World Affairs

[Merlin of Flyote 8]

The lastest moan is that Britain is using a Nuclear submarine in the area. Britain has 4 Nuclear-Powered submarines (not all are necessarily Nuclear-Armed) at any time. Britain never indicates where they are at any given time. Argentina only has to worry if it plans to re-commence hostilities.

A Nuclear-powered submarine sunk the General Belgrano in the last altercation.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The lastest moan is that Britain is using a Nuclear submarine in the area. Britain has 4 Nuclear-Powered submarines (not all are necessarily Nuclear-Armed) at any time. Britain never indicates where they are at any given time. Argentina only has to worry if it plans to re-commence hostilities.

A Nuclear-powered submarine sunk the General Belgrano in the last altercation.

A good hard slap for Argentina at the UN for 'fomenting war' might solve this nasty little problem. I'd suggest it is really unwise to bother the Lion or her cubs. Someone should translate 'Albert and the Lion' into Spanish.

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And on another front: This is an example of Machiavellian philosophy not being properly applied. If the Prince is going to kill some rival he should make sure that he wipes out the entire family.

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And on the economic front: Greeks must face the music. It is a shame that they have abused their credit card, but belt tightening is now the order of the day. The Euro zone is at the 59th minute of the twenty-third hour. If Greece collapses, expect a domino effect.

  Edited February 11, 2012 by A Nonny Moose  

[airman15 4,111]

On the economic front:

The domino effect will shake all corners of the world. If Europe collapses, we do. And once we fall, we take Asia with us. Everyone is broke and the current riots are just a taste of what will happen

[vivapanda 422]

This all reminds me of the Duth crown dependecies off the coast at Venezuela(Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao). They're only 60 km away of the capital Caracas, in the 200 sea miles teritorial zone. Colombia claims the three islands for already 100-some years. In 1908 it almost got into a war thanks to a translation mistake. Chavez recently mentioned that they're still claimed by Venezuela. Because of that the Dutch army is always preset on the islands.

It is a bit of the same story, some islands "a pain in the eye" to the country on the mainland. I don't think it would be smart to invade these islands either, since the already not that much liked nation would make a lot of new enemies.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

This domino effect of credit causing a world wide economic collapse seems extremely unreasonable. If Greece defaults on its loans and takes the rest of the world with it, then the global currency should be changed from being debt based to being value based (money is created from work and products, like the Remninbi, instead of being printed to hold debt, like the US dollar).

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ A very good point. Everyone should remember that money as we currently know it is a government's promise to pay out in specie. This has now become impossible, and in fact any currency notes you have are not worth the paper they are on except for the faith of all of us that this can work. Currency notes are merely hyped-up bills of exchange.

Ever wonder where the term twenty-dollar bill came from. It is a short form of saying a "sight bill of exchange drawn on the treasury of the issuing country". It has now become a matter of faith that specie (metal, jewels) can be demanded in exchange for this document.

The idea of bills of exchange goes back to the Italian traders who created the first banking houses so that they could avoid shipping big chests of gold around the world. They simply set up depositories in well-known places, and issued sight drafts on them. The House of Rothschild was one of the founding fathers of all of this. Made the flow of commerce much easier.

There isn't enough specie in the entire planet, mined and unmined, to cover the debt represented by circulating currency notes in the hands of people. This is nothing compared to the mountains of paper debt that exists between banks and corporations. I am very much afraid that this creaky old historic idea is about to come to an end with a resounding thump. The unwritten social contract of trust that was built up by it has failed.

Money is an idea. Specie is value. Relating them worked when all the money was covered by specie, but countries are all off the "gold" standard now.

The fly in this ointment is banks. Banks have the power to create money (not value) by creating a loan. It is very simple: a bank makes a debit entry in a loan account and credits the current account of the customer. In theory, the total loans of a bank are not supposed to exceed a certain high percentage of its total assets, but a loan is an asset so there is a certain positive feedback loop here. Positive feedback loops become so large that they eventually shake the machine apart. This is what is going on now with the money machine.

