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Saudi Says it will Take Arms Bound for Lebanon
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 6: Politix
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Home Front: Politix
So What About 'Trump University'
The Internet has greatly narrowed the field of the seminar folks, simply because it's made information so much more-available at far lower cost. I'm not even slightly surprised that these seminars are gone, having disappeared following the '08 crash, both due to the changes in the real estate market and the proliferation of information via online means.

As for the BBB angle, it's worthless in either direction. As a former CEO my view on the BBB is 180 degrees out-of-phase with that of most consumers. BBB "accreditation" requires membership for a fee. Unfortunately the fact that the BBB is decentralized (the various regional units are more-or-less independent), "pay to play" organization and businesses are the ones paying, while the consumer is the one allegedly protected, along with the fact that their measurement means you can't expect consistency, especially across organizations that are and are not "members" or are and are not "accredited." In other words whether the organization was listed as "A+", "D" or not at all gives you nothing actionable.

In short I don't think there's anything wrong with Trump's organization having a piece of itself that ran seminars that charged an amount of money that was roughly what I'd expect to see charged for this sort of thing. That they ran afoul of a state law on their name doesn't exercise me much either. And finally, given the apparent number of people who took these seminars and that nearly all of them appear to have been happy with what they received I'm trying to figure out exactly what the argument here is. If it's that he made money at it, well, isn't that what capitalists are supposed to be doing?

The bottom line is this: Have you ever seen a business operate with thousands of customers with a 100% satisfaction rate?

Neither have I.
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 || 03/06/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The writer doesn't mention how the affordable seminar pushed attendees to use credit cards to pay an extra $5 to $20 grand for more instruction. Little Hands is a phony crook. Rantburg posting this crap makes me start wondering about its credibility.
Posted by: Don Vito Whuth8374 || 03/06/2016 0:27 Comments || Top||

#2  I don't mind reading what whatever cheerleaders are posting, and it does give the opportunity for the Rantburg community to argue a point, which you did, thank you.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 03/06/2016 1:15 Comments || Top||

#3  This appears to be the author of this editorial.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/06/2016 6:02 Comments || Top||

#4  More new and interesting names posting too.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 03/06/2016 8:00 Comments || Top||

#5  Ditto swksvolFF.

One of the reasons I peruse the 'burg is that knowledgeable commenters are around to apply the appropriate level of skepticism without an immediate recourse to name calling.

It's good to see both sides and think for oneself.
Posted by: AlanC || 03/06/2016 9:13 Comments || Top||

#6  "100% satisfaction rate?"
Most bars I know.
Posted by: Skidmark || 03/06/2016 11:02 Comments || Top||

#7  The author makes a good point. Without questiion, the graduates of TRChump U got scammed. They just need to harness that valuable hands on experience to cultivate their own rackets. And you have to admit the whole Bait and Switch thing has been veddy veddy good for The Donald.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 03/06/2016 12:27 Comments || Top||

#8  these type of seminars still go on, although less than a decade ago and with new players

the trick to getting a good evaluation from the student is to give him the evaluation form after a particularly up session

if they gave evaluations a year after the seminar, it would be a different story
Posted by: lord garth || 03/06/2016 12:33 Comments || Top||

#9  a fool and his money are soon parted
Posted by: 746 || 03/06/2016 14:02 Comments || Top||

#10  @#2: Not a cheerleader, but I understand how these "seminars" work.

Like all self-improvement or career advancement "Ra-Ra's," there will be some who find the subject matter and presentation useful and others who do not. A lot depends upon the anticipated NPV of the seminar which may or may not incorporate the necessary behavior modifications facilitating the successful outcome for the kool-aid drinker sub-set.

There are basic skills that are required for Real Estate investing (not the least of which would be being able to sell your Mother's teeth.), and these things cannot always be taught.

I used to lead training seminars, and was astounded to have a woman attend (2) of the same module yet complained about her first attendance that I was going to fast and the next too slow. My pace did not change...
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 || 03/06/2016 14:19 Comments || Top||

#11  Dear valued friend, I know this may come as huuuge surprise to you, but I trust you to join in a venture with me. It will be wonderful. My name is Prince Donald, from the land of Winners, I desire to move 20 M US votes and deposit them at the Republican convention. I hire only the best people for this endeavor, believe me. That is why you were recommended to me to help...
Boner fooled me once with the same scam, Prince Donald ain't gonna get me on the rebound.
Posted by: Tennessee || 03/06/2016 14:24 Comments || Top||

#12  Anyone but Hillary.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/06/2016 16:15 Comments || Top||

#13  Wasn't getting on ya BU5562 or anyone else, my point was that to not post differing opinions is a credibility issue, and also robs us of a chance for discussion.

