Comments on: A comfortable minority

By: badbob

badbob — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:03:37 +0000

re- “..what happens when they get to be the great majority of voters?”

We’all wonder about that quite a bit here at ChezLex “King”….

By: King Aethelstan

King Aethelstan — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:02:38 +0000

I went to university with a guy who is now the founder and owner of a successful data warehousing business. He also believes crop circles are made by aliens. I also went to university with numerous people who were dedicated JFK conspiracy believers. I don’t know whether there are enough sensible, rational people in the US to maintain ethical and coherent government in a democracy. Because many parents in the US now encourage their children to despise “Truth, Justice and the American Way”, what happens when they get to be the great majority of voters?

By: Richard Cook

Richard Cook — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 19:32:42 +0000

Enough repeat performances huh Skippy?

By: Rich Casebolt

Rich Casebolt — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:46:11 +0000

However when you cut through the fluff, the gut instinct of the majority is correct when it comes to Iraq. Namely that however nobly minded-the adventure was a mistake and sidetracked the US from its long term foreign policy objectives.

Let’s see …

… pre-empting Iraq from becoming the high-tech Afghanistan with respect to terrorist logistics …
… sending several thousand jihadis to meet their 72 Virginians, instead of leaving them free to come to Virginia and do that voodoo that they do so well …
… showing the world that the disciples of bin Laden can be defeated, while simultaneously proving that the yearning for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness transcends culture and religion …
… exposing the UN as a Petri dish for immoral, corrupt, liars-in-formal-wear …
… facilitating an opportunity to live free and pursue happiness — historically, a powerful national vaccine against totalitarian infection — for 25 million people …
… and doing all this in a highly-interconnected global civilization, where the dysfunction of any nation can too quickly threaten others … in an age where fanatics and thugs no longer need the discipline and time to build arms and raise armies in order to threaten the world …

… If those aren’t legitimate foreign-policy objectives, they should be!

The real peace song is not Kumbiyah …

… it is Yippie-Ky-Ay-A.

By: Lee

Lee — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 07:15:51 +0000

steveH – They actually did it 10 years before that too, in 1980/1. I remember going up in the hills and watching the helecopters go back and forth all over the sections they were covering. Caused quite a stir in the pre-gigabyte Silicon valley days. They didn’t use DC3’s to my knowledge, I remember hueys… distinct whump sound that they made, foreign to the area as it was, as we were all used to the P-3 Orion’s turbo-props. I don’t remember the guy chugging the stuff, but I do remember it getting all over everyones cars. Funny, right after that, the PC revolution really exploded. What “really” was that stuff anyway???

By: steveH

steveH — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 06:57:31 +0000

Babs, Santa Clara County received aerial applications of malathion around 1991. It was mildly creepy watching several DC-3’s fitted with spray rigs flying north to south overhead in line abreast formation.

The spray was a sugar solution laced with malathion, and I guess it, and other measures, kept the Mediterranean fruit fly from spreading.

Some state official answered some complaints about the program by drinking a glass of the spray on TV. He didn’t immediately expire (nor subsequently either, as far as I know).

A number of health studies conducted by the CDC, and other entities, here and in Florida after a similar spray campaign pretty much all returned a verdict of no measurable effect on people or their pets or livestock.

Hard on the fruit flies, but I know that local fruit growers thought of them as unsavoury elements.