussein, was a prosperous country with a highly educated middle class before the war. Its infrastructure was modern and efficient. Iraqis enjoyed a high standard of living. The country did not lack modern conveniences. Things worked. And being in Iraq, as I often was when I covered the Middle East for The New York Times, while unnerving because of state repression, was never a hardship. Since our occupation the country has tumbled into dysfunction. Factories, hospitals, power plants, phone service, sewage systems and electrical grids do not work. Iraqis, if they are lucky, get three hours of electricity a day. Try this in 110-degree heat. Poverty is endemic. More than a million Iraqi civilians have been killed. Nearly 5 million have been displaced from their homes or are refugees. The Mercer Quality of Living survey last year ranked Baghdad last among cities-the least livable on the planet. Iraq, which once controlled its own oil, has been forced to turn its oil concessions over to foreign corporations. That is what we have bequeathed to Iraq-violence, misery and theft."

 

Do you understand that everything in this sentence could be true, and this still doesn't mean that Iraq was the most prosperous or the most secular country in the region?

 

FWIW, I agree that the US invasion devastated the country and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people (probably even a million).

I believe that Bush and Cheney should be tried for war crimes.

 

At the same time, claiming that Iraq was the most prosperous country in the region is completely ludicrous.

Making these types of elementary mistakes discredits everything that you say.

[helene_t]

I don't think it's a journalist's job to present verdicts.

Well maybe the word "verdict" is wrong. What I mean is: suppose a professor at the institute of geodesics claims that the Earth is round while a website belonging to the flat Earth society claims it isn't. Then the journalist will have to judge whether there really is a controversy justifying presenting both views, or whether the professor's claim can just be presented as factual.

[PassedOut]

I see that republican candidate Jon Huntsman is distancing himself from the nut jobs in his party, among other things by acknowledging that letting the US default would have been completely irresponsible: Huntsman gets more aggressive with opponents, Obama

 

“And it waited until the eleventh hour and then we had some of my Republican opponents who basically, I think, recommended something that would have been catastrophic for this economy.”

 

Huntsman, who launched his campaign vowing to be civil, has struggled to gain traction in early polls, and with his moderate views and former job as Obama’s man in Beijing, has yet to find a constituency.

 

In the past week, with the entry of Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the race, Huntsman’s candidacy has become something of an afterthought, yet he gained some buzz this week over Twitter by taking Perry to task for doubting the science of evolution and global warming.

 

On Twitter, Huntsman declared: “To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.”

Don't know how this will work for him, but if his numbers go way up it will be a positive sign for the country.

[BobElliott]

Now the good reverand Perry is bragging that HIS state teaches creationsim and evolution, and that he thinks kids are smart enough to figure out which one is right.

 

Meanwhile, here in good 'ol boy Oklahoma, Perry has a huge lead in the Republican Presidential polls.

 

It seems the bible belt Republicans support a return to The Dark Ages, while the Democratic Party has no idea what it supports, but it kind of likes the 1980s version of Republicanism - and the album Best of the Bee Gees.

 

At what exact point in time did America lose its collective mind?

[BobElliott]

When JFK was elected.

[PassedOut]

Conor Friedersdorf has a piece in the Atlantic today discussing the reasons that the media treats unlikely-to-win candidates very differently: Why the Press Loves Jon Huntsman but Ignores Ron Paul

 

As much as I agree with Sullivan, Fallows, Weisberg, and all the other journalists praising Huntsman for challenging orthodoxies of thought in the GOP, however, I am struck by the very different standards that govern coverage of two other candidates, Ron Paul and Gary Johnson.

 

Neither Huntsman nor Johnson nor Paul is likely to win. All three are challenging orthodoxies of thought in their party. In doing so, all have an opportunity "to affect the political conversation for the better" and to "shine light on the evasions of his rivals, even if it fails to change the outcome of the race."

 

Here is the difference.

 

Huntsman is challenging orthodoxies of thought that afflict the GOP alone, and taking positions that reflect the conventional wisdom in the media: evolution is a fact, so is climate change, and the debt ceiling had to be raised. In contrast, Johnson and Paul are challenging orthodoxies of thought that are bi-partisan in nature and implicate much of the political and media establishment.

Even though the positions taken by Ron Paul and Gary Johnson opposing military interventions, the "war on drugs," and the erosion of civil liberties ring true, they threaten the established order. The war industry and the prison industry provide a lot of jobs -- jobs that would disappear if that order collapsed. But that doesn't mean that those positions are wrong, and it certainly doesn't mean that they should not be covered.

[Winstonm]

When JFK was elected.

 

I always suspected the day America set aside its petty religious biases and elected a Catholic was the start of the rot. B-)

[kenberg]

I forwarded blackshoe's Jon Stewart link about the dissing of Ron Paul to my son-in-law. He responded by sending me another Jon Stewart link.

 

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-august-15-2011/indecision-2012---corn-polled-edition---ron-paul---the-top-tier

 

It's possible that I will revise upward my view of Stewart.

 

A word or two about orthodoxy: It has been years since I saw The Seventh Seal but one scene that I more or less remember has a (I think) blacksmith and the squire discussing philosophical matters and the smithie observes "You're lucky, you believe your own blather". I may be a bit off, but it was something like that. What we desperately need are some leaders who are not paralyzed by their ideological blather, be it leftie blather or rightie blather.

