George Rebane
We add solyndra and solyndrize to the RR G&S lexicon. Both in lower case, the first is a noun, the second a verb. Other forms of modifiers like ‘solyndrizable’ will be readily formed and used as needed. A solyndra is a government picked and supported enterprise foisted on the taxpayer as a private corporation/institution that has no ability to survive or succeed in the marketplace on its own. One can also consider it as an entrepreneurial façade using taxpayers’ money in the attempt to bolster a misguided government policy. To solyndrize a company is to select it for the infusion of government monies and other regulatory protections so as to shield it from the realities of the marketplace. A natural extension here is ‘solyndricide’, the final failure of a solyndricized organization which is usually brought about by the government’s cutting off the solyndra’s financial transfusions.
Polls and margins of error are much in the news today. A little calculator work shows that the vaunted Real Clear Politics average of polls is just that, the arithmetic average – add all the poll results together and divide by the number of polls in the average. This is a severely crude and often misinformative attempt to derive information from the blizzard of pre-election polls that are cited to support all kinds of arguments by commentators and media talking heads.
A more professional approach to the estimation of current sentiment across a population of polls would take into account the attributes of each poll, and include them in the weighting of the poll’s result. Such attributes include its variance (margin of error), time late, and validity instant that contribute to each poll’s reliability and timeliness. Sample sizes matter, and public opinion is a volatile commodity that quickly decorrelates. I’ll have more to say about it in a post that will present the correct way to aggregate and produce information from a set of polls. And I’d appreciate getting pointed to a site from which I can download such data as sample size, and the interval over which the questionnaire was administered. Thanks in advance.
Central banks are buying gold by the tons, none of them care about price. Now that everyone in the world that can print fiat money is printing it – e.g. the Bernank’s QE3 of $40B/month forever – we get updated on what the world’s monetary experts really think about “that ancient relic”. Central banks used to pooh-pooh the metal and keep their reserves in a trusted ‘reserve currency’ like US dollars. This is going by the board as the European Central Bank, Russia, China, India, …, and the United States are hauling in tons of the stuff from the world’s mines. Each has added large percentages to their already quietly accumulated hoards, and the beat goes on. It’s as if they think that the stuff they’re printing won’t be worth much in the future.
A Pennsylvania judge has blocked the application of the state’s new voter ID law for the upcoming election. The consistency of the rationale here is simply amazing. The most important and sacrosanct act by a citizen of a liberal democracy is relegated to the level of kindergartner’s belief in Santa Claus. Photo ID’s are required for every conceivable transaction in our land – you can’t pass gas on a subway without a photo ID; well maybe – but walk into a polling station and you can register to vote right then and there, and vote. All you have to do is lie that you’re a citizen, and give them your driver’s license or state ID number (or even SS number). Both of these have your picture, and all can be had without proving US citizenship. The Nevada County Registrar of Voters Office informed me that under Secs 2111 and 2112 of the Elections Code, the registrant’s statement that s/he is a US citizen is deemed to be a sufficient affidavit and proof of citizenship under penalty of perjury – no further verification by the state is required or performed.
‘Ragheads’ and/or ‘Savages’?? Seems that finding the appropriate pejorative label to tag Islamic terrorists is an undertaking that has a broader scope than that in these pages. “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” read an ad in the New York subway stations. Well, that got the leftwing’s undies in a bundle. Referring to the ragheads (q.v.) as savages was considered “hateful”, “hate speech”, “racist”, … (you know the drill). Putting together ‘savage’, ‘jihad’, and the implications of Islamic involvement (ya think?) was apparently beyond the pale. I don’t know; looking at the formal definitions of ‘savage’, you could have a good quibble with each of them as applied to ragheads, which I think is a pejorative much more semantically precise. Oh well, we continue the search.
Dr Thomas Sowell on Obama. The renowned academic and good professor has a very revealing interview with a colleague at the Hoover Institution. (See ‘Tax Cuts and Obama’s Myth of Trickle Down Economics’, worth watching.) One of the Bush2 myths that he demolishes is by describing the roots of the subprime mortgage explosion that run deep into Clinton’s administration which pushed banks to make these loans by guaranteeing that the government would cover defaults. We all recall the Democrats following ol’ Barney’s willingness to “roll the dice on Fannie and Freddie.” Win some, lose some.
