Clipmarks | Quagmire Clips

So much money in Blingopolis, people don't know what to do with it

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:09:10 GMT

clipped by: soccertoad
clipper's remarks: A tremor in Blingopolis

Letter from Dubai

Normally, official reports like this tend to be upbeat affairs, filled with words like "growth," "surplus," and "oil." This one, though, was scolding in tone and grim in outlook, bemoaning the "unnecessarily lavish spending trends" of UAE consumers, going on to use words like "plunge" and "quagmire."

There is, in fact, so much money here that people literally don't know what to do with it.

There are tens of billions of dollars languishing in bloated private equity funds, hundreds of billions financing an endless series of extravagant development projects. City-sized theme parks, inland waterways, towers that swivel, underwater hotels -Dubai, as a city, amounts to one large, lavish spending trend.

Then, too, the region was up to its eyeballs in liquidity, buying up large swaths of London

The entire episode is remembered now with collective shame -the idea that the region managed to parlay all that wealth into three decades of violent turmoil and harrowing poverty.

Tags: dubai, uae, capitalsm, greed, embarrassment, shame, frill, excessiveness, disgraceful

Family Guy Sound Bites From The EARchives

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:17:32 GMT

clipped by: earchives
clipper's remarks: Short sound clips from the Fox animated series.

Clip Source: www.the-earchives.com

Family Guy (1999)

Tags: family guy, peter griffin, lois griffin, meg griffin, chris griffin, stewie griffin, quagmire, cleveland, joe swanson

Costs to Build Power Plants Pressure Rates

Tue, 27 May 2008 16:15:23 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

Construction costs for power plants have more than doubled since 2000, according to new index data to be released Tuesday, and inflationary pressures will continue to put the squeeze on electricity prices.

The findings are bad news for consumers and utilities alike, and help explain why power-plant development has become something of a quagmire in the U.S. -- with no type of plant emerging as a reasonably priced option that can meet rising demand for electricity.

The analysis comes in the form of a price index from Cambridge Energy Research Associates Inc., a research and consulting firm in Massachusetts

Tags: energy, electricity, i--construction, i-costs, i-increase, i-acceleration

The Left, Progressives, and the nanny state

Fri, 02 May 2008 21:48:45 GMT

clipped by: willhelm

Clip Source: www.hitler.org

The German farmer must be rescued in order that the nation may be supplied with the necessities of life....

A concerted and all-embracing attack must be made on unemployment in order that the German working class may be saved from ruin....

Within four years the German peasant must be rescued from the quagmire into which he has fallen.

Within four years unemployment must be finally overcome.

The National Government will couple with this tremendous task of reorganizing business life a reorganization of the administrative and fiscal systems of the Reich, of the Federal States, and the Communes.

Compulsory labor-service and the back-to-the-land policy are two of the basic principles of this program.

The securing of the necessities of life will include the performance of social duties to the sick and aged.

Tags: hitler, fascism, progressivism

What Will George W. Bush's Legacy Be?

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 04:54:07 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: One phrase sums it up for me... anti-American.

Clip Source: www.theinformationparadox.com

How will the history books salvage anything positive from the last eight years of the George W. Bush presidency? With other presidents, scandal and success seem to be mixed, and if not mixed, an administration is usually labeled ineffective at worst. With G.W.B there is little from his time in office that can held up as a success or accomplishment, and more than a fair share of items that can be viewed as complete and utter failures. George W. Bush and his administration seem to have caused nearly irreparable damage on the world stage and unfortunate regression in domestic policy.

So what will we remember of George Walker Bush?

September 11, 2001

The Patriot Act

The Afghan War

The Iraqi Quagmire

Torture

Water Boarding

Abu Ghraib

Falsified intelligence

Suppression of climate science

Sinking economy

Soaring gas prices

Sinking public opinion

The Katrina debacle

Cheney shooting someone in the face

Wire Tapping

Loss of Habeas Corpus

Firing of U.S. Attorneys

Alberto Gonzalez

Scooter Libby

Enron

Blackwater

The State Religion: The myth of national security stands between us and the future

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:48:29 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: I repeat: "Toughness" and strength through militarism speak to the myth of nationalism but will get us only deeper into the quagmire that President Bad Example has bequeathed us as his legacy. We won't stop terrorism with shock-and-awe bombing, torture and pre-emptive global bullying. Almost everybody knows this by now, but our presidential candidates still genuflect before the almighty defense budget, varying only in the fervor they are able to project.

This is scary, is it not -- that we might wind up with More of the Same as our next commander-in-chief, simply because we lack the capacity to step outside the stagnant mythology of macho nationalism.

"Preachers warn of hellfire to offer rescue from it, which is available to those who submit," writes Carroll. "This feedback loop of damnation-salvation-submission serves the people by offering meaning, and it serves the elite by protecting the structure of power. In religion, all of this is overt. In presidential politics, it is im

Clip Source: www.smirkingchimp.com

Grab your flak jackets because there's "trench warfare" on the campaign trail, as would-be commanders-in-chief prove their mettle not merely by persuading people to vote for them but by "demolishing" their opponents -- because the leader of a country as powerful as the United States of America must, above all, be someone who's tough and ruthless, right? Like George W. Bush.

