O.K., so we learn to live with Iran on the edge of a bomb, but shouldn’t we at least bomb the Islamic State to smithereens and help destroy this head-chopping menace? Now I despise ISIS as much as anyone, but let me just toss out a different question: Should we be arming ISIS? Or let me ask that differently: Why are we, for the third time since 9/11, fighting a war on behalf of Iran?

In 2002, we destroyed Iran’s main Sunni foe in Afghanistan (the Taliban regime). In 2003, we destroyed Iran’s main Sunni foe in the Arab world (Saddam Hussein). But because we failed to erect a self-sustaining pluralistic order, which could have been a durable counterbalance to Iran, we created a vacuum in both Iraq and the wider Sunni Arab world. That is why Tehran’s proxies now indirectly dominate four Arab capitals: Beirut, Damascus, Sana and Baghdad.

ISIS, with all its awfulness, emerged as the homegrown Sunni Arab response to this crushing defeat of Sunni Arabism — mixing old pro-Saddam Baathists with medieval Sunni religious fanatics with a collection of ideologues, misfits and adventure-seekers from around the Sunni Muslim world. Obviously, I abhor ISIS and don’t want to see it spread or take over Iraq. I simply raise this question rhetorically because no one else is: Why is it in our interest to destroy the last Sunni bulwark to a total Iranian takeover of Iraq? Because the Shiite militias now leading the fight against ISIS will rule better? Really?

More..http://digbysblog.blogspot.de/2015/03/objectively-pro-isis.html

You guessed exactly what my thoughts were on this situation. The greater good isn't or shouldn't be part of my life, glad you see the same. The garbage goes on, BH. You're one of my favorite here.

Combining the Neptunes w/ the other related products being sold leading to the 30+ coinage range makes me wonder if the deal fell through or if, weeks later, the total ask has went down quite a bit. Hope to get an answer sooner and that things are going well for liquidation. It seems like we're at the point of taking a fair price and just getting rid of the non-producing mechanisms and just settling the score once and for all. I'll just leave it at that for now. George, you're up.

For the spectator's perspective, I'd ask mr. AW what he's doing to replenish his funds as I can't imagine his loss is anywhere near his full net worth, or I could be wrong. Or, what would be the takeaway message that AW would want onlookers to take from this whole ordeal?

I would venture to say that even under stable prices, more or less, that given the difficulty hikes that progressively take place that mining isn't something that could produce anything worthwhile as a return that would be advantageous over just holding under the normal circumstances unless you start and receive your rig at the start of a bear market. Before you know it, the hashing benefits run to a neutral outcome before you know it. If you paid in bitcoin, your best bet to win getting that currency back is to start mining a few months before the tail run of a bear market and then use the capitulation after-stages as the time to recop/mine more bitcoin to have made it worthwhile. Paying in cash is another story and can vary. Perhaps, my judgement is clouded because I pre-ordered back in the day and I just barely broke even in usd but got screwed in btc. My advice is to just buy and hold if you're not a trader, yet if you have extra coins above your set goal and are looking to invest in a steady usd stream paid in btc every month or whenever - find a steady paying upstart company that has a legit prospectus and go with that w/ just a small portion of your stash.

When the price starts making a move that gets more peoples' attention, you'll a lot more holders of the coin but perhaps that won't count as active users. Yet, that's still 3-4 times the total assessed users at the moment so that'll signal much more demand when there's less than half the coins coming out daily at that point. You do the math on that. 

For years, the US has engaged in a counter-terrorism strategy in Yemen involving aggressive drone strikes and the donation of over $500 million in weapons and equipment to Yemen’s US-backed government. However, these moves aimed at defeating al-Qaeda in Yemen have produced an array of unintended consequences, which appear to be spiraling out of control.

First, local anxiety over US drone strikes led to a January 2015 uprising by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who toppled Yemen’s government suddenly, taking US officials by surprise. The fall of Yemen has been compared to ISIS’ taking of Mosul in that, in both cases, US-trained-and-funded soldiers refused to fight as rebels launched their attacks. Additionally, al-Qaeda has reportedly seized some of the collapsed Yemeni government’s bases. In February, the US closed its embassy in Yemen, and rebels stole vehicles that were left behind during the evacuation.

