Politics

[mdwest]

And let's not forget how much the South Korean communities loves the US and our military. While in Kunsan AB, and traveling around the country, every S. Korean we met, were extremely happy for what we did for their country and shared with us their food and drinks. I had a great time there and didn't want to leave. LOL!!!

Ive always enjoyed working with the Koreans.. both in a military capacity and on the civilian side.. hard working and industrious.. and overall a pretty happy people..

You have to be careful with them when attending a "wheels up" party though.. those little 145 pound dudes are amazingly deceptive when it comes to drinking.. they can hammer down soju like its tap water and drink most 200lb americans under the table in a matter of minutes lol..

 

[spike.t]

and drink most 200lb americans under the table in a matter of minutes lol..

.....thought that was standard...

 

[mdwest]

.....thought that was standard...

Brits are pretty good at it too...

but I dont think anyone other than maybe the Russians, can hold a candle to Koreans...

those little guys can sit and pound soju until 3AM... pass out for 2 hours.. get up at 5AM.. spend about 15 minutes shaking it off.. and then go do PT for an hour before getting a shower and showing up for work.. and can do that shit for several days at a time..

Ive never seen anything like it anywhere else in the world..

and they'll spend the entire next day hung over as hell.. and no one other than themselves will ever know it.. they go about their business like its just another tuesday in Seoul lol..

 

[SaintPanzer]

In general, I think the tariff thing is rather silly. But I do have a question for the anti-tariff folks.

Why is it, if I buy a German car here in the US, there is no tariff, but if I want to bring a US car to Germany, there is a 10% tariff? I get that it was "helpful", say 50 - 70 or so years ago, but today?

I think the way we are going about it is a bit much, but to assert that there was "free trade" before all this non-sense started is a bit disingenuous. So while I don't support the "shotgun approach" being used, is it possible to have an honest discussion about the problems?

 

[mdwest]

In general, I think the tariff thing is rather silly. But I do have a question for the anti-tariff folks.

Why is it, if I buy a German car here in the US, there is no tariff, but if I want to bring a US car to Germany, there is a 10% tariff? I get that it was "helpful", say 50 - 70 or so years ago, but today?

I think the way we are going about it is a bit much, but to assert that there was "free trade" before all this non-sense started is a bit disingenuous. So while I don't support the "shotgun approach" being used, is it possible to have an honest discussion about the problems?

I think you have to be careful with the car argument.. because most "German" cars are now made in the US.. and therefore get around the tariffs..

Mercedes, Volkswagen, and BMW all have major manufacturing in the US.. Volkswagen owns Audi and is currently in the process of negotiating the building of a manufacturing plant for Audis in the US (Audi was building a lot of their US vehicles in Mexico.. but the tariffs are pushing them to look at changing things up and moving the facilities to the US)...

The only german car manufacturer that I am aware of that has no plant in the US and has no intention of building a plant in the US is porche..

So.. the way the Trump tariffs are working, since they are being built in the US, they are tariff exempt.. even if the profits are going back to Germany when its all said and done..

All of that said.. apply your question to just about any other industry, and I think you have a very valid point.. post WW2 maybe there was an argument for helping to prop up the German and perhaps other European economies... but today? Im thinking not so much..

 

[rookhawk]

Ive always enjoyed working with the Koreans.. both in a military capacity and on the civilian side.. hard working and industrious.. and overall a pretty happy people..

You have to be careful with them when attending a "wheels up" party though.. those little 145 pound dudes are amazingly deceptive when it comes to drinking.. they can hammer down soju like its tap water and drink most 200lb americans under the table in a matter of minutes lol..

Absolutely my favorite Asian culture. If you don't have any Korean friends, go out and get a bunch.

All the ways I love the Koreans:

1.) They are adaptable in culture. Most Asian ethnicities are stubborn, unwilling to change their language to make it useful and convenient. Korea ended their absurd asian alphabet of 25,000 symbols and went to a <30 character alphabet.

