text:
U.S. Considering 'Military Options' to Stem Rise of Islamic State in Libya
We have always been at war with terror, or Libya, or ISIS, or whoever
Ed Krayewski | 1.27.2016 9:39 PM
(ISIS)
As the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) grows its influence on the ground in Libya, the Pentagon says it's considering "military options" to prevent the would-be caliphate's growth in a third oil-rich nation in the Middle East/North Africa.
President Obama and former Secretary of State and current Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton both say they understand how the prosecution of the Iraq War contributed to the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)—the war created a power vacuum within which extremist forces like Al-Qaeda were able to organize and evolve, and from which ISIS eventually emerged.
They say they understand the connection, but perhaps they only understand the political expediency of being able to blame ISIS on George W. Bush, a member of the other party. Certainly, neither has yet appeared to articulate an understanding of how the 2011 U.S.-led intervention in Libya, which led to the toppling of the Qaddafi regime, created a power vacuum within which extremist forces like Al-Qaeda were able to organize, and which ISIS eventually took advantage of to secure its own stronghold outside its Iraq-Syria mainland.
As Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), the only Republican presidential candidate who appears to understand how George W. Bush's policies contributed to the rise of ISIS, rightly points out that understanding the negative consequences of interventionist foreign policy is critical to formulating foreign policy that can avoid those consequences.
That's about to get even more important. Obama, Clinton, and the Democratic foreign policy establishment can't pin the blame on the ISIS presence in Libya on George W. Bush. In fact, under the Bush administration, U.S.-Libya relations even began to normalize somewhat after Col. Qaddafi unilaterally offered to give up his chemical and nuclear weapons research. But when the U.S. insisted it had an international "responsibility to protect" the people of Libya from the threat of massacre by their government, President Obama—who had made nuclear disarmament one of his early foreign policy goals—did not even mention how U.S. military action against Libya less than a decade after it agreed to disarmament might discourage other states from giving up their potential nuclear arsenals.
In the nearly five years since the U.S.-led intervention, Libya has spiraled into chaos. There are currently two competing governments, plus ISIS' would-be state in Sirte. Weapons and fighters flooded out of Libya after the intervention, destabilizing countries from Nigeria to Syria. On September 11, 2012, militants attacked the U.S. complex in Benghazi, killing the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans. It's unclear what the U.S. was doing in Libya then, what motivated the attackers or, for that matter, what the U.S. is doing in Libya now.
And that the Pentagon is now considering military options against ISIS doesn't change any of that. Using military force is not a comprehensive strategy. Even that, apparently, was not a lesson learned from Iraq. Incidentally, in an interview on the BBC tonight, former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel noted that the U.S.'s "Assad must go" strategy in Syria was constricting U.S. options on ISIS, an organization Hagel said the U.S. had "underestimated." So U.S. foreign policy makers still haven't grasped how toppling regimes without considering the consequences can aggravate instability.
Not long ago, in his final State of the Union, President Obama mocked Sen. Ted Cruz, another Republican presidential candidate, for suggesting he wanted to carpet bomb ISIS. But the U.S. is dropping so many bombs on ISIS its running out of ordnance. And now it's pondering a new strategy for ISIS in Libya, of dropping even more bombs, and supporting even more "moderate rebels." The difference in flavor on rhetoric doesn't matter when the policies are largely simplistic in the same way, especially to the people who end up having bombs dropped on them.
Related: ISIS is Expanding. Should U.S. Military Bases Abroad Expand Too?
NEXT: People For The American Way Teacher Unions
Ed Krayewski is a former associate editor at Reason.
Libya ISIS Hillary Clinton Rand Paul Interventionism Foreign Policy
Pl?ya Manhattan.
January.27.2016 at 9:47 pm
OH THANK GOD
I was just wondering how Libya was doing.
January.27.2016 at 10:42 pm
Even better having one of the architects of the present Libya fiasco to vote for ! Who better to fix something she helped break !
"Dad?!? I promise I'll help glue the lamp back together!!!"
C'mon, your kids know the phrase:
"Dad, it BROKE!"
Tejicano
Learning the passive voice early now…
January.28.2016 at 12:35 am
That's why we need HM to explain again why "it broke" grammatically isn't passive but everyone understands that it's passive.
We came, we saw, he died. Hahaha – yeah, hilarious Hillary.
Seriously what an awful person she is. http://levantreport.com/2016/0…..-and-gold/
Well at least when conquerors of old got around to the conquering phase things generally started to stabilize. These days we don't have either the moral reasons nor the balls to actually conquer so the ending isn't so happy for anybody.
It's like throwing a grenade into Chick Fil A and claiming victory in the aftermath.
A victory for tolerance?
…and then calling them for a big take-out order.
Libya has spiraled into chaos. There are currently two competing governments, plus ISIS' would-be state in Sirte.
But ? isn't competition supposed to be *good*?
wareagle
Good thing that thug Qaddafi is not around anymore. You would have thought the one glaring lesson in Saddam's removal would be that a known bad guy who keeps things under relative control and contains them within his borders is better than multiple even worse guys not just fighting each other but also, willing to export the violence.
Contrarian P
Hey, I have it on good Canadian authority that if Saddam was still there the situation would be even worse!
John Titor
Someone really needs to add 'Argumentum ad alternis historia' to the list of logical fallacies.
but without the alternis, historia wouldn't be nearly as much fun.
Oh God the irony….
So the implied alt reality where Sadaam is in charge and everything is better…somehow…is okay, but not if I make the argument that there are reasons to believe this reality would be worse?
Well, see Cytotoxic, when people suggest that Saddam was a better alternative, they base this on a thing called reality and the actual history of Iraq. His reign, while certainly awful, wasn't a failed state filled with religious maniacs. Suggesting that Saddam would have kept a bloody peace is still absolutely a guessing game, but it's at least somewhat backed up by his record. No one suggesting that Saddam might have been better is basing this on a desire to see Saddam in power or actual support for the man.
What you have is a magical declaration that you which just so happen to know exactly what outcomes would occur and that those outcomes just so happen to match up exactly with your positions. In short, your credibility is garbage because it's obvious that your fantasy Iraq is blatant projection of your views.
There's no reason to believe it would be better. See 'Assad' and 'Syria' for what could be.
"willing to export the violence."
The problem here is that Libya under Qaddhafi already exported violence. Libyans featured prominently in Jihadism. Even B2TF referenced this.
America should not go around toppling dictators but this notion that strongmen could give us peace is just wrong. If they did then Syria would be more peaceful than Libya and it's not. These strongmen types from Tito to Assad engender the conditions that lead to civil war in their country.
Are you suggesting the Syrian war was just the result of a purely domestic uprising? Kinda ignores Qatar, Turkey, Saudi, French, US actions in the funding the insurgency. Shit ambassador Stevens was meeting with his Turkish counterpart the day he died organizing moving weapons and takfiri head choppers from Libya to Syria.
esteve7
What does Trump think about this?
/Oh God
Is it sad that compared with Hillary, Bernie, or Bush I actually think Trump may have a better response ? Yea, it is sad, but probably because it is true. Fuck my life.
d3x / dt3
January.28.2016 at 1:43 am
Yeah, well what about Hitler?
What is "TKTKTK"?
So Bush is back in office?
He never left.
Got a hell of a tan, din't he? And his health insurance scheme sucks.
TheZeitgeist
Something also happened to Laura, something terrible.
I hear she killed a guy in high school.
That one who was snoring too loud?
It's not that Bush is still in office. The problem is that most people are not aware that Libya exists inside a "Non-Obama-Influenced" force field. Everything that has happened there since 2008 cannot possibly be connected to anything which Obama did or failed to do. This extends to anything coming from Libya as well.
LynchPin1477
Wait, you think the public is aware that Libya exists at all? Or that anything has happened there since 2008? You are too optimistic.
Having lived outside the US for a couple decades I have comen to see that many Americans see the world outside the US as something like a TV show. They know the main characters, know the story line, but in their minds it's not really happening.
To be fair I doubt that place would be any better off if America had not done anything there.
JeremyR
Eh. Bush wasn't great, but at least he understand, at least in Iraq, then you need an occupation army, you can't just remove power and expect the vacuum to be filled peacefully in a few years.
The surge worked until Obama pulled the troops out.
JeremyR|1.27.16 @ 11:06PM|#
So, it'd all be great if we left a couple hundred thou troops on permanent duty there?
Yeah, that 'works'; you pay for 'em, OK?
Then it didn't work.
By all means, let's surge for several years decades generations. How long should a war against a second world nation reasonably last?
As long as toxic gets his rocks off killing brown people.
You do know that Obama pulled the troops out based on the timeline Bush negotiated with the Iraqis, right? He did try to negotiate a longer stay, but since they are a sovereign country and all, we kind of needed to leave, even if that meant letting them stand on their own.
Forget it; he's rolling.
Hyperbolical (wadair)
The problem is distrust between the shia and sunni (and kurds). The Iraqis are just not ready for representational government because of the distrust between sects. Until they can develop basic trust of the individual they will forever be tribal. It matters not who is in charge. Saddam Hussein succeeded only through the threat of violence and death. They need either another strong man or a separate state for each tribe. The best solution is to divide the country into three areas: one for the sunni; one for the shia; and one for the kurds. And maybe a fourth for the smaller groups like the marsh arabs.
OneOut
My new litimus test.
Is it worth borrowing money for ?
Suthenboy
MaxBlancke
If nothing else, ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq ans Syria) or ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) is going to have to change their name to include much of Africa, the Phillipines, Indonesia, Eastern Europe, and wherever they go next.
ISILNAPIEEE
kbolino
The name was already shortened to "Islamic State" but most people still call them ISIS because it's easy to say and generally unambiguous (the ancient Egyption goddess notwithstanding).
I'm sure they wouldn't mind if you just called them "The Caliphate", though.
If you experience warboners in excess of four years, seek immediate medical attention.
… or yank that sucker out by the roots
This seems belated. Joe "I got this shit covered" Biden announced that the US and Turkey had a military plan in place for the destruction of ISIS 4 days ago
I got five bucks on 'Restore the Ottoman Empire'.