Old Wang Lung in Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth was right. "Never sell the land." Real estate is one of the only things that has value.

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[airman15 4,111]

I once overheard a conversation between my cousin and my step dad discussing whether or not the value of currency should be linked to the human population. I don't remember much more of it off the top of my head. What would be the effects on the global economy if this were the case?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Saw this article this morning and wondered what our friends up north made of it? Being American, I will keep my opinion to myself!

Barbarossa

Snakes, and snails, and puppy dog's tails, that's what.

Poor Justin. Should have kept his mouth shut, even on a French broadcast. He is much like his father. He will say anything, but this chip off the old block is a staunch federalist. Yesterday there was a huge flap in the Parliamentary lobby, and Justin was busy trying to spin his way out of this.

Mr. Rae (the liberal leader and Justin's boss) probably had a few unkind words to say to him. Justin is likely to be the Liberal Leader one day, just like his daddy, if he can repress his streak of ridiculousness. Pierre Elliot Trudeau caused a lot of sensations as Liberal Leader and later Prime Minister, and he made a few glaring errors in decorum, but he was still our equivalent to John Kennedy. He was single for a long time, and dated some very interesting people, include Barbra Streisand.

Justin started his career as a school teacher in B.C., but with his family record he was soon enticed back to Quebec to run for Parliament. Favorite son in a safe Liberal riding, of course. There is a considerable amount of tragedy in the Trudeau family, and we don't parade it in public.

Who knows, once they get rid of Bob Rae, I might go back to voting Liberal again. My family are long-time Liberals. Now that the old guard has been swept away, one more house-cleaning in the Liberal Party will make them papabile again. The Trendy Pee are turning out to be the same old, same old, now that Jack Layton has passed away. Five years of Conservative dictatorship will make enough mess for the country to want to go back to minority governments again. Just because they have absolute power now is no reason for the current trend of the Conservatives to ride roughshod over the sensibilities of a generally liberal populace. They will regret it. All that needs to happen is for them to lose 10 seats and it would be status quo, ante.

[Danlikebooks 6]

I just read an interesting article in Time Magazine about the fate of the world's economy resting on the new prime minister of Italy. With their economy being the seventh largest in the world and their debts being 120% of GDP, 2nd in terms of percentage only to Greece, it certainly does seem like Italy could do some damage by defaulting. Interestingly enough, the Italian Parliament has taken a page out of old Rome's playbook and united almost unanimously behind Mario Monti (what a wonderful name!) and given him basically dictatorial powers in order to let him get them out of this crises. I applaud the Italian Parliament for this action, as the regular way of doing things (arguing over silly partisan ideals until it's way too late to fix the problem) could never fix this problem like having one man temporarily take the reigns can.

For those of you not familiar with the Ancient Romans' way of handling a crises, when faced with a national crises like famine, invasion, or natural disaster, the Roman Senate would pick a dictator who would have absolute power for six months in order to fix the problem. They rarely used this power, but it worked nearly all the time as having one man in charge eliminates the arguing between different political powers and ideologies. In my opinion, the USA could learn a lot from this.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, I see you are a Roman history buff. That system did break down however starting with the "reign" of Gaius Marius. The erosion of the Republic was a shame, but things were getting very bad for grain shipments from Africa because of "piracy" in the Med. I think it might have been the first real case of international racketeering. Then there is that bunch of expatriot Greeks in Sicilia. Became la cosa nostra, eh?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Oops.

While mommy is disciplining the kiddies, daddy has blotted his copy book. The holier than thou Germans have some house cleaning to do.

[airman15 4,111]

This thread seems to have gone a little quiet, but I have a story to try and revive it:

The famous "The Scream" by Edvard Munch will be sold at an auction in NY.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ That's interesting, since all the other interpretations of "The Scream" by this master are in public hands.

Now this is also a matter of considerable world interest. Wouldn't it be uproarious if there was a microscopic inclusion in this stone shaped like a panther?