In a way, I expect cheerleading from people who are knowledgeable and passionate about a subject.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 03/06/2016 16:28 Comments || Top||

#14  @#13: It's all good!
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 || 03/06/2016 16:30 Comments || Top||

#15  It is funny to read that as a subtitle to that South Africa sign language guy.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 03/06/2016 18:40 Comments || Top||

#16  Oh apparently an exorcism there at #14.5

Just a thought, or observation, whatever. Bennie won Kansas, and I hate Fraggles.

Isn't forgiven student debt for people who went to university and could not find a well paying job afterwards in essence a refund on a poor education?

As a business owner, the nice thing about credit cards is that I get paid no matter what the finances of the customer is or becomes.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 03/06/2016 19:10 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
No longer ‘lone wolves,’ Palestinian attackers pair up
[IsraelTimes] Wednesday morning’s terror attack in Eli highlights a new pattern of ‘cooperative’ strikes in twos and even threes

The terror attack Wednesday morning in Eli, in which local resident Roee Harel was injured and the two gunnies killed, highlights the shift in recent weeks in the modus operandi of Paleostinian attackers, away from the hitherto lone-wolf style of the current wave of violence.

The attackers are now setting out in pairs, sometimes even in threes, to kill Israelis. Paleostinian youths who decide to carry out an attack seem to understand that doing so with a partner or two at their side offers the possibility of causing far greater harm.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/06/2016 00:17 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Culture Wars
WW2 - 11.5%, Vietnam - 4.3%, GWOT - .45%
[RGR UP.com] I remember the day I found out I got into West Point.

My mom actually showed up in the hallway of my high school and waited for me to get out of class. She was bawling her eyes out and apologizing that she had opened up my admission letter. She wasn't crying because it had been her dream for me to go there. She was crying because she knew how hard I'd worked to get in, how much I wanted to attend, and how much I wanted to be an infantry officer. I was going to get that opportunity.

That same day two of my teachers took me aside and essentially told me the following: "Nick, you're are a smart guy. You don't have to join the military. You should go to college, instead."

I could easily write a tome defending West Pont and the military as I did that day, explaining that USMA is an elite institution, that separate from that it is actually statistically much harder to enlist in the military than it is to get admitted to college, that serving the nation is a challenge that all able-bodied men should at least consider for a host of reasons, but I won’t.

What I will say is that when a 16 year-old kid is being told that attending West Point is going to be bad for his future then there is a dangerous disconnect in America, and entirely too many Americans have no idea what kind of burdens our military is bearing.

In World War II, 11.2% of the nation served in four years. In Vietnam, 4.3% served in 12 years. Since 2001, only 0.45% of our population has served in the Global War on Terror. These are unbelievable statistics.

Over time, fewer and fewer people have shouldered more and more of the burden and it is only getting worse. Our troops were sent to war in Iraq by a Congress consisting of 10% veterans with only one person having a child in the military. Taxes did not increase to pay for the war. War bonds were not sold. Gas was not regulated. In fact, the average citizen was asked to sacrifice nothing, and has sacrificed nothing unless they have chosen to out of the goodness of their hearts.

The only people who have sacrificed are the veterans and their families. The volunteers. The people who swore an oath to defend this nation. You.

You stand there, deployment after deployment and fight on. You’ve lost relationships, spent years of your lives in extreme conditions, years apart from kids you’ll never get back, and beaten your body in a way that even professional athletes don’t understand. And you come home to a nation that doesn’t understand. They don’t understand suffering. They don’t understand sacrifice. They don't understand that bad people exist. They look at you like you're a machine -- like something is wrong with you. You are the misguided one -- not them. When you get out, you sit in the college classrooms with political science teachers that discount your opinions on Iraq and Afghanistan because YOU WERE THERE and can't understand the "macro" issues they gathered from books with your bias. You watch TV shows where every vet has PTSD and the violent strain at that. Your Congress is debating your benefits, your retirement, and your pay, while they ask you to do more.

But the amazing thing about you is that you all know this. You know your country will never pay back what you've given up. You know that the populace at large will never truly understand or appreciate what you have done for them. Hell, you know that in some circles, you will be thought as less than normal for having worn the uniform. But you do it anyway. You do what the greatest men and women of this country have done since 1775 -- YOU SERVED. Just that decision alone makes you part of an elite group.

Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/06/2016 13:21 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Thank you to those who serve(d).
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/06/2016 13:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Taxes didn't increase for."the war," but the government spends.more mo ey than ever even if a smaller part than ever actually goes to the military. We make stuff in this country less than ever. The I duztry I was in is imploding even while e eryone talks about how sucessful it is.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 03/06/2016 14:29 Comments || Top||

#3  Damn phone.