Lemme guess, bet on coyote brown and desert camo being a fashion thing for US troops for a while longer?
You misspelled "the Kurds".
Perhaps they will destroy some kurds too. Eggs, omelets.
ant1sthenes
Seems stupid to attack the specific organization of ISIS without recognizing the problem of the underlying ideology of Muslim supremacism that is providing the fuel for the fire and the justification for the worst atrocities, and is motivating like-minded hate groups in other places.
Of course, if we were to recognize that, we would also have to inconveniently recognize that some of our so-called "allies" are promoting the same ideology. But what's the point of fighting the KKK (extralegal MuSup radical terrorist groups) while tolerating Jim Crow (Sharia law in "legit" countries)? Especially since it's Jim Crow that helps legitimize the actions of the KKK, and, with the full resources of an established state at its disposal, it's Jim Crow that does the greater harm overall.
Deja-fucking-vu all over again – copy-paste that one more time and I believe most of us will have it memorized.
HazelMeade
Can't wait to hear Hillary brag about her record as Secretary of State.
Well, I guess then that at THIS point it will be making a difference?
Wasteland Wanderer
Huh…I found an article by Jazz Shaw on police abuse, and it actually didn't suck much.
When is a dog worth more than a quarter million dollars?
Out in Colorado we learned the answer to the question in the title of this post. A dog can be worth a lot of money if somebody shoots it for no good reason, and that includes police officers. (Yahoo News)
This case was outrageous when it first hit the news and it's no less disgusting now. The cop involved in the shooting was charged with animal cruelty, but was acquitted. I have no idea why. There's a video out there of the shooting (filmed by a neighbor) but I won't even link to it here because it's so disturbing. The dog in this case was not attacking the officer or anyone else and, in fact, was cowering in fear. … While that's the owner's fault and not the dog's, there will still unfortunately be times when a dog has to be dispatched. That wasn't the case here.
Of course, he had to go and ruin it a bit with this:
As a side note, when I was discussing this case with a couple of friends one of them remarked that I seem to have more sympathy for dogs than I do for criminal suspects and I come down harder on the cops in defense of an animal than some human beings. I can't really argue with that one.
Agile Cyborg
Jazz Shaw this fucking marmalade font bespokes. Well… Jazz Shaw is the name of my drug dealer, babe. She wears mini skirts and always grabs me by the throat when I get a bag of heroine from her and I think her shit is too serious for fucking shit but I am a dreamer and she is hated by the government so I get that she kicks me in the FUCKING throat and crap but I been buying from her for years. SHIT!
a bag of heroine
How many heroines are in a bag?
Heroic Mulatto
Ruin it? Sad Fedora Man should be praised for his keen sense of self-awareness. Dude has no illusions about himself.
Bill Dalasio
That was funny. His hat wasn't even a fedora. It was more of a trilby.
time now could be copy pasta since baby jesus stroked his penis….
War and its shrill bullets and angry zeals line every century
and most of this shit is due to fucking heaven seeking assholes or rpg bureaucrats who enjoy tromping through thick layers of civilians kneeling all soft and shit under the holidays and crap.
Ken Shultz
"And that the Pentagon is now considering military options against ISIS doesn't change any of that."
If the Pentagon isn't considering military options against ISIS, then whomever is in charge should be fired immediately and someone competent should be put in his or her place.
The Pentagon should have working plans ready to meet any potential threat to American security from anywhere in the world. If they don't have a plan to invade North Korea, Russia, Iran, and China, either individually or collectively, then why do we have such incompetent people running the Pentagon? And if we should have working plans ready to invade every one of our potential enemies, then why we wouldn't we have one against ISIS?
Whether we should execute any particular plan is another question entirely. Whether we should have a plan ready isn't even a worthy topic of discussion. Don't worry about what we'll do if the building catches on fire–we'll figure it out once the alarms go off and the place starts burning down? Just because I'm a libertarian doesn't mean I have to play stupid.
Only potential enemies? You're not thinking broad enough. There's a historical precedent for 'hypothetical war plans against people who we're actually on pretty good terms with.'
Well that's my point, really.
We should have a plan to invade anywhere int eh world we might need to invade.
I rerun my scenarios on my projects several times a week. What if instead of building it out and leasing, I sell the buildings? What if I only build out half and self the other half of the land? What if I don't build and just sell the land instead? What if I lease and hold? What if I sell the buildings individually? As a group to a REIT?
At all times, I know exactly what I'm doing and why. As things change, so do my plans–but I have plans ready for anything.
Why wouldn't the Pentagon be at least as diligent as I am? Their legitimate responsibility in a libertarian world is to protect our rights from foreign threats. They should have a plan to invade any spot in the world where a threat to our rights may be. And those plans should be updated regularly.
Hell, the Pentagon should have a plan to retake Seattle if its invaded by a foreign power. I'm not alarmed if the Pentagon has a plan to invade Seattle. I'd be relieved to learn that somebody in the government somewhere might be semi-competent.
Journalists have a tendency of confusing having war plans (the actual job of any competent military) with implementing said plan.
If Ken looked into the scary ghost stories of the past lurking behind his grave he'd find that all his super duper radar coding imagination crap would matter about as much as all the running humans in the ancient days. Ken, Agile, Reason, and all the bitches can't save no sins.
the future is built on the tables of the billionaires and we are the scat screaming into the willows, boy.
Hope for the best; plan for the worst.
That's all I'm sayin'.
Well, that and, "Illegetimi non carborundum!"
well ken is a lovely boy to be sure
We war game the fuck out of every place on the map…..except for Libya, we can't wargame that. We have no experience with the results of overthrowing Islamic nations and dictators which could result in the rise of violence and we would never plan for contingencies like the embassy being attacked and maybe have rapid response units like the 173rd sitting in Italy ready to go and send them to assist…..at least not when the specter of "Desert One" and an election close by looming exists.
I think my goal is not to be deployed around the time of the next election. Fuck my life.
well, yes. sleighbells of hells pulverized randomly based on dummy militaristic shitty fuck bulbs. This is modern Murica. Get used to it, strong boys and girls. Your military is about as smart as wallpaper.
Yeah, 18 years and change on the meter – hoping to roll through to 20 without getting sand in my boots. Too old for that now (aren't we all?).
Ken, you and I both know they have any number of plans for military options against ISIS. My assumption about this most recent "considering" phase simply means evaluating which of those plans best matches the "goals" – stated, implied, or expected – given to them by the administration.
Just for the record, I oppose putting troops on the ground in Libya–and for many of the same reasons why I opposed the invasion of Iraq.
I support having a plan to do so.
My guess is this is some kind of trial balloon. They want to gauge how much opposition there would be by floating the idea out there in the press.
Myself, I also oppose putting troops in Syria for personal reasons – since I could be one of those troops (reservist) and don't think the issue is one to send any Americans out to get involved in.
With the current administration the pentagon now has to be doing due diligence for both the military and political outcomes from any engagement we get into. Regardless of what Obama and his group "think" about a situation you can bet they have overlooked or underestimated any number of factors which will put leave over-extended military swinging in the wind if they don't consider those issues themselves. So when the braindead media reports that the pentagon is "considering" something you know it means that they are shuffling through pre-registered plans and adjusting for relevant changes.
I don't want to see ground troops in Syria either. I would expect that to end up very much like Iraq did.
The problems we're seeing in the Muslim world are inter-generational, social and cultural changes–much like what happened in Europe during the Enlightenment and the Reformation.
There were plenty of wars fought over that stuff in Europe, too. No particular war was the solution to those social and cultural changes, and invading Syria won't do anything to stop the process of cultural and social change in Syria or the rest of the Muslim world either.
The real world solutions to social and cultural change don't necessarily sink up to our four year election cycles. It will take decades for the forces that have been unleashed in the Muslim world to play themselves out. The best we can hope for in coming decades is to worry about our own security interests–protect our own territory, our own people, and our rights. Our military is not the solution to cultural and social change in the Muslim world. How could it be?
You new what I meant.
I guess I just didn't here it or couldn't sea it.
No but ISIS is just a side-effect of that cultural chance and it needs solving. The US military and ground forces may just be a necessary solution to that problem.
Ccytotoxic|1.27.16 @ 11:31PM|#
Fuck you with an ISIS dick. Get lost.
Thanks for the typically insightful post Sevo. Maybe you and the coatrack you've dressed up as your late wife can delve into further detail.
Cytotoxic|1.27.16 @ 11:42PM|#
"Thanks for the typically insightful post Sevo."
Fuck you for your normal stupidity, asshole.
"No but ISIS is just a side-effect of that cultural chance and it needs solving.
It's part of that change. So is the Muslim Brotherhood. So was Al Qaeda.
Our military is not the solution to the Muslim world's struggle with modernity and all that entails.
If we wiped out ISIS, the cultural and social forces that created it would remain.
All the Islamist and terrorist groups that have emerged since the end of colonialism–in all different parts of the Muslim world. And we're not even just talking about Sunnis.
There are the people who rose up against the modernization efforts of Ataturk–that was in the 1930s. There was the emergence of extremism in Pakistan after partition. There was the Algerian War in the '50s and '60s. There was the emergence of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. There was the emergence of the Ayatollah Khomeini's movement in opposition to the Shah in Iran. There was the emergence of Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon. The Mujaheddin, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban in Afghanistan. . . . we haven't even started talking about the Palestinians, and there are plenty more where those came from in the Philippines, central Asia, and elsewhere.
But if we take out ISIS, that's gonna fix it?
The cultural and social changes that made ISIS have been in play for decades already, and it will take them decades more to play out entirely. Taking out ISIS (even if we could) wouldn't address those cultural and social forces.
Let's concentrate on doing what we can to protect ourselves. When ISIS attacks we should retaliate, by all means, but putting troops on the ground in Syria won't even address (much less fix) cultural and social change.
It's like trying to fix what's wrong with inner city communities by way of the Drug War. The police aren't the solution to what makes people drop out of school, get pregnant as teenagers, join gangs, or use drugs. If anything, using the police to address those problems makes things worse.
"…Our military is not the solution to cultural and social change in the Muslim world. How could it be?"
