?
If the President of the United States of America is the enemy of the United States of America:

a) What does that say about the electorate that TWICE place him in office? &

b) Since Obama started out w/ Bush's mess, and has done quite well cleaning it up; if that's what enemies do; what of the president before him that started out with things in good shape; and leaving them 8 years later, the worst since the great depression?

If Obama is bad; doesn't that make Bush criminal ?

There's at least a fragment of plausibility for China's territorial claims.
ISIL has squat.
There's not legitimizing standard in international law for recreational decapitation.

I do.
Military strategists estimate that based upon the casualty rates suffered in the Pacific island battles as U.S. forces advanced on Japan, we'd have needed a minimum of 14 divisions to successfully conquer Japan.
The losses in such a land war would surely have been staggering,

And the total loss of human life might well have been less, by nuking Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.

We'll never know for sure.
But we do know beyond doubt:

a) Japan attacked us at Pearl Harbor *

b) We were not out of line in defending ourselves against the clearly fanatical Japanese.


BUT !!

All that aside, it doesn't erase the fact that the U.S. is the only nation to have used nuclear weapons in War.
We're already the planet's vigilante.
Do we really want to slip down a notch, to be the globe's tyrant?

Dandy.
How?

U.S. boots on the ground?
You want ANOTHER U.S. ground war in the Middle East?

Start dropping nukes now?

The United States of America is the only nation to have used nuclear weapons in War.

We get a pass on the WWII thing, because ... you know:
- it was a World War, &
- we were the only nation that had them.

If we as indifferent to nuking diaper-heads as we were about nuking little yellow people; what do you think that will do to our standing in this globalizing world?

Pakistan's A.Q. Kahn is a notorious nuclear weapons proliferator.
But ISIL going nuclear would be suicidal.

ISIL occupies the Buttfupistans of the globe; land the U.S. would not hesitate to nuke if preserving U.S. national sovereignty required it.

And to give you an idea of just how lethal our nuclear triad (land based nuclear missiles, our B1 & B2 bombers, and our nuclear powered nuclear armed submarines) is, ONE Minute Man missile has more explosive power than all the explosives used in WWII by all sides; including the nukes we dropped on Japan.

Everybody knows that already.

I just don't want to be a vegetarian.



Mmmmm yummy!!

Excellent!
Which units?
And what would we be quantifying?

a) Mao is dead. It's a new millennium.

b) It was never a question of whether China could. China ALREADY HAS!

And then, feeling exploited for its openness resulting in outsiders getting secrets like gun-powder and silk, China turned insular, resulting in progressive decline.
Counter-intuitive though it may be, China thrives when it's open, when it's engaged in the world; and China's politburo is painfully aware of this.

Hong Kong absolutely CLOBBERED the Chinese mainland. In less than a century, Western ways brought great prosperity to Hong Kong, leaving the rest of China a subsistence farm.

It sure didn't for the Soviets.
Neither does North Korean totalitarianism.

But China is quite a different story.

Whatever.
The "playing field" may NEVER be level.

Predicting China's collapse here is laughable. The trend is clearly going in the other direction.

I'm not an expert on it S2.
But I thought WHO was rather more a U.N. related agency that was heavier on bureaucracy and standards than on lab work.
But I'm not sure.

Yes.
The anthrax problem was well publicized here.
I'm not to worried about it.

I don't know, but gather the anthrax at issue isn't weaponized.
Jam a long-spout funnel down someone's trachea and dump a bucket of this anthrax material down there, it might sicken them.

But I gather just splashing it around a shopping center might not harm anyone.
These were lab-samples, not weapons per se.

AND
While that scandal may bet much bigger before it gets smaller; they're on it. I believe they'll tune it up now.

Back to the Kazakh steppes:
The bird flu (the strain at issue here) reportedly does not sicken humans; so the risk is to our livestock, and our food supply; not ourselves and our neighbors.

BUT !!

This other deal; if it's a bio-pathogen, might it transfer from there to domestic livestock?
Or perhaps even to us?
On Monday we're fine.
3 weeks later, we're dead?

PS
Alarming indeed S2.

I hope our CDC gets in on it.

But the bird flu is nothing new.
- The disease is well known to scientists.
- They know what we have to do to get rid of it.
- We're in the midst of doing that (and are running out of places to put the corpses).