[airman15 4,111]

Does this mean Australia will be entering a diamond business if they find more like it?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Does this mean Australia will be entering a diamond business if they find more like it?

Australia is in the pink diamond business and has been for years. I wonder if they mark their finished diamonds as we do. I think a kangaroo would be a good identifier. All Canadian diamonds get a microscopic polar bear lasered onto them.

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Ideas, however bad, never seem to go away.

The world must be vigilant. There are more terrorists than you might think.

  Edited February 23, 2012 by A Nonny Moose  

[airman15 4,111]

What kind of punishments will the perpetrators be facing? Not only did they murder innocent people, but isn't it illegal in modern Germany to show signs of support for the Nazi party?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

What kind of punishments will the perpetrators be facing? Not only did they murder innocent people, but isn't it illegal in modern Germany to show signs of support for the Nazi party?

No idea, but murder is murder, and that usually means life in prison. With the admixture of NAZI-ism, the sentences could be increased to something more severe, like isolation. Perhaps one of our members in Germany can answer this properly.

And, BTW, it is illegal in Canada too. Some people who arrived just after the war, got citizenship then were found to be NAZIs have been denaturalized and deported to Germany.

  Edited February 23, 2012 by A Nonny Moose  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Would rather die than beg.

The national psyche in Japan clings to concepts of dishonor.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Long past due.

Afghanistan has been impossible for centuries. Everyone who has tried to do anything in that country has run into a steady set of anti-foreigner anti-bodies. It is time for us to cut all our losses and just leave, period.

The cost in money and lives in maintaining any kind of presence there is just too much.

[airman15 4,111]

I strongly believe considering the way times are now the world can do with less wars. Or how about less wars period because the bloodshed and hatred is never worth it

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I strongly believe considering the way times are now the world can do with fewer wars. Or how about fewer wars period because the bloodshed and hatred is never worth it. [grammar fixed -ed]

We should study war no more. We have enough means to wipe out the planet, and we don't need little brush-fire wars just to keep the military/industrial cartel happy. Let them beat their swards into plowshares and help feed the hungry instead of killing them.

[airman15 4,111]

I came across this old soviet film some time ago and it shows how the war machine is fueled and can grow to be a serious problem. But the film also shows how we, as individuals can pressure governments to end war.

The main problem is people try to pick sides (or people get manipulated into choosing sides) in every conflict rather than come together and keep their nations from fighting. War wouldn't be as much of a problem if people would just stop fanning the flames and come together to pressure their government to avoid conflict.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The general solution to this is to take the war-hawks and toss them all naked into a dark room with only one sharp knife. The winner gets executed on exit.

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And getting back to our muttons:

The idea that any copy of the Koran is a sacramental, and therefore precious, is the cause of all this. Books are now multiple-record and easily produced in as many copies as you want by industrial production methods. Copies of the Koran are no longer produced by scribes working with ink and brush, so it is immaterial if copies are destroyed as long as there are some left.

Mind you, whatever military commander ordered or sanctioned this provocation should be dealt with as harshly as permitted by the UCMJ. The Inspector General should be looking into this, probably followed by the Advocate General.

  Edited February 26, 2012 by A Nonny Moose  

[ILL Tonkso 1,236]

Argentina need to back off. NOBODY needs another War.

The Falkland inhabitants are the indigineous population. There were no 'natives' before them, they are the natives.

Argentina has constantly accused the UK of colonialism when it is Argentina who wish to colonise the islands against the islanders will.

I have to gripe with Argentina, that would be a foolish and knee-jerk attitude to have. However, I do think their government is absolutely disgusting in its attitude towards the Falkland islanders. My Dad recently visited the Falklands (as a Veteran of the War) and some of the stories he heard are absolutely shocking. Soldiers defecating in childrens toyboxes, citizens marched to a makeshift detention camp in Port Stanley Community Centre if they caused trouble (which actually comes under the modern definition of Ethnic Cleansing). It is no wonder that the people want nothing to do with Argentina. The war itself was a mess, many of the ships the Argentine Navy had at the time were built by the British, one of them - a Type 42 - had been built only a year earlier!