What do debates reveal? Joseph Epstein agrees (here) with my long held belief that candidate debates – especially the presidential kind – are mainly circus and don’t reveal anything much about the qualities of the candidate that make for a good President. One of the many foibles that debates emphasize is the quickness of response – and better if it is a deep slicing one liner – that “has nothing to do with genuine thought, which requires brooding over a subject, laboriously working through its complications.” In sum, the silver-tongued devil is a shoo-in for winning the debate, his other presidential qualifications are optional.
We add solyndra and solyndrize to the RR G&S lexicon. Both in lower case, the first is a noun, the second a verb. Other forms of modifiers like ‘solyndrizable’ will be readily formed and used as needed. A solyndra is a government picked and supported enterprise foisted on the taxpayer as a private corporation/institution that has no ability to survive or succeed in the marketplace on its own. One can also consider it as an entrepreneurial façade using taxpayers’ money in the attempt to bolster a misguided government policy. To solyndrize a company is to select it for the infusion of government monies and other regulatory protections so as to shield it from the realities of the marketplace. A natural extension here is ‘solyndricide’, the final failure of a solyndricized organization which is usually brought about by the government’s cutting off the solyndra’s financial transfusions.
Polls and margins of error are much in the news today. A little calculator work shows that the vaunted Real Clear Politics average of polls is just that, the arithmetic average – add all the poll results together and divide by the number of polls in the average. This is a severely crude and often misinformative attempt to derive information from the blizzard of pre-election polls that are cited to support all kinds of arguments by commentators and media talking heads.
A more professional approach to the estimation of current sentiment across a population of polls would take into account the attributes of each poll, and include them in the weighting of the poll’s result. Such attributes include its variance (margin of error), time late, and validity instant that contribute to each poll’s reliability and timeliness. Sample sizes matter, and public opinion is a volatile commodity that quickly decorrelates. I’ll have more to say about it in a post that will present the correct way to aggregate and produce information from a set of polls. And I’d appreciate getting pointed to a site from which I can download such data as sample size, and the interval over which the questionnaire was administered. Thanks in advance.
Central banks are buying gold by the tons, none of them care about price. Now that everyone in the world that can print fiat money is printing it – e.g. the Bernank’s QE3 of $40B/month forever – we get updated on what the world’s monetary experts really think about “that ancient relic”. Central banks used to pooh-pooh the metal and keep their reserves in a trusted ‘reserve currency’ like US dollars. This is going by the board as the European Central Bank, Russia, China, India, …, and the United States are hauling in tons of the stuff from the world’s mines. Each has added large percentages to their already quietly accumulated hoards, and the beat goes on. It’s as if they think that the stuff they’re printing won’t be worth much in the future.
A Pennsylvania judge has blocked the application of the state’s new voter ID law for the upcoming election. The consistency of the rationale here is simply amazing. The most important and sacrosanct act by a citizen of a liberal democracy is relegated to the level of kindergartner’s belief in Santa Claus. Photo ID’s are required for every conceivable transaction in our land – you can’t pass gas on a subway without a photo ID; well maybe – but walk into a polling station and you can register to vote right then and there, and vote. All you have to do is lie that you’re a citizen, and give them your driver’s license or state ID number (or even SS number). Both of these have your picture, and all can be had without proving US citizenship. The Nevada County Registrar of Voters Office informed me that under Secs 2111 and 2112 of the Elections Code, the registrant’s statement that s/he is a US citizen is deemed to be a sufficient affidavit and proof of citizenship under penalty of perjury – no further verification by the state is required or performed.
‘Ragheads’ and/or ‘Savages’?? Seems that finding the appropriate pejorative label to tag Islamic terrorists is an undertaking that has a broader scope than that in these pages. “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” read an ad in the New York subway stations. Well, that got the leftwing’s undies in a bundle. Referring to the ragheads (q.v.) as savages was considered “hateful”, “hate speech”, “racist”, … (you know the drill). Putting together ‘savage’, ‘jihad’, and the implications of Islamic involvement (ya think?) was apparently beyond the pale. I don’t know; looking at the formal definitions of ‘savage’, you could have a good quibble with each of them as applied to ragheads, which I think is a pejorative much more semantically precise. Oh well, we continue the search.