Eeny, meeny, miny, mo………..
It's hard to decide which murderer-dictator to hate more, but Hitler is a valid contender, since he was the proximate cause of a war which suggested the US military *could* do that. Ike in Europe, Mac in Japan, and by appearances, they did make it happen.
It's not true, of course; the circumstances in both locations had nothing to do with the dysfunction in the near- and mid-east, but to those who wallow in 'the greatest generation' BS, it's a hard sell.
Japan and Germany are different for a number of reasons, the extremes we were willing to go to in order to defeat them being one.
If you want to drop nuclear bombs on the Muslim world, like we did with Japan, or reduce cities like Hamburg, Dresden (almost as many people died in the bombing of Dresden as died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined), then the Muslim world might capitulate like Japan and Germany did.
Ignoring the ethical problems, there are other reasons why that might not work. For one, Japanese and German aggression originated with their respective governments. Take out the Nazis, and that's over. Take out the Japanese government, and the threat is gone.
In the case of terrorist organizations, like ISIS, we're not talking about governments per se. If you take out the government of Libya, as we've seen, the social and cultural forces that created terrorists all over the Muslim world remain. It's not the governments that are willfully originating the terrorism (for the most part). No doubt, Hezbollah gets its funding and directions from Iran and Syria, and if the governments of Iran and Syria fell, their funding would dry up. Would they go the way of the dodo bird? I don't think so. I think they'd become more like the Daesh.
Meanwhile, terrorist organizations in the Sunni world flourish without state support. How will removing governments (like we did in Germany and Japan) eliminate ISIS as a threat?
Another difference is that with Germany and Japan, we only had to concentrate our firepower on a relatively limited area in order to force their complete capitulation. Firebomb Tokyo, drop nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki–and Japan was done. Getting to where we could hit the Germans and Japanese homelands was difficult, but once we could, it was game over.
In order to force that kind of capitulation in the Muslim world, you're going to have to do that to every country in North Africa, around the horn, and a lot of countries in Central Africa, too. You're going to have to force the capitulation of every country in the Middle East, going into Central Asia, the Balkans, you may have to invade the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, parts of the former Soviet Union.
There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, and they are spread out all over a big part of it. That's not like it was with Japan or Germany.
"With the current administration the pentagon now has to be doing due diligence for both the military and political outcomes from any engagement we get into."
Uh, does this 'due diligence' include, like, maybe, ignoring an order from the CinC? 'Cause if it does, we may have *worse* problems than a lying POS in the WH.
No, I don't think they would exactly ignore an order from the CinC. They might implement it a little differently, or react to expected outcomes in ways the CinC didn't foresee, want, or have time to counter. I'm pretty sure the pentagon has learned to play their role as if the CinC is five steps behind and looking at the wrong map.
— Long-dead German guy
Sounds like he both had a plan and was correct in his estimation of plans
Ken has more sense in his right arm that Ed has ever had.
"The best we can hope for in coming decades is to worry about our own security interests–protect our own territory, our own people, and our rights. Our military is not the solution to cultural and social change in the Muslim world. How could it be?"
You're right; he points out that you don't have a brain in you head. Get lost.
Again you demonstrate that you can't read. And I'm not going anywhere. Fuck yourself.
"Again you demonstrate that you can't read."
They don't teach reading in Canuskistan? Or are you just a fucking ignorant piece of shit too stupid to learn?
Fuck off, slimy war monger.
Migrant Log Chipper
Cyto has a war boner….who fucking knew…fuck off or sign up, douchebag. Foreign nationals can can enlist and get the prize…dood that's you….you can be a citizen. Sign up jackass and then we might take you seriously. Other than that STFU canucktard.
Years of days here accomplish few justices. Decades of hand raised jerking cringes might write the occasional wince on the mona lisa alley that lurks behind the pretend rockets jetting pleasures to the deep universe.
Melissa Click has been suspended.
Go ahead and giggle.
On hooks?
Isn't that nice!
America is the earth concrete of angel festivals. American interests are so fucking insecure that shitty politicians have to party with politicians of the world in a bureaucratic smash fest and as such American dreams of freedom and liberty travel on the rest of the world clouds and merge with nasty shitty puddles so fucking dark and lurking with goddamn brutal bloody dungeon masters…
yea, America should avoid the rest of the goddamn world because it sucks hell balls.
Solitary paradises are suck ass because bombs can't reach the beaches of paradise
the winds of hemisphere histories trickle down contemplative streams, boy
Damaged centuries have what right to demand notice? The ancient killing fields sweep up like earth fogs and the screams of the lost vanquish like flightless angels.
no demand of a struggling piece of bloodlet land has a right to forgiveness.
It's unclear what the U.S. was doing in Libya then
I thought it was clear we were running an armaments buy-back program to stabilize Libya while outfitting the non-Kurdish freedom fighters seeking to overthrow Assad. Kind of a "Caliphate for clunkers".
At this point the story of that past situation is such a salad of different viewpoints, cover-ups, fcuk-ups, and finger pointing I wouldn't believe anybody unless I could verify that the person telling the tale had actually been there and had provable reason to tell the truth.
A commenter earlier stated that the problem with this theory is that it makes no sense logistically or otherwise.
Actually, that commenter was commenting on your stupidity.
Well you've convinced us all. Thanks again for another insightful comment.
"Us"? Is that a turd in your pocket?
I didn't have to convince anyone of your stupidity; you do so with no help at all.
What 'theory'?
"years before Congress approved the $500m program to arm the Syrian rebels, the CIA had been running its own separate Syrian rebel-arming program since at least 2012. It was reported prominently by the New York Times at the time and approved by the president.
In fact, just before Congress voted, Senator Tom Udall told Secretary of State John Kerry, who was testifying in front of the foreign relations committee, "Everybody's well aware there's been a covert operation, operating in the region to train forces, moderate forces, to go into Syria and to be out there, that we've been doing this the last two years." In true Orwellian fashion, Kerry responded at the time: "I hate to do this. But I can't confirm or deny whatever that's been written about and I can't really go into any kind of possible program."
Also conveniently ignored by Congress and those advocating for arming the rebels was a classified study the CIA did at the time showing that arming rebel factions against sitting governments almost always ends in disaster or tragedy."
Re: Logistics didn't appear to be a problem
the source of that quote above there was the Guardian
It was notable that most of the reporting on the arms-smuggling going on in 2011-2013 was covered in much detail by UK press, while the few NYT/WSJ stories hardly ever went to the same lengths to document things.
""Caliphate for clunkers""
That my friend is well done.
where the clouds of living were bashed and ruined by the violent into ceaseless trauma…
the earth humans should never forgive genocides.
The earth friends should gather and kill genocidal kings.
The earth has far too many human assassins. we must save the innocent and young and lost falling under the bludgeons of hell happening every fucking year on this fucking round ball of bullshit
__Warren__
Someone is trying to control Isis' labia?
Get fucked up on heroine the planet can float in your goddamn hand… saving the innocents from the serial killer hordes isn't that fucking hard.
cut the planet into shade
with clip brakes wade
undertow the foam of snake
skulls stretching the travel
rolling across the ocean navel
the receiving troughs of
roiling calls and haunts
press upon agile's wants
and agile roils among the songs
of this verbs and fonts wands
lusting deep into the oceansides
where the cascades
break the lodes of
watchful eyes,
and brown hats
Speaking of Hillary, I saw something on Whisper (of all places) that I thought was insightful: the suggestion that Hillary intentionally put classified information on her insecure server so that the Chinese (or whoever) could steal it, in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation.
What do you think? It's an angle that I've never seen mentioned. Seems plausible.
Sounds convoluted. Why invent a cunning plan, when a stupid-simple one will work?
Because she can deliver the goods by just making them "available" online, in a deniable way.
Suell
I don't think so. Why bother doing that when you can openly solicit large donations to Clinton Inc. while serving as SoS? She thought she was being clever by having the server in some start ups bathroom, and figured the Teflon would keep on keeping them protected. Straight up hubris, that's what it was, as she has a stockpile of it.
PapayaSF|1.28.16 @ 12:08AM|#
Stupidity over cupidity any day!
Internet hooligan
I don't think that Hillary is that smart and she stopped even trying to hide her own corruption a long time ago. She still believes that the Clinton's are untouchable, a political dynasty, too big to jail, and that it's still her turn.
"So, Secretary Clinton, our government has noticed that you are running your own email server. If some classified emails on subjects of interest to us happened to be there, a very large donation would be made to your family foundation, in appreciation for all the good work that you do."
Not impossible nor completely improbable, but I would think that the corruption was much more subtle. She has had some time to polish that part of the act.
I speculated earlier that the info probably went to Putin via her server. This is interesting. Deliberate, eh? I can see that.
Hard to believe she's that corrupt, but she has a history…who knows.
Ah an Ed article. I'm sure it's full of non-sequitors, misdirection, and lies. When was the last time this guy wrote anything that wasn't cliff-dropping material?
You must be *this* tall to warmonger.
NOT a fucking way spotify is feasible or bright.
No fucking way. Spotify is built on the dollars of dummies.
The earth time muse pops boobs of steel called blue 6 inch dicks, bro.
Agile is listless behind the ghost of a living poltergeist the FUCKING AMAZING DEAD voice sinatra. fuck. me.
well fuck what the fuck is that up there? simply opined a thought piano and that pyramid crap piled on my spine and cock
old Frank be breaking agile's neck tonight. Agile get attitude adjusted from dead geniuses. so behind the clouds and moons I, agile, and living on the old amazing lasers of fucking old skool motherfuckers
see, Agile walks the sunshine of the sands and gets attached to the thunders of pennies streaming from the comets of bursting trumpets and twizzling horns and shit, bros.
i did push that button once but christ a button ain't a real button right these days man?
Quincy.
Goddamn touch screens.
agile will be banned for sure
just wrote some crap and pushed buttons and shit under the old skool screams
The good news is that ISIS lost some ground in Libya a while ago. Apparently some ISIS are considering making Sirte into a bolt-hole if their project in the Levant fails. Which is a good sign maybe it means they are doing badly there.
