On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 21:56:55 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 18:01:26 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 17:38:03 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 11:00:29 -0700 (PDT), Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

On Sunday, April 16, 2017 at 1:03:17 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 10:24:06 -0400,
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 09:20:57 -0400, Keyser Soze
wrote:

I think the solution lies with the muslim world. We're not getting the
kind of help or leadership from any of the Muslim countries that we
need.

===

You're absolutely right about that. Pakistan is arguably one of the
more advanced Muslim countries and they're still stoning people to
death for blasphemy.

So what? Why do we care what they do in their own country? There are
plenty of western europeans who think we are barbarians too.

I can't believe you said that.

Why? For the same reason you'd get ****ed if the guy across the street from you was kicking the **** out of his dog!

If it was the guy on my street I would be upset but I am not going to
Korea and tell a guy he can't eat his dog. Different culture,
different rules.

Personally I don't have a problem with a Korean eating dog meat. I think it's possible to kill a dog
'humanely', just as it is to kill a pig or steer. It's 'inhumane' treatment I'm talking about.
Raping and genitally mutilating 12- year-old girls is inhumane, especially when they've been
kidnapped by the hundreds in the first place.

It is not our place to tell people half way around the world how they
treat their dogs or their people when that has been their culture
since the fall of Rome.

I guess we'll just disagree. The use of chemical weapons by anyone should be stopped.

If that is your goal, we are going to be at war in 20 countries. The
3d world sucks and we need to get over it.

There are 20 countries using chemical weapons now? Remember, I don't include defoliants and
incendiaries as chemical weapons.

On Mon, 17 Apr 2017 07:26:05 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/16/2017 10:49 PM, wrote:

You were either very good or very lucky. I had lots of customers with
DoD contracts (My office was called "Washington Defense" until they
changed it to GEM Government, Education and Medical).
They were always complaining about trying to hit moving targets.



I learned to write very detailed technical proposals that not only
indicated acceptance of the RFQ stated requirements but also described
in detail *how* we would meet them. Usually that sort of detail wasn't
spelled out until the critical design review after you were under
contract. Putting that effort into the proposal avoided
"interpretation" disputes later.

I also earned a reputation for stating what RFQ requirements I felt we
could *not* meet and why. That approach won us a $750K contract when
the company was only 8 months old and nobody had ever heard of it. The
program manager called me after getting our proposal and told me they
didn't think the requirement could be met either and we were the only
respondent who took exception to it. Everyone else had simply accepted it.

I didn't take exception due to arrogance. I knew that accepting a
questionable contractual requirement could put me out of business. :-)

I have always believed you were smarter than the average bear ;-)

On Mon, 17 Apr 2017 08:35:07 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 18:28:29 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 16:51:26 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 16:34:45 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 12:44:10 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

why we have any interest in the middle east at all. It certainly is
not oil.

Maybe it's just simple humanitarianism.

There are people being ****ed over all over the planet and we really
do not care in most places.

That's true. But that's not to say we shouldn't do what we can where we can. I'd love to see us
doing more to punish the assholes in Africa doing their damndest to rape, plunder and pillage
everything they can, including girls even younger than those Harry likes.

Perhaps we take on those who may present a bigger threat. Of course, if you believe there are no
threats out there, then that is a meaningless point also.

How many kids would you send to Somalia? Congo? Yeah, I thought so.

Depends on the situation and the terrain. But, the fact that the suffering are black doesn't take
away from the humanity issue.

Maybe it is just the geography but it is true we have ignored human
rights violations in most of the world. Carter paid lip service to
Angola and Clinton made one ill fated raid in Somalia. Other than that
it is just a few Hollywood types complaining from their Malibu pool
decks with the occasional well armed safari into the bush for a photo
op.

On Mon, 17 Apr 2017 08:36:20 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 22:06:18 -0400, wrote:


The other end of those "burrows" are in Pakistan.

So why do we even bother.

We simply do our best with what we've got.

Not really or we would have used a MOP

On Mon, 17 Apr 2017 08:39:28 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 18:41:31 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 17:09:53 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/16/2017 4:34 PM, wrote:


On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 12:44:10 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

why we have any interest in the middle east at all. It certainly is
not oil.

Maybe it's just simple humanitarianism.

There are people being ****ed over all over the planet and we really
do not care in most places.



In terms of percent of GNP, Sweden leads the list for foreign
humanitarian aid by government at just under 1 percent of GNP.
In terms of GNI (whatever that is) Turkey actually is on top.

The USA government direct humanitarian aid by GNP is something like
number 20 on the list.

However, when you add in private and corporate donations, the USA dwarfs
all other nations in total humanitarian aid at about 6.4 billion.
Surprisingly, Turkey is next at $3.2 billion, then the UK at $2.8
billion. (2015 numbers)

I guess it depends on who you say doesn't care.


If the DoD budget is actually Humanitarian aid as has been posed here,
we win ... by a long shot.

