Open house

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‘The Air Force’s Rationale For Retiring The A-10 Warthog Is Bullshit’
‘We want more shiny toys – and CAS missions only save mere soldiers, so there.”

54 thoughts on “Open house”

    • When you export your best technology overseas to your most likely potential enemy in order to keep your consumers happy, it just stands to reason it’s going to cost a hell of a lot more to field a weapon system which can beat them if the ball drops. You also better keep your fingers crossed that their R&D programs aren’t better funded than our R&D programs.

      Frankly, I think the US is in for a nasty surprise in a few years – vis a vis military technology.

      • I think the surprise will come when the U.S. engages an enemy which is not only well-equipped, but determined and unfettered by ludicrous rules of engagement.
        The most sophisticated weapons in the world are useless without the determination and the freedom to use them.

    • “Gee, Uncle Sam. Seems odd, you manufacturing heaps of high end shock and awe weapons when all of your wars are slow-grind affairs.”

      “Oh sure, Jimmy, but look at it this way. When you’re trying to squirrel away 150 million into a slush fund then it’s a lot easier to make one stealth fighter-bomber drop off the books than explain to an entire battalion why their hum-vees never turned up.”

      • And many of the Pentagon brass involved in procurement become highly-paid “defence consultants” when they retire……highly paid by the same companies which benefited from their decisions.

        • Yup.

          And meanwhile the grunt at the front is wondering where his CAS is because the warthogs have all been mothballed.

  3. NZ Herald front page:
    ‘Nicholas Jones reports on the exciting future of driverless cars and the end of traffic jams’

    I guess being driven around (slowly) in a plastic pod would appeal to a low-testosterone de-balled journo. But..exciting?

    • Driverless cars will only work,when AI becomes a reality.Only then will the computer know when to cut people off,speed,run red lights,flip people off and generally be an arsehole to other drivers.You know,just like people http://falfn.com/CrusaderRabbit/wp-content/plugins/wp-monalisa/icons/wpml_mail.gif

    • Excellent video, but so many women have betrayed women, too, with their idiot refusal to accept the truth, clinging to their sentimental feelgood wishful thinking.
      Their horror of anything like violent reprisals for illegal invasion has merely ensured more violence, their insistence that the spawn of these thugs be treated as child victims has handed those same barbarians a free pass to destroy the West.

    • (Wombat:) This is almost certainly a shot across the bow. The responses would be filed and studied for future reference.

      Alternately some of Google’s employees that sit further to the left than the rest of them are starting to get froggy.

      • Youtube is in a bit of a fix.Nearly all content belongs to the posters and their sponsors.If youtube tries to censor,we pack up and leave and their revenue stream dries up.I think cooler (greedier) heads prevailed when they realised that several of the gun related channels have 2 million + subscribers and millions more unsubscribed followers which is a big thing since it’s rare that a channel gets even 100,000 subscribers.

        It was a shot across the bow,but that’s a two way street.I’m betting many content producers are backing up their content and the next time there will be a mass exodus to greener pastures.

        • That’s it, isn’t it? It wouldn’t be rocket science to simply duplicate Youtube, run it out of Iceland (or wherever) with a “no censorship” charter and Google would start to look like a 500 pound gorilla that was slowly dying of starvation.

    • Yup,been that way for a decade at least.Rome depended on an imported slave class at the end too.

  10. ‘2015, the Year the War Began
    If members of our diverse nation do not share an unqualified revulsion at Islamist crimes and outrages then we have nothing in common. The lights of Western society — justice, equality, truth — are being extinguished one by one. We may never see them lit again in our lifetime.
    ….Counter-terrorism cannot be waged by forces who do not believe in the justness of their cause or, as in our case, no cause. Dying for nihilism has never had much appeal.’

    http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2016/01-02/2015-year-war-began/

  11. (Wombat:) That unfortunate moment you wonder “how the f#@k did that slip by me for so long.”

    Heidi Cruz is an American investment manager at Goldman Sachs. She is the wife of senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz.

    • And he got (*gasp*) loans! from Golden Sacks AND Citi! You know, a … mortgage.

      There’s no “there” there, wombat. Seriously, the birther attacks and now this Wall Street banker crap from Trump is what drove me over the edge from vaguely suspicious to full-on anti-Trumpkin. The shark has truly been jumped, if you think Cruz is a Wall Street shill.

      Besides, even if they wanted to seed someone into his life to make sure his positions were the “right” ones, she’s (a) an Investment Manager – so far down the banking food chain as to be amoebae, and (b) one hell of a complicated Mata Hare. I can see the smoke-filled room now … “OK boys, we have an idea. We have this Investment Manager, see. She’s blonde, purrty and happens to be a Christian. One look at her and Cruz will fall like a rock. Once he’s married her, we’ll have our nails in his skin for life. Bwahahahahahaha.”

      • You think Cruz wouldn’t be influenced by his wife and the people she works with, Gantt?

        • I’m suggesting the Cruz credentials were verified long before he met Heidi. Fighting for States’ rights in the SCOTUS. Litigating against the UN. Advocating for limited government and free trade. All of which Wall St loathes.

