Do ya know what ya call an agnostic dyslexic insomniac??

It's a person who lies awake at night wondering if there is a Dog... :D

Glad it worked out for ya... :D Now ya can have typos with the best of us!

"yes, it's true, I am human. I can stub my toe with the best of them."
-Q

:D

Michale

Autocrat is caged! Everyting is warking purfootly now. Frey at last! thank Dog Almighty I'm free at last.

Find the GENERAL section..

Look for the KEYBOARD section..

Auto Correct ON/OFF should be there...

Michale

Thank you in advance for enabling my laziness.

Model???

Speaking of game theory, BBC reports John "Nash Equilibrium" Nash has been killed in a car crash.

I really need to figure out how to kill autocorrect (aka autocratcorrect) on my tablet (see 23)

Arrogance = overly inflated sense of importance and/or ability.

"Close enough for Federation work"
-Lt Hikaru Sulu

:D

Please send CW an English/Michael dictionary. He can post it as another affiliated site on the upper right hand side. This will clear up a lot of confusion and quite likely reduce comment traffic by, maybe 50%?

What fun would THAT be!!?? :D

Given the definition, it's hard to see how a President can be fairly judged arrogant. A President IS important. Even when the USA was just 13 states, but especially now with 50 states, a Triad and a Twitter account. A President can be excused for thinking he (or perhaps she in near future)is very capable. He/(She?) is in charge of a large staff that knows how to work the Triad and Twitter account. Plus, nobody else got as many people to vote them President. Granted, those people are (usually) members of The Electoral College, but hey, important people are are still people (see Mitt Romney). It's not hard to draw an inference, mistaken or not, from this. So let's cut Presidents a little slack on this inflated sense of ability thing.

To be honest, I actually misread DSWS's post initially when I posted... gimme a break, it was 0200!! :D

But the article that put the idea in my head was here:

http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2015/05/16/ted-cruz-the-only-republican-arrogant-enough-to-be-president/?singlepage=true

Michale

"For me, macho=arrogance"

Fair enough, but not in any English dictionary I can find.

Macho = manliness, virility. Comes from the Latin.

Arrogance = overly inflated sense of importance and/or ability.

Please send CW an English/Michael dictionary. He can post it as another affiliated site on the upper right hand side. This will clear up a lot of confusion and quite likely reduce comment traffic by, maybe 50%?

Given the definition, it's hard to see how a President can be fairly judged arrogant. A President IS important. Even when the USA was just 13 states, but especially now with 50 states, a Triad and a Twitter account. A President can be excused for thinking he (or perhaps she in near future)is very capable. He/(She?) is in charge of a large staff that knows how to work the Triad and Twitter account. Plus, nobody else got as many people to vote them President. Granted, those people are (usually) members of The Electoral College, but hey, important people are are still people (see Mitt Romney). It's not hard to draw an inference, mistaken or not, from this. So let's cut Presidents a little slack on this inflated sense of ability thing.

For me, macho = arrogance

And FDR was very VERY macho..

Almost as much as Reagan...

:D

Michale

I completely agree. I would add that Game Theory often tells you the best solution to the problem demands almost literally rolling the dice. Try and sell that in a political market place that actually counts votes. Statecraft is a lot easier if you hold absolute power.

M - 22. how so macho? Teddy, yes, but
FDR?

Yea... Damn that FDR and his macho posturing, eh? :D

Michale

To formulate an overall solution, you have to acknowledge who has real power in a situation -- meaning everyone who has any real power there at all. Then you have to have a genuine understanding of the actual incentives facing all such groups. That includes not just what they say they want, not just what they think they want, not just what they really want, but what they actually believe will enable them to hold or gain the means of getting what they want. Then you have to have a game-theory understanding of commitment -- as applied both the commitments you've made or have the option of making, and as applied to the commitments that the other parties have made or have the option of making.

Macho posturing is a really stupid reason to go to war.

Such a flawed, baggage-ridden and skeleton-ridden a candidate as Hillary Clinton..

And THAT is the best candidate the Dems can field??

Ya'all just GOT to know how bad that makes the Dem Party look..

Michale

This is why I don't think Democrats are much of a threat in the upcoming elections..

Michale

If Hillary has a position on Foreign Policy or National Security that I agree with, I'll give credit where (and when) credit is due..

But, at the end of the day, it all comes down to trust...

Can I.... Can ANYONE trust Hillary to do the right thing for this country??

About the ONLY thing that CAN be trusted is for Hillary to do the right thing... For Hillary..

Michale

Hillary knows how to say all the right things to the right people, I'll give you (and her) that..

But I don't like Hillary for the same reason I don't like Obama..

They can't be trusted...

THAT is all there is to it..

Obama with his Syria "red line" PROVES that he can't be trusted.

Hillary with her dodging sniper fire in Bosnia and her Foundation slush fund PROVES she can't be trusted..

It's really that simple...

And over 60% of Independents, the ones who actually decide elections, agree with me...

Michale

You should really take an unbaised look at what Hillary's foreign policy opinions are.

Short of Joe Lieberman running for Pres., she's about as hawkish a Democrat as you're likely to come across...

Not saying you should jump on Hillary's bandwagon or anything -- feel free to complain about all her other stances all you want. But seriously, dude, for someone who says they're all about projecting American power, Hillary's really your gal on the Democratic side of things.

Give her a chance. You'll probably like her for all the reasons Lefties are very, very wary of her.

I'm just sayin'...

-CW

OK, here you go. Today's column is now up.

http://www.chrisweigant.com/2015/05/21/i-miss-craig-ferguson/

:-)

"Who's that at the door?!?"