"Military power . . . functions in America the way state religion has functioned in other societies," James Carroll writes, in an excellent piece this week in the Boston Globe on the myth of national security. The central dogma of this religion, which no candidate dare question lest he or she be damned for heresy, is "that an extravagant social investment of treasure and talent in armed power of the group offers members of the group escape from the existential dread that comes with life on a dangerous planet."

Wouldn't it be nice if we could at least talk about such matters at the level of a presidential debate

Dems and War history

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 23:36:15 GMT

clipped by: deb2012
clipper's remarks: To be fair about a Republican taking us into a pre-emptive war...context

Clip Source: investorshub.advfn.com

FDR (DEMOCRAT) led us into World War II.

Germany never attacked us; Japan did.
From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost ...
an average of 112,500 per year.

Truman (DEMOCRAT) finished that war and started one in Korea
North Korea never attacked us.
From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost ...
an average of 18,334 per year.

John F. Kennedy (DEMOCRAT) started our involvement in
the Vietnam conflict in 1962.
Vietnam never attacked us.

Johnson (DEMOCRAT) turned Vietnam into a quagmire.
From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost ..
an average of 5,800 per year.

Clinton (DEMOCRAT) went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent.
Bosnia never attacked us .
He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three
times by the Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on
multiple occasions.

Tags: history

Why I Believe Bush Must Go

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 01:29:31 GMT

clipped by: schreibe
clipper's remarks: At 85 years old, I guess there is a need to tell the truth, and try to make this world a better place...... Thanks George!......McGovern that is!

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Why I Believe Bush Must Go

Nixon Was Bad. These Guys Are Worse.

By George McGovern
Sunday, January 6, 2008; B01

As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president.

Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to use the constitutional standard.

How could a once-admired, great nation fall into such a quagmire of killing, immorality and lawlessness?

We must be a great nation because from time to time, we make gigantic blunders, but so far, we have survived and recovered.

Tags: politics, impeachment

The 'Surrender And Defeat' Party's Quagmire

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 06:00:24 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: When it became apparent in August that Lt. Gen. David Petraeus would have good news for Congress, House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina warned darkly such news would be “a real problem for us.”

The Party of Surrender is floundering. Yes, it is time to talk of “quagmire.” But the quagmire is not the artificial one in Iraq, which the media and the Left had hoped would doom George W. Bush. This is a quagmire of the Democrats own making. It is a quagmire of defeatism and surrender, where a common-sense approach to our national security has been replaced by partisan measures aimed to enrich trial lawyers and endanger Americans.

And it is a quagmire in which the Democrats are now stuck.

Clip Source: www.washingtontimes.com

Democrats in Washington just can't seem to help it. Even when great opportunities arise that would allow them to look like patriots, they sponsor yet another bill to cut off funds for our troops in Iraq.

Last week, Democrats in the House of Representatives voted yet again to fix a firm deadline to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. It was their 40th such vote. Luckily, their motion died in the Senate, where the Party of Surrender failed to muster enough votes to survive a presidential veto

Also last week, House Democrats passed a measure, inappropriately titled the RESTORE Act of 2007

The RESTORE Act eliminates a key provision from a bill to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

As former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton noted in a recent Baltimore Sun opinion column, eliminating immunity for the telecom providers “would deter companies and private citizens from helping in future emergencies when there is uncertainty and legal risk.”

Tags: troops fund, deadline, withdrawal, iraq, fisa, immunity for telecom providers

Ten Clips A Day: Waging War For God's Sake

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:20:53 GMT

clipped by: DizzyDezzi
clipper's remarks: Who's God Prevails?

Clip Source: www.daylightatheism.org

Deo Vindice!

In the past few decades, we've seen religious warfare erupt all over the world. In Iraq, there's emerged a swamp of sectarian strife and bloodshed, where armed gangs rule the streets and rival sects clash in a chronic low-level civil war. The power vacuum created by the U.S. occupation reawoke religious rivalries that had long been dormant, but the Iraq quagmire is just the most visible outbreak of a larger conflict simmering across the Muslim world, as Salafist Sunni fanatics wage war on heretical Shi'ites in the name of doctrinal purity and the Shi'ites answer with violence and death squads of their own. In Pakistan, in Afghanistan, in Indonesia, and now spreading into Europe, Islamist zealots wage war on the innocent and seek to create a theocracy ruled by terror.

Tags: religion, warfare

True: Iraq is a quagmire.... for al Qaeda

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 21:22:15 GMT

clipped by: pkronfield
clipper's remarks: You may not be aware of the calamities that have befallen al-Qaida, because our news media have paid scant attention to them.

Clip Source: www.post-gazette.com

Jihadis, money and weapons were poured into Iraq. All for naught. Al-Qaida has been driven from every neighborhood in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, the U.S. commander there, said Nov. 7. This follows the expulsion of al-Qaida from two previous "capitals" of its Islamic Republic of Iraq, Ramadi and Baquba.

