Mitt Romney's halo

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

The American constitution is in serious need of amendment. Currently about 67% of all Americans are overweight and about 34% obese. The trend is upwards. I've seen estimates of 50% obesity, or greater, by 2030...

Ray,

Thanks for stirring the debate away from Mitt Romney's halo to Chris Christie's jell-o  

[RSL]

You can disagree with the decision ... but you can't say it is unconstitutional.  The Supreme Court gets to say what is and what is not constitutional ... and it said it was.  Case closed - see Marbury vs Madison - 1803.

Yes Jeremy. And then see Dred Scott and Plessy v Ferguson. Both were considered constitutional -- for a while -- until they were found to be unconstitutional. Eventually the same thing will happen with garbage decisions like Roe v Wade. Supreme courts are short, the Constitution is long.

[RSL]

I hear you Russ, but you can’t really appreciate the magnitude of the gutting until you look at some numbers.  Here are the official government numbers for the Department of Defense military spending.

1988 (Regan’s last year in office and his highest military spending) -- $282 billion (inflation adjusted = $527 billion).

2011 -- $721 billion.

Right, Dean. But the US Navy now has less ships than it had before WW I. It's hard to make comparisons for the USAF because of immense changes in technology, but from the standpoint of personnel and aircraft the AF is at its lowest point in decades. The Army is in even worse shape, considering the fact that they're the guys who when they come home get rotated right back into combat before having time to say an extended hello to their families. In 1988 we had enough troops that unaccompanied tours could be one year in length, with considerable resting time between rotations. Now we're breaking our army with this kind of crap.

I've been retired from USAF active duty since 1977, but I remember what happened in the sixties in SAC with rotation schedules like these. The divorce rate went out of sight, and morale, which is as important a military weapon as are guns and bombs, was in the pits. The highly advertised suicide rate among army troops doesn't surprise me a bit.

And now, under this administration, we're facing another huge reduction. If you don't think that's scary you haven't been paying attention. And you might want to ask yourself how much of that "military spending" actually is military.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... And you might want to ask yourself how much of that "military spending" actually is military.

Aha! Excellent question!

I think the answer must be somewhere near the dreaded Obama's redistribution of wealth: he takes it from the military and gives it to welfare queens. Damn you food stamps!

And the nerve of some people to point fingers at Halliburtons and Blackwaters of this world instead!

[degrub]

More likely for the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about, certainly not for the troops.

[Ray]

Ray,

Thanks for stirring the debate away from Mitt Romney's halo to Chris Christie's jell-o  

Very amusing Slobodan.  It wasn't really my intention to focus on the obesity of specific individuals. I was rather trying to make the point that most Americans seem to have already voted with their constitutions that being overweight is a desirable, or at least an unavoidable state of affairs.

However, we do have a couple of rather wealthy Australians who are frequently in the news and who would appear to be just a little bit, just a tiny, weeny, bit ..er!!...hmm!!...overweight.

http://www.bigpondmoney.com.au/clive-palmer

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/9510025/Gina-Rinehart-attacks-jealous-poor.html

[stamper]

Ray perhaps you could post three images of yourself, front side and back, and we can pick out a feature of yourself that we can poke fun of?   BTW Slobodan has already obliged which has caused great merriment to the members.

[Ray]

Stamper,
It's not my intention to make fun of people who may have an eating disorder, but there is clearly a very serious world-wide issue here. We have a rising world population and concerns about sufficient food production to feed even the existing population, yet maybe as much as one quarter of the the world population is eating far more than it needs whilst another quarter of the world population is either starving or undernourished.

Okay! You want a photo of me to poke fun at. In the attached photo of me and my religious friends, I'm praying. Not sure for what, though. 

[RSL]

Hi Ray,

You haven't told us where you are, though your use of the word "whilst" is a fair clue. Looks as if you and your friends are having a very healing praying session. Here in Manitou Springs folks do a lot of the same thing and some of Manitou's sessions even look like your prayer session.

But I have to suggest that world hunger hasn't anything to do with a shortage of food. The problem is a shortage of enlightened politics. For instance, when a starving people's leaders react to the opinions of a group of over-indoctrinated know-nothings' propaganda about bio-engineered food and prohibit it to their people, the result is hunger in the presence of abundance. There are plenty of other examples of politics interfering with nourishment. The only effective way to prevent obesity is to bring about world dictatorship by the ignorant.

[Ray]

Hi Ray,

You haven't told us where you are, though your use of the word "whilst" is a fair clue. Looks as if you and your friends are having a very healing praying session. Here in Manitou Springs folks do a lot of the same thing and some of Manitou's sessions even look like your prayer session.