2.) They are adaptable to better ideas. Koreans are profoundly Christian, mostly Presbyterian and Catholic. When they heard a better value system than their own, the converted to it in the same way that Europe eschewed paganism because Christianity was the better path to a civil society.

3.) Their food is fantastic. Even if you're a meat and potatoes guy, Korean BBQ is just great meat of all types, marinated or just natural, grilled over charcoal. Their side dishes are fantastic, mostly pickled like Central and Eastern Europeans are enjoy.

4.) They won't screw each other, their morals won't allow them to screw over outsiders. Korean Americans issue no-interest loans to new immigrants to get them into sustainable businesses. Nail Salons and Dry Cleaners being some of the many ventures they thrive. They expect to be paid back and honor compels the borrower to do so, then to lend to the next immigrant to be productive Americans. <- We all should be this benevolent to the worthy. I've had mixed interactions with Chinese because they are culturally accustomed to intellectual property theft, but Koreans are a bit more Judeo-Christian oriented and are straight dealers, even with non-Koreans.

5.) They drink so much, they should be given Green Cards to become official Wisconsinites. They drink like fish, are jovial, humorous, and gregarious. Oh, and their beer is fantastic and very drinkable if you like a classic lager. Soju is way more fun than the higher alcohol content shots that the West enjoys.

 

[Frostbite]

Tariffs have traditionally been used by smaller and poorer and struggling countries to help them protect their own markets and compete against the bigger and richer countries.

Some poor countries really NEED to apply tariffs. So, if a rich country hits them with tariffs to prevent them from using tariffs--it's sort of a bullying tactic and oppressive.

Richer countries have traditionally not bothered much with tariffs although there are many ways they can be used to gain advantages and some competing nations are always trying to find ways to screw each other.

As our old friend Reagan taught us--Tariffs in America are a complex can of worms that can do a lot of harm and we should avoid the worms if possible.

Tariffs can start a trade war that hurts everybody if things go south.

This is a good article to explain some things.

Tariffs are typically imposed for protection or revenue purposes. A protective tariff increases the price of imported goods relative to domestic goods, encouraging consumers to buy from local producers, who are thus “protected” from foreign competition. A revenue tariff, on the other hand, is mainly used to generate money for the government.

Tariffs: What are they, who pays for them and who benefits?

Interest in tariffs has risen due to recent political proposals — a USC Dornsife economics professor explains these international taxes

dornsife.usc.edu

 

[Altitude sickness]

Doesn't take much courage to defend stolen land by doing war crimes with superior weapons.

The Jews didn't "Create" anything except misery and horror for the Palestinians and an eternal Middle East war for the rest of the world to deal with--spawning terrorism and hateful unrest that continues to this day.

The Zionist militias, well trained and well equipped with weapons (up to and including fighter aircraft) from Czechoslovakia, blitzed into Palestine and forced almost a million Palestinians out of their homes, farms, orchards, towns and villages. They had to flee as refugees to surrounding countries with only what they could carry.

Many thousands of Palestinians were murdered in 30 documented massacres.

More than 500 towns and villages were completely destroyed--razed to rubble by artillery and fighter aircraft.

Why? So that the refugees would have no reason to try to return to their homes..........the Zionists were determined to "Transfer" (their word) all Palestinians OUT of Palestine and prevent them from ever coming back.

This "Transfer" was nothing but Ethnic Cleansing (a war crime) and the Zionist ban on allowing Palestinians to return was a blatant violation of the agreement that allowed a "State of Israel" to be approved in the first place.

There was no honor, courage or moral behavior in the theft of the land and possessions of the Palestinians.

It was and still is--simply an act of criminal theft and murder.

The Nakba explained in five maps and charts

The 1948 forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland has created the longest unresolved refugee crisis in modern history

www.middleeasteye.net

Frosty, well they should have armed themselves before attacking civilians.

“Doesn't take much courage to defend stolen land by doing war crimes with superior weapons.”

