Obama's 2nd Inaugural Address

[D1B]

I just finished The Next Decade by George Friedman. I don't agree with everything he writes but has some interesting opinions about China and Russia. He thinks Russia is a greater long-term threat to the US than China and that China will experience a significant slow-down. Historically during such down-times, China tends to become very inwardly focused (and nationalistic) and their productivity and standard of living drops.

Russia is definitely our biggest geopolitical rival right now, but they cannot break out of the brute force paradigm that has shaped their military doctrine since WWII. As such, they will not make friends in Western Europe the way they would need to in order to be a true military threat to us. The Ukrainians and every other former Warsaw Pact country literally hates their guts. Without strong allies, the Russians will not even become as much of a threat as they were in the 60s.

Where they can hurt us is in playing spoiler to our foreign policy aims. A good example of this is with what is happening right now in Syria. The Russians will not let their spheres of influence shrink without a struggle.

Russia has a huge alcoholism problem and consequently a shortage of men. I'm more concerned with China.

The Atlantic 2/15/2011

Russia's alcohol problem is nothing new. But a report from the World Health Organization is depicting it in the starkest terms yet: it's causing a demographic timebomb. Richard Weitz at World Politics Review highlights the most disturbing figures from the report:

- Russians 16 and older drink the equivalent of roughly four gallons of pure alcohol per capita each year, almost twice the amount of their American counterparts.
- Russia currently has 2 million alcoholics.
- The number of Russian children aged 10-14 who drink alcohol exceeds 10 million.
- Roughly 500,000 Russians die annually from alcoholic-related accidents, crimes, and illnesses.
- Alcohol poisoning kills more than 23,000 Russians each year.

According to Weitz, 20 percent of Russian male deaths are attributed to alcoholism. A 15-year-old boy has a 40 percent chance of dying before the age of 60. Despite recent economic gains, the Russian population continues to shrink. Russian leadership, including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, now considers alcoholism a national security threat and have set a goal to halve the country's alcohol consumption by 2020.


Still, that won't be easy, notes Weitz. It was only last month that the Russian legislator redefined beer as an alcoholic drink. Prior to that, its food item status allowed it to be sold widely in stores and kiosks--a factor that increased beer consumption 51-fold between 1995 and 2007. In a closing note, Weitz says the problem has become so pervasive, it even threatens Russia's ability to maintain a standing army:

The Russian armed forces face a massive personnel problem, and the country's demographic trends will reduce the availability of potential male recruits even further in coming years. By 2016, the number of men available for conscription will be half that of 1996, a problem exacerbated by the fact that many potential recruits are unfit for service due to alcohol-related complications.

I'm thinking of moving to Russia to take advantage of this pathetic situation...

[travelinman67]

I'm thinking of moving to Russia to take advantage of this pathetic situation...

Fricking misogynist

[D1B]

I'm thinking of moving to Russia to take advantage of this pathetic situation...

Fricking misogynist

Shut the fuck up, Dr. Drew.

[UNI88]

I just finished The Next Decade by George Friedman. I don't agree with everything he writes but has some interesting opinions about China and Russia. He thinks Russia is a greater long-term threat to the US than China and that China will experience a significant slow-down. Historically during such down-times, China tends to become very inwardly focused (and nationalistic) and their productivity and standard of living drops.

Russia is definitely our biggest geopolitical rival right now, but they cannot break out of the brute force paradigm that has shaped their military doctrine since WWII. As such, they will not make friends in Western Europe the way they would need to in order to be a true military threat to us. The Ukrainians and every other former Warsaw Pact country literally hates their guts. Without strong allies, the Russians will not even become as much of a threat as they were in the 60s.

Where they can hurt us is in playing spoiler to our foreign policy aims. A good example of this is with what is happening right now in Syria. The Russians will not let their spheres of influence shrink without a struggle.

Friedman's theories are based on potential risk and he's pretty sure that the Chinese are about to experience some significant difficulties and the resulting turmoil will cause them to close ranks as they have frequently done in the past (Cultural Revolution II?). He acknowledges Russia's issues but thinks that if they can use their natural resource wealth and find an advantageous alliance they can overcome them. He would rank Germany as our #2 threat with the risk the highest if Russia and Germany cooperate to expand their own influence thereby undermining ours. He advocates putting some focus and effort where it is most critical to preventing that - Poland. He makes some good points - Russia has the natural resources that Germany needs and Germany has the technology and development know-how that Russia wants. I'm not sure he gives enough weight to the historic distrust between Germany and Russia though.