Anyway, you could argue that the closest thing we have to a victory is the "fracking revolution,"/which has more to do with directional drilling than it does with fracking. And it's.only because.our government hasn't figured out a.way to throw.it away yet.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 03/06/2016 14:34 Comments || Top||

#4  They already outsource most of it, Thing.
Posted by: Skidmark || 03/06/2016 17:13 Comments || Top||

#5  Directional drilling? Fracking?

Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 03/06/2016 21:52 Comments || Top||

#6  Thing, Next chance you get, check the composition of the drill crew. Or the ownership or seamen on the oil tanker.
Watch the refinery workforce as they go in the plant.
Who owns and operates the local quickie gas station?
Posted by: Skidmark || 03/06/2016 23:41 Comments || Top||


This Week in Books, March 6, 2016
Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy
Ian W. Toll
W.W. Norton and Company, 2006

I chose this book as it closely follows the events described in Washington's Crossing. I was curious about how this new nation was conducting itself in the world theatre, and how we know now that war was coming, while back then of course they did not know what was coming. Initially I chose this book as a topic covering the Barbary War, and ended up with a book which covered a very dynamic and critical period of US history.

Following the War for Independence, the new American States had adopted The Articles of Confederation. After some practice, many shortfalls became problems for the states, and a new form of central government was proposed. The proposed Constitution of the United States was not without controversy, and was in no way guaranteed to be ratified. A chief concern was a powerful central government wielding a military which could dominate its own people: (page 33-34)

On October 27, 1787, the first of the Federalist essays was published in New York. On December 7, Delaware became the first state to ratify the Constitution, followed in quick succession by Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. In the ensuing six months, Maryland, South Carolina, and New Hampshire ratified. That summer, the two largest states in the country, Virginia (June 25, 1788) and New York (July 26, 1788), voted to ratify by narrow margins: 89-79 in Virginia and 30-27 in New York. The new government took effect on March 4, 1789.

Mr. Toll presents the founding of the U.S. Navy with a well written, easy to read, and well researched novel. Mr. Toll's book is divided into three sections: To Provide and Maintain, To the Shores of Tripoli, and England Again. Mr. Toll's book is well referenced and provides (in the hardback book) nice, full color inserts. The information is thorough and relevant to the story, and the action is knuckle binding.

Mr. Toll is fair, and often times critical, of this growing process. He begins by outlining the make-up of the leading naval power at the time, namely the British: (page 7)

The British were happy to trade blows at point-blank range, to fight "ball for ball," because their gunnery was superior to that of their enemies. The potency of British gunnery owed nothing to the weapons themselves, for the French and Spanish ships were armed in much the same way. Nor was it the aim of the British gun crews, for even when their aim was superior it was rarely decisive. The single most important factor was the rate of fire. A British warship would fire three broadsides to every two fired by an enemy ship - if that enemy ship was particularly well manned, well led, and well practiced. More often, the British would get off two or three broadsides to the enemy's one, and the ratio would continuously improve in their favor as the battle wore on toward its inevitable conclusion.

Throughout the book Mr. Toll keeps track of the economic forces involved, as merchant fleet protection was the justification for the massive costs of building and maintaining a navy, as well as the tax revenue needed for the funding: (page 19)

These hopes were quickly dashed. American trade had always depended, above all, on access to England's West Indian colonies. The hungry Caribbean Islands, with their huge slave populations and their narrow economies devoted entirely to cultivation of sugar and coffee, had once consumed more than two thirds of American food exports. In 1783, however, a British Order in Council debarred any American ship from entering any British West Indian seaport. The measure was final, sweeping, and devastating. Cut off from their traditional markets, prices of flour, beef, port, salted fish, naval store, bar iron, and other mainstays of the American export economy fell 30, 40, or 50 percent. By 1788, ship arrivals from the British West Indies had fallen to half of what they had been before the Revolution. With Europe at peace, the vast opportunities offered by the wartime carrying trade would not be available until several years later.

Mr. Toll stays in the historical moment without muddying it with what is coming, just as the participants experienced it. The back and forth between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams is intriguing as they argue what is to be the behavior and role of a United States, especially now that they no longer receive the protection of the British military, especially their navy. But as noble as their ideals were, it would ultimately be others who defined the role of the fledgling United States: (page 35)

You are earnestly desired, as speedily as possible, to give a universal alarm to all Citizens of the United States concerned in navigation, particularly to the southern parts of Europe, of the danger of being captured by the Algerians... A truce for twelve Months is concluded between Portugal and Algiers. In consequence of which a fleet of Algerine Cruizers passed through the Straits into the Atlantic on Saturday night last.