The good news is that war-boner ignoramuses like you have no effect on what happens here.
Get lost; you're disturbing adults.
Shut up! Cytotoxic is the smartest 14 year old Canadian here!
His mom told him so!
I'm sure that it'll just take 1-2 Friedman units before those dead-enders give up. Just like how now Iraq is practically Switzerland.
Heck, it'll practically be paradise by the time you get to high school.
behind the dimension of wee small hours the agile shall dive
'Pastafarian' will lose his licence if caught driving without a colander on his head
Silence, spaghetti monster denier!
Well gee whiz that sounds like a brilliant plan. But why can't we just arm the 'good' terrorists to fight the 'bad' terrorists. That will work won't it?
the Pentagon says it's considering "military options" to prevent the would-be caliphate's growth in a third oil-rich nation in the Middle East/North Africa
The Pentagon obviously knows something that we don't know about, yet. Which country are we planning to destabilize next so that we have to save them?
Swedish TV accidentally put subtitles from Kids Channel on political debate
There's a Trump joke in there somewhere.
"I will build the best sand castle in the galaxy!"
Well, one has to admit that this would be the most useful thing a politician has done in a very long time. Guy has my vote.
AlmightyJB
Megyns sand castle is terrible. Has no walls. None if the kids even like her.
If I had been led to believe that Swedish politicians actually had discusions like that I would be learning Swedish and preparing to emigrate. Makes a Hell of a lot more sense than our politicians.
sugar was invented to be poured in the ass of fucking sunglass gods
and lightning sparkking the blonde edifice mountains of hawt grizzlies gonna be all fuckin svelta and shiat, niggas
Exchange above:
Sevo|1.27.16 @ 11:28PM|#
Tejicano|1.28.16 @ 12:04AM|#
As much as I despise the current holder of the CinC rank, I find this a bit, uh, 'worrying'. Anyone else?
You find this worrying because a) obama is so incompetent or b) because the pentagon would makeindependent plans to compensate for obama's incompetence?
Despise Obo as I do, congress could finally grow a pair and hold him accountable.
The Pentagon has no check at all: Caesar becomes a possibility.
8 years after he took office – just in time!
It continues to amaze me how much power congress continues to cede to the executive. Seems like a light bulb should turn on when they think, "Gee, what if my worst nightmare became president?"
SOCOM seems to have become its own little military-within-the-military, and presidents have been wielding it like a private army. What could possibly go wrong there?
"It continues to amaze me how much power congress continues to cede to the executive."
They don't want blamed for anything that goes wrong.
SOCOM came into the world that way. Its predecessor(s) were on that path 25 to 30 years ago. They have long been a tool to take actions which neither the big military nor the non-military intelligence agencies were capable of.
I get the whole unconventional/covert warfare thing. The concentration under one command is the part that scares me. And they aren't really unconventional or "special" when they are deployed openly and all the time.
Well, as long as Cytotoxic gets to have his Navy SEALS poster he can masturbate to.
If I were less lazy, I would put in the obligatory link to the Onion "Very Special Forces" story. Classic.
If you ever watched that TV series "The Unit" – understand that most of that stuff about sending SOCOM troops in small groups not in uniform to do any type of unconventional action is part of what they do.
i shall eat a salad of heroines and cocaine gods wearing genetic deformitings and shit with a serious goddamn need to weed some fucking spinache garden ciz rock n roll makes the ages exist for tons of shitty old people incliding me. and rock would be coffin without shitty almost dead humans. Becuase modern music sucks bleeding asshole for eternities.
Ancient caves filled with writhing almost alive humans jerking to 80's def leopards gotta be the real than why this place even stays for reals
I saw Def Leppard with Billy Squire back in the 80s. Cincinnati or Dayton? Lots of Coke.
my wife and I recently had a date with a tall ebony and handsome plastic surgeon somewhere above the dripping hills of ohio. we met at a pricey fucking room on the 18th floor and the late hour moon smashed into the wide curtains like an angry universe cowboy and the girls went into the bathroom while the men me and the surgeon slowly stripped our clothing off. He was cut and shit. Agile is cut and shit also but and so on.
The surgeon's ebony strolled from the opening and her long legs and lightning struck my agile planet while my own
sweet blonde strolled out behind and the surgeon boys eyes rolled back and this late drunken night in Nasheville
a couple of couples were going to be infected with some goddamn serious massive amounts of adult delight. The girls and us boys got all smooshy in the same bed and sordid amounts of cocks and ass crack were sucked delight so fully and boobs were sandwiched and pretty faces were fucked with cocks and slippery time machines.
An awesome night was to be had under that Dublln OH Red Rood last summer after the great bar band
I certainly hope that you've been using some protection, young man.
I know that Red Roof. Dublin and Hilliard is my neck of the woods.
Wow, to think I was personally within a few miles of AC.
Speaking of spinach and heroines, I am making the prediction right now that Trump has just reached his nadir and will fail to make the finals. Skipping the debate will prove to be his downfall.
I will bet you're wrong. And you mean "zenith" or some other word: nadir means lowest point.
Too many pale ales, I did mean zenith. I will bet you. Not a great amount. Bottle of booze or something equivalent?
Hard to mail, unless you're near San Francisco. There don't have to be stakes. Maybe a $20 book on Amazon.
I'm in the sunset. I could go for a book or booze. My call is the D Man does not become Pres. You want action on that?
If we are talking about the nomination I would want some bit of odds.
Well now, you're shifting here. You originally said "fail to make the finals," which I took as meaning "won't get the nomination." Now you want odds on that. In any case, we should have an SF meetup with C. Anacreon and Sevo and whoever else. (I haven't seen Len Bias around here recently.) Just add @gmail.com to my username.
We all can hope, Suell, and no sarc intended.
I'm gonna be here when you're wrong, Sue Ellen. And South Fork will always be mine!
Everyone keeps saying that this time he finally did it, this tine he's fininshed. And everytime they say that he gets a spike in the polls. He could shoot a kiitten and his poll numbers would go up. So I wouldn't bet against him.
Totally OT, SF politics.
First, SF has 'rent control' ordinances which apply to buildings extant prior to 1977; Di Fi is married to a developer who (never profited by her office, ha, ha.) told her that the way to kill new rental construction is to make it subject to rent control.
We have 'district representation' on the Board of Supes, which means a serious effort at pandering in the last weeks before an election can get a slimy prog elected by 15 votes or so, and since there are not all that many districts, that slimy prog *can* have an effect.
So we get Arron Peskin back on the board, having termed-out once before, and during his swearing-in, he announces his aim to make rent control universal in SF. I mention to wife that he has just poisoned the well; she says 'state law doesn't allow that'. She is correct, but:
Dinner last week with contractor (actually, sub); a project has been put on hold; the owner now wants to get condos permitted rather than build rentals, citing Peskin's comments. All Peskin needs is one more log-rolling Supe and developers are upside down.
Turd once claimed the market couldn't be responding to O-care; it hadn't been enforced yet. It would be a just world where turd's and Peskin's retirement funds were invested in SF REIFs.
I am somewhat rent-trapped at the moment: not bad but not great house-share, but anything non-sharing and equivalent would start at 3x what I'm paying.
It just got worse.
There was also legislation pending that I do not know if passed that would allow tenants to break the terms of their lease in regards to number of people alllowed per unit. The only limit would be the upper limits of health and safety codes, nothing that was written into lease.
What ever happened to that one guy that used to be here, name Bogart or Bocephus or Bowplug, or something like that?
But Enough About Me
Er, you mean Palin's Buttplug? Still around, methinks, but not much posting action the last few days.
He took the wrong short bus from school, and he still hasn't made it home.
Well, there's always Jackhand Ace, AmSoc, Tulpa (or do I repeat myself?), Tony, and the Short Canadian Warmonger to stink up the place.
May be someone else now. Our trolls tend to like to change up their handles.
PBP seems shockingly consistent, though. Almost like he's Dave Weigel.
He definitely cannot see anything in terms other than team Red or Blue. It's like somebody has buttplug's nuts in a vise adding another spin any time he might even try to see things some other way.
Libya is totally asking for it? Did you see how she's dressed?
She was showing her ankles!
Are we considering military options in Chicago too?
http://hotair.com/archives/201…..re-killed/
Here's an idea. Let's get a strongman to run the place. I'm thinking of perhaps a former Colonel…
Sure he'll commit all kinds of a atrocities and say bad stuff about the West. But as long as we keep him in power, he'll quash the religious nuts and keep the oil flowing. Really the best for everyone involved. Only a total idiot would ever try to depose him and give the various fruitcakes there a say in their government.
The short description of the reality between the US (the West in general) and the Middle East is the US is consolidating its corpora-fascistic economy/culture, which will last about another 100-150 years (necessarily resorting to more cruel and abusive behaviors along the way), fighting Islam only so much as to maintain the flow of resources to maintain their power, and will eventually succumb to a Muslim world.
Anyone who thinks that there's a difference between the Dems or Repubs on the Middle East is a fool, and anyone who thinks either party is setting any policy to settle the inherent differences between East and West, either through peaceful OR militaristic means, is a fool twice over. The USG has used The Boxcutter Incident to quintuple its monitoring and control of its own people more than it has done anything material settling East versus West antagonisms. It's all about control of the serfs and flow of wealth to particular interests.
AddictionMyth
OK for the millionth time it doesn't matter if there are 'moderate forces' in Libya or if they build a sand monument consecrating their eternal fealty to Admiral Dempsey. The only thing that matters is whether they believe in freedom and democracy and human rights. And if they teach these values to their children. Why? Because if you have to ask the question you are not a libertarian.
If they don't support such values then that means they want to be invaded by ISIS (yes, really) and that means there's not a damn thing we can do to stop it and our continued bombing will only make things worse. Rand Paul is the only person who says that. I only wish he could do so with conviction instead of being defensive and apologetic.


text:
Russell Wilson Knew Ciara Was the One When He First Met Her
The Seattle Seahawks quarterback immediately knew the 'Goodies' hitmaker would be his wife and the mother of his children when he first met the chart-topping singer.