It was definitely an interesting read - he talked about the US needing to make a strategic assessment of the world and our place in it and then take a long-term approach to potential threats. He makes the argument that we've pretty much been stumbling along and have lacked that strategic approach since the end of the Cold War.

[BDKJMU]

Four major gun control acts have been passed in this country...National Firearms Act in 1934; the Gun Control Act of1968; the Firearm Owners Protection Act was passed in 1986; and the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act was passed in 1993...along with about a dozen more minor laws...each chipped away at the Second Amendment...always punishing law-abiding people by treating them as criminals

Democrats in New York discussed total confiscation for the POS law they passed last week...and Connecticut is considering a law where more than ONE bullet in a gun by a law-abiding citizen will be a felony...

Senator Feinstein will introduce a bill tomorrow that will make all modern semi-automatic handguns equal to assault weapons...and will confiscate mine when I die, prohibiting me from giving them to my son...

He's surely building to the day when the Second Amendment is effectively dead...

Wake up, Mark...

IMO, it's better for the states to discuss this matter than at the federal level. If NY doesn't want assault rifles, then simply move to PA. As long as a state doesn't ban guns totally, I don't see the problem.

Assault rifles are already banned in all 50 states without a fed tax stamp....

[Ivytalk]

Russia is definitely our biggest geopolitical rival right now, but they cannot break out of the brute force paradigm that has shaped their military doctrine since WWII. As such, they will not make friends in Western Europe the way they would need to in order to be a true military threat to us. The Ukrainians and every other former Warsaw Pact country literally hates their guts. Without strong
allies, the Russians will not even become as much of a threat as they were in the 60s.

Where they can hurt us is in playing spoiler to our foreign policy aims. A good example of this is with what is happening right now in Syria. The Russians will not let their spheres of influence shrink without a struggle.

Friedman's theories are based on potential risk and he's pretty sure that the Chinese are about to
experience some significant difficulties and the resulting turmoil will cause them to close ranks as they have frequently done in the past (Cultural Revolution II?). He acknowledges Russia's issues but thinks that if they can use their natural resource wealth and find an advantageous alliance they can overcome them. He would rank Germany as our #2 threat with the risk the highest if Russia and Germany cooperate to expand their own influence thereby undermining ours. He advocates putting some focus and effort where it is most critical to preventing that - Poland. He makes some good points - Russia has the natural resources that Germany needs and Germany has the technology and
development know-how that Russia wants. I'm not sure he gives enough weight to the historic distrust between Germany and Russia though.

It was definitely an interesting read - he talked about the US needing to make a strategic assessment of the world and our place in it and then take a long-term approach to potential threats. He makes the argument that we've pretty much been stumbling along and have lacked that strategic approach since the end of the Cold War.

Germany and Russia linking up, eh? Shades of that Ribbentrop-Stalin pact of 1939. And that lasted just two years, until Hitler goofed big time by invading Russia in 1941.

And the Obamas' public smooching was just gross. You'd never have caught ol' Poppy and Bar doing that!

[D1B]

Russians are a boorish, brutal, lazy and ultimately weak people. No civilized country will willingly have anything to do with them. They would have been long forgotten or assimilated by Finland long ago if not for the weather, prodigious amounts of natural resources, and 1000 years of tempering (slavery) under czarist/religious tyranny.

[Baldy]

Russians are a boorish, brutal, lazy and ultimately weak people. No civilized country will willingly have anything to do with them. They would have been long forgotten or assimilated by Finland long ago if not for the weather, prodigious amounts of natural resources, and 1000 years of tempering (slavery) under czarist/religious tyranny.

Yeah boy...those Marxist/Leninist tyrant types were some out of control religious zealots.

[Pwns]

[If there was going to be a singularity we would've reached it by now.

Why? Some models see us reaching it as early as 2025, but most by the mid-century. Even a decade ago, there was no scientific reason to think we should have reached it by 2013.

And even if our technology never replicates the human mind (and I have doubts myself), it's still advancing exponentially at a blistering pace. If we don't destroy ourselves, we'll be achieving some mind-boggling things in the near-future regardless of singularity.

The models are based on how long it will take to achieve a certain level of parallel processing power.

As if more processing capabilities will do any good. Computers can take up information about the environment and process it faster than any living thing. Yet we couldn't even build a robot cat that would be indistinguishable from the real thing even if creating realistic movement wasn't a problem.

The belief that all cognition is just chemistry and physics (physicalism) has become like a religion within the science community so people will just continue to make excuses for why you can't make intelligent computers.