Dr Thomas Sowell on Obama. The renowned academic and good professor has a very revealing interview with a colleague at the Hoover Institution. (See ‘Tax Cuts and Obama’s Myth of Trickle Down Economics’, worth watching.) One of the Bush2 myths that he demolishes is by describing the roots of the subprime mortgage explosion that run deep into Clinton’s administration which pushed banks to make these loans by guaranteeing that the government would cover defaults. We all recall the Democrats following ol’ Barney’s willingness to “roll the dice on Fannie and Freddie.” Win some, lose some.
What do debates reveal? Joseph Epstein agrees (here) with my long held belief that candidate debates – especially the presidential kind – are mainly circus and don’t reveal anything much about the qualities of the candidate that make for a good President. One of the many foibles that debates emphasize is the quickness of response – and better if it is a deep slicing one liner – that “has nothing to do with genuine thought, which requires brooding over a subject, laboriously working through its complications.” In sum, the silver-tongued devil is a shoo-in for winning the debate, his other presidential qualifications are optional.
The Real Clear Politics poll average is perfect for this nation's disembrained.
Posted by: Ryan Mount | 02 October 2012 at 02:28 PM
RyanM 228pm - "disembrained" what a delightful term, full of all kinds of semantic implications. Care to give a more precise definition of it?
Posted by: George Rebane | 02 October 2012 at 02:31 PM
"Central banks are buying gold by the tons"
Gold has been in the 1600 to 1800 range for the last year or so. Are you saying they are quietly buying it up while holding the price steady, while the common man sells off what he has?
Is it savagery to buy up a company, strip it of its assets (especially the employees' pensions) and make it go bankrupt. Or is that Romneyfication? Maybe Banism?
sav·age
[sav-ij] Show IPA adjective, noun, verb, sav·aged, sav·ag·ing.
adjective
1.
fierce, ferocious, or cruel; untamed: savage beasts.
2.
uncivilized; barbarous: savage tribes.
3.
enraged or furiously angry, as a person.
4.
unpolished; rude: savage manners.
5.
wild or rugged, as country or scenery: savage wilderness.
6.
racist talk show host.
Posted by: TomKenworth | 02 October 2012 at 02:38 PM
It's a colloquial term I find amusing:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=disembrained
For me, it describes the current state of the well-entertained, happy and dumb member of the electorate. S/he is that ignorant citizen that worried Madison so much.
Some people find it a term of endearment and nihilistically wear it as a badge of honor.
Posted by: Ryan Mount | 02 October 2012 at 02:41 PM
In a country where daytime tv includes Jerry Springer and the other supposedly reality shows, showing a populous that can't be trusted to vote in their own best interests, based on the lives they are leading. Even if it is all fiction, one must then consider who is watching this stuff. "Ragheads" may be scary, but in terms of the future of this country, these native born citizens are even scarier.
Posted by: TomKenworth | 02 October 2012 at 02:45 PM
TomK 245pm - agreed.
Posted by: George Rebane | 02 October 2012 at 02:48 PM
50% of everyone you'll meet will be below average. I try and keep that in mind before I let my blood pressure up. This fact is further signified by this statement I recently heard out on the Internets:
Me: 50% of everyone you'll meet will be below average.
Random buffoon: Oh, it's got to be much higher than that.
Posted by: Ryan Mount | 02 October 2012 at 02:53 PM
RyanM 253pm - we combine that little datum with the ever present attitude surveys in which almost 90% of the respondents consider themselves above average - just like in Lake Wobegon.
Posted by: George Rebane | 02 October 2012 at 02:56 PM
Drudge
TONIGHT: OBAMA'S OTHER RACE SPEECH
THE ACCENT... THE ANGER... THE ACCUSATIONS... THE SERMON...
THE SHOUT OUT TO REV. WRIGHT, WHO IS IN AUDIENCE...
'My pastor, the guy who puts up with me, counsels me, listens to my wife complain about me. He's a friend and a great leader. Not just in Chicago, but all across the country'..
FOXNEWS 9 PM ET...
'We don't need to build more highways out in the suburbs. We should be investing in minority-owned businesses, in our neighborhoods'...
Here is the link, see it now: http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/is-this-the-video-drudge-is-teasing
Posted by: Russ Steele | 02 October 2012 at 03:54 PM
Ryan
" well-entertained, happy and dumb member of the electorate."
Careful Ryan. You might be offending fellow blogsters who champion Glen Beck as a credible source of information
Posted by: Paul Emery | 02 October 2012 at 04:35 PM
Charge on Ryan, you'll be scooping up more than equal helpings of Rachel Maddow fans.