More...http://benswann.com/after-fall-of-yemen-us-officials-fear-terrorists-have-seized-500-million-in-us-donated-weapons/

And this is just another 'unintended consequence' of the neocon foreign policy of interventionism abroad.

Hillary Clinton: ‘We Really Need Camps for Adults’

As I have gotten older, I have decided we really need camps for adults. And we need adults camps that you all run. Really. None of the serious stuff. None of the life-challenging stuff… more fun. I think we have a huge fun deficit in America. And we need to figure out how to fill that fun deficit, certainly for our kids but also for the rest of us. We need some [garbled] from time to time, maybe some enrichment, certainly some time outdoors. Maybe actually spending time with people that we didn’t know before.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/03/19/hillary-clinton-proposes-we-really-need-camps-for-adults/

LOL, state sponsored "fun camps" for adults of all things. Once again she knows what's best for people and stands there lecturing the numb nuts that adore her. Back in the 90s when Bill was president she came out with this mantra that it ''takes a village to raise a child" insinuating that the collective should have a say in one's parenting and now fast forward to this.

Hudak said Republicans, who have mostly scaled back their opposition to legalization in the states, "are doing something they are usually terrible at — looking down the road at the demographic landscape and adjusting their policies accordingly."

"They're not doing it on same-sex marriage effectively, they're not doing it on health care effectively, they're not doing it on a lot of social issues effectively," he said, "but it looks like they're starting to see the light on legalization."

Better late than never. In 2016, young voters who overwhelming support marijuana legalization are expected to return to the polls after their traditional midterm no-show in 2014.

"They're sort of self-reinforcing forces in the electorate that create a really positive recipe to assist legalization advocates," Hudak said. "It's a hot issue. For a candidate, you talk about it and it makes waves."

More including candidate profiles...http://mic.com/articles/112066/the-pot-primary-which-republican-candidates-would-be-best-on-marijuana

Walker’s Pandering Problem

Carney is especially worried about Walker’s willingness to yield to lobbying and business interests in the GOP because these are responsible for the party’s extensive problem with crony capitalism. It is also easy to imagine the same thing happening on other issues involving other entrenched interests. As Carney says, this isn’t just a matter of Walker’s pandering as a candidate. It likely tells us something important about how he would govern if he were elected president:

But when the Wall Street lobbyists ask for special favors, or the manufacturers demand their subsidies — what do you think Walker will do?

More...http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/walkers-pandering-problem/

It was written kind of poorly but it passed the state Senate 36-0 and then the state House concurred w/ 70-0 so yeah, this is pretty abnormal to have a unanimous vote on something. However, democrats own the state legislature in NJ yet they have a moderate republican as Governor. Basically, this just gives the local governments and the citizens thereof to have a say over the authorization or transfer of this military grade equipment to their areas rather than the feds just passing these unnecessary toys out like presents to local police forces on Xmas morning. Then, men love using their new toys especially when they are upgrades.
This is what happens when you're constantly at war, you either leave your chess pieces over in foreign lands for the likes of ISIS to get a hold of or bring them home and pass them out to keep using them. With the recent police shootings that have made national headlines have awoken lots more people to the militarization that they've seen on tv and the tables may be tilting back the other way, let's hope.

I'm definitely of the mind that forcing anything is wrong but in this case, Obama wants to force the parasites and low info voters out in a large swath to as he said, "make life easier for him". Things worked out well for him in '08 because he was new, black (which brought out inner city folks in force as well as younger people), and people thought McCain was a douche (which he was and is). Then, Obama turned out to be a disappointment and his base, who typically aren't very intelligent or are apathetic, went back to sleep and that was only two years later. Plus, this issue is just a way for the republicans to cast more hate on Obama and the left and  a way for Obama to turn the tables and have something meaningless like this to be discussed and sensationalized to keep other more pressing issues on the back burner for a while.

If the candidate is a politician I'd obviously view their voting record and see how much of my money they like to give to others, then go from there. Ultimately, I vote for libertarian-republicans as they at least have a chance to win even tho there's not a whole lot of them. In everything else, I vote Libertarian as a protest vote or play the lesser of two evils at certain points.