AceShowbiz -American football star Russell Wilson knew singer Ciara would become his wife and the mother of his children within five minutes of meeting.
The sportsman began dating the "Goodies" hitmaker in early 2015, and they became engaged in March 2016 before tying the knot just four months later.
Now, as the couple prepares to celebrate five years of marriage, Wilson admits it was love at first sight – and he's really enjoyed watching Ciara blossom as a mum-of-three.
He gushed to E! News, "I would say (in) the first five minutes I met C, I knew she was going to be my wife and I also knew she was going to be a great mum, and I think that she's everything that you'd want her to be in terms of being so caring."
"She doesn't mind getting her hands dirty. She wants to be around the kids as much as possible and teach them the way she knows how to," he continued.
"I think the best thing is she loves with a full heart every day. Being around her for five minutes, I knew. I knew in that moment she was everything I ever wanted."
The feeling was mutual for Ciara, who had ended her engagement to rapper Future, the father of her seven-year-old son Future Zahir, just a few months before falling for Wilson.
"I also knew in the same moment – in the same five minutes," smiled the R&B star.
"I can say after the first time of being around each other, I knew he was going to be everything that I could have hoped for and dreamed of, just to be honest, and especially in the case of raising kids. I knew he was going to be a person that would be capable of it all. A man who would be capable of it all."
The couple shares four-year-old daughter Sienna and son Win, who will turn one in July (21).
Tags: ciara, First Mee, Russell Wilson
'I was an idiot' Kay Burley speaks on 'heartache' caused by breaking Covid restrictions
Kim Kardashian Is 'Envious' of Khloé Kardashian For 1 Thing

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Ātea
Books Made possible by
The alcohol rehab centre at Rotoroa Island in the 1960s
The drinkless isle: Why I set my novel at the rehab centre on Rotoroa Island
Amy Head | Guest writer
Christchurch writer Amy Head on the setting for her new novel – Rotoroa, an island near Waiheke, where the Salvation Army ran a rehab centre for alcoholics.
When I first learned about Rotoroa, an island east of Waiheke where the Salvation Army ran a rehabilitation facility between 1911 and 2005 (known early on as an "Inebriate's Retreat"), it seemed rich with potential for fiction. Newspaper articles of the early 20th century detailed some of the inmates' more inventive escapades. It turned out the men who were committed to the island showed staggering resourcefulness over the decades. They rowed out to trade fish for beer. They found psychotropic plants. They distilled pretty much anything they happened to have to hand, including raisins, pumpkins, parsnips, even sugar and water. Newspaper headline: "Drunkenness at Rotoroa: how the dry was made wet: industry promptly suppressed".
Even better, until the 1940s, women were sent to the island next door, Pakatoa. In several accounts of the early days, men who hankered after female company either rowed or attempted to swim from one island to the other. In keeping with the 1920s, my mental image was in black and white – a desperate man struggling through dark waters. They'd be two estranged lovers, perhaps. How fraught. These excursions to Pakatoa became such a problem that eventually the police made the trip from the mainland. When they got there, they dressed up in — well — dresses, and paraded around before the windows of the women's facility to lure the Rotoroans out.
My 1920s drunk emerged from the swells of frustrated love and took on a slapstick attitude. The tone of the reporting seemed to egg me on. Newspaper headline: "Slept among flowers" – a man on temporary leave from the island was found asleep in a flowerbed in Albert Park with a bottle of whiskey. "It was not a bed of roses", the magistrate was reported to have wisecracked. How harmless and cartoonish was this scene in my mind's eye, how silky and springy his outdoor bed.
There were also the stock associations that accompanied Victorian institutions — places such as Seacliff in Otago, a Gothic behemoth attended by a grim history. Janet Frame's portrayals brought Seacliff into a colourised 1950s, but didn't do much for our opinions of institutional treatment. Starting out, I was well and truly siding with the rebels. How many prison films feature protagonists who actually deserve to be there? Aren't they usually wronged and misunderstood?
Like those deluded men on Pakatoa, who had braved the waters to crouch, peering out through the leaves at what were actually burly cops in skirts, I'd been drawn in by anecdotes that dressed up a hard, hairy reality. The more I read, the more the stories contradicted each other. Some men busted a gut trying to escape and others did their disorderly best to get sent back. Yes, one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous was recorded in 1960 telling the tale of "The day he lost his pants", but all this comedy was an attempt to offset what is a heavy psychological burden. During my research, I saw mothers who were terrified that their children would become drinkers. I heard someone who'd waited for months to be admitted to a treatment programme only to encounter people using drugs the first night they were admitted. There were stories of generosity, too. It wasn't unusual for recovering alcoholics to open their homes up to others who needed help.
A lot changed in the almost 100 years that Rotoroa operated, and it was this change that held my interest. The Habitual Drunkards Act of 1906 became the Alcohol and Drug Addiction Act in the 1960s, which just last year was replaced by the Substance Addiction Act. "Inmates" became "patients", then "clients". Today, treatment has diversified to include both day and residential programmes. It tends to be more community-based, and aims to better acknowledge the individual. As before, patience and boundaries help. As before, it's preferable if the people running the programmes have a good understanding of what people with addictions go through.
But it was the 1950s I kept coming back to, around the time when they first began holding AA meetings on Rotoroa. Men on the island, many of them veterans of the First and Second World Wars, now "hit rock bottom", "worked the steps" and got "sick and tired of being sick and tired". A new manager was appointed to the island, who was a recovering alcoholic himself. Not just Rotoroa, but the rest of the country and perhaps the world seemed to be emerging out of something and moving towards something else, though they didn't yet know what.
The 1950s was the when of my novel, then, but I needed a who. I wanted a range of perspectives, but it wouldn't be easy; there were different sets of implications for youth and age, women and men, religious beliefs. One of the female characters has a career? That's another set again. Political scientist Robert Chapman was sympathetic to women in his essay "Fiction and the Social Pattern" in 1953. They were facing a more complicated family life, he said, which they must manage "without readily available help in family planning and guidance and allied matters, and without crèches, kindergartens and home aides, which the mother often does not know how to ask for even where they do exist."
The jetty at Home Bay, Rotoroa Island
But he was a product of his times. He continued, "Meanwhile, the attitude which the New Zealand writer takes to his society, and which informs his work [my italics], will continue to be based on…" These instances, of giving with one hand and taking with the other, seemed like dead ends, but the tension gave my characters depth, ultimately.
One character was an actual person who I met time and time again in my research. She was a journalist who wrote articles about the island under the name Elsie K Morton for something like 50 years. What a perfect observer, I thought; she's worldly, she witnesses the island's evolution over a sustained period. But her perspective, too, is shaped by her time. Unlike the nudge-nudge coverage I've already mentioned, her stories about Rotoroa were full of praise and vigorously optimistic.
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Another character, Lorna, is a teenager. As such, she's impressionable — as likely to be influenced by religious groups as by rock and roll. Her experiences during the novel would be considered by society at large to be beyond her years, but in a time when people don't talk about their "shameful" experiences, who's to know how normal or abnormal she really is?
The last character, Jim, is one of the island's alcoholics, which means no more or less than that he's become trapped by his particular means of escape. After all, by itself addiction is nothing. Its best trick is convincing its host of its own authenticity. On the one hand, there's what's going on physically, in the chemical processes of the brain. How that translates into thoughts and emotions—what it feels like for the addicted person—is another thing altogether: like easing pain, like trying get back to an inner life that's rich and noble, a process that puts a great deal of distance towards themselves and others. As James K Baxter put it, in a letter to a friend, "When the octopus had me down under a rock, its name looked to me like life rather than booze."
Rotoroa by Amy Head (Victoria University Press, $30) is available at Unity Books.
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I didn't post this last week because I was out of town, but Chicago Tonight's Week in Review (WTTW-Ch. 11) broadcast a year in review show with panelists Mary Mitchell, Chicago Sun-Times; Craig Dellimore, WBBM Newsradio 780 & 105.9FM; David Greising, Reuters and Lester Munson, ESPN: The scandals, the convictions, massive school closings, the pension and gay marriage struggles, and Chicago's Stanley Cup champs. In the Web Extra conversation, the panel discusses 2014 predictions for local politics, from who will win the Republican Primary and compete against Pat Quinn in the Illinois governor's race, to whether tax reform will emerge in Springfield.
I have seen and read recent complaints by the mainstream media that the Obama Administration is not forthcoming with respect to facts and figures on ObamaCare enrollment. Krauthammer speculates that we taxpayers will be on the hook to massively bailout the insurance companies if they do not get the right mix of enrollees.
Except for matters of web site security – why the secrecy surrounding the specifics of ObamaCare enrollment?
Many pundits aggregated on the RealClearPolitics site assert that the public is just seeing the tip of the iceberg as to unpleasant surprises to result from ObamaCare.
The negative stories will constitute a tidal wave -- especially in light of the fact that the public believes they were lied to by BHO and other Democrats.
This is an interesting art/indie film looking at romantic relationships in the near future in the computer age.
My take -- this is pajama boy now grown up and in the near future.
As a fellow slightly older than Zorn I observe that today's middleclass under-forty man is simply less masculine in the traditional sense.
Not even in the news but an idea that has occurred to me so I wanted to float it here. There should be a hefty tax on financial transactions, maybe even 100% or more on the buying side. However, it would be sharply lowered if you allow your order to be buffered briefly before being submitted to the market. I don't know exactly where the lines should be but maybe 1/2 the tax if you allow it to be held for a second, 1/4 the tax if you allow it to be held for a minute, and 1/100 the tax if you allow it to be held for two minutes. What I am trying to do is hit high-speed trading hard while barely affecting transactions that are more likely to represent traditional investing that provides capital to businesses. You might need an element of randomization to keep millisecond transactions from becoming one-minute-plus-millisecond transactions.
I attended a conference at the U of C addressing this. It can be called technological arbitrage.
Allowing this abuse increases the spread market makers quote between the bid and offer prices.
Another suggestion is to hold orders for a type of auction.
I am sure you know of the new communication link between Wall Street and the CME.
beer -- anything with the word Belgium in it -- examples: Chimay and anything by New Belgium in Colorado.