Posted by: George Rebane | 02 October 2012 at 06:19 PM
Really, who in hell is in charge of the Obama web site?
"Vote Like Your Lady Parts Depend On It... Because they kinda do."
Something that was on the Obama campaign website and, when widely noticed, taken down.
Imagine if the sexes were reversed: Vote like your manhood depends on it... because it kinda does.
Yes, it does!
Posted by: Russ Steele | 02 October 2012 at 06:24 PM
That the best you have...absolutely nothing wrong in anything he said there.
Posted by: Steven Frisch | 02 October 2012 at 06:25 PM
Mr. Kenworth hauling logs: Good definition of savage: uncivilized; barbarous. As an excellent educator, I am certain you aware of the origin of the word barbarian. But for our readers with many degrees, suffer me to elaborate.
The word barbarian came from the Romans who encountered unpolished and rude tribes (my people for sure). The language and words they spoke sounded a lot like "bar bar" to the untrained ear. Thus, the word barbarian. My gosh, the barbarians overthrew Rome!
I am particularly fond of definitions #4 and #5.
4. unpolished; rude: savage manners.
5.
wild or rugged, as country or scenery: savage wilderness.
I more I hear the word savage, the more I find comfort in the definition. I have grown fond of the word savage. Now, you got a problem with that? Now do ya? :)
Posted by: billy T | 02 October 2012 at 08:40 PM
Looking ahead, India is the world's largest consumer/buyer of gold. The Indians are projected to cut use of gold 41% in 2013. The Central banks are not saying "Oh crud, sell now." Nope. Gold is for hoarding, that is for sure.
Posted by: billy T | 02 October 2012 at 09:14 PM
billyT 914pm - Yes hoarding, but that is only one of its functions. The most important of them being the 'money of last resort' which will always serve as a medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value. Central banks have secretly shipped gold to each other for decades when fiat money would just not do. But no one wanted to let the sheeple know else they would bleat and panic en masse.
Posted by: George Rebane | 02 October 2012 at 09:21 PM
Interesting Question of the Day by Pejman Yousefzadeh
I recognize that the attack on our consulate in Benghazi is being investigated, but I have trouble understanding why the White House can’t answer a simple query:
Did the consulate request additional security prior to the attack on it–the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stephens?
Seems to me that this is a question that can be answered with a simple “yes,” or “no.” When the answer instead is “no comment,” then something certainly smells fishy.
If there aren’t additional questions regarding this issue during the foreign policy debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama–and if the president is not pressed to give specific answers to those questions during that debate–we will know that journalism is dead.
Perhaps some of the local Obama supporters have an answer for this question. Anyone want to venture a guess if it gets asked during any of the 3 presidential debates?
Posted by: Russ Steele | 03 October 2012 at 06:01 AM
RussS 601am - that good question appears to have been answered, but not by the white House. There were multiple requests for increased security from the ambassador before he was killed in Benghazi. That al Qaida was operating in the area, and its strength was beyond Libyan authorities' ability to contain was already apparent when the British ambassador was attacked nearby in June, as also pointed out here.
Posted by: George Rebane | 03 October 2012 at 08:50 AM
One post only, what if
“In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”
read more like this
"Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God. In any war between the oppressed and the oppressor, support the oppressed. Support Islam. Defeat American Empire"
In response to 19 hijackers (15 Saudi Arabia) that acted out the immoral, illegal, and disgusting act of 9/11 that took 3,000 civilian lives the US government has invaded and occupied two sovereign nations, killed a million people, displace millions more, influenced their governments, put up walls creating Muslim apartheid, have stripped due process to hundreds if not thousands of people on the fact they are Muslim, tortured, and have been dropping bombs from drones killing innocent civilians only in Muslim nations. All this on top of 70 year history of coups, covert and overt military operations, and propping up brutal puppet regimes.
We have turned into the country that we fought a revolution to break free.
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." Thomas Paine
Posted by: Ben Emery | 03 October 2012 at 09:36 AM
The Benghazi boat has left the dock with regards to the Obama administration's culpability. The easily distracted public has moved on to other things. They have all but admitted that they screwed up, despite their earlier "we need to investigate this further" hedging.
Well, it turns out that's what panning out: after further investigation, the attack was a coordinated terrorist attack and not the result of a video. When pressed, the Obama administration for obvious reasons will not admit fault, but simply repeats the talking points: we took our time to investigate and we wanted to make sure we were thorough. Although Obama's UN speech was clearly a lie in blaming the video.