It doesn't take much for a lower IQ person to settle things much the same way animals do - by violence. I don't keep company with and try to stay clear of anyone that I perceive to be unstable, unkept or trashy acting. And, that's goes for anyone irrespective of ethnicity.

From what I can tell, it's only the Mormons, Amish, Mennonites that tend to have excessive families but the nuances to those lifestyles have reasons for this. Before we even discuss new ways to have kids we need to address the subsidization of those that have them but can't afford to care for their bunch. We have to wind down and phase out the incentives to have more kids than necessary while also stimulating incentives for women to have kids w/o a steady partner or preferably being married and financially secure enough in life for even having the first one. In this day and age, there's no excuse for having kids w/o the means to care for them when there's plenty of birth control for women to take.

Haha, I wonder when the man is going to get the "Sir" in front of his name. If I were him I'd have major whale capabilities and I could create my own market analysis that never ends. It's be nice if Ramsay would accept BTC at his upscale restaurants and have that BTC on the front windows which would really stir some great dinner conversations among the elite that dine at these places.

“I have a biology degree, okay?”

– Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in remarks at the Lincoln Labs “Reboot Congress” conference, Feb. 12, 2015

Rand Paul’s claim — twice in one day — that he has a biology degree
this is puzzling because he has a Ba in Bio and also an MD in it.

This column has been updated with an additional explanation by Paul’s spokesman.

We first spotted a version of this quote in a Bloomberg column by David Weigel, and then checked the quotes with our colleague Jose DelReal, who had attended the conference.

This is a bit of an odd one, given that Paul does not have a college undergraduate degree.

The Facts

Paul mentioned his alleged degree at the conference not once, but twice. First, in an exchange with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Paul said:

Arrington: “Let’s talk about economics because maybe you can actually explain this to me. I have an econ degree which means I know just enough not to understand any of what our government is [inaudible]”

Paul: “Mine’s in biology and English so this is going to be a great conversation.”

Then, later in the conversation, expounding on what he considered the virtues of Bitcoin, Paul said:

“This is just me. I have a biology degree, okay? But with Bitcoin my concern always was whether or not something has real value. So I could imagine a kind of coin that was exchangeable. This gets back to the whole idea, does money have to be exchangeable for something to be of value?”

more...http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/02/13/rand-pauls-claim-twice-in-one-day-that-he-has-a-biology-degree/
It's great that someone it bickering about a lower degree yet has an enormous one. The media wins this one.

Grand things coming ahead from what I hear on the grapevine and more fiat coming into the fold. I'm interested to in the next div payment coming soon. Yet, there is a lot going on behind the scenes from what I hear that is boosting great things for this security.

Dude, the margin call is nasty as you've seen. Stop playing that game and trading when the vipers are typically on the other end of the game. Just buy and hold with your expendables and wait til the market comes back up instead of setting yourself up to get crunched. My God... Don't be afraid to take a minimal loss but manually sell when things get too underwater for you on your own. This is the double loss playing the trading game on the long or short that all relaxed players should chill on.

Now, you're gonna see the wrath of the trolls. I've seen this play out before and never would open myself up to this unfolding on my face like that. The vast majority of traders (like 66%+) will get nailed, that's why people should just take their stance and let it ride w/ a short stop loss in a mental fashion.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump announced plans Wednesday to form a presidential exploratory committee.
"I am the only one who can make America truly great again," the Republican businessman and reality television star declared in a statement announcing the move.

While a step short of a formal campaign launch, the formation of an exploratory allows him to begin raising money and hire staff as he weighs a White House bid. Trump said he's already hired political aides in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, which host the first three contests on the presidential nominating calendar.

"I have a great love for our country, but it is a country that is in serious trouble," Trump said in a wide-ranging statement that called for rebuilding the nation's infrastructure, improving border security, strengthening the military and improving the economy. "Americans deserve better than what they get from their politicians who are all talk and no action."

More...http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150318/us-gop-2016-trump-e7bf9e5ef6.html