Heh.

-CW

Michale

A point I took care to mention..

In this regard (and in many others) you have always looked past the '-x' and held BOTH sides of the aisles feet to the fire...

Pretty soon we will be faced with the "accountability" phase... :D

Michale

IF she truly separates..

The problem is that, to separate herself from Obama, she is going to have to separate herself from herself, as she was Obama's foreign policy for the first four years...

Now, if you think separating herself from herself is going to be easy, especially in such a short time span...

Well, I have some swampland down here these parts for ya?? :D

Michale

Amen to that, brother.

"Quickly! There's no time!" was one of Geoffrey and Craig's best running gags. Right up there with "Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'" in Morgan Freeman's voice. Peterson did the best Freeman imitation I've ever heard.

I thought seriously about writing an article today about "late night suffers loss... it's now been XX days since Craig Ferguson has been on late night" without ever mentioning Letterman. Good to know someone would have appreciated it, if I'd written it!

:-)

Michale [6] -

I don't care who goes first. Hillary's written extensively about what military interventions she was for and against, though, in her book. She's a lot more hawkish than most Democrats, in actuality. That's why I specified there at the end "of both parties" -- because I'd like to hear her attempt to define what would be the "Hillary Doctrine" for foreign intervention.

And for the record, Hillary wasn't always on the same page as Obama. Separating herself in the campaign won't be hard for her to do on individual issues. Not saying I agree with either her or Obama on any of those issues, mind you, but separation won't be hard for her to accomplish.

-CW

This is why Obama's method of dealing with the Middle East has failed and failed miserably..

It's a given that the GOP field will offer solutions and approaches vastly different from Obama's...

If Hillary Clinton doesn't divorce herself from Obama and chart her own course, she is doomed and will not ascend to the Presidency...

The problem with Hillary's divorce is that she is directly responsible for MANY of the problem's the US faces in the Middle East... She CAN'T divorce herself from the very policies she helped put into place...

For this and so many other reasons, I can't see how Hillary can hope to prevail in the coming election...

Michale

Simply impressive...

Michale

The above vision is nonsense. Iraq, as we have known it, is finished. It has broken along Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish fault lines. All the King's air support and all the King's men (that we are able and willing and able to commit)can't put Iraq together again. The Sunni regions will simply resist, cause a steady stream of US casualties, and wait us out. (Question, why does every other third rate power figure this out and not us?) The Sunni's don't have any realistic hope of controlling the Shiite regions either. The Kurds just want out, period, they always have.

ISSL (pronounced aswhole) is just a nastier incarnation of the the old Saddamm talent, with a Wahhabi crew cut and bad manners which are useful in terms of 1) maintaining local crowd control and 2),channeling enough funding from crazy radical Islamic conservatives in Saudi Arabia (and elsewhere to be sure) to keep things going. Oh, and they use foreign fighters which we all know are ever so popular with the locals. Remember how popular the Hessians were with the American Colonists? See local crowd control, above.

The only US strategy that makes any sense to me is to contain the Sunni portion of Iraq, which has never been able to break out and control the whole of what we once regarded as Iraq. Strangle "ISSL's" economy, by blockade, by air interdiction and strategic bombing of power, water and oil. Keep them too busy and too poor to export anything, tangible or otherwise. Turn the place into a roach motel for young, starry eyed Islamic fundamentalists. What goes in never comes out. Sorry, you can't go home again. Enjoy your squalor, sullen wife and eventual green carpet when the locals who know the terrain tire of you. Sorry, no prisoners. The border is as closed as we make it, should you escape be very,very quite and preferably very far away from a Western State. You are a contagion young man or woman. We will kill you if we find you. It's nothing personal. (That was most chilling statement Cromwell made in the Wolf Hall series).

Containment is feasible, given US air, US naval plus Shiite and Kurdish regions which are willing to fight savagely on their own ground, plus basic geography (placement of mountains, deserts and seas, that sort of thing).

It's possible that a partitioned Sunni region of Iraq may toss ISSL out and become a sort of mini Baathist state, with all the charm of the Saddam era. More likely, it just stays a squabbling failed state for one or more decades. That's not great, but it beats a failed state + vast sums of US treasure and a steady stream of dead and maimed US personnel.

Not pretty and Iran might even consider it a victory (until they too get overextended), but to repeat for emphasis, it beats the alternatives. I've left out Syria, which is largely the same deal, but with a boarder to Israel.

I'd be impressed with any candidate, Republican or Democrat thinking along these lines, or any other lines that don't involve magic wands. For all I know, containment may be the unstated policy of the Obama Admin (they don't ask my advice). It might H. Clinton's policy too.

Anyhow, that's my view, have at it folks.

I completely agree...

So, in all fairness, let's here from the Democrat CANDIDATE on these issues first..

THEN we can hear from the POSSIBLE GOP Candidate...

Fair???

Good luck getting Hillary to take a stance on ANYTHING... :D

Michale

I miss Craig, and Letterman is going in 5,4,3,2.....

Given the level of funding for the vets returning from current wars one would think that one of the questions that belongs with the ones you pose would be some form of "will you fully fund on the front end, the treatment and benefits of troops we re committing to any action?"

If fully funding the post office retirement benefits is required, care for troops being sent into harms way should be as well......

That is a question many of us would like to hear an answer to as well...

And, if the P4+1 players endorse the deal, the candidate can't rely on sanctions because that option will be decidedly off the table.

I think they should tell us how they'll pay for their wars before they tell us how many they're going to start.