[D1B]

Russians are a boorish, brutal, lazy and ultimately weak people. No civilized country will willingly have anything to do with them. They would have been long forgotten or assimilated by Finland long ago if not for the weather, prodigious amounts of natural resources, and 1000 years of tempering (slavery) under czarist/religious tyranny.

Yeah boy...those Marxist/Leninist tyrant types were some out of control religious zealots.

Nice whiff, dimwit.

Read again, if you can, come back when you're sober and try again.

[Grizalltheway]

Russians are a boorish, brutal, lazy and ultimately weak people. No civilized country will willingly have anything to do with them. They would have been long forgotten or assimilated by Finland long ago if not for the weather, prodigious amounts of natural resources, and 1000 years of tempering (slavery) under czarist/religious tyranny.

Shut your fat Lithuanian mouth, Zyldrunas.

[CID1990]

Russia is definitely our biggest geopolitical rival right now, but they cannot break out of the brute force paradigm that has shaped their military doctrine since WWII. As such, they will not make friends in Western Europe the way they would need to in order to be a true military threat to us. The Ukrainians and every other former Warsaw Pact country literally hates their guts. Without strong allies, the Russians will not even become as much of a threat as they were in the 60s.

Where they can hurt us is in playing spoiler to our foreign policy aims. A good example of this is with what is happening right now in Syria. The Russians will not let their spheres of influence shrink without a struggle.

Friedman's theories are based on potential risk and he's pretty sure that the Chinese are about to experience some significant difficulties and the resulting turmoil will cause them to close ranks as they have frequently done in the past (Cultural Revolution II?). He acknowledges Russia's issues but thinks that if they can use their natural resource wealth and find an advantageous alliance they can overcome them. He would rank Germany as our #2 threat with the risk the highest if Russia and Germany cooperate to expand their own influence thereby undermining ours. He advocates putting some focus and effort where it is most critical to preventing that - Poland. He makes some good points - Russia has the natural resources that Germany needs and Germany has the technology and development know-how that Russia wants. I'm not sure he gives enough weight to the historic distrust between Germany and Russia though.

It was definitely an interesting read - he talked about the US needing to make a strategic assessment of the world and our place in it and then take a long-term approach to potential threats. He makes the argument that we've pretty much been stumbling along and have lacked that strategic approach since the end of the Cold War.

He is spot on about Poland and the other neighboring Eastern European countries... they are natural allies and we seem to be determined to throw them all under the bus.

[AZGrizFan]

He advocates putting some focus and effort where it is most critical to preventing that - Poland. He makes some good points - Russia has the natural resources that Germany needs and Germany has the technology and development know-how that Russia wants. I'm not sure he gives enough weight to the historic distrust between Germany and Russia though.

Ya think?

[CitadelGrad]

Friedman's theories are based on potential risk and he's pretty sure that the Chinese are about to experience some significant difficulties and the resulting turmoil will cause them to close ranks as they have frequently done in the past (Cultural Revolution II?). He acknowledges Russia's issues but thinks that if they can use their natural resource wealth and find an advantageous alliance they can overcome them. He would rank Germany as our #2 threat with the risk the highest if Russia and Germany cooperate to expand their own influence thereby undermining ours. He advocates putting some focus and effort where it is most critical to preventing that - Poland. He makes some good points - Russia has the natural resources that Germany needs and Germany has the technology and development know-how that Russia wants. I'm not sure he gives enough weight to the historic distrust between Germany and Russia though.

It was definitely an interesting read - he talked about the US needing to make a strategic assessment of the world and our place in it and then take a long-term approach to potential threats. He makes the argument that we've pretty much been stumbling along and have lacked that strategic approach since the end of the Cold War.

He is spot on about Poland and the other neighboring Eastern European countries... they are natural allies and we seem to be determined to throw them all under the bus.

Obama hates those nations because they rejected and rebelled against Marxism, they're white and non-Muslim.

[Baldy]

Yeah boy...those Marxist/Leninist tyrant types were some out of control religious zealots.

Nice whiff, dimwit.

Read again, if you can, come back when you're sober and try again.

Just pointing out that you forgot to include the atheist Marxists/Leninists from your rant...of course unless you believe that the Bolsheviks didn't prosper from slave labor.

[Seahawks08]

Assault rifles are already banned in all 50 states without a fed tax stamp....

My bad, semi-automatic weapons. Happy?

[Seahawks08]

They've bolted because the original targets were derived from hypothesis later found to be false. Despite the errors, the U.N. has continued to force through the original target reductions, still, arguing that without compliance, there will be a 3-5 deg/C global temp rise by 2100: A projection not supported by ANYONE including the IPCC report #4.
Since 2010, all Kyoto meetings have focused on wealth distribution, not climate change.

