Expert Opinion
Apparently Dick ‘Dick’ Cheney arose from his undisclosed location [crypt] to opine on the announced cuts at the Department of Defense at Faux News.
Most people don’t know, or have forgotten that ‘Dick’ was the Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush during the first Gulf War, and he cut the Department of Defense budget after the war ended.
If they had followed the Cheney model, they wouldn’t have announced the cuts, they would have waited until the last troops had left Afghanistan and then sent them their ‘Reduction-in-Force’ notices, telling the troops that they no longer had a military career, so they had better start looking for work. That’s how Cheney did it, and he made larger cuts in the DoD budget than are being forced on Chuck Hagel by the Sequester process of the House Republicans.
At the end of a war, troops are demobilized and the force shrinks, just as it always has during the country’s history. Most of the time people are told in advance so they can plan for the change. Cheney thought that was too soft an approach.
Cheney says Zero is more concerned with Food Stamps than national security. Actually a lot of the lower ranks in the military receive Food Stamps because their salaries are so low, and the Food Stamp program has been cut more than the DoD budget, so Cheney is wrong about that too.
19 comments
Same old… yadda. The Chaney clan are always wrong all the time. So no news there. But fools still listen to them. *shrug*
Maybe this will cheer you up a bit. As techdirt put it, “from the this-could-get-interesting dept”:
Google Fiber Teases 34 More Cities With Actual, Honest-To-Goodness Broadband Competition
Yeah… could get interesting! 😉 😀
Real competition is always a good thing, but it is damn hard to find. The cable companies started spreading by making exclusive deals with local governments. If the local people wanted cable tv access, their town or city had to agree to give one of the companies a local monopoly before they would start wiring. After a while the big guys started to buy up the small guys and consolidating into regional monopolies. That’s how we ended up with a handful of companies controlling almost all of the cable market, and doing what they please.
The local cable provider is getting desperate because they have jacked up prices so high, that when the economy went into the tank, cable was the first thing to get dumped.
Google is ready to compete, which means they see this as a profit center and are willing to spend the money, while the others are playing around with stock swaps to form bigger companies.
Plus what’s good for the Internet is good for Google. To a certain extent, anyhow.
LOL That’s for sure badtux! 😀 And Google are not denying that in any way! 😀
They see it as a win-win, with Google having priority of course. Still, at least Google seems to be willing to let people win a bit too, unlike most of the others who just want to rape everyone’s bank accounts and the shirts off their backs! And probably the kidney’s, liver and whatever else they can get off their suckers. As far as they see it, it doesn’t matter how many customers they destroy, there are always plenty more suckers where they came from!
Bah, no news on the military upcoming cuts. As said, it’s how they do it. I mentioned this was coming a few days ago to some young feller that was talking going into the service. Doesn’t take a Wizard to figure that one out.
That and following it up with cuts to the VA. Somehow they don’t mind feeding cannon fodder into the war effort, they just hate fulfilling their implied responsibilities afterwards.
“Still, at least Google seems to be willing to let people win a bit too,”
prediction: just until the competitors are driven out of the market, at which point they will jack up their prices. or possibly keep their prices low and sell all our personal info to everybody and their cousin.
“Apparently Dick ‘Dick’ Cheney arose from his undisclosed location [crypt] to opine ”
🙂
I haven’t even read the rest of your post yet and already my week just got brighter.
“… to opine on the announced cuts at the Department of Defense at Faux News.”
I can’t help wishing Cheney were opining for the fjords.
or possibly keep their prices low and sell all our personal info to everybody and their cousin.
That’s called the Google business plan. 😈
Dizzy, this is like shutting down the Army’s Walter Reed Hospital in Washington while they were escalating two wars – WTF, over?
Draftees received more respect and better treatment than this all-volunteer force. They try to cheat them out the benefits they have earned at every turn, and reduce the services available as the need increases. This is how they ‘respect the troops’.
Google definitely benefits from a better Internet, and they want ‘Net neutrality, unlike the cable companies and telecoms, so there are some benefits from their entry. OTOH, they make their big money in marketing, so they will certainly sell your information to everyone who wants it, just as they do with all of their other services.