Who 'posed' that? It may have been suggested that a small portion of the DoD budget was used for
humanitarian aid, but your statement above is false.

You are the one who says the war in Syria and Afghanistan is for
humanitarian purposes.

On Mon, 17 Apr 2017 08:44:16 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

ISIS influence could be blunted with some education and Kim would not
last a week if his people actually understood the lie.

Educate who? How? While you may be right about Kim's people, Kim has a huge Army to ensure his
people do as he says. As long as he keeps his generals happy, he's got the population under his
thumb.

These regimes only survive because they can perpetuate the lie.

On Mon, 17 Apr 2017 08:47:53 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 22:25:01 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 19:05:12 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/16/2017 6:53 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 17:42:15 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/16/2017 4:45 PM, wrote:

That is even sillier in this context than the one up thread a bit.
If we were just interested in humanitarian causes, we would be bombing
Afghanistan with food, books and satellite connected PCs.
That would be a winning strategy in N Korea too.



The vast majority of the NK population wouldn't know what the PC's were,
let alone know how to use them.

I guess you have not seen the stories about the people who are
spreading cheap PCs among 3d world people. The kids pick it up and
start using it right away with minimal training.

http://one.laptop.org/


In North Korea? Most places there don't even have electricity to
charge the batteries. Check out the night time satellite images.
South Korea is lit up like a Christmas tree, right up to the border
where it suddenly goes pitch black everywhere.


That machine can be charged a couple different ways including a hand
crank, solar or a various combination of electrical sources.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO

It is really a pretty cool machine.For $200 you can get 2, one for you
and one for a kid in Fumbuck.

If these PCs would enable North Koreans to see how the rest of the world lives, then I am sure the
penalty for owning one would be very severe.

That strategy works until it doesn't. As the Soviets found out, change
can happen in the blink of an eye.

On Mon, 17 Apr 2017 08:59:21 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 19:30:04 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 17:55:49 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

I would not be at all against taking action in Africa similar to what we are doing in Syria. And, in
some cases I would be agreeable to inserting troops - SEALs or whatever. Leaving the problems to the
UN 'peacekeepers' seems to be causing even more trouble.

You want another Somalia huh?
We got our ass handed to us there and we had no interest in going
back. There is no quick SEAL strike that will do anything. It will
only encourage a larger conflict and pretty soon you will be in
another un winnable quagmire.

Hopefully we could do a better job the second time around.

Who was the last country to successfully invade and occupy sub saharan
Africa? The colonial Europeans were able to carve out plantations and
a few ports but they never tried to alter the customs of the people
out in the bush. They still had some battles with the natives that
generally ended in a stalemate. Most of the real wars were Europeans
fighting each other over their colonies. (Boers, Brits, French and the
combatants in WWI-II).
The history in South America and South Asia is even worse.
Places like Afghanistan gobble up invaders and **** them out.

On Mon, 17 Apr 2017 09:00:48 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 21:56:55 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 18:01:26 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 17:38:03 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 11:00:29 -0700 (PDT), Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

On Sunday, April 16, 2017 at 1:03:17 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 10:24:06 -0400,
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 09:20:57 -0400, Keyser Soze
wrote:

I think the solution lies with the muslim world. We're not getting the
kind of help or leadership from any of the Muslim countries that we
need.

===

You're absolutely right about that. Pakistan is arguably one of the
more advanced Muslim countries and they're still stoning people to
death for blasphemy.

So what? Why do we care what they do in their own country? There are
plenty of western europeans who think we are barbarians too.

I can't believe you said that.

Why? For the same reason you'd get ****ed if the guy across the street from you was kicking the **** out of his dog!

If it was the guy on my street I would be upset but I am not going to
Korea and tell a guy he can't eat his dog. Different culture,
different rules.

Personally I don't have a problem with a Korean eating dog meat. I think it's possible to kill a dog
'humanely', just as it is to kill a pig or steer. It's 'inhumane' treatment I'm talking about.
Raping and genitally mutilating 12- year-old girls is inhumane, especially when they've been
kidnapped by the hundreds in the first place.

It is not our place to tell people half way around the world how they
treat their dogs or their people when that has been their culture
since the fall of Rome.

I guess we'll just disagree. The use of chemical weapons by anyone should be stopped.

If that is your goal, we are going to be at war in 20 countries. The
3d world sucks and we need to get over it.

There are 20 countries using chemical weapons now? Remember, I don't include defoliants and
incendiaries as chemical weapons.

We were talking about abuses of women, and religious customs that
offend us.

On Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:34:08 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 17 Apr 2017 08:36:20 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 22:06:18 -0400, wrote:


The other end of those "burrows" are in Pakistan.

So why do we even bother.

We simply do our best with what we've got.

Not really or we would have used a MOP

Then we would have spent $16 million and people would have a real bitch. As it is we spent only
$170,000.

I doubt if the MOP would have been as effective over a wide area.