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

Protests in Tanzania spread after a disputed election, with the military on the streets

Protests have erupted in Tanzania following a disputed election. Demonstrators took to the streets for a second day on Thursday.

apnews.com

 

[wesheltonj]

Protests in Tanzania spread after a disputed election, with the military on the streets

Protests have erupted in Tanzania following a disputed election. Demonstrators took to the streets for a second day on Thursday.

apnews.com

Great, expecting a shipment December/January. I hope it’s all over by then.

 

[Frostbite]

Our fellow member Saul was mentioned a while back. I've been having a real enjoyable time going back and reading all his posts.

Interesting that he decided not to vote for EITHER of those two idiotic main candidates.........just like me.

He said he was doing a write in vote.......maybe Tulsi Gabbard.

I also liked her a lot..........sadly she turned out to be a huge disappointment.

Sounds like Saul was a Zionist, but I cannot fault him.

We are almost all extremely tribal.

I would feel that same if I were in his shoes and the Amerindians had stuck around and were dangerous foes and killing people.

So it goes. We are all human.

 

[Corey0372]

Since this thread as of recently has shifted into troll versus non-troll discussions, let me shift pages and bring up a couple political points to debate related to archaeology. Feel free to disagree and cite any facts you wish. @Red Leg and I have been having a bit of fun via PM wrestling with these topics which has been enjoyable.

Ancient Civilizations

1.) I assert that the Khafre, Khufu, and Mankaure's pyramids at Giza are far, far older than 4500BCE.

2.) The pre-dynastic pots that are ubiquitous were not made with technology available to the Egyptians as we understand it.

3.) Thriving, advanced cultures were extinguished around 11,600 years ago in the Younger Dryas, probably by massive comet bombardment or other catastrophe. As such, the lush greenery of the Sahara became a desert in about 100 years while the Great Northern Shield glacier over North America melted in days to months, not a 1000 years.

4.) Archaeologists are not searching in the right strata of earth, nor in the right regions of the world to explain this epoch of history. Archaeologists are so blinded by "settled history" they will not publish on the topic if any findings would disagree with the mainstream orthodoxy.


Change my mind.

I really enjoy Graham Hancock's documentary series, which you can catch on Netflix. He has been one of the more persuasive proponents of a relatively advanced civilization that was destroyed by the Younger Dryas event that left elements of its knowledge among surviving groups worldwide. However, like the whole UFO debate, I feel the actual physical evidence is very thin to non-existent. Deductive reasoning is a useful attribute but can only lead one in the pursuit of potential evidence - not the exclusion of it.

So, my first question is where are they? We supposedly have products of their technology but somehow the implements that created those products have never been discovered. A comet impact could indeed destroy a civilization, but it would not vaporize it worldwide. Where are their cities, where are their graves, and where are those pesky tools? After all, we have more physical evidence of Neanderthals than we do this mysterious lost civilization.

I can't buy the notion that seas rose and covered everything. After all, the Mediterranean could rise a hundred feet tomorrow submerging Athens but the Acropolis would still be there. Others have suggested these cities are buried in deserts like the Sahara or perhaps under jungle canopies. The problem with that theory is these places have been extensively mapped by satellite with no finds older than the Younger Dryer that are not hunter gatherer encampments. Hancock did a whole episode on a lost civilization that was overgrown by the Amazon rain forest, but even he could not claim the remains were pre-Younger Dryer and there was zero evidence of sophisticated stone working technology.

The oceans of the world are also full of shipwrecks. One would assume that this advanced people sailed something somewhere. To date no wreck has been excavated containing artifacts of that age.

Such a civilization would require extensive agriculture and the domestication of animals. I am no geneticist, but the people who study this sort of thing trace domestication of crops to Turkey around 9,000 BC and animals to Iraq around 8500 years ago. That tends to fit the generally accepted development timeline.