 

Btw, I just noticed that my spell checker accepts leftie as a word, but not rightie. Someone needs to look into this.

[luke warm]

i'm not convinced that a lot of them actually believe their blather... call me cynical, but politicians do (and say) whatever it takes to get and stay elected... if there are exceptions, i don't know who they are

[Bbradley62]

Run, George, Run!

(Pataki, of course...)

[PassedOut]

I'm really not up for abolishing the fed...

Nor am I. But that simply won't happen no matter who calls for it: the Fed is too tightly integrated with the whole financial system to be abolished now: Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion in Fed’s Secret Loans

 

Two weeks after Lehman’s bankruptcy in September 2008, Morgan Stanley countered concerns that it might be next to go by announcing it had “strong capital and liquidity positions.” The statement, in a Sept. 29, 2008, press release about a $9 billion investment from Tokyo-based Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., said nothing about Morgan Stanley’s Fed loans.

 

That was the same day as the firm’s $107.3 billion peak in borrowing from the central bank, which was the source of almost all of Morgan Stanley’s available cash, according to the lending data and documents released more than two years later by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The amount was almost three times the company’s total profits over the past decade, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

 

Mark Lake, a spokesman for New York-based Morgan Stanley, said the crisis caused the industry to “fundamentally re-evaluate” the way it manages its cash.

The usual lessons apply: If you are going to be irresponsible with money, don't do it in a small way -- you will lose your home; instead do it in a massive way -- you will lose nothing.

 

One of my brothers, who is at Morgan Stanley, told me this summer that he has qualms about that whole situation (although he doesn't classify it as negatively as I do). And, despite his qualms, he's not planning to leave the company.

[kenberg]

Absolute power is said to corrupt absolutes. Big bucks does a pretty good job of it also.

[matmat]

Absolute power is said to corrupt absolutes. Big bucks does a pretty good job of it also.

 

 

Absolute power corrupts.

Money is power.

 

Therefore...

 

:)

 

also:

Time is money...

[Winstonm]

I think the only hope of progressives for the inevitable President Perry landslide win is to start early to establish some urban legends about him.

 

For example, did you know he was born in a manger in Bethlehem?

[blackshoe]

So he's not a native born American!

[Winstonm]

So he's not a native born American!

 

Exactly! Bethlehem is the new Kenya.

[Bbradley62]

Does this really qualify as a signature? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rick_Perry_signature.svg

[luke warm]

i must be way behind the times, i just found out yesterday that cursive writing is optional for elementary school teachers (as long as their leap test scores aren't affected)

[Elianna]

i must be way behind the times, i just found out yesterday that cursive writing is optional for elementary school teachers (as long as their leap test scores aren't affected)

 

Since cursive isn't a state-mandated testing subject, it isn't taught anymore. Don't you love the educational testing regime?

[jdeegan]

U mad, bro? Anyway, this is off-topic so I'll just summarize with this and give you the last word if you want it.

 

"Iraq, despite the brutality of Saddam Hussein, was a prosperous country with a highly educated middle class before the war. Its infrastructure was modern and efficient. Iraqis enjoyed a high standard of living. The country did not lack modern conveniences. Things worked. And being in Iraq, as I often was when I covered the Middle East for The New York Times, while unnerving because of state repression, was never a hardship. Since our occupation the country has tumbled into dysfunction. Factories, hospitals, power plants, phone service, sewage systems and electrical grids do not work. Iraqis, if they are lucky, get three hours of electricity a day. Try this in 110-degree heat. Poverty is endemic. More than a million Iraqi civilians have been killed. Nearly 5 million have been displaced from their homes or are refugees. The Mercer Quality of Living survey last year ranked Baghdad last among cities-the least livable on the planet. Iraq, which once controlled its own oil, has been forced to turn its oil concessions over to foreign corporations. That is what we have bequeathed to Iraq-violence, misery and theft."

 

:P Gosh Jon, I can't imagine why that Saddam Hussain follow decided on an unprevoked invasion of Iran in 1980. My Iraqi friends at the time weren't talking, for sure. Perhaps it had something to do with that German or that Italian guy and how that 1870's European experience was later interpreted by a miserable Christian Syrian. Old Saddam ended up messing with the day to day life of the rich countries in the world. The misery he brought down on his own people might have been less in perfect world if the good old USA had behaved differently, but you know about port-mortems.

[luke warm]

Since cursive isn't a state-mandated testing subject, it isn't taught anymore. Don't you love the educational testing regime?

absolutely... i read somewhere that from 1967 on there was a steady downward curve in act and sat scores...

[Winstonm]

absolutely... i read somewhere that from 1967 on there was a steady downward curve in act and sat scores...

 

Sure, but who can trust data?

[Bbradley62]

absolutely... i read somewhere that from 1967 on there was a steady downward curve in act and sat scores...

There are all kinds of explanations for this, one of which is that "in the old days" only top high school students expected to go to college and therefore took those tests, whereas today all except the bottom high school students do, so we're not comparing apples to apples.