But I have to suggest that world hunger hasn't anything to do with a shortage of food. The problem is a shortage of enlightened politics. For instance, when a starving people's leaders react to the opinions of a group of over-indoctrinated know-nothings' propaganda about bio-engineered food and prohibit it to their people, the result is hunger in the presence of abundance. There are plenty of other examples of politics interfering with nourishment. The only effective way to prevent obesity is to bring about world dictatorship by the ignorant.

Hi Russ,
You may not wish to know, but I was at a Hindu temple complex in Kathmandu, known as Pashupati, which appears to be, from my perspective, an open-air crematorium.

Attached image is not for the squeamish.

You are right that world hunger has little to do with a shortage of food production, and I emphasise the word production. We actually currently produce, world-wide, enough food to provide a healthy and ideal diet for a population of 20 billion or so.

The problem is food wastage. Food is wasted on a number of levels, which I won't go into now because the post would be too long. To summarise, I'll just quote a figure of 1.3 billion tonnes of wastage per annum, a quarter of which would be sufficient to feed all the current starving and undernourished people in the world. (For those who might be a bit incredulous, that's 13 hundred million tonnes of food that is wasted each year due to inadequate handling, storage and a host of other reasons.)

When one combines this general wastage with the excessive consumption amongst the wealthy, resulting in obesity, plus the very inefficient practices of feeding huge quantities of grain to cattle in order to provide an unhealthy amount of prime beef to the wealthy, we begin to get a glimmer of the problem.

The world simply cannot sustain American practices of food consumption.

[jeremypayne]

Yes Jeremy. And then see Dred Scott and Plessy v Ferguson. Both were considered constitutional -- for a while -- until they were found to be unconstitutional. Eventually the same thing will happen with garbage decisions like Roe v Wade. Supreme courts are short, the Constitution is long.

Well ... it took a few Amendments to the constitution the overturn Dred Scott ... and Plessy wasn't overturned, per se.

The framework for Plessy was that "separate but equal" was ok as long as it was truly equal.  Brown vs Board ruled that separate was not equal. 

Good luck with outlawing Social Security.

[RSL]

Good luck with outlawing Social Security.

If things continue as they have in the past, which is the plan of the current administration, luck won't enter into it; social security will end up outlawing itself.

[dmerger]

... the gutting of the military (designated "the peace dividend" by Slick Willie) since the Reagan years ...

I hear you Russ, but you can’t really appreciate the magnitude of the gutting until you look at some numbers.  Here are the official government numbers for the Department of Defense military spending.

1988 (Regan’s last year in office and his highest military spending) -- $282 billion (inflation adjusted = $527 billion).

2011 -- $721 billion.

Right, Dean. But the US Navy now has less ships than it had before WW I. It's hard to make comparisons for the USAF because of immense changes in technology, but from the standpoint of personnel and aircraft the AF is at its lowest point in decades. The Army is in even worse shape, considering the fact that they're the guys who when they come home get rotated right back into combat before having time to say an extended hello to their families. In 1988 we had enough troops that unaccompanied tours could be one year in length, with considerable resting time between rotations. Now we're breaking our army with this kind of crap.

I've been retired from USAF active duty since 1977, but I remember what happened in the sixties in SAC with rotation schedules like these. The divorce rate went out of sight, and morale, which is as important a military weapon as are guns and bombs, was in the pits. The highly advertised suicide rate among army troops doesn't surprise me a bit.

And now, under this administration, we're facing another huge reduction. If you don't think that's scary you haven't been paying attention. And you might want to ask yourself how much of that "military spending" actually is military.

It must be a bitch, Russ, when reality intrudes upon your world.  It seems, however, that the effect, if any, was fleeting. 

Russ, your reply to my post is just as silly as your initial claim that a 37% budget increase amounts to a gutting of the military. For example, take just the first few sentences of your reply:

“But the US Navy now has less ships than it had before WW I. It's hard to make comparisons for the USAF because of immense changes in technology … “

You imply that immense changes in technology apply to the USAF but not the Navy.   You want to compare numbers of ships without regard to their size or capabilities, thereby equating a pre-WW I era ship to a modern aircraft carrier or nuclear submarine.  Both such notions are obviously silly.

Then you go on to state that “from the standpoint of personnel … the AF is at its lowest point in decades.”  According to the USAF, the total number of active duty personnel was 327,379 in 2009 and 332,724 in 2011.

All this nonsense is in just the first few lines of your reply.  I could go on, but I don’t see any point in doing so. 

I assume that you’re a nice guy, Russ, but it appears that your ill-informed preconceived notions and biases make you immune to facts or reasonable discussion.   You’d hope that my noting the absurdity of your “gutting the military” claim might give some small impetuous for pause or reflection, but alas not.  So, wail away with your inane comments … I’m over and out. It’s neither interesting nor productive to try to have a rational discussion with someone who refuses or is unable to reciprocate.

[WalterEG]

What a wonderful and welcome breath of fresh air your pictures provide Ray.  Thanks for remembering the core business of this website.