But this is a clear example of the Obama's (literal) hands-off foreign policy. It's still small peanuts compared to the murderous drone strikes that prove to be more fuel for terrorism than any sophomoric video.
Posted by: Ryan Mount | 03 October 2012 at 09:38 AM
I'd agree with Ryan, but it has been effective, in a narrow sense, but in a broader sense it is much like squirting water on an oil fire. If some Muslim flavored group does get a non chemical device, the drone strikes definitely up the odds that it will go off inside the USA, probably near one of the major refineries in a southern state known for its Bushes. And not in Israel, which might well flatten every Arab capital, just to be sure they got the right one.
Posted by: TomKenworth | 03 October 2012 at 10:05 AM
Paul,,, Nice try with your little swipe at Beck.
Interesting how most,if not all of his predictions have
become reality, no matter how much the Beck haters take his words OHH so out of context.
Beck predicted well over a year ago how Obummer's foreign policy would pan out.
So, Paul, Why not tune in Beck on Dish Network while it's still in the free trial period? Actually listen, instead of being told what he said by those that hate him even more than you. Then come back and show (or make a feeble attempt) how wrong he is. ( good luck)
Posted by: Walt | 03 October 2012 at 10:13 AM
Please do not get history lessons from Glenn Beck. For even when he's correct, he's still a pandering lunatic. OK, lunatic might be over the top. My apologies.
Beck is more of a classic American "crank," which isn't necessarily bad thing per se. The American crank is one of the great by-products of the American experiment. (there's really no comparison in any other culture) The country was founded on untested, radical ideas from said cranks. Cranks are not snake-oil salesmen, but rather people who have weird ideas like creating a city in the Nevada desert. They couldn't find the mainstream even with dueling diving rods. Cranks care not what people think of them because they are, of course, "right."
So in that regard, I value Beck for his pure entertainment factor. Still better than anything on MSNBC and certainly better than The View.
Posted by: Ryan Mount | 03 October 2012 at 10:24 AM
BenE 936am - That's a great apologetic for Islam. In it you definitely agree with the mullahs that it really is tyrannical America that is the world's Great Satan. This has been my ongoing take of your 'Rev Wright commentary' over time. I believe you have impressed others in a similar fashion. Is it not wonderful though, that in this great land you can voice such opinions and have people like me defend your right to do so? But I am saddened by your labors, because such criticisms will come to an end if ever the religion of peace comes to reign in America.
Posted by: George Rebane | 03 October 2012 at 11:32 AM
Our self serving war in Iraq killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians including women and children. Also our drone attacks in various parts of the world not only violate the territory of sovereign nations but result in the death rate of 90% innocent bystanders including women and children. Does that not give good reason to fuel the thought that we are indeed the evil Satan as prophesied in radical Islamic teaching? This is indeed happening on their turf not ours.
Posted by: Paul Emery | 03 October 2012 at 11:41 AM
Reliable estimates of the Iraqi civilian body count since 2003 top at about 125,000. Almost all of them were at the hands of fellow Iraqis. The killings go on. The world's leftists proclaim the more hysterical "hundreds of thousands" to support their own agendas.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/
Saddam's body count since 1980 is more than 500,000 killed in the Iraq/Iran War that he started and kept going. And the ongoing executions of his own civilians including pogroms against the Kurds and Shiites now truly reaches into the hundreds of thousands, and may even be above a million. Reliable numbers are not yet available.
During these decades such internecine killing has been ongoing "on their turf" for centuries, and Saddam's reign of terror amplified the historical pressures of vengeance on all sides. One can compute the Iraqi body counts under different contingencies of continuing Saddam's tenure. But it is certain that Iraqis killing Iraqis would have come to pass in any event once the regime changed under whatever auspices (see also Yugoslavia's break-up). To blame the whole tragedy on America's liberation of Iraq from Saddam is either naive or serves to support other anti-American agendas (cf. obamunism)
Posted by: George Rebane | 03 October 2012 at 12:24 PM
George
How would we respond to a nation that enacted Shock and Awe on our capital city and continues to lob drone missiles that cause huge civilian casualties?
Yes indeed Sadaam took a huge toll during his American supported reign on terror over the Kurds using chemical weapons enabled by American technology. Of course they weren't considered WMD's at the time because it was in the strategic interest of the US to support their puppet boy.