The 121k saiga die-off is here-to-fore unexplained.
And three weeks suggests to me, it's either a massive terrorist effort (unlikely), or a very contagious and fast-acting pathogen.

Matter of fact:
It's not uncommon to rate toxins by "LD:50".
It simply means; how much of a dose is needed to kill half (50%) of the population.

It seems we may already be there at the Kazakh steppes.

The brief article says:

I gather Kazakhstan doesn't have research facilities like our Centers for Disease Control.
Perhaps we can help out.

Natural pathogen?
Terrorist activity?

Much of the U.S. chicken and egg production is currently affected by what's been called the worst disease outbreak (bird flu) of its kind in U.S. history.

Please, please, PLEASE pardon the pun, but should we expect foul play in either of these cases?

Fragmentary news reports indicate China has begun implementing a 100 year plan, to gain global dominance.

Extending & solidifying its territorial claims is but a fragment of that.
China seems in the midst of a blue water navy buildup.
And the Chinese have bought up mining contracts all around the globe, presenting at least the risk of corning the market, particularly on strategic metals and minerals, needed by the U.S. for military jet engines, among many other things.

Senator Obama had virtually none; head of household; virtual zero.
You and I are in accord Lp.
IN GENERAL, executive experience should be a good thing. [1]
But while it's a plus on any U.S. presidential candidate r�sum�, it is insufficient on its own.
Before I'd consider voting Trump, I'd want to know his policy on:
- closing Gitmo
- how to deal with ISIL in particular, and Muslim terrorists
- what he'd do to beef up our Glass - Steagel protections
- & the Iraq War question that threw Jeb for a triple loop

Obviously.
But when so many more do NOT; why should we think it's the guy whose business failed that we should pick for president, and not one of the many guys whose business thrive?

Sort of like voting for Trump.

No.
"If YOU had YOUR money on China YOU would lose."
I retired at age 43. The bad investments I've made are outnumbered by the successful investments I make.

How old is Trump? 69?
China has been around a whole lot longer than that.
And China will STILL be around long after Trump is gone; will still be around, and growing stronger.

If you can't see what spectacular progress China is making around the world, in territorial acquisition / creation, in mining contracts, in making friends abroad not with predator drone strikes, blowing up wedding parties; but building roads and digging potable water wells to help end the scourge of dysentery.
The Soviet politburo was a bureaucracy so bloated, it bankrupted the Soviet Union; demonstrated "central planning" is no panacea.
IIRC China's politburo has only 7 members. And China's 100 year plan seems to be right on schedule.

Spectacular.
That's a heart-warming anecdote.
But it does not accurately represent China's steady progress toward global domination; a virtual inevitability if present trends continue.

a) Please see point [1] above.
b) Even if as a general rule you are right, the specifics can tell a quite different story.

U.S. President Bush (younger) had significant executive experience, including CEO of Texas.
Yet the 8 years of his presidency marked several superlatives in disaster:
- the worst terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland in history
- the worst economic decline since the great depression
- losing 800K private sector jobs per month.
- started TWO wars, and ending zero
The Republican demigod's standard: "Are you better off ..."?
With Bush, the Republican that had extensive executive experience, the answer is CERTAINLY NOT!

With Obama, the Democrat with virtually no executive experience, by quantifiable standards, the answer is; clearly yes.

This debt is astronomical.
And if interest rates climb too far too fast, how will we even be able to make the interest payments?

This much debt is simply irresponsible.
And we have the Democrats and Republicans to blame for it.

Kind of.
This is the Politics, Current News & Events forum.
Ron Paul is a former federal legislator, and has been running for president for decades.

I'd have included a teaser quote, but my bandwidth window doesn't open until Tuesday.

Seems to me like a sensible topic for this forum.
Any objections?

Congratulations urban, on eclipsing the century mark here @m2.

Visit often. Post a lot.

I acknowledge his business experience.
Didn't he have an Atlantic City casino that went bankrupt?
How the &^%$ can a casino go bankrupt?

My money's on China.

Perhaps.
He lacks presidential demeanor.

He may be a dandy businessman and taxidermist (not exactly sure what species of critter that is he wears on his head), but I hope he never becomes U.S. president.