My Saturday night haul: a case of Angry Orchard cider and a bottle of Korbel brandy. I have no idea what that means.
It's 0 degrees in Minneapolis, headed down to -18 by sunrise. Governor Dayton already closed all the schools for Monday. His decision actually upset some people who would--apparently--prefer to put their kids at risk rather than making alternate arrangements for their care. Sheesh.
The problem with a tax is that it would be too easy to game. I don't even need to know the structure/language of the tax to tell you that. Besides, there is no way the parties could agree to an additional tax on financial transactions in today's political climate.
A hospital has a long-term uninsured or under-insured patient from who they have trouble collecting. The hospital funnels pays for the patient's health insurance. Result - hospitals collect their revenues (less the cost of the insurance), patient gets his care, insurance company pays out more in benefits and then raises rates from which everyone pays or drops out of the market.
As the article states, people with serious pre-existing conditions, no health insurance and no means to pay for health insurance, can negotiate with the hospital for the hospital to pay the insurance tab.
For me, I like my whiskey (the water of life ;-) Typically bourbon or Irish whiskey.
For bourbon, my favorite is Blanton's, though I seldom shell out the bucks for that one because it's quite pricey, so I always have a bottle of Maker's Mark on hand. For Irish whiskey, my absolute favorite is Red Breast, but that one's pricey too and I typically have a bottle of Jameson available.
The beer list was a little tougher for me as I typically drInk local/ micro brews; IPAs are my standby (the hoppier the better) but I do enjoy a little of everything (for instance, last night I had some Two Brothers The Bitter End and some Left Hand Nitro milk stout). The only one on that list that I do drink often is Guiness, which I love.
Article in today's Trib about coming changes in traffic management, including minor successes in Minnesota and Missouri with variable speed limits. Also, as expected, Illinois is not apparently interested/"convinced" of the merits of taking action to improve traffic flow...just interested in 'taxing' it.
A big advance is expected to be V2V, vehicle to vehicle communications. The federal government is considering requiring it in future new vehicles. Sounds like a lot of what is in PTC, positive train control, would be included. Of course, the railroad industry has held its breath, pouted, and thrown any number of tantrums trying to keep such a system from widespread use. The latest incident of an engineer apparently daydreaming while in control of a passenger train may be the kick in the pants that makes PTC a reality. ATM, active traffic management, will no doubt face the same gauntlet before it is implemented.
1) Auto manufacturers, most recently Nissan I believe, expect fully autonomous vehicles by 2020, IF, allowed by law.
2) V2V and ATM are expected to be ready by 2025 following literally billions of dollars of investment and trials by the federal government in numerous states...NOT in Illinois.
3) My big takeaway is that we have this so-called 'planning' agency in Illinois called GoTo 2040 which nowhere includes this technology in its 'planning'.
4) And, we have the city of Chicago that has installed red-light and speed-camera systems that notably do NOT have V2V capability, i.e. they don't transmit, nor is there apparently a plan to transmit, speed limit or red-light status information to vehicles within range.
--JL (and Greg) a financial transaction tax is, respectfully, a profoundly bad idea., at least the way it is described here, which is actually an execution tax.
There are already taxes on financial transactions - mainly around realized (and unrealized year-end) P&L. There are also "taxes" in the form of fees, for example all futures transactions are charged an NFA fee, equity transactions are charged an SEC fee (on the seller).
If one wanted to simply and effectively dampen the effects of high-frequency trading (HFT) on ordinary investors (including Main Street and non-automated fund trading), one way to do that is to require minimum execution windows - i.e. when an order is placed, it must remain available for execution for some minimum amount of time, maybe a second, maybe less or more.
I get that a lo of folks are interested in wrestling HFT and algorithmic trading under some kind of control, and that the impacts on these trading strategies often hurt other investors, but taxes aren't an appropriate path to control, in my view. Better regulations, better enforcement, better monitoring, more clarity into "dark pools" are more appropriate choices, I think.
@Greg J and jpn - If your suggestions basically amount to making high-speed trading impossible, rather than taxing it out of existence, that works for me, too. I do share Greg J's concerns about people figuring out how to game a tax. That is what I had in mind with the randomization but there likely are other angles, too. I'm not sure how the politics would play out, though. Voters and members of Congress understand straightforward taxes. When you start getting into technical regulations on obscure subjects, there is a real risk of people gaming the system at the lobbying stage and making sure the laws don't actually hamper them -- even better, hamper their competition. As a possible alternate tax, set tax rates of 99.9% on gains from assets held less than one minute, 50% on assets held less than an hour, and 10% (plus the normal taxes) on assets held less than 12 hours. Make losses on assets held less than a minute ineligible to offset gains on other transactions.
jpn is saying more or less the same thing as the author in the article I cited. I agree that a tax isn't going to work. You can be as cute as you like with the timing and the precision around the rules but a good tax lawyer is going to attack the definitions section - i.e., what constitutes a "financial transaction" or an "asset." You can try to define them as broadly as possible but at the end of the day the legislators will agree to carve-outs, which tax lawyers will exploit. The other reason it won't work is that no Republican is going to agree to a tax increase without a decrease elsewhere - to which no Democrat will agree. Best to look elsewhere for your desired outcome.
Tax law should be written to gain revenue, no? Any other use is illusory. 'The power to tax is the power to destroy' is a truism that is one cause of the rise of tax lawyers to prominence it seems to me. Controlling evil by taxing it, tobacco & alcohol e.g, soon becomes simply another revenue source with little concern for evil as the bar guts it of any 'moral' content.
I couldn't agree more. Attempting to promote social policy through tax accomplishes not much more than encouraging gamesmanship in avoiding taxes. The wealthy benefit because they can pay tax lawyers while the poor not only can't afford to pay but are the target of many excise taxes such as the ones you mention.
When the rich are targeted they can always raise prices or otherwise deflect the tax back to the middle or the poor. The middle and the poor have little ability to deflect their tax burden. When people wonder why we have such income inequality, I point them toward the tax code and the numerous provisions designed to tax the wealthy that have backfired.


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Kalmár Zsuzsa (1960) kézilabdázó, edző
 Kalmár Zsuzsa (1964) tornász, edző, egyetemi adjunktus
 Kalmár Zsuzsa vajdasági magyar színésznő

Jegyzetek

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Huge apologies to my very pretty blog for abandoning it for a wee while. My summer is proving to be very busy indeed, with work placement, flat hunting & various other projects & arrangements.
As of yesterday we no longer need to hunt for a home, we have a brand spanking new flat to move into from the 29th. Which so perfectly fits into our kick-out day at the house being the 31st. It's all pretty perfect, although it is a little empty… So now begins the hunt for a bed, sofa, fridge-freezer, wardrobe, washing machine etcetc. Pretty much everything! And it all needs to be free or as cheap as poss, for the time being!
Posted in Other and tagged BlackBerry, moving home, Wordpress. Bookmark the permalink.


"one swallow of the liquid was enough"
"Swallow the raw fish--it won't kill you!"
"The Nazis swallowed the Baltic countries"
"She swallowed the last words of her speech"
"I swallowed my anger and kept quiet"
"She has learned to live with her husband's little idiosyncrasies"
"Am I supposed to swallow that story?"
There are many swallows flying in the sky.
He downed the medicine at one swallow.
Let me take a swallow of beer.
They can't treat me like that; I'm not going to swallow it.
He swallowed all the criticism without saying a thing.
You must chew your food well before you swallow it.
His lips worked as he tried to swallow the food.
He couldn't swallow because of a sore throat.
You should have a try, don't swallow anybody.
She swallowed her anger and carried on.
The company was swallowed up in a corporate merger.
His throat was so painful that he could hardly swallow.
Taking pills is easy,just put them in your mouths and swallow.
He swallowed in large draughts.
He swallowed hard and turned to face his accuser.
I find it a bit hard to swallow.
He swallowed a mouthful of bread.
He rolled the slip into a little ball and swallowed it.
He swallowed his medicine with the help of some water.
He was so hungry that he swallowed all our food.
I swallowed a laugh and went along to watch.
He was obliged to swallow his anger under the circumstances.
She swallowed all the criticism without saying anything.
She can swallow his rudeness.
He was obliged to swallow his grief and work in the shop as usual.
They can't treat me like that,I'm not going to swallow it.
His family swallowed great hardship during the war.
She swallowed an insult to keep the job.
She will swallow anything you tell her.
She thought she heard a gun firing in the distance, but she couldn't swallow her ears.
At that moment,I could hardly swallow my eyes.
This drug can't be swallowed; it has to be injected.
Swallowing down his pride, he accepted the humble position offered him.
The hungry man swallowed up everything on the table.
The waves swallowed up the swimmer.
She was so embarrassed, she wished the earth would open and swallow her up.
His wife's clothes bills swallowed up his wages.
The travel costs swallowed up our pay increase.
The two firms wanted to combine together to swallow up ours.
The aircraft was swallowed up in the clouds.
She was swallowed up by the crowd and we lost sight of her.
His earnings were swallowed up by lawyer's bill.
He doesn't want his firm to be swallowed up by a transnational giant.
He told me I wouldn't pass the test but I'm determined to make him swallow his words.
You could hardly understand him because he had the habit of swallowing his words.
Methus..measures the honesty..of mankind by a capaciousness of their swallow.
He swallowed it in three gulps.
They made him swallow..the tablets.
He swallowed down the last of his coffee.
Gas can be caused by..swallowing air with the food.


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Georgia National Parks
NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
Andersonville Andersonville, GA
The Camp Sumter military prison at Andersonville was one of the largest Confederate military prisons during the Civil War. During the 14 months the prison existed, more than 45,000 Union soldiers were confined here. Of these, almost 13,000 died here. Today, Andersonville National Historic Site is a memorial to all American prisoners of war throughout the nation's history.