The site of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey (dated to around 11,000 years ago) gets a lot of attention because it seems to be the first of the post Younger Dryer sites. The primary argument it is used to make for an earlier civilization is that the inhabitants of that time should not have been able to build such structures. OK, then what is the actual evidence they did not? After all, on this continent, the Aztecs, Inca, and Maya developed extraordinary building skills long after the Younger Dryer and in issolation.

But yes, just like UFOs zipping around New Jersey, they may well exist. But until hard physical evidence is discovered, I think I'll stick with the current collectively accepted human development timeline.

You guys would love the book Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston. I picked it up randomly at an airport when it first came out, read the back and gave it a shot. I'm into this same kinda stuff you guys are talking about, it's fascinating, and I think there was a whole lot more going on in North America prior to 1492 than anyone realizes.
I tend to think that by the time Europeans got here the "good old days" of many North and South American peoples were in the past.

Anyway the book is a really fun read. It's about a group of Archeologists and researchers who went down to Honduras looking for "lost cities" and following up on old legends and whatnot. They were basically the first ones to use Lidar in a commercial/ non-military capacity to scan the jungle for structures. The story that follows is wild, and it's a true story based on their expedition. The book has a little bit of everything, some nerd stuff, adventure, shady govt deals, history, old CIA assets in Central America. Definitely recommend!

 

[SaintPanzer]

I think you have to be careful with the car argument.. because most "German" cars are now made in the US.. and therefore get around the tariffs..

Mercedes, Volkswagen, and BMW all have major manufacturing in the US.. Volkswagen owns Audi and is currently in the process of negotiating the building of a manufacturing plant for Audis in the US (Audi was building a lot of their US vehicles in Mexico.. but the tariffs are pushing them to look at changing things up and moving the facilities to the US)...

The only german car manufacturer that I am aware of that has no plant in the US and has no intention of building a plant in the US is porche..

So.. the way the Trump tariffs are working, since they are being built in the US, they are tariff exempt.. even if the profits are going back to Germany when its all said and done..

All of that said.. apply your question to just about any other industry, and I think you have a very valid point.. post WW2 maybe there was an argument for helping to prop up the German and perhaps other European economies... but today? Im thinking not so much..

Yes. And consider:
VW had to build a plant to increase production, and it made sense to build in the US, because that covers a part of the market where they are selling. BMW and Mercedes are building SUVs, and the larger market for those is in the US, although I can tell you that SUVs are becoming quite popular in Germany. Porsche is not planning on building cars in the US, although it was a major decision for them to build outside of Stuttgart... and even then, it's certainly not 911s. There is a certain irony, however, in their choice of Leipzig. Ostolgie ain't in it.

Buy one of those in the US and bring it back to Germany, and yes, they will charge you the tariff, even though it was built by a German company. It's weird.

And what I'd really like to see if for Mercedes to start building their pickup in Alabama. But that opportunity, alas, is over.

 

[mdwest]

And what I'd really like to see if for Mercedes to start building their pickup in Alabama. But that opportunity, alas, is over.

I’m sure there is some reasoning behind it…but I honestly can’t fathom why Mercedes hasn’t built both personal and commercial trucks for the US market.. based on the quality and use of those vehicles in Europe and in other parts of the world, I’d think they’d sell in huge numbers in the US…

 

[SaintPanzer]

I’m sure there is some reasoning behind it…but I honestly can’t fathom why Mercedes hasn’t built both personal and commercial trucks for the US market.. based on the quality and use of those vehicles in Europe and in other parts of the world, I’d think they’d sell in huge numbers in the US…

For the commercial trucks, we are in 100% agreement. For personal, well, they stopped the X Class in 2020, and the G-Wagen is actually a Puch, so...

 

[Corey0372]

Speaking of trucks that would sell in the US. Interesting back and forth on X today, some tech guy reposted a clip of Trump making remarks about Toyota building in the US, he made the comment (probably in jest) about the LC79, and Palmer Luckey chimed in and claimed he was working on it.... that would be cool.