It is a shame really, before the 1980's the relationship between Argentina and the Falklands was very good. The millitary Junta of the time ruined that, Kercher has a golden opportunity to rebuild bridges by recognising the islanders right to self determination, but she wont.

[airman15 4,111]

Indian Ocean : Sister ship of the Costa Concordia, which capsized last month had a generator fire and is now without power. One incident was bad enough, but a second one in not even 2 months should raise red flags for all cruise lines especially Costa Crociere.

______________________________________________

And in the Middle East:

Israel might attack Iran again sometime soon. I have a bad feeling fighting for us will not end, but will shift to fighting a war with Iran. The best strategy our government should utilize if this were to happen would either be staying out of conflict or negotiating with both nations to avoid a potential war.

  Edited February 27, 2012 by usfighter15  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If Israel attacks Iran I hope they discover that their "get out of trouble free" card has expired. As the aggressor they should be treated like any other miscreant by both the UN and NATO. The United States should simply sever its ties with the aggressor, and perhaps join with the rest of us to tell the Israelis that if they don't stand down, we will utterly destroy Jerusalem and we should really mean it. A boomer in the med should be able to make this point.

In the case of an attack on Iran by Israel, every Jew everywhere should be interned for their own safety. This time maybe they will believe it. I am not against the Jews in general, but their so called national leadership is making me sick. I am beginning to understand how the Roman Provincial governor felt at the time of the Maccabean uprising. Enough is enough!

The implementation of the Balfour declaration 40 years after it was promulgated was the biggest mistake the allies made after the war with the possible exception of the reneging on Ho Chi Minh by the Brits. We've had nothing but war from these quarters for 67 years. It is time to put on the brakes.

I am fed up to the teeth with 64 years of feeling sorry for them. I am starting to feel like the Romans, and think it may be time for a second diaspora, only this time we should make the area into a lake of radioactive glass. If the land is holy, then let it be holy. The buildings are beside the point.

If the Israelis come to their senses, which I doubt, the area should become a UN trust territory again, and we should establish order there by whatever means is required. If this includes the expulsion of some peoples from the entire Levant, so be it. Let them land where they can. Antarctica is unpopulated.

Current climate change will soon reduce the amount of land available for everyone, so they should be prepared to shut up and hunker down. The rest of the world should deal with Iran by whatever means it takes to upset those radical fools running the country.

I am sick to my teeth of hearing all this blather. It is time for Islam to put up a central authority and to get control of its radical elements and outlaw the pseudo-Muslim terrorists. If the don't obey all of the Koran, then they are infidels. Iblis would be glad to see them.

[airman15 4,111]

Whenever I hear a story about either us or the UN imposing sanctions on Iran, I always think to myself "Why?". We supply the Israelis by giving them weapons and other means to mount a fighting force and what do they do? They go ahead and attack Iran. Iran is a nation that has oil and also happens to be in the oil market. We could pull ourselves out of the depression (the term recession is just a sugar coating to the sour truth) by doing business with the Iranians, but they refuse to do so because of our aid to aggressors.

We support Israel and what do they do for us in return? I seriously doubt they return favors so why should we continue to back them up? Is it because it's their sacred homeland? I'm all for freedom of religion but since when do those who don't support their nation end up being labelled as Anti-Semitic? Religion should no longer be an excuse to keep us wrapped around their little finger, a punch is a punch and Israel has been throwing them for far too long.

If at one point we really do turn against (which we should) Israel and they declare war on us, let them. At least we would have support and maybe war will be less common in that sector.

  Edited February 28, 2012 by usfighter15  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ We should all pull out of anything having to do with the eastern end of the med, and let them all stew in their own juice. America does not need middle eastern oil. In fact, we are self-sufficient in oil, so let them drink it for all I care.

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Question: USF: What did you do to get your text posted twice in the same panel?

[airman15 4,111]

Not sure how the double text happened, most likely a glitch at my end of the stick.