NATIONAL SCENIC TRAIL
Appalachian Maine to Georgia, CT, GA, MA, MD, ME, NC, NH, NJ, NY, PA, TN, VA, VT, WV
The Appalachian Trail is a 2,180+ mile long public footpath that traverses the scenic, wooded, pastoral, wild, and culturally resonant lands of the Appalachian Mountains. Conceived in 1921, built by private citizens, and completed in 1937, today the trail is managed by the National Park Service, US Forest Service, Appalachian Trail Conservancy, numerous state agencies and thousands of volunteers.
NATIONAL HERITAGE AREA
Arabia Mountain For millions of years, granite monadnocks have stood watch over the rivers and forests of Georgia. These breathtaking landscapes are the cornerstones of the Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area, which serves to protect & promote these outcrops and the surrounding region as a recreational wonder and national treasure.
Augusta Canal Augusta, GA
The Augusta Canal helped usher the Industrial Revolution into the American South. Built in 1845 as a source of power, water, and transportation, the canal today is the only fully intact American industrial canal in continuous operation. By 1847 the first mills opened, followed by the massive Civil War era Confederate Powder Works and many more industries in the later decades of the 19th century.
Chattahoochee River Atlanta, GA
Today the river valley attracts us for so many reasons. Take a solitary walk to enjoy nature's display, raft leisurely through the rocky shoals with friends, fish the misty waters as the sun comes up, or have a picnic on a Sunday afternoon. Get Outdoors and experience your Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area as you have never done before.
NATIONAL MILITARY PARK
Chickamauga & Chattanooga Fort Oglethorpe, GA, TN
In 1863, Union and Confederate forces fought for control of Chattanooga, known as the "Gateway to the Deep South." The Confederates were victorious at nearby Chickamauga in September. However, renewed fighting in Chattanooga that November provided Union troops victory and control of the city. After the fighting, a Confederate soldier ominously wrote, "This…is the death-knell of the Confederacy."
Cumberland Island Saint Marys, GA
St Marys is the gateway to Cumberland Island, Georgia's largest and southernmost barrier island. Here pristine maritime forests, undeveloped beaches and wide marshes whisper the stories of both man and nature. Natives, missionaries, enslaved African Americans and Wealthy Industrialists all walked here. Cumberland Island is also home to over 9,800 acres of Congressionally designated Wilderness.
Fort Frederica St. Simons Island, GA
Georgia's fate was decided in 1742 when Spanish and British forces clashed on St. Simons Island. Fort Frederica's troops defeated the Spanish, ensuring Georgia's future as a British colony. Today, the archeological remnants of Frederica are protected by the National Park Service.
Fort Pulaski Savannah, GA
For much of the 19th century, masonry fortifications were the United States' main defense against overseas enemies. However, during the Civil War, new technology proved its superiority to these forts. The Union army used rifled cannon and compelled the Confederate garrison inside Fort Pulaski to surrender. The siege was a landmark experiment in the history of military science and invention.
CULTURAL HERITAGE CORRIDOR
Gullah/Geechee FL, GA, NC, SC
Designated by Congress in 2006, the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor extends from Wilmington, North Carolina in the north to Jacksonville, Florida in the south. It is home to one of America's most unique cultures, a tradition first shaped by captive Africans brought to the southern United States from West Africa and continued in later generations by their descendents.
Jimmy Carter Plains, GA
Few U.S. Presidents have had such close ties with where they were born and raised. The rural southern culture of Plains, Georgia, that revolves around farming, church and school, had a large influence in molding the character and in shaping the political policies of the 39th President of the United States.
NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD PARK
Kennesaw Mountain Kennesaw, GA
Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park is a 2,965 acre National Battlefield that preserves a Civil War battleground of the Atlanta Campaign. Opposing forces maneuvered and fought here from June 19, 1864 until July 2, 1864. Although most famous as a Civil War battlefield, Kennesaw Mountain has a much richer story.
NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK
Martin Luther King, Jr. Atlanta, GA
A young boy grows up in a time of segregation…A dreamer is moved by destiny into leadership of the modern civil rights movement…This was Martin Luther King, Jr. Come hear his story, visit the home of his birth, and where he played as a child. Walk in his footsteps, and hear his voice in the church where he moved hearts and minds. Marvel at how he was an instrument for social change. Venues at Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ocmulgee Mounds Macon, GA Welcome to Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park. This park is a prehistoric American Indian site. American Indians first came here during the Paleo-Indian period hunting Ice Age mammals. Many different American Indian cultures occupied this land for thousands of years. Around 900 CE, the Mississippian Period began. They constructed mounds for their elite, which remain today.
NATIONAL HISTORIC TRAIL
Trail Of Tears AL, AR, GA, IL, KY, MO, NC, OK, TN
Remember and commemorate the survival of the Cherokee people, forcefully removed from their homelands in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee to live in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. They traveled by foot, horse, wagon, or steamboat in 1838-1839.


The first day of your last menstrual period.
The length of your menstrual cycle.
The length of your luteal phase, if you know it.
Use the drop-down calendar to enter the first day of your last menstrual period.
Enter the length of your cycle in days. To determine the number of days in your cycle, count the days beginning with the first day of your last menstrual period (first day of bleeding) up to and including the day before your next period. An average length of the menstrual cycle is 28 days.
Enter the length of your luteal phase in days. The luteal phase is the part of the menstrual cycle that starts at ovulation and ends the day before your next period. If you are not sure about the length of your luteal phase, you can assume it is 14 days (the average length for most women). See Luteal Phase for more information.


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CLASSIC CORNER: Starship Troopers
prospectornow January 21, 2018
EntertainmentMovies0 Comments17 views
By Cole Altmayer, copy editor
Satire is a funny thing, and not usually in the way the writer intends it to be. I personally don't see a lot of satire these days that does it for me. None of it seems subtle enough, and it's always paired with a strong sense of ironic detachment so the audience knows for sure that they're being sarcastic — satire these days is like going to a Las Vegas magic show, watching the magician pull a rabbit out of his hat, and then watching him promptly punt said rabbit into the audience in a desperate attempt to yank out a cheap laugh.
So while stuff on late night talk shows nowadays might not do it for me, stuff like 1997 sci-fi adventure Starship Troopers does. And when you're getting out-subtled by a movie with a title like Starship Troopers, you could probably stand to step your game up a little.
Set in the 23rd century, Starship Troopers primarily follows the story of Johnny Rico, played by Casper Van Dien, who has aspirations of joining a futuristic military fighting force called the Mobile Infantry. His friend Carl Jenkins, played by Neil Patrick Harris, and love interest Carmen Ibanez, played by Denise Richards, also have military aspirations: in fact, in this universe, military service is required if you want to gain full citizenship under the fascist ruling regime of the Federation.
The movie initially received mixed reviews, as many critics interpreted it as a celebration of authoritarianism and the warhawk attitude. But this couldn't be further from the truth, as Starship Troopers is actually a farcical look on how easy it is for humanity to give in to radical imperialism… all through the lens of what seems to be a B-movie shoot 'em up lens.
Director Paul Verhoeven, most notable for 1987's RoboCop, takes a lot of stylistic risks with Troopers that pay back in troves. Visually, the movie is made to feel like a vapid television drama in its first half, with very even lighting, saturated color schemes, and meticulous use of wide angles. It's no coincidence that both Van Dien and Richards were also stars of Beverly Hills, 90210: the movie intentionally mocks up the 90210 style in order to represent the superficiality and lack of sophistication inherent in authoritarian societies.
The second half of the movie turns into an ultra-macho war film, where Rico and company are slaughtering wave after wave of "Arachnids," which are alien bug creatures that are constantly portrayed as irredeemable monsters, despite some implications later in the film that there is quite a bit more to their culture than meets the eye. This is also a pretty smart representation of how quickly societies are willing to brand certain groups as an incomprehensible "other" that needs to be stopped at all costs.
If anything, the worst parts of the movie are the parts that rely entirely on action sequences: the effects surprisingly hold up pretty well, but the actual action set-pieces are nothing notable. It's more of the themes surrounding the action and the subtle ways that they're conveyed that make the movie stand out. It also does not feel condescending or preachy it the way it conveys its morals, and does a good job of balancing the darker implications of the Starship Troopers universe with dashes of light humor and clever characterization.
Troopers is a silly action movie, but it's a silly action movie with a heart of gold and something to say. There's something bizarrely surreal about seeing it for the first time: it's like watching a piece of propaganda made in an alternate universe. And if the goal of a science fiction movie is to whisk the viewer into another world beyond imagination, then Starship Troopers should be considered an all-time great… Even if that world beyond imagination is, well, less than ideal.
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Review: Pokémon Sword and Shield
prospectornow December 18, 2019
Continuation from print: Forum to discuss Tommy Carrico's top movies of the decade
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Prospector Political Publish Week #10: An analysis of last Democratic debate before Iowa caucus
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Knights edged out by the Hodges led Saxons
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A healthy, balanced diet contains a variety of foods. Knowing about the different food types makes it easier to make choices about your diet. Your GP, specialist nurse or a dietitian can give you advice.
Fruit and vegetables are a key part of a healthy diet. Try to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.
Starchy foods and fibre give us more energy, so it is good to eat brown rice, beans and wholegrain bread.
Protein from meat, fish and pulses helps our body cells grow and repair.
Most people in the UK eat too much fat and salt. Unsaturated fats in nuts and seeds are good for us, but saturated fats in fried food, chocolate and cheese is bad for us and makes you put on weight.
Alcohol can increase the risk of developing certain cancers. Cutting down the amount of alcohol we drink can lead to a healthier lifestyle.
Fruit and vegetables are a good source of vitamins, minerals and fibre. They are also usually low in fat. Most of us do not eat enough fruit and vegetables. You need to aim to eat at least five portions a day. Different types and colours of fruits and vegetables contain different nutrients. Try to have a wide variety of fruits and vegetables from each of the colour groups: green, yellow, red, purple, orange and white.
People who have a diet high in fruit and vegetables may have a lower risk of heart disease. It may also reduce the risk of developing some types of cancer, such as cancers of the mouth, throat and lung.
Fruit and vegetables should make up about a third of the food we eat every day.
Reduce meat portions and replace with larger servings of vegetables and salad.
Frozen vegetables and tinned fruit in juice (not syrup) are just as healthy as fresh ones and can be cheaper.
