What about Joe?

[willedoo]

Move along, nothing to see or report here. Joe has proven to be predictable, sensible and boring. Unlike the orange person's madness by the minute. I bet the press miss Donald.

[Marty_d]

Just what a head of state should be.  Look at Angela Merkel, most boring person ever, but done a great job as Chancellor of Germany since 2005.

[Jerry_Atrick]

I know, but everyone loses interest!

[willedoo]

Here's some of Joe's feel good words at the U.N. General Assembly this week:

 

“I stand here today, the first time in 20 years the United States is not at war. We’ve turned the page… We close this period of relentless war, we’re opening a new era of relentless diplomacy.”

 

Sounds great, but what is the definition of war? The U.S. is illegally occupying another country, against the wishes of that country and contrary to international law. They have military and weaponry in that country preventing an internationally recognised sovereign country and government from accessing their own oil. By anyone's definition, it's an act of aggression, but Joe must think illegal occupation doesn't equal war if nobody is shooting. I guess it's all terminology and how you interpret it. Let's say someone invades your country. If you shoot and they shoot, then it's war. If you don't make war to evict them, then it's just an illegal occupation.

[onetrack]

The U.S. mightn't be at war, but I'll wager, in every HQ of every U.S. company, that relies largely on the military for its income, they are hard at work designing bigger, faster, better and more effective weaponry, that ensures that the current lot of weaponry will soon be obsolete, and both the U.S. and it allies will be obliged to fork out trillions more in their "defence budgets", to ensure that they have the latest weaponry. 

 

I see where the U.S has just voted to give Israel $1B to replace all the Iron Dome missiles the Israelis have fired off in the last year or two. That's on top of the $1.6B they have already given the Israelis to build the Iron Dome system. I don't understand why Israel doesn't fund its own missiles, after all, they're the ones trying to drive the Palestinians into an ever-smaller patch of land.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-23/us-congress-to-provide-1-billion-for-israel-iron-dome/100487044

 

 

[Yenn]

Israel doesn't fund things, because the USA does it for them. There is a large Jewish promoting body in the US and also they have a guilt complex from WW2. Never mind that the Palestinians have been treated like shit by all and sundry, especially the Brits.

[willedoo]

The Americans have a big ammunition dump in Israel to top up Israel's supplies if they run short during conflict. I was always under the impression it was like a big shop and Israel had to pay for it. Maybe some of it is given to them.

[willedoo]

The Americans are understandably concerned by China's recent tests of a pair of hypersonic weapons. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley has said that he doesn't know if it's a Sputnik moment, but that he thinks it's close to that. Also, this week the CEO of Raytheon said that the U.S. is several years behind China in hypersonic weapons development. All that in the context that China is quite a way behind Russia which is the only country to have operational, deployed hypersonic weapons. It's looking like both Russia and China will have deployed weapons long before the U.S. has a successful working version.

 

I blame George Dublya Bush for that. To fund his idiotic wars, the U.S. has had to slash R & D funding and now it's come back to bite them on the bum. As it stands now, Russia has strategic superiority over the U.S. and so too possibly China in the not so distant future. Joe Biden has a lot of work to do to catch up. The U.S. has a lot of flash looking gear, but mostly it's just paint. A lot of their military equipment is nearing end of life and needs replacing. In a few years time their armed forces could look look a lot different.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

The Chinese are ahead in quantum computing too, so may be able to break US codes soon.

[kgwilson]

Like the US Chief said when they left heaps of equipment in Afghanistan. It doesn't matter if the Taliban get their hands on it. It is all so unreliable that it will all brek down in a short time & they will have no spares to fix it.

[spacesailor]

BUT

Those third world countries,

WILL,

Put their expertise to make a good product, to get the most, from the rubbish they have been given all these years.

spacesailor

[old man emu]

On 17/01/2021 at 12:34 PM, willedoo said:

Joe Biden has a big job ahead. On the domestic side, he has an almost failed state to try to repair. On the world stage, he has a long way to go to get back some level of trust and respect for the U.S., while juggling their own defence and security issues as well. Who knows, Joe might actually be up to the job; time will tell. Even if he ends up being a lame duck president, it will be much better than a mad duck. 

The above was posted at the beginning of the year when we had high hopes for Trump's successor. But what have we got? Another embarrassment. Trump might be mad, but he's not senile. Even the current Vice President, of whom so much was hoped for, is now winning the title of worst V-P in US history.

 

[willedoo]

I find it hard to sit through more than a couple of minutes of Andrew Bolt without getting an overwhelming urge to stick my finger down my throat. However, he did make a very good point -  a country with 330 million people to choose from and they end up with those three. The leadership in the U.S., regardless of administration or party affiliation beggars belief and has been like that for a lot of years now.

 

Terrible choices of people at times. A good example is Sarah Palin, John McCain's VP candidate pick in his run against Obomber. As part of the job description, a VP candidate is expected to have some knowledge of things like foreign affairs. In the election campaign, Palin was asked by journalists about her foreign affairs credentials. The dill told them that in her view, the Soviet Union is the biggest current threat to the United States. Only problem for the peanut was that she made that statement two weeks after the 20 year anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Thick as two short planks. And it wasn't just a slip of the tongue; she spoke at length about it. She honestly thought the reds were still in power. They mustn't have newspapers in Alaska.