          And then there’s the stuff he hasn’t done. Like donating to the campaigns of Clinton, Pelosi, Reid and other Liberal Donkeys. Donating to the Clinton Foundation. Flip-flopping on every single issue. Like, you know, a certain other candidate. But, you know, whatever. Burn the house down already, so we can get on with the re-build. New York values.

          • “Burn the house down already, so we can get on with the re-build.”
            Why not? Nothing else has worked, least of all the ballot box.
            If the definition of insanity really is doing the same failed thing over and over, expecting a different outcome, then voting for the candidates of any major parties is insane.

          • It simply strikes me as bizarre.

            If I were going to go into bat politically for states rights etc then surely ties to GS would be like shaking hands with a leper.

            Say what you like about donating. It’s the price of doing business these days. But taking money from GS says “bought and paid for”.

            • “ties to GS”. You mean, like, marrying someone who happens to be a low-level functionary there? Or taking a mortgage, like thousands of other people have?

              I find it deeply troubling that people have absolutely no problem dismissing out-of-hand Trump’s decades-long history as a liberal progressive, yet accuse Cruz of impurity.

              Cruz has publicly supported the Article V project to amend the Constitution along the lines of what Mark Levin proposed in The Liberty Amendments. What’s Trump’s position (this week) on returning power to the States?

            • “Wednesday night, The New York Times reported that Cruz didn’t properly disclose to the Federal Elections Commission a loan he obtained from Goldman Sachs to help fund his 2012 Senate campaign. Before Cruz launched his presidential bid, his wife was a managing director of the investment bank based in its Houston office.

              One million dollars from what I understand.

              Question two. What would Cruz’s talking points be if Trump never showed up? A total (temporary) ban on Islamic immigration. Unlikely. From what I can dig up it’s more of the same platitudes that endlessly get tossed on the backburner until the Democrats are in power again.

              No offence TGG, but until Trump turned up we were destined for another bunch of talking heads to compete with each other for who was closest to the middleground.

              • I’ve said over and over again that Trump has had the effect of making the other candidates’ true colours show on immigration. He’s shone a light on the fact that most are pro-amnesty, and one or two defend and support the American people (Cruz being one of those).

                On the loan he “failed to disclose”, it wasn’t a loan he got because of some special deal through his wife – it was a mortgage against his brokerage account. And it was, in fact, disclosed on Senate financial interest returns; he just didn’t report it to the FEC (I heard somewhere a comment by a former FEC Commissioner that this happens all the time; the loan is made to the candidate personally, not their campaign, so they don’t think they have to disclose. When it’s discovered, they amend the filing appropriately).

                If Trump hadn’t shown up, my guess is Cruz’ talking points would be exactly those he’s been stating right up until the time Trump went low and left with his attacks. He would be talking about his record standing up to the “Washington cartel” and how the leadership of both parties despises him. He would talk about his efforts to de-fund BarryCare, his filibuster, the countless other times he’s kept his promise to the people of Texas and tried to rein in an out-of-control federal government. He might even be talking about the times he’s fought for States’ rights in front of the SCOTUS? I don’t know – it’s a hypothetical.

                • Just relax guys,this back and forth between Cruz and Trump is just the ticket getting all the potential dirty laundry out in the air before July.

                • Hope you’re right mate, coz at the moment it looks like they’re getting pretty personal. Let’s hope it’s all theatre and we can look forward to 2 terms of Trump/Cruz followed by 2 terms of Cruz/Palin.

                • Well that’s a fair assessment. I’ll give you that one. Thing is, if Trump’s charisma hadn’t put paid to the idea that conservative values can’t sell then the powers that be would have picked their pro-amnesty candidate and given everyone the finger. Hell, you might have even ended up with Jeb.

                • Yeah, Darin. You’re probably right.

                  Maybe we can get them to toss a coin for a Trump/Cruz ticket.

                • I see today where Yeb! still thinks he’s going to be the nominee!

                  #delusional

                • There’s supposedly some sort of bureaucratic trick involving superpacs that could still get him nominated.

                  Reckon there’d just about be bloodshed if they tried it though.

                • Yep, and they’re planning for it now. If Trump or Cruz get to the convention with a majority of delegates but without hitting the required threshold number, they go to a brokered convention.

                  Let’s hope in that scenario, Trump and Cruz have pre-brokered a deal to share their delegates and split the ticket, otherwise it will be Yeb! and Nikki Haley. And once again, millions of Conservatives and Reagan Democrats will stay home, and your next PO(tu)S will be Crazy Uncle Joe!

    • By now the article would have to weave around a near impenetrable fortress of block lists.

      I got a laugh when I read a tweet from Clemetine Ford celebrating the fact that she’d found a program that allows you to import other people’s block-lists and vice versa.

      So they’ve basically gone from a progressive branch of civilisation to a bunch of kids living in a couch-fortress covered in blankets.

  15. From twitter:

    “There’s no longer a Left vs Right divide in politics. Nowadays it’s: Islamists + America haters Vs. Anti-Islamists + Anti-Fascists”

    Details aside, that’s the situation in pretty much all of Western civilisation.

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