Again, do your homework.

Folks who are still banging the C02 Climate Change drum have had their head in the sand since 2007.

Climate change is real buddy. The damage has already been done, and we will start feeling the effects of it in the near future. Kyoto raised awareness on the issue and it's now time for Obama to take the initiative and propose a new one. If not, the distant future of the planet is going to look very different than today.

[AZGrizFan]

They've bolted because the original targets were derived from hypothesis later found to be false. Despite the errors, the U.N. has continued to force through the original target reductions, still, arguing that without compliance, there will be a 3-5 deg/C global temp rise by 2100: A projection not supported by ANYONE including the IPCC report #4.
Since 2010, all Kyoto meetings have focused on wealth distribution, not climate change.

Again, do your homework.

Folks who are still banging the C02 Climate Change drum have had their head in the sand since 2007.

Climate change is real buddy. The damage has already been done, and we will start feeling the effects of it in the near future. Kyoto raised awareness on the issue and it's now time for Obama to take the initiative and propose a new one. If not, the distant future of the planet is going to look very different than today.

Of course climate change is real. The climate has ALWAYS changed. It's NEVER been constant. That's why we've had ice ages and warm spells, and mini-ice ages and why there was a jungle where there's now desert and vice versa.

[Seahawks08]

Clarification: Man made climate change is real.

[HI54UNI]

Clarification: Man made climate change is real.

[travelinman67]

Clarification: Man made climate change is real.

You're out of your safe depth, junior.

Coming onto the internet and parroting talking points never turns out well.

Hansen's modeling was discredited.
East Anglia's research lacks integrity.
The U.N. backed "studies" have authors fleeing like rats from a sinking ship.
The only groups still pursuing the AGW schemes are government funded/sponsored.

Repeating media propoganda doesn't fly...

...unless, of course, your name has Jelly in it...

[JohnStOnge]

Obviously I didn't watch it. But I heard later that he said something about us having an endless capacity for risk. So I Googled the text of his speech and found this:

America’s possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention.

An "endless capcity for risk?" You have GOT to be kidding me. The whole point of life in the United States has become minimizing risk.

That's one of our big problems. The nation was founded and expanded by people who were willing to take tremendous risks without any guarantees. The current population is constituted primarily of people who think the universe is obligated to make sure they're taken care of. If something bad happens they have to be assured that someone's going to rescue them. If they make an investment it's "criminal" if they lose money. If they get sick they should be guaranteed health care. If someone hits their car they have to have a law saying the other person has to be insured to pay for it. So on and so forth.

Endless capacity for risk? PLEASE!

I realize he didn't write the speech. But, good GOSH what an obviously fallacious statement.

[kalm]

Obviously I didn't watch it. But I heard later that he said something about us having an endless capacity for risk. So I Googled the text of his speech and found this:

America’s possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention.

An "endless capcity for risk?" You have GOT to be kidding me. The whole point of life in the United States has become minimizing risk.

That's one of our big problems. The nation was founded and expanded by people who were willing to take tremendous risks without any guarantees. The current population is constituted primarily of people who think the universe is obligated to make sure they're taken care of. If something bad happens they have to be assured that someone's going to rescue them. If they make an investment it's "criminal" if they lose money. If they get sick they should be guaranteed health care. If someone hits their car they have to have a law saying the other person has to be insured to pay for it. So on and so forth.

Endless capacity for risk? PLEASE!

I realize he didn't write the speech. But, good GOSH what an obviously fallacious statement.

Kinda like "free market" risks....eh?

[kalm]

Clarification: Man made climate change is real.

You're out of your safe depth, junior.

Coming onto the internet and parroting talking points never turns out well.

Hansen's modeling was discredited.
East Anglia's research lacks integrity.
The U.N. backed "studies" have authors fleeing like rats from a sinking ship.
The only groups still pursuing the AGW schemes are government funded/sponsored.

Repeating media propoganda doesn't fly...

...unless, of course, your name has Jelly in it...

Well it's settled then...hooray!

[JohnStOnge]

Oh...and if some nut shoots up a school somewhere they have to have a law about guns even though the risk that their own kid would ever get hurt in such an incident is in the ballpark of them winning the powerball.

OHHHHHH! OUR KIDS AREN'T SAFE! OHHHHH! WE'VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING SO OUR KIDS WILL BE SAFE!!!!!

"Endless capacity for risk." Good GRIEF.