Al-Qaida is evacuating populated areas and is trying to establish hideouts in the Hamrin mountains in northern Iraq, with U.S. and Iraqi security forces, and former insurgent allies who have turned on them, in hot pursuit. Forty-five al-Qaida leaders were killed or captured in October alone.

Al-Qaida's support in the Muslim world has plummeted, partly because of the terror group's lack of success in Iraq, more because al-Qaida's attacks have mostly killed Muslim civilians.

"Iraq has proved to be the graveyard, not just of many al-Qaida operatives, but of the organization's reputation as a defender of Islam," said StrategyPage.

Tags: war on terror, iraq, loony left

Bush: "If you lived in Iraq, you'd be saying ..."

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 05:57:45 GMT

clipped by: blueridge
clipper's remarks: There are at least 655,000 Iraqis, now dead, who are not say, "God, I love freedom". The living are praying, "God, I hate occupation and tyranny--please end it!" Meanwhile Americans under a new Homeland Security government--that would make George Washington blush and Patrick Henry wax militant--are saying "what happened to our freedom?"

The video is something, Bush cozy with Sarkosy, the Mossad asset. Does he look a bit tipsy or drunk?

Clip Source: www.crooksandliars.com

Bush: “If You Lived In Iraq–You’d Be Saying, God, I Love Freedom”

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Another delusional answer by Bush at a joint presser with France’s President Sarkozy yesterday. It’s getting to the point that when I hear someone mention the word “freedom,” I cringe because he has perverted it. You don’t invade a country that has not attacked us and then talk about freedom to the rest of the world.

BUSH: I don’t — you know, “quagmire” is an interesting word. If you lived in Iraq and had lived under a tyranny, you’d be saying, god, I love freedom — because that’s what’s happened. And there are killers and radicals and murderers who kill the innocent to stop the advance of freedom. But freedom is happening in Iraq. And we’re making progress.

Tags: iraq, war

The Day Nobody Was Killed In Iraq

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 00:09:36 GMT

clipped by: pkronfield
clipper's remarks: This is really good news! And of course it is nowhere to be found in the mainstream media. Our mainstream liberal propaganda machines want us to keep thinking we are in a quagmire, the army is broken, hope is lost, and it's all Bush's fault. Hello.... we are winning this war!!! Thanks to our resolute President and our magnificent armed forces.

Clip Source: www.theaustralian.news.com.au

IT is whispered about at the margins of meetings, and discussed in Washington parties where rumour is passed around with the wine and canapes.

It even appears, fleetingly, to be fact.

"The day nobody died from violence in Iraq" is a date that has been much anticipated in the White House - where US President George W. Bush is desperate to hail the success of his surge of 30,000 troops this year.

But no one can quite say when this event occurred.

"It was some time this week, wasn't it?" says a senior military source. "Or maybe last week."

Another diplomatic official confidently asserted that there were "at least two such days this month". When, exactly? "Not sure," he replied.

Such vagueness may be concealing a truly significant transformation on the ground in Iraq.

There have certainly been several days in the past month when no US or British soldiers were killed.

Tags: war on tereror, iraq

The Media's Iraq Con Job

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 13:51:29 GMT

clipped by: ClipClipHooray
clipper's remarks: Matt Sanchez is a reporter still on the ground in Iraq.

Clip Source: www.worldnetdaily.com

The media's Iraq con job

What made me more anxious is that I swore I'd tell the full story, the good, bad and ugly. That's what the press is supposed to do. They're supposed to tell the stories of the events that happen. The job of the press is to explain what's going on in places where most readers will never be able to go.

Unlike what I had read in the newspapers, I didn't find demoralized troops complaining about a dangerous quagmire in Iraq, and believe me, I asked.

Even more surprising was how poor the reporting back home has been. Time magazine writer Tim McGirk reported on a Haditha massacre while leaving out huge important facts that were pertinent to the credibility of his sources.

As a result of the research or omissions, Marines have been arrested and charged, and although most have been exonerated, the consequences of the report have ruined careers and lives.

What has been the consequence for McGirk or Time magazine? McGirk himself refused to support his own words under oath.

Tags: iraq, reporting, con job, quagmire

Us Double-Crossing Over Kurdistan

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:14:44 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.atimes.com

The George W Bush administration would not flinch to betray its allies in Iraqi Kurdistan if that entailed a US "win" in the Iraq quagmire. And it would not flinch to leave its Turkish North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies in the wilderness as well - if that entailed further destabilization of Iran. Way beyond the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) vs Turkey skirmish, one of these

two double-crossing scenarios will inevitably take place. Washington simply cannot have its kebab and eat it too.

The US and Israeli establishment regards Hezbollah as a group of evil super-terrorists. But the PKK consists of just "minor" terrorists, and very useful ones at that, since the US Central Intelligence Agency is covertly financing and arming the PJAK (Party for Free Life in Kurdistan), the Iranian arm of the PKK, whose mission is to "liberate" parts of northwest Iran.

Not accidentally, the new PKK overdrive coincides with US - and also Israeli - covert support for the PJAK.

Tags: kurdistan, israel, pkk, iraqi kurdistan, iarnian kurdistan, pjak