I enjoyed writing that sentence, Hipparchia, and Steve, the fjords can’t pine soon enough to suit me. 😉
LOL @ Steve! There are a few others you can add to that list Steve! 😈
What Badtux said! 😀
I figured you had fun with that Bryan. 😉 And why not… it is the only thing that whole crew is good for, providing amusement. Well, that and target practice. *shrug* So sue me. 😛
Google is getting a lot of mileage off Google fiber. From Comcast trying to claim that Google is a sign of competition in an attempt to justify why the FCC shouldn’t worry about antitrust regulations to block the deal to AT&T claiming it will offer the same service…provided they can get the same tax breaks as those offered Google.
Google might have what… several thousands at best actually on their fiber compared to giants like Comcast and AT&T being nationwide carriers?
On the treatment of our vets, someone once expressed it far better than I. If you don’t want to pay for veterans benefits don’t make so many of them. It’s been an understood contract that our country would take care of its own if vets got wounded in the process of serving their country. The shameful part is once it is all over, Washington wants to play like it isn’t their responsibility any more. Or they want to play the numbers game and see how long they can wait it out before they are forced to deal with it, meaning there will be far less to treat by the time they get around to it.
As a last thought, I absolutely loved that line
Ridicule is the best weapon to use on these people and anyone who takes them seriously.
I wish I could get a hold of the letters to the editors of the San Diego Union-Tribune from all of the Navy and Marine pilots who came back from Gulf War I to find out they were being dumped by Cheney. These were experienced combat pilots with up to 16 years in service and being dumped with only four years to go for retirement. They weren’t happy campers.
Dizzy, what is scary about Google is that it doesn’t have any debt, and has a lot of actual cash. Comcast, like most of today’s large corporations is leveraged, and got a lot of debt when it acquired NBC/Universal. They make money hand-over-fist, but will be in major trouble if their revenue stream gets hit. Google is free to go where it wants, or not go anywhere, but Comcast has to keep growing or die, as it has turned itself into a Ponzi corporation one negative outlook from Wall Street analysts away from a meltdown.
This is what happens when corporations pay more attention to the stock market than the market that actually buys their product.
With combat pilots as with every other occupation in which both skill and experience count for a great deal toward desired results, Cheney and his economic cohort, for a couple of decades, seemed obsessed with swapping all serious practitioners of whatever technical and/or performance art for rank beginners, who cost less… if you count only wages in reckoning the cost…
Agree (about Google) Bryan, of course. 🙂
Thinking about ridicule, you had me lamenting the fact that trolls don’t last long here. *sigh* They are such fun!! 😈 (and you know I love tormenting them! It’s more than a hobby!) Don’t know if you remember, but once some time ago when we had that annoying wingnut troll, I said that most trolls I met are mentally unstable etc. Well, finally, a study confirms what most of us have always known. 😉 😆
From the “you-don’t-say” dept @ Techdirt:
Study Shockingly Suggests Internet Trolls May Not Be Very Nice Or Particularly Mentally Healthy In Real Life
DAAAAHHH!
Sadly Steve, you are quite right there. And it’s Global.
@ Kryten42
That last part sounds a lot like troll bait. *blinks*
I agree, Steve, they are all throwing away knowledge and experience for a one-time increase in profits. They aren’t interested in long-term survival, only the numbers in the current quarter. They are eating their seed corn and don’t realize it.
It won’t work, Dizzy. I told him that hanging them in gibbets was a bad idea, but he insisted and scared new trolls away.
Who, me?? 😯 😐
B-b-b-but… I’m nice I am! I love cat’s, and little kids (so long as I can give them back ASAP)… and… well, a few adults. Kinda. Sometimes… 😉 😎
OK, ok… So, I love tormenting Trolls… Hmmph! Everyone needs a hobby… and they are soooo easy and fun to play with! And see, that study shows I provide a public Mental Health service, for free! I should be paid. 😈
I can’t help it! Blame the Military… they gave me the skills, and didn’t take them back! 😉 😆
Anyway, I’m just so bored. *sigh* I’m like a cat without a mouse. Dammit! 😐