Posted by: Paul Emery | 03 October 2012 at 12:55 PM
PaulE 1255pm - I do consider your question to be odd at best and naive at worst (but I'll go with 'odd').
I assume that to have an apples-to-apples comparison, America would have been ruled by a ruthless dictator for decades who had (proportionately) killed millions of us during his reign, and set factions of us against each other.
In that case I would have quietly celebrated the 'incoming', and hoped for a quick follow-on invasion that would topple our dictator, and then give us an opportunity to sort things out - hopefully in a less bloody manner.
But if Iraq, or any nation, would just have attacked us in our present state as you describe, I believe we would have bombed the living shit out of them (al la WW2) on live TV to the loud cheers of people like me, and to the gnashing of teeth in the mouths of our liberals.
Posted by: George Rebane | 03 October 2012 at 01:10 PM
Paul@12:55PM
You wrote: “Yes indeed Sadaam took a huge toll during his American supported reign on terror over the Kurds using chemical weapons enabled by American technology.”
This first class historical ignorance on your part. Sadaam used mustard gas on the Kurd, dropped from Russian Migs and French Mirage aircraft. Mustard gas was developed the Germans during WW-I. What American chemical weapon technology was used on the Kurd’s? Though there was claims of other nerve gases than mustard gas, all the patients that were treated in the hospital were suffering from mustard gas.
Sulfur mustards are variations of mustard gas (bis-(2-chloroethyl) sulfide), which was first synthesized by Frederick Guthrie in 1860, though it is possible that it was developed as early as 1822 by M. Depretz. In 1886 V. Meyer published a paper describing a synthesis which produced good yields. Mustard gas is referred to by numerous other names, including HD, senfgas, sulfur mustard, blister gas, s-lost, lost, Kampfstoff LOST, yellow cross liquid, and yperite. The abbreviation LOST comes from the names Lommel and Steinkopf, who developed a process for mass producing the gas for war use at the German company Bayer AG. This involved reacting thiodiglycol with hydrochloric acid.
If you have proof for a contrary scenario lets see it!
Posted by: Russ Steele | 03 October 2012 at 01:48 PM
It was much more than mustard gas and procurement included American companies. Saddam was convenient for us at the time and we continued to lavish him with millions knowing he was gassing his own people. That makes us accessories to the massacre.
Posted by: Paul Emery | 03 October 2012 at 02:27 PM
"I believe we would have bombed the living shit out of them (al la WW2) on live TV to the loud cheers of people like me, and to the gnashing of teeth in the mouths of our liberals."
Posted by: George Rebane | 03 October 2012 at 01:10 PM
There you go George. You have just provided the moral justification for the radical Islamic attacks on our soil and especially our presence in the region.
Posted by: Paul Emery | 03 October 2012 at 02:46 PM
Paul@02:27
OK, lets have some fact? Let have the name of those American companies that provided the mustard gas and " the much more".
The know-how and material for developing chemical weapons were obtained by Saddam's regime from foreign firms.[22] The largest suppliers of precursors for chemical weapons production were in Singapore (4,515 tons), the Netherlands (4,261 tons), Egypt (2,400 tons), India (2,343 tons), and West Germany (1,027 tons). One Indian company, Exomet Plastics (now part of EPC Industrie Ltd.) sent 2,292 tons of precursor chemicals to Iraq. The Kim Al-Khaleej firm, located in Singapore and affiliated to United Arab Emirates, supplied more than 4,500 tons of VX, sarin, and mustard gas precursors and production equipment to Iraq.[23]
I did not see one US Company listed above? So, who was the mystery company or companies? Proof?????
Posted by: Russ Steele | 03 October 2012 at 03:32 PM
Russ
This story is so established in history that I'm amazed that you even question my assumption. Here you go. I can provide more if you like.
"According to the Washington Post, a Senate committee investigating the relationship between the US and Iraq discovered that in the mid-1980s - following the Rumsfeld visit - dozens of biological agents were shipped to Iraq under licence from the Commerce Department.
They included anthrax, subsequently identified by the Pentagon as a key component of the Iraqi biological warfare programme.