Cheers,

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

What a wonderful and welcome breath of fresh air your pictures provide Ray...

Like open-air cremation? Hmmm... Wrong choice of words/metaphor, perhaps? Or, de gustibus non est disputandum?

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

My take on the issue is that the problem is not food over production in the US but food underproduction in poor countries. In the long term it would be better to increase agricultural output in the poor countries than ship excess food from US and other rich countries to the poor world. When people are starving, that is another issue, than we need to help, immediately.

Best regards
Erik

Hi Russ,
You may not wish to know, but I was at a Hindu temple complex in Kathmandu, known as Pashupati, which appears to be, from my perspective, an open-air crematorium.

Attached image is not for the squeamish.

You are right that world hunger has little to do with a shortage of food production, and I emphasise the word production. We actually currently produce, world-wide, enough food to provide a healthy and ideal diet for a population of 20 billion or so.

The problem is food wastage. Food is wasted on a number of levels, which I won't go into now because the post would be too long. To summarise, I'll just quote a figure of 1.3 billion tonnes of wastage per annum, a quarter of which would be sufficient to feed all the current starving and undernourished people in the world. (For those who might be a bit incredulous, that's 13 hundred million tonnes of food that is wasted each year due to inadequate handling, storage and a host of other reasons.)

When one combines this general wastage with the excessive consumption amongst the wealthy, resulting in obesity, plus the very inefficient practices of feeding huge quantities of grain to cattle in order to provide an unhealthy amount of prime beef to the wealthy, we begin to get a glimmer of the problem.

The world simply cannot sustain American practices of food consumption.

[RSL]

I think you guys are both right. There's a lot of wastage as Ray said, but Eric pointed out the major problem. Nobody's going to solve that problem with handouts or even overseas shipments of food. "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." Politics, as usual, is what keeps the hungry part of the world from being able to fish.

[RSL]

Then you go on to state that “from the standpoint of personnel … the AF is at its lowest point in decades.”  According to the USAF, the total number of active duty personnel was 327,379 in 2009 and 332,724 in 2011.

I assume that you’re a nice guy, Russ, but it appears that your ill-informed preconceived notions and biases make you immune to facts or reasonable discussion.   You’d hope that my noting the absurdity of your “gutting the military” claim might give some small impetuous for pause or reflection, but alas not.  So, wail away with your inane comments … I’m over and out. It’s neither interesting nor productive to try to have a rational discussion with someone who refuses or is unable to reciprocate.

I can't find the budget numbers you've been quoting, so I can't discuss them. On the other hand gross budget numbers don't tell me a thing. We'd both need details before either of us could come to grips with how much of the DOD budget actually goes to military procurement and operations. With the administration and Senate in their current configuration I'd guess a lot of the "military" budget goes to local boondoggles.

I don't  know where you got your active duty numbers, but according to the data I have, in 1985 total military strength was roughly 2.151 million, and USAF strength was about 602,000. In 2011 total strength was roughly 1.468 million, and USAF strength was about 333,370. And yet, in 1985 we weren't engaged in a hot war. Now, with half the troops, we're rotating people again and again into combat with no recovery time between tours. The problem for all the services including the navy's problem with ships is that a single soldier or a single ship can't be in two places at once.

Yes, I'm a nice guy, so I won't respond to your ad hominem insults, but yes, that's what I'd call gutting the military. You can call it anything you want to call it.

[RSL]

Well ... it took a few Amendments to the constitution the overturn Dred Scott ... and Plessy wasn't overturned, per se.

The framework for Plessy was that "separate but equal" was ok as long as it was truly equal.  Brown vs Board ruled that separate was not equal.

I was out of time and skirted these revelations earlier, Jeremy.

Yes, overturning Dred Scott took amendments to the constitution and a civil war, but that's what "progressives" call a "living Constitution." I always wonder how many liberals turned "progressive" realize that back in the thirties that's what our communists were calling themselves.

You can call it anything you want to call it but in my lexicon Plessy was overturned by Brown the same way Roe eventually will be overturned by a new decision. Above all, the supremes can't admit they were wrong, especially about decisions based on penumbras and emanations.

[dmerger]

Russ, you wrote “... the gutting of the military (designated "the peace dividend" by Slick Willie) since the Reagan years ...”.   The “peace dividend” referred to a decrease in defense spending.  Your attempt to now pretend that you meant a decrease in the number of personnel is dishonest.  

All I tried to do was point out that your “gutting the military” statement was wrong.  I made no comment on the merits of our military spending or troop strength or whether our military has been gutted.  But instead of just admitting that your statement was incorrect, you changed the subject and made additional silly statements.

Let me see if I can describe what it’s like to try to discuss just your initial dozen word false statement.  It’s like trying to hold a runny, soft turd in your hand.  No matter how you try to contain it, it oozes out between your fingers.