 

[Aaron N]

View attachment 723368

thats a curious tweet... Im not sure the Koreans need our permission to build a nuke sub? its been a nuclear nation for several decades at this point and is actually one of the worlds most significant nuclear energy nations (26 substantially sized nuke power plants.. for a relatively small country in terms of land mass and population comparatively to nuke power generation..)..

Not that anything in the tweet is bad per se.. Im all for agreements to buy US products (O&G), additional revenue coming into the US ($350B in exchange for lowering tariffs - it would appear the tariff strategy is working out overall despite all of the gloom and doom the left was screaming about 10 months ago).. and I think if anyone is going to have a nuke sub, South Korea is who I'd choose to have it.. theyve been staunch allies for a long time.. their military is top notch.. they train hard, work hard, are very educated, etc and are fully capable of not just operating, but maintaining a nuke safely.. certainly much more capable than many other nuclear nations.. and its guaranteed that sub will be swimming around in waters monitoring both N Korea and China naval assets..

Just thought it interesting that Korea needs our permission.. Its not like we (or anyone else in the western world) is going to sanction them or otherwise attack them in any way for building one.. its clearly to our advantage that they build a lot of them..

Alright, this is a question that I’ve always wondered (this is legitimate and not a jab at the typical Trump grandstanding). The majority of the countries in the world have more or less free market economies, so how does one country agree to buy goods (let’s choose energy to make it easy) from another?

For example - Canada and Germany get together and after the meeting Carney announces that Germany plans on buying billions of dollars in LGN to wean off of Russian gas. Isn’t it up the German industries which supplier they choose to purchase from? (Assuming that they aren’t govt owned for this example)?

Who exactly in Korea is promising to buy American oil and gas?

 

[mdwest]

A lot of it depends on the country and the industry we’re talking about…

I don’t know the specifics of the Korea deal.. my best guess is their federal govt is making the commitment to purchase US O&G to fill and maintain its national strategic reserves for a period of time..

Some countries oil and gas is completely federalized… there is no private sector.. in others it’s outrageously regulated and the private sector doesn’t do anything without federal (and sometimes state/provincial) govt approval.. and in others there’s truly a free market and private businesses can do pretty much anything they want…

O&G is an incredibly complex industry… I’ve sat on the board of a small O&G tech firm that supports exploration efforts.. but I admittedly know next to nothing about the industry.. I only held my board position because my company held a fairly large equity stake in the tech firm for a few years… there are definitely guys on AH that know and understand how it all works far better than I do…

 

[spike.t]

Brits are pretty good at it too...

but I dont think anyone other than maybe the Russians, can hold a candle to Koreans...

those little guys can sit and pound soju until 3AM... pass out for 2 hours.. get up at 5AM.. spend about 15 minutes shaking it off.. and then go do PT for an hour before getting a shower and showing up for work.. and can do that shit for several days at a time..

Ive never seen anything like it anywhere else in the world..

and they'll spend the entire next day hung over as hell.. and no one other than themselves will ever know it.. they go about their business like its just another tuesday in Seoul lol..

Should have come visit us where I come from in the 80s and 90s.....might have made you change your mind..........one time a friend of mine was in aspen skiing with a few of the guys..they went to a bar after they had finished...then he was in his early 20s. They were having fun until a large American gent started giving some shit saying they couldn't drink etc etc etc...my friend said OK you want to play then?...usa said yeah...my friend ordered 2 lines of 20 shots ....not all same ...bit of variety to make it more interesting.....this was one shot straight after another....my friend hammered his ..the usa guy didn't make it near the finish on his and fell over....my friend and the other guys had a fun rest of the night....

 

[spike.t]

Protests in Tanzania spread after a disputed election, with the military on the streets

Protests have erupted in Tanzania following a disputed election. Demonstrators took to the streets for a second day on Thursday.

apnews.com

Another good African case of cutting your nose off to spite your face.....their new train..cut travel time from dar to dodoma from 12 hours to 2...and from the article it replaced I think the equivalent of 12 big intercity buses....