 

No wonder the U.S. is the laughing stock of the world. The rot is there from the top down.

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

One thing about Joe B is that he does have a stutter and works hard to control it; so sometimes he will just stop talking about something trivial if it becomes a problem for his stutter - it isn't dementia.. That is, of course, not to defend his monumental stuff ups.. but I got the thought that in the case shown, it was stutter.

 

For Kamala, yep - that was a bad hair day thing.. .I couldn't work out if she mean species of trees and couldn't think of the word; or if she meant that you can tell by the species/profile of trees the racial makeup of an area (e.g. leafy green - white; barren - predominantly black; marijuana - who knows??)

 

Having said that, Bolt's gods, Trump and SFM have had worse days.

 

Re Bolt's point - the plain fact is, if you want to make it in the world, politics is the last thing you want to be in. In the professions you can get a better take home pay packet (inclusive of perks) for a lot less work and aggravation.

Edited November 13, 2021 by Jerry_Atrick

[onetrack]

I don't know where Bolt dug up that ditzy dill, Daisy Cousins - but she makes Pauline Hanson look like PM material. I have to agree with Willedoo, if these three are the best America can produce in the countrys leadership group, then God Help America.

 

I really do not know what is wrong with American politics, that makes it dredge up some of the weakest leaders you could ever find, to run the country.

[old man emu]

9 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

a problem for his stutter

There's an example of twisting the facts to suit your purpose. I didn't know that Biden had a stutter. It has never been publicised. Knowing that he does suffer from that impediment makes it clear why his speech is halting. The opposition has a field day in making a wrong implication from his attempts to overcome the impediment.

 

As for Kamala, who hasn't suffered from an incorrect word? In a country where "race" plays a large part, it would be a word that is in the front of the mind. It's only its usual connection with humans that makes her use of it ring bells in the ears of her opponents. Although "race" is not quite equivalent to "species" in biology, you can see that they are connected in concept.

 

Her question about conducting a "census" of plant species in an area is quite reasonable. In fact, this has been going on since we began putting up observation satellites. That's how the global food traders know what the year's supply of grains will be; how environmentalists can tell you how much rainforest has been converted to palm oil plantations, and how law enforcement finds your patch of Acapulco Gold. 

[willedoo]

11 hours ago, onetrack said:

I don't know where Bolt dug up that ditzy dill, Daisy Cousins - but she makes Pauline Hanson look like PM material.

Sky News has a special talent for that. They gravitate to Sky like moths to a candle flame. I try not to watch the channel but occasionally cross paths with it while channel surfing. Here's a question to any that are more familiar with the channel, is it getting crazier and crazier as time goes by, or has it always been that way? In my opinion, Sky is bordering on a nut house.

[willedoo]

It's debatable to what degree the IQ level in the U.S. administration have improved since the departure of Trump and his dodos. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking in South Korea yesterday, said as part of his pep talk “The best case though is that we won't see an incursion by the Soviet Union into the Ukraine." The genius is right, unless they happen to come up with a back to the future time travel car that can go back 30 years in time. It would be laughable if not for the scary fact that he's America's top defence official.

[red750]

My wife is addicted to Sky News - I avoid it like the plague. Rather watch repeats of Big Bang Theory.

[nomadpete]

Aaaaargh!!!!

 

How can you say that!!!

 

I was just watching big bang theory.........

There is nothing else on free tv except murdock  bs.   (Well nothing intellectually stimulating).

 

For me, my SWYMBO is addicted to bloodthirsty whonunnits which is ace for her!  However, I already know how bitter an twisted humanity is!

 

It leads me to open another bottle of red and then stumble senseless into bed.....

[Jerry_Atrick]

34 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

There is nothing else on free tv except murdock  bs.   (Well nothing intellectually stimulating).

Do you not watch the ABC?

 

[nomadpete]

Even Auntie can get boring at times......

 

On those rare days when i get both brain cells switched on at the same time I often watch 'Through the Wormhole'. I keep a pen and paper nearby to list rabbit holes to go down.

[facthunter]

It's getting to be IF you admit watching or listening to the ABC, you are the enemy of society..Nev

[nomadpete]

Our ABC, SBS, & NITV seem to be shunned by many. But they often have much more interesting stuff than the commercial stations, who seem to always pitch to the lowest common denominator of society, using the cheapest content.

[willedoo]

Biden might end up with egg on his face due to some childish idiocy on his part over invitees to his upcoming democracy summit. He's invited about 110 countries plus the EU. The EU except Hungary, that is, as he doesn't like the government of Viktor Orban. Others that have made the invitation list are beacons of democracy like Iraq, Republic of Congo and Pakistan.

 

What Joe and his team probably didn't realise is that EU foreign policy dealings require unanimous agreement from all member states; all or nothing. Hungary has formally objected at a meeting of EU ambassadors, so it looks like the EU as a single entity can't attend. The other alternative is a backdown by Biden to invite Hungary. Looks like Viktor has given Joe a kick in the pants.