Joshua Humphreys' novel ship design and construction is noted, as well as the operators of the ship yards and their relationship with Mr. Humphreys, which was not always smooth and professional. As a result, uniquely designed ships took on their own personalities, and also utilized a unique building material, the 75 lb per cubic foot Quercus Virens, or live oak: (page 59)

Carpenters prized its uniformity of substance, its straightness of fiber, its smooth consistency, its fine grains. Properly seasoned, it was said to have a life span five time that of white oak. But the shipyard workers also dreaded the extra work it took to cut, shape, and manipulate live oak, and they rolled their eyes whenever a new load of timber sections was brought into the yard. A nail driven into it was nearly impossible to extract. Axes bounced off it and saws moved back and forth across it again and again, making little or no discernible progress. Nothing took the sharpness out of a ship carpenter's tools as quickly as well-seasoned live oak.

Mr. Toll delves into the exploits of the US Navy versus the various Barbary States, including the ignominious grounding of the Philadelphia and the daring raid to destroy her, and the lead up and consequences of the War of 1812. But what I found more interesting was the first engagement during the Qasi War versus the French: (page 118)

As Constellation closed the gap with the fleeing L'Insurgente, the great weight of her 24-pounder guns caused her to heel excessively to leeward. To keep his ship upright, Truxtun was forced to run out his windward guns and keep the leeward guns housed behind closed ports. Here was a dramatic proof of the dangers of overarming. The Constellation held the weather gauge - could engage the enemy from windward - and tactical doctrine dictated that Truxtun must conserve this valuable advantage. Yet, doing so would require him to bring his leeward battery into action. With the Constellation a cable length astern of the French vessel, Truxton decided to surrender the weather gauge by crossing the Insurgente's wake and running under her lee.

As you can see, there are a number of nautical terms a reader must be at least familiar with. Having a diagram depicting parts of a sailing ship, weather, and directions in the book would have been helpful for this Kansas landlubber, allowing me to page back and forth within the book instead of stopping to look up the terms and lose the moment - though re-reading with understanding was still enjoyable.

I recommend Six Frigates, and am interested in Mr. Toll's other books.

Link is to Amazon's Six Frigates
Posted by: swksvolFF || 03/06/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good review. I bought this book last summer for my Kindle, but haven't gotten around to reading it. I'll have to move it up in the queue.
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 03/06/2016 17:31 Comments || Top||

#2  Thank you. It was difficult to not quote the book in its entirety.

Mr. Toll gets into the politics of the venture as well, and it was not pretty.

Mr. Toll also makes the case that the War of 1812 was of significance; that the British would talk to the Americans at the adult table afterwards, and that it was the navy and privateers who won that honor after the army failed everywhere but New Orleans.

To be fair, Mr. Toll does make a case that a failure at New Orleans could have resumed hostilities, or at least given the British a strong hand in the Mississippi River System and checked American westward expansion. Mr. Toll states that had hostilities continued for another year, the United States quite possibly would have dissolved.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 03/06/2016 19:00 Comments || Top||

#3  I just started reading "The Conquering Tide", part two of Toll's Pacific War Trilogy.

Good stuff.
Posted by: charger || 03/06/2016 20:59 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
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Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
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Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
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Two weeks of WOT
Sun 2016-03-06
  Saudi Says it will Take Arms Bound for Lebanon
Sat 2016-03-05
  Taliban says will not take part in Afghan peace talks
Fri 2016-03-04
  Fresh tunnel dug from Pak to RS Pura to push fidayeens detected
Thu 2016-03-03
  Gulf nations declare Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorist organization
Wed 2016-03-02
  France pushes ahead with 'Jungle' migrant camp clearance after clashes
Tue 2016-03-01
  Taseer's killer Mumtaz Qadri hanged
Mon 2016-02-29
  Suicide attack thwarted in Kabul, 14-year-old would-be bomber arrested
Sun 2016-02-28
  Soddys intercept Iranian arms shipment to Yemen
Sat 2016-02-27
  Another suspected ISIS chemical weapons attack investigated in Kurdistan Region
Fri 2016-02-26
  Pakistan Starts ’Last Phase’ of anti-Militants Offensive
Thu 2016-02-25
  ISIS Fighters Claim Pakistan Funded Them
Wed 2016-02-24
  Iraqi koppers round up 35 in Babylon
Tue 2016-02-23
  US drone strike leaves 3 militants dead along Durand Line
Mon 2016-02-22
  Three Terrorist Attacks Target Sayyeda Zeinab Area in Rural Damascus, Kill 50
Sun 2016-02-21
  46 dead in Homs bomb attack

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