Eat fruit and vegetables cooked in dishes such as soups, stews and pasta.
Try to avoid adding butter, rich sauces or dressings to your vegetables and salads. This will increase the calories you eat and drink. But you can include them if you are trying to gain weight.
Starchy foods are broken down in the body to become glucose (a type of sugar needed for energy), which gives us energy. Energy is measured in calories. We all need a certain number of calories each day for energy, even if we are not being very active. For example, we need energy to breathe when just sitting in a chair.
Foods such as bread, breakfast cereal, rice and pasta are starchy foods. Wholegrain or wholemeal starchy foods are better if you are trying to lose weight, as they make you feel fuller for longer. When eating starchy foods, try to choose wholegrain or wholemeal bread, rice and pasta.
Potatoes are also a type of carbohydrate. Boiled or baked potatoes are healthier than deep-fried chips. If you want to eat chips, use the low-fat, oven varieties.
Starchy food should make up about one third of what you eat in a day.
Many studies show that foods high in fibre may reduce the risk of bowel cancer. Most people do not eat enough foods that are high in fibre. Starchy food can be a good source of fibre. Increasing the amount of fibre in your diet can help you feel fuller more quickly, so you are less likely to eat too much.
The fibre in foods such as oats, beans and lentils may help reduce the amount of cholesterol in the blood.
Sugar is a good source of energy and is found naturally in some food and drinks, such as fruit and milk. The body also gets glucose by breaking down carbohydrates.
Processed sugar is usually not recommended. This is found in sweets, biscuits, cakes, pastries and puddings. It can also be added to tea or coffee.
Fizzy drinks and alcohol often contain a lot of sugar too. Try to avoid food and drinks with added sugar.
It is better to get energy from natural sugar found in foods such as nuts, whole fruits (not just fruit juice) and wholemeal breads. When these sugars are broken down, they are released more slowly. This helps to keep your energy levels more even.
If you find it hard to reduce your sugar intake, a sugar substitute might help in the short term. But this will not reduce your craving for sugar, so it is not a long-term solution.
Drink water, lower-fat milks or sugar-free, diet and no-added-sugar drinks, instead of sugary fizzy drinks or squash.
If you prefer fizzy drinks, try diluting fruit juice with sparkling water.
If you add sugar to hot drinks or breakfast cereal, gradually reduce the amount until you can cut it out altogether.
Try a lower-fat spread, sliced banana or lower-fat cream cheese instead of jam or marmalade on toast.
Try halving the sugar you use in your recipes. This works for most things except jam, meringues and ice-cream.
Choose wholemeal breakfast cereal rather than those that are sugar-coated or high in sugar.
Unsaturated fats are found mainly in vegetable-based cooking oils and spreads, nuts, seeds and oily fish, such as sardines and mackerel. Unsaturated fats are still high-energy (high-calorie) foods.
Generally, it is important to try to eat less fat, and to choose foods that contain unsaturated fats instead of saturated. Even foods labelled as 'low-fat' can still be high in calories. However, if you are trying to gain weight, you may need to have more fat in your diet.
Saturated fat can raise cholesterol levels in the blood and increase the risk of heart disease. Foods high in saturated fat include cheese, butter, ghee, burgers, sausages, samosas, biscuits, pastries, cakes and chocolate.
The current advice is for men to eat no more than 30g and women no more than 20g of saturated fat a day. You can use the nutrition labels on foods as a guide. High-fat foods contain more than 20g of fat per 100g. Low-fat foods contain less than 3g of fat per 100g.
Unsaturated fat helps reduce cholesterol levels in the blood. There are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.
some nuts, such as almonds, brazil nuts and peanuts.
Polyunsaturated fats can help lower cholesterol. They include omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in oily fish like mackerel, salmon, trout and sardines.
Several research studies have shown that eating one to two servings of oily fish a week reduces the risk of developing heart disease. However, too much oily fish may not be good for you. The UK Food Standards Agency recommends that children, and women who may become pregnant, eat up to two portions a week. They recommend that women past childbearing age and men do not eat more than four portions a week.
Other good sources of unsaturated fat include nuts and seeds, and sunflower, olive and vegetable oil.
Eat more skinless fish and chicken, rather than red meat.
Choose lean cuts of meat and trim off all the fat you can.
Eat less fried food – bake, grill, steam or poach food instead.
Choose lower-fat dairy products when you can.
When you are shopping, check the labels for unsaturated and saturated fat, and choose lower-fat options.
Put more vegetables and beans, and a bit less meat, in stews and curries.
Cut out or reduce the number of fatty takeaways you eat, such as burgers, curries and kebabs.
Avoid snacks that are high in fat, such as pastries, crisps and biscuits.
Too much salt in your diet can lead to high blood pressure, which can cause heart disease and strokes. A diet that is high in salt can also increase the risk of developing stomach cancer.
Try to have no more than 6g of salt (a teaspoonful) a day. It is not just the salt you add to your food that counts. Many cured or processed meats (such as sausages, cured ham or bacon), tinned foods and ready meals contain high levels of salt, so always check the label.
You can find out how much salt is in processed foods by checking the labels. If there is more than 1.5g of salt per 100g, the food is high in salt. Low-salt foods contain 0.3g or less of salt per 100g.
When you are buying bread, cereal and ready meals, compare the amount of salt in different types and choose the ones with the lower amounts. Frozen meals tend to have less salt than chilled ones.
When you are buying tinned vegetables and tuna, choose the types in spring water rather than salted water or brine.
Add herbs, spices or black pepper to pasta dishes, vegetables and meat instead of salt.
Marinate meat and fish before cooking to give them more flavour.
Your body needs protein to perform a wide range of functions, such as building and repairing muscles and other body tissues. We need extra protein (as well as extra energy) when we are ill, injured or stressed, to repair any damage.
Protein-rich foods can also be a good source of vitamins and minerals. Protein is found in red meat, poultry (such as chicken and turkey), fish, milk, dairy foods, eggs and pulses (such as peas, beans and lentils). It can also be found in soya, tofu and mycoprotein (Quorn™), which can replace mince, burgers and sausages as a source of protein.
Several studies suggest that eating lots of red and processed meat can increase the risk of developing bowel cancer and possibly stomach and prostate cancer. Red meat is beef, pork, lamb and veal. Processed meats include sausages, bacon, salami, tinned meats and packet meats like sandwich ham. Eating meat that is cooked at high temperatures, such as fried or barbecued meat, may also increase the risk of developing some cancers.
The greatest risk seems to be for people who eat two or more portions of red or processed meat a day. People who eat less than two portions a week seem to have the lowest risk. No link has been found between eating poultry, such as turkey and chicken, and the risk of developing cancer.
Cut down on meat generally – especially red and processed meat such as sausages, burgers, pies and sausage rolls, which are high in saturated fat.
Try to reduce your meat portions and have more vegetables instead.
A portion of meat should be about the size of a packet of playing cards.
Choose leaner cuts of meat that have less fat, such as those labelled 'lean' or 'extra lean'. You can also look at the labels to see which cuts have the least fat. Or ask a butcher or grocer if you are not sure.
Try to eat more fish, chicken, turkey, beans and lentils instead.
Skinned turkey or chicken is a lower-fat alternative to red meat such as lamb, beef or pork.
Grill or roast your meat instead of frying it to reduce the number of calories.
Fish is a good source of protein, vitamins and minerals. It is often low in saturated fat. Aim to have at least two portions of fish a week. Grilling, steaming, poaching or baking fish is healthier than frying it. Tinned fish such as tuna, sardines and pilchards are also low in saturated fat. Frozen fish can be cheaper than fresh fish, but avoid high-fat, processed meals with fish in them, or fish in batter.
Milk and dairy products are good sources of protein, vitamins and calcium, but they can also be high in fat. High-fat milk and dairy products can be good to include as part of a building-up diet for weight loss. But to maintain a healthy weight or lose weight, try semi-skimmed or skimmed milk and low-fat yoghurt, and have only small amounts of cheese.
Other sources of protein include pulses (peas, beans and lentils) and nuts. Pulses can be the base of lots of meals. Nuts can be used in both sweet and savoury dishes and are high in energy. They contain good amounts of protein and some of the healthier unsaturated fats. Nuts are a good source of protein for vegetarians and vegans.
Some vegetarians include eggs and dairy products, like cheese, as sources of protein in their diet. Eggs are a good source of protein, but hard cheese can be high in unhealthy saturated fats, and should be eaten in small amounts. Vegan cheese made from soya can be a healthier alternative to dairy cheese. Soya is also available as soya mince, soya burgers and sausages, soya milk and tofu. Mycoprotein (Quorn) can also replace mince, burgers and sausages as a source of protein.
There have been some concerns about soya and its effect on breast cancer. There is currently no evidence to suggest that a moderate amount of soya has any harmful effect on breast cancer. Recommendations say it is safe to have one to two servings a day of whole soya foods. Whole soya foods are unprocessed soya foods, for example miso, tempeh, tofu, soya beans (edamame), soya nuts and soya milk. One serving is equal to a large glass of soya milk, 50g of tofu, 100g of soya mince or 28g of soya nuts or edamame beans. If you are worried about soya, talk to your doctor, dietitian or cancer nurse specialist.
Alcohol is high in calories and can lead to weight gain. It is also linked with an increased risk of some cancers. Following recommended drinking guidelines is good for your health and your weight.
Have a lager shandy using a low-calorie lemonade.
Add low-calorie or calorie-free mixers to spirits or white wine.
Alternate alcoholic drinks with low-calorie, non-alcoholic ones.
Have a glass of water with each alcoholic drink.
Most packaged foods have labels giving information to help you make healthier choices at the supermarket. They give information about the levels of fat, salt, added sugar, calories, and sometimes sodium and fibre.
Many food manufacturers and supermarkets use a food traffic light system on their labels. The label tells you the amount of fats, saturated fats, sugars and salt per 100g (3½oz) of the product.
Red – content level is high.
Amber – content level is medium.
Green – content level is low.
You should eat more foods with amber and green labels and fewer with red. You can use the table below to check products that don't have traffic light labelling, by comparing it with their ingredients list.