The newspaper says: 'The Commerce Department also approved the export of insecticides to Iraq, despite widespread suspicions that they were being used for chemical warfare.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-153210/Rumsfeld-helped-Iraq-chemical-weapons.html#ixzz28HZ64t7i
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Posted by: Paul Emery | 03 October 2012 at 04:40 PM
PaulE 440pm - According to your logic America and its companies are at fault for every conceivable despicable act of foreign governments and foreign terrorists. It doesn't take rocket science to draw the connection, no matter how thin, between some export shipped from these shores to wind up as a component or content in a foreign weapon. But then I forgot, that's been your (and the Left's) whole point - America is first, foremost, and forever the guilty agent on the world stage.
Now, over the decades, where have I heard that argument before?
Posted by: George Rebane | 03 October 2012 at 05:06 PM
"50% of everyone you'll meet will be below average. I try and keep that in mind before I let my blood pressure up. This fact is further signified by this statement I recently heard out on the Internets:
Me: 50% of everyone you'll meet will be below average."
Not true, as anyone who has actually taken a real statistics class can tell you. There is no guarantee the sampling of people Ryan meets is representative of the greater whole.
In fact, I suspect there are some people who rarely meet people who are above average, and others who rarely meet people who are below average, for just about any measure of 'quality' and "meet" one can make.
Posted by: Gregory | 03 October 2012 at 05:10 PM
More for Russ
Donald W. Riegle, MBA, (D-MI), and Alfonse M. D'Amato, JD, former (R-NY), former Chairman and Ranking Member, respectively, of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, in their May 25, 1994 report titled "U.S. Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual Use Exports to Iraq and their Possible Impact on the Health Consequences of the Gulf War," also known as "The Riegle Report," stated:
"In October 1992, the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, which has Senate oversight responsibility for the Export Administration Act (EAA), held an Inquiry into the U.S. export policy to Iraq prior to the Persian Gulf War. During that hearing it was learned that U.N. Inspectors identified many U.S.-manufactured items exported pursuant to licenses issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce that were used to further Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons development and missile delivery system development programs...
...we contacted a principal supplier of biological materials to determine what, if any, materials were exported to Iraq which might have contributed to an offensive or defensive biological warfare program.
Records available from the supplier for the period from 1985 until the present show that during this time, pathogenic (meaning "disease producing"), toxigenic (meaning "poisonous"), and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce.... Included in the approved sales are the following biological materials...: Bacillus Anthracis: anthrax...Clostridium Botulinum: a bacterial source of botulinum toxin...Histoplasma Capsulatum: a fungus affecting the lungs...Brucella Melitensis: a bacteria which can cause...damage to major organs...Clostridium Perfringens: a highly toxic bateria which causes gas gangrene."
http://usiraq.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000894
Posted by: Paul Emery | 03 October 2012 at 05:11 PM
George
I was just showing examples to help educate Russ about recent American history. I consider it to be a public service I am happy to provide.
Posted by: Paul Emery | 03 October 2012 at 05:13 PM
On another topic, lets have Obama and Ryan go at it in a boxing ring (forget Romney, he wouldn't draw). Make it pay per view worldwide, charge big bucks and use the proceeds to pay down the national debt. Hell with sports analogies, just let them go at it. Odds anyone?
Posted by: Paul Emery | 03 October 2012 at 05:28 PM
> There is no guarantee the sampling of people Ryan meets is representative of the greater whole.
Oh Greg, for crap's sake. You're right [again]. OK? Uncle. But you're missing the point by picking the fly shit out of the pepper. Well, maybe you get the point as a figure of speech.
All I know is my buddy at John Hopkins who studies this shit (IQ and income to be specific) agrees with me. He writes big papers on this stuff and appears on C-SPAN. I just say snarky blog comments.
Sometimes being close is good enough, eh?
Posted by: Ryan Mount | 03 October 2012 at 08:17 PM
Correction in the spirit of honesty: My C-SPAN buddy is at George Mason. I have another buddy at John Hopkins. Got them mixed up.
Posted by: Ryan Mount | 03 October 2012 at 08:42 PM
Nearest to the topic thread I can find.
Really pissed about 14 year old girl in coma.
How to improve drone strikes.
Have moma drone be accompanied by nannie drone equipped with many. many, baby drones, cheap and expendable. Sent babies in for much closer look, the see what their reaction is to being watched. If they whip out AK47's, then launch momma drone's fire power.
Is anyone doing anything about this already? If not, somebody needs to.
Posted by: Tbetterman | 